Chicama Run Family Farm

So with school starting - I packed all my kids great lunches thinking they would be STARVING by the time lunch rolled around.  Every single one of them came home with stuff they didn't eat.

Now, I'm back to bentos.  What are bentos?  Japanese lunch boxes!  They actually are very special in Japan - if you like someone a great way to show it is to pack him a special bento box :)  Cute huh?

I was asked today for some ideas for lunches and I will keep you posted and maybe post pictures - because most people do seem to want to know this type of thing.  Understand though - you will see store bought food in some of them!  However, what I buy is still usually better than the "chicken nuggets" they serve in schools.

With a bento, the idea is to make it appealing - not only food wise but visually!  For kids to open it and see what fun stuff they get today is a big treat.  Yes, even my tween to teens get a kick out of some of the stuff I have come up with.

I shop for boxes on eBay - but a Ziploc box (or even a left over lunch meat box!) would work just as well.  I also shop for the little accessories on eBay - honestly because they have some cute stuff.  Also though - I have 2 teen boys who still need to be cool.  So I was able to find bento boxes with a skull on them (that's cool right?) which should keep them happy.

Here are some sites though that I look at:

http://lunchinabox.net/
http://justbento.com/ (I have the book coming in and I'll let you know what I think!)
http://bentolunch.livejournal.com/
http://www.laptoplunches.com/bento-menus/

Now a trick I did learn was to not tell them WHAT some of the stuff was!  (The black stuff you see on a lot of the cutesy things - well that's seaweed)

I plan on heading out to the Global Food Market in Ashburn this week to see what goodies I can find to stuff in their boxes :)

I think this question is asked of me a lot.  HOW DO YOU DO IT?

Answer... I don't always do it and believe me, I screw up a lot!

However, if I can remain consistent in planning my meals for the week, my week goes so much more smoothly.  It doesn't eliminate the "What's for dinner??" question that everyone seems the need to ask multiple times throughout the day... but it helps me figure out where we are.

This year is a little different.  2 kids are playing sports.... this means I don't pick them up until 6.  Then there are meets and games after school - some which we need to attend! Some days we are butchering chickens and I really won't want to "do dinner" after that... you get the idea, dinner is hectic.

I use (and pay for) meal planning services.  My newest favorite is The Fresh 20 which gives you a week of menus that have 20 ingredients.  I'm hopeful this will help my budget out!!  Granted, I have the ability to grab meat from the freezer - but I have had situations where this is not possible.

Then I don't always like the menus for the week or with games and practices, I need something already in the crock pot.  One of my favorite right now is the one from Allrecipes.com - Slow Cooker (100 Best Recipes from Allrecipes.com) This one is an eBook so it's on all my electronics (including my phone).

Lastly - I love freezer meals.  I use Once a Month Mom which is FREE!  They are great recipes and perfect for those days you really don't want to cook.  They have a "Whole Foods" version which is really good as well.  I like these because you can also use these meals to pass on when a friend (or stranger) is in need.

Next I print out what I am cooking for the week.  I am using a basic template from Microsoft Office this year.  Last year - I just printed a list I made up in Word.  After I finish, the list gets posted to the fridge.

This week's menu:

Sunday - Chili with corn bread (one of those recipes in my head for years)
Monday - Carnitas with rice & side salad (from the slow cooker cook book)
Tuesday - Parmesan crusted chicken, new potato salad & apple wedges (the fresh 20)
Wednesday - Balsamic glazed cod, broccoli gratin, steamed potatoes (the fresh 20)
Thursday - Italian Beef Sandwiches, mac & cheese, mixed greens salad (slow cooker)
Friday - Tailgating dinner (I found some wrap recipes on The Food Network that I might try)
Saturday - Joe's Choice (usually something on the grill)

See how knowing what is for dinner takes a huge weight off your shoulders?  It's amazing how that works!  From what I have heard, The Fresh 20 is also going to be doing a LUNCH menu debuting the 5th of September and I can't wait for it because it will be nice to know what's going in the kids lunches every day - especially since school lunches are now $3.10/day and with 5 kids... yeah you get the idea.... and I have yet to meet a teenager that told me they were satisfied after eating one of those lunches!

Hope this helps 1 of you :)

With so many people out there, there are so many different attitudes.

First, we have the people who are easy going, don't expect a lot as long as you talk to them and are honest. They understand that even though this is a business, this is also our home and our family (which comes first). Believe it or not, though this is the majority of our wonderful customers, this is not the majority of the people we actually deal with. Why? Because, you understand! We talk, you listen ask questions and continue on. We have a relationship with you - and you with us. Many of you know our entire growing family and share out excitement and our losses.

Then we have the high maintenance customers. We still love them - but they can bring our defenses up because they feel we should do more for them. We should deliver, we need another building, we need to be open more hours.... Etc etc etc. We can't make everyone happy! We argue about this all the time - should we be open more? Should we add this? Should we add that? Then we get burned out from trying to do everything and we find ourselves exhausted and our family suffers.

Funny thing is we listen to everyone! We hear what people ask - and yep - we feel guilty we can't do more, but we don't want to lose what we've got and we are proud of what we have going....

I will say that we are blessed with an incredible beautiful piece of property.  Sometimes however, we don't get the time to just sit back and enjoy looking at it - we are constantly going or doing something.

Early in the morning though I left to take a child to one thing or another and saw across the road a momma wild turkey and her babies.  She's been in the field for the last few weeks and it amazes me every time I see her because she still has the same # of babies with her!  This is actually a huge task (the canadian geese that brood in the pond up front loses all of hers each year!) - so I have to be impressed.

It's not the fact that there are wild turkeys out..... it's the fact of noticing the wild turkeys.  Many people drive up and down the road and never look to one side or the other - never seeing the beauty around them and that's a sad thing.

Did you know there are bald eagles around this area?  I've seen them on occasion and THAT is another amazing site to see.  Yet would you or your child even know what you are looking at if you looked up?

Just take a moment - notice what's around you - stand in awe at the beauty of it all and smile.

This past week we were "at fair."  Though a lot of people shook their heads in understanding - I'm not sure what people think it means.  Some were shocked we weren't open, some thought it was for 1 day, others just looked at us clueless so I thought I would type up a brief description for you.

First - 4-H starts in October so the kids are already planning what they are doing.  Every month they attend 1 meeting per club (our kids did swine, poultry, sheep & goat - so that is 4 meetings per month).  Aside from going to the meetings (which are educational and fun all at the same time) - each club does fundraisers during the year to help pay for things such as prizes, plus they all do community service!

Second - it's time to pick out your animals.  Now my kids do a class called "bred & owned" - so they start having baby goats being born in December/January, which means they are breeding their female goats now (August).  However, many animals aren't picked up until April or May.

Now the animals are on the farm and the kids get up before school to go feed and water all of them.  When they get home from school they go right out and feed and water them again.  On weekends, pens need to be cleaned out and extra barn chores may be thrown in.

Starting in summer, in addition to just feeding and watering, they now start walking with their animals (goats & sheep) and training them so they show well at the fair.  Every week we start weighing the animals - making adjustments in feeding schedules as needed.  It's stressful not knowing if your animal will "make weight" - because if it doesn't then you can't auction it off and you will have to find someone to buy your animals through a private sale at a fraction of the cost you could auction it off for!

The Loudoun County Fair runs for 1 week - Sunday through Saturday. Usually the week before we spend a day on the fairgrounds setting up pens and cleaning up the fairgrounds. On Sunday we bring in all the animals and set them up in their temporary home.  We also need to bring in all OUR stuff we may need for the week.

Monday - weigh in of sheep & goats.  If your animals doesn't make it, you need to figure out what you are going to do.  Monday night,  our kids showed dairy goats.  They had to have them ready and walk them in the pen and have them each judged.  We didn't leave until almost 10pm Monday night. Tuesday 6:30am we are back at the fairgrounds taking care of the animals - hog weigh in is at 7am. While the pigs are being weighed in, at 11 the kids show their meat goats.  Now one didn't make "grade" even though it made weight so it cannot be sold in the auction.  All the work put into this animals since January is finished and there is nothing you can do but go on.  The goat show ends, but is followed by Sheep Showmanship at 2 where the animal is not being judged but the kid is being judged on how they present the animal and knowledge of their animals.  Wait - we aren't done!  6pm we now have to do Swine Showmanship!!  So the pigs were washed on Monday and they are now ready to enter the ring.  There is no real training for the pigs - and with this heat they are miserable and don't want to behave at all.  We make it back home by 11pm only to head back to the fairgrounds at 6:30am to get ready for the Swine Market show which will determine how they will place in the auction (the better your hog does, the higher up in the auction it will go).  That goes on until 12 or 1pm.

In-between all these shows, the kids have "trash-duty" or "ice-cream shack duty" or even help out with a club dinner.  Everyday a specific club is scheduled to empty all the trash cans and put in new liners.  For the ice cream shack, they need to help serve ice cream and then for the club dinner they are to help serve it and clean up!

Back to showing (remember we are only on Wednesday).....the sheep market show starts at 6pm and runs until 8:30 - so we feed everyone and head home early knowing we have to be back early to get the cages ready for the poultry show on Thursday.  Thursday morning we sleep in and don't show up until 7:30 to get everything ready.  The poultry show starts at 9am and luckily we don't have to actually show our bird until later that day - they are judged in the cages. 4pm starts the poultry showmanship and they kids get ready.  Since we only brought meat birds this year, they borrow a bird from a friend to do this.  The oldest start and go through the showmanship process, then quickly change and go up to help with the Sheep club dinner.  We don't get home until around 11 because it's Rodeo night and the kids want to see it.

Friday is semi-relaxing, but now reality is setting in and school sports need to be handled - so we finish the morning chores and head over to the high school to pick up football gear.  Then we come home for a couple of hours to wash clothes and get ready for the market.  We head back up to the fair grounds around 1 so they can get ready to auction off their animals starting at 6:30.  We look at the program and start planning who can help who move animals up to the ring.  Our family is auctioning off a total of 14 lots of animals - 3 goats, 4 lambs, 3 hogs (1 didn't make weight), 4 sets of 2 chickens.  The auction keeps us moving as a lot of the kids go in back to back - but we finish around 10 and breathe a sigh of relief.

Saturday is a fun day for the kids.  Everything is sold - we handle who is coming home and who has been sold in private sales.  The kids play and also help out for that night's dinner.  You can actually feel the difference in the tension of the fair.  We head home at 8:30.

Sunday - we head back over to pick up animals that are coming home and to load up all our stuff then come home and relax.

In a few days we might be back in full swing and back to normal - who knows.  I know most of the kids are still sleeping but 1 is already at football practice.....they are all already planning and discussing how to change things for next years fair.