The goats gave birth, we now have eight.  Sally had twins; Troubles came first.  She wanted to play within an hour of being born and poor mom just wanted to sleep.  Ferdinand came second and he is so laid back and sweet.  Total opposite of his sister.  She’s small and feisty, he’s bigger and sweet.  Maybeline gave birth a few weeks later.  Only one and she was wondering why she didn’t have two.  Little Siesta.  All she wanted to do was sleep.  They are all so cute.  Needless to say, Chili Boy has been banded and he’ll produce no more. 

Right in the middle of all of this, I held a disabilities conference and it went very well and was highly successful.  I’m thankful that it’s over though.  It is a lot more work than anyone can imagine.  At the same time, I launched a new web site for another advocacy group that I work with for an annual golf tournament.  Chalk two things off my personal list of things to do. 

Right in the middle of all of this my back had been giving me troubles, so back to my doctor I went.  Surgery is eminent, but not now.  I just have too much to do and I want to give science time to improve upon the surgery, so pain management and I get along very well.  This time though, I was sorely disappointed.  It wasn’t working and I was in great pain and getting worse by the hour and day.  My doctor suggested one more procedure and thankfully, it appears to have worked!  I know all of these procedures are temporary, but I’ll take all the time I can get and be very thankful for them!  Between the farm, family and all that I do, I don’t have time or the energy to let my back stand in my way.

My mother and father decided to come for a visit for a couple of weeks.  It was like sibling rivalry.  Divorced parents living together off and on (don’t ask!).  My father should be knighted for saint hood or locked up for insanity.  Not certain which yet.  My husband was a real hero.  He took my father fishing.  The first time he’d been since he was a kid.  He taught him to drive the tractor.  He’d not done that since childhood either.  They had a great time playing around together and my father is looking forward to more visits.  I think it would be better if they came separately though! 

There was no pleasing mom.  She was in a foul mood and badly needed to see her doctor.  I called her doctor, told her the situation and got her an appointment.  She left here still grumbling and about a week later she called me.  She said she had heard something odd.  When I asked what, she said it was the sound of laughter coming from her own voice.  Neither she nor I can remember the last time she laughed.  It’s been years.  I sat the stage where she couldn’t say no to the doctor when they wanted to increase her medication.  She spoke honestly with them and told them how she felt.  It was the only way she was going to get better and she was honestly tired of feeling miserable.  It’s good to see her happy again.  Let’s hope it lasts for a good while.

My daughter was to give birth this past weekend, and lo and behold, they had to take the baby two weeks early due to some complications with the baby not growing.  What a beautiful little baby girl though.  I think we’ll keep her!  A tiny little glow-worm she is, measuring in at only four pounds and six ounces.  My daughter called today after her three-week appointment to say that she now weighed in at a hefty five pounds, one ounce and had grown by an inch and a half.  She says all she wants to do is eat.  Well she has a lot of catching up to do!  We can’t wait to have them up on the farm and  have her old enough to enjoy the animals and the surroundings.

When we were looking at places to buy, my youngest daughter said, “This is the perfect Grandma and Grandpa house and this is where I want to bring my children when I get married and have children.”  That was five years ago.  She has since married, but not had children yet.

As I sat on my front porch swing last night, trying to catch my breath from the past few months gone by and drinking a glass of wine, I looked out upon one of my trees.  It’s the perfect climbing tree!  The type that when you are little, you can just get your foot up high enough and catch the crook of the tree to pull yourself up to the first level and then on up the next.  The thought of my grandchildren climbing that tree brought a smile to my face, a slight giggle and a bit of a tear.  Life was settling down again (although the weeds need to be pulled badly…….they’ll wait a day or two!) and it feels good to be home again.

Just about all of the snow geese have disappeared and been replaced with our birds that will build nest, such as our various wrens, blue jays and various others.  Some are already fighting over prime nesting spots and the bird houses near the garden.  They have plenty to build nest with this year, as the wind has knocked off plenty of small branches that we will surely miss picking up for the burn pile.

We do believe that we may be adding to our goat-herd, but not via purchase.  It appears that our smallest goat, Chili Boy, we never quite got around to, well, you know and our two female goats are now a bit pudgier about the mid section than our two other male goats that have been fixed.  I’ve got a feeling that come June and July, we’ll be expecting two other little kids to our farm.  This is just fine with us as we were looking at adding two more goats anyway, but purchasing them.  Guess we don’t have to worry about that any more.

Several things have happened on the farm and I’ve been so busy volunteering with advocacy that I’ve not had the time to blog.  We’ve lost several of our chickens and one of small female guinea’s.  We’ve also discovered that both of our peacocks are definitely males!  You should see them fan their feathers out and strut their stuff!  You’d think they have full tail feathers, but it can take up to 3-4 years for them to grow in.  I definitely understand where the term “shake your tail feathers” came from!  We will have to build an aviary this summer or we may lose the two of them as well.  Males have the tendency to go off looking for other females, of which we may have to get to keep them calm and they are easily sold as young ones.  So my husband is currently designing an aviary for our back lot.

We were quite worried there for a while.  I have a very bad back and it didn’t look good for a while, so that has also kept me down.  It’s looking good now and our hopes are high that everything will work out.  Just to make me feel better, Phillip bought me a Harlequin bunny.  cutest thing you ever saw!  We named it Puddles.  No idea if it is a girl or a boy, but Fizz and Chisai think it is their own personal play toy.  They give it a kissy bath every morning and every night and we have supervised bunny play time in the kitchen.  I have up baby gates, we all sit on the floor, the bunny plays with them and they play back.  It’s a real laugh!  Then we have Puddles cuddles time with me where the bunny just snuggles and then goes back to its cage.

No, never a dull moment around here and all in all, life is good.  Anyone have a good suggestion on rabbit hutches?

Lime Light Hydrangea

The snow is finally melting, turning from a solid mass of ice to nasty puddles, blackened chunks of dirty ice, where the snow plows have come through ( though some have melted into some very interesting and artistic shapes), and the grounds of Ash Hill Estate…………..very mushy!  You dare not go out without knee waders on. 

Green, although mostly weeds, are slowly starting to show some color.  The buds of my early spring flowers of various daffodils, crocus and hyacinth appear to made it through.  I even have buds forming on my magnolia tree and some green leaves sprouting on antique climbing roses.  I was so happy to awake the other morning and see beautiful Christmas Amaryllis was getting ready to bloom in my breakfast room area.  How cheery that will be when opens into its big and wonderful self.

The animals are much happier.  The peacocks and guineas have decided to make their way back out again and are roaming the grounds hunting for every little bug they can zap up.  We also have a new visitor to the front porch.  One of our Golden Comet hens  has decided that she wants to finish off the wet cat food that we give the kitties in the morning.  She doesn’t touch the dry food.  I’ve named  her Henny Penny, due to adventurous and she certainly isn’t afraid to stray from the flock.  This young lady is no “Chicken Little!”  The cats don’t bother her and it’s actually kind of nice to be greeted at the door or porch by a very friendly and beautiful chicken.  She’s very sweet.  Yes, if raised from birth chickens, like many other birds like to be handled——–with the exception of Ruffio ( a few blogs back)!

The goats are very happy.  They had been spending most of their time around the feeding trough and the goat coat, but now that the snow is disappearing, they are busy walking up their ramps of telephone poles and into the trees.  It’s good to see them having fun again too.

A few of our migrant birds returned a little early and were in a bit of a shock to see the snow.  The fields in front of our house are a major feeding ground for wild Canadian Goose.  They fly in by the thousand and are beautiful see.  I’m quite sure the farmer that leases the land doesn’t mind the droppings as fertilizer either.  They started landing last week upon a solid sheet of ice.  Not quite what they expected I suppose and started disappearing.  They are slowly coming back now and I expect to see many more.  The migrating black birds are showing up in the thousands as well.

Other animals are coming around.  I’m quite sure the deer were ready for the snow to be gone, as they were getting pretty hungry.  February brings out another furry creature as well.  Ever wonder why you see so many skunks on Valentine’s cards, it’s because it’s mating season.  They were a little late this year due to the huge snow amounts we received.  But they coming out now and soon, they will perfume the air, if not because of the mating, it will be because of trying to get to the other side of road.  We can honestly say why the skunk crossed the road; it was to get to or find a mate on the other side!  Unfortunately they meet the fate of an occasional round rubber object that is going a lot faster than it is, and we drivers are the cause of the instant perfuming of the air.  Not an easy smell to get rid of at all!

I’ll let you know when that first daffodil blooms.  I’m ready for Spring.  The very word brings a smile to  your face.  Spring!

I’ve been very busy inside the house, as that is what winter is really about, if you are at home.  It’s a time to work on all those inside projects.  I have a huge list of things that I want to get done before the warmth of spring takes me outside.  I work room by room.  I retouch paint or repaint all together, clean out closets, drawers, whatever.  Move the furniture and throughly clean under around and the furniture itself.  The whole room feels fresh and new when I’m finished with it.  One room can take 2 to 3 days depending on what I’m doing to it; especially if I’m repainting the whole thing.  My office alone has taken 2 days so far and I haven’t touched the paint yet; that was just going through paperwork.

Our animals are none too happy now.   We’ve put Gazebo on the enclosed side porch and keep it heated.  We’d let her in the house, but she’s a really old kitty, with thyroid problems and let’s just say she has really bad accidents.  Yuck!  She’s a sweetie though, so we take turns going out to pet her and let her know that she isn’t alone and forgotten.  It helps that my office has a French door to the enclosed porch, so I can close my other office door and let her in every now and again.

Fizz and  Chisai have decided that a blanket, next to the fireplace, in the library, is the place to be.  It’s totally enclosed, so no need to worry about them getting burnt or their blanket catching fire.  They are almost in a trance like state watching the flames as they fall to sleep in front of it.

The farm animals are none to impressed with all the snow!  The chickens and guineas didn’t want to come out for days and the goats stayed pretty close to their quarters as well.  Recently we’ve had some sunny days and the snow has melted somewhat, so they are starting to move about a bit more.

A couple of days ago, my mother called me to the window to look at the goats.  She said it appeared that two of them were outside the fence………………..they were.  Goat herding time.   There’s nothing like goat herding in the snow!

I went out and opened the large gate.  They followed me and then as soon as I turned around, they ran in the opposite direction!  Well, that didn’t work!  I walked back over to the feed storage bins and got a scoop of sweet feed……………..that was all it took.  I could have led those goats anywhere I wanted to, including the other three on the inside.  They followed me right through the gate and into an area far enough away that once I threw the sweet feed, I’d have plenty of time to get back and close the gate without them following me.  It worked very well.  I probably could have just picked up the scoop and lead them back with nothing in it, but if it ever happened again, they might not follow me the next time.  Besides, with all the snow on the ground, they are having to rely on the hay that we give them, as they can’t nibble on the grass on the ground.

I mentioned before about the cats and where they all kept position around the house, well we now have one of our Golden Comet hens that comes up every afternoon and hangs out on the front porch.  She’s a sweet hen and has discovered that, Niko, our front porch kitty, doesn’t always finish her wet kitty food and the hen absolutely loves it!  It’s nothing to walk by the front storm door and see a hen staring straight at you.  Rather comical really.  You can’t help but to smile.

Speaking of smiling; I was very excited to have made reservations for Phillip and I go to a local winery for dinner and dancing for Valentines weekend.  Unfortunately, due to mother nature taking a toll on the weather, the winery had to cancel the event and refund our money.  It’s not always easy to get away from the farm and we have to make plans when there are animals to be cared for and eggs to be collected.

Spring is around the corner.  Even as the snow starts to melt a bit, I can see the bulbs of daffodils and jonquils popping up, there is even some green grass poking its way through all that snow.  Phillip exclaimed that he saw a red chested robin just yesterday and as I sit here next to fire in the library writing this, I’m looking out the window and seeing snowflakes falling.  The sun of this afternoon has disappeared, clouds have rolled in and snow has taken the place of the suns rays.  It would seem that this year, winter came in like a lion and will roar out like one as well.

All in all, I can’t complain.  The snow is beautiful.  It covers the earth like a soft white fluffy blanket, though freezing cold, it provides the earth with a slow melting of water that replenishes and nourishes it.  The leafless trees against the cloudy sky show their true form and they are beautiful in a totally different way than when they are full of leaves. 

The stillness of the day, Fizz and Chisai sleeping next to the warm fire, the snow falling softly to the ground, soft music playing as I write.  It may be freezing outside, but I have many things to be thankful for.  It’s a beautiful day.

I work both parts of my life on a continual basis and it keeps me pretty busy.  This week I’ve been busy working on a charity golf tournament, making an appointment in DC to see a Congressman, participating in a reception for special education on Capital Hill and attending a press release for first ever iPhone application for an IEP checklist developed by the state advocacy information center of which I am the board secretary.  You can check it out at www.peatc.org and it’s free to download.  I’m also working on the second annual disability awareness conference being held nearby of which I am the chairperson.  My phone rings and the emails come in.  I’ve been doing this as long as I can remember.  It’s just what I do and always will.  If I can help someone, I will.

This being written, tomorrow I’ll be working from noon to midnight and the next day will be about the same.  We are hoping for a great meeting and great turn out for our press release.

If you ever need help for your children, every state has a Parent Resource Information Center and the information is free.  Just look it up.

Tomorrow the jeans come off and the business suit goes on!  Guess I better paint my nails too.  From the farm to the big city.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

If you don’t know a lot about goats, they love to climb!  Phillip has built them many things to climb upon and even up into the trees.  Some things we never thought about them climbing on though…………………….     Some of the corner posts have other posts  placed at an angle and nailed to them to keep them steady.  Maybeline quickly learned that if she walked up these posts, she could jump over the fence.  Cute, but not so good.  She then screams her head off because she isn’t with the rest of the goats until you get her back in.

Recently we had to replace one of the feeding containers because the top was knocked in and the container was completely bent out of shape.  We honestly thought our neighbors large German Shepard had done it, as we do see her now and then, but couldn’t be sure because we’d not seen her do it.  Then the other day, Phillip was rearranging the chicken coups, in the “Hot Wings Hotel”, that’s the name of our hen-house, when he heard a huge racket outside and against the hen-house.  Once outside, he found Maybeline on top of the outer fenced over part of the coup, trying to get out.  This explained a lot!  The chicken wire was bent in, the tops of the feeder bins were bent in……………………Maybeline had been using this to jump up on and then get out of and then when she wanted back in, she’d jump up on the feeder bins and then the fenced in part of the coup back into the fenced in area for the chickens and the goats.  Never let anyone tell you that a goat is stupid!  They are very smart animals.

Now we have to figure out a way to put up some type of contraption that will keep her down (probably run more electric fence along the top) so that she doesn’t jump up there and fall through the chicken wire and get hurt.  In the mean time, we’ve placed a piece of ply board on top, so that if she does jump there, she’s ok and we moved the feeder bins.

With all the animals on the farm, you never know what you might find next; eggs where they don’t belong, a peacock greeting you on top of your porch when you arrive home, a chicken or cat settling down in your favorite chair or a goat looking at you and swearing that they didn’t do it, nope it wasn’t them!  A cat bringing you a freshly killed mole to say, “Thank you for taking care of me or I love you.” 

Animals are a lot like children.  They even talk back and run from you when you are trying to get them screaming like you’re going to kill them!  But then again they are absolutely precious and most times very, very funny to watch and begging for your attention and they love you unconditionally.  One thing is for certain, they never fail to make you smile.

Phillip and I had two of those days in a roll and throughly enjoyed ourselves.  Sure we took care of the animals and did the work around the farm that had to be done, but we took two days to ourselves and just played!   We slept in and then spent the first day shopping.  We needed things from the tractor supply store, but we also needed some other little things here and there and just enjoyed the day looking around and being together. 

Yesterday we took a road trip to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  It was a gorgeous trip!  It had rained and sleet the night before, so all the trees were covered in ice.  With the sun shining through, it appeared as though you were traveling through a winter wonderland!  Absolutely breathtaking.

Getting away from the farm isn’t always easy, as there is always something that needs to be done, but sometimes you just have to take time for yourselves and that’s just what we did.  We did go up with a purpose though, I had searched for a kiln for my potting studio and found this place a while back.  Life and appointments were getting in the way of going up there during the sale and we finally just said, forget it and went.  It’s the perfect size for me, as I won’t have to wait until I have numerous things to fire before using it.  Of course being in the store, I had to buy all the other goodies that go along with it, but the kiln is refurbished, so I saved more than 70% of the original cost of new one.  That made me feel better.

I’ve not had as much time to work in the studio yet as I’d like to, but hopefully, come February and life settles down a bit, Mom goes back down to GA for a while, I’ll have some time to start playing with my clay again.

Today we have our farmer neighbor joining us for dinner.  Someone brought him a huge Rockfish and he asked if I could cook it.  I do love to cook and have a collection of well over 300 cookbooks, but I also love to cook with wild abandon.  I filet the fish and will pan sear it and serve it with a lemon and caper sauce, a potato casserole that will knock your socks off and sautéed winter vegetables.  For dessert, I still have blackberries that I froze from the summer, so I made a nice blackberry cobbler with crumble topping…………….ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Tomorrow brings reality and Phillip has to go back to work, but it was nice spending the weekend doing exactly what we wanted to do.  Here’s hoping you have a nice week.

I mentioned in my first post that my mother was a very interesting story.  Growing up, as I did, is a book or blog all to itself and I’d rather write about happier things.

Phillip and I’ve been married  for almost 32 years and have been together for 37 years.  Of those 32 years, my mother has lived with us off and on countless times.  She was diagnosed as Bipolar, with a borderline personality disorder and suffers from paranoia.  What a wonderful mix.  This showed up as postpartum depression, within a few months of my birth (without diagnosis) and continued to progress over the years, until she came to live with me after her second marriage and I had a choice of having her hospitalized or the state would do it for me.  I did it.  As a matter of fact, I did it three times before we finally got a diagnosis of exactly what was going on.  She was placed on various medications until they found one that worked.  It doesn’t work as great anymore, but she refuses to change and the doctors just prescribe her what she has always been on, so she continues to have problems and we continue to experience them with her.  It has not been fun playing mom to my mother since I was 21 years old.

About a year and a half ago my 2nd stepfather died of a sudden heart attack and about a month after that my mothers mobile home burned completely to the ground.  She had no insurance for either event and we had already prepared ourselves that she would be moving in with us, as my half-brother does not means or the capacity to care for her.  He suffers from some of the same disabilities plus others.  Not a very good mix when you add the two.

We needed a break and sent mom out to see her son as she loves that part of the country and it was a disastrous visit.  So much so, that she no longer wants hers and my last stepfathers ashes strewn across the area that she once did because she said she never wanted to go back to that part of the country again indicating the visit was so horrible and she now hates it.  Sad.

It’s a lot like living with “The Three Faces of Eve”, you never know who you will wake up to when you awake for the day.  Today will be a rough day as I did not go to the doctor with her this morning and she left an hour and a half before her appointment time.  I have run my legs off and need to get caught up on some volunteer stuff, so I stayed in bed this morning and got up after everyone had left.  Upon calling Phillip, I found out that she left at 0645 for an 0800 appointment.  She was afraid she was going to get lost.  It’s a 30 minute drive, the woman has a mind like an elephant, she’s in great shape and only 68 years old, but it will give her something to talk about the rest of the day.

I know I sound critical and I am, but “until you’ve walked a mile in someone elses shoes, you should never judge them” this is probably one of the best and  most exact quotes that pertains to peoples lives in general.  I try very hard not to judge other people, regardless of their circumstances, because I haven’t lived their lives and only know them for who they are now, not what made them the people they are today.

As a matter of fact, the reason that I haven’t blogged in a week is due to the fact that we now have our first grandchild on the way and I was visiting Christina and Michael for the first sonogram and assist with the “baby registry” items.  We literaly “wanded” our lives away with that UPC coder thingy!  I think the two of them are ready “ item wise”, but they will soon find out, if they are ready “parent wise” around the end of May or beginning of June.

Phillip did not grow up with any sisters.  He had two other brothers.  With both of us coming from broken homes, we didn’t have the best role models to follow, but perhaps that was a good thing.  We learned “what not to do” when raising a child.  When Christina was born and there were no instructions written on her heel or attached to her ankle, we were quite certain we had our work cut out for us.  Kimberly will undoubtedly say I am absolutely correct in this statement, but each child is different and perfect, dispite their faults or those that teach them, by mistake of course!

My motto to the girls was that “If you should turn out wrong, don’t blame me.  I’m doing the best job I can with the knowledge I have” and I stuck to that motto.  All-in-all, I think we did a pretty good job.

When the girls were little, Phillip taught the girls that all boys were, well, “YUCKY!”, except for Daddy because he didn’t count.  As they got older and started asking to bring boys to the house to meet us, because that was always one of the rules, he would introduce himself and then introduce the guys to the gun cabinet identifying exactly which gun was going to take them down, should they lay one hand on his daughter or harm them in any way.  I stood beside Phillip 100%.   Worked pretty well!

Of course as they grew even older in high school and into college, we told the girls that it was much different living with someone than it was dating them and if they truly fell in love, to try living with the man of their dreams first.  Unconventional wisdom at its finest.  Both girls followed along with this plan.  Kimberly feel madly in love with someone that we honestly thought she was going to marry.  They lived together for a good while and even moved twice.  That is a huge strain on a relationship, especially while she was still in college and flying back and forth to see us in Japan and then they broke up.  Her call.  Kimberly dated quite a few guys looking for her prince, but only lived with two.  She feel in love with Christopher while she was still in college, they bought a home together, she graduated and they have been married since November of 2008.

Christina on the other hand, dated two guys, one in junior high that robbed our house.  Phillip didn’t have the opportunity to shoot him because he was away at a school, but Christina slapped him so hard, it was the slap heard round the world!  She was so hurt and felt terrible that we had been violated.  The second guy she feel in love with, she met in the 9th grade, while stationed in Japan.  His parents were in the Army.  We left before they did and Christina and Michael had a long distance relationship for two years.  She moved to the west coast after high school graduation and they went to college together, got an apartment and stayed there for several years.  She worked her way up through the financial industry and was promoted to assistant manager, but the offer was in Atlanta, GA.  The company moved them and they bought their first home together.  They got married after 14 years of courting on 070707 at 070707 PM in our front yard.  They are the ones expecting the baby later this spring.  At least one thing was conventional about the relationship.

As we were “wanding” for baby items the other day, Christina came across the cutest pair of little rubber boots with frogs on them and she commented that she could just see her little one running across the farm in those boots after the chickens and goats and all the other furry creatures. 

Life comes full circle with your children and all you ever really want for them is health and happiness, money is just a plus……………..but you can be just as happy as long as you fully enjoy and love what you have.  Life is good.

Fresh Vegetables

I have great neighbors.  Not many people can really say that these days.  We watch after each others houses when ever the other is away.  I’m especially lucky that my next door neighbor looks after all of animals when were away, so that we can get away and not worry.  I grow a vegetable garden every year, as does my next door neighbor.   My neighbor down the road is a farmer that grows produce for the local restaurants, so we are especially thankful for his extra bounty.  We all trade this for that and when ever we make something we always share.

It’s just the two of us, next door is a husband and wife and the farmer is widowed.  At times we get together for a meal together and divide up the leftovers so that everyone has something to take home and doesn’t have to cook for a day or two.

I’m forever giving away dozens of eggs to them, the farmer brings me freshly cooked cinnamon apples.  They are so good and you can bet that I will send that bowl home with freshly made beef stew and another bowl of rice or something easily reheated and probably a dozen eggs.  My next door neighbor will bring me chow-chow or something she’s canned or baked.  It’s hard to bake for two people, so we always divide it among us and she’ll go home with a dozen eggs.  The eggs my chickens produce cost over $3 a dozen in the market and they don’t have to worry about buying them anymore.

This is on top of the ones that Phillip takes into work.  All that we ask of the people at work is to please return the cartons for more eggs and they are prompt about that.  I don’t mind.  It makes us feel good that we can do something good for others and every little bit helps.

I’ve been getting new seed catalogs in the mail all this month.  These people do this on purpose.  They make you want to start planning your garden, dog earring your pages, figuring out what you’re going to plant and start you planting calendar.  Your fingers just start itching!  Which reminds me, the farmer down the road has two plots across the road and he always gives us fresh asparagus.  There is nothing better in the world than fresh asparagus.  I’ve got to grow something this year that he will really like in order to trade with him.  I grow some of the biggest black berries you’ve ever seen.  They are sweet and at least as big as your thumb on a thornless vine.  He loves the berries and pies, but I’ve got to come up with something else too……………………it’s the nice thing to do.

So remember the next time someone gives something to you, never return an empty container, it’s the nice thing to do.