Christmas mantles.

Mercury glass candlesticks, frosted grapes, white roses and soft, fragrant Canaan Fir.

Yesterday I promised to share pictures of Cowfeathers as it gets decked out for Christmas!

Middlest and I decorated mantles over the weekend. Three of the 6 in the house. The two upstairs are out of my purview. (One in each of the kid-rooms, I can barely even walk past let alone venture forth. And with the mess, who could tell anything was decorated atall?)

But we had fun with the living room, dining room and kitchen mantles. Still to be done is the study- called "the redroom" even though it hasn't been red for years.

In the kitchen, a room where I spent a lot of time putzing around, I placed a wreath of peacock feathers, because it is pretty and makes me happy. A mixed balsam and pine garland smells wonderful!

 

And in the dining room, the mantle that gets the stockings, silver reindeer-pulled sleighs are surrounded by colorful balls and striped candy sticks. Youngest hasn't eaten them yet!

 

Fall has fallen away!

Fall has fallen away, and "The Holiday Season" has begun. This is such a fun, frantic time! Halloween has come and gone, a brief Trick-or-Treat for Youngest- he's 11 and that is still a magical experience. Of course, we have to drive to a place where there are homes that anticipate trick-or-treaters!

 4-H has kicked off for 2013, closing a wonderfully successful 2012 year for our large club.

 And Thanksgiving was again a major feast for 5. Huz created a huge spread, largely with the help of Youngest. My cooking boys! Eldest and I worked most of the day on her college applications and then after the late afternoon meal, Middlest and I went for a ride. Just in our front field, as Thanksgiving in rural Ohio- for many- means shooting stuff that moves.

 My great grandmother would be pleased to know another generation is using her gold rimmed glasses for Thanksgiving fruit cocktail. I remember my grandmother sitting at the counter sectioning grapefruit and oranges in preparation for the big meal (we also had fruti cocktail on Christmas). Now, Youngest- 5 generations later, is making the fruit cocktail and enjoying it before the turkey and trimmings.

 Thanksgiving weekend, we picked out a tree. My Middlest Sister started the tradition when her kids were itty-bitty, to raise their hands to show how big the tree is (and in effect watching the kids grow). My Eldest's hands are getting pretty close to the top of the 8 foot tree!

Our perfect tree being neatly cut off by Huz, assistance by Middlest.

We hunted in the blue spruce section for tree #2. This one is a Germanic looking tree with layers of branches- perfect for lighting candles! Youngest conquered this one.

Then, the spruce went onto a cart- too prickly to pick up! And the soft, 8 foot Canaan Fir was hoisted and walked back, a long way, by Middlest. In Kendra-speak, she "beasted" the tree. Funnily enough, after the trees were put on the shaker by the teen-boy workers, one offered to carry the fir back to the truck while Huz hauled the spruce. The same tree Middlest carried about 5 times further, without putting it down once, had the worker,sweating, grunting and resting about every 20 feet. Poor kid.

So, on to Christmas, with it's trees, parties, decorations and music. Presents to make, wrap and send, cookies and treats to make and eat! I'l start posting pictures so you can all share in Christmas at Cowfeathers!

Huz makes a mean pie.

Hamilton dumps his backpack and climbs the into the horse pasture to come see me on Chaser. My friend, Eileen, shoots a photo of that, our beautiful old home and a glorious Ohio Autumn sky.

Here, in Ohio, there is little chance of ignoring the march of time and season. This is no "Always sunny!" or "It's always 73 degrees!" kind of place. Indeed it isn't even a "Come play in the snow!" destination. I think Ohio is rarely considered a "destination" at all. At least not a vacation one. Sure, we have Amish country -"Come buy a quilt and drive behind a buggy!" and we have Lake Erie - "It's green but you can drive a boat!" If you stretch, we have the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame. But do people around the country, around the world think "Boy, I wish I could go to Ohio for spring break/the Holidays/summer vacation!"? No, I think not. Unless....unless it is home. Because, Ohio is hot and humid in the summer, cold and unpleasantly windy in the winter (here at Cowfeathers, windy is a norm). But it is a great place to call "home". We suffer and relish the seasons in equal measure. There is no forced feeling about a wintery Christmas...unlike Arizona it always feels like Dickens' Christmas when December 25 rolls around in Ohio. And spring bursts upon you with it's unerring stirrings of hope somewhere in late March. Summer warms you up in June- from sweatshirts to sweaty shirts in a trice. And, fall descends along with the leaves, ready or not, here it comes in slippery-grass frosted mornings, visible breath and ice-topped water buckets in the barn.
And here we are, in that fall, will it be 20 or 50 degrees today? Sunny or bleak? Will the wind make it pitiful to be outside? Or will it subside and give me enough peace to ride? The Ohio seasons do keep you guessing. But I am home, and pleased to be so.
My calendar tells me next week is Thanksgiving, and the season here agrees. Huz will soon be brining turkeys (multiple? yes.) and making pies. My food aversions subsiding some in the past year might even allow me to participate in the preparations. Corn and carmelized onion souffles sound nice. Wilted greens, and I think something with beets. We have our sweet potatoes and blue, red, gold and white potatoes harvested (go Huz!!!) so, definitely potatoes for our Thanksgiving feast. Out here in the country, we are a rare species; a family without family. It will be just us again for the Thursday evening celebration. Every few years we've been fortunate enough to have family make the trip to see us for a Holiday(we rarely leave because of the animals), a reason to make Ohio a destination! They have braved the season, maybe cold, icy, snowy, or dry, and merely Carhartt weather, because even though we have no buggy, no boat and no ski hill, Huz does make a mean pie.

Chasing Catie.

My an' my Can Chaser! My friend, photographer, Eileen Nixon stopped by last week when I was riding, and got out her camera. Amazing to live in such a beautiful place, and thankful to have a new equine pal. Plus, such a gift to have a friend that will her share her gifts with me! No, it is not a fake backdrop.

Middlest; Band Gal

My Mom gave me this idea this morning. She asked me to send her a copy of this photo of Middlest in her band get up, and I did. (Obey your mother!) But I decided to share it here too!

Band Finale!

Eldest tries to look like an intimidating prison guard (despite being in band shoes which are completely non-intimidating)

 Last weekend, the girls' marching band competed in the State Finals Marching Band Contest. The Golden Sound of the Vikings marched onto that field and were spectacular.
It was an unpleasant weather night, cold, but the rain from Sandy was not here yet, so at least it wasn't sleeting. And, I had had my doubts that we would be there at all when the season began. Okay, that is overly dramatic. I thought the band would probably qualify for the finals, but was not prepared for what happened this season. That was, that this band, nearly half of them freshman marching for the first time, would be great. One of those marching freshman is Middlest. She is a saxophone and she is the one in blue.

 This is the band marching in for pre-placement. They are lugging in over sized chains with a ball on the end...prisoners, you see. The show was music from Les Miserables, such wonderful music! And, the band told the story in the music. There was playfulness, and a battle and a triumph...all on this field. Tough music, but they played it so well! And their drill (the figures they make on the field) was expressive and fun, dramatic and thrilling at turns- including the big WOW at the end that had the whole stadium making muffled clapping with their gloved hands and enthusiastic cheers.

 Eldest was the assistant Drum Major last season, and was selected as the big kahuna this year, a role she has thrived in filling. If she gets up in the morning for only one reason, it is band. From July through November.

 The hardy spectators included Huz and my parents who came to watch, and stayed despite the incoming doom of Sandy- incoming to their home 9 hours away! They left early the next morning, beat the storm to the coast and battened down the hatches, put life vests on the sheep and the donkey and waited it out. Everyone was fine, and they are in the clean-up phase now.

 I didn't take many photos during the performance as I wanted to enjoy it through life's big lens, but these big ones are pictures of Middlest.

Eldest, a bit teary, makes her last salute. She is now a Drum Major in history. The band was awarded the top rating in the State, a Superior Rating, and she was the first drum major in the annals of our high school to be leading the band awarded this rating both years she was DM. They also earned the highest scores they have ever achieved as a band. Admittedly, this is what I heard in the buzz that left her after the competition- there was a lot of information given and much I don't retain!

But, they "did good". Congratulations Girls!! And the rest of the Golden Sound. You were Marvelous.

Learning from Mistakes.

Learning from the mistakes of others.
Sounds like a great idea, no? I mean, we have parents who fill your life, from birth, with wisdom on how to avoid a lot of mistakes others have made; "Don't put a knife in the toaster, don't blow your hair dry in the bathtub, don't run with a lollipop in your mouth, don't put your finger through the hole in the bagel when you cut it in half..." the list is extensive, and grows with each child. For instance after having my son, if we had been brave enough to have another child, I could've added "Don't do cough syrup shots, don't ride your bike off the side of the bridge, don't play 'sink or swim' in the toilet..." Those parental pieces of advice we take for granted. Our parents are supposed to warn us! But parents also tell you to "Learn from someone else's mistakes."
And, I think that's great advice. It has warned me away from driving while intoxicated, piloting a trailer-truck into a tornado, and riding the NY Subway after dark. As a little, I watched my sister step off the curb and get plowed over by a bicycle, sustaining a broken leg for the summer....don't get hit by a bicycle- brilliant thing to learn 2nd hand.
I can walk around, and see, visibly, mistakes I don't want to make. I don't want a big ol' boob job. I don't want any sort of facial piercings, I don't want to wear cropped jeans, kitten sweatshirts, or trucker hats. I don't want a tattoo anywhere for any reason. What? A kitten sweatshirt is Not A Mistake? Well, eye of the beholder and all. There's folks out there who'd argue pro-teen-pregnancy. I'm still not buying- and that was another mistake I didn't have to make firsthand.
Thank you to my Mom's friend from whose train wreck I learned at age 12 "Have a career, so you can support your family should you need to do so." I am a Veterinarian today because of watching her struggle. She probably doesn't know that her darkest days gave me a life lesson.
I appreciate the mistakes that are right out there for me to learn. What about the others? Our instinct is to hide our mistakes from the world. Keep them private, after all, we don't want everyone to know what a big mistake it was to ...
But, then, if they are hidden, how can we learn? For instance, I WANT TO KNOW why you died. When you are writing your obituary, put it right in there for the rest of us, okay? I want to know if it was avoidable, after all. "Died in a snowboarding accident." Love that. It means "if I snowboard I could die, and this is avoidable after all, so make sure I'm okay with a casket at the bottom of the mountain before I get on the chairlift." Thank you, poor, dead snowboarder, for letting me know. I wear sunscreen to decrease my chances of death by melanoma, I wear my seat belt, I don't hunt at Cheney's. Learning from the mistakes of others.
Same goes for divorce. No, I don't want to gloat over the demise of your marriage. I will mourn. But still, I want to know what happened, to see if I can avoid that particular road of potholes. Some mistakes are right out there, avoidable. Thank you to the Cruises. Don't become a Scientologist and expect your spouse to hop in. I think same goes for any new religious idea that changes the family dynamic after marriage. If you are Amish before you get married and the spouse then has a problem with your Amishness- different story. That is a mistake to avoid before the ring and date. (Ahem, Katie- you knew. But, now- thanks to you, we all do.)
Other mistakes can be more complicated, and how much action do you take to avoid? I mean, the cliche; divorce due to husband running off with secretary/assistant/nurse could be avoided. Make sure the marriage vows include,  "will you promise to love and cherish, and hire all assistants/secretaries/nurses for your spouse until death do you part?" Then, you just have to be willing to conduct all interviews, finding a ruthlessly efficient and completely unattractive assistant for your spouse. Politics would work well here.  For instance, if your spouse is a conservative type, choose an assistant who follows the "How was your weekend?" innocent query with; "Well, the traffic was terrible on Friday. What we need is a new government agency to oversee the traffic flow on our highway, and make sure everyone has a time when they are allowed to leave work." Or, "I spent Saturday at a rally to save an innocent man from state execution! Another poor soul forced by circumstance into dealing drugs to support his family and then ended up killing a few shopkeepers."
If, on the other hand, your spouse leans left, the assistant must carry a firearm in her purse and refer to anyone walking on street during working hours as "moochers." Should do it.
( Huz would like me to add that even though this was not included in our marital vows, it is unneccesary as he has no intention of making this mistake! So, hiring powers at his work need not plague him unduly with ruthlessly efficient political blowhards. And his wife is a total babe).
But what about the other reasons for divorce? Irreconcilable differences. UGH. Need more information! Can I learn from your mistake?
So, now I feel I should share Mistakes I Have Made, in the sense of fairness.
Ahem.
Don't play tackle football in a parking lot.
Don't try to make a mountain bike leap a chasm.
Don't hire a mentally unstable man to work on your house (part of well known Learn From Others caveat "you get what you pay for").
Don't give a sixteen year old a chain saw and be unspecific about which trees to cut.
Don't order all hens and expect no roosters.
Don't drive a tractor on a hill if it does not have brakes. (that was Huz' mistake, but I think it is important to include)
Don't work for someone who gives out your home phone number to the clients unless you want to be called day and night.
Don't teach your horse to swim across a lake, if the other side of the lake isn't fenced and your neighbor has a putting green.
Don't be surprised if you can't stand your roomate's boyfriend and your dog bites him. Hard.
If your man is accusing you of cheating, and you aren't- someone is.
Don't play with bobcats unless you have protective clothing.
Don't de-scent skunks and go directly to your birthday party.
Don't stay friends with someone who makes you feel bad.
Don't try to put a divan on your minivan roof and hold it on with your hand while your sister drives down the highway, even if the divan is a sumptuous brocade and was free.
And lastly:
Don't expect people to change just because the possibility exists.