From early morn, till setting sun.....

It's Monday and I am excited! I am having a Ladies' Get Together at my house on Wednesday.  I sorted and moved some things that had been laying around, I vacuumed and washed the floor, I did the laundry, I cleaned the bathroom sink and toilet, I swept the deck and steps, I cleaned off the kitchen counter and shined the kitchen sink, picked up the puppy toys and dusted the piano and picture frames, vacuumed up the cobwebs and killed the flies....
Then I went out to do chores and fill the wood stove.
I came in and made supper which means now my kitchen sink is not shiny any longer ... there are already puppy tracks across my floor because it's raining outside and Lady Dog comes in with wet feet... The men came in and washed up and now my sink looks like part of the shop came in too!
Someone read the paper while they were waiting for supper to cook and now there it sits, all over the kitchen table.
There is laundry to put away but it's waiting for me, sitting on the chair and there is someone eating potato chips while they sit watching tv.  As I type this I can hear Lady Dog burying something in her blankets....
And this is Monday... I have 2 more mornings to do this all over again!!!
I knew it was too early to be cleaning up the house for  company on Wednesday but I kept telling myself that I was making it easier and it wouldn't take so long to do on the day I needed the house clean....
Righ!  Who was I trying to kid?
I'm going to be like Dory, the fish who keeps forgetting things in the movie, 'Finding Nemo'... I'm just going to say to myself over and over and over... Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming....
My grandma once told me,'A housewife's work is never done - from early morn till setting sun'... Yes, she was right. I think it's one of the wonders of the world... it's a renewable resource... Oh would you look at that... one more dirty dish in my once again clean kitchen sink.... sigh....

The Hard Part of Farming

I wish I could say I got to say goodbye but I didn't. Instead I stayed in bed and tried not to listen as Mr. went down to the sheep pen and dispatched Sweet Pea... and soon it will be Tony's turn to head to freezer camp.
This is not fun.  I feed and water and pet and talk and tame these babies and I KNOW that is what they are here for, they are our food. That is what I am doing here.

The chickens are no problem and the pigs, well I am happy to say good bye to them,but my sheep... that's a hard one.
Sweet Pea was just that... a runty little scruffy rag-a-muffin sweet pea sheep that came to live here for the summer.  His owner thought we might need a different bloodline for our ewes... well Sweet Pea just didn't have any good blood line to pass on to my beautiful momma's AND not long afterward we sold them all anyway... but no one wanted Sweet Pea. No one except Ferdinand the calf, and me.
Sweet Pea was the first one to tell us that the feed buckets were empty and that he thought they all really needed to get out and graze in the field instead anyway. Or that he needed a head scratch or that he wanted to play.  Tony, his other sheepy friend (who we kept for the freezer) played well and they had a great summer here, eating all the grass on the lawn, trimming my trees, laying in the sunshine chewing their cud. Getting into things they shouldn't get into and trying to eat all the chickens food before I noticed.
But like Terry Jack's song 'Seasons in the Sun', it all comes to an end... for all of us one day.

Val and Tony with their mom, Molly, out exploring just after they were born.

Lets just hope we, like the sheep, all take time to enjoy the sunshine and the outdoors, that we rested well and ate right, and had good friends to spend time with.... what more can we ask for?

I tell myself... "Buck up Farm Momma, that's how life goes on the farm." As I try to keep my eyes from leaking. This is the hard part.

I count the happy moments that they gave me and I hope that I gave them as many happy days as they gave me.
Thank you dear sheep. <3

Tony getting some scratches... <3

Sweet Pea looking or some loves.

Sweet Pea in all his pot belly glory

Sky Ponderings...

As we all rushed outside to look at the moon last night, watching it go through the changes of it's Super Moon, Blood Red Moon, Full Moon Closest to the Autumn Equinox Moon....I had to stop and think....
The sky was brilliant, the stars were shimmering, the late September air was warm, there were no mosquitoes, and on the breeze was the smell of wood smoke and autumn leaves. It was the perfect backdrop to sit and ponder for a little while

I stopped, lean way back, and gaze at the heavens. When the moon was at it's full eclipse stage, the sky was like black velvet with a sprinkle of glitter on it. Then when the moon passed out of the Earth's shadow, there was enough light to go for a walk. The stars dimmed but the glimmer of moonlight on everything was just as peaceful.

I thought about our grandparents who didn't have tv and internet or cell phones with wi-fi, maybe some didn't even have electric lights in the house... and all that non plugged in time that they had to sit and enjoy these same heavens.  They would gaze up and think and ponder and come up with some good thoughts.  They looked up and filled their brain with great ideas.
How often do we spend our time in front of an artificial light, with our heads down and let someone else do our thinking for us.

Taking that time to think and look up and realize that the heavens are so big and I am really quite a small speck in the grand scheme of things helps put me back in my place.
I thought, who am I to even dream that I am anything amazing? Yet at the same time I realize that little Me is just as important as one of those little stars or that moon that is being covered by the Earth's shadow. My place in this world is just as worthy as the moon that comes peeping out from the shadows.  Maybe I might get feeling a little 'eclipsed' by events at times but I dare not lose sight that my light still needs to shine so when the time is right, there I am, still shining bright like the moon, steadfast and reliable, or like the stars, still twinkling away no matter what happens around them.

Looking up at the moon and watching an event that will not happen again until 2033 and realizing that I was watching one of those 'once in a lifetime' sort of events, I felt humbled and honoured. And it made me thankful that I could take time to be part of something so special.

I wondered what our grandparents would have thought if they would have watched the Super Moon Eclipse. I am sure it would have been some kind of sign to them - that they would have read something special into the event.

Maybe someone watching such an event might even have asked their special someone to marry them. Wouldn't that be a special kind of night to always remember?

I was glad to have those few hours to slow my mind down and take time to think about things other than, 'what I am going to do tomorrow,' or what show I was going to watch tonight. I was glad for the wake up to get back to the basics of life and take a little time to just sit and think. It's too bad that it takes the total eclipse of the moon to make us sit still and think about the grandness of the universe though.

The night of the Blood Red Moon