Thankful Thursday ~ School's Out For The Summer!

School's out for the summer! Our last day of school was actually a few weeks ago, on May 21. I spent that first weekend at State Track and in Bozeman and then all of last week was spent catching up on housework and me-time. Yes, I'm posting my Thankful Thursday post on Friday (sometimes that happens. I don't have all my shit together all the time, but who does? That's why you like this blog, right? Because I'm real? I'll tell myself that anyway... ;) ) and today I'm thankful that school's out for the summer! 

So what does school being out mean for me? In actuality, I still have to work over the summer. I'm not a teacher and I'm not employed by the school, I just work in the school environment most of the time. My co-worker and I are actually running a summer program for the kids in our program. So, we meet with them two days a week and continue therapeutic services, interventions, and a whole lot of positive skill-building throughout the summer. It's a little like summer camp or day camp for the kids. We do crafts, activities, and have deep and meaningful discussions and sharing circles. It's pretty fun, actually. Even though we're the ones as adults who are supposed to be serving them, and we are, often times it's the kids who teach me something. I get just as much "therapy" from them as I hope they get from me. That's definitely something to be thankful for.

In our first week of summer program, the kids painted flower pots in "a way that represents their personality," then they got to plant flowers in their pots and we had a discussion about what it means to take care of something, and empathy.
This is my flower pot, which I painted to match my patio furniture. :)

I'm also spending a lot more time with Jeff, which is awesome. Last week I helped him with several cow chores, including feeding range cake, some fencing, and setting up back-rubbers out in the pasture. I've also helped him with some farm and crop-specific stuff, too. It feels great to be involved and know that I'm helping out with our operation in a tangible way.

Cows eating cake. Love these ladies! 

Here's my arm, holding some barbed wire as we stretch it across the creek. I'm a RancHER. :)

Scouting out the pea crop. What do you think, Harvey? 

I'm thankful for more time during the summer for outdoor recreation and fitness pursuits! And again, thankful to be able to do more of that with Jeff, and Harvey of course, too. Last Sunday we went for another pasture bike ride. We think we covered between 8 and 9 miles. Photos from our previous pasture ride can be found HERE. The weather was warmer this time, so we made sure to find plenty of water stops for the dogs...

Harvey and Abby are enjoying some wading and a drink in the creek that runs through the pasture.
Jeff and I opted to remain on the bridge.

Of course, I'm getting in more running than I did during the end of the school year. I'm thankful that I have a little more flexibility to fit in some runs, and more time to fit in longer runs. Governor's Cup is just over a week away!

Here, Iggy is accompanying me. We officially adopted Iggy earlier this summer.
He's old, but he still likes to go for runs at his own pace.

And I've also been helping Carol, Tom, and Jeff with finishing up with planting our garden. We've got our raised beds full and the seeds are sprouting and yesterday we transplanted our tomatoes and peppers. We're all set, just need to keep up with watering and weeding and we'll be enjoying bountiful harvests, soon! We have already been eating the spinach from the garden and I think there are radish sprouts ready, too. I'm thankful in advance for the yummy veggies we'll have all summer long! Can't wait! 

Also, thankful for honeybee pollinators! Look at the size of those bumbles! 

Big bumblebees on chive blossoms! Seriously. We did NOT have bumblebees this large in Iowa! 

So many things to be excited about and thankful for when it comes to summer time! What are some of your favorite summer activities? What are you thankful for this week?

Harvey is thankful for pickup rides. I'm always thankful for Harvey!