Love Covers

Back when it was winter break, something reminded the kids that they had baby books hiding in storage upstairs. They asked if they could get them out to look at them, and so I dug through the bins to retrieve them.

Finley's book is full of pictures and documentation of her growth progress. First bandages and hair clippings and notes of special memories crowd the spaces around pre-printed fill-in-the-blank lines.

Joe's baby book is almost as full.

Zivah's book goes blank around the sixth month.

I try not to feel guilty.

Somehow, though -in spite of my apparent neglect- this kid loves me.

We went sledding a few weeks back when we actually got some good snow. We were getting ready to wrap it up, when someone suggested making a train. Chris took the lead as engine, with Finley right behind. In my mind, I knew that Zivah, the smallest of the bunch, ought to be last, but somehow in the excitement, she ended up in between Joe and Finley. I instructed her to loop the rope of Joe's sled around her arm, and away they went halfway down the hill until Chris lost control and there was a collision of sleds and bodies. Zivah came up from the fray, crying, her arm hurting from the rope.

The next day, Zivah went to Grandma's house for a piano lesson. When Grandma asked her how the sledding was, Z mentioned that her arm got hurt and that "it was Mom's fault." But when pressed for the details, my mom told me she said, "Oh, I love Mom too much. Never mind," then refused to tell.

And every night, she tells me, "I love you so much! You are the best mom in the world!"

I don't know if she realizes it or not, but I haven't done a whole lot to deserve that kind of love. None of us have. But love covers over a multitude of sins, and insists on calling out the best in us. Love transforms us.

It Is Tuesday

The kids are back at school after a long, holiday weekend. I have made the bed, been to the grocery store, put the shopping away, sorted and started some laundry, emptied the dishwasher, and have decided that now is a good time to drink another cup of coffee and ignore some of the other things that need to get done.

It rained all day yesterday. All day. Finley had a 4H workshop to attend, and Zivah had piano lesson with Grandma. When we got home at 5 o'clock the rain had not let up, and we all sprinted to the house. The van has a motorized sliding door, which, for the most part, is a wonderful convenience. When the kids were little and didn't have the umph to open or shut the door, all I had to do was push a button to open or close the thing. Sometimes, though, this creates a problem. Like yesterday, when no one remembered to push any buttons. I noticed the door was open about 15 minutes after we had gotten home. I was thankful that I could stand inside the house and push the button on the key fob instead of needing to run across the yard in the rain. This morning, I wasn't so thankful when we realized I had locked Dragon in the van overnight, and the van smelled like cat pee.

Thanks, Drag.

We have had to deal with another stinky, animal smell recently. Daisy got loose a few nights ago, and managed to find herself a skunk. It was the middle of the night, and I had to get her locked back up so that she wouldn't keep waking us up with her barking as she ran beneath our windows in joyous, unfettered freedom. The next time this happens, someone please remind me to put my hair up. Leaning over to pet my stinky dog for coming to me when I called her, my hair must have brushed against hers, and I wasn't allowed back in my own bed until I had shampooed my hair several times.

In other news, Netflix is ruining us all. We have taken to having family movie nights on a near-weekly basis. I have my own memories of movie nights growing up. We would pop a bunch of popcorn into a cut-down, paper grocery bag and settle in front of the TV to watch "Silver Screen Classics" on the PBS station. We didn't get a choice as to what movie we were going to watch. Movie nights at our house, while originally sheer joy, are now starting to become less so. There are usually 5 of us at home, and, thanks to the variety and instant gratification Netflix promises, 3 or 4 of us expect to be able to watch something we are convinced we will enjoy. I don't think I ever took a statistics class, so I am not sure what the odds are of finding a movie that all 5 people with differing tastes will like, but it is at least 125 to 1. We are working on our attitudes.

This weekend, I managed to snag control of the remote, and we started watching the 1956 version of Around the World in 80 Days. The kids, in spite of their obvious intrigue at times ("How do hot air balloons work?" "Look at the Chinese dragons!" etc.) claimed it was totally boring. In between captivating scenes, Joe and Z ended up doing this:

Finally, this drizzly Tuesday, a last, not-worth-mentioning bit of news:

The coffee is gone. 

I must move on with my day.

Books You Might Want To Read

Grandma Moses started painting at the age of 78. Toni Morrison published her first book at the age of 40. Madeleine L'Engle's best know work A Wrinkle in Time wasn't published until her 40's.

I go through the list of "late bloomers" in my mind to remind myself that I still have time.

Meanwhile, I have friends out there that have actually written and self-published books. I am really excited for them, and this sad, little blog post is my way of cheering them on.

First on this list is Elizabeth Adams. In 2014, she published a Jane Austen fan-fiction novel called The Houseguest, and I cannot imagine anyone who enjoys reading Austen not liking this book. Not long after, E.A. wrote Green Card. Similar to novels like those of Emily Giffin, Green Card is a modern romance novel. Although I am typically not into this genre, I  found myself completely sucked into the story, love-hating it all the way through. (A word of warning. Green Card is a strong PG-13, so if juicy make-out scenes make you uncomfortable, just stick with The Houseguest.)

Next is D. Marie Prokop. The wife of a friend from my old youth group, I don't know her well, but she has my admiration. She knits! She plays the guitar! She is as short as I am (I think)! And aside from a children's book, she has also written a full-on, young-adult, sci-fi trilogy while raising two boys, working at a farm-to table cafe, and being married to my old friend, Todd. I read the first two installments of her Days of the Guardian trilogy in quick succession, and was eager to read the third, but when I went to look for it on Amazon, realized she hadn't published it yet. Torture. Thankfully, she published the third book a few months ago, so the rest of you won't have to suffer the suspense I had to.

Lastly, C. R. Leverette, a guy from the church we frequent, just put out a novella called Trouble in Peaceful Haven. What I loved about this read was Leverette's combination of two genres: sci-fi and western.

It's winter out there. The Super Bowl is over. Daytona isn't until the 21st. You can only watch so much TV before your brain starts to fry. So if any of the above books spark your interest, just shell out a few bucks and get yourself something to read.

Hope Springs Eternal

I was already having a bad day when I went out to check on the chickens. I had forgotten to go out the evening before to see if all six bird were roosting in the coop. And that also meant that I hadn't closed the door to lock them safely in.

As far as I knew, Rockstar hadn't even left the chicken run since I had lured her out there nearly a week earlier. But I wasn't sure if the three hens that were foraging were sleeping back in the coop or had reverted to sleeping in the stable again.

As soon as I flung open the coop door, I saw the half-eaten carcass of one chicken and a thick layer of feathers over the floor that could only have been Rockstar's.

Guilt, regret, anger, grief...

What business do I have keeping animals if I can't keep them safe? If only I hadn't locked Rockstar up in the coop... If only I had at least remember to check on them that night. Why hadn't anyone reminded me, anyway? ...

And then today, the McMurray catalog came in the mail, filled with drawings of dozens of breeds of birds and pictures of cute little, fuzz balls.

So I started plotting and daydreaming.

This year, I'll build a nice, wooden brooder instead of using the metal watering trough. That didn't seem to work too well last year in the chilly weather. And I'll need to put chicken wire up on the field fencing and look into aviary netting for added protection. And maybe build a second coop if the kids are going to be doing 4H.......

Around the Farm

A full week into January, and those promises for an above-normal snowfall this winter appear to be empty. The forecast for the rest of the month only dips below freezing during the night hours.

The Christmas Eve storms shook some dead limbs out of the big, rotting hackberry tree on the fence line to the west of the house. Since the farm truck has been confiscated for business purposes, I fired up the tractor today to haul the refuse back to the brush pile we have stashed back in some woods. The soft rumble of the diesel engine stoked some of the joy that had been dwindling in me; it felt good to be outside and moving with purpose. The business requires that I sit and stare at this computer screen, and once here, roots seem to grow out of my butt and into the cushion of the office chair. I am learning to stand up and walk away before they get too deep.

After dumping the hackberry wood, I parked the tractor and went to get my pruning tools. The young trees I had planted in past years needed some attention, and I had been waiting for the weather to cool some before I started amputating unwanted branches. One of the trees that needed shaping was our Japanese maple. It had started looking a little furry this summer with numerous wisps sprouting from the trunk and its beautiful structure was hidden in a fog of little leaves. The leaves had also been hiding a nest I didn't realize was there until fall stripped the tree bare. I will have to pay more attention this year to see if any birds come back to nest there again.

We are down to six chickens. Isadora is gone. I found some of her feathers strewn about in Queenie's pasture last month, so it was obvious something had snatched her. That same day, I found another dead chicken in the coop.  We're not sure what killed it, but all its guts had been eaten out leaving the legs, back, and wings. We set up traps and caught a couple of possums, but I'm not sure they were the real culprits. The remaining hens must have been traumatized by the event and started roosting in the stable near the house. A couple days ago, I lured them back out to the coop with food. Even Rockstar, who normally stays close to the house, followed me out. I closed up all the entrances to the coop and run, and am going to leave them penned up for a few more days in hopes that they will return to the coop once I let them wander again. It would be nice to clean the chicken poop out of the stable.

With so few hens remaining, I have been daydreaming about raising a variety of chicks again, but both Finley and Joe are involved in 4H this year and want to participate in the chick chain. The only options for their project are Black Sex Links and Rhode Island Reds, and they have to order a minimum of 10 chicks each. The thought of having nearly three dozen birds roaming the farm is unsavory. We need to get that aviary built around the coop that Chris keeps hounding me about. Maybe the mild winter will let us get something like that done.