Pretending to Farm

A Bright, Bright Sunshiny Day

Today marks the beginning of a new era, a good era, filled with happy children and healthy farm animals and coyotes who know their place in the world, i.e. not in our farmyard. I feel it in my bones.

First of all, it is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day, light-speaking, of the year. For the next six months, it can only get brighter from here. I love those days when the light lingers far into the evening, bringing out the badminton set and the archery equipment. Not that I am good at either of those things, I am about as coordinated as an amoeba. No one stands anywhere near the target when a bow is in my hands for fear of looking like Steve Martin in his early stand-up routines. It’s still fun, though.

Today also marks Seinfeld’s “Festivus for the Rest of Us” so those of you who don’t participate in any of the myriad holidays that not-so-coincidentally fall at this time of year can pull out that aluminum pole, air your grievances, and display feats of strength. I’m a big believer in celebrating as many events as possible so, although we have no pole to set up (thankfully) and we air grievances on a daily eye-twitch-creating basis, we do have a family wrestling match which takes care of displaying those feats of strength (or weakness if one is referring to me). Hunky Husband always wins, of course, but he teases us enough to make us believe we could take him down before he puts the final kibosh on us all. Yup, not only is he handsome, the man is as strong as the proverbial ox.

The final and most convincing-to-me reason that a new positive era has begun happened early this morning as the Pint-Sized Farmer and I were doing our farm chores. (David is serving jury duty. When I told him he could probably get out of it, he told me it was his civic responsibility which made me feel like a gutter crumb for suggesting he skate in the first place. If you’re keeping track, that’s handsome, strong, and ethical. I did well.)

Pint and I were spreading scratch for the chickens, both astonished at how large the now-pullets-and-cockerels are getting, when one young bird looked right at me and crowed. It was a small crow, almost silent and very high-pitched, but it was a crow nonetheless. I haven’t heard one of those since the Great Coyote Massacre of 2007 and it was sweet music to my ears. Our little farm is reawakening to a better-than-ever time and I am blessed to be a witness to it. Once again, life is good.

Liver, Chopped Accordingly

Over the last year of the Pint’s residence with us, David has been griping off and on about being “chopped liver” to Anthony in comparison to Jessica and me. Lately, however, he has been a gloating fiend. Grampa is numero uno in Pint-sized eyes and, although he hasn’t emotionally abandoned the rest of us, we all know with whom he truly wants to spend his time.

Grampa and Anthony read together, swim together, and go to the playground together. They are a great buddy story in the making.

Joyfully sharing a club chair, they watch football together.

Showing great skill and precision, they practice synchronized drinking together. Hmmm... can one practice synchronized drinking alone? If this was an Olympic sport, these two would be serious contenders for the gold. For now though, Grampa and Pint will continue to practice on schedule each Sunday afternoon.

Very early this morning, after hearing a stirring Pint around 2 am, Grampa went to check on him in the bedroom he shares with Jessica. Upon seeing the man otherwise known as Hunky Husband, the Pint-Sized Fan slid out of bed with Jessica (she had brought him there to quiet him down and get him back to sleep) and ran toward Grampa.

“Take him,” Jessica grumpily remarked. “All he keeps saying is Grampa, Grampa, Grampa.”

Methinks someone else is feeling a bit liver-ish now.

In Which All is Revealed

The last four days of playing professional laundress (except without the pay) has severely interfered with my spinning, knitting, and writing time. Honestly, if I had my druthers, which I don’t, I would spend 90% of my day doing something creative. Unlike other media that have eventually left me bored and drifting away toward another artistic outlet, both writing and “fibering” still leave me aching to do more and I find myself straining to stay awake each night trying to either knit one more row or write one more paragraph. It’s a blessing and a curse.

Yesterday morning, though, whilst both washer and dryer were running and every bit of laundry was either sorted and waiting to go into the machines, in the machines, or, best of all, out of the machines, folded, and put away, I finished plying the last of the wool for the Recreation of the Favorite Sweater Sweater. In the past, I had promised that all would be revealed in time and, yes ladies and gentlemen, it is time. (I’m sure you’ve been waiting with baited breath unable to sleep at night. I am here to relieve your suffering. You’re welcome.)

This is the Favorite Sweater. I bought it for Hunky Husband years ago as a Christmas gift. He loves it, the simplicity of it, its sole decoration being a few assorted stripes. He prostrated himself across the bed and cried like the baby he is when I told him the ink stain that he himself had put there would not come out. Not really, but he was majorly bummed out. “It’s my favorite sweater,” he moaned. This is when the rusty gears inside my head began turning and a plan was hatched.

Obviously, the Favorite Sweater is machine knit. In order to truly recreate it, I would have to knit it on size 0000 needles and it would take me from now until the end of time to finish. Perhaps, instead of a recreation, I would design an interpretation. I would knit it solely from yarn I would spin from the first shearings of four of our sheep, Charlotte, Leroy, Cookie, and Carmela (lambswool, I can’t say yum enough).

As of yesterday morning, they are all spun and I have everything I need (with perhaps the exception of time) to make David a new favorite sweater.

Here it is so far, overlaid with my homespun in the order of sheep written above. It is knit in the round (204 stitches a row) and is just shy of the raglan stopping point (where I stopper the cable, start on the sleeves, and once they are to the same point, join everything together to begin the raglan decreases, and finish the yoke). I am hoping to get it done by Christmas but Lord knows what domestic goddess I will be forced to impersonate next.

Plus, even though the yarn is all spun for this project, I can’t live without at least a little spinning and a certain baby I will someday be privileged to know is in utero and, once sprung, will need to be adorned with the softest handspun, made from hand-dyed merino wool.

This washed and dyed mess needs to be carded into
this roving which will need to be spun into hopefully lovely yarn and made into an adorable wee cardigan, cap, and booties. All will be revealed in time (C’mon, I needed to give you fellow fiberholics something to look forward to/lose sleep over).

Hunky Husband Speaks

I am knitting flowers, lots and lots of flowers. Tomorrow, the Tasha dress begins a new journey in her life, one that will hopefully make an adorable little girl very happy. She will first become a Halloween costume and then morph into a winter dress. As today's time is crammed full of finishing Tasha before I pack her away for the trip to Texas, Hunky Husband has generously volunteered to "keep you posted."

Thank you, hunny. And away we go...

To be honest I did no long range planning. I was actually not going to go at all, but the look on Lauren’s face when she left said it all. She was happy to be going, but sad I could not make it for yet another year. Taos has become her escape from our day to day chaos. Taos is her sanctuary she desperately wanted to share with me. As she pulled out of the driveway, I put my plans in motion. Catch up at work and juggle assignments that could be pushed back. Consult with David and Jessica about watching the farm and all that that entails. It’s a lot more than one would think. We have slowly built up a daily routine that if we did not enjoy it so much could clearly be called “work”.

I knew that traveling 1,300 miles in two days on a motorcycle and not speeding was going to be a challenge so I broke down and did what I had to…I bought a radar detector and mounted it on the dash.

On Wednesday night Lauren called me at 7:30 PM and was completely wiped out from the trip. Due to construction traffic, it took her ten and a half hours to get there. My plans of leaving at 6:00 AM and getting there by 3:00 PM to surprise her had just been changed.

Thursday morning I was up at 2:45 AM and on the road by 3:30 AM. 20 minutes from the house the radar detector was going off. As I slowed to find the source I passed a sheriffs blazer. I was grinning ear to ear...It Works!!

The weather was nice until just before Flagstaff. The temperature dropped to about 40 degrees. The wind chill at 80 mph is pretty cold. Thank god for heated grips.

I surprised Lauren in the early afternoon and we hit the brewery, some shops, and had some incredible pizza. As we made it back to the bed and breakfast, the Diamondbacks were on. What a fantastic day! We both drifted off to sleep feeling lucky to be sharing the moment.

Up Friday morning early for breakfast and a tour of the 86 mile enchanted loop. The scenery was gorgeous. By 11:00 AM it was time for me to hit the road again. I had to get home and then be in Tucson Saturday morning for the Nike Classic Swim & Dive Meet.

My trip to Taos was a “fly in, fly out”, surprise that worked…and worked well. In a very short period of time I saw and experienced the Taos that Lauren has known for years. It is a beautiful town within a beautiful country. I’m glad I shared it. Definitely a memory that will remain for years.

D the H.

Back to Taos

When last we met up with the arguably-dynamic duo of Robert and me, it was a beautiful Thursday morning in Taos, New Mexico. A good night’s sleep and an active chicken’s appearance had washed away the weariness associated with the road of unending construction and, showered and dressed, we ventured out of our room to see what a “hot entrée” entailed.

We were not disappointed. Whole wheat blueberry and banana pancakes dusted with powdered sugar, fresh orange juice, hot coffee, and an accompanying breakfast bar of fresh fruit, mild cheese, vanilla yogurt, and granola. Not only were we recovered after this, we were feeling better than when we had left home. Sufficiently sophonsified (sorry, I can’t remember how Margaret Atwood spelled it; see “Cat’s Eye”), it was time for our first workshop, “Spinning with Beads.”

I love workshops. In addition the scheduled curriculum, the classes are filled with at-the-least colorful and at-the-most interesting and informative people, fellow fiber fanatics who approach their craft in unique and, as I found out, far simpler ways than previously taught.

Most of us grasped beaded spinning quickly. It involves 30-pound test fishing line, the beads of course, and smooth roving (carded fiber lengths) to get the job done. String your beads onto the filament, break the roving you have begun making into yarn, and pop the beads on, holding them back whilst the wheel turns and then pushing them forward as the mood strikes. Gilding the lily is allowed and even encouraged.

One individual, however, had a challenging time. Marilyn, a cantankerous dynamo of a shepherdess from The Black Hills of South Dakota, Marilyn whose name tag identifying her name and home kept “Rocky Raccoon” playing in my head all day, could not get the beads to pop onto the bobbin of her wheel. Enter “Bead Boy.” Robert at his best as Marilyn’s assistant relished the attention he was receiving. He stood beside the increasingly grumbling spinner and manually moved the beads from the orifice (I know, it sounds filthy and way too anatomical) to the bobbin. He was her hero. He became everyone’s hero moving from spinner to spinner helping out as needed, stringing beads for the arm-length challenged, making decisions for the ambivalent, and more. As time passed, he graduated to “Bead Dude” and ideas as to his superhero costume were being thrown around. Robert was in his element and I joined in the revelry as his self-esteem blossomed and grew.

By mid-afternoon, we were about to begin another beaded project involving linen squares, crochet hooks, and fine beaded yarn, and I admittedly was beginning to feel the fatigue catch up to me once again. I was toying with calling it a day, heading back to our room, and taking a much-needed nap when a familiar scent wafted over me and a welcome voice whispered in my ear, “Now where is this “Eske’s” place?”

Fatigue, what fatigue? To the brewery!

Which one is more “gorge”ous? I know where my chad hangs.

Suck It Up

“You know you might just have to suck it up.” Those are the words that ushered from my husband’s mouth three nights ago, and I have been thinking long and hard about them ever since. They were not meant to be cruel or demeaning but came out of the frustration of dealing with a chronically ill wife.

I was feeling sorry for myself as usual. My joints were really bothering me and new painful lesions were popping up in record speed on my skin. My feet had decided not to work when I arose each morning, causing me to walk like Peter Boyle in “Young Frankenstein” and making it impossible for me to pick up a certain Pint-Sized Farmer who always wants to be picked up and loved when he sees me vertical. I was beginning to convince myself that life in a wheelchair was coming sooner rather than later and that old bones would not be reached.

And then there was Taos. Ever since I missed last year’s Wool Festival, I have been looking forward to traveling there to participate in the 2007 festival and drink in the atmosphere. I love it there, the crisp air, real trees, and unique people. Just about everything about Taos, I love. And now I was afraid I would not be able to go, just like I could not go to Minnesota, just like I have had to cancel my attendance at so many events and miss out on so much of life.

You see my hands don’t like to drive. After anywhere from five minutes to an hour, they seize up in cramped pain and protest their prolonged position. Driving the nine hours east to Albuquerque and north through Santa Fe and on to Taos seemed like an impossibility. So I felt sorry for myself some more and ate cry baby soup, lamenting the workshops I would miss and the people and places I would not see.

“You know you might just have to suck it up.”

I’ve decided to go. Armed with if-nothing-else pure stubbornness, Robert and I are making the journey this coming Wednesday. Since I waited too long to make a hotel reservation, thinking I might not be able to go and fearing the cancellation fees I would encounter, I had a difficult time finding a place to stay but then happenstance joyfully danced in and, for just a little more than a regular, generic hotel, I found a tiny bed and breakfast to call home for the four days we’ll be there. Our casita has a fireplace, sitting area, and private patio, and is about a mile from the plaza, forcing us into some much needed exercise and hopefully ordering my feet to once again work properly, dang it. Taos is said to be a place of healing after all, serving as the hub of the 86 mile Enchanted Circle winding through northern New Mexico. This year we will travel this circle. If the legends are correct and healing is there, I’m not passing it up for the world.

If by chance, any of you out there share the good fortune to be in Taos for the Wool Festival, after the day’s workshops have ended and our daily travels complete and before Robert and I head back to our little home away from home, we’ll be sitting under the giant elderly cottonwood trees at Eske’s Brew Pub sharing good company and a delicious meal. Robert will have a home brewed root beer; I’ll be drinking a well-deserved I-sucked-it-up pint.

A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever

My mother-in-law is an amazing person, hardworking, dedicated, loyal, and strong-willed. We haven’t always gotten along, perhaps because each of us has a difficult time budging when our minds are set, perhaps because we didn’t always “get” one another. Also, as she gave birth to near-perfection in the form of a boy named David, he deserved nothing short of the best, something I definitely was not.

My insecurities about this changed the way I acted with my in-laws, squelched the fun parts of me in fear of seeming inappropriate. To add fuel to the fire, once at a party shortly before we were married, a girl I have never been fond of pulled David aside, gestured my way with her chin, and told him he could do so much better. Maybe something deep inside of me always feared she was right and thought my mother-in-law felt the same.

Twenty odd years later, years full of anything and everything which bolster and try souls such as ours, I think we understand each other. We definitely love each other and that is a good thing, Martha.

Emotional spill complete. Someone send a Hazmat crew to clean it up, would ya’?

Now Carolyn is a woman of many skills and great enthusiasm to practice them. She is an expert seamstress and, more recently, has added embroidering to her repertoire. The Amazing Matt gifted her with a fancy-dancy sewing machine that does everything but the dishes and she has done her best to discover its full potential. She attends classes, reads books, and sews, sews, sews. She has given us embroidered bath towels, kitchen towels, and clothing. Recently, she has been working on her piece de resistance, a masterpiece of fabric, decorative stitching, and, at unbelievably her first attempt, quilting.

It’s a thing of beauty, the colors, the characters, the workmanship, and, guess what? It glows in the dark and came complete with flashlights to enhance the effect.

We have a new house duck!

And a frog

And a tiger among many others.

Look how she made the quilt ties into embroidered hearts.

And thoughtfully added his name to the top.

It’s too cool for school.

What does the Pint-Sized Farmer think? He likes it just fine (it’s nice and comfy to boot).

Thanks, Mom. I'm blessed to have you for a mother-in-law.

Yeehaw!

These are “The Backyardigans.” You have heard me speak of them before because, one, Pint really likes their show, and two, through his powers of telepathy, he told me he really truly wants to be Cowboy Tyrone, shown 2nd from the left, for Halloween.

I could tell you how much our entire weird family likes “The Backyardigans” as well and how, shhh don’t tell anyone, Hunky Husband and I as recently as last night watched their new DVD together just the two of us after Pint had been sleeping for at least two hours. Who can pass up Pablo in a nineteenth century professor costume searching for the gilded golden butterfly? I know I can’t.

But I digress.

Yesterday afternoon, Pint and I made the decision that is time to start on Cowboy Tyrone’s sweater. The yarn we bought for it calls for a size 7-8 needle which I can somewhat comfortably hold. The pattern, with the exception of some simple shaping, is mindless and can be knit whilst under the influence of pain medication. Beginning this sweater also gave me a chance to have fun with the Sweater Wizard software that I purchased last Christmas with my holiday booty and have not yet used to knit a pattern.

Pint is very excited about his Cowboy Tyrone sweater. He helped me wind the Cascade 220 royal blue into a ball and cherished the feeling of the Filatura di Crosa Luna orange against his skin. (By the way, if anyone has or knows of anyone who has this same yarn in olive green, please let me know. I may know someone, this friend let's say, who knitted a sweater completely except for two inches of shoulder. Oh, the shame of running out of discontinued yarn.)

Last night, we cast on using our Knitpicks options size 8 circulars in the blue. Cowboy Tyrone can’t wait to go riding the range. Yeehaw!

Hi Ho!

Alert the seven dwarves because if my state of mind is any indication, they are missing Grumpy. The heat, the flies, and the turkey are all conspiring to interfere with life’s enjoyments. They must stop.

First of all, the fly invasion has reached epidemic proportions. If I had a dollar for every fly I have killed in the past three days, mangling swatters in the process, I could pay off the national debt thrice over. They are everywhere. Every time I kill one, two more arrive to take its place. In a mostly futile attempt to do something about the flies, Hunky Husband ventured to the big orange home improvement warehouse/ independent hardware store murderer and purchased a full case of stinky fly traps. We hung them everywhere, at each entrance to the house, in the ruminant pen, and along the fence lines. Thankfully, the termite inspector serendipitously arrived at our house yesterday morning only to tell us that these traps, although they work, attract flies from a ½ mile radius. Perhaps hanging them at each back door wasn’t such a great idea, huh? They are all along the fence lines now and away from the house and will hopefully soon do their job. Right now though, flies are once again the bane of my existence.

Then there’s Zorro (insert Maude soundtrack here). He hates me and the feeling is mutual. Like some spoiled Eddie Haskell-ite, he acts all nice when David is around but the minute his head is turned, WAM, he attacks me. This morning I awoke to something stepping across me (I wish I could say this was unique) and opened my eyes in time to see the bad boy poised to strike. BAM, he got me right in the eye. Turkey cutlets, anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

I’m not even going to talk about the heat. I’m exhausted just relaying my foul (fowl) mood as it is and I’m sure you are tired of hearing about it.

Light glows distantly at tunnel’s end however. We have another month or so of bad heat, hopefully relieved by the return of the monsoon, and then I get to go to Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes and beautiful sheep. More to come (like the benefits of asking Hunky Husband if one can travel to Minnesota when said man has had a few drinks and wifely duties have been thoroughly completed).

Summer's Over, Except for the Whole Heat Thing

Tomorrow marks the first day of school. August 9th and on a Thursday? I think that’s criminal but, as both boys are excited to start, I can’t really vocalize my displeasure. “Guys, how can you be excited about going into 8th grade when it’s still early August? You could slack and swim and play World of Warcraft for three more weeks if you started after Labor Day like a majority of the country. Geez.”

Regardless of how I feel, it will begin and with it, the morning shuffle to get them up, fed, and out the door to meet the bus in time. After the initial excitement wears off, tears and excuses will flow and I’ll have to use our shepherd’s crook to roust them out of bed. All we like sheep will go astray.

Yet, all in all, my boys are well-behaved, particularly compared to some I see but they have their moments and have unfortunately inherited their parents’ raunchy sense of humor. I’ve gotten calls. So it is with great embarrassment that I have to admit that two nights before school started, we all watched “The Daily Show” together which guess-starred Andy Samberg whose parody song with Justin Timberlake, ____ in a Box is growing, so to speak, in popularity exponentially on YouTube. Although part of me wishes I could reverse the fact that we watched this together, the rest of me does not because of their priceless reactions.

They laughed until the tears ran down to their necks as they sang the chorus over and over. Hunky Husband, kid that he is, joined in with them and I was left hoping Hell would not be as bad as it is portrayed. To top it off, this morning my twin 13-year-olds cut a hole in a box and stuck their fingers, thankfully fingers, through the hole and sang the chorus to me. I guess I should be happy my boys feel open enough with me to do this but don’t think I didn’t feel groady. I did.

Back to school, I’m going to get calls.