Thanking, Laughing, Celebrating, Praying, & Planning

Thanking: What I'm Thankful For Lately

# 1: My chicken overalls.  It has been so cold in the mornings when I go out to water, feed, and check for eggs and these pants make my life so much easier.  It might seem like a dumb thing to be thankful for, but it's about the little things... 

This is not me.  But these are my Carhartt quilted overalls.  They make me feel like a farmer.

# 2: My friends.  I'm especially thankful for the love and support of the wonderful community of women I have around me.  This is a really small town.  It's a rural town.  I was terrified to move here, thinking there'd be "slim pickins" when it came to connecting with other like-minded women.  Boy, was I so wrong in so many ways.  We've been here four years, and I'm at the point where I realize just how much the friends I've made have come to mean to me.  I'm so grateful that I have friends that I can talk to about: God, my prayer life, NFP, nursing, farming, gardening, "real food," home-birthing, parenting choices, homeschooling, blogging, farm dreams, church teachings, etc. etc.  But it hasn't always been easy---when you love people, and grow close to them, you give them the ability to hurt you or to SEE who you really are, and that can be scary.  It's taken me years to realize that to me, it's worth it.  It's worth working through things, it's worth being vulnerable, it's worth letting people get to know the real me.  I'm humbled not just by the fact that they DO see me and love me for who I am, but by the ways they have taught me to see parts of myself that I am blind to (like the ugly ones).  I can't get over how blessed I am to have the friends, both old, and new, that are a part of my life.  

# 4: Good TV:  I admit it---I love Downton Abbey.  I was just talking to a friend today about WHY this show is so popular.  We brainstormed together, and came up with a couple ideas: at its core, it's about stuff we can all relate to.  From servant to master, everyone has to play their "role" and struggles with their place in the society or the family.  There are saints, there are sinners, and in their world, as in ours, the two are at constant odds with each other.  But really, it's mostly about the clothes and the decorum.  :-)  (I really wish I was part of an era when people "dressed for dinner" and every night was a fabulous dinner party....)  And can Maggie Smith be any funnier????!!!  

#5: The RAVENS:  We're going to the SUPERBOWL!!!  What great playoff football, and how excited we are for our team!!!  We are a little sad to say goodbye to #52, though. 

Laughing: Funny Moments

#1: People have asked, "How are the chickens doing in this cold weather???"  For the most part, there are zero concerns about the chickens.  But I do have to be careful with the Leghorns, who are white with these beautiful, large red combs.  In temperatures that are too cold for too long, apparently their combs can get frostbite.  To prevent this, you are supposed to spread Vaseline on them.  I ran around the house frantically searching for Vaseline one morning.  I didn't find any, but I did find some unopened MotherLove Nipple Cream from my nursing days.  I figured it would have to do, and have spent two mornings of my week massaging nipple cream into the combs of three of my chickens.  (This is where motherhood and farming strangely intersect...) 

Here's one of the Leghorns scratching in the garden in the summer. 

Here you can see how much bigger the Leghorn's combs are than the combs of the other chickens.

# 2: At mass today, in the tiny daily-mass chapel on campus, we had one of the funnier mass-going experiences we've had in recent history.  As the priest was elevating the host, there was a silent pause right before the congregation was to respond with "Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof..."  BUT, in the silent pause, right before anyone spoke, my lovely birthday girl decided to let out the worst, longest, loudest, cat-dying-in-her-pants fart---ever.  And not only that, it had TWO movements.  Forget about the mortification for a minute, but trying to keep the older two girls from wetting themselves next to me (and pretending it wasn't the funniest thing that's happened in a long time) was so hard.  I feel so bad for the people sitting around us, who had a lovely moment stolen from them....oops.

Praying

I'm working on my prayer life hard for 2013.  Although it can sometimes feel bit schizophrenic with all the different things I turn to for prayer (right now my anchors are St. Faustina's Diary, the Liturgy of the Hours, Lectio Divina on Colossians, In Conversation with God, and a daily rosary) it's also really humbling to see the way that on many occasions, the same "message or theme" will run through this stuff on any given day.  There's nothing that makes you feel more "seen" by God than when He pounds you over the head with same message everywhere you turn.  So I figure I'll just keep turning and keep my eyes open for what He's saying.  I've also found a strange irony that the more time I spend in prayer each day, the more likely I am to accomplish everything I set out to do that day.  I had all these grand plans for 2013---to learn new skills and hunt and knit and fish and....and I think God just wants me to sit with Him for a while.  And garden, and cook, and homeschool, and clean, and love those He has placed in my life.  It has been a wonderfully fruitful spiritual life so far this year, which has transferred to the other areas of my life, and so I'll stick with His plan and forego my own ambitions for now.  

Celebrating: My Baby Is THREE

Ailin turned three today, but we really celebrated it on Monday, when Daddy was home from work for MLK day.  I remember my pregnancy (very not-fondly) and her birth (very fondly) and can't believe that was all 3+ years ago.  Time does fly, but I'm so glad that our days are spent together, enjoying this baby-toddlerhood before it's all over.  

The morning began with a rousing round of Uno, her favorite game.  She just happened to get a lucky 3! 

The Bilibo, as weird as it is, has been nothing but amazing fun for all three girls this week!  Hooray for gifts that work.

The Bilibo game has also been really neat.  Total creativity about what you want to do with the pieces. 

Sister fun.

Brunch at Panera.

Trip to the bookstore to pick out some books.

Off to the movies.  The glasses were cool, but apparently the movie, Monsters, Inc., was too scary.

Relaxing story time with big "sisty" when we got home.

Really happy we won the game on Sunday.  Otherwise eating these cupcakes on Monday would've been more than just bittersweet.

Happy Birthday Baby A!!! 

Planning

# 1: Garden: Believe it or not, it's time to start planning for the gardening season.  I'm telling myself I'll wait until after the football season ends, because once I open those catalogs, the fever will begin...but I have also learned the hard way that many of the seeds and plants I want will be sold out by the time I go to buy them if I wait too long.  It's here.  It's time.  It feels cold to us, but before we know it, the earth will be green with life again, and we'll be shedding the sweaters and stuffing our faces with all the things we gave up for Lent.  I'm crazy with giddiness just thinking about the tabula rasa that I have out there to be planted.  There's nothing like it.  I pulled some pictures of last year's garden just to remind myself of what's coming...

The garden fence has been taken down and the garden expanded.  Most of what you see here will be fallow next year and the new beds will be planted instead.

My mouth waters looking at this.  I don't eat tomatoes out of season, so it feels like forever since I've popped a warm Sungold tomato in my mouth!!!  I can't wait!!!

  

#2: Lent: I'm determined to reclaim Lent, since I feel like Advent was kinda stolen from me.  The stress of Christmas this year was greater for me than it usually is, and I don't want my Lent to be that way.  Lent is always a really special time for me and this year, with some pre-planning, I hope to live it in a way that pleases God and brings me and the family closer to Him.  I'm in the middle of praying and thinking about how I want our Lent to look, but hope to do a "Lent Plans" post soon.

#3: School Year 2013-2014:  I'm ashamed to admit it.  I had my first thought about next year's curriculum choices today.  A book on one of the school room shelves caught my eye---one that I bought years ago thinking it would work, but it was too advanced for our needs then.  I've been saving it until we were ready.  I think it will be perfect for next year, and I pulled it down today.  It's sitting on my desk, reminding me of all the work (work that I really love!) ahead...

Never a Humbug!

Very soon it will be Advent and my favorite time of year.  We recently finished reading The Hobbit, which was supposed to take us the entire school year.  Not surprisingly, though, we finished it earlier than I expected.  (Who can resist the lure of hairy-footed hobbits and dragons???!!!)

To fill that "literature" spot in our school schedule, we decided to give Dickens' A Christmas Carol another shot.  We had tried reading it together last year, when the girls were in third grade and kindergarten, and it just didn't work.  But two weeks ago, I hesitatingly cracked it open again and it has been a rousing success!  While I still have to take time to look up explain some antiquated English terms to the girls, it has been a much smoother run so far this year than last.  It also helps that the girls aren't as "scared"as they were last year.  (Perhaps I can thank my husband for toughening their skin by introducing them to Cobra with the old-school G.I. Joe cartoons?)

I can't decide if the best part of this new journey into A Christmas Carol has been the quality of the book, or the beautiful religious imagery that has given us so much to talk about.  We are reading the hardback copy illustrated by P.J. Lynch.  (For those of you familiar with The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, it's the same illustrator!)  Each illustration is truly a work of art and seems to bring the text alive for the girls.  If you are seeking out a nice copy of this book, I can't recommend this one enough!  (Please note, if you "look inside" the book on Amazon, you are seeing a DIFFERENT version than the one we are reading.  The pictures below are the actual pictures of the version to which I am referring.)

We just finished the first chapter, and I can already see the girls processing Scrooge's journey in light of our own faith.  A couple of our favorite quotes from the text have been:

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost.  "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."  (Stave One, page 32)

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again.  "Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business.  The dealings of my trade were but a drop in the water in the comprehensive ocean of my business." (Stave One, page 35)

We have had some interesting discussions about sin, our free will, the choices we make and how we live with the consequences of those choices both now and after death.  Interesting questions abound, like, "Is Marley in Purgatory, Mom?"  And the best part is having the time to sit and discuss the answers:  "Do you think he is?"  "How does the way Dickens is presenting Marley differ from what you have learned about Purgatory?"  "What do you think Dickens is trying to say about how we live our lives and our choices?"  

It's times like this, curled up on the folded-out futon, that I'm so thankful that we get to share these moments, these great books, and use them to work toward being better versions of ourselves.  And there's no better time to start doing that than Advent!

Sandy and Candy

Busy times around here lately.  We spent some time preparing for hurricane Sandy, then survived it (thank you GOD) without much ado, and then delved right into Halloween.  I'm feeling extremely grateful that we were spared any major suffering from the storm, and am praying for those who were not so lucky.  It has made me pause and really reflect on all the things I take for granted: hot coffee, electricity, hot water, a roof over my head, my children, and my amazing and helpful friends and family to name a few.  Some of those things, the things I cherish so much, I'll just capture below with pictures as a "fall update" post.

My beautiful fall yard before the storm took the leaves.  I can't believe how happy this scene makes me.

My favorite tree.  Not the big one...the little one to the left of it.

Friday playground date.

A literal "survival pack" for the storm.

Cookies for the girls...and the decorating kept us quite busy.

 

My dream come true!

Had to get our pumpkins before the storm hit.  We almost didn't make it!

Chickens love pumpkin guts.

The morning after the storm we did our work in "bed."

Happy Halloween!  The girls were so excited to Trick-or-Treat this year and get a pile of candy to trade.

She rode the entire night.

Friends make Halloween more fun!

Pumpkin and Chicken Lady

October Celebrations!

I could spend this entire blog post complaining about the downsides of this time of year.  It's often the month in which the homeschooling reality hits hard (things are not new, exciting, and "fun" anymore!)  It's often in October that I start to feel pulled in so many directions (keeping up with housework, schooling, meals, laundry, garden, making time for myself and time for God, etc.)  In October, the stress of the upcoming holidays seems to be looming...I blame the stupid catalogs that already have CHRISTMAS stuff in them!  But to lift my spirits I think I'd rather write instead about the blessings and celebrations of our month so far.

A year ago this week our chickens were born and sent to us.  How time flies!  We are still enjoying them SOOO much!

Two Days Old Last October 17th!

A wee one.

These ladies do a lot of work for me---pest control, tilling the soil, and fertilizing!

 

Not to mention the eggs have been beautiful and delicious!

Prayerful chickens.  I hope this isn't sacrilegious. :-)

It's fun to watch them just hanging out.

 

Even our friends like to hang out with them.  Or chase them.

The coop has a new tarp for winter.  I still consider this coop the best purchase I ever made.

If I had to pick another flock, and didn't want variety, I'd choose all Leghorns.  They have been the best bug eaters, the best layers (egg quality and reliability), and although they are a little skittish, they freeze when they're scared, so they are relatively easy to manage.

This is a current picture of the flock.  Three white Leghorns,  two Speckled Sussex, two Silver-Laced Wyandottes, and three Easter Eggers.

We celebrated Meara's 7th birthday this month.  No matter how old she gets, I will always think of her as my baby.  She is the middle child, the girl who I fear will never have her needs met.  She is my silly one, my baby-talker, my bug-catcher, my fruitty tuitty girl, my free-spirit.  I love her so much, and yet don't show her nearly enough.

Birthday bonfire!

Birthday party silliness!

The morning of her birthday, we saw this beautiful patch of sun streaming through our trees.  I always tell the girls that when I was little, I thought this meant that angels were sliding down the sun's rays to come to earth.  Meara ran outside immediately, half-dressed as usual, to be there when the angels landed to greet her for her birthday.  

This is first time in almost four years that I don't have a fairly decent bounty out back in the garden beds.  In the moments when I get depressed about it, I tell myself that this time of rest for the old beds, and the patience required to wait for all the new stuff to sprout are all part of the whole process.  I'm just super happy that the new fall beds are finally in, and I couldn't have done it without serious help from my family and from God.  Long story short, we had about four cubic yards of soil delivered.  The next day we had ANOTHER four cubic yards of compost delivered.  There was no way I was going to be able to get this dirt into the new boxes.  As it was, I had a wobbly wheelbarrow wheel, and the ten loads we had already dumped into the beds (using the wheelbarrow) had barely made a dent in the dirt pile.  I went to bed that night really dejected, and I said to God, "God, if you want me to do this, if you want me to grow more food and start sending food to the food bank, you're going to need to help me.  Because I can't do this.  I can't get all this dirt into these beds."  And the next morning, He answered me.  With a Bobcat.  Ironically, our memory verse for the past couple weeks has been the whole "ask and you shall receive" business, so what a wonderfully concrete way to show the girls that God DOES hear us!

We woke up early to lay the newspaper down on the grass in the beds.

The first pile of dirt arrived.

The next day, the second pile of dirt arrived.

But so did a Bobcat.

And it filled all the beds.

In less than an hour.

I've decided to mark off the beds in square feet, not necessarily to do square-foot gardening, but to make my garden log easier to keep.  For the first time this year, I'm keeping my layout charts TO SCALE, which makes a huge difference when deciding what I want to plant versus what I actually have room to plant.  The divisions also made plant spacing much easier.

The girls had a blast planting the garlic, shallots and onions.

The garlic, shallot and onion bed will be untouched until Spring, when I'll take the leaves off and the stuff will pop through the soil.  Estimated harvest will be July.

The second bed is all planted too---carrots, turnips,  kale, broccoli, spinach, cauliflower,  parsnips, chard, and lettuces. This bed is my hoop house / greenhouse bed this year, and it's a total experiment to see what will actually sprout before the too-cold temps stymie my efforts.  Last winter we had success with carrots done in the hoop bed, so at least we know we'll get some carrots out of it, if nothing else.  

There in the center, are the four things I have available right now-chives, oregano, rosemary and sage! 

Winter rye and hairy vetch are planted in the old beds.  These cover crops will be tilled under in the Spring, and then the beds will be covered with plastic to seal in the heat all summer.  This solarizing of the soil, in theory, will "cook" off any of the bad bacterial build up I had this year (fusarium wilt being the biggest offender).  These two beds will be ready to plant next fall along with all the other beds.

Ken built me this new compost setup.  It's not quite finished, but I'm super happy to be moving to a more sturdy arrangement.  And I'm really impressed with how handy he has become! 

It's really easy for me to lose perspective this time of year...to get tired and burned out and wonder a million times a day if this gig is worth it.  But when I take a moment to reflect on the ways that God has truly blessed me, it doesn't make all the difficulties go away, but it does give me the "daily bread" I need to keep going...and sometimes even to smile while doing it.