Weekly Review June 5-18

I missed last week's Weekly Review post, so you get two weeks for the price of one this week! Lucky You! Read on to find out what's been going on in the world of fitness, farm, and life!

After a short interval run with the dogs. 

Fitness
I continue to progress in my triathlon training and i'm having a lot of fun with it, while also working through some tough workouts. Jeff and I also did Governor's Cup in Helena (Race Review HERE!) and Dawson's Run 5K in Joplin (Race Review is forthcoming). June is a good month for fitness around here because it's not as busy as other summer months are in terms of farming, and the weather is nice. Here's the breakdown of the past two weeks:

From a pasture hike. Harvey likes to make sure you can always see how handsome he is!

June 5-11
Sunday- Rest/yard work
Monday- Brick workout: 6 mile ride, 3.2 mile run
Tuesday- 3 mile easy treadmill run
Wednesday- 1500 yards of swimming (40 minutes)
Thursday- 2.3 mile interval run, 30 min yoga
Friday- complete rest.
Saturday- Governor's Cup 10K Race!

June 12-18
Sunday- complete rest. I was tired after Governor's Cup!!!
Monday- 4 mile easy run
Tuesday- Brick workout: 12 mile bike, 2 mile run. VERY windy, and hilly!
Wednesday- 2 mile pasture hike, 45 minutes of yoga
Thursday- 4.1 mile treadmill run interval/speedbuilder workout, 1 mile walk
Friday- Brick: 1400 yards swimming, followed by 40 minutes (8.5 miles) on the bike
Saturday- Dawson's Run 5K Race!

Year to Date:
Running: 277.85
Walking/Hiking: 72.2 miles 
Yoga: 1100 min 
CC-Ski: 500 min / 14.1 miles *Done for the season
Alpine Ski: 3 days *Done for the season
Mountain bike: 95.7
Swimming: 4100 yards

Farm
The biggest news on the farm the past two weeks has been the purchase and arrival of our new tractor, which you can READ ABOUT HERE. We also continue to work on spraying. All of our crop has been sprayed for weeds, and now we are chipping away at spraying the chem fallow. Chem fallow is unplanted fields of conventional farmground where weeds are controlled by spray. We call it summer fallow if the unplanted fields are weed-controlled mechanically, using a plow. Sometimes we use this method even on our conventional fields. This will be the only method of weed control we use on our organic fields.

I saw this on my Facebook. I'm not sure the source... It's pretty accurate about describing our farm this time of year!
Seeding, then spraying, then swathing and baling hay, then...harvest! 

With the new tractor, we are preparing to break the remaining ground on our organic fields. I'm working up to a new post explaining the organic land in greater detail, so that will be along sometime in the next few weeks. I helped Jeff and Tom hook up the plow and get it ready to go.

I helped attach the chisel points to the plow, then Jeff came along behind and tightened the bolts.

Also, all of our cows are out at pasture in their respective breeding groups. The grass is hardening off a bit, which is actually ideal because it's higher protein. The pastures look great and our calf crop looks really strong, too.

This is why we call it the Big Sky State.

Life
I am enjoying a break from school/work this summer and have been busy keeping our garden watered and yard maintained. I'm getting more comfortable with the riding lawn mower all the time. Our garden is coming along nicely. Right now, we are enjoying a bumper crop of radishes. The spinach and asparagus have phased out. Our lettuces will be really bursting forth soon, and I expect we'll have peas within a few weeks.

Jeff and I celebrated our Anniversary on Saturday- five years! We started the day with Dawson's Run and the Joplin Car Show/Art in the Park event, then we went back to Helena where we took in a Helena Brewers baseball game. Montana has a small "bus league" of professional baseball in the summer and we love going to games in Great Falls when we can. The Great Falls team was out of town, so we decided to drive to Helena to catch a game and celebrate our anniversary. The next day, we went for a hike in the mountains on the way home. It was a really great weekend and a nice way to celebrate our life together in Montana. Cheers to 5 years!

Jeff and I started our Anniversary celebration on Saturday with a 5K race in Joplin!
(We didn't win; all finishers received medals!)