New Life Old Farmers

One of the best parts of this crazy 2020-21 winter was that it was mild. Even so, the advent of Spring is always a welcome event.

Beau my horse has had a rough time since Sundance died. We’ve been looking for a companion for Beau for sometime. My Loving Spouse found an organization that asked us to foster a rescue horse, just until they found it another home. It was easy to see how that would turn out, and I strongly declined.

Even when you are a horse, friends can be the silver lining in life. We now have a buddy for Beau. Ortega wasn’t here long before the two horses were sharing the same pasture, happily new friends.

Ortega is here ‘rent’ free…sort of. His board is covered by his owner’s willingness to take care of our critters, should we leave town.

Charlie, the Chocolate Runner semi-pet duck, sees the other fowl as his friends. He’d prefer a duck, but he hangs out with the chickens, at least until he’s got water in the pond.

My Loving Spouse had planned to build me a sewing table for Christmas, but then we bought Bess. I had searched “Ikea Hacks” for sewing tables with the machine inset for some time. Seriously, who needs an “Ikea Hack” when your married to someone ‘As Handy As Pockets’.

My new sewing set up is the bomb. Everything flush and just the right amount of room…

…I was feeling ‘spoiled’ until we opened up the hay barn and I was reminded of a few of My Loving Spouses ‘toys’.

It was time to load Tally Ho onto the truck. I’d watched 3 men do this together when we picked it up and I was a tad apprehensive, as it seemed neither easy or fast. My Loving Spouse and I actually had Tally Ho on top of the truck in 15 minutes without incident. Since I was the driver/listener, it could ‘prove’ that I am somewhat equal to two men. Right?

My Best Friend (Loving Spouse) and I are ready to roll. He is beside himself with the thought of leaving town.

…and are we blessed…

A 14 year old boy past student of mine brought us two pieces of chocolate cake to share from his birthday….

You can see it was delicious.

Spring is a wonder,

friends are a blessing.

Thanks for coming along.

When the glass is half full, there is almost always a silver lining. When I had 3 kids and 2 of them were fighting, well 1 of them wasn’t.

When it snows, there is joy in hearing the happy squeals of children as they play with small snow toys.

…and bigger toys as well.

When Covid came and affected our schools, my little school has made many silver linings for the children they love.

3/4ths of our students come to school in a hybrid model just two days a week.

Fact: 2 days is not enough. We have multiple 7,8,9 year olds who have stomach aches and anxiety because there are too many days between being at school.

Silver lining: Those kids who need extra support attend their regular class 2 days and go to Special Ed 2 days. No pulling out from their ‘regular’ day and blossoming social/emotional growth on the other 2 days.

Fact: The health of each student has to be attested to prior to them entering school.

Silver lining: My Principal turned what could have been a logistical and legalistic nightmare into a warm and daily welcome. Each and every child is greeted by name and with smiles and jokes. I watch each morning as the adults return to the office with grins on their faces.

Fact: Our school has been serving students in person since Oct. 4 2020. We have had zero breakouts of Covid at or from school.

Silver lining: Parents are not sending their children to school when they sick or even have the sniffles. We have shelves and shelves of Kleenex we’ve not needed.

Silver lining: With no way to socially distance in our library space, My Librarian removed all of the tables. With no tables we re-examined our plans and our hearts. What did our students really need? We went Old School. Selecting classic novels we began reading to each class. No screens, no bells and whistles, little activity, just the safe constant voice reading books we love to children we love….and it has been magical…for us all.

I get to read to the 3rd graders. It was time to pick new books. I remembered my Mom reading The Swiss Family Robinson to my brother John and I, from this actual book. My mother’s name is inscribed inside.

I set the stage for my 3rd graders, that this is a classic, that the book was written in 1812. I was not sure how it would go over, but they were captivated. Their eyes were round, their bodies were still and everyone in the room (My Librarian included) were eager to hear each word as we started the story.

My heart was full. I wanted to tell my Mom and John so much, but they are gone. I wrote to my older brother Fud. We reminisced…and I am blessed.

What are your silver linings?

PS: The other classics we’ve been reading this year to 3, 4,5 :

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

The Witch, The Lion and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

Gregor The Overlander by Suzanne Collins

My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett

Judy Moody was in a Mood by Megan McDonald

Grab a kid and read to them.

Benny & The Jett’s big day had arrived. We loaded our alpacas and headed to the vet. The plan was for the vet to remove Benny’s cast and to remove Jett’s balls.

Don’t their new halters look fetching?

Jett and I have a moment. The alpacas little nose kisses are a daily thing, such funny animals as they communicate this way with us, but still do not want to be touched.

Jett gets to go first. After he is under, Jett get his excess toenails trimmed and gets his ‘excess’ testicles removed.

(The only intact males we need on the farm are My Loving Spouse and a rooster. It was touch and go for a while there with our rooster, causing us to change his name from Henry to Ru-Paul. However, he has become quite the cock of the walk. We’ll have to think of changing his name again…who knows maybe we’ll call him Hank.)

Benny is moved to the next room over, we’re all anxious and hopeful that the broken leg has healed.

The cast comes off and all is clean. The leg feels good and the x-ray shows that the bad break is in fact healing and building calcification. Jett has now come awake in the next ‘stall’ and is quietly calling for Benny. My Loving Spouse reassures Jett as I wait with the vet tech for Benny to wake up. The vet does not want him to wake up, try to stand and fall on his bad leg. We do get Benny up and support him as he comes around. He begins calling for Jett as well, so My Loving Spouse brings Jett in to help alleviate their anxiety.

Once Benny seems steady on his feet we walk out to the trailer. Benny continues to swing his healing leg.

Two more weeks in the barn for everyone to recover. The boys wander around where ever they wish with plenty of hay to eat nibbling out of 6-7 bales making an almighty alpaca mess.

Benny begins putting the leg down when he is standing still. We are sure in time as the knee stretches out that he will be moving about again on all four legs. He may always have a quirky pace to his gait, but as he’s a quirky guy anyway we’ll certainly not care.

…and we are blessed.

It is time for Agnes to go to the ‘prom’. As John Boy is too young to be weaned, he’ll get to go as well. It reminds me a bit of the scene in Sweet Home Alabama.

“You’ve got a baby! In a bar!”

‘Oh, this one’s on the tit, I can take it anywhere.’

Plan 1…

There are 5 cows in the field and we need to load just 2 of them. I put 3 bananas in my pocket and go out to lure my cows into the loading shoot planning on making the whole process as easy as dropping bread crumbs to chickens. I walk up to my cow, she happily eats the first banana out of my hand, then turns around and takes the entire herd off in the wrong direction.

Plan 2…

My Loving Spouse drives the ‘bike’ and chases the herd around the field, pushing them where we want them to go…almost.

The day is gray and cold and the darn white cows end up where we need the black cows to be.

Agnes finally gives in and decides to load into the trailer and all 4 other cows follow her in. Great,….except we only want to take 2 of the 5 off to the Prom. Using the rest of the ‘cow treats’ we break for breakfast.

Speaking of breakfast…all the Lizzys in Cluckingham Palace are laying eggs like nobody’s business. Got to love how they all want to lay in the same box.

Back to cows…

Captain Jim comes over to help sort his 3 cattle out of our trailer. We work like a well oiled (when your old you’ve got to be clever, because there is no brawn) team.

We deliver Agnes and John Boy to the Prom, they’re home away from home for the next 2 months. Hopefully when they return the grass here will be green and growing and Agnes will be bred.

Yoo-hoo…we’re here!

May you and your herd be blessed.

Bess is here. She’s up and she’s running and she’s going to be a-mazing. My Loving Spouse said, “Your naming it Bessie?”

“Excuse me, her name is Bess.” Kind of like bless, but without the “L”.

It was a good thing we had a 3 day weekend. It took one day to pick it up. ‘Bring a truck’ they said.

The company Headquarters is located in Salt Lake City and we were told, YouTube would be out friend. We watched 2 older gals we called Molly and Betty put it together in 29 minutes.

It took us most of day two to set it up with frequent referrals to ‘Molly and Betty’.

All 5 boxes were very heavy. When getting out the machine, they said open both ends of the box and then slide it out. I stopped for a minute and then used my head. My noggin is an exceptional pushing tool…

All the materials are extremely well made. Seriously, the Allen Wrenches alone will put Ikea to shame.

My Loving Spouse kept saying, “I am so impressed with the quality of these materials. Hand me another screw.”

In case you’re still wondering, Bess is a long arm quilter! My Loving Spouse has been pushing for me to have this machine for years. I mostly didn’t really listen to him, because they are very big and quite an investment.

If it is hard to do nice things for yourself, it is a true blessing to be married to someone, who takes joy from making sure you do.

Day three and we’re ready to tackle the machine itself…and a few more videos. We now refer to the Handi Quilter Video teacher as the ‘Handi Quilter Queen’, hmmm, yep, we’ve referred to her a lot.

In preparation for Bess, I’d made a small dog quilt for Gunner. I’m sure he won’t mind my practicing on his ‘camping’ quilt.

Broken threads, tension trouble, leveling table issues, nuts, bolts…and I can’t wait to keep getting better and more creative and above all…share it with my friends.

….and I am blessed…

to have this tool, and the opportunity to grow this side of my quilting, but most of all to have My Loving Spouse who encourages and applauds my creative endeavors, yes, I am blessed indeed.

We love our dog. Almost all of our neighbors have dogs. Dogs are sort of like spouses. You may like your neighbor’s dog, but you’d never marry that breed. Occasionally, you (me) don’t even like your neighbor’s dog, so you’re glad that as a ‘neighbor’, they’re 1/4 mile away. One of the ‘neighbors’ has heelers. Unfortunately, they are aggressive cattle dogs looking for something to herd.

Friday afternoon they found a ‘herd’. The herd they found was mine. My cows had been ‘wintering’ across the street with a few friends, helping to trim Captain Jim’s hay field. The heelers aggressively pushed the herd into a corner of the field snapping at them. The cattle backed into the fence, putting stress on the gate, which backed up to the highway. Luckily, the gate held as cars stopped to help the cattle being pushed by the dogs.

I’ll not lie, I was kind of ‘hot’.

Captain Jim and I met up Saturday morning to move the herd.

It was a relief to get up close to the cattle and see that they were all okay.

Clarice and her calf Noel, want to check me out as well.

Clarice comes in for a close up.

We quickly load the cattle. Captain Jim works the trailer and I push the cattle down the shoot. Agnes, the biggest and the oldest of the herd, leads the others right into the stock trailer. Loaded quickly like nobody’s business.

Captain Jim says, “Oh, yeah, we’re the beef whisperers.”

The Cattle drive begins….all the way across the street.

The herd is safer in our pasture as it is surrounded by field fencing which the dogs cannot get through.

Benny and Jett are still housed in the barn, while Benny recuperates, so they are safe as well, while we work out the heelers situation with the other neighbor.

I’m pretty grateful to have my cows home and the neighbors cows too…

Happy cows and happy me too.

My Loving Spouse loves to go out of town.

What if…

What if the states, the cities, the world doesn’t open up again as fast as we’d all like? At our age, we are not willing to ‘just be patient’. Late one Friday evening I said, “Let’s buy a small, cheap RV, so we can be self contained and get out of town.”

He said something like…”what?”

I was greeted early the next morning (Saturday, and did I say early) with the pictures he’d found on Craigslist. They went something like this…

“Ah, no.”

‘Why not?’

“I’m cannot drive something like that. Remember small? Cheap?”

‘You’d be able to drive it.’

“No. Definitely not what I had in mind.”

The research continued, we had very clear criteria.

Cheap, not creepy or stinky, a bed and a toilet….and NOT a project.

We looked at one under a tarp, whose pictures did not include same said tarp.

We looked at smallish big…

Then we threw out anything with a motor. After all, we already had a truck and we were looking for a not creepy, not stinky, bed and toilet. My Loving Spouse said that we’d get a better deal in the winter, than in the Spring and so the hunt continued.

We looked at lots and lots of pictures and the budget went up and down. Most of the listings did not meet all the criteria….but then, there was this one.

There is always good and bad on Craigslist and sometimes the ‘good’ is bad with better pictures. There was something different with this camper and it was this.

“Look at that Camper portable stand. Not only does the stand have wheels, but the owner built it especially for the camper, and he painted it. I think this Seller is a Dear John,” I said.

‘Oh, I think you’re right.’ He said, ‘ I’ve zoomed into every picture and the camper, though older is immaculate.’

“When you’re buying something used, you want to buy it from someone like Dear John”. (John is methodical about taking care of his Scamp trailer and is continually improving it after every trip.)

We went to look at the camper. It took us about 5 minutes to know that it was not creepy or stinky, had a bed and a toilet, a great little layout and at a great price. We didn’t even dicker on the price.

Come Spring weekends, we’ll feed the animals, throw the dog in the truck and get out of town.

Hope in this New Year and we are blessed.

I wanted to wish each and everyone of you who reads this blog a very Merry Christmas. Thank you for coming alongside me in our farm, family journey of life.

Isn’t it interesting how we usually remember the things that didn’t go ‘right’ from years past or is it just my family? 20 years ago with 3 school age kids, I was very tired and could not bring myself to go to the grocery store again and so when making the Christmas breakfast casserole that called for milk, which we were out of, I experimented with using flavored creamer. It did not go well. At least two of Team Offspring are making the breakfast casserole for their mornings and believe me, they will not forget to buy the milk and will probably say, “Remember the year Mom used creamer?”

We did about 90% of our shopping locally this year and managed to Bad British Word the other 10%.

• November 28 a Christmas sweatshirt was purchased as a surprise for My Girl…it still hasn’t shown up
• November 30 a one of a kind mechanical item was purchased for Number Three Son…it still hasn’t shown up
• December 14 I ordered the perfect little something for My Loving Spouse’s wanderlust….yep, no sign of it.
• I missed the size when ordering our Christmas cards. They needed to be 4×6, but are 3×5 and will require magnifying glasses to read them.
• I created a special set of note cards for My BGF and the “Thinking of You” was printed on the wrong page
• We were excited to get AAA for My Other Girl and Number Five for Christmas. The gift option did not include a date of delivery, so AAA sent it already…a bit early.

Especially, this year we are more aware of how little control we have. Our family gathered the digital way to rejoice in a gender reveal Zoom style.

My Other Girl and Number Five Son are expecting June 17, 2021. This has not been an easy road. We rejoice with hope for each day of health this little one achieves, so excited to have someone new to love.

My Loving Spouse and I got to go to church last Sunday. The Pastor’s message was one of “Hope” and so that is where I will do my best to ‘sit’.

Living in Hope in the Light of the World, our mistakes included…and we are blessed.

Merry Christmas to you all,

(credit Gnome Mug Rug)

Our alpaca update or “how I became a Veterinarian assistant”.

Over the weekend, we were able to get some aspirin into Benny. Sunday evening was the first time we saw him moving around a bit more like his old self since he broke his leg 5 days earlier.

Monday afternoon a farm call is scheduled with our Vet to replace Benny’s cast. I scoot home from work early, in order to ‘upgrade’ to Vet Assistant, because of I have those special body parts (bendable knees).

We get the old cast off with great relief. There is no abrasion and no compound to the fracture. I hold the leg out steadily as our Vet wraps a new cast up Benny’s leg. This time the cast goes over his ‘elbow’ and at an angle, to help keep it in place and make sure gravity does not help it slide off.

Our Vet is much more hopeful of Benny doing well from this point. He leaves the patient in the ever capable hands of his new Assistant.

Benny takes a long time to wake up from going ‘under’. We wait with him in the cold barn, which gives us time to sign his cast.

We’re feeling grateful and relieved that Benny’s broken leg is not worse. Had the fracture become compound, we’d have had to put him down. Benny is a sweet comical animal, that relies on us to keep him safe.

When he finally wakes up, it gets ‘even better’. Benny is quickly more stable and instead of dragging his bad leg as he had over the weekend, he now ‘limps’ on it as he moves through the barn. Way to go Benny Boy, way to go.

…and we are blessed, Benny too.