Mothering Magic

At church today, our pastor remarked that this holiday should be called "Mothering Day" because not every woman is a mother in the literal sense, but most of us females find ourselves mothering creatures of one kind or another. Whether they have two legs or four, whether they're covered with hair, fur, feathers or scales, we girls just can't help nurturing little living things. And that is something to celebrate! Without all this mothering going on, our world would be a heartless place indeed.

The highlight of my Mothering Day was watching this little Bantam hen with her new chicks. It was mothering at its finest!

Here's hoping you've had a Mothering Day that made you smile!

What a Difference the Weather Makes

After last week's big snow, I made it up to the Guest House with my camera before anything changed Mother Nature's handiwork. Give her a foot or more of snow and some hefty winds and just look at what she can do!

The basement entrance usually looks like this:

After the big snow, it looked like this:

And my little flower bed that started out like this last June:

...looked like this:

As long as you can navigate a couple of steps, getting into the back porch is usually no problem.

Last Thursday, however, was a different story.

Painting the roof on a hot summer day was stifling work.

It wouldn't be now, if you could get to it.

The view of the front yard changed quite a bit, from this...

...to this.

The house that looks so friendly in the warmer months...

...looked a bit lonely after the wind scoured the west side of the yard, leaving it bare

despite 13 inches of snow.

Right now, in the depths of winter's cold, we often find ourselves wishing for summer's warmth. And you know that when those sweltering days of summer arrive, we'll be wishing we had a brisk winter wind to cool things off. Right now it's hard to imagine mowing the yard in shirt sleeves, with sweat dripping from my brow, but when summer comes again it will be hard to imagine all this cold and snow. In another month, there will be a warm breeze sneaking around the eaves. A month after that green grass will be starting to show, and a month after that, we can start to plant gardens, maybe. This changing of the seasons never ceases to amaze me, and I'm glad to live where I can experience the glories and challenges of all four. God's timing is pretty sweet, bringing in a new season just when I'm getting tired of the present one. Although sometimes it seems that winter will last forever, it won't, and neither will the winters of our souls. When life is hard and all seems cold and difficult, we do well to learn from Mother Nature. Be it early or late or right on time, spring always comes.

Just Us Girls

It's just us girls at home today. Leah is "in a bad way" and can't go to the farm with the boys for another week. The puppies were fun, and I'm so glad we had them, but no more for a while, please.

Leah is surprisingly patient with the whole thing. Mostly she sleeps. She gets restless sometimes and barks a little. Maybe her tummy hurts. For the most part, though, she just waits it out.

This morning, after our walk, we played ball in the sunshine. Leah loves to play ball and will play endlessly if she has a willing partner.

Cheyenne loves to play, too. She is better at the fetching part than Leah and brings the ball right back to me for another throw.

Leah brings it within about three feet, then snaps at it until I walk over and throw or kick it again.

But Leah really gets into nabbing the ball. She shakes it so hard it's a wonder she doesn't hurt herself! And she'll do it over and over again as long as I'm willing to play. The following photos took place within about two seconds...or less!

I'm thinking there are some lessons for me here. This 50-something season of life I'm in has me bewildered. Some days I think it will just about to do me in. And it's doubling frustrating that I don't get any choice about going through it and there's not a whole lot I can do to change it. Kind of like Leah in her season. Maybe I need to follow her example:

Get plenty of exercise,

get plenty of rest,

 use plenty of patience,

and approach life with gusto!

And remember that this, too, shall pass.

It's A Mystery!

Back at Christmastime 2011, Robin tried his hand at decorating. I don't think he grew up with too much in the way of holiday decorations, but he gave it a shot. A mile and a half from our house, where Davis Run Road intersects Bullpasture River Road, he placed a Christmas wreath of his own design on an old fence post. He started with barbed wire looped into a wreath and then added the cow's skull. He graciously accepted my suggestion of a red bow; never mind that he didn't put it where I thought it should go.

After Christmas, he removed the bow, but left the wreath to grace the entrance to Davis Run all year long. We got used to it being there and didn't see it most of the time. But a few months ago, the wreath mysteriously began to take on a new life...without any help from us!

First it was the antlers. Robin came in one day and said someone had added a set of deer antlers to the skull. They made it look rather odd, but unique nevertheless. Weeks went by and no one admitted to the antlers. After a good long while a hat, complete with jaunty feather, graced  the skull, and a long while after that, sunglasses appeared. It's been quite puzzling to us as to who is responsible for all this creativity! There was even a change of wardrobe when the blue bandanna handkerchief was replaced by a fresh, clean red one. And let's see, now we have a bit, a cow's tail, and as of today, toy pistols in a gun belt!

It's really quite a mystery, especially since Robin is out and about all hours of the day (and sometimes, night). The entrance to the farm where he works is withing spittin' distance of this fence post, but he's never seen anyone near it.

We've mulled over lots of possible candidates for this little bit of country fun, but so far have not been able to settle definitively on anyone.

We've ruled out a few folks, and I know who I think it is. Robin's not so sure, though. In the end, maybe  I don't want to know. It's fun watching to see what will appear next! And, some of life's sweetest treasures are in the not knowing: Who sent the Valentine? Who left the flower on my desk? Who is decking out our humble Christmas skull wreath?? If you know who, don't tell us! Not yet, anyway. We're having too much fun watching the mystery unfold.

Porches

At long last, I'm cleaning my screened porch for the summer season. You might be thinking I'm a bit behind in this springtime chore, but things got in the way. First, I always have to wait for the trees that surround our house (acres of them) to finish or at least nearly finish putting out pollen. If I clean the porch too soon, it just gets covered in the yellow fuzzy dust all over again and my work is in vain. The trees were late this year.

Dirty

Clean

 Then, I was waiting on my husband to "Jomax" the house. If you've never tried Jomax on your vinyl siding, you must. Mix it with bleach and water according to the directions and spray it on with a garden sprayer. Then wash off with a pressure washer or garden hose with good pressure. The first year we used it, our siding hadn't been cleaned since we put it on the house. Robin had to scrub some spots, especially in the back, above the screened porch. That side of the house faces the north and doesn't get much sun. Consequently it was almost black with mold. Thank goodness no one ever sees it! Jomax came to the rescue and wah-la! Our siding looked like new and the house almost glowed. Now we use Jomax every spring, and no more scrubbing is needed. Anyway, Robin didn't want to Jomax until his brother got our roof painted. So, we had to wait on brother John to get around to us, which he finally did late last week. He finished up Monday, and Robin tackled the Jomax job that same evening.

Monday was a rare sunny day here, so bright and kind of early, I started cleaning the porch in anticipation of the painting and Jomaxing being completed by evening. This year, the porch floor needs a fresh coat of water-resistant stain and my plan was to push all the furniture to one end and have the other two thirds ready for stain early Tuesday morning. I did my part and got all the cleaning done, but yesterday dawned dark and cloudy and it rained almost all day. Not a good day for applying the stain, according to the instructions on the can. So, I went to plan B for yesterday, hoping for better weather today.

This part is NOT clean yet.

I did get the stain on this morning: the temperature was perfect and a mix of clouds and sun kept the porch from getting too hot. We did have a couple of showers, but no rain blew in on my newly treated floor, thank goodness. Now I have to let it dry for 24-48 hours before I can move the furniture and clean and stain the other end, which I hope to finish up on Saturday, at the latest.

Alas, it will be Sunday at best before my lovely porch is clean and ready for summer living. I can't wait to plop down out there with a good book! We enjoy eating our meals there, too, from the time I get it clean in the spring until well into September. In fact, we usually can't wait until the porch is clean. As soon as the weather is warm enough, I clean the pollen off the table and two chairs, and sweep a path from the door to the table. We've discovered our food tastes just as good amid all the dirt! Here are some pictures the clean and furnished porch from last year. I had a "porch" post all written in my head back then, but it became another one of the many posts that never make it from my brain to the computer.

We have a nice front porch, too, but it isn't screened and it gets the hot afternoon and evening sun. It's great for flowers, but not so good for sitting unless it's really early in the morning on a day when the bugs sleep in. (Whatever it is about humans that biting insects love, I have a lot of it!) How about your house? Do you have porches? Do you sit on them? Or have you closed them in to create needed and/or more useful space?

It seems that our 21st century society has lost the art of porch-sitting, by and large. Folks, myself included, have a hard time making time to relax on the porch. There are some chores that can be done there, such as shelling peas or stinging beans. But taking time to just sit and rest is hard to do in this day and time. It seems that when I was a kid, the grownups sat on the porch most summer evenings after supper, at least for a little while. They didn't park in front of the TV, but instead took a favorite seat on the porch to rest, or maybe visit with a neighbor who dropped by. I remember being one of a gang of kids playing hide-and-go-seek until it was too dark to see while the grownups worked through the cares of the day with laughter and good conversation.

I enjoy looking at houses when I'm out and about. I find I always prefer those with porches over those without them. Porches make a house cozier, acting as a buffer between the whims and chaos of the world and the familiar stability of home. Porches are places where I can have some indoor comforts while I relish in the great outdoors. Porches say, "You are welcome here! Come sit a while!" Porches are great places to share a glass of iced tea and a have a good talk. When folks leave our porch, I hope they go with a sweet memory or two that will bring a bit of comfort someday. I'm always looking for a reason to spend time on my screened porch. Now that I have a laptop and a new wireless router, maybe I can write my next blog post...on the porch!