Walkin' in High Cotton

On Sunday we had a young couple come by to look at Hannah, our stubborn little Arabian mare. They decided they were interested in taking her for a few weeks to see how it worked out. We agreed that if it didn’t, they could bring her back. They have time and experience and I’m pretty confident it will work out. But if anyone does, we know the pain of a poor match.

The mucky weather didn't show her in the best light on Sunday.

And then we had to go through the headache of loading her on the trailer. Now, Hokie loads like he does everything else–half asleep. Hannah, not so much. She’s not aggressive. She’s not rearing and screaming or kicking and thrashing. She’s just stubborn. She plants all four feet at the edge of the trailer and will. not. move. forward.

I tried to brush her up, but she just went out there and shook it off and rolled.

She’ll strrrrretch her neck as far as it will go to try and get your carrot…she’ll even go further and stttrrrretch her lip out so far you can count her teeth…but she will not step up in there. Pulling on her just makes her throw her weight back against the line. Shoving her from behind just makes her throw her weight back. It’s like the proverbial donkey cartoon. She almost sat on Mr. Fix-It pushing back against him pushing her.

I did manage to pick and snip the snarls out of her mane. She has one spot down low that ALWAYS tangles ferociously. I started keeping scissors in our grooming box.

It was a careful balance of not getting frustrated but being firm. Trying each technique just enough to judge her response, but never having her go over from stubborn to afraid. Never creating an environment of “battle” between us and her. Trying something and then stepping back to let her think about it. Rewarding her the second she took a step forward, but never allowing her to take a step back.

She's always loved being groomed. Just not as much as she loves rolling.

Just like kids, you can’t let them get away with it, and we got her loaded. Eventually. (Actually, it only took an hour and that’s good time!) We tried treats with no luck. We tried massaging and lifting her feet onto the trailer one at a time, but she would only put her toe down and then move it back as soon as I went to the other foot. We tried a little bit of pushing and shoving, but no luck. We tried a bit of flicking her with a longeing whip to maybe startle her into that first step, but no luck. She didn’t even blink–and actually spanking her into the trailer was not the plan.

Finally, we penned her right at the back of the trailer and left her to stand there loose and think it over. Then we sprinkled her from behind with a water hose. She tossed her head a few times and snorted and then just jumped right in by herself and moseyed over to the grain bucket we’d been tempting her with. We closed the back gate and walked through the side door to tie her up and she started munching some grain and they drove off. End of story.

I can’t believe it took us an hour to come up with that.

And I have fussed over that split mane for 2 yrs with NO luck!

I wrote yesterday about missing her already, and everything she represented here. (And I’m sure you’ll hear all about it if she ends up coming back!) But I’ve learned some very important lessons from handling animals (2 and 4-footed! {grin})  here at the farm.Stubbornness can come out in two ways. It can come out as frustration, bullying, erratic commitment to having your own way, and anger…

Or it can come out as firmness, consistency, perseverance and long-suffering, commitment to principle and purpose, mercy.

If you’re interested in learning about relating it to animals, check out Cesar Milan, Buck Brannaman (the Cowboy loves his documentary), or Temple Grandin.

If you’re interested in learning about relating it to people, read the Bible. No one was better at it than Jesus.

Tags: equine, faith, Hannah

Whew, I’m kinda exhausted by the last few days of the week and the weekend. We’ve had a lot going on and some of it was good and some of it was bad and some of it I’m still sorting out. Sometimes I wish God would send me a few less mountains.

The Ladybug is feeling better-but she sure is sick of wearing that hat everywhere!

Ruby is doing much better. A couple of days on antibiotics and she’s just practically a new kid. She even when all day yesterday until almost bedtime without any pain medicine! I still can’t believe that a busted ear drum heals itself–how miraculous is this body of ours?!

Speedracer worked this weekend too--at least a little bit!

The weather was really kinda yucky this weekend. But we did get out there early Saturday afternoon and get some farm chores done before it started raining. We’re getting all our barns scraped out and freshly bed for lambing season next month.

I only got a couple pictures because I had to help too!

We use a deep bedding system. That means we spot clean messes and then keep layering bedding on top, deeper and deeper, through the season. It starts to compost from the bottom up which generates a little bit of heat and helps bake out some of the bad bacteria and incubate some of the good bacteria. Then once or twice a year (usually once, but it can depend on the weather) we scrape it all out with the tractor into our compost piles, let the sun and air sanitize it for a bit, and then start all over again.

You should have seen them working together to carry lambing pens out before we cleaned!

Then on Sunday we had a young couple come by and look at Hannah. They decided that they would be interested in taking her home on a trial basis for a couple weeks and if it worked out keeping her. So we went through the hour long dance of getting her loaded in the trailer (I’ll be posting more about it later this week) and off they drove.  I really expected to feel more relieved–I think this could be a great home for her. But I miss her. And I worry.

And they hauled T-posts, picked up baling twine, and helped straighten the hay shed.

And it’s brought me face-to-face with some of the choices, the sacrifices, I’ve made for my family. Old dreams die hard. She would have been everything I ever wanted–if we didn’t have 3 children and I had the time to take lessons and train with her and ride regularly.

But I can give my best time and energy to my family, or I could give them less and give my energy to a horse. There are only 24 hours in a day. I can give myself horse-back riding lessons, or give my kids piano, soccer, and their horse. There are only so many dollars in our bank account.

They did a great job paying attention and staying out of the tractor's way too.

These are choices we all make as parents. And in the end we all know that we chose parenting. We’re not stuck with parenting. We’re not forced into parenting. We choose it. We choose the minivan over the sportscar. We choose the playroom over the craft room. We choose the family trip to Disney over the romantic bed and breakfast in Charleston. And I don’t choose it grudgingly, or like a martyr. I choose it willingly.

Intentionally.

With purpose and joy.

Of course, they goofed off a little too. But I think they earned it.

But once in a while, when you come face-to-face with it, with what might have been and what will never be, you have to take a deep breath or two…and let it go.

Tags: chores, family time, farming with kids, horses

I had a post about stage 2 of our playroom project in mind for today but it turns out that my Ladybug is sicker than we thought. Her stomach virus has passed, but now she’s had fluid build up in her ear and her eardrum has burst. (They say it’s not nearly as heart-attack inducing and horrifying as it sounds.) So what I had in mind has not made it to the page yet.

My little partner in all things home-project related is just not herself today.

So I’ll have to catch up with the blog world later this evening or tomorrow. I need to go cuddle my girl today.

Tags: Ladybug, sick kids

You know those stacks and baskets full of magazines all over the house? The one on your coffee table…the two in your bathrooms…the ones stashed under your nightstand? I’m sure I had some purpose in mind for them when I bought 8 lovely, matching magazine boxes to store them in. That must be why I filled all those magazine boxes and all my baskets.

Now they’re trash, trash, trash.

(Ok, some of them are trash because of the project I’m about to talk about. Some of them I recycled to our library–although judging by the look on the volunteer’s face when I brought them in, I have a feeling they might have trashed them.)

But before they hit the trash pile, I paged through every single one of them.

Yep. Every one.

And I started tearing out pages.

This is probably just wishful thinking, but wouldn't this be beautiful in my backyard?

I ripped out any recipes I was interested in and filed them in my overflowing, out of control, definitely on the TO DO list, recipe box (ok, boxes) and notebook(s).

And I ripped out any decorating pictures that I liked.

Thrifty furniture make-over for our front porch!

I started glueing them in my new homekeeping notebook. I stapled in some dividers to create sections for each of our main rooms. Each bedroom, bathrooms, kitchen and dining room, playroom, and master suite. I also have a section for outside, including porches and gardens.

Is there anything prettier than vases full of sunflowers?

I’ve started clipping all kinds of things. I saved a one page article on stripping and repainting wicker furniture. I clipped a listing of heat/drought tolerant flowers. I found several table settings and center-peice ideas that my kids will love to help with.

Plantation shutters are definitely on my list for our master bathroom!

It’s sort of like Pinterest on paper. I love it. I’ve also used it to start taking notes on changes and fixes that each section of the house needs. Curtains and blinds for the kids rooms. A taller shoe basket in the mudroom. One more under-the-bed box for our bedroom. And all the measurements for each improvement. All in one place. It’s great.

I love the colors and textures in this room!

This is totally an inspirational journal–that’s why I’m calling it my homemaking journal. I have a house-keeping notebook that’s much more nuts and bolts like cleaning schedules and menu planning. This one is all about making me smile and encouraging my heart to love my home. It’s about all the little touches that make a house a home. (Something like this, from Ann at A Holy Experience.)

This way also really works for me because it cuts down on the clutter and I enjoy pulling it out and using it. I know some people keep “tear files” of pages, but I never go in my filing baskets and cabinets if I don’t have to.  That would just be more clutter for me because I would never use it then either.

I'm trying to figure out how I could fit a sink AND a built-in dog kennel in our mudroom.

Do you like home decorating magazines? Most of mine were Southern Living, Better Home and Garden, and Country Living. (And Sheep, Hobby Farms, and The Stockman Grassfarmer.)

Do you keep yours or just keep tear files?

Tags: homemaking, journal, organizing

Our weekend started off a little rough.

The Ladybug woke up on Friday with a headache. I had a bad feeling, but we sent her off.

Ha! Should’ve trusted my gut. They called me by 11 that she was in the office crying with a headache and now a fever. Motrin and Tylenol didn’t seem to touch it and it shot up to almost 104 by Friday night. She started throwing up by about 12:30 Saturday morning. It was a long night. Mr. Fix-It took over when the boys woke up at about 6 am. When I “woke up” at 9 am on Saturday, I was so exhausted I had to ask Mr. Fix-It what day it was.

She’s on the mend, although we’re home again today and this normal two day weekend seemed really long for all the wrong reasons.

The boys had a good weekend, I think.

But we had some good moments too.

The Cowboy's picked up a cough somewhere, but it only seems to bother him at night.

The rain cleared up on Friday so the boys went out to play together Saturday morning. They headed straight for the mud pit (A.K.A., our garden) in the backyard. They spent about 3 hours rolling around in the dirt and trying to construct their own tripod machine guns out of our pepper stakes and tomato cages.

I blame it on watching too much Sons of Guns with their father.

They were disappointed that i insisted on winter hats instead of Secret Agent hats, but it is January.

Saturday night I got a good solid 5 hours of sleep, so Sunday afternoon I started tackling some more of our Playroom project while the Ladybug was sleeping. Mr. Fix-It took the boys out to the garage for a while and I had the radio on quietly and was just buzzing along rearranging the bookshelves when I happened to glance outside and see…

Buzzards.

Like 6-8 of them. Rarely a good sign.

Turns out it wasn’t bad news at all!

Is that what I think it is?

I had started counting heads immediately, dripping wash rag still in my hand. But we didn’t have anyone missing. Then I thought I spotted something by the hay bales and ran downstairs for the “bee-loc-u-lars.” (Which, looking back, was a waste of time because I was standing right next to the kids Secret Agent gear with 3 pairs right at my fingertips.)

Gray Abbey had a surprise for us.

That haystack was perfect for a newborn. Warm, snug, and hidden.

You may remember that she lost her last calf, almost a year ago to this week. (Cows are pregnant for 9 months.) When I spotted this little guy he was already cleaned and dried off and settled 1/2 way across the field from the spot he was born in, so he was probably several hours old. He looks to be a good size and pretty hardy so far.

He looks more like a deer than a cow!

We’ve only actually seen him nurse once though. I’ll feel better when we see him getting up and down and frisking around a bit between meals. That should come by later today or tomorrow at the very latest. Even baby cows and sheep seem to spend most of their hours and days just eating and sleeping.

Gray Abbey is pretty old, so we’re definitely concerned. But so far she’s doing everything a good Momma cow should be doing so we’re just leaving them be. One of my favorite quotes from Joel Salatin is that “God gave a cow everything she needs to know to be a cow.”

How was your weekend?

Tags: calves, cow, family time, Food & Farming Links

I don’t really have a post prepared for today. Last night Mr. Fix-It got off early, and we ate dinner early, and the kids all got in the shower early, and we had early bedtime with a book…

And you’re wondering how on earth this equates to me not having time to write, right? Well, we sat down and watched a movie together instead of just vegging out on the couch–which would usually be my writing time. It was a glorious, quiet evening–although the movie wasn’t all that great and our remote control is being funny so the volume was a little LOUD-soft-LOUD-soft the whole time.

All this long-winded personal life story is just to say this–I don’t have a blogging schedule, so I don’t have a real post today.

But I’m working on one! (Thanks for the inspiration, Aurie!) And I’m excited by how it’s going so far.

In the meantime, I thought I would share a couple other blog links that I think you might enjoy.

I don’t know about you, but I love reading about big families. And I’m not talking about our little 5-some, I mean big families!

One reason is that big families have to come up with solutions, or drown. Us smaller families sometimes can muddle through a lot longer in the chaos before we really give up. Mom’s of Many (I love that “title”!) have lots of experience and tips to share!

And one of my favorite groups to follow is 4 Moms, 35 Kids every 4th Thursday of the month, from Raising Olives, Life in a Shoe, Smockity Frocks, and The Common Room.

They’re all Christian, homeschooling, large families and they chat about everything from biblical dating models to haircuts and nail clipping.

This week, my favorite question/answer is from Connie over at Smockity Frocks:

Q: How do you deal with grooming? Do you trim nails on a schedule or just when your kids looks like Wolverine? Same with haircuts. 

A: I go with the Wolverine method, trying to double check everyone before church on Sundays. Our goal is to have no more than one at a time who looks like a ragamuffin. It usually works.

That’s real, folks. That’s mom advice from in the trenches. That’s the kind of motherhood I can understand and feel encouraged by. A little bit of humor, a whole lot of love, and everything else sorta falls into place.

I really encourage you to look them up. I peruse their blogs regularly and you’ll find them on my Links I Love page.

Have a good weekend!

Tags: blogging, large family, links, organization

I’ve always been a book lover and a reader, but the last few years it’s come in spurts.

Sometimes I just don’t seem to have the time or I’m totally exhausted and just want to mindlessly veg out with my few moments of spare time. Other times I can’t seem to get my nose out of a book and you’ll find me snatching a few paragraphs in line at the bank, while waiting for my lunch to heat in the microwave, or even while Mr. Fix-It is filling up the truck with gas. (I can not read while riding in the car. It makes my normal car sickness 1000 times worse! I can barely stand to read a map while riding.)

But this year I’m inspired and determined!

{This whole post, by the way, is totally inspired by Monica over at Homesteading by Faith. She is just as crazy busy as I am, but she manages to read and cook from scratch and redecorate her house and blog about it all too…Such an inspiration!}

This is my reading list for 2012.

I’ve already started The Money Saving Mom’s Budget by Crystal Paine and Good Girls Don’t Have to Dress Bad by Shari Braendel and am rolling right through them. They’re excellent! They both have a very down to earth, conversational style that makes them easy to read and easy for me to connect with.

I’ve started updating my Links I Love page, by the way. If you’re wondering how I picked some of these, those are the blogs and ladies that inspire me. Most of these were recommended at one time or another by them.

The whole stack is non-fiction. I don't find myself reading as much new fiction any more--just my old favorites. Every once in a while I'll try something new by a favorite author and try it.

There’s gardening books, crafting and business books, homemaking books, and a couple family and marriage books. I found some used, two at the thrift store, and then I went through my shelves while doing this house-wide purge and found a bunch of practically brand new books that I must have bought a while ago and just never got around to.

I did manage to fit the whole stack on the bottom of my nightstand–which I then covered with a pretty flower fabric so that Mr. Fix-It wouldn’t see how many were under there. Now the top is nice and neat for a change. Mr. Fix-It doesn’t mind the books themselves so much as he does the piles everywhere.

I came across this lovely figurine that was a Christmas ornament, and now decorates my nightstand.

I’m also joining Aurie over at Our Good Life to read the bible in 90 days, starting February 1st. I figure that gives me enough time to either read it again or read a good bible study later in the year. (Who would imagine I would be talking about reading the whole bible more than once in a year?!)

What do you like to read?

Tags: books, faith

I talked before about hitting our upstairs projects hard while I was home for 4 days a few weeks ago. We’ve kept at it, although things have slowed down a little bit since I’m back at work. Since our upstairs is basically the kids rooms with the Playroom in between, we’ve been working back and forth through them all instead of working one room at a time. This has really helped with my “shop our house first” budget and we’re still making good progress!

This use to be the boys room.

Now it looks like this!

We stacked the boys bunk beds again–but this time there’s no crib in the room and I’m amazed how much space they suddenly have!

When we bought the Ladybug’s first bed, we made some long-range decisions about furniture buying that we’ve stuck with–and been happy with! We decided to go ahead and just get her a true “big girl bed” (a twin, with a twin mattress and box springs) rather than a toddler bed that would use her crib mattress and then turn around and get another crib mattress for the Cowboy coming behind her and then turn around and have to get her another bed and mattress anyway. We got some adjustable bed rails from Target and her transition was smooth as silk.

The boys have even been making their beds every morning. Well, we call it "straightening" because they can pull the covers up, but they can't tuck anything in by themselves.

When we found out that the Speedracer was coming along right behind the Cowboy, we decided we were going to do the same thing (for the same reasons), but that eventually the boys were going to need bunk beds in that little room. So we bought bunk beds and set them up and the Cowboy slept on the bottom with a rail, and Speedracer was across the room in the crib.

Those weekly clothes hangers are lifesavers--and the perfect divider for a shared closet! Although I haven't figured out the 5 day week thing yet. Don't we wear clothes on the weekends too?

However; when we decided to move Speedracer out of the crib, we didn’t feel that the Cowboy was old enough to sleep on the top bunk yet. So we took the bunk beds down and went to two beds. No problem.

And now we’ve stacked them again and the Cowboy is sleeping on top (and he loves it!)

See the sloped ceiling? That's a problem in our whole upstairs. My father in law added that side shelf for me and we use it for hand-me-downs, sleeping bags, and off season clothes.

Here’s the tricky part about modern bunk beds if you’re in the market–MOST OF THEM DON’T UN-STACK. I’m not kidding. Being able to unstack them and each of the boys eventually have their own bed was a big deal to me and we shopped high and low for ones that actually unstack into two separate beds. Most of them are not designed to do that. I was surprised.

Actually, it was also hard to find twin-over-twin because apparently everyone has a huge house and most of them are twin-over-full.

Most of them are also cheaply made, fake wood, or hollow metal. Not at all what I remember of our bunk beds growing up.

Ours are twin-over-twin Kendall bunk beds by Pottery Barn.

Expensive? Yes. (Although we got them on clearance because they discontinued that color which saved us a couple hundred, and we got free shipping and set up with a coupon, plus we purchased online so we got 3% back to Upromise savings.)

Quality? Yes.

More hand-me-down storage, sorted by size.

If you can afford it (or save up for them) I would highly recommend them. They are real wood, and they are solid, and they are nice stacked or individual. And don’t forget that since they unstack you’re actually getting two beds. If you divide the price in half, you’ll see that they’re not too far off of a regular furniture store price for a single bed.

This is going to set the tone for our new decorating scheme.

Now I have to think about using that empty space. Desk? Shelves for toys and books? I’m wondering if we can consolidate the boys into one dresser rather than two. Still so much to do!

Tags: boys, decorating, family time, organizing

I went to wrap Speedracer’s birthday presents on Saturday and it turns out that we didn’t have any more tape.

He acted shy about pictures at first.

So I headed to my gift bag stash.

The Ladybug was his gift-opening assistant.

And we didn’t have any gift bags big enough for a couple of his presents.

He just got a glimpse of the next one...

So great, what now?

When all else fails, use ribbon. That’s my new motto.

A few glue dots and some ribbon and we were good to go.

We replaced the stick horse Penny ate with a stick-DRAGON. He even roars!

He asked for a green ice cream cake. It wasn’t the most creative cake I’ve come up with, but it fit the request. You just make a filling of whip cream, chopped-up Oreo cookies, hot fudge, and pudding mix and spread it between layers of ice cream sandwiches. Then you frost the whole thing with whip cream and freeze it for several hours. Tastes yummy.

And he got a remote controlled tank--which has been busy running over everything in sight.

His special birthday dinner was…drumroll please…peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chips! It was one of the easiest birthday dinners I’ve done yet!

And who doesn't love to get batteries for their birthday?!

It was a good evening with family. They got to play with his new toys and they’ve been galloping around the house on their stick-transports every moment they’ve been home. (Boy, I’m tired of that roaring dragon head already.)

We also continued our home revamp this weekend. We scrubbed the kitchen from top to bottom, and then stacked the boys bunk beds. They’ve been having a blast playing that the bottom bunk in the inside of a covered wagon and they have to peek out around the corner to shoot the bad guys. I’ll have more pictures of how our 3-room upstairs re-fresh project is coming along tomorrow.

But I have a question for you–how do you do birthday parties? I keep going back and forth about not over-doing it, or under-acknowledging it. I don’t think we’ve quite hit on what works best for us, yet–as a family tradition or as part of our household budget. I’d love to hear how you make it work.

Tags: birthday, family time, family traditions, Speedracer

Would you like to take a walk with me? I’ll tell you a story.

A story about a little boy who just turned 4 on Sunday. And the momma who’s still crying about it–on the inside.

He was a surprise for us.

So was his dark hair.

We were expecting those blue eyes though.

They’re sort of a family tradition.

We didn’t pick his name until just before he was born, in the labor and delivery room that morning. It surprised our Doctor when we said we hadn’t decided yet. Grayson or Waylon?

She had also delivered our other two, so she felt pretty confident in telling us her opinion on our short list. “Grayson? Where did that come from? You can’t have a Ruby and and a Wyatt and a Grayson.”

I think she was right. Too many baby name books. We decided to go with our gut.

I didn’t expect the spelling and pronunciation to be quite so challenging for so many people, though. Everyone loves to add a D. And an E. And apparently if that doesn’t work, you can always throw in another A or two.

And I laugh because folks always ask “like Waylon Jennings?”

“Yep, it’s spelled just like that”… [glance down at the paper] ...”and apparently you don’t know much about him either.” {grin}

I’ve been told that he has “the baby” syndrome. I don’t necessarily see that.

I have noticed that he doesn’t like to do chores.

And tends to pout his way into one of his siblings helping him with, well, everything.

And that he thinks he owns my lap and has no qualms about telling someone else to “Move, Wy-att!”

But I think it’s more about the dimples than his age.

He has his father’s dimples.

Mr. Fix-It’s simply immune to them because he’s spent so many years on the other side of them, and he just takes their powers for granted. Those who have dimples can’t appreciate what it does to those of us who don’t.

The baby years are special, but these pre-school years are amazing too.

This time of discovering who he is and what he likes.

Watching him pull back and think and decide if he’s going to be a leader or a follower with other kids…this one is really interesting around here since both if his siblings are born leaders. (The Ladybug is a group/social leader type, and the Cowboy is a trail-blazing, independent leader type.)

I read a lot about parenting these days. I want to do a good job. (And I can use all the help I can find!) But I’m so…flabbergasted by all the writing about how not to lose yourself in your role as mother. How to maintain your own identity while mothering. I really struggle to understand this perspective because balance is certainly critical and we are all multidimensional beings, but it seems that people tend to portray motherhood as a job.

Motherhood is not something I do.

From the very first time I felt that tiny little fluttering kick inside, Mother is something I became.

Is there more to me than just motherhood? Yes. But there’s no me outside of being a mother. From the moment the Ladybug was conceived, I become a mother who…cooks, a mother who works, a mother who crafts, a mother who farms…just as after my wedding I became a wife with every hobby and personality quirk and professional skill. There is no me separate from who I am as a wife–or as a mother.

Only by fully embracing motherhood as part of my personality, of my self, rather than as a temporary role I play, can I find both balance and fulfillment.

And I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to figure this out!

Happy Birthday, my Speedracer!

Look how much you’ve taught me in your 4 years!

Tags: birthday, motherhood, Speedracer, work life balance