Right now

Right now, around here...

The four year old is waiting for his blue pants to come out of the dryer. Apparently, racing around the house in his briefs is a better option than having to choose a different pair from the clean pile in his drawer.

The volcano is filled with corn, and we're wearing ducks on our heads.



I have a huge pile of recycling on top of my fridge that needs to go to the basement.

The Bean came waddling over and announced that she is "poopy", and then flopped down on her upside down pink chair to wait for me.



Half of our barn has a brand new tin roof!!!

And, I'm semi-desperately waiting for an email. My Wordpress blog has been marked as spam and entirely blocked. I can't even get into the admin section.

Joining in with Willette in her attempt to encourage us to document life, in all it's messy glory... right now.

Back in the Day

A little glimpse of our place. Back in the day.


{Nichols Farm Bee, April 28, 1963, King's Studio}

Our neighbor brought this photo over today. He thought perhaps it was taken facing North.

It was only after I spent half an hour mesmerized by it, and had taken a photo of it myself, that I realized the significance of the date inscribed on it. April 28, 1963. The darn thing in my hands was exactly forty-eight years old. To the date. What are the odds?

But the very best part? The thing that would make my Grandma and my Mother-in-Law squeal with joy? A traced diagram containing the names of seventy (SEVENTY!) of the men in the photo. Only a very few names are missing.

I must apologize because my web-sized photo of the original photo just cannot do it justice. It must have been an overcast day because the light is gorgeously soft. The tack sharp focus and perfect contrast show amazing detail of the tractors and even the faces.

I'm so fascinated by old photographs. What a treasure!

Peace in the flood

This morning I was boiling over with sarcastic joy for Spring.

It went something like this... Scrape a two-inch thick layer of ice and snow off my car. Bundle the kids up. Drive across this extremely safe-looking section of highway to take the Kindergartner to school.



The school bus couldn't get through. From the other direction, the direction behind where I stood to take that photo. Because a gigantic car-sized pothole opened up just a bit North of the exciting waterfall you see here, only hours after I drove across that very spot yesterday.

Knowing the road was closed in that direction was weirdly nostalgic for me. Should I have warm fuzzy feelings remembering being in labor and walking across a washed-away road on planks in my quest to get to the hospital in time? Maybe yes, if the story ended well.

So this has become our Spring these last few years.

The snow melts. The water rises. The Bean has her birthday. Our roads disappear.

Not necessarily in that order.

But, you know, a funny thing happened to my day. It warmed up enough to make the snow drip off the trees.

I found beauty in my flooded backyard.



Stillness and peace.



Amid the brown there was hope of green things to come.



Spring will arrive here, after all. Eventually it has to.

We may not drive on our roads confident that the road is actually beneath us. We may not have a County that has the resources to fix things properly the first time so they don't wash out again and again, however ridiculous that may be... but Spring will come.

You Capture "Spring"

It snowed. A lot. Again.

Scavenger Hunt at Ashley's!

1. Time

There is about 2.5 seconds of time between when the Bean wakes up grumpy from her nap...



... and when she decides to "Eee Heeeeeeee!?" (see kitty)



2. Poetry

I could post a self portrait where I pretend that I have quiet moments to read.



Or I could be totally honest and get out my word magnets, and make up a fantastic little poem straight from the depths of my heart.



Really. We got another twelve or so inches of snow. It's the middle of April.

Enough already.

3. Outside

Assuming all this snow melts and we don't get any more, and assuming my garden swamp dries out sometime before July, my seedlings will go outside.

I realize that might be assuming too much.



More likely the Bean will see them from approximately this angle as she decides to grab one and dump it all over the floor.

Don't ask me how I know.

4. Zoom!

From my archives, taken the end of February.



5. Isolation

I can't decide. I can't decide.

I'll post them both.



Both taken Friday evening.

Little Mama T-Rex

One early Spring day a little hen decided to sit. She sat and sat and sat.



The little farm lady thought to herself, "Already? Didn't we just finish butchering the ones from last year? Do we have to do this again?"

But chicks are so much fun.

So. Much. Fun.



"Fine. You can have four eggs. Just a few."



By the next morning, something had changed. The little farm lady could see it in those beady little eyes. No question about it.

The sweet little hen had turned into a vicious protective little Mama Tyrannosaurus Rex. A whole lot of nasty packed into one little bird. Shrieking and growling and feathers up on end.

And the beak...



Dang! That beak is sharp!



That crafty little reptile had stolen another egg! She was sitting on five!

The third morning the little farm lady finally remembered to bring a pencil to the coop. A pencil. To mark the incubating eggs so any additional unauthorized eggs could be identified and removed from the nest in the coming days. You know, because if we can't have four, five is a decent number of chicks too.

Mama T-Rex and the little farm lady had come to an agreement. Five eggs. Not too few, not too many. Just five. We'd mark the eggs today and that would be the end of the drama.

Except someone didn't keep her end of the bargain.

Chickens are thieves.

Houston, we have a problem.

Peace Like a River

Our snow melted. Most of it. There is still a surprising amount left in the tree rows. All that melted snow? It's less than ten feet from our house.

My kids have been boating.



Wood Ducks have moved in.

The roads are a mess.

Our neighbor was moved by the Spirit to request the song "I've Got Peace Like a River" during church on Sunday. It was only the day before, on his birthday, that he'd been standing in waist-deep ice-cold water trying to unplug a culvert with my husband. As we were singing, I was moved by the Spirit to turn around and look at him in disbelief. He was grinning from ear to ear and waving his arms around doing the actions to the song. Clearly, in my professional opinion, he was still suffering from hypothermia.

Peace like a river?

The minute I saw those ducks in our backyard, I should have known what kind of day it was going to be. A Monday in every negative sense of the word. I should have known.

So it was that our power went out on a beautifully sunny day. And our sump pump, and our drain tile pump, and our septic tank pump quit running. And our sewage came pouring into our house like a river.

I sacrificed The Bean's squishy pink ball and shoved it down that ancient crusty shower drain in the basement, with a stick, and wedged it in with a concrete block. Apparently I'm not superwoman, because the pressure change caused a geyser of poo water to shoot straight up from a crack in the floor beside me.

Peace like a river.

I made an executive decision that the situation was out of control, and slogged my way back through three inch deep sewage in my rubber boots.

Peace like discovering that by some miracle, the cell phone actually had good reception without having to climb the windmill. My lucky day, indeed.

Peace like good neighbors who dropped a driveway/culvert project to rush over with a generator.

Peace like a quick lesson on how to use the shiny new generator my husband raced home with.

Peace like a few Japanese origami cranes to remind me that others need my prayers and truly, I have nothing to complain about.



Oh, Japan.

I have. Nothing. To complain about.



Peace like knowing He will Never Let Go

My broccoli thief

Sometimes I actually have my ducks in a row and start preparing our meals with plenty of time to spare. Sometimes I forget the little Bean is resourceful and can get almost anything she wants off the counter.

I had reason to believe a handful of broccoli had been stolen.

There is only one tiny person in this house who will steal broccoli.

Could.

Not.

Find.

Her.



She's a smart little cookie.



After she ran back to the kitchen for another handful, she hid on the other side of the bed.



As you may remember, there is a real trend going on here. Do I think of it as getting no respect, or having way too much help?





I do feed her. I swear I do.



The girl takes her own clothes off too.

I give up.

Three kids - window light

I'm almost ready to admit that I need to take an online workshop. Or something. My photo skills have hit a hard brick wall. Being self-taught can only take a person so far.

I am so excited to have come this far in only a year and a half... but I want more. And I need help to get there.

Asking for help is extremely painful for me. It's one of my many many flaws.



A workshop came up that is, er... as humbly as I can say it, most likely not the right choice for me. But they're drawing for a free seat in the class. Free is good. And to enter you have to post a photo with a window in it.



So I hauled the kids into my bedroom and took these yesterday.

And I'm glad I did.

Even though I didn't wash my windows first. Real life, I won't apologize.

Look! I even got all three in one picture! (sort of)



I am so blessed to have this time at home with my kids, to have a handful of quiet moments in which to read and learn. So thankful for my supportive husband who pushes me onward in this hobby.

Where to go from here? That is the question.

Just passing through

The mud, the water dripping though our barn roof, that hormonal Red rooster... yes, Spring is definitely in the air. The mud.  Did I mention the mud?

A steady stream of Snow Geese flew over our house. All day long. Nonstop. I'm not talking about a lot of geese. I'm talking about a ridiculous quantity of them. Thousands and thousands of geese.

It's a sign.

Spring is here. Finally.



I argued at length with myself over which of my two cameras would be the better choice for the job at hand. The fancy big camera has significantly more megapixels so I could crop the photos down later. Or. The old piece-o-junk crop body camera gives a telephoto lens the illusion of significantly more reach.

Also significant was my plan to trek across a soggy field. I decided on the old crop body camera. Thus, my 200mm lens became a 320mm equivalent. Sweet.



I'm not sure it was the right choice of camera. If I had managed to fall into the mud it would certainly have been.

Beyond their constant chatter, you can actually hear them fly. This day, my Spring sounded like the wind churned up by millions of feathers.



It's quite different from the sound of a chicken launching off her roost and crashing into a barn wall.



Both are something worth hearing.