Family, Life's Greatest Blessing
A couple weeks ago my little family was lucky to be able to head up to Chico to help my father with walnut harvest for the second year in a row. Last year, we went up for an extended weekend and this year we went up for a whole week! It was great to be able to spend that much time with my family and share in so many great moments. Living 5 hours away from my family is hard. My parents don't get to see my son but maybe once a month if we are lucky. So being able to spend a whole week with them was amazing. Not just for the memories, but of course we had to put my almond farmer to work during walnut harvest.
My dad primarily farms walnuts now. Growing up it was mainly almonds but farming almonds for 40 plus years on the same soil, a lot of farmers switch crops for the third generation. Two generations of almond trees on the same soil can take up all the necessary nutrients and not be able to rebuild for a productive third generation. So my father started planting walnuts and now only has a small amount of almonds left. Walnuts thrive in Northern California. They like the cooler summer nights and the rainy winters. But because harvest is in October time, they cant have it rain too much until after harvest is complete.
Being that their harvest is much faster and is a quicker process we thought a week would be a good time to help with the bulk of things. Of course not everything goes as planned, things break, people run late, life changes paths on you, but it all worked out at the end. After spending a week with my family, we returned home to celebrate my husband's grandfather turn 94 years young. It was a great day filled with sunshine, family, pictures, food and laughter. It was an honor to see how much family came to love our Buddy on his special day. The memories and stories that he has been blessed with and to watch them continue on is a true blessing.
All these great family memories really got me thinking of all life's blessings. Family truly is a never ending, forever pouring, forever loving, memory making happiness. Sometimes we tend to take family for granted. You may get to see them every day, work with them, or live with them. But others don't get to share as many moments with their loved ones, sometimes though this makes the fewer moments that much more special.
My family in my parents walnut orchard pre baby
My Husband's side of the family in our almond orchard
It may not always be full of smiles and laughter, things may not always go according to plan. Your plan may literary get thrown out the window, but one thing is always there at the end of the day. Regardless of how crappy your day may have been, how many things may have broke down, how many holes you may have got stuck in, how many times you may have started over, family is always there. You may not always like them, you may not always agree with them, you may not always want to talk to them, but family will always love you. You may not always be there with them, you may be hundreds miles away, but family is always there for you. Life will throw you curve balls, life will take you for a roller coaster ride and you will end up not exactly where you thought. But it is those times we get to create memories with the ones we love that really matter. Family really is life's greatest blessing.
Until Next Time,
Almond Girl