Pickin' up chicks.........

in our Honda Civic.

I woke up, started my morning cup of coffee, had my cup full of wonderful, and glanced out of the window only to see this crazy rooster sitting in Jason's car**. It was one of those moments where it totally threw me off. I hadn't had enough coffee pumping through my veins to process seeing a rooster sitting behind a steering wheel of a car. I had a good laugh and the rooster left Jason a "present" in his seat. Farmer Jason did not laugh about that.

If you had to name the first photo, what name would you give it? Just curious.

**How adorable is it that my husband drives my old white two-door Honda back and forth to Houston? He has a "manly" truck and has had one for many years, but he chooses to drive this thing because of the obvious- gas prices. Oh, his guys at his station all use to laugh at this big ole' man getting out of an itty bitty car, but they aren't laughing anymore. If you drove up to his station during his shift, you'd see a lot more of those itty bitty cars around.

Homemade Pizza

(mommy & Kaylyn in our matching aprons)

A friend of mine in Brenham shared a wonderful homemade pizza crust recipe on her blog.

We had a blast making the pizza crust and a mess! I haven't quit perfected making pizza crust without a mess yet as this was my very first time to make pizza crust. I can't believe it has taken me this long!

Pizza is one of my FAVORITE things to eat. I've had a hard time adjusting to this not being a regular part of our diet as it was before our journey towards eating healthier.........except for the occasional trip to Cici's when daddy is working:). Sorry. I'm all about not cooking dinner on those nights and Kaylyn, Laney Rae, and I can eat A LOT for 10 bucks.

Kaylyn and I did an experiment. I mixed one of the crusts in my bread machine and she mixed the other by hand.......because it was a lot more fun for her that way! She made hers entirely by herself.

Honestly, the both came out the except making it by hand was much faster and rose a lot quicker.

Kaylyn decided to top her pizza with grass-fed beef (or meat pieces in her words) on one half and pineaple and ham on the other half. Jason and I topped ours with lots of veggies and grass-fed beef. We used an organic spaghetti sauce and organic cheddar cheese.

I must say, that this pizza was wonderful! I needed a bigger pizza pan because the crust made enough for a large size pizza which equaled to lots of crust on my smaller pizza pans.

This will be a regular in the Kramer home accompanied by family night with a good movie. We had a good time.

I hope you enjoy the recipe! You can read it from Mandi's blog HERE or believe. I love Mandi's blog! She is a neat gal complete with a chicken coop with laying hens in her backyard.....in the middle of Brenham. They are all about being urban homesteaders.

Here is the recipe below as well taken from Mandi's blog. And below are photos of our pizza night!

crust:

(loosely adapted from lucy burney's immunity foods for healthy kids)

preheat oven to 375'

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 tsp mixed herbs

1 cup lukewarm water

2 tsp instant yeast

4 tbsp oil

(i usually throw in half of a grated zucchini)

mix up the dough and let sit while you get your toppings ready. disclaimer: no babies were harmed in the making of this pizza crust. he stands there until i turn off the mixer and then dives in. Raw dough is a hot commodity in our house! Roll out the dough. Place on lightly oiled and dusted (i use corn meal) pizza pan (i'd use a stone if i had one!) Add pizza sauce (this night i used spaghetti sauce because it's all i had on hand). Layer on toppings- we always start with some sort of leafy green and put on whatever else we have lying around. This night we used peppers, tomatoes and basil. Add cheese (as my sister would say "mozzarella makes it swell-a). Bake for about 20 minutes (or until cheese gets golden)

Welcome Precious Hudson!

I am an aunt to yet another amazingly precious Hendrick boy! Jason's sister's (my sweet sister-in-law:) family was chosen by a precious birth mom through New Life's adoption agency.

After months of waiting and praying, we are so thankful to welcome Hudson Isaiah to the family. I have seen the Lord do amazing things in and through Aaron & Heather. I can't even put into words yet all that I've learned through watching them go through this beautiful, yet hard journey. If you asked them, they would tell you ever single second they waited and prayed was worth it. Hudson is finally here!

He is beautiful and perfect in every single sense of the word.

God's timing is perfect.

Welcome beautiful baby. We love you so much. Your little life represents so many wonderful things that the Lord has shown me of Himself.

To read more about this journey, go read Heather's blog. You will be blessed by their story.

In the meantime, here are some photos of Hudson and with his brothers.

(All of my sweet nephews! What a crew!)

Logo Unveiled

Yonder Way Farm is super excited to announce that we have an official farm logo!

We could not be more thrilled with how it looks. Charlie Apel was definitely the brains behind the operation. If you are in need of a logo or anything pertaining to 'graphics', give him a holler! (He drew the animals by hand- err computer. Genius I tell ya!)

This logo will be featured on our very own billboard on our property right off Highway 105. We are so excited about this!

It will also be featured on t-shirts, hats, canvas bags, and anything else we can think of! There will be more information on that soon.

Let us know what you think about our new logo!

I love these photos.....

1/400 at f 5.6, ISO 200

I've been sorting through photos on my computer which is never an easy task. I still haven't developed a foolproof system for my almost 25,000 photos I have accumulated! It is an overwhelming and daunting task even for an organizing junkie like myself.

I found this series of photos and wanted to share with you in keeping with the spirit of online scrap booking and journaling our family's happenings.

I snapped these a few weeks ago while Kaylyn was helping (shirtless- it was HOT!) Jason build shade coverings for our chickens out in the pasture. Kaylyn truly has the gift of help. Whatever we are doing, she wants to be a part of and contribute to in some way.

1/250 at f 5.6, ISO 200

1/250 at f 5.6, ISO 200

1/200 sec at f 7.1 (to get good depth of field), ISO 200

All Photos: Canon 20D, Tamron 28-75mm f 2.8, no flash used, edited in LR

We have a climber

Laney Rae is climbing on top of everything!

A few days ago I found her on top of our school table. The girl is crazy! She was so tickled at herself that she not only managed to climb up on the top, but that she also managed to get into her sister's coloring books and colors.

Kaylyn was not a climber nor did I ever feel like if I left the room, she was going to harm herself in a matter of minutes. This isn't the case with Laney Rae. I definitely have to keep a watchful eye on her.

Laney Rae has fallen off of our porch a few times too. These falls were never accompanied by tears- only giggles. She is our risk taker for sure!

Here are some photos of her latest adventure!

Oh, and I've decided I'm going to start posting settings and the lenses that were used in my photos at the bottom of my posts. I get so many e-mails regarding equipment and camera functions. So this is for all of you camera junkies out there.

Canon 20D, Tamron 28-75mm f 2.8 (my fav portrait lens), 1/100 sec at f 2.8, ISO 800 (was somewhat dark in room), no flash, edited lightly in Adobe Lightroom

Farm Update

See below for some exciting news!!!

I grounded myself from the blogging world for about a week. There have been A LOT of things that I needed to do sitting in front of my computer other than blogging- a wedding to edit, a website to design, product pricing, research, and the list goes on. That's the life of a farmer's wife.

I'm finding so much satisfaction and joy being a helper to Farmer Jason and am overflowing with thankfulness that I can do so.

Jason and I toted the girls around the farm in their rubber boots and stroller so that I could take some photos of the farm for our website.

Laney Rae in her jammies!

I wanted to find photos that represented our farm and the way we treat our animals. We want people to see content cows grazing in pastures, peaceful pigs rooting up dirt (I actually think one smiled at me when I was taking his photo- see below), and colorful chickens pecking at the dirt and grass.

Its been a long time since I've taken pictures of our cows. They are doing amazing. They rye and clover that Jason seeded last winter came up wonderfully which led to wonderfully fed cows. Watching these cows grow quickly and beautifully, was truly amazing to watch.

All of our baby piglets have graduated to pasture. We moved them from their mommas a few weeks ago out to our pasture area for our pigs. It was actually quite sad for a momma like me to watch because the sows (momma pigs) stood at the fence line watching their piglets for days. They were and are amazing mommas.


Our chickens are doing well too. The egg production has slowed down a lot due to the heat, but we are hoping for it to pick up again in the fall. By then, our 300 pullets should be laying. Can you imagine? 300 eggs a day! Wow. I know this is best case scenario, but still. That's still a lot of eggs.

You wouldn't believe this. We've had almost one person A DAY (***this week, exaggeration corrected after initial post. Sorry Honey! We'd be really popular if we had a person a day drive down our road...sheesh.) drive down our dirt road and asking questions like......

"What are you doing with all of those chickens?"

"Do you have chickens for sale? Frozen or live?"

"Do you sell eggs?"

"What are you doing rotating your cows like that?"

"Can we see your set up?" Farm terminology for "We want to see what you are doing."

A farmer that Jason ran into was telling him a story of another farmer talking about a farm off Highway 105 that "treats their cows so good they have sprinkler in the pasture for them to cool off with."

Jason said,"Hey, I think that is us."

And the ole' farmer said,"I think you're right! It is you."




People are taking notice that this isn't your typical farm today. However, our farm looks similar to what a farm years ago would have looked like.

I think people miss the old American farm that had a plethora of animals all dwelling within a natural environment living out their days grazing, rooting, and pecking. I didn't realize how rare a farm like ours is. But, the more cars that brave the drive down our dirt road overflowing with curiosity, the more I'm convinced that we are the exception and not the rule.

This is not to boast by any means. We are extremely blessed and thankful the Lord has given us this vision. Our hope is to spur on others.

As a result of these frequent "drive-ups" and also having product available soon, Yonder Way Farm has a storefront in the works. We will have a small store that will be open during certain hours and by appointment, where our customers can come out and pick up their products directly from our farm. Our intention behind this is to draw folks out to the farm in order to see their meat being raised and experience what we are doing firsthand.

We are beyond excited about this! Stay tuned for more info on this and photos as the building process gets underway.

Now for the photos! Here are some that will be featured on the Yonder Way Farm website that will be up and running soon!

Brooder House Beauty

I had some precious girlfriends come and visit me over the weekend. We had an absolute blast catching up and having a grown-up slumber party!

While they were here, I snapped some of my friend's baby girl out by our brooder house. Kaylyn waited patiently (mostly) while we had a photo shoot.

But, then it was her turn. I think I click the shutter button a total of 3 times. Two of the three worked so well, I think I'll frame one. And to think I was just 'pacifying' her!

Obviously we weren't dressed for a photo session nor was her hair fixed. But, that is the beauty of these photographs to me as a mommy. This is Kaylyn as I see her everyday out here on the farm.

Oh, and the brooder house and barn are in the process of getting a face lift these next few weeks. I will post more pictures on that process as it takes shape. Our beautification project continues!