Glacier Park

I'm not going to write much in this post. I'll just post pictures and let you imagine what a delightful day we had celebrating Maggie's 12th birthday in one of the most breathtaking places in the US.
Enjoy! (We certainly did!)

Lake McDonald

We like to "skip" (translation:chuck) rocks.

Hiking to the falls, through the fairy woods.

It was SO LOUD!

He explains with great authority things he knows nothing about...

He explains with great authority things he knows quite a lot about...

Something big has been here!

Like, a bear. 

A tall, very strong bear.

Not so very long ago, either...

Maybe we should go another way!

You can see the burned trees on the horizon...

That was the side of the park the bears lived on, but they moved looking for food. 

Obligatory wildlife shot...

I didn't even get to the pictures of the lodge or the ferry boat!  Glacier saturates your brain with its unparalleled majesty, leaving you to just stagger open mouthed out to the "real world". We just saw a teeny tiny part of the park; next time we think it would be fun to ride the red buses up Going to the Sun Highway.

Let's Not Go There

Today's assignment is to list five places I'd like to go. 

Since I want to go EVERYWHERE, it's easier to list the five places I really never want to go. After that, I'll show you pictures of Glacier Park in a following post. Everyone wins! 

Five places I never care to see:

1. Las Vegas. Don't even begin to defend it or encourage me to be open-minded about this city; I just don't want to go. I'm sure there are very interesting people and things to do there. There are ALSO very interesting people and things to do everywhere else in the world, so I'll take my carry on elsewhere.  

2. Barrow Point, Alaska. I had family that lived there when I was a kid, so I read up about it in National Geographic. I can very confidently say that there's nothing there for me....especially since my cousins moved further south.  

3. Yankees Stadium. Meh... see the note on Las Vegas.  (Really, this is just to make sure my frienemies are still reading my blog and to get them stirred up for Tuesday's rivalry series.)

4. Death Valley. I just told a friend of mine that I didn't want him to send any photos from his recent stay in Los Angeles because Hell shimmers in the background. Later, I realized it was not Hell but Death Valley. Same difference. 

5. Caves. No caves. Not even blanket caves. Just no. I went to Lewis and Clark Caverns with my friends the Yosts and realized about 15 minutes in to the tour that caves were NOT for me. 

Whew!  Glad that's over!

How Inspiring!

Yes, it's late, but I'm still getting the post up! 

The assignment was for me to write about someone inspiring, and I find it hard to narrow this down because I'm inspired by so many people. 

Really! 

And as I was riding on the four wheeler behind so many cows that make me happy, a couple thoughts occurred to me about this.

Here's the first:

I'm inspired by people who don't keep very close track of their chronological age, choosing to quit things because they're "too old".  Several months ago, I read an article about a woman who was 101 years old who broke the track record for her age group (anyone over 100) for the 100 meter dash. I was enchanted! 

There are so many cool things about this. The thought that there's an actual category in the record books for those over 100 years of age in track and field...that's pretty remarkable. The fact that someone over 100 years old is "dashing"...I'm still working on that notion. And she didn't start running until her 70s when many catastrophic things happened in her life. She began running in her 70s, y'all. She didn't say to herself, "I'm 73, my body is old and fragile and hurts, and I could fall and break a hip.".  This woman ran ANYWAY. There was a lot of tragedy in her life at the time, she really had nothing more to lose from what the article said. 

She just did it.

Nike should have her image on every box of running shoes they sell. 

And last week I read an article about a nurse in Montana who finally retired after 65 years of nursing. Like...she started nursing back when they invented it, right?!? 

She was 87 and had nursed all her life, raised a family, buried a husband and kept on going.  Guess what she's going to do in her retirement?

That's right. She's volunteering at the nursing home to help all the "old people". 

She'll probably read about our 101 year old racing friend and begin training to usurp the record in 20 years. 

The number one barrel racer in the country right now, earnings-wise, is 67 years old. 

No one told HER that the statute of limitations was 50 years of age. She's smoking all those 20 something darlings at the Cheyenne Frontier Days! 

THAT'S inspiring to me. 

Secondly, there are the quiet inspire-rs.  

I encounter them when I'm at the grocery store or in the parking lot (when I go to town) or in the library...in everyday life.

 They're the ones who send ice cream cones to a young mother with a toddler and a baby and a grandma at McDonalds on a hot exhausting day. (Bless you, sir; whoever you are. I'll never forget that 10 years ago.)  

The ones who unobtrusively pick up things that fell in the aisle at the grocery store rather than walking around it and pretending it's someone else's problem. 

The people who take time to say "hi" to a baby who just learned the word and has been saying it to everyone she sees all over Home Depot with no response, save one kind person. (Again, thank you. I was near tears because no one would say "hi!" back to my baby.)  

The ones who faithfully and kindly read blogs about cows and flowers and dogs and shoes and recipes and children...for YEARS...and never fail to encourage or comment. 

You inspire me. 

I want to be one of those people.

Look around you this week, please.  Read articles not of political or economic interest, but of good people doing kind things. Look for people who forget they "should" be in the nursing home who are still rocking their running shoes or horseshoes. 

Prepare to be inspired!

Peeved

Today's assignment is to write about three pet peeves.
Just three.
A study in restraint, I see...

My first pet peeve is chewing gum.
Very few people who chew gum know how to do so with class and good manners. There's smacking mastication. There's tiny in-mouth bubble popping. It's all funny in the movie caricatures with loud talking waitresses, but in real life it's pretty annoying.
I could tolerate the personal rudeness, but the thing that REALLY peeves me is that no one seems to know how dispose of the stuff discretely and unobtrusively. One of my first jobs was as an assistant janitor at my high school between my freshman and sophomore years. Let me say right now that I believe EVERYONE should have to janitor their own school for three months as a part of their class load.  Once you've scraped dried gum off the bottom of every desk in the building (save the secretary and principal's desks), or cleaned and waxed all the bathrooms, or repainted the lockers...ALL the lockers...much greater care is taken of the educational resources you're provided with.  That's why I can't stand gum.  I cleaned up so stinkin' much of it!  This isn't even counting the gum I cleaned off shoes from the random spitting in the parking lots. Or the gum out of my kids hair.

The second pet peeve on my (rather extensive) list is "I seen".
I really and truly try not to be a grammar Nazi, brace myself against the misuse of "their", "there", and "they're" in writing, but my palms absolutely sweat when I hear someone say "I seen them cows..." or "I seen a big cloud over..." etc.
"I saw..."
"I have seen...."
"I will have seen...."
But not "I seen".
I don't know why this bugs me to the dying end, but it does.

Thirdly, (and blessedly, FINALLY) is when people who are shopping decide they don't want a product or find a better deal on a similar product, and leave it in any old random place in the store. Or their empty Shlurpee container.
Again, this goes back to retail work experience from a job I had with Jo-Ann Fabrics.
It's quick and convenient for the customer, and what's the big deal, right?
It's a big stinkin' deal to the college girl who is working three jobs and has to sweep/organize every aisle after the doors close before she drags off to home for another 3 hours of homework, only to start it all again at 6 AM. Or the retiree who is putting in the hours on this job to afford rent and little Christmas gifts for their family with this job that runs until 9 PM; their legs ache and they can't understand what happened to common courtesy.
It's a big deal.
It's rude.
It's unnecessary.
Take the product back to the aisle it belongs; it's another 5 minutes out of your leisurely shopping day. Take the empty container to the trash at the front of the store that you walk past ANYWAY to leave. Just do. Be decent. Be a good person. It's not that hard.

Tomorrow is "Someone inspiring"!
I will lose sleep tonight over this! So, so many inspiring people that I know of...

You don't say!

(I guess I was supposed to do TEN things that make me smile for yesterday's assignment. YIKES! Count your lucky stars that I didn't get it correct...)

Today's assignment was to write about something someone told me about myself that I never forgot.
I spent my whole run this morning trying to come up with it. All I could remember was the negative because of course that's what we all hang on to, right?

One of the things that I've never forgotten wasn't said directly to me, but I remember hearing it a lot and taking it quite to heart.  It wasn't anything bad, but it sure shaped my self-perception.

When I was growing up, I was (and still am) very bookish. I loved reading, loved my horse, and loved drawing.  My sister was kind of a tomboy and rode bikes, played basketball, tumbled and did all sorts of physical things.  I remember when I was about 9 years old, I heard my mom tell someone that "Jen's athletic and Mary's artistic".  It struck me that if I was artistic, I couldn't possibly be athletic and besides, Mom should know.

It's very true that I'm not good at team sports. And I thought that's what athleticism WAS....playing basketball or volleyball.  I was fast at running in high school gym class, but when approached by the track coach to go out for the track team, I declined....because I knew I wasn't athletic.  In fact, I avoided any sort of sport or activity that would show the world my lack of ability.

When I was 21 or 22, my friend Kim (who challenged me to do these blog assignments) took me mountain biking and kayaking, and I loved it! At the end of a particularly challenging ride (for me) I told her that it was kind of cool that I made it because I wasn't athletic.
Well.
She schooled me on what athleticism REALLY was, right there at the end of the bike trail, sweaty and tired. And guess what? It turns out, I AM athletic! I am!  I'm just not athletic in organized sports.

I learned that it doesn't matter what people say about who I am.  It really just matters that I don't limit myself and that I continue to try new things, evolving into whoever it is I want.
(I will confess this, though. I accept that I'm really and truly not mechanical in any way. I can barely run a toaster. But I can run 5 miles, and that's cool.)

It's an assignment...

My friend Kim told me she wanted to start blogging again and wanted me to join her in a blog writing challenge.  I've written probably 30 posts in my head over the last month, but just haven't taken the time to actually sit down and type them out here!

We decided to break down a 30 day blog challenge into the 1-7th of each of the next few months so it didn't seem so overwhelming that we'd quit partway through.  So from now until August 7th, there will be a blog post a day, at least, on the Chronicles! And September. And October. And November.

Today's assignment was to write about five things that make me happy.
(Yes. I KNOW. The Sound of Music song, "Favorite Things" just started playing in your head.  I'm so, so sorry! But I promise you, there are no whiskers on kittens in this. Or warm woolen mittens.)

I think you all know that spending time with my family and friends, books, coffee, wine, and sunshine make me happy, so I'm not going to write about those dear things.  (I mean, really...don't they make EVERYONE happy?!?)

1. Correspondence in my actual, physical mailbox from friends and family makes me SO happy! I love to see the loved one's actual handwriting or hear their voice through a typed letter even.  There's something about holding the page, smelling the ink and paper, the surprise of the envelope in the pile of advertisements and bills....  Oh, it's the BEST!

2. Cows make me happy. I like them in pictures, I like to be around them in person, I like reading about them in James Herriot books or Wally Badgett cartoons. They have funny personalities, beautiful eyes, great topknot hair do-s.  They're smart and sneaky. And here's the truth, without malice or mean-spiritedness: they are just like women.  If you've ever spent time with junior high girls, you'll know about yearling heifers.  A two year old with her first calf is JUST like a young mother with her first baby. A group of cows will watch you approach like a bunch of old ladies at a coffee shop....they don't want to look like they care what you're doing, but they're intensely curious and suspicious. It's highly entertaining to watch them, and they do make my heart happy, even on the bad days.

3. My dog, Tessie. And before that, my dog Molly. No matter how rotten a day I'm having or how tired I am, Tessie can make me smile.

4. Cooking a special meal for someone appreciative is a special delight! I know...I cook all the time. Three squares a day. Year round.  It's a good gig if you can get it!  But cooking "special" things is great fun, and watching people enjoy it deeply is different.

 One time, a friend of mine who had lived in more urban areas for quite a while moved back to Jordan.  She and I were talking about life and locale when she mentioned that one of the things she missed most of all about leaving the city was the availability of Chinese food.  I commiserated, and driving home decided I'd make a Chinese meal as a surprise for her!  The next week, I invited her and a couple other friends over for a Chinese buffet that had grown out of control. It's no exaggeration...the thing was ridiculous; broccoli beef, cashew chicken, General Tso's chicken, fried rice, egg rolls, sweet and sour pork. I think there were 6 entrees and 4 sides, all made from scratch. And sherbet. It was a pile of work, but it was so worth it to see her eyes light up and a big smile on her face as she filled her plate!  I sometimes feel like I don't have a lot of talents or gifts to share, not like other people, but I can cook and it makes me happy to make people happy through that.

5. (Warning: this is terrible and superficial and silly.) When my sports teams win, I'm inordinately thrilled and I walk around feeling all grand. I cheer. I talk about it to no one who cares. I obsess over the highlights of the game. I wear the gear in public, hoping someone will mention the victory.
It's not something I'm proud of, and I really and truly try to be a better person and pray for world peace, the cure for cancer, and all those things but...
(Do you think it's because there's so much awful junk going on in the world that it's so nice to have something with rules that is settled on a green field cleanly and neatly? I don't know.)

Of course this is by no means the end of the things that bring me joy, but it's a pretty good start.

Happy August!

The Proper Way to Eat Steak

...is with toast.

It was an unspoken, unwritten rule when I was growing up that toast must be served with steak. (Or maybe I just thought that, but it was a good rule anyway.) It's my rule, now, and I'm very happy to share it with you.

If you slightly lift a chunk of steak that has been correctly cooked or grilled, you'll find a warm puddle of the most incredible juice you can imagine under it. To my taste, it should be dark and slightly greasy; if it's bright red, the steak is too rare (read: raw) and if it's NOT there, good luck to you because the steak will be dry. As you cut and eat your steak, the puddle should grow a bit larger from the juices released from the center.

Let it grow.
Don't let your potato or salad slop over into the puddle...it'll waste precious drops and you'll have regrets.
Trust me.

When the meat and salad and potato have all been consumed, you should have a lovely puddle of steak juice left on your plate. I personally don't use steak sauce, but if you do, it will not have spoiled the experience. (I've been blessed to grow up and then live where the best tasting beef in the world is raised. I like to taste the beef. That's why I don't mess around with steak sauce.)

Now is the time to take half a slice of buttered toast and soak it in the still warm steak juice. Don't get in a hurry, let it really absorb the goody. (If you've been lucky enough to have more juice than one half-slice will handle, the other half can do clean up.)
My favorite sopping toast is white Texas toast. I don't know why, but it's the perfect carrier for all the flavors. We now healthily make whole grain toast and it's okay, but all those crunchy seeds and grains sort of get in the way of the pure experience.

Pick the now saturated toast up and eat the best part of your steak dinner.
Really.
It'll be rich and beefy, soft and crunchy at the same time. Salty enough to make you crave more. Your fingers will smell like steak and toast, and you'll have to stop yourself from licking them happily. The next minute you may find yourself looking at your dining partner's plate, calculating whether or not they know the proper way to eat steak and if not, how completely inappropriate it would be to sop up their juice, too.
You won't even consider dessert.
You won't HAVE to!
Steak juice and buttered toast is the most perfect way to end the meal.

Happy Hunting

 Hiding Easter eggs in Cohagen is tricky. Prairie grass...if there IS any....is short and sparse. There are no bushes, shrubs, trees, or big rocks to tuck the treasures in, either.  This causes the eggs to look as though they were broadcast in a big general scatter...

Granted, these were hidden for the little-littles, but still...

 Three on an ant hill. 

Here they come!

The littles were released first, and they took no time at all in scooping up plastic eggs.

The big kids were given the option to help hide eggs this year, and help the little-littles find some. This was a great plan and they all had such fun! (Two of the more enthusiastic Easter bunnies, here.)

It looks much colder than it actually was; I think it was 42 degrees and no wind as we were hunting eggs. Barely cold enough to have to wear a coat, but they humored the adults anyway.

  Do they come any cuter than this?!?!

I love the Montana prairie stretching out behind these kids...

Big boy bunnies...(the skull and crossbones cap helps the swagger)

These two have been the best of pals for 3 or 4 years! Hannah calls Maggie "Iggie" and they seek each other out at every Cohagen event.

Iggie and Hannie

Okay, THESE two are so dear that I almost can't stand it.

They cheerfully opened some eggs so I could get a picture of the loot. 

Counting eggs to make sure they were within legal limits. (Before the hunt began, they were told they could only....ONLY....gather 23 eggs. Can you imagine?! ONLY 23. My head hurts at the thought of that much candy in a child.

The hat.  That hat is KILLING me. He wore it like that the whole time, and managed to gather up quite a clutch of plastic eggs. (Maybe it kept him from being distracted by other things, I don't know.)

I think we ended up with something like 30 kids, counting infants and preschoolers. Such a good bunch for our little school!

Confessions of a School Party Mom Flunkie

There are a lot of things about parenting that no one tells you at the baby shower. All those sweet little index cards that experienced mothers and well-meaning aunties write out full of helpful parenting hints contain things like "You can't spoil babies; kiss them more than you think is healthy!" and "Always carry a diaper in the glove box of your car. Trust me on this one." are all good and fine, but most of them deal with "baby" or "toddler" situations.  Almost no one (including the good Dr. James Dobson) writes about perplexing issues involving grade school age (5-12) children.

I'm not talking about what to do if they contract chicken pox or how to handle "The Talk".  There ARE books about that. What really kills some of us are things like school parties and sports events.

Now, I'm certain there are Very Organized and Creative Mothers who look forward to such things. It gives them an opportunity to showcase their talents. They're the ones who actually have real Easter baskets for their kids to put the plastic eggs in, instead of plastic grocery bags hastily borrowed from the teacher. Their party treats bring to mind a Martha Stewart magazine cover, with olives minutely sliced into spider legs on top of perfectly peeled deviled eggs. They show up at basketball games with personalized, superbly FAN-tastic ensembles and pull out little handlettered banners with all their kids' teammates names and numbers on there in gold.

If this is you, bless your heart, you'd probably better just stop reading the Chronicles here and go amuse yourself on the Pinterest website.



I THOUGHT I could be one of those mothers. (In retrospect, I have no idea why because nothing in my past would suggest or even hint at this sort of tendency...)

And I probably could try a little harder.

It would help if I could ever nail down the date and times of events.
I DO try!
I read the school emails and newsletters and Facebook posts with my planner open, pen in hand, writing down everything important as soon as I encounter it. But I always miss the hidden clues that the other mothers glean from the same documents....things like, "And all the kids will wear pajamas that day" or "Please send one ingredient for Earth Day tacos."  I end up writing down the right date/wrong time, or vice-versa.  Or they change the date on something and I miss that in the subsequent email.

I honestly have stood in front of the cupboard and thought these things, folks:

"I suppose I can't stuff plastic eggs with Vienna sausages, cocktail onions, or plain old marshmallows..."

"I probably can't take any of those for school treats, either..."

"What is the world record time for Jello set up?"

"Game....I'm responsible for a GAME?!?!?!  Like, Sort the Lucky Charms...that might work."
"But not for Halloween."
"Dang."


I'm telling you.
It's BRUTAL.

The older the kids get the less pressure there is on the school front, thank goodness, but the sports mom thing kicks in then. They have practices at specific times in specific places and need important things like real honest-to-goodness basketball shoes. It turns out, most sports also require sports physicals from genuine doctors, not just notes from the parent saying "She's up to date on her shots and hasn't had anything contagious for a couple weeks now."

At games, the parents wear team colors and have cash for concessions.
SERIOUSLY!
They don't just show up showered, with their last check in their pocket (because they forgot to order new ones two weeks ago).  And they show up at the right gymnasium or field. They show up on the appointed day to take their turn selling concessions. In team colors. WITH CASH.
Apparently, this is no biggie for most people of the world...


Today is the school Easter egg hunt.
We miraculously had both plastic eggs and candy, so my cherubs boarded the bus somewhat prepared. But now I have to come up with treats of some sort, and it's not looking promising.

Frozen corn...
Two not-too-brown bananas...
Coffee beans...

*sigh*

No Horses on the Place

Dear Sara Hagedorn C.,

(And all readers of the Chronicles, but Sara's the one who scolded...)

When I married the Farmer, it was made abundantly and emphatically clear that there would be NO HORSES ON THE PLACE.  It was a big point, because I grew up riding and my dad still uses horses every day on his place, and the family I married into were not horse-y at all. In fact, horses were looked on as a waste of time, feed, and an endless moneypit; four wheelers were much more efficient and besides, they don't scare the cows. I do respect that. Our pastures here at Lang's Fork are very large and easily covered on a four wheeler. Where I grew up, wheelers would be pointless as the country is much tougher, the hills not easy but mean, rough gumbo.  There's a place for everything.

And then we had Maggie. 

Now, I'm not overstating the thing when I say that little girls are born with a horse-compass. Early in their lives, almost all of them are drawn to horses.  They read horse books (thank you Marguerite Henry for so many). Their walls are covered with pictures from calendars and magazines of horses. One will find My Little Pony growing into Breyer toy horses as they grow. But at some point will come the inevitable question....

You know what it is, don't you?

"Can I have a horse?"

In our case, I'm happy to say it was because she spent happy times horseback at Cowboy PopPop's, from the time she was three months old, really. My dad and Grammy Karen have made a point of taking the time to get all their grandkids on horses as early and often as possible. So besides the "nature" of genetic horse-love, there was also the "nurture". 

When Maggie asked us, we told her that if she wanted a horse she'd have to earn the money and buy it herself. This was going to take some time and a lot of work on her part. By the time she had earned enough for a horse, perhaps PopPops Vern would have retired to a nice little house in Miles City and wouldn't have heart palpitations over the whole deal. 

What we did NOT take into consideration, however, was how very determined and focused our daughter would be in this endeavor. 

From that point on, all her birthday and Christmas money went in a bright yellow Whitman's chocolate box decorated with horses in her drawer. When she won premium money at the county fair, into the box it went. She rode for a week to help her Cowboy PopPops and her wages were proudly deposited in the Horse Fund. Any spare bit of change, any quarters found on the street....into the box for her horse. She raised a bum calf, bought a heifer from the sale of it, sold the heifer when she was dry on the third year and had money from that for a horse.

Maggie would watch her brother spending his birthday money on LEGOs and candy and whatever else caught his fancy, but held tight to her purse strings with this goal of having her own horse someday. I'm getting a little teary as I type this because as I watched this for three years, I hope hope hoped it would not be in vain, that her persistent belief and work would not go unrewarded. 

So many dreams DO crash, you know.

So many things in life turn out to be disappointments and empty promises. 

I'm so very happy to write to you and tell you that her efforts did not go unrewarded. 

It turns out that my godson married a dear girl (okay, she's in her twenties but that's a girl to old people like me, right?) who is deeply involved in horses. She's a farrier and barrel-racer for goodness sake, and rode up the aisle in her wedding on her horse Boyfriend. 

We love her. 

She works for a woman who does hippotherapy which is NOT a rehab for chemically dependent hippos (you laugh, the world is a weird place nowadays, my friend) but a therapy with horses for those who are handicapped, veterans, traumatically injured in some way, children in struggling homes/settings. And through this work, she learned of a little 10 year old roan horse who needed a girl to love and care for. 

She knew we had just such a girl.

The owner had had CC from a colt, that she was green-broke but completely gentle, had never bucked in her life, and was in good shape except....

(There's always an "except", isn't there?)

Three years ago, she started seizing up when she was ridden more than five miles. Her muscles would grow tight and she was unable to get back home. This was quite inconvenient on a working ranch, as you might imagine, so she was turned out to pasture because the owner (bless her heart) had a toddler and a baby, a job in town, a ranching husband, and no time to baby a horse along even though she loved her dearly. She didn't want to send the mare to the canners but she couldn't sell her to anyone who would work her hard. And her price was $400. 

Maggie's calf money was in the bank, but her birthday/wages/premium money was in the Whitman's chocolate box. In three years she'd taken only $20 out of that box and her ready cash was $360. 

$360 of saving and working and sacrifice for her dream. 

Money in the back to support it.

It gives me GREAT pleasure and pride to introduce to you Maggie's horse CC's Apache Pride. (Yes, she's a papered quarterhorse.) Maggie calls her Pepper.

(This is before Maggie and my godson's wife went over her with brushes, combs and such, so she looks a little tough. Not a high maintenance girl at all.)

Pepper is a very calm, good-natured horse when she's around people, but apparently quite overbearing and bossy with other horses. Think "oldest sister who has to have it her way all the time". Maggie and I SO get that. We're not proud of it, but we get it.  

We are keeping her at Destanie and Jason's house (my godson and his wife) for a couple months until we get a good place fenced off next to our house for her, so essentially she's NOT on the place.  We haven't really broken any rules yet. Destanie and Maggie work with her together and D has been working with her when we aren't there to try to get her into shape.  

We think Pepper has a condition called Polysaccharide Storage Myopathy, which is basically a genetic thing that runs through quarterhorses and draft horses which makes them sensitive to starch and sugars in their diets and requires daily exercise to keep them limber, as well as very clean diets and vitamin supplements. We're working on figuring out how best to feed and work her, but other than that she's a darling horse who craves human company.

I haven't gotten many pictures of Maggie and Pepper because I babysit my (perfect) grand god-son the little Toot while Maggie and Destanie work with her. I'll put some of the pictures I DO have here in the post.

I've been hesitant to write this post, even though it's a joyous event in OUR house, because I didn't want it to seem as though we were rubbing it in, flaunting the breaking of the cardinal rule. It is SO not that way.

I'm sharing this story because one of my best friends is so excited about this life step for Maggie.

So, Sara, this is for you.

I know you've been checking and are beside yourself with happy anticipation for this post.

Thank you for waiting and nudging when you couldn't help yourself any more!

Now, more Pepper!

This is the first moment they met.

I want to tell you that it took about 30 hours for Maggie to come to the realization that Pepper was HER HORSE.

She didn't have to give her back, share her with 10 cousins, not see her for months....this precious horse was the fruition of her efforts and hard work, this horse was HERS. (You'll note the halter. We realized we didn't have ANY tack when the Farmer went to town to pick Pepper up, so he said he'd buy one. Maggie immediately said, "The cheapest one, Dad. Don't buy anything expensive.")

They look like sisters, don't they?
Pepper was so calm for being in a new place.  Destanie checked all her feet and looked at her teeth without any objection from Pepper. This was very good, considering Pepper had been out to pasture for three years.

Here you go, girlfriend; here's your horse!

They're pretty together, aren't they?

My two favorite boys in all the world, Angus and little Toot! They were very good sports about the whole deal.

A little action while the silly girls made goo-goo eyes at a HORSE....

So there it is.

The story of how a little girl earned her horse, how prayers were answered, how lives change as we grow and have children of our own.

(Cowboy PopPops is VERY happy about the whole mess, PopPops Vern much less so. But you know what? That's alright. This IS life. Even if Maggie only has her horse for a couple years, the lesson of working hard and saving for what you want will stay with her. The memory and story of buying her first horse will be the foundation for her parenting wisdom for her OWN children. It's not just about getting Pepper. There are bigger, more lasting "morals" that come from this. And THAT'S what I'm really happy about.)

(Although, I have to tell you....it's so good to smell horse on our clothes and hands, to have the luxury of one of our own.)

With sincere apologies for the delay of the story, Sara,

The Farmer's Wife

Spread The Love

Do you remember my frienemy Willa McGillicuddy? 

She's been going through a challenging time lately so I mailed her a little package containing an extra copy of War and Peace that I had mistakenly bought and a bottle of Montana wine, among other things. (Because, you know....nothing says "Cheer up, syrup!" like War and Peace.)

Before I sealed and posted it, there was a liberal sprinkling of teeny foil hearts that I keep on hand for such occasions. 

WELL.

The package made it to its destination in record time and from the moment she opened it, itty-bitty little hearts started planting themselves like dandelion seeds everywhere. As Willa finds them, she takes a photo and sends it to me.  So far, they've been recorded in bed sheets, on the bottom of a foot, on her shoulder at work,  and in the DRIVEWAY for goodness sake! She may be finding them elsewhere but these are the recordable sightings. 

Both of us are delighted! And who wouldn't be?! There's a reminder of being dearly loved that pops up at unexpected times and shines as hard as it possibly can! Willa knows she's loved and I know she knows she's loved. How beautiful...

This brings me to the deep meaningful portion of the post.

Come ON. 

You saw it coming.

Even so....keep reading....

In the dark, cold days of winter it's pretty easy to isolate oneself, to begin thinking dark thoughts, to ferment the ugly ideas that one is not significant or worth being loved. The frigid weather seems to freeze the spirit, too. Blessings are lost as well as perspective. 

Does it not feel as though it will be January forever? That June is a figment of your imagination? 

My frienemy, Willa, lives in Florida so she doesn't really get the cold, dark, lonely thing but she DOES get a winter of the spirit. We all do, whether we wish to admit it or not. And it's then that we need to look for the little foil hearts, the wee shining manifestations of love that are with us always, whether we know it or not.  

Love is not the big showy spectacle that society and media flashes in our faces.

It's the little shiny things we step on and don't notice, that we sweep off our days and never think twice about. 

How much love are we missing? 

Daily!

Minute to minute, really.

Willa can't help but think about it. It keep sparkling in her life, on her very being, and in her path when she goes to get the mail or on her desk when she works.

I'm thinking more about it too.

I do love Willa and I pray for her daily, but I didn't realize the impact for both of us. 

Kenny Chesney sings a Jamaican style song that says this in the lyrics:

"We've got to spread the love, spread the love, all over the world...

All God's people got to spread the love, spread the love, all over the world..."

Let's do that.

Even if it's little foil hearts.

The Whole Turkey

I'm reading an oddly wonderful children's book called The Doldrums which really and truly defies any description other than to say if you're feeling a bit trapped by circumstance or bogged down with routine, this book will give you hope and whimsical inspiration.

Yesterday morning I read a really good piece of writing in it that I wanted to put someplace I wouldn't lose it. (This is a library book and as nice as the MC librarians are to me, they still have a hard time when I turn down corners on pages or underline in pencil and comment in the margin on the things that strike me. Now you know why I own so many books...they ALL strike me, and I can't afford library binding prices to replace the ones I borrow.)

The Chronicles are as good a place as any to put this passage and besides, now I can share this funny odd thought.

"If someone tells you they love turkey smothered with cranberry sauce, that they love it more than anything else in the world; you might spend the day roasting that someone a turkey and smothering it with cranberry sauce. If that same someone then takes on little bite and says, "That'll be all, thank you," you'll likely go red in the face and hurl both these turkeys out the nearest window because clearly, this person never loved turkey smothered with cranberry sauce in the first place.

Little bites are never enough when you love something. When you love something, you want it all.  That's how it works. And that's how it was for Archer. Archer didn't want a little taste of adventure with a side of leftover discoveries. Archer wanted the whole turkey and he wanted it stuffed with enough salts and spices to turn his taste buds into sparklers. Needless to say, it was a tall order for a boy who wore a size-small blazer."

Little bites are never enough.

There's a section a few pages later about dreamers and doers, and I'm half tempted to share THAT with you too, but part of me wants you to hustle around, find the book at your library, and discover these little treasures for yourself.

If you DO, ask the librarians for The Doldrums by Nicholas Gannon. Even if you just get it and look at the pictures, it will be worth your time.
But don't be surprised to see eraser marks under the good parts...

Here's the cover: