With the help of my son, Andrew, this slam has become a reality in our family.  April, Lauren, Katie, Jesse, Devin, Marissa, Andrew, Nathaniel, Daniel, Mollie, Jillian, Jonathan, Jacob, Levi & Caleb…your Mama DOES wear Army boots – well, Marine boots, that is. Thanks, Andrew, for the boots. They really came in handy!

Our family has rogued the corn fields for the last several summers for college money and since our boys went to Camp CoBeAc this week, the last field was left for Mark to do on his own. I saw this as an opportunity. You know that expression, “Problems are just opportunities turned inside out”? Well, I decided that since the boys were gone, it would be a good opportunity for Jillian to make some money for college. She had elected to work at Meijer for the summer rather than do fields – since rogueing is quite the distasteful chore. I had tried to talk her into it only to be given the brush off. Well, I decided to make her an offer she couldn’t refuse! I told her that if she’d work the 263 acre field, I’d work alongside her and donate all of my earnings to her college account. Ha ha! She couldn’t turn that one down since working at Meijer hasn’t gotten her the $$ she’s needed to go back to college in the fall.

Of course I had to have Mark take a picture of me in the field to prove to all my kids that I really did get out and rogue the field!  This was supposed to be a vacation for me, since the boys are out of town for the week, but I decided that you can’t pray and ask God for $$ and then turn down an opportunity to make a lot of it in a short amount of time. I had to talk Mark into letting me do it, but he eventually relented and I think I surprised everyone! I got tons of comments from my kids, saying they “won’t believe it ’till they see it” on facebook. So here’s the picture to prove it – I worked 15 hours trompin’ through the field with a bean hook, cutting down rogues. Since I went into it with the thought it was going to be horrible, based on all the whining and complaining of past years by my kids about how awful a job it was, I was pleasently surprised that it wasn’t as awful as I thought it would be. Of course God was gracious enough to me to answer my pleadings that it not be too tall, or too hot, or too full of bees and other bugs. I had pleasant company, and a nice breeze both days. The second day we hired AJ and Ross to help and they were great workers. It was the biggest field we’ve ever been assigned.

Just call me Ma Podunk!

corn crew