SweetWater Diaries: Balancing Summer Time & Toddler Time On The Farm

For most people, Summer time is a time to relax and sneak in family trips and adventures during the nice weather. Of course most people still work too, but the kids are off school and we all try to keep them entertained and enjoy the Summer weather as best as we can. This year as Ollie approached two, I had grand plans of lots of play dates with his friends from his weekly class and adventures around the area. I even grabbed a bunch of numbers at the beginning of the summer to set up those play dates, but alas I only was able to sneak in a few play dates this summer. And although we had a bunch of adventures, I had to reevaluate the reality of Summer Farm Time and Toddler Time.

You see the reality is, summer is our busiest time on the farm. We have to prep the fields, cut and bale fields, arrange/manage farm helpers for storing hay, be available on a moment’s notice to sell the hay and deliver the hay, and sell some of our goat and sheep herd to maintain healthy genetics and population control. Plus most of the hay and field work is based on the weather, so we cannot plan designated hay days. We have to look for a minimum of a 3 day dry weather window to cut/bale/store the hay. We have to deliver the hay on dry days. Usually this all occurs in 100+ heat. So often our plans can shift on a moment’s notice in order to meet the demands of the farm. Plus we cannot exclude, all the machine prep and maintenance that Nate must do in order to be ready when a weather window presents itself. Making square bale hay is rough on equipment and it needs constant maintenance to create quality organic hay.

So this means plans with Ollie for play dates and scheduled events can be challenging. Of course we spend A LOT of time outside playing and exploring the farm and we LOVE to do this every day. BUT, on 100+ temperature days with humidity, we have to limit how long we can be outside. So we have been finding ways to make inside play fun too when we are stuck on the farm for the day. I'm not ashamed to admit, we watch our fair share of PBS kids, Signing Times, & Peppa Pig, but all of us, including Ollie, can only take so much before we feel brain numb. So I follow some cool kids groups on facebook and try some of the ideas they suggest and show (Fun with shaving cream in the bathtub, texture play with foods, blocks, puzzles, lots of books and songs...oh and dancing...we love to dance). Recently, grandma sent us a cool dinosaur egg that we spent four days observing and helping the egg hatch and grow. It was so much fun, and Ollie loved checking on the egg every day. He was able to observe how an object can change in water and practice patience. It has been over a week since we did this project, but he still talks about the Dino Egg all the time. Plus it was a fun way to help expand his very active and growing lexicon of words. You can check out the video below to see this cool little science project and Ollie's reactions.

So this is one fun activity we have found to do during the summer when we are housebound and it is just too hot to be outside for a very long time. I hope you enjoyed this video and please be sure to subscribe and like our Youtube videos and channel, Sweetwater Diaries. I plan on posting some fun and interesting videos about goats & hay. Plus we have a lot of projects happening on the farm that I am recording and hope to post on our Youtube channel soon. If you have anything you might be interested learning more about the farm, please send me a comment or a message. Maybe I can turn it into and interesting video. Until then, the three of us will keep finding a balance between farm, family and fun.