Giving up part 2

I give up 'part 2'.
Feeling really icky today so I am going to do what I feel like doing.
If I don't get the clutter done today, guess what? It will still be there tomorrow.
Am watching Martha Stewart and her guest is making wallets! Am going to download pattern. I can NEVER find a wallet that works! They never are big enough to let you put a checkbook in. The wallets from China or Taiwan or where ever, must think our checkbook blanks are a lot smaller than they actually are.
The guest is using Martha Stewart's scrap booking paper as the decorative part of the wallet, but I think I would rather use a thin cloth. Or a cross stitched pattern! Woo Hoo! Great idea there!
Her next guest went to Tuscany! Oh, be still my heart. I want to poke around the Tuscany region for a month or two. Want to join me?

I gave up.
We are starting to smell lake shore.
Wouldn't it just be like Murphy's Law.
Put up clothes line and all it has done is rain.
So brought them in and since most of them dragged on the ground, will give up and re-wash. (oh to have a regular clothes line 't' bar to run the lines on.)
Bonnie Hunt's Mom, Alice, is just a hoot.
Her joke today was:
'What did one mountain say to the other mountain after an earthquake?
Answer: 'It wasn't my fault'.
Get it?
I just did after I typed it!
FAULT as in the famous San Andreas Fault where all the earthquakes are! LOL, no one said that I was the brightest bulb today.
Tune in that show if you can get it, we get it on our local Fox station. She is the most gentle woman host for a talk show. Loves her Mom, and her crew is 'unique'. I have mentioned her before and try to check her out for a week.
She genuinely likes people and isn't mean like Leno and Letterman. Her jokes are usually self-effacing, and that is such a relief.

Hubby at home

I love my husband.
I love my husband.
I love my husband.
But, there are days when he is home all day, and my normal routine and schedule gets disrupted.
I now know how wives feel when their husbands retire and say that they seem to be 'underfoot' all day.
This is hardly ever a problem, except when my mind is concentrating and in 'running mode' with the bib I really need to get stitching on. The baby isn't due until the time around the Thanksgiving holiday, but with my stitching speed, I find that I am not what is called a 'fast' stitcher.
I am constantly amazed at the speed and amount of projects that some of my stitching friends can accomplish.
When he is home I tend to stay in whichever room he is in. I feel guilty if I sit in the bedroom and stitch.
He did however, mention last night that if we go out for breakfast in the next town over, we could go to the German bakery in that town and load up on our favourite bread. Sounded like a marvelous idea.
So what happens when I know we are going to do something special the next day? I can't sleep. He is up and ready to go at 8. I have finally gotten to sleep at 5.
Did I mention that I am rather grumpy when I first get up. He is so cheerful, it stinks!
That started the day. The breakfast was marvelous, they cooked the veggies before they filled my omelet, just the way I like them.
After we got home, I started a load of bleach laundry.
In between checking on him as he watched his Judge shows in the bedroom, two loads were all I got done.
It is amazing at the mentality of the people on the many 'judge' shows.
I finally gave up, sat and asked him if he minded if I stitched a bit. Still felt guilty about it, but he said he didn't mind. I did manage to pull out some floss as I wasn't fond of the way the accent color was going in this large weave. In total, I think I got around 1/2 hour of stitching, let me rephrase that, ripping out floss.
He has sales tomorrow.
I will get a lot more done and will feed myself.
I love my husband.
I love my husband.
I love my husband.

Wildlife

This year is an interesting year for wildlife on this small farm.
As I looked out the front door today while on the phone, I saw a chipmunk just whizzing around under my parked truck. We seem to have a small flock of goldfinches that have flown onto the farm this week. It is sure a bright spot to see them here with their bright gold bodies flitting around the yard.
As I was watching, I saw a movement about 25' to the south of the robin's bathing puddles. I spotted a very young bunny just venturing out of the grainery. He was no longer than 7 inches as he sat on his haunches an chewing on the young, grass leaves.
Then as I got home and was pulling the key out of the ignition, I noticed a movement in the grainery window directly across from the truck parking area. There was a chipmunk just pulling an pulling some soft fiber from the corner of the window. Once he freed it, he took off back into the grainery like a shot. Of course, since he was most likely using the puffy stuff for a nest, it was most likely a she instead of a he.
I also have been noticing that we have a small flock of four crows inhabiting the trees of the farmyard. This is the first time since we moved here that we have had resident crows.
When we moved here, we used to be in the shop/barn until about 4 a.m. Working at night was better suited to the using of the kilns. It simply was cooler. In the winter, it simply made sense so the clay and glaze didn't freeze.
Anyway, one fine spring morning we had just gotten to bed and about two hours later were awakened by a raucous 'cackling' of a whole bunch of trees inhabited by crows. Noisy crows. Bobby and I looked at each other and wondered if this was going to be the pattern here. I was a city girl and he came from the north woods. He usually had song birds and fish outside his cabin window on the lake to listen to. Not raucous crows.
They left in about a week, and this is the first time that I have heard any crows within our yard since then.
I still keep sleeping hours from about 3 a.m. to 11, but lately have been getting up at 9:55 so I can listen to Father Corapi on our Catholic Relevant Radio station out of St. Cloud. The crows are still vocal. But not to the extent of a replay of the Birds movie of old.
We also have a very vocal something or other around the pump house. I have seen opossums on the road just south of our barn, and am wondering if that is what I am hearing. I like the little buggers, but, and this is a very respectful but, they have a mouth full of very sharp, little teeth. I don't think I want to tangle with any of them.

MURPHY'S LAW!

Murphy's Law hit again.
Got a clothes line up between a couple of trees and have been hanging clothes out. At least the sheets. The small dryers in house are just that, too small. Needed a clothes line.
So hung out some towels etc., yesterday, and it was a load of whites to sun bleach over the night/morning.
Can you guess what happened?
Right.
It is raining. Not just a gentle, spurty rain, but a long, drawn-out rain. Instead of the three puddles in the circle, I now have enlarged the three and am working on the fourth.
I am watching the load on the line sag.
I will, however, not take these in and rewash. I am going to just let the rain soften them up and forget about that molecule of dirt in each raindrop.
Hmph!

I was driving home from town yesterday.
Since we live in an agricultural area, new home construction in the last 10 or so years has greatly increased and farmland has alarmingly decreased as more and more farms have gone up for sale as the farmers retired and their youngsters have decided that farming is not for them.
As I was driving home, I noticed that the first cutting of hay has occurred on one of the farmlands outside of town.
I was overjoyed.
It also brings a certain amount of sadness that the summer, even though it technically still spring, is quickly passing by with that occurrence of the first cutting. (I know....as I get older, it seems like the years passing gets quicker and quicker.)
But in observing that first cut hay field, I can't tell you how sweet that smells.
It is like being in the haymow with all the new 'squares' of hay that were loaded up there. There is nothing else like it. Yes, 'haying' is an itchy, really itchy, hot, dirty job, but when you are done, there is really nothing else like it. The aroma is comforting and sweet smelling.
I remember climbing up into my grandparents large barn and scrambling up the vertical ladder attached to the wall and being in that wonderful sweet smelling world. Grandma was always worried that a bale or two would fall on me and smother me being such a small person. But when it was recently filled, the bales were solid and stacked well. As the season progressed, the stacks might have gotten a little less solid as they were pulled and dropped for the cows to eat or use as bedding for the new calves. I still like to cling to the thought that my no-nonsense grandma would sneak up there occasionally to have a special bit of aromatic peace.
If you were lucky, a momma cat had her babies up there in a special little nest. If you were quiet enough while climbing the ladder, you could hear the babies and pinpoint where they were. Nothing better on a summer afternoon than to be playing with baby kittens in the haymow.
That memory was precipitated by the cutting of a field. Judging by the amount in the ground rows, it was a pretty generous cutting.
I woke up last night and listened to the gentle rain falling and thinking that it was good that the cutting was yesterday or the day before while the cutting was still green. If the cutting had been earlier and the cutting drier, that wouldn't have been good to get rain on it.
I think that dried hay is why I enjoy the fields in winter when there is snow on the fields and you have these beautiful golden stalks above it. It brings back the beauty of all that golden stacks of hay bales in the haymow.
I would like to make a suggestion.....instead of just rushing around from point A to point B, when you can do so safely, slow down a little and observe the country where you are.
Is that a kestrel hawk on that telephone pole?
Are there geese flying around and testing their adolescents how to form a 'v'?
Do you have an area where you have redwing blackbirds nesting? Pull over and listen to their song.
Do you have any farmland near? Take the country side roads instead of the interstate and just leisurely drive along with the windows open to take in the lovely smell of our rural areas. Yes, even manure has a good smell to it when you get receptive to it.
Before I met husband-to-be Bobby, I used to have a boyfriend that had a Harley. On our trips around on Sundays, we seldom took the highways, we used to weave in and out of the countryside. You got the beautiful scents of our wonderful country the best that way. I always appreciated the drive through the country with him.
I am so glad that Bobby loves it as much as I do. He will always point out a hawk or deer or fox or geese flying as we drive our country roads if I should miss it. It is amazing, even in the areas surrounding Minneapolis and St. Paul, the abundance of wildlife out there.
Sometime during this summer, take your little ones on a Sunday country drive and see if you can't slow down a little and open the windows and really 'smell' our country. Sometimes if you happen upon a skunk that has unfortunately gotten hit by a car, the smell is pungent, but really not so bad. But the smell of earth and growing things is the best. It is like going into a greenhouse in the dead of winter. Nothing else like it.
I hope, even if you haven't any little ones anymore, that you give yourself that gift of driving around farmland and slowing down. I guarantee that gift will be a treasure. Stop in a small town and see if you can't have a burger and an iced tea or malt or shake at one of the little cafes there. Or try one of their specials of the day.
Build up your your own memory to treasure when you need to pull it out on a particularly bad day. And the best tip, take a special journal along, stop every once in a while and write down what you smelled, saw, and enjoyed. One of the cheapest, most durable and yet nicest journals to buy is one of those black and white print-covered notebooks you can get at Walmart, Target and just about anywhere. They are found in the shool supplies department. Leave it in your vehicle with a pen clipped to it.
You are ready to record the treasures of your life as you pass through it.
Sometimes we forget to give ourselves a gift. We need to be mentally and spiritually healthy to be able to give continually to others. This will do so.
Huggs, and enjoy.
Cait