When I was first married, I wasn’t a huge coffee drinker. The occasional Saturday morning coffee meet with my dad and Grandma Helen or out at their farm entailed most of my intake. My husband was more of a “6 pack of mountain dew” kind of guy.

By the time our second child was born I was working construction with my dad and brother where many jobs were out of town. This entailed stopping at “Amoco” for a cup of coffee before the trip home. Being the cheapest drink on the menu, at under $.99 for unlimited cups, made coffee even more enticing. Most weekends were spent at the farm, and I’d drink a cup between intense games of cards with Grandma Helen.

A lot can happen in six years, and between child 2 and 3 a daily coffee drinker I became. Remodeling an old farm house and moving there after the birth of our third child found a coffee pot a necessary commodity.  Calving = coffee on our farm.  Driving to town daily that first year to take the girls to school usually entailed a stop at Perkins for coffee with my dad and Gr. Helen- if she needed to come to town. (I will never forget when Dalton was a baby and chomped down on a coffee creamer and shot a stream of it across the isle and into the booth beside us. Who knew there was that much creamer in that little container!! Thankfully, the lady sitting there was not in that seat!)

My 4-cup coffee pot at day care ran a couple times a day.  On our farm, the barn had a coffee pot and eventually so did the feed lot office. We graduated to a BUNN coffee pot for the house. (I really think we got it from my brother, Paul, for Christmas, but I could be wrong!) No matter where it came from it was worth every penny. No appliance worked harder. Every morning, James would roll out of bed- fill his coffee cup (in the house) then mosey out to the barn for the daily BS session with the guys before starting the day.

Life happened and we ended up moving to town (after the addition of two more boys) which once again led to daily coffee sessions with my dad. Dillon loved going for “coffee” which meant chocolate milk for him and whatever he could con Papa and the waitress out of that day. However, it didn’t last long and we moved out of town.

As kids the girls weren’t big coffee drinkers. Sabrina still is not. Jade is her daddy’s daughter. Coffee! Coffee! Coffee! Dalton has been an avid drinker since he was about 3. Seriously. He’d help himself to his usual cup of sugar and creamer topped off with a little coffee in the house, in the barn, or at the Lefor KC suppers. In kindergarten, we had to fill out a questioner for his teacher so she’d know more about him.  Not knowing what to say, but trying to keep it positive (saying he knew how to put cows in a head gate during calving and could drive a combine did not seem like good choices) we wrote “he makes a mean cup of coffee!” I don’t think his teacher was really impressed.

By this time, it was not a cup per day but more like how many pots per day. When my doctor asked me if I drank a lot of coffee my response was, “what do you consider to be a lot of coffee?” (haha)

The coffee pot does get a slight break on weekdays, but I’m sure it groans when the weekends come around. We are on our 3^rd Bunn.  We upgraded our last to a stainless steel carafe instead of the glass pot due to the kids kept breaking the pour spout off!  The typical phrase you will hear at our house on the weekend is “why is the coffee always gone?” paraphrased from “why is the rum always gone?” on Pirates of the Caribbean. We are a movie quoting family due to all the years we had no tv, just movies.

There have been times when Dalton is making a new pot of coffee at 10pm – cause he wants a cup before he goes to bed. Yup. Coffee 24/7. (almost)

Dillon and Trey have been known to have a cup here and there. Trey drinks it just like Dalton used to – ½ cup creamer and ½ a cup coffee. This drives the other kids batty (even Dalton) but when they buy the creamer then they can complain.

Side note: James has a big silver Yeti cup he fills every morning with coffee before leaving for work. The other day he was seen walking out of the house with the coffee pot instead of his cup! Same color, both have handles, both smelled of coffee, easy mistake, I guess.

Most of our family and friends know they can stop in and snag a cup; whether hunting, shoeing our horses, visiting our dad, or just need a hot shot before heading home. In short, my coffee pot is always on. (Unless I’m out to coffee with my mom lol). Stop on in and have a cup….and take a bar of soap with you!