I plan to become Useful.

My recent mishap may lead some to believe I'm not in this for the long haul. That I am cavalier about my shin bone being connected to my knee bone. It is just not true. Anymore. There was certainly a time in my blush of youth when 30 was incomprehensible, and 1999 a pinprick in the distance, I suffered little from dalliance with self preservation. I lived mostly without fear, and my decisions were not always cantilevered into the wise section of the spectrum.
But I had a kind of epiphany here recently that had nothing to do with my concussion. I know this, because I had the epiphany pre-flight. I just forgot about it a while.
I recalled it in my "What should I think about tonight?" minutes after bed, but before slumber, when I have to plan, make, do something in my brain in order to have it shut down for the night. That led me to then wonder " Have I flirted with dead?" (Being dead, not "the" dead, cause that would be ick).  At first I could think of nothing I've done that was likely to end with my demise and a half-baked obituary full of typos in the country paper. Then, I thought of one thing. Jeez, what a maroon! Then, another, and another, and once the floodgates opened I stopped trying to think of them. They were all lined up right there, shaking their heads at me and saying "Lands end, Lady, your fleet of Guardian Angels got raggedy and went all Grizzly Adams around 1993. Since then, God's been working pretty hard all by himself. Good thing you opted for the marriage and children ladder." The astute might now be wondering how thoughts like this could lead to sleep.
It's that I made it to 30. 1999 came and went with only bilateral wisdom tooth abscesses that meant I had to celebrate the turn of the millennium through a straw. I had three children who amaze me, and married a man I am fascinated by. I not only wanted to make it to 40, 50, 60... I expected to make it to 80, 90, 100. Which wasn't the epiphany.
 It is Usefulness. That is what I think is the secret to longevity. The productive sort of longevity. I think when folks stop feeling useful, their bodies and minds start becoming useless. So, I started my useful plan. No, I've no idea what use I'll be when I hit 85. Yet. But, now I can plan for it.  Observe the useful elderly. There is working usefulness- like Gram still being expected to make cookies and pack lunches for Aunt Sib's landscaping crews. There is personal goal usefulness- like doing the Over 80 category in the mud run. And there is the care usefulness I see in my older clients who are, unquestioningly, needed by their tooth-challenged Chihuahuas. Who else would tolerate Paco? So they must live on!
Now, I don't want to live over-cautiously, so I hope God not only keeps up the good work, but maybe some of my Guardian Angels are ready to lace up again. In the meantime, with their help, I have about 30 years to figure out how to become Useful.

A Bad Patience

I'm here to tell you, lightning can strike twice.
But, I will not really explain that, just to say that 3 1/2 weeks after my flight from Oslo ended with a wall, I thought maybe it was time to blog about it. But I am uncomfortable doing so, and I wondered why? So, upon thinking hard thoughts, like Pooh Bear, tapping my head, and concentrating very hard, I realized; because it feels like it is not my story to tell. That confused me too, because then, who's story is it? It doesn't feel like mine, because I don't remember it, atall, atall. So, I can only relate what I've heard. That's gossiping about myself. And Oslo isn't talking. So, I must leave it to the ladies who helped me that evening, and my Huz who was an excellent nurse, and my children who looked doubtfully my way and still have to help me with my bra in the mornings. But, no longer my hair, because I have figured out how to braid it and put it up by myself.
What I can talk about it that simply put: I am a Bad Patience. This means I'm a good patient, I smile, complain very little, try pretty hard, mostly do what I'm told. But I've no patience for it. The first week was easier because all of it was terribly fuzzy. I did amuse myself by reading a book of which I've no idea what I read. If I stopped and put it down to do something else ( such as roll on my side which was precarious because on my left side, if I canted forward the shoulder rolls open and hurts and lying on my right side means lying on a broken scapula and a separated shoulder. Also unpleasant...) I would completely forget not only where I was in the story, but what the story was about and the characters. At first, I just started the book over again, but soon realized that was fruitless. So, I could apologize to the author of the book for thinking it made no sense whatsoever, but I can't recall the name of the book or the author, so I guess it's equally moot. I spoke with folks that week, and don't remember a moment of it, so if we chatted and I made no sense...well, now you know I made no sense because if I stopped to take a breath I couldn't remember what we were speaking of, or to whom I was speaking. Okay, by me because once I hung up the phone, I didn't remember I was on it in the first place. I went back to the orthopedist last week, and he greeted me like we'd seen each other two weeks ago. Crazy guy. He also showed me my films (x-rays) 2 weeks post flight. I wish I hadn't seen them. This is because now that I know what it looks like, I wonder how it ever worked anyway.



This is my excellent rendering of a normal shoulder and my shoulder. I have to point out that the collarbone is a wreck, but it isn't all from this one incident. The collarbone has been to the rodeo before (several times).

I have been cleared to drive, and work, and have been doing so, mostly left handed, but I am putting my right arm into motion more everyday. Sometimes too much, and have to silently lament my enthusiasm. At work, I have found that abdominal palpation on small dogs and cats is mostly doable, but big dogs? Not happening. I'm still good at talking (no surprise, eh?) but anal glands...well, decent at emptying the left, hopeless at doing the right. Which makes me useless for that particular glamorous pursuit. I'm competent at vaccinating, but not so at phlebotomy (the gathering of the blood). I can't open "childsafe" caps worth a darn, but I'm back to being able to type (exhibit "A" at present).
 Today I drove the truck and trailer to the Pony Club lesson for Middlest, about 1.5 hrs each way, and that went fairly well, except for backing the rig into a space, which required me to move my right arm behind the passenger seat and turn to the right to back. Believe me, I tried it five times without doing so, but gave up and went with the routine way. It made my teeth chatter and I felt like I was going to throw up, but I backed that sucker into the sweet spot.
  Okay, as for the lightning, this time is struck my friend. And, that somehow is much, much worse.  Get well, Christie. Soon. And, don't be a Bad Patience.

Adventures of Middlest

Still broken- but mending! I went to the Orthopedist yesterday, and my x-rays show some bony callus forming around the break in the scapula. I have the clear to start using my arm from the elbow down, and to use my left hand to start moving my shoulder up and down (not out), by lifting the right forearm. So, I have lifted my right hand onto the keyboard, and my ability to type is much improved.
Summer is officially here, I suppose, as yesterday was the last day of school. My house is as quiet right now as if they were in school. Could they all have returned to their beds? Certainly possible, and with the teens, probable.
As I wrote that, I then heard out the window the melodious sounds of hogs, and Youngest who is taking them for a walk. Must post some hog pictures, they are funny, and quite large now. Heavy enough for the NFL.
But today's picture posts are of Middlest!

My Beautiful Middlest Daughter, has now finished the 8th grade. At the end of the school year the school holds "The 8th Grade Formal". As I'm sure you can imagine this causes a great stir in the world of the typical 8th grader. Middlest is more stoic. She hunted around the closets for a dress, and that was about the most of the fuss. I was still unfocused enough to lose track of time. So when it was nearly time for her to leave I was pleasantly surprised to see her head downstairs completely dressed, with hair done by big sis. Wow!  And, I tried not to make a fuss about it, but she had a date! He and his mother kindly came to collect her for the dance, and brought her back home afterwards. They had a nice time, and even danced together!

Middlest is a farm girl. And in true farmgirl fashion, she went out the evening before to play with her baby geese, forgoing shoes for the occasion. ( I have a lot to say about this unwise decision- there is a blog post with a picture of one day's collection of ancient rusted metal bits and nails collected from the ground, and likely another on the pile of glass accumulated over an afternoon's weeding. In two hundred years of humans living on this farm, there is much you'd want to leave out of your feet). But in this case, her foot found neither nail nor glass shard, but honeybee? She said bumble...

But, if you look at her legs, you'll have no trouble telling which one met the bee.

I can imagine dancing was not especially comfortable.

Middlest and Date.

 The weekend brought the next Pony Club lesson. I was still not driving, but Huz stepped up to the plate and gave driving the trailer a try. He did very well and made it to the practice in record time. When we arrived, it became clear that the kids were riding on the Cross Country Jump course. This was Middlest's first go at official cross country fences- but I've been sneaking them in on her for years. She did a great job! Patches was full of energy, but all of it positive, and Middlest and Patch took it all on easily and with alacrity. My girl kept her eyes up!

Huz operated the camera (it's an SLR, and hard to operate one-handed). His pictures captured the beauty of the day!

The pair were the first to lead off on the final test which ended in the water fence. Water is an uncertainty for horses. Many of them just won't do it. But eventing horses must. They can't tell how deep it is, and it is scary to them. Once they enter the water, they relax when they find it only fetlock deep! As they progress in their training, they must trust the rider that aimed them at the obstacle that it is safe, and in they go- full bore.

Next year.

porch eating, porch swinging!

still broken...so, picture,it is!

the porch is open! ahhh, spring.

babies! because im broken.

i took flight off oslo's back (with his assistance, of course) last week while jumping. a wall stopped my forward progressiuon, and i got broken. so...typing-as you may have sumrised- is slow going. instead, i'll share pictures!

the baby geese are growing!

Henri meets a baby goose for the first time.

ducklings growing too!

China made my kitchen blue. Ish.

China. It is really far away. It takes a long time to get there, and ironically not the same time to get back, which I know makes sense to some people, but always completely confuses me, and becomes just one of those things I have to accept, like daylight savings. Huz has been taking teaching trips to China periodically since Oct. 2010, when I accompanied him and found out just how far away China happens to be. Well, in April, he took what I hope to be his last China trip for a while. I am not a good single parent. When Huz is gone dinner is usually up to the kids, cereal is fine by me. We watch bad movies (okay, well, we tried to do this but the movie was so very bad that God suggested we turn it off by zapping the power for a few seconds, and after that happened, we realized the big guy was watching out for us. New Moon from the Twilight series was, I believe, melting our brains) and American Idol. My legs don't get shaved. Which, I realize doesn't necessarily make me a bad parent, but when you have hogs, it is probably sanity saving to have some standards. (Unlike daylight savings, that makes sense to me).
The other thing that happens when Huz goes off somewhere is I do some sort of home improvement project. This started early in our marriage when I realized "off to work for the day" wasn't  a long enough "off somewhere" to knock out a wall and put in french doors. He kind of freaked out about the hole in the wall when he got home. Now, I must point out that it is completely unnecessary to wait for him to leave anymore before I go sledgehammering stuff, because several home remodelings later, he has learned to say "Wow, the wall is missing. Looks great!" Pay attention, young ones, this is what makes marriage work. But, when he leaves and I no longer have to make dinner, shave my legs, or go to bed, I have a perfect opportunity to completely wreck something, and then put it back together before he walks in the door. Now, what with occasionally trying to be a professional in a job, and constantly taking care of a whole passel of critters, I sometimes don't get around to making plans. So, it happened that I found myself on Wednesday night, in the kitchen doing battle with flying ant things that presented themselves en masse- thousands of the suckers making their way between the window and the trim - on the INSIDE. Ew. I have found Simple Green to be rather effective in swift insect death- which makes me wonder about its ingredients...my other enviro-cleaners don't have that result- and then I just have to mop up the billion bodies. Well, while I was doing this, it occurred to me : Why don't I paint the trim around this window? See, when we did the addition and renovation in 2007-2008, I didn't completely finish the kitchen before we moved into it- the disadvantage of living in your home while you renovate, and doing all the finish work yourself. So, there was trim work left undone. And, we lived with it. I even liked my kitchen. But, it always bugged me. "Gotta get back to that!"
So, I conceived of the notion to simply do the top coats on the primed window trim over the sink. Which, by the next morning had morphed into a trip to the lumber yard to purchase what I still needed for the finish work on the whole kitchen. To be fair, it didn't need much, I have a lot of lumber still around, some of it I have already put through the router and the salvaged old trim, which I believe is walnut, and heavy and so very dense. So I got Middlest to haul the air compressor out of the basement when she returned from school, and my nail gun, miter saw and I got to work. The trim work went up in spare moments over the next day or two, and by that time the project had enlarged to painting the kitchen. It had been a neutral creamy white/yellow, but I was ready to move on.
So, after Pony Club, a trip through town to collect a gallon of "Sea Sprite". I guess one of the advantages of re-doing so many houses over the last 17 years is paint choosing is no longer a  mystery or effort. I can go in, pick out a square, and say  "That's it!" buy it, and I'm right.
So, at 9 pm, the night before Huz is to return from China, I started painting the kitchen. My mom says we work best under pressure.

So, Youngest took my picture on top of the fridge preparing to paint the walls. I didn't move the fridge, as I normally would've, as my back is not up to moving large appliances. So, secret, the wall behind the fridge, down low where I couldn't reach- it isn't painted "Sea Sprite".

I put two coats on the walls, and several on the trim and then, all that was left was to put the kitchen to rights before collecting Huz.

The finished kitchen. Okay, maybe I should've taken the time to organize the shelving below the island, but this is exactly how it would look one child's cooking project later, soooo.....

The dominant feature in the kitchen is the island, made by my dad and me a few years back. I blogged about the island a year or so ago. My kitchen is an exercise in ingenuity. When we did the renovation and the addition to the house, it was on a budget. Not the kind of budget you read about in the magazines, but my kind of budget. So, when the builder learned I wanted to keep the kitchen simple and inexpensive, he added 16k. to the estimate. I giggled, and said, no... my kitchen will be less than $1000. He didn't think it could be done, but by that time, he was interested to see what I would do.

Kendra and I built all the shelving- no cabinets, Dad and I built the island, my sister contributed the sink from her old farmhouse, I made the counter tops, painted the dinged up dark wood floor, and voici.

I ask you, with a kitchen that has a fireplace and this painting of the house (prior to our stewardship) over the mantle, how could I go wrong? My kitchen!

And, when Huz got home from China? "Wow, the kitchen is....blue? ish? Looks Great! And, we have trim! Wow!"

I'll admit, my "you went on a business trip re-dos" might be a passive/aggressive way to make him afraid of leaving for more than a day, but at least he sticks to the script.

Gettin' naked, down on the farm.

WOOHOO!!! Hot Girl under a bear skin rug......?
Well...hot girl wearing muck boots lying on the dirt floor under a fleece.
 Incidentally, she's also wearing jeans and her tank top, but I was a model once, and I learned the eye only sees what it wants to see.
And because I was there, and equally decorated, I will add we are coated in sheep lanolin, dirt and poop.

Mother has kept us on our toes with 80 degree days in March and 30 degree days in April, but it seems the irises think it is time to begin their show, and they know the Mother well, so, I can't argue. When the irises bloom it is time for the sheep to get naked. This is a process every year. I have been so lucky to have Kendra, or her Dad willing to come over and take it on. But, I'm thinking Middlest will have to start stepping up soon- she's getting pretty strong, and this is her flock. In the meantime, Kendra made room in an afternoon to come tackle the ewes. I was "helper" and photog.

The first step is to ask the ewe to stand on a blanket. This is Dolores, and we are using Samantha's winter blanket (horse). Then, you ask the ewe to "sit pretty"....

We have exceptionally calm and easily handled ewes, but the truth is they don't actually sit on command. It does take some persuasion. Here, Kendra has begun to shear the belly of  Dolores. My job is to help hold her up so she can breathe, and keep the poop swept off the blanket. I don't know why I bother, it isn't like she has been averse to flopping down in poop for the last year, but it just seems more fastidious. Besides, those clippers are fierce! They are happy to take skin with fleece. In fact, in about three minutes, Dolores will wiggle, and loose a sizable chunk of skin, which I will debate about sewing back up and decide to treat topically with pain numbers and antibiotic creams. Kendra will feel awful, and I will beg her not to quit.

The clippers, close to a fragile part, and Kendra taking it slow...



The fleece comes off to reveal the creamy white underside of the fleece, and a beautifully white sheep underneath. I have to mention this is not necessarily the conventional way to shear sheep. But we aren't as fast as the pros, and the girls should be as comfy as possible while enduring their spa day.  

We have to periodically call a halt to the job to scrape out the build up of the lanolin in the clippers. It is thick, like dried wax, but so very oily. My hands will be dirty, but wonderfully soft.

Dolores is shorn! All that is left is to take the fleece off like a too-warm sweatshirt.

And, Kendra peeks through the neck hole, also demonstrating her Herculean strength. These fleeces are heavy! Note, that this is not a good fleece this year. Dolores' fleece for 2012 is too matted. The length of the strands are not uniform and the crimp of the strands is only nice near the base. So, the negative is it is not a good spinning fleece. The positive is we have an excellent Halloween costume for Youngest this year, should he wish to be "a wolf in sheep's clothing".

Up next is Dancer, who has a better fleece. She has a "duck rump" appearance due to the crutching I performed prior to lambing this winter, but that part of the fleece is a throwaway anyhow, as it if full of poop and dirt.

Her fleece was soooo heavy and not matted- a real challenge to keep on the blanket. But, she was patient, and Kendra revealed her silvery grey base.

Dancer is in there! Her fleece is flipped up over her head like a princess prom gown on a girl trying to use the potty. She is lying on the floor and Kendra is working up her shoulders and neck. My job is to keep a breathing hole open for Dancer. The blue is the halter around her nose and the mouth and nose are to the right of the halter. Even her eyes are covered. Again, not the typical sheep, nor the typical method of shearing....Unconventional, that is how we roll. You might be able to note in this photo that the wool strands are all about the same length, and the crimp part is the same all the way down each strand. This is a better, fluffier fleece with tones from gold to  gorgeous silver.



The fleece is also enormous. I tried to get a picture that would give you the idea of how big it turned out to be, and so had Kendra kneel behind the fleece for comparison. That is when we started joking about how luxurious it looked- our version of the cliche bearskin rug....and after that, our laughter got the better of our sense.

This is Blondie, wearing a toupee. The fleeces have to dry before being bundled and skirted. But there is no where on the farm exempt from dog/goose/chicken/hog feet and general interference. Kendra thought of putting the fleeces on top of the horse trailer. Brilliant! So Blondie is finally blond!