accomplished children

   We all need to stop sometimes and look at our children with a critical eye.  Not to criticize, but to see the wonderful people they are and the special things they do, which we sometime lose track of in the busy lives we lead.
    My youngest studies karate.  His dojo is very strict about testing and the frequency of it.  He cannot earn a black belt as a child, only a red belt, which is the youth equivalent.  When he turns 15 he may  study as an adult, but he  will only be considered an adult green belt, so he will still need to earn brown and black as an adult.  He loves karate.  He earned his purple belt in Dec. or January - so  long ago I forget, and although I was very proud of him, I never mentioned it. Here is a photo of him after being awarded the belt, standing with his fellow purple belts in front of the  photos of the many black belts, as well as his sensei and Master Demura.

    My daughter made her college acting debut in a production of The Vagina Monologues this February.  I drove out to her college to see her in a show I, myself, had performed in some years ago.   I was very proud of her and the work she did. 

    My eldest started a new day program, twice a week, going out into new places, trying new things - last week he went to a fish hatchery,  this week a factory that makes goal posts, and to and art class to work in clay.  new places, new faces - not always easy, but he is doing really well.

     In the greater scheme of life, these may seem small, but the courage, dedication, and focus these undertakings require is not a little thing at all.  We cannot forget how wonderful our children are,  all children,  and honor them with our attention and praise.

Amazing normality

   Sometimes, when you have a child with a disability, or on the Autistic Spectrum, you get used to things the way they are and forget how far  this person may have come in one area or another of their life.  My son was very unsteady as a toddler.  He was able to  walk, run, etc., but swinging  meant  dangling over the seat, or using a swing with a back on it.  The act of stopping after running usually involved  bumping into something.
    He has grown into a young man. Tall and lithe, his balance has not been an issue in so many years, that I often forget it ever was.  Last week,  I watched him at his riding lesson.  I had not been to his lessons in a while, as I work late on that day, most weeks.  I watched my son sitting straight and tall on a huge horse (part Percheron, part something else).   Then, as he cantered around the ring, I was lucky enough to watch them jump.  Not a  really high jump like you'd see in the Olympics, but two rails, so not a walk over either.  He raised up, leaned forward followed the horse's  momentum.  Beautiful
     I was amazed and very proud of him.  This man, who could not stay upright on a swing is now able to canter and jump.  Sometimes it takes some time away to realize just how far he has come.

Late Winter on the Farm

    Spring break from the college  corresponded well with warmer weather at the farm.  This week has been a flurry of mucking stalls, having sheep sheared, vaccinating ewes, and planning the new barn.
Lots to do - and  a week seems very short.
     The lambs are due to be born in about 3-4 weeks - or more.  Last year we had one set born two weeks after the other.  With all seven ewes pregnant, we are anticipating being a bit busier than last season.  On top of this, we have a musical that my husband is directing and I am designing - which opens the third week in April - just in time to be on top of the lambing.
     We were aided  in some of this by one of our students - a dear woman who helped with mucking and  shearing day, as well as cutting brush out of a stand of apple trees.  A true friend!

      The shearer came on Wednesday, and we have 10 more fleeces to process.  I am looking at a commercial mill to process some of them this year.

Before

After

    We are talking about the new barn being 30' x 50'  with a smaller upper loft for hay and storage.  If all goes well, the main structure should be up before school lets out.  With the ewes all pregnant, we will need more "sheep storage" - places to separate the lambs and ewes at weaning time, as well as  a place for rams away from the ewes.  As with most things, the devil's in the details, and the electric and water need to be figured out, but it will happen.  

     More mundane things like spreading manure, giving the tractor a once over, and washing and carding wool have eaten up a fair amount of this week.  But it needed to be done and we were very lucky the weather made it pleasant.

We Have A Month to Find Names

     The lambs should start arriving in  just over a month.  In the meantime, we have a big task ahead of us - finding names!  As anyone who has read The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit knows, there are few actual female characters.  You have to dig into the appendices for the genealogies to learn the names of folks like Rosie Cotton's mother (Lily Brown), or Frodo's grandmother (Ruby Bolger).   Well, a lovely person has done us a wonderful turn by listing most of the females from the Lord of the Rings/Hobbit on their website - including the ones only found in the genealogies!  Women of Middle-earth has  so many helpful names - like Theodwyn - sister to Theoden, King of the Rohirrim, and even the mother of Shelob, Ungoliant! (Not that I will be naming a sweet lamb after a spider-like eater of darkness - but still she is thorough!)
     However, dear friends, if you have your  copies of Farmer Giles of Hamm,  or The Smith of Wootton Major (mine are buried somewhere in a bookshelf)  please feel free to send any female name suggestions.  With seven ewes pregnant, (two of them having given us five lambs between them last year)  we may need every name on the list!

pregnant wooly beasts!

Winter in a Weekend

    You might say winter finally tried to find us this weekend.  No real snow to speak of, but an Arctic Clipper out of Canada descended making Friday, Saturday, and Sunday pretty darn cold.  We were in the teens to twenties below zero Saturday night.   In my experience, cold, after a certain temperature, is just cold.  Whether it is 15 below or 25 below, it is just too cold for normal functioning.  You have to put on several layers of clothing and outerwear, and just get chores done  efficiently.  Or try to. We have discovered that after a certain point, even the electric heated buckets in the barn will ice over. Last night, it was still about 0 - 5 below when we did evening chores, and I noticed that the heated buckets had started icing within a few minutes of the new water being poured in.  Hmm...  Three eggs were frozen and cracked in the  nesting boxes yesterday morning, meaning some lucky raccoon would find where my husband pitched them into the pasture and have a nice feast.
     All this will end today, as it reaches for 23 degrees, and tomorrow when it is supposed to hit the forties and  give us rain.   So, this warm, un-snowy winter, tried to show its face for a moment, but now we are back to just wishing for the winter that never was.

Massage and a Float: We Tried to Relax...

    For Christmas, my husband and children gave me/us an overnight at a B&B along with a massage and float session at a spa in New Paltz, NY.  We went  on a Monday/Tuesday, so we avoided the weekend crowds at the B&B.  Overall, it was lovely.
     We started at Mountain Float Spa  and discovered what lovely people Joey and Grace (the proprietors) are.  My husband had floated years ago while training in Southern California,  but I had not. He scheduled himself for a 90 minute float, and me for a 60 minute float and a 60 minute massage.  He thought I might actually be able to relax and turn off a bit if I were floating in water mixed with 800 lbs. of Epsom Salt.  Apparently not.
     The float tank was nice, but I spent too  much time analyzing the experience.  I could have used slightly warmer water and air temperatures, and maybe no earplugs.  Maybe if I had an audiobook to listen to at the same time...  Too much to think about.  After rinsing off all the salt, I went to the massage - an hour of pure bliss.  For me a massage is the only way to truly relax.  I told the massage therapist that I was mainly holding tension in the triangle of my neck and shoulders.  When she had completed the session, I thanked her and told her I felt much better, and she looked at me and said, "You don't just hold tension in your shoulders.  You are really tense all over."  I thought it was funny, as that is what my husband is always telling me, and now there was professional confirmation.
     Back at the B&B, The 1850 House, we discovered we were the only patrons, so we had the place to ourselves, and our own private chef for the morning.  The  place was gorgeous, completely restored, with beautiful original woodwork, statuary, a sun porch, and a wonderful staff.

I adore that statue!

   After a fabulous meal the next morning, we wandered around trying to find the entrance to the path leading to the old trestle which was now part of a walking path.  We found one end, but no parking anywhere nearby, so we opted on exploring a park in town.  We hiked up a mountain and  got shot from above the bridge, and after our trek, drove out of town and as we were leaving, saw the entrance to the path...

We found an old car that had been dumped - but for the life of me, we could not figure out how it got to the place it lay.  We poked about, playing amateur archeologists, trying to find markings to determine what make the car was, but no success.  It's a mystery!

     

We needed to replace that fence.

    Fall semester had been a busy and stressful one at work.  We had decided to try to slow down during our winter break and actually try to relax.  This, of course, could not start until AFTER Christmas because I was working and giving exams right through until Christmas Eve.   So December 26 we were sitting around the table, eating breakfast, and the doorbell rang.  One of our tenants was there to tell us our llama had escaped and was visiting the neighbors, because apparently someone had driven through our  pasture fence.  Actually, "driven through" is not the correct phrase - they took out half of the fencing along the road and  then continued through the pasture to take out more fencing perpendicular to the road.
     Grabbing coats, boots, etc, we raced down to the farm to see a bunch of people there: one of the tenants,  the father and son who live next to the farm,  a farmer who lives down the road,  and a complete stranger who had  the llama back in the pasture and eating grain out of a bucket.  The fence was just a tangle of wire and pulled out posts, the tire tracks ran through the field, across the driveway, and across the front lawn of the house, and pieces of the offending vehicle were  sprinkled across the grass. The well head had the paint scraped off of it by the vehicle's tires, but was not cracked - so we were lucky in that.

We were lucky he did not  damage the gate.

We called the police, and the State Troopers came right out.  A couple of really sweet guys, they spent several hours looking in parking lots, in the trailer parks, as well as going to the auto parts stores to see if any silver vehicle had come in  needing part of the  undercarriage and the passenger side mirror replaced.  We knew from the parts that it was American made,  and I had found  paint chips across the grass so we had been able to narrow the search field, but they told us not to expect much.  

      We  started the work of  cleaning up all the ripped up wire,  pulling out the cracked fence posts and gathering the metal ones that had been bent. 

We were very lucky because around here, the two days after Christmas were warm enough that the ground had not frozen, so we were able to replace the fence posts without trying to dig through frozen ground.  We were also very lucky in our neighbors.  The young boy next door spent most of Dec. 26 helping us replace the posts.  Digging fence posts in rocky soil is no treat, and the three of us kept shifting through using the post hole digger, and smashing or prying out larger rocks with a very large metal pole. 

    The police stopped by three times to update the progress of the search - no luck.  Then about 3 pm or so, we see one of  "our" troopers racing down the road, light flashing, and bam!  He got him!  The guy who had caused the damage drove by, in the damaged minivan, and the police had luckily been sitting in a nearby driveway interviewing neighbors when they saw him.    

    An hour or two later, the owner of the vehicle stopped by to explain what happened.  He had fallen asleep at the wheel Christmas night, ran through the fence with three of his kids in the car.  He knocked on the door, but the tenants were at their folks homes, so  he took his very upset children home.  Discussions for reparations were had, and the  work continued.

     It took us two and a half days, and the 27th it rained ALL DAY, so it was nasty, muddy, wet work, but we replaced the sections that had been destroyed and were able to let the llama out in the  pasture after two days of being cooped up in the barn with the sheep.   The third day, it got very cold and windy.  Again, we were lucky - trying to stretch a fence in that would have been much more uncomfortable.  We  spent much of the third day running new electrics and went home, tired but  assured that the animals would be safe. 

not perfect, but pretty good

fairly straight fence.

We were very lucky in this entire incident - it could have been much worse all around.  People, animals, the house and the barn all escaped injury.  Our kids were fantastic - running to McDonald's to grab lunch for us the first day.   When we came home frozen and wet the second night - we had been working by flashlight and headlights to finish stretching and clipping all the fencing the second night - our children and our daughter's boyfriend just made us dinner, brought it out to the living room where we were sitting in front of the fire trying to warm up.  When we finished and had fallen asleep  with the dishes still in our hands, they just took them away and covered us with blankets.

     I am hoping 2016 is a gentler year at the farm!