It’s the little things in life

October 19, 2010November 27, 201014 Comments

Today I had a friend over, a new friend actually! She is one of my egg customers. Usually, I bring her eggs to her where she works, but this week she asked if she couldn’t come get them from me here and “…save me the trouble.”

My first reaction was to say no. This is principally because I’m just not a good housekeeper. Now my friend Jayme is an absolutely immaculate housekeeper. She stresses about it and admits it freely! Me? Not so much. It is not for lack of wanting a clean house, but it just seems that no matter how I try I just never get it all done. That is of course unless company is coming! Then I race about cleaning everything till it sparkles and make sure all is tidy and put away. My guests arrive and always say how lovely everything is and I smile, and I’m stressed, wondering what horrid thing I may have forgotten to take care of… I think I would actually die of mortification should someone find out what a slob I can really be. Generally speaking I do not have a good time when friends come over because I stress too much.

Well, that was then, and this is now. Now I live in the sticks, more or less, and I have this constant dust that seems to creep into every nook and cranny no matter how hard I try to keep it out. My poor couch after traveling nearly three thousand miles cross-country has a rather large smudge on one arm that would not come out, not completely anyway. Adding insult to injury it has been rather over loved by my then kitten Clause, who bared the corners by using it as a scratching post when no one was looking… I cannot afford a new couch at the moment, so I am currently looking for something to cover it with, to make do, until it can be replaced.

And so it was that today I dusted and vacuumed the living room, made sure the guest bath (which is vintage early 60’s in decor and looks it) was clean and sanitized for visitors. The rust stains in the sink remain, the two tiles I replaced with the mysterious, ever dirty looking caulking were cleaned and will return over the next few days to their ugly and dirty looking patina, but hey, I made the effort!

And then Marie arrived bearing unexpected gifts!

She brought lovely flowers and a pumpkin spice loaf, and I was surprised that she would go to the trouble to do this, for me. We talked quite awhile over coffee about everything, and then we went out so she could meet the menagerie of the Farmlet. I introduced her to my geese, pointed out my hennies in the field and then showed her the inner world of my beehive (via the safety of the window on the side, because she’s afraid of bees!) and then we went to see the little broody hen and looked into her nest …

And there was a broken egg, and just for a moment I was upset, but then I realized we’d arrived at a birth! The egg was hatching! That was a special gift for me and her. I can’t tell you who was the more excited to see such a thing. Peeking through the little hole we could see the baby chick moving and struggling to free itself, to be out and into the world at large.

Later, after Marie left, I went out with my camera to take pictures and found my new baby had made its arrival. It was still wet under Momma Hen!

Isn’t it darling?

So, over the next few days I’ll watch and wait to see how many more will hatch!

Now just a moment ago I read a comment from Cindy, a long distance friend who commented on my blog today. She shared:

“I think you live in a dreamworld. Thank you for sharing it.”

And I tell you all that I share the little things in my life with you because I must. Somehow, I feel that not sharing would make my life a parallel to this age old philosophical question:

“If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Thus similarly…

If all the wonder and beauty that surrounds me is kept to myself and never shared… does it exist?

It’s the little things in the life I lead, the lessons learned, these daily gifts from God that are affirmations of his love for me, and I must share. And along the way I learn to accept me, to make peace with dust and holey couch corners, and through the process of acceptance of my foibles…

I make new friends.

This Misty Morning

October 13, 2010October 16, 20107 Comments

I wake up to see Bob off to work with a sleepy hug, and then with a kiss he’s off. Looking out the window I watch him drive into the darkness…

Lingering I gaze through the glass as morning comes. Slow and sleepy it creeps only to be met with mist and fog. Turning from the window I throw on a jacket to break the chill and go out to do morning chores. As I open chicken hutches, throw scratch, and greet the geese, the haze begins to burn off and reveal my surroundings.

What awaits me is a dreamy visage of this pastoral life.

Out behind us we have new neighbors who’ve been moved in just this week.

Content to be in new surroundings they chew grass

ignoring me as I spy on them.

I turn away from the fence to go in and chance to see Little Bit entranced with something up the tree…

The chattering tells me it is a little squirrel. The anger in its chirruping sound tells me it is none too happy about being watched so intently.

Rounding the corner of the house my gaze finds…

the garden’s scarecrow.

Standing limp and faded she gives testament

to a hot, harsh summer we all survived…

The memory of which will also fade,

when fall gives way to winter.

But for now…

The season is dry grass with a slow burn consuming the leaves of the trees.

My Summary of Summer…

September 13, 2010March 19, 20114 Comments

We are having the most perfect fall morning. You know… the one where the sky is just the right shade of blue, the sun makes everything shine, and the air is cool and clear. I open the windows and breathe in deeply… Thinking of Summer’s demise and the official start of fall the Equinox that will not arrive until “…03:09 (or 3:09am) Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on September 23, 2010…” officially speaking. And that brings me to…

My Summary of Summer: or how I learned to survive and enjoy it in spite of the drought.

Yee-gads, what a summer it has been! With fall preparations right around the corner I take these few moments to share with you. So here it is. The truth of it.

We’ve lost, gained, learned and grown, in our knowledge of gardening, critters and bees. However, we found out essential things along the way. For this is the importance of our lessons after all… that we have indeed learned from them.

Lessons such as:

Hawks gotta eat. We lost one Buff Polish rooster and a Guinea Hen to the hawks this summer. We were very sad about it but out of 35 beaks we consider the losses minimal.
Chickens don’t like snakes. Well really, we knew that, but what we didn’t know was that they would actually chase them off the property! Amazing to see!
When vegetable gardening you need to plant about four times as much as you think you will need. Why? Because you need enough for you and the little squirrels and voles that love to nibble the bottoms off of every tomato, pepper, and bean within their reach. You also need enough to feed all the squash bugs and tomato horn worms, and any other insect that comes by to dine! And this is important… you need enough to share with the neighbors who graciously put up with the noise and flies that your menagerie will produce (no matter what you do to combat them)! Although a dozen eggs now and again goes a long way to keeping them from complaining! ;D
Murphy’s Law – If there is a draught and you fix the pump and get it going, then the rain will come… in buckets and torrents! AND If stops raining again, then you will surely dig up the electric line that was buried shallowly in the soil and end up running a very long extension cord out to make it run again… yes REALLY!
Bees, if properly housed and protected, can be quite self-sufficient and really need little else from me. I pretty much leave them alone, they have plenty of their own stores to eat, are healthy, and show little evidence of dreaded intruders such as hive beetle, veroa mites and wax moths. In fact, it would seem that my chickens do a very good job of breaking the cycle of the hive beetles, and I have seen no evidence of mites or wax moths. Bees are very impressive little critters!

All in all I feel that difficulties we faced were minor, the knowledge we have gained was invaluable, and this winter will allow us to do quite a bit to be more prepared for next spring and summer!

Things we need to do between now and next spring are:

Build the geese an outside hut for sleeping in. Right now they are being shepherded into the barn each night. They need a little home of their own!
Build a cold frame for starting seeds.
Build a potting table (done!!!) with an old kitchen sink in it. It will be useful for transplanting seedlings into newspaper cups and placing picked fruits and vegetables up off the ground so the chickens can’t peck them. Oh the sink? Well that will be a good place to wash the soil off of everything before I bring it into the house.
Build a garden bench to sit and rest a spell while I contemplate work that needs doin’, to look at all I have accomplished, and to take a moment now and again to be grateful for all I have been blessed with!

Were you blessed this summer? Perhaps you might take a moment to write a comment and share your blessings with other readers?

I hope so!

Lynda

P.S. I’ve a bit of humor to share with you before I close.

WHAT’S ALL THE COMMOTION ABOUT?