With three rambunctious boys, I’m thanking my lucky stars (and knocking on wood) that we’ve had relatively few serious illnesses or injuries. It was just a few weeks ago when Cooper burned his little toes and I found myself wondering if this was the accident that finally sent us to urgent care.

Who doesn’t love summer time on the farm? Early mornings and late nights, bonfires and whippoorwills and county fairs. If we all think back, most of our best memories involve green grass and blue skies, rather than snow and wind and cold.

On the farm, kids have endless opportunities to be hands-on and involved from a very young age. Farm kids grow up to be responsible, capable individuals, and often are mature beyond their years.

Nothing beats the life of a farm kid. By the time our kids hit 3-year-old preschool (which is a thing in Iowa, a wonderful, wonderful thing), they know how to care for animals, they have a great sense of responsibility and, in the Moore house, they can make their own sandwich.

February is on the top of my short list of least favorite times of the year. It’s right up there with surly first-calf heifers and middle-of-the-night diaper blowouts. The excitement of Christmas has worn off; the snow isn’t so pretty; and we’ve already proved ourselves several times over against the sub-zero temperatures.

The most valuable lesson that I learned growing up on a small dairy in Crawford County, Wisconsin, was the very lesson that I never actually learned. You see, my family forgot to teach me the difference between girl jobs and boy jobs. On our farm, the only body parts that mattered were strong arms and a good back.

It’s 9:47 p.m. The cows have been milked; the calves have been fed; and the children have been put to bed. There are three loads of laundry to fold, supper dishes to wash and a cow that needs to be checked again.

In college, finding the perfect Halloween costume meant heading to the clearance section of the local big box store about an hour before leaving the house to see what we could find for a couple of bucks. As a parent, the conversations start months in advance and involve complicated negotiations.

I’m a fairly pragmatic person, and I’ve learned to keep life simple. So when I told my husband that this month’s column was about “healthy harvest meal hacks,” he laughed and said, “‘Pizza Hut online ordering’ is only four words; how are you going to make that an entire column?”

With the county fair now a memory, we’ve set our sights on the first day of school. Well, Mama has a countdown on the calendar; Tucker is in denial; and Cassidy, who starts 3-year-old preschool two days a week, is cautiously excited.