Winter Farm Fashions

The last few nights, while it's been face-freezing frigid, we've been outfitting the chickens with legwarmers and the pigs love their new muffs. They're boys, but they're confident in their masculinity so they have no problem sliding their front hooves into those furry fist warmers. Muffs were always my favorite winter gear when I was little and living on Lake Erie. I had my round fur Russian hat and matching furry muff to ward off that dreaded "lake effect." Oh, how I loved my muff.

The chickens struggle a bit with their ear muffs, since they're still caught up in the debate over whether chickens actually have ears, but nobody's complaining about their brightly patterned scarves. In fact, I caught the girls clucking merrily in the chicken yard, comparing the stitchery of each other's scarves. There may have been a little bit of preening going on.

Gertie the Goat won't sit still long enough for us to properly fit her pea coat, but she's always been a bit high maintenance.

Anyway, didn't want you to worry about the farm critters. They're getting through the cold nights OK.

(In actuality, we threw lots of extra insulating straw into the pigs' bed area and turned the heat lamp on in the chicken coop. Let's face it, we can't go putting legwarmers on the chickens. That'd be weird. Still, everyone's staying warm. That's what counts.)

Love from the farm,
Teri

Psssst....

I started this post a couple weeks ago, then had to take a kid to the hospital, take overnight follow up trips to specialists, decide to homeschool kids to get everyone well, research how to homeschool, stay up nights wondering how the heck I would homeschool, oversleep, research some more, take a lunch meeting with a homeschooling mom, go to the library, go talk to the school counselors, sit at home eating chocolate chips while researching homeschooling some more....

...and I just remembered I'd never finished this riveting post. So I did finish it. But for some reason when I posted it, it posted it to the original draft date, which means Blogger won't send subscribers an email letting them know the post is new and available. And I really want feedback on this post, so I'm putting this post on here so Blogger will send subscribers a note and maybe you'll go ahead and take a look at this post after all.

Thank you.

Love from the farm...and bootless (if you'll read this post that will make sense),
Teri

(By the way, same thing happened to this other post several months ago and I don't think anyone read it. Seriously, there were crickets chirping and tumbleweeds rolling around that one last time I checked. If you have time, take a look at it, too. But take your umbrella. And you might need boots, too, which brings us back to the post I was talking about up there.)

Trivia From the Farm

Here are a few bits of trivia from the farm tonight:

• We were in short sleeves for several days in a row. Today awoke grey and blustery. It's now less than 10 degrees. I'm wearing socks and my toes are still cold. I'm not sure our wood pile is going to outlast the cold this year.
• Three of my kids are presently gathered around the table reading animal trivia to each other in some contrived little game, with Adam as the moderator, beeping out the key words that would give away the answer. What will these kids do without Adam when he leaves us in the very near future for 2 whole years?
• Adam will be leaving us in the very near future for 2 whole years. In just days we will learn where in the world he will be serving his mission for the LDS church. Those clean-cut boys in white shirts and ties, always smiling, riding bikes, and knocking on doors? And having doors slammed in their faces? Yep, he'll be one of those.
• I'm hoping my good karma will shower down on him during his mission. See, one day, we were driving down the road on our way to somewhere that we had to be by a certain time, when I saw 2 young missionaries riding their bike down the sidewalk. Did I mention it was 112 degrees in the middle of the afternoon in the Valley of the Sun? And that those boys were sweltering? I asked Mike to please pull over at the next Circle K so we could grab some cold water for the boys, then turn around and find them 1/2 mile back down the road and hand it off to them in the middle of what was typical crazy, impatient metropolitan traffic. Mike was just a tad irritated with my pleading for him to undertake this little project until I said, "That's going to be Adam in five years. I have to hope someone would do it for our son when he's out there on the street five years from now."
• It's already been 5 years. How could it already be 5 years?
• Right now, my littlest girl is tackling a big, messy kitchen all by herself, because she needs to learn a lesson. I hate when they need to learn a lesson. I can't stand that awful feeling inside when you want to jump in and say, "Never mind, never mind, it's OK. You can stop. I forgive you, we'll start again tomorrow." But instead, you have to stand firm so the lesson is really and truly learned. And you hate it, hate it, hate it. Because you love them so much more than they can possibly know and you never like to see them well and truly upset, but you know it really is an important lesson and their characters need shoring up, but it just feels awful. This part of parenting is no fun. No fun at all. And she'll be fine, and she knows I love her. But I don't think she'll ever know how much I want to go pull her out of the kitchen and snuggle on the couch and watch a movie and kiss her forehead over and over and over, and let the dishes get a little crustier over night. Oh my, this mom thing can be the pits in these little, ordinary ways.
• Earlier this evening I finished a huge project that's been weighing on me, literally, for years. I have carried fear and worry over this looming project for a very long time. I'm looking forward to waking up tomorrow with it off my shoulders and seeing how my days will progress without that anvil I've been dragging around for far too long shadowing my plans and coloring my joy in the day.
• Hey, my sweet girl just walked in with a big grin and laid the following on me: "Mom, I've made a pledge to finish the kitchen tonight. And if I do, can I stay up all night playing on the computer and just fall asleep in the morning when everyone else is waking up?" I made a bargain that while I wouldn't let her stay up all night, I would let her have the computer when she wakes up for a whole hour. She left with her grin firmly in place.
• As much of a relief as it is to have that monstrous project off my back, the relief I feel at seeing that spunky little grin heading back into the kitchen is far greater. Ahhh, bliss.

Love from the farm,
Teri