With one hundred and fifteen ice cream truck stops, we ran our tails off in June. 

We went everywhere from Madison to Peosta, Spring Green to East Dubuque and into Hollandale. McGregor, Galena, Edmund, to Wyalusing Beach. We attended five dairy breakfasts in five counties. From graduation parties to employee appreciation days to night markets, we feel like we were there for it all.  

We got up before dawn on some days, came back after dark on many. Cleaned off a lot of dead bugs. Made tubs upon tubs of ice cream. Moved them from the freezer to the truck. Jumped the truck a couple times (whoops). Packed pints. Rotated pints. Washed dishes and mopped the floors. And did it all over again. 

But let us tell you, it was a wonderful month. Although there are a lot of less-than-exciting things that happen behind the scenes of an ice cream truck, the part after we open the window and get out our scoops is seriously the best. We really never get tired of those cotton candy smiles. 

At the farm, things were a little quieter. We had a sweet little wedding celebration. Did a little field work. Saved a lot of goats stuck in the fence. 

The big news of June is that we finally received our new big walk-in freezer, which in one quick morning was installed and filled with ice cream. We have had quite a few storage and stocking woes during the month of June and we are terribly excited about this new freezer. It will help us tremendously. The best part about it? It's right down by the trucks, so no more hauling tubs from the kitchen allllllll the way to the truck freezers. (I'm particularly excited about this...my arms have been getting quite the workout!)

June was packed with excited stuff. But if you don't mind, we're just going to take a little nap now until July starts. 

The month of May started with a breeze. On the 1st, we welcomed wedding guests to the farm on the hottest and windiest spring day I can remember. Here on the farm, we have a lot of rain contingency plans, some heat contingency plans, and quite a few of on-the-spot problem-solving plans, but we hadn't made any plans for 35 mph wind and bridesmaid updos!

Although we had to bring the couple's ceremony inside (with that kind of wind, you couldn't hear more than a foot from you), it was still a wonderful day filled with a lot of laughs and a lot of love. 

The rest of our May weddings were less windblown, but were just as wonderful. We were so happy to celebrate with all of our couples, especially with those who finally got to say their vows after the pandemic pushed their original wedding date off into this year. Congratulations to all our May brides and grooms! And thank you to the family and friends who celebrated with them, and with us. 

Plus - we got a photobooth wedding guys! Our favorite!!

We also were able to celebrate Mother's Day brunch for the first time in two years, and it was so great to see families back out doing things together. We saw generations of families, from grandparents to grandkids, all coming together in one place to share both a meal and their time. And let me tell you - it did our hearts good. 

Finally, we helped recognize some amazing foster families by serving them a fun lunch and scoops of ice cream -- and we did some seriously good zip lining with the kiddos. We said good luck and good work with cider donut sundaes to Lancaster's seniors when we wrapped up the month with the Lancaster Senior Banquet, a really fun night that was made all the more special because we are soon saying a sad but necessary goodbye to four amazing seniors who have been with us at the farm for years. But more on that -- and a few tears -- in a later blog. 

This month was a cycle of putting tables up and taking them down, washing linens, running the dust mop and floor cleaner, emptying trash cans, washing windows, setting up benches and moving the arbor, and meal prep after meal prep after meal prep. It was a pretty physical month for our staff, but the happy days at the farm for our guests made the work so worthwhile. Plus...photobooth, guys. Photobooth. ​

May was also a busy month in the truck!

We kicked off May with Teacher Appreciation Week. We bounced around to many area schools -- from Belmont to Dubuque to right here in Lancaster -- to help schools celebrate their staff. 

The next week we stopped at a lot of nursing homes for Nursing Appreciation Week to help people show their love for their care staff. 

In between those stops, we made our first trips into Barneveld, Kieler, and Ridgeway and visited a lot of surrounding communities to scoop up ice cream. We enjoyed time with a lot of great families (and their fur babies, too!) and loved all the laughs and happiness. 

At the end of the month, we found ourselves at school again, helping celebrate the end of the school year by scooping up cones for a whole bunch of very happy and very excited kids, who are now all ready for summer!

It was a wonderful month in the truck, and we are looking forward to June dairy month and all the stops that are to come in this wonderful summer weather!

Oh, hey, I forgot. We also planted pumpkins (in between the rain drops) and planted the corn maze. But we'll tell you about those things later! Oh, AND we hired an amazing person to make our ice cream and run our kitchen - but I'll tell you all about Whitney in another blog, too. May was SO FUN, you guys!