Little Women

Like my mother, I am the mother of 3 Little Women.
Occasionally, well, more than occasionally, these smaller versions of our complicated adult selves feel the need to practice their womanish-ness on me, their mother.
That doesn't really go over too well.
What MY 3 girls fail to remember or just don't understand is that I came from a household of women. I got this in the bag.
Being a woman takes an incredible ability to nurture, multi-task, organize, and direct (or BOSS). not to mention a big ol' dose of plain ol' grit.
While men can be very focused (or tunnel visioned, however you choose to look at it) individuals, women bear the cross of having to do it all, all at the same time. And even the quiet, reserved woman tends to have strong ideas about what and how to get things done. I'm not that quiet or reserved. I'm not that challenging though either and really wasn't as a child, just ask my mom and sisters. They WOULD tell you I was the mother hen of the 3 girls.
While I certainly appreciate these blossoming abilities in my daughters, I sometimes feel like stomping my foot and screaming "I'M THE MOM, DANGIT!!" Ok, Ok, so sometimes I really do it............
My girls are blessings from above and the burr under my saddle.
They truely believe they know exactly what we should be doing ALL the time. And frequently challenge my "Mommy Knowledge". Sometimes, often too late, I realize I've engaged these forward thrusts of will from my girls and allowed it to continue far to long.
So, lets just slow those wagons down, shall we girls. I AM the Mommy. And I will bring you up in the way you should go. Rod and all.

These testings lately have started me thinking about the amazing abilities women have. We really are quite amazing creatures.
Along with the all of the other "women's work" we must accomplish, setting the tone of the household, really does fall on Mom's shoulders. Some days are easier than other's.
A visiting prophet to a church I attended several years ago, once laid his hand on my head and said, "You are tender in tenacity." Some days I need a little more of one than the other, but for a woman these things must go hand in hand.
I pray the Lord gives me the insight and wisdom, tenderness and tenacity to know how to handle my Little Women and to encourage those gifts He gave them while molding the not-so-desireable traits.
I can understand, in a very small way, how my heavenly Father must feel when I challenge His will for my life. Sometimes I don't mean to, but I do it anyway. I'm glad He's a much more skilled parent than I. Somehow, I just can't imagine He ever stomps His foot and screams at His children. But I bet somedays He wants too ;-)

Greetings from Swampland

Fabulous English weather we're having, aye?
I love rain but really, enough is enough. I nearly had to swim to the barn this morning. And we all know that goats must be the very well removed relatives of the wicked witch of the west because they melt when they get water on them. Needless to say they were less than thrilled with the mud and flowing streams we had to traverse just to get to the milkroom. I vaguely remember my husband telling me in January that the milkroom would have 2 doors leading directly into the milking does loafing barn for easy access. Well, that would have been nice this morning. I believe I nearly drowned once or twice.
At least chores went smoothly and the goats, despite eating all their hay in the night and not setting foot in the pasture, milked remarkably well. I pasteurized 2 1/2 gallon this morning.
I came in from chores with wringing wet hair and clothes even though I had on my ski suit my mom got me for a dollar (best dollar she ever spent on me!) which I love because they repel water. I stripped down to my t-shirt and underwear ready to crawl back under the comforter on my bed, buuuuuut, the kids were up and the day was going on with or without me. I did get dressed just in time to spare the Schwans man a heart attack. :-) I was very close to presentable by the time he arrived.
I had a great day at Lisa's on Tuesday. Milk test went well. Her 4 does on test so far are doing well. She had another freshen today with triplets, 1 buck and 2 does! The doe is a first freshener and gorgeous (Journey)! Lisa has 3 more due this week and 4 more in the next round I believe. Whew! And to think she'll be fresheneing 8 more next year than this year! That's gonna be one busy lady.
School went well today, despite Tonya hitting a rough patch in math. I love days when we can just relax and take our time with school. No hurrying to get somewhere. Just working at thier own pace. Morgan did very well with her letter writing practice, she worked on capital and lowercase H. So far she has the letters O, E, A, C,H and S down pretty well. Her S's are a little strange but you can tell what she's writing. Now if I could just get her to tell me what they are when I ask. She wil about 50% of the time.
I'm looking forward to a jewelery party friday evening at a friends house. I think Hannah and I will go to dinner afterwards, maybe a couple others will join. It will be nice to have a break with the girls.
Shauns birthday is on Saturday. No big plans yet. Maybe we'll do something fun. Who knows, might just stay home. I can't get him to give me any ideas.
I'm sure he has gift ideas though. ;-)
I have'nt started the new killer workout yet. For one reason or another we just keep having to postpone it. And you know I'm just soooo upset about that! The day will come though.....
Well I guess it's back to laundry and dishes. The evening will be quiet with time to relax hopefully. Shaun will be at class and I have a movie to watch with a roast in the crockpot. I will probably milk earlier so I can get everything done and hit the hay a little earlier.
Good day to you.

Just Stuff

Ahhh, the joys of Oklahoma weather! Saturday evening as I sat and watched the wind and snowflakes swirl outside my window, I thought it quite ironic that I was still sunburned from two days before when we spent the day at the park! You just never know what the weather will do.
We enjoyed the weekend despite the snow. In fact, I really enjoyed it. My wonderful husband did the chores and milking for me on Saturday morning so I didn't have to go out in the weather. The girls had stayed the night with friends so the house was quiet. Strangely quiet.
But in a nice way :-)
I picked up the girls around lunch time and we did some grocery shopping at Wal-Mart. Morgan calls Wal-Mart "town" because almost every time I say we're going to go to town, we go to Wal-Mart. She always gets upset with me when we don't go to "town". Poor kid.
We watched movies in the evening and I made homemade chicken and noodles. They were so good, if I do say so myself.
On Sunday we spent most of the day with Hannah and Derric and the boys. We played cards, snacked and the guys practiced Jiu-Jitsu moves on each other. Later Hannah and I went to get pizza. It was a very nice weekend.
We do have a sick goat though. Foxy, one of our best girls has been sick for a couple of days.
The sudden weather change is difficult on the animals. She seems to be on the rebound, but I'm keeping a close eye.
We sold two of the baby bucks last week and have only 2 more to go. The 6 girls will stay.
I'm headed to Nowata to my friend Lisa's farm (Hedge Hollow) in the morning to start her DHIR testing. She was my tester in the past so it's my chance to return the favor. I always love getting the chance to spend time with her and her goaty girls. It's nice to look at some long-eared goats once in a while. She has a lovely herd of Nubians. And we always talk until I'm sure there's an oxygen shortage. I'm very blessed to have a close friend who understands my farm life.
Speaking of oxygen shortages,I spoke to Kelly today on the phone for 2 hours and 46 minutes. No, that's not a record or even really that long, compared to some phone conversations we've had. Although, I'm sure my children felt very neglected. Our husbands just shake their heads and roll their eyes at us. I think their used to it now. It is very hard being separated from each other. Twins just have a thing. She was very encouraging to me today, she just gets me and knows what I need to hear. Thanks Sis.
This evening will be a busy one. Besides chores and milking, my mother-in-law and I are starting a new workout. If the title has anything to do with how intense it will be, I'm more than a little scared. It's called Nsanity. Buuuuuut, we're suppose to see FANTASTIC results in just 60 days. Lord help us.
Shaun is at the fight club, so at least he won't witness our first attempt. He started it this morning before work. I was sleeping ;-D
This morning I awoke with absolutely no motivation to do anything. And the list of things I needed to accomplish was long. But my Facebook friends helped me out by sending me encouraging replies to my status. Thanks FB friends. It's nice to know you care. I didn't get everything done, but I put a dent in it.
Well, time to get on with it.

Blessings AND challenges

Every night before our children go to bed we gather as a family to pray. Each of us take a turn praying for whatever is on our hearts at the time. These prayers can be very different, sometimes funny and sometimes sweetly heartfelt. My 3 year old has been known to pray for things like ,"help everyone to get there hair done" and " help Momma to make me strawberry milk". My 8 year old, who has a tender heart, tends to run along the lines of asking for protection for the people she loves most (which is Daddy) and her cow and calf. My 14 year olds prayers are mostly from memorization. Because of her special needs, she often says the EXACT same prayer every night. My husband and I have gently reminded her that it's good to learn to pray from the heart, to be sincere in what we say to God. She's learning to change it up a bit. :-)
One evening my husband said something in his prayer that really struck a cord with me. He asked the Lord to give us courage and strength to face the blessings AND challenges that would come with the next day. I really began to think about that. Taking the good with the bad. We love it when God showers down His blessings to us, rejoice in the things that "go right". But in all actuality it is the challenges we face that really let us shine. How we face up to a problem we're having at work, with our kids, or something as silly as the car breaking down or my daughter spilling her milk at the dinner table all over everything on the table, is where we test our mettle. I don't know about you but my days are chock full of blessings and challenges! Just yesterday, I faced the challenges of dogs who got into the trash, my 3 year old shoving a small bead up her nose and getting it stuck there (yes, really), goats getting out and into the barn, eating a half a bag of feed, making a huge mess in the milk room and making me chase one in particular (Etta Rae, who else??)for 30 minutes. And the blessings of having an extra day off from school, spending hours at the park with friends in the sunshine, finding some really good bargains at a yard sale and watching a movie with my girls.
Now the real question is, how did I handle ALL of it? Well, let's just say, thank God I'm STILL a work in progress! Just ask my husband who had to go retrieve the garden rake from the neighbors pasture because that's where it landed when I threw it at the goats. :-/

Truthfully though, I am learning to accept and handle the blessings AND challenges in my life with grace. Some days are better than others, but...... He's not finished with me yet.

Free Day

I love the freedom that comes with homeschooling. It's one of the many things I love about it. Today we are taking a day off just to relax and enjoy each other. Public school is on Spring Break this week but we aren't, except for today. We take days off here and there so a full week isn't really necessary for us. But it's so nice to get up in the morning without the pressure of having to "do" school. I thank the Lord everyday for these freedoms.

My girls are already in the throes of "pretendland" upstairs in their rooms. I love to sit and listen to the games and stories they create. They're so uninhibited. There's absolutely no bounds to their imaginations and it's so entertaining to listen to.

My mother used to tell me how she loved to do the same thing. She also told me someday, I'd have the chance to listen to my children. :-) I'm so glad she was right.

These early spring mornings on the farm have settled into a nice routine. I'm milking 6 does and feeding 10 kids 3 times a day. They have already been dis-budded and will be tatooed before long. This weekend the 4 bucklings will go to the sale barn to be sold. We need the milk for the 6 girls we are keeping. So, far they are eating around 7 gallons a day. That's on top of the feed and hay they're also eating. It's a fine crop of kids and we are pleased.

It will be cheese-making time soon. I love to make fresh homemade cheese. I'm going to attempt to add a new one to my repitoire, cheese curds. It's a family favorite snack. We'll see how it goes.

Two days ago, Morgan and I found a cache of eggs the hens had been hiding from us. We thought they hadn't started laying again yet but we were wrong. On the porch we have a table that is loaded down with junk we moved out of the goat barn to make room for the kids and milk stands (it's a work in progress ;-)) that has a folded up tent on it. The hens had decided it was a great nest. We found 14 eggs there. We only have 2 hens so they'd been hiding them a week. Morgan gathered them up and we washed and floated them. None had spoiled, yeah! Fresh eggs and milk for breakfast!

It will be Round Up Club time before we know it! The new season begins in April and will span through the summer and early fall. The girls can hardly wait. It's always a blast and we're all looking forward to it. We'll have to start getting the horses in shape for it again after their long winter break. We let the girls practice on Tyler, their gelding last week and they did great.

Later, we'll be heading in to town to visit the bread store. It's bargain day and the girls love to go there.

I think I'm going to take advantage of this quiet morning and have a cup of tea and settle in my favorite chair with a book. At least for a few minutes......

Battlefield of the Mind and Other Such Stuff

First things first:
Happy anniversary to my most excellent husband. Today marks the 13th year we have been married. I must say thank you to the man who inspires me to be a better person, who drives my passion for life, who catches me when I fall, who knows my insecureties and loves me through them, who makes me laugh and even sometimes cry, who isn't afraid to dream with me and even accomplish some of those dreams, who isn't afraid to make sacrifices for his family, who gets up everyday to face the giant of this world to protect and provide for me and his children, who meets my needs and never stops trying to love me in a Christ-like manner, I love you forever.
I must also thank my Heavenly Father for blessing me with the gift of this man. Only You would know how I would need him in this life you gave us both. Thank You for your divine love and care woven through our life together. I love you forever.

I have been thinking this morning on the battlefield of the mind. I read chapter 7 in the book of Luke and have been considering a point that stuck out to me. In this chapter, Jesus is doing miracles, and not just simple ones like turning water into wine, but raising people from the dead. The thing is, the people STILL don't want to accept Him as the Messiah. They are eager to have Him come and heal their loved ones and believe He can, but when He begins to speak of forgivness, they all shut down and feel He oversteps, that He's blasphemous! He's right there in front of them and they refuse to see Him for who He is. Even John, Jesus' cousin and beloved friend is discouraged and Jesus gently encourages and reassures him.
Well after reading this chapter and sending Shaun on his way to work (we read it together over breakfast this morning) I went to milk the goats. Sometimes my best thoughts come when I'm milking. I think the simple peace of the barn and the acceptance of the animals of me at face value helps with my clarity of thought. Anyway, didn't mean to rabbit trail there.
I have been struggling with a feeling of being overwhelmed the past couple of weeks. The many wonderful and daunting resposibilities of being a mother, wife and teacher have had me down lately. Most days I'm happy and blessed to tackle the everyday challenges that come with my life but others, not so much. I have had this deafeatest attitude lately that no matter what I do or how hard I try I can't seem to get all the things accomplished in a day that I feel I should. That no matter how many times we practice, Tonya can't seem to get the math I'm teaching or Alex's bad attitude about English is stonewalling her progress and that Morgan being sick and demanding on top of the laundry, housework, chores and errands that need to be run are like concrete blocks chained to my ankles. Not to mention that the van broke down and the house payment is due, the preverbial wolf at the door. But this morning after reading in Luke 7 about how the people didn't recoginize Jesus for who He was, a light bulb came on in my brain! I wasn't giving Jesus the recognition He deserved for who He really was in MY life. I've heard all this before, but it struck home today. I am a daughter of the King through Jesus Christ my Saviour. I am NOT defeated and never could be, the battle has already been won, even the battle in my mind. I must remember that those thoughts don't come from above but from the enemy who seeks to destroy me. I have to recoginize Jesus as the Messiah in my daily life, just as the people in Luke 7 needed too.
So, I've come to the conclusion that the only standard I should hold myself to is God's. I know, I know, a lightning bolt right? Look, I knew all this already but sometimes we need a reminder. I need to adjust MY standards to match HIS. I can accomplish ALL things through Christ who strengthens me. Even the laundry!

Goats on the Porch

It is inevitable every spring on CrossOver Farms that there comes a day when we see goats on our front porch. No matter how many times we build fence, new pens and gates, the buggers manage to find a way out. If it's not the Oklahoma winds here on the prairie blowing the gate open, it's one of my kids leaving a latch just a little too loose.
Thinking that I would let the youngsters stretch their legs, I put all 10 goat kids in the big doe pen this morning. And just a little while later I see a baby goat go flying past the bay window on the porch!
So, I go outside to put it up and five others jump off of the deep freezer by the back door and tackle me. I snatch all 10 and put them back in, only to watch them all climb through the gate and run back to me.
Oh the joys of goat raising!
Sooooo, the next project will be covering the gate with wire fencing so that the babies can't get through. It's always something.....

Just another blessed day...

So, Shaun woke me up this morning at 6:30 and needed my help to bring the minivan back home that broke down on the way to work. It's just a couple of miles from the house (which he walked/jogged home) so we hopped in and got it home before the girls woke up. It appears as if the transmission is a goner. Wonderful, down to one vehicle.
The rest of the day has turned out well considering the start we had. The girls helped me milk the goats and Shaun fed the larger livestock. After breakfast we headed to Joplin to buy groceries.(Shaun took the day off after his car troubles)
When we returned home, Shaun was struck by a need to clean and organize my pantry. It's a job I normally do, but was more than glad to let him handle. The counter full of groceries probably had something to do with the sudden inspiration.
Regardless, the pantry is nice and clean. :-)
Milking went smoothly this evening. The babies are eating and growing like crazy the way babies do. Tiara, Tonya's doeling taped out (weighed in) at 31 lbs. today and she's only 4 weeks old. I think we'll repeat that breeding next fall.
The does are producing well, I think next week I'll make some cheese. I need some Ricotta for Lasagna. That is certainly easy enough to get started with.
The Daffodils around the front porch are coming up, a spring teaser. I long for the warm sun of spring to get my fingers in the garden dirt! Soon enough, soon enough. The good Lord knows there's enough to do for now.
School is going well. The girls took a Science test today on the properties of matter and forms of energy. They did very well. It was nice to get the chance to include Shaun too.
Well, I'm off to watch a movie with my husband and relax for a while before bed.
Sweet Dreams and God bless.