Some of my favorite habits to stay motivated throughout the busy summer months!

Handling Summer: Our busiest season!

If you are a gardener or a farm owner in any capacity, you know first hand how hectic the summer months can become and if not, you can just take my word for it :)! Yes, it’s time to enjoy the sun, a trip to the cabin, and community festivals, but it also means running our cut flower business, traveling to farmers markets to sell our products, having our kids home, managing our animals (and their new babies), growing outside and in our greenhouse, dealing with mother nature, and experimenting to make everything I just listed (and more) more efficient! I wouldn’t change our lifestyle for the world, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t get chaotic!

Here is a compiled list of some of my favorite ways to stay sane, motivated, and organized during the summer months. I hope you can take some tips or just share in how we manage our Minnesota summers!

1. Calling Family while Gardening

This is my favorite way to stay motivated while I am actually in the garden. Calling up my family members and catching up helps my routine flow smoothly and I love getting to hear their voices even if it’s just them yelling at their dogs. I consider this one quality time for sure!

2. Fun “warm up” exercises

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This reel might have been a littleee bit of a joke, but I can tell you, pulling your muscles after a day of gardening is not! Stretching with your rake on your back, like you are about to play 9 holes of golf is a little warm up to get your blood flowing and your mind ready for a day in the garden.

3. Meal prep + Field meals

We are blessed to have a full farm crew + neighbors and friends who help us in all that our farm needs. To keep them fueled, and as a tasty way to thank them for all they do for us, we make sure to feed them using our favorite field meal recipes. Throughout the years, I’ve become good at stocking our home and our freezer with quick yet hearty meals I can whip up for a crew of 10 – 20. Having a set recipe rotation to fall back on is a huge time saver throughout this busy season!

4. Prioritizing our Health

It is so frustrating to get sick during the summer – from firsthand experience, gardening with pneumonia is not an ideal way to start the season! We make it a habit to consume these natural cold and flu remedies so we can feel our best and continue to be productive throughout the summer. These immune-boosting concoctions aren’t just for winter time!

• Elderberry Fire Cider: A powerful drink that wards off colds and the flu. This is meant to be consumed in small shots daily.
• Fermented Garlic Honey: Let your honey and garlic cloves ferment for at least a few weeks and enjoy unique taste and the health benefits!
• Lemon, Ginger, and Honey Tea: I love drinking this to wake up in the morning, especially on rainy days. We keep this recipe handy all year round!

5. Making time for Family

Although we spend a lot of time as a family, whether it’s working outside or carting the kids to and from practices, we make sure to prioritize our downtime together just as much. Instilling a work-play balance in our 4 kids is so important to us as they already help out a lot around the house and the farm (including showing our sheep at the fair! – blog to come ;)). We never take for granted the time we get to spend as a family especially if it includes an excuse to stop at Culver’s for dinner or a game night in the living room!

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6. Keeping the Inside Tidy

My non-negotiable rule is, first the inside of our home has to be tidy, then we head outside. Just like our human bodies, taking care of the inside of our bodies takes priority. Because if the inside isn’t ok, you can’t make the outside appear ok, as well. We start with the inside and work our way out.

When all the kids pitch in to handle simple household tasks like gathering the garbage, tossing in a load of laundry, folding/ putting away clothes, a quick vacuum about, clearing off counters, and dishes and tossing something in the crock pot, things can get done quickly. Sometimes it will take us an hour, sometimes more. But it’s so worth it, to return to a nice clean, calm home after a long day of work outside.

I also take time to do major clearing once per week. Taking inventory to make sure what we have in our home has a spot to live or is necessary in our daily living. If not, it gets moved on. This keeps the clutter down as much as possible, creating visual and mental space for meal-making or other creative projects, like when my cyanotype obsession creeps out.

Cheers to summertime! I hope that you and your family are enjoying this fulfilling time of year just as much as we do! Make sure to keep up with our Instagram reels to find out more tips about farm living and be a part of what new recipe, garden hack, or animal care idea I am experimenting with!

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