New Life Old Farmers

The mother daughter church banquet was last night.  An annual affair with little girls all dressed up, older gals with flowers and a line of men to serve the meal and clean up.  It is a simply sweet meaningful event and I wasn’t sure I wanted to go…

It has been 8 years since my Mom passed away and I wonder, when you lose your Mom, when is it that you stop missing them.She’d be amazed at so much that is our life here and I think of her every time I see a Heron or a Hawk or a Red Wing Black bird.  She was crazy about birds.  If she was here she would be having us keep a list of all the ones we’d seen.

She was an amazing seamstress, making her wedding dress was just the beginning…as she sewed us clothes, Halloween costumes and doll clothes for the PEO charity shop.  If she were here, she’d be sewing circles around me and my sweet fancy machine with her old metal reliable friend.I continue to be amazed at how many of my new friends here who are my age still have their Moms…Clearly it has been a long time since my chubby cheeked pig tail days…and just a blink of an eye from my children’s chubby cheeked days……and so I found myself not wanting to go to the banquet…because I do not have a Mom anymore…and I miss her still.

My friend asked me, if I was going…

“Hmmmm, well I don’t know…My Girl probably has to work….and I don’t have a mom.”

“Oh, you can share my mom and sit with us.”

“Really?  Okay, I’ll come” and that was it.

I started to look forward to it…a simple invitation to be a part of the family…and to be part of her family…really when we come down to it, isn’t that what life  is about?

What our true job is?

To offer to others an invitation to be part of the family.

Thanks my friend….

We I am in the process of creating a ‘studio’ (craft space, sewing room, desk-bill-paying-spot, ironing spot) out of the room that had been called the ‘library’ when we moved in.  The ‘library’ didn’t really have that much room for books with two bookcases, but it was a pretty room.  When we moved in, we sort of set it up for My Loving Spouse which in hind sight made very little sense as he is not a really big reader and he is not the bill payer.

The library studio could give me a place to get my paper craft items organized and easily usable, have the sewing machine up and be able to pay bills all with the added bonus of a door where I could keep The Damn Cat out!  I am only half done with the Studio transformation, but already I LOVE it!  The two bookshelves are set up in what I call a ‘separate but equal’ system for My Loving Spouse and I.

The rocking chairs are in place as is a very comfortable love seat, so there is plenty of ‘visiting room’ for my family to come and hang out as I am playing working.  I have a dream of an amazing cutting table designed for a Queen (a Craft Queen) complete with storage, an ironing board and room for a friend to work as well.  The Queen’s dream table is classy and clever and looks good, I just haven’t quite figured it all out with my pauper-like table budget…but I will.

There is still a teeny tiny bit of ‘relocation’ necessary from the days this was My Loving Spouse’s ‘Library’……yeah, it is cramping my creative juices.

We were all set to head to Spokane early Saturday morning.  We’d planned extra time for the journey so we’d have enough time to leisurely wander through our favorite farm store along the way and still make a special stop at Babies ‘R Us before arriving on time at the Number Ones for a family BBQ and baby shower.  The car was in the driveway running and we had our party shoes on.

“Oh, Sweetie….”, I called, “Did you leave a stand pipe running?  We have very little water pressure in the kitchen?”

“I don’t think so…but I will check..oh… Bad British word!”

A pipe connection had broken in the plumbing box and the only place we were on our way to was a flood.  We turned the water off, turned the car off and changed our party shoes for our irrigation boots, grabbed a bucket and started bailing.

As we’ve been in this box more than once, we have gained some knowledge and knew where to look for things.  We bailed the water and found the shut off valve, but unfortunately that did not help the problem as the break was before the valve, so we bailed some more.We were very, very aware that we had been lucky to detect this problem before we’d left for the day, even if there was a bit of muttering and cursing going on.  We had to employ a two-step bailing system, as the water was running right back into the box.  My Loving Spouse would fill up the big bucket, then I would carry it away and dump it.  We did manage to fix the problem, turn the water back on and put our party shoes back on as well…only using up our “extra time” we’d budgeted into the day.We were only a tad late for THE Grandbaby’s shower, which was really a family BBQ and an opportunity for all of us Grandparents to give the Number One’s all the gifts we’ve been buying or making for the baby.  The Other Grandma decorated the fruit and vegetable plates with baby shower appropriate flair.

(If you pay attention, you’ll quickly figure out not only what sex THE Grandbaby is, but what name has been chosen as well…).

THE Grandbaby’s other Grandma is a savvy, smart shopper who lives near an Outlet mall.  So when I say this baby was showered with clothes…I will say, her generosity was torrential.  Every single item of clothing was cute and cuddly and she and I thoroughly enjoyed the unwrapping while most of the men napped.  Lots of fire fighter related clothing…Seconded by clothes with whales and dogs, of which THE Grandbaby’s dogs look on with approval..My Loving Spouse and I had a lot of fun with our contributions as well.  I must say, I didn’t know making bibs could be so fun!  I am just surprised that I didn’t take many pictures of them…oh, well I’ve room for improvement for sure.This puzzle was originally found half done while we were at a garage sale.  Clearly we ‘needed’ it!  My Loving Spouse cleaned it up, sanded it varnished one side and painted the other.All set for THE Grandbaby…

In case you missed the ‘memo’, I still love cows.  I love our cows, but they do not really ‘love’ back.  They tolerate us, because we bring them food.  Agnes eats a lot…all the time…she acts hungry.  Agnes eats like…a pregnant cow with their due date just around the corner, which it is…possibly another month.  We’ve a lot going on, so sometimes My Loving Spouse gets stuff mixed up.In a conversation with Our Friend the Farmer about Agnes calving, I overheard him say…

“Oh, she is expected to deliver at the end of June or early July…”

I did have to interrupt.

“Ah, Sweetie…Agnes is due to calf in June…the July date, that was for THE Grandchild”.

We love a good road trip.  It has been a very long time since I have been on one with all three of my offspring, but at one time I was the Queen of Cleverness always managing to pack the car in a way that they didn’t have to ‘touch each other’.  As this trip would entail more time being in the car than being where we were going, we were a tad concerned that those long-legged ‘kids’ would have enough room crammed into the back seat of our now smaller cars.  We decided to rent a mini-van to stuff the Offspring into, but as luck would have it, we got ‘upgraded’ to a Suburban with all the extras and they were happy campers, watching movies through out the night-time drive.

The plan was to zip across Washington, Idaho and into Great Falls, Montana Friday night.  The 11 hour dark, rainy drive was a tad stressful, but we made it to the ‘world’ famous O’Hare Motor Inn around midnight exhausted and fell into bed, after double checking that we’d in fact received our very own Rubber Ducky that comes with every room.  Fancy state of art hotel security has not caught up to the hotel yet, they still use regular keys kept in square mail boxes for each room.  We managed to sleep quite soundly with our bedroom key left firmly…still in the door.  We awoke with the great traveler’s question firmly etched in our itinerary…Where the heck was the nearest Starbucks?…and where is our key?

We’d planned this trek to spend the day with My Other Girl.  My Other Girl and the Unofficial Number Five Son are to be married in August at the St. George LDS Temple.  Mormon weddings are great, if you are Mormon.  If you are not, you do not actually get to see the wedding.  Since we’re not LDS, we wanted to show our love and support for the kids and meet the other family, so we hosted an Engagement Party, in what was a sort of central meeting spot…Great Falls, Montana.We met up with Number Five’s family and it was quickly apparent that the two Dads were cut from the same cloth, chatting away like two old friends over kids, businesses, hunting, cars and…who knows what.  As his Mom met my boys, she said, “So you’re the fire fighter and you’re the Autistic one.”

“No”, I said, “He’s ‘artistic’, not autistic!”

“Oh, that is what I said”

Phew!  “Oh…I thought you said autistic!”

“No…artistic…he’s the high functioning artistic one”…and we laughed.  We spent the day visiting, playing with toddlers, talking about kids, weddings and babies.  Diner for 20 was a hit as the boys of all ages lined up to eat.  It didn’t take long for us to see that My Other Girl was marrying into a loving, warm family, that they loved her and she was happy…perfect.  We said our good byes and went back to the hotel, ready to experience their ‘world’ famous “Sip ‘n Dip” lounge.  The bar has a tiki theme with the back wall made of glass attached to the hotel pool, perfect for the Mermaid show and no, I am not kidding.  Of course a tiki themed bar needs a large drink to go with it.  It is ‘possible’ that my sons had done their homework, as Number Two quickly ordered the “Fish Bowl”.  One of those drinks with more booze than sense, and a reason there are three straws.  I was told I ‘needed’ to help them drink it, which I did cautiously, we had another long drive the next day and I was determined to not travel it with a head-ache.

Unfortunately, the Mermaid show was canceled the night we were there…which left room in the pool for the kid who was too young to be in the bar.  It didn’t take long before My Girl was swimming by entertaining the crowd and making us laugh. Before we knew it, all three ‘kids’ were in the pool together…swimming, playing and planning…throw in a bit of goading, with a dash of daring…and before we knew it ‘someone’s‘ Son might have, maybe, just ever so briefly…mooned the bar…what can I say…

He’s high functioning artistic.

 

 

Incubator – take ???…I’ve lost count!

Not being one to give up, My Loving Spouse had another go at hatching a clutch of eggs using his home-made incubator.  He made a few minor adjustments to his design and I’m afraid the gentle sounds of ‘clucking‘ were replaced with a bit of cursing as he ‘encouraged’ them with an occasional ‘hatch damn you’ this go around.  By his account they (those 13 eggs) should have started chipping and chirping 2 days ago.  It would seem that the thermostat failed, and I’m afraid we baked them.  It could be a good thing we’re not planning on going into the chick business.

However, our Surrogate  hen was seeming to do fairly well only getting on the wrong set of eggs once.  The hen’s owner found the situation quickly and moved her to the right clutch of 13 and removed the 2 she’d laid. Chickens are not very smart, as Our Friend the Farmer says, ‘there is a reason they end up at the bottom of the food chain’.

The hen’s cautious owner had been texting me with updates on the condition of the hen and the eggs.I happened to mention to The Offspring that I thought it was a little bit ‘funny’ how much our Surrogate’s owner was ‘into’ her chicken.  The Offspring just rolled their eyes and said something about some one who was a tad ‘funny’ about cows…kids, sheesh!  Luckily for us, the Surrogate with help from her owner seemed to have done a exceptional job.The Surrogate has managed what our ice chest, light bulbs, thermostat and cursing clucking has not.Along with a very excited child who was happily digging up worms for the new chicks to eat…Chicks in total 9!  Country life…what a treat!

“Oh, sweetie…”, I said to Number One Son,” there is only one small job, that we really need help with this weekend, while you and Number Four Son are together.  Could you please haul strain carry magically get that bathtub upstairs?”

There were just a few teeny, tiny little ‘issues‘ with this request.

1.  The bathtub was cast iron.  Imagine ‘heavy‘ on steroids, then add a few pounds, yep that’s it.

2.  The stairway the bath tub needed to go up was not only narrow, but has a 90 degree turn in it aka: “Dead Man’s Curve”, designed for function, not form.

There were great discussions, deliberations, measurements and more discussions about how to get it up the stairs, if it could make it up the stairs and if they got it that far, how in the world would they get it around the corner!

“It won’t fit”.

“It will, trust me”.

The biggest issue was of course, that if the bathtub got away from them, someone would get seriously hurt.  Number Two Son and My Loving Spouse were on hand to help as well, but there was only so much room in the stairwell.  We gals told them to be careful and tried to not watch, as we discussed whether this was more or less scary than the time this group decided to take the tree down!

I came out of hiding when I heard hammering or really I should say ‘unhammering’ as they had determined that the balustrade needed to be removed.  The ancient balustrade was being carefully removed, so that it could be simply re-installed later, but part of it had been well glued so we are adding  ‘build new balustrade’ to the great ‘to-do’ list.

The bath tub moving crew decides that the dolly is not a help, so they lay two long pieces of 2×4 studs on the stairs for the tub to slide up.  Number Two Son is in charge of keeping those in place while Number One Son pulls, Number Four pushes and My Loving Spouse adds support at the top with a strap designed to keep the bath tub going ‘up’…not down. There is a small rest and celebration as they reach Dead Man’s Curve.  They then flip the tub over to make the turn.  These guys are strong…did I mention that this tub is very, very heavy? This is when we really celebrate!  The bath tub has made it up the stairs, over the corner and into the attic!  

Making the job of getting the 5 foot long cast iron school-house sink I scored last summer seem like child’s play to move from the garage to the attic.  Yep, I know it needs a good cleaning, but I have learned that when you have two strong men willing to move something nearly impossible, my best move is to stay quiet and get out of the way…cleaning can come later.The attic transformation continues and we are very excited.  If you are visiting this summer, you should be excited too as the plans for an upstairs toilet are not far off!

 

 

Two years ago, we arrived to our new town/state/climate/home on Easter weekend.  We were staying at the hotel awaiting the keys to our new home.  I remember on one of our ‘drive byes’, saying to Number One Son…what a place for an Easter Egg hunt.  At the time, I probably thought of small children in Easter outfits with baskets clutched in grubby hands…the reality this year may have exceeded my expectations in the fun factor as 20 ‘kids’ (ages 15 to 66) took to the hunt with gusto, some running, some methodically moving along the fences and the trees…shouts of laughter.  (Sorry no hunt pictures…I was looking for my eggs).Luckily I had plenty of help getting ready, as I conscripted Team Offspring to recreate a few Pinterest ideas.  Folding starched napkins into Bunnies proved to be something of a challenge……but once they were folded, I wasn’t going to re-iron them again, so they got used, although seeing them as ‘bunnies’ took quite an artful eye.We scoured the farm for tables and drug them into the house…anything covered in linen becomes a dining table…who would have ever imagined we’d have room to seat 22.…and of course croquet…Croquet is meant to be played with 6,…no surprise that we play by our own set of rules here.  It was very important to remember who you followed…and yes, this season…the straw hat point still counts!Some of the siblings join up to creatively ‘buck’ the straw hat system…While a few others have a moment on the swing…It was a day of family and we were blessed.

There were members of our family missing…isn’t that always the case…

Some in other states…with other commitments…

Some of our Seattle Cousins (My Skinny Cousin to be exact) made the journey to spend the day with us and I always know this makes our mothers (in heaven) nod their heads and smile, there was one more mother joining their circle this year and I know she was smiling along with them, saying oh, isn’t it nice that the kids are together this year…

(Just for the record…we had the usual getting ready angst.  A few days prior I had a moment of pre-hosting ‘irritation’ at the shape of the laundry room and might, maybe have hollered at the wrong kid.  My Loving Spouse might, maybe have had a tiny, teeny bit of irritation at me when I did not answer my phone that did not ring…just so you know…we are so utterly and amazingly normal).

…but on Easter the most special of days to those of us who believe in the love and power of Christ…

…Easter, the anniversary of My Loving Spouse and I meeting….

…it was a day to spend together as our new family dubbed Glory Farm as the Schroeder Family Farm East 

and we are blessed.

Being accepted for who we are can be a powerful, if not the most powerful gift.

I fall short so often…

My afternoon job is a few hours long in Developmental Kindergarten.  A small class of kids with limited attention, speech & language, and learning issues…it is a bit like organized chaos.  They need predictable structure.  The jury system decided they needed their teacher now, for two or more weeks…and so the class has been even more chaotic like lighting a sparkler on both ends.  The 12 kids are on about 12 different ability levels as well…  Keeping them learning, keeping the structure, keeping the chaos to a dull roar has been a group effort and the other teachers and aides who work with this class are doing an exceptional job…but it is still crazy.  I find myself daily pulling from my mother’s bag of tricks.  She was a woman who could keep kids busy with the simplest of things and I am grateful.  Yesterday’s simple math dot-to-do turned into coloring the lady bug, then cutting it out, then learning to add legs and lots of folding…time filling and productive…happy kids who liked what they were doing and happy with their result, a win-win and I was feeling capable.Ten minutes later I was head-butted by an angry 6-year-old, because it was time to go home…this kid has a big powerful head and I struggle with working with him and it hurts…and it put me in a funk.  I do know about loving the sinner, not the sin, but I guess I need more practice and believe me I am getting it.

Still…I was in a funk.  In my funk I almost did not go to the place I most needed to be to get out of my funk…quilting.  Not just for sewing, but for being me…accepted by the other gals…for catching up and chatting and encouragement…and I felt better…

Acceptance…a powerful gift.

We (me, My Loving Spouse and all our kids) have been so accepted by the family Number One Son married into. We gained a family and are richer for it.  Grandma D. was a huge supporter of Glory Farm and gave me powerful words…’take care of yourself’, ‘I’m praying for you’…’I love you’.

With her family by her side, she was called ‘home’ today…

I want to honor her…and her family…her willingness to live life

but most of all for her gift for loving and accepting us as we are.