Changing Landscape

Lakefront Property???

 

There are some days that feel like you are a passenger on a train that seems to be gaining speed. Lately I think I have somehow managed to jump on that train and am just trying to catch my breath!

In a few weeks my middle son will be getting married. I have an entire list of things that need to get done before that day. My husband has a list of things he needs to do. For some reason I am in charge of both lists…I think that just might be the way it works in a marriage.

Trying to get those things done the last week has been difficult due to our very rainy weather. We have had a lot of flooding in our area of the country and have watched our fields covered by water, watched them uncovered only to be covered again with the rain last night and today.

Add in to that; the fact that our land line has been out since Saturday as the phone boxes down the road were covered by water. If I understand it right, anyone in our neighborhood with a land line has the same issue. I will admit it does make it quiet around the house! I am, however, grateful for a cell phone.

The road that takes us to town was covered by the river. No one around here ever remembers that happening before. We also saw three carp swim over the blacktop road….another thing we have never seen before!

We found out the other day that the motor in our well has decided to go on the fritz. I discovered this when our faucet seemed to be running really slow when I wanted a glassful of water.

Since that time we have been camping in our house. My husband has been pumping drinking water from our well with a Dempster hand pump that he and my dad installed this past spring. I am SO grateful they put that thing in!

We have also found our camping solar shower bag to be a very useful item. Living a few days with no running water in the house has been….interesting. I will not go so far as to say exciting……… so will just stick with the word……interesting.

A corner a couple miles from our home

 

I have decided that our problems are fairly minor when I think of the town just down the road that has derailed train cars leaking oil into the river! Yes our little town of Doon has made the national news with that one.

My husband and I have decided it can always be worse. It is amazing to me how single drops of water can band together and become a force of nature. Those single drops are a force that can change the landscape in less than a day.

It is a good lesson for me, that many people…acting with a common purpose can indeed change the world around them. We can be those drops of water that make an impact.

I have also learned that faith is a wonderful thing…keeping busy is a great way to keep your mind off what you cannot control and that it also helps accomplish something..

Bad weather always looks worse through a window.
Tom Lehrer
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/tom_lehrer_120717?src=t_bad_weather

It is only in sorrow bad weather masters us; in joy we face the storm and defy it. Amelia Barr
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/amelia_barr_202842?src=t_bad_weather

Thistles and Rain

It has been a little wet around here lately. The old saying, “When it rains…it pours” is pretty true in this part of the country lately. After waiting…for what seemed like a long time and wishing for rain…it now seems easy to come by.

I wandered around the other morning with my camera in hand as I couldn’t get in my garden (due to rain) and I couldn’t mow (also due to rain). It seemed a logical choice to go and see if I could capture some of the beauty left by the rain.

It was fun to try get a photo of the raindrops  dripping from the flowers and leaves.

To be very honest it was also a great opportunity for a blog post as the idea well seems a bit drier than the weather for this Chicken Grandma!

Later that afternoon my husband called for me to join him behind the machine shed. There is a patch of thistles growing back there that really should be taken care of as they do tend to spread.

We discovered, however, that those thistles might be weeds, but the butterflies and bees sure seemed to be enjoying them.

Seeing those thistles in a different light made me reflect on the fact that there are definitely two sides to most things in life. Something might seem to be a weed in your field or a weed in your life….when you look closer and really have a chance to study on it…you may just find that “weed” serves a purpose you had never thought of.

It was good to realize that truth. Life has been busy and somewhat stressful lately. There have seemed to be a lot of “weeds” springing up and flourishing, where I would rather not have them.

Maybe I need to be patient….maybe I need to open my eyes, my ears and my heart to really see, hear and know what those “weeds” actually are doing in my life. Maybe I just need to let God have those “weeds” and let Him take care of them in His own time.

That is a hard lesson for me….I love to fix things and I really want to fix things now instead of later. I guess it is a good time to sit back, watch the rain, and enjoy the lessons the thistles are teaching.

 

“Some of the most beautiful things worth having in your life
come wrapped in a crown of thorns.”
― Shannon L. Alder

 

 

Gardens and Patience

It seems like the last few weeks have been a time of playing catch-up. The fields are growing and green and the lawn and weeds have also been growing profusely.

We use a push mower; so mowing our farm yard takes pretty much an entire day with my husband and I kind of tag teaming the job. For some reason we kind of have our own “zones” that we seem to be in charge of mowing.

The areas I mow….I tend to bag, so I can use the grass on my garden. I have also been spending time weeding and hoeing and trying to stay ahead of those same weeds  so those weeds don’t take over my garden.

In my last post I mentioned we had a nest of baby bunnies in our back yard…not really too far from our garden! As anyone, who gardens, knows….bunnies and gardens don’t mix at all!

My husband has come up with a wonderful solution and has been making garden panels from 10 foot pieces of lumber and chicken wire. I absolutely love those panels as they are easy to handle and work great for keeping the rabbits from eating the produce.

This has been a strange year for gardening. The winter seemed to last forever so most of my seeds and plants got in very late. We usually get our potatoes in Easter weekend…this year we were an entire month later!

My potatoes look pretty dismal. They came up so spotty and I finally became impatient and took a spade to dig where a potato should be. I discovered that the seed potatoes were rotting in the soil!

I ended up replanting in all those spaces because having potatoes come up late is preferable to weeds taking over that space. Now it looks like I am growing orange flags…..at least this way I will know where to look for those tiny shoots once they decide to come up.

I found it hard to understand why some of those plants were doing so well and a little ways away the other ones were rotting. There is probably a life lesson there somewhere. Why do some people do wonderful in a situation and the next person does not? Sometimes the answer to those questions…garden and otherwise are not so easy to find.

I have also found that a garden is a great place to talk over life with yourself and with God. For some reason it seems like the perfect place to hold those conversations. I always kind of wonder if it is because it is quiet out in my back yard. The sounds I hear are the little wren irately scolding me, the wind in the evergreen trees and the distant sounds of tractors and equipment in the fields.

There is a slower pace in a garden. Spending time hand picking weeds from around tiny pea and bean plants forces me to slow down and persevere. Time spent in a garden gives me lots of time to ponder things.

I love the end product of my garden…but truth be told…I also love the process of getting to those canned goods. It is time well spent…it is time that is good for my soul.

May your week be filled with things that require patience and may that patience give you time to ponder. May your life also be filled with growth…lush and green…even with a few weeds tossed in!

 

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.
— May Sarton

 

The best place to find God is in a garden.
You can dig for him there.
George Bernard Shaw
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Overrun By Critters

One day last week I was sitting on the porch enjoying my morning cup of tea when I noticed a mink making it’s way through the grass around our evergreen trees. It was too far away to get a photo but it was clearly a mink.

I didn’t think to much of it at the time as we live by a small river and have lots of critters make their way past our home. During the night I heard a commotion in my hen house and shined a flashlight out that way but did not see anything. It was not a huge commotion so I was not really concerned.

When I went to let the girls out the next morning I found two dead hens in my coop! Judging by their condition it was clearly the work of a mink. That afternoon when I went to collect eggs I opened the door and was startled to find the mink in a nesting box looking for eggs!

Needless to say I started hollering for my husband to come with a gun. He came and asked what was up…I promptly told him, but by then the mink had run off. I was informed that I had been screaming like a girl…..I did remind my husband that, that really did make sense as I was a girl!

Two nights later there was a commotion in the hen house again! My husband promptly launched out of bed, pulled on his boots and grabbed his gun. I listened but did not hear a shot. When he came back in I asked if the mink got away….he started to laugh and said it had not been a mink.

Turns out it was a skunk in the chicken run. My husband said that he “very carefully” opened the door to the chicken run and encouraged the skunk to exit.  Thankfully it did.

I have a feeling that the skunk was a mama skunk because the last few days we have been having a very tiny visitor. We are not sure if this little critter got left behind when mama moved her children or if he just was a rebel and went his own way.

My husband has been getting very close to this little skunk and it does not seem to bother either of them! I have been telling  him (my husband…not the skunk) that fortunately the nights have been warm lately…the warning is he might be spending his nights in the garage if he gets sprayed.

This year we seem to be surrounded by animals and baby animals. We have the little roaming skunk. There is a mom wood duck nesting in the wood duck box. Kestrels are in another nesting box and a rabbit has decided to raise a batch of bunnies in the middle of our back yard. (Yes, I did have my husband put a flag by the nest so I would not mow over it.)

I haven’t seen the mink since I screamed like a girl and I am good with that….my girls have kind of gone on an egg-laying strike since the mink and adult skunk came to visit. Living by a river is a wonderful place to be, but it does come with lots of surprises by way of wild animals.

I do have to admit there is something wonderful about all the new life that is springing up around us. I know that down the road I will not look so fondly on those bunnies…but for now they are a promise of life going on. I also know that when that baby skunk gets old enough to spray I will be rethinking his cuteness factor.

For now it is enough to just enjoy those baby animals. It is enough to grin and thank God for the beauty and diversity He has placed before us. It is a good lesson to remember that enjoying the here and now is important and to not worry so much about the problems that are sure to come.

Lions Rabbits and Tigers Skunks and Bears Minks, Oh My!
Wizard of Oz Rephrased

 

“Some people talk to animals.
Not many listen though.
That’s the problem.”
― A.A. Milne

 

 

 

Grandma-ing

The old signs used to hang on business doorways…”Gone Fishing”.

This is my weekend to hang out a sign..only I am not fishing….I am Gone Grandma-ing. Yup a new term and a great one.

I am finding out that I am not as young as I was when my kids were this age! Good thing there are 2 grandmas to take care of one boy.

I will be back next week but for now my days are occupied with other things.

Children are a gift from the Lord;
They are a reward from Him”
Psalm 127:3