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.

Horse ridin' gals go round the outside

 Such a gorgeous fall day in Ohio! The leaves are amazing this year and the temperature- right now- is fantastic (as in a fantasy.. that will not last). So, Middlest and I hopped on the ponies for a ride around the back field. I took this photo with my cellphone and the fake "click" noise was not appreciated by my green horse. Oh so much to learn! On the other side of the field is our house and barn. Wait, let me be more specific:

There, that should do it.

This is Middlest and her horse. Have I mentioned my horse is kind of tall? This looks like an aerial view.  We are now on the opposite corner of the field, once again you can see our barn in the distance.
We are SO LUCKY!!!!

Chillin's

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 A few weekends ago, Eldest and I participated in the Congenital Heart Walk to raise money and awareness for congenital heart defects. This was a last minute thing, as she found out about it on a Friday while doing research for her senior project. She is doing a year long project about congenital heart defects and the procedures done by cardiac catheterization to modify the anomalies. She wanted to do the walk, not only for her senior project, but for herself. It isn't a secret, it isn't something we dwell on much either, but Eldest has Ebstein's Anomaly, a defect of her heart which means her tricuspid valve (the one between her right side ventricle and atrium) is in the wrong place, making her ventricle very small and the atrium large. She also had an ASD or atrial septal defect, which was a hole between her right and left atria. This was closed by catheterization surgery when she was in 2nd grade. They placed an Amplatzer device in the hole, and then over time, the body grows cells through the Amplatzer and she has a hole there no longer. I am glad she is learning about her particular anomaly, as she is almost an adult now, and this is something she will deal with, always. I was proud to walk the 5 K with her and lots of others with congenital heart defects, and also many walking in memory of children who did not live long enough to walk with us.
As Eldest works on her college apps, one of the schools she is sending an application is Duke University. She has not been back there since she was six months old, but that is where she was sent with the Life Flight team as a newborn. She spent several days in their PICCU (Pediatric Intensive Cardiac Care Unit). I am so thankful she gets a chance to apply to attend college, and Duke is a part of it from the start.

Youngest was in desperate need of a haircut. So, off to the patio we went with the scissors when I had a few minutes to spare after he got off the bus. I trimmed his hair, then he flopped into the rockers. I realized, as I looked at him, I have so few photos of him without glasses. So, I asked him to stay put while I grabbed the camera. This was the pose he chose. So serious! Those who have known him a long time will notice that his eyes, both of them, look at the camera. This was not meant to be a blog about the defects of my children, but I guess that is coming out anyway! He has worn glasses since he was younger than two, and for all that time, without the glasses on, the one eye wasn't strong enough to focus and would wander off. I guess he's getting stronger! And so handsome. He looks uncannily like my Dad as a boy.

Photo by Jennifer Hilaman

 On Saturday, before the big Band Showcase at our high school, Middlest and I snuck off (if driving 80 minutes north is sneaking) to a Pony Club lesson, to school the cross country fences at Crosswinds Farm. It was a stupendous fall morning, just a little chilly, and warm enough in the sun. The leaves are just glorious. She and Patches did a fine job, navigating all the fences nicely. Then, back home for a quick change of clothes and... hats (from riding helmet to band plume!).

Photo by Jennifer Hilaman

And, I had to include this photo, because it has long been a cliche phrase "That horse can jump the moon!" Well, for Patches, this is proof.

Werewolves and Faery fields

The soybeans behind the house came down (farmerspeak for extremely large farm equipment processing the dried beans from field to storage) on Monday, and we had our first frost that night. My morning view was of the barren brown field, covered in white sparkles- a faery field. My first thought was "Oooh, pretty/looks different" closely followed by "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Not notnotnotnotnotnot NOT ready for the cold again. So much coping needs to happen in the cold. But there is no point in denying. And I haven't yet fixed the poultry yard gate, which works, but won't in the snow since the hogs bent the hinges. And I haven't replaced the sweeper cloths under the big barn doors to keep the snow out. And, I haven't found the right hardware (because I have to have it made by a blacksmith) to fix the sheep stall door that the ram destroyed- particularly annoying since the door probably had most of 200 years working just fine, then ram happened. I have to get out the pile of horse blankets and make sure I have ones that will fit Chaser (new horse), I am loathe to buy more. Time to resign the top of my head to the darkness, as it will hardly be hat-free between now and next June, get out the polartech collection, the long undies, the warm scarves and make sure I have enough gloves - they disappear worse than socks- and hand warmers. To the top of the pile go the winter breeches and the beautiful leather riding boots of summer give way to the serviceable insulated winter ones. The hat cover that has ear protectors, the Carhartts, the Muckboots, are the features of the near future. Time to clean the chimneys and move the wood holder to the porch, stack it with firewood and stop putting the sticks that fall off the trees into the burn pile and into the kindling pile instead. Mornings will start not only with the tea kettle, but with a "what will I make in the oven to warm up the kitchen" decision.  Time to get ready for my constant companion- the wind that will barely cease for the next seven months, surrounding the house with what used to be described as inhuman voices, but with the advent of the 70's can better be described as a muted version of the devil's fiddle solo in the Charlie Daniels Band song.
Now, there will be beautiful days still this fall. Yesterday was one- sunny and warmer and bursting with the colors of fall. Middlest and I had our jumping lesson, and Chaser began his career as a jumping horse, doing a bang up job of jumping, not only a few cross rails, but an entire course of them- under the arena lights. And I was over the moon! Good Boy!
But today is a werewolf- dark, and grey, and howling.

Pre Barn Party, family and Homecoming!

 

 

So, regular perusers of the Cowfeathers Farm blog will know from previous September blogs, we have an annual Barn Party. This is a wonderful throw back to the family celebrations of harvest that were put on, perhaps, even in our very own barn in the last 200 years. Live square dance band, lots of food, and an outhouse...it's pretty authentic.  We tried to have one post-harvest, but frankly, we were too cold. The next year we moved it up to September, and usually the harvest is not done, but it is warmer.

This year I thought I'd not write about the Barn Party, but about the time before. First of all, the barn has to have a good cleaning each year. The straw and hay all have to be put in the correct places to make room for dancing, and a nice 20 foot long table. The chaff has to be all swept, and the year's deposits from birds scrubbed off. The strings of lights need to be cleaned, and bulbs replaced. We have to fill any holes the groundhogs have created so no one gets hurt, and of course, the outhouse needs a top to bottom scrub up and makeover. Quilts, old and new hang as decoration, and a pair of ancient milk cans get stuffed with huge arrangements of wildflowers from the bottoms around the creek. I would love to have great branches of fall leaves, but the trees don't change for at least a week post party. As I perform these tasks, some of them alone, some with welcome help, I think about who I will see. And then I realize I am the worlds worst inviter. So many folks I hope I'll see, I haven't invited. This means a flurry of last minute phone calls and Facebook messaging, just in case they happen to still be free.  

This year we also had the added bonus of family here to visit and help! Huz' sister and family came down from Chicago for a few days and an evening in the barn.  

 

Cousins! The youngest joins the Eldest.

 

 Eldest painted Alyssa's nails. This was a great source of excitement for Alyssa, and she was happy to show everyone and anyone the beauty at the tips of her fingers.

 Tramping around the fields. Good fun for the boys. And Dads.

 Cousins eat. In the busy build up to the barn party, it was catch as catch can.

Maarten. Such a pleasant, happy, intelligent little boy.

 Alyssa. Once again, easy to engage by asking her about her fingernails. She thinks she is showing them to the camera, because she can see them. Love toddlers. Same principle allows them to hide under a blanket.

Samuel and Middlest. They are the Middles. And, quite a fine pair.

 

This year's Barn Party had a special twist. It fell on the same night as the Homecoming Dance at the high school. So, Eldest, Middlest and their friends/dates came to the Barn Party for the dinner beforehand and a few squares before heading off to the other dance. I think they had a lot of fun in their finery.

Sisters. Friends. Beauties!

 Did I mention it was WINDY? Seriously, windy. 40 mph straight line winds. The pictures look so pleasant and warm. This is deceit. It was chilly and uncomfortably windy until the sun went down, then it quieted, and became much more pleasant.

My cowpoke. I love that this kid still wants to get "duded up" for the Barn Party. He still puts on the same pair of chaps Nana made for him a half-dozen years ago. They used to graze the ground.

 As the band gets set up, the boys have great fascination, and a piece of hay each for their mouths.

Middlest and her date, Cameron.

 The great wind sent the girls in their bare shoulders and legs searching for a wind break.

Thanks, Jack.

 The "Group".

My gorgeous girls. How does it make me feel to see them looking so grown up and beautiful, and chic? Proud. Terrified. Thankful they've made it so far, sad they'll be off on their own so soon.