You are beautiful!

    I can't keep quiet anymore.  I recently read a friend's post about how she might wear a sleeveless shirt this summer despite her "arm issues."  I hear my students saying how they are too fat,  too short, hate their skin, etc.  You are beautiful.  If we all looked the same, how boring this world would be?   Who has the right to tell you what you should look like?
    I know there are things we may all want to change - I would like to lose a few pounds.  So I'll lay off the ice cream for a bit and walk the dogs or  work  on more fencing at the farm - exercise and less calories, and I can achieve the change I seek.  But you know what, even at my current weight - I am beautiful.
     I teach a Stage Makeup class, and since my students must look in the mirror for every class, we begin the semester by looking at ourselves and repeating, "There is nothing wrong with my face."  Any time they whine about, "I hate my nose, (chin, skin, forehead - add the appropriate facial feature) I tell them to repeat it again - there is nothing wrong with  my face. If I say something negative about myself - usually my "bad hair days", they will throw it back to me - there is nothing wrong with your hair!  The best thing that happened this term was when one of those students had her photo on the campus web site and someone asked about the photo, which was not complimentary  She replied that she had no idea why they used that photo, "because it is a bad  picture, and I AM PRETTY!"   What a victory to hear a young woman say that and mean it!
     I constantly see photos of pathetic celebrity women who have bought into the Hollywood ideal that to be successful you must be young and wrinkle free.  They have  destroyed their natural beauty with plastic surgery, Botox, and silicone injections, and they look sad and unnatural.  What a shame.
     Embrace each wrinkle - they say, "I have smiled a lot.  Squinted on a sunny day.  Worried about someone.  LIVED."
     You are beautiful.  Believe it.

Babies at the farm

    The delivery of the lambs from two ewes has doubled our flock.  We are now the proud caretakers of ten sheep, (and thinking we were quite right in not breeding our third ewe).  Maxine gave us twins, and last Wednesday, Arwen dropped triplets, as we suspected.  The twins are male and female.  Thankfully, the triplets are all ewes!  The idea of culling our first babies was hard to swallow, but no farm needs a lot of rams. The trick with the trips is that they are white like their mom and dad.  Pippin has one defining mark - a small black dot on her hip.  Merry and Galadriel are both white - just white.  I am hoping one develops a slightly dustier looking nose or something allowing us to identify her without having to read her ear tags.
     Yesterday, we let the lambs and mamas out on the pasture for a bit - they loved it.

first steps outside the barn

I have an oak leaf!

      A few of neighbors stopped by to see the lambs, and Ted, an old shepherd himself, warned us to watch out for the eagles.  This had never occurred to me.  We have at least one mating pair of bald eagles living near by.  Ted said he has always been more worried about the eagles stealing his lambs than the coyotes.  We know the llama will help stave off a coyote insurgence, but what would he do with an aerial attack?

Time to rest for the 3 day old lambs

The big kids on the block playing King of the Hill.

      Babies on the farm come in all shapes and colours, including the new chicks.  We had our youngest go to pick out half a dozen new chicks (pullets all - NO MORE ROOSTERS!) and they are now in the basement in their brooder.

So Spring is happening as it should on a farm - new arrivals, some plowing, some planting and hopes for the right amounts of sun and rain.  As our friend, Ted, said when he saw the lambs, "You're in it for real now."