Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

P is for: Pippa's Song Robert Browning The year's at the spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearl'd; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in His heaven- All's right with the world! A fitting poem for a spring morning, don't you think? Here is a picture of a birdnest gourd I grew year before last. Here it is popular to paint them and sell them, but I haven't exerted myself to paint any yet, though I have a bag full of them in the storage shed. I just put this one out on the clothes line to see what would happen. Last summer it was the abode of a nest of red wasps (nasty beasts). When I was hanging out the clothes sometimes I'd give the gourd a good spin and watch the wasps come boiling out and buzzing around-of course I'd make sure to be a good distance away. This year a wren started to build in the gourd, but the wind was so bad that I used some wire to stabilize the gourd a...

My tribute to the letter "Y." I like finding poems that have well-used sayings in them and wondering if they are the source of the saying. I just have never understood why it is a dog that has his day; why not a goose or an aardvark? Dunno. A footnote on Ellen's new phrase: Just yesterday after posting I noticed she was starting to draw out the "oo" sound of "who" and sounding like an owl: "Oooo is that?" she asks her dolls and books and banana at breakfast. "Oooo is that?" I laugh every time she does it. Yes, kids learning to talk are so much fun. I'll never forget my niece asking for "more crappers and cheese" when she was tiny. Too funny. Young and Old by Charles Kingsley When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away; Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day. W...

I haven't been doing too well on keeping up with the NaBloPoMo theme for this month: letters. After visiting some of the other blogs I became embarrassed at my lack of imagination. So here is my tribute to the letter Q. It comes straight from the depths of my memories from my college days so you must forgive any mistakes in grammar or punctuation, especially since I can't get the tildes and upside down question marks and all in here because it's in Spanish; from poet Gustavo Adolfo Becquer. "Que es poesia?" dices mientras clavas En mi pupila tu pupila azul. "Que es poesia?" Y tu me lo preguntas? Poesia eres tu. A rough translation: "What is poetry?" you ask while cleaving In my eye your eye of blue. "What is poetry?" And you ask it of me? Poetry is you. In other news. Not too much to report really. However, Ellen is cracking me up. Most babies her age (just over 13 months) start off saying things like "Mama" or "Dad...

Today is a nice spring day; sunny, warm but not too hot and just enough breeze to be nice. Church was good today. Hey, the Sheriff and his family were back. They came on Easter Sunday. I was uncharitable enough to remark that it's election year; of course they'd come to church. But maybe that was rude and untrue. Time will tell. Our attendance is up quite a bit overall at any rate and that is good. Tomorrow we are going to try and plant some things in the garden; onions, radishes and lettuce. Hopefully the heavy rains they are calling for later on in the week will not manifest and wash everything out. Then, of course, when we have storms in spring it generally means high winds and possible funnel clouds. *sigh* We have a couple of sick calves. One has hoof rot, we think, she is one of the larger calves and has been down for at least a week, closing in on two weeks, I believe. She is on her side now, so it's pretty much a sure thing; calf number 89 is coyote bait...

Here's another letter for today as well. This goes to Amrita in India from Yesu Garden-see link at left-who sent me my very first blogging award! Dear Amrita, Thank you very much for the lovely garland award! I appreciate the thought and friendship behind it. It means so much to me to be able to make new friends in Christ from all over the world. God bless you for your friendship! This is how she described the award: Here is an Indian ethnic award I created. The "I Garland You Award" Garland holds special significance in India. People are garlanded as a sign of honor, respect, welcome, love and friendship. Garlands are used at weddings, welcome ceremonies and social and religious occasions. Some people make garlands of real bank notes, usually for weddings to flaunt their wealth.

This letter goes out to my long-time snail mail pen-pal in the Ukraine. Dear Victoria, Thank you so very much for the lovely quilt you made and mailed to Ellen for her first birthday! I am so touched by your thoughtfulness and generosity. We all appreciate it so much. I know it will be something Ellen will treasure all of her life. It must have taken hours and hours to piece all of those little blocks together. My grandmother used to make numerous quilts and someday I hope to get a sewing machine and do the same thing. They are a lasting testament of love. Thank you again!

Dear Friends, The past couple of days have been busy and frought with ups and downs. On Wednesday evenings I teach the teen class at church; a challenge at best, but one I enjoy as you never know what they will say. Three weeks ago a couple of students actually LEARNED something: Jesus had a brother! (And perhaps other siblings.) It was funny to see the lightbulbs go on. This past Wed evening we ended up having a counseling session on a subject that didn't have to do with the lesson I had prepared, which was great as that is what I am there for. But this wasn't any light subject brought up and by the end I was more exhausted than if I had chased errant heifers around all day. Thursday, yesterday, hubby and I moved 18 heifers to their summer home in a town just NW ( I think, I am not too hot with directions ) of us. We have a field out there for their spring/summer home. This means hubby will be shuttling feed back and forth to them on his motorcycle and I will only have ...

Here is a copy of the notice I gave to my previous employment before I came to Missouri. Upon leaving a job I have always (with one exception) tried to be creative with my parting words. (Ummm...names have been changed to protect the innocent.) September 20, 2004 Her kind and gentle grace, the Lady Rebecca; to their estimable and honorable graces; the Lady Hannah and the Lady Leonora: Greetings, It is with both great joy and deep sorrow that I take pen in hand and scribe to you these few and final lines; joy for that I stand upon the threshold of a new Adventure awaiting, sorrow that I must now take my leave of this Esteemed Establishment; the County Sheriff’s Office. I laud the day, the Sixteenth of March, in the year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Eight, when I did stumble upon this most Gainful and Enjoyable Employment, and I am honored to have been able to bask in your Gracious Presences...

OK. Here we go with a letter for NaBloPoMo. Not fictitious, but something that has been at the back of my mind since Ellen was born. (This pic was taken 3 days before her first birthday.) Dear Ellen, You aren't walking yet, you are just too cautious, but I am just as glad because I am not ready for the worries that will come when you do start to walk. (Ellen, please leave the computer plugged in, I am trying to blog here...) There are so many dangers you can get into here on the dairy, it just isn't funny. There is the pond just outside the back door; not 100 yards away and I know you can just zip under the barbed wire fence in a second. There are any number of leaf piles around the woods, potential copperhead nests. Not to mention the stray copperhead crawling through on occasion. There's also the highway, 55 MPH, not 100 yards from the front of the house. (Ellen, please get out of the DVD/CD cabinet, you keep opening them up and taking the disks and labels out an...