Being mindfully aware

It was one of those crisp but sunny autumn mornings. A morning where the front door squeaks as it complains against the changing seasons. The kind of morning where you wonder if you really need that jacket and hat... when a Daddy keeps the kids busy so a Mom can spend a quiet hour crossing one more thing off her must-do-before-winter-sets-in-with-a-vengeance list.

The Christmas gift I lost nearly two years ago has been found. I still don't understand how I managed to lose it in the first place. I walk toward the barn with determined resolve to completely disregard the caution label on the side of that expensive shiny tool.

"Use cutting edge for cutting wood only"

I guess, technically, I did plan on hitting wood with that thing. But only after passing through something else with it first.

It was the kind of morning, the kind of tool, the kind of resolve, the kind of simple story that so many other prairie women have experienced in days past.



51. The privilege to teach my children that meat doesn't really come from a cellophane-wrapped package at the grocery store.
52. Knowing that his days were real... singing, scratching, free, drenched with sun and wind.
53. Feeling his life within my hands in those last moments, holding him close with quiet respectful gratitude for the gift that he truly is.
54. A deep connection to the prairie women of days past who put food on the table in exactly the same way.
55. Being mindfully aware of the true cost of my food.

This has nothing to do with the incomplete story I posted two days ago.