In Which Rotting Organic Matter Thrills Me

Although I am possibly the laziest human on God's green earth, I have taken it on myself to have a pumpkin patch. It is a lot of work. Really a lot. I do almost everything by hand, because I'm a tree-hugger and besides I don't own much farm machinery. My riding mower is it, in fact. I bought a cart to haul behind it, but we are still not talking Big Tractors.

I also don't do artificial fertilizers. I can make compost, which is delightful, but mostly what I use is composted manure. My friend Leslie down the road has a bunch of it in her barn, because of previous tenants who never cleaned it out, and I have transported many loads of it down the quarter mile of road to my place. That's a lot of work.

So when I happened to see Millie, who is one of the farmers on the land across my south and east fence, I mentioned that she could scoop manure over my fence any time she wanted. I'd take all that her 70 acres of cattle, sheep, etc. could produce. She was happy, because their manure-spreader had broken. And pretty soon, look what appeared at the top of my field!

Isn't it beautiful??? I bet it will eventually grow lamb's quarters just like this pile of compost from last year:

(Grass clippings blew over it. It's actually beautifully brown.)

I also needed something to cover the grass and weeds, smothering them and turning them, too, into compost. Yeah, I should have gotten on this sooner, like maybe last year. And I should have planted a cover crop last year, too. I'm new at this and am making a lot of mistakes. So when I tried to find straw this year to cover the cardboard I'd saved up to spread on the field, there was none. Okay, there was some, but it was expensive. We had a very snowy winter, and people needed to feed their animals something plus give them some bedding.

Leslie came to my rescue again! She suggested corn fodder. I'd never heard of it. (You hadn't either, right? Okay. Now I don't feel so stupid.) It is what is left in the cornfield once the kernels have been taken off the corn or the corn has been harvested or something. It seems to include corncobs, which puzzles me—how do you get the kernels off without removing the ears from the stalks?

Anyway, she also knew of somebody who might have it. My friend Seville made some calls and found a farmer who delivered 28 round bales of corn fodder to my field.

It's too bad I didn't take pix of them all the way along, because it was pretty cool to watch. Suffice it to say that Seville and I spread some of the bales, and so did Timmy and I, but I still wanted some to go at the top of the hill. See, once you cut off the netting that holds all the corn fodder in the bale, you can just roll them and it'll all unroll like it's a really thick roll of toilet paper. Maybe this will help you understand how it works:

Generally most of it unrolls at first and then things peter out. This might be a better picture to illustrate the process:

See that lumpy, curved trail of corn fodder at the middle of the picture? The bales don't always unroll absolutely straight. It makes things interesting.

Now, these puppies are big. If you stand one up like a soup can, it's about four feet tall and five feet wide. And it has rained a lot lately, so they are heavy. It took Seville and me both to push them around. I've tried to do some of them that are still up on the hill, and I haven't had much success. I'm hoping to get Timmy to help me later today.

Anyway, their coverage is awesome. They've been composting since they were gathered last fall, and that composting makes them hot in the center. They aren't all that decomposed, though, because they didn't get any oxygen there. Now that they have oxygen and water, they will decompose.

At least, that's what I'm telling myself. We'll see.

In the meantime, our new farm dog is enjoying the place! In this picture, she's muddy from a persistent puddle that I'm trying to get rid of.

Isn't she pretty?

   

And here's the cattle trough that has overflowed and caused the puddle.

 Okay, enough. I've got to go out and work on the pumpkin patch!

Easter Is Over! But It's Still Here, So Alleluia!

I spent Easter at Rosie's house as usual. In our family, them as has kids don't travel for holidays, so I always go to her house for big holidays. She trumps Patrick in terms of kids, because he has one and she has four. So far, anyway. I hope for more lovely grandchildren. :-D You can see pix of Rosie's family (and my socks) at her blog.

Once more, the lovely and talented Kendra has asked us all to chime in with our answers to some questions, which provides me with a blogging theme for today. Thanks very much, Kendra!

1. Do you hate happy clappy church music?

Mostly I do. There are some new-fangled hymns that I like, but mostly the syncopation and other weirdness drives me mad. I mean, it is apparently not even possible for accompanists to play and choir directors to conduct Be Not Afraid as written, and there are a bazillion ways to do it otherwise. This is painful for me, because I'm a prescriptivist when it comes to music that is written down, though I'm fine with performing it some other way if I'm told to do so. This makes it kind of a penance for me to sing at my parish's 10 o'clock Mass, but it's where God seems to have called me, so there you are.

2. What is your priority: eating or sleeping?

Sleeping. Definitely. Ohhhhhhhh man, I love to sleep!

3. What type of milk do you drink in your house?

These days, I mostly drink whole milk, because it is sooooo delicious and there is recent research that says it is better for you than skim. I would like to believe that. Also, I occasionally sneak cream as a beverage or cereal mix-in. Mmmmmmmm, fat. Allllllll the fat, to Rosie's dismay yesterday when I scarfed some ham fat that she had carefully sliced off the Easter ham.

 

4. What is a book that changed your perspective on something?

The Great Divorce by (St.) C. S. Lewis. Love that book. It seems to me to be the way things must or ought to be.

5. Who is your favorite saint?

Probably St. Christopher, who has been with me since my childhood and who is my confirmation saint. But I'm fond of many others. St. Maximilian Kolbe has an awesome story. There are others, too.

6. Introvert or extrovert?

Introvert all the way. I need lots of time alone to recharge. This can be a problem.

Now go read Kendra's blog post!

Far from Home

Two days ago, I got back from Indiana, where I left Thurber (the mastiff) to be bred. He was nervous about the trip and a different house and all the different people, but he was getting used to it all when I left. I miss him. ::sniff::

The trip out took two days of five hours each, which wasn't too bad. The scenery was wonderful, just the kind I like, until I got into flat flat flatness. Ugh. But until then, it was so much fun to see little roads paralleling the interstate and little houses on the roads. Sometimes the roads snaked up a hill and I couldn't see the houses to which they led, and I wanted to. They all looked so homey. Cities, not so much, of course, but there was more traffic near cities, so I had plenty to do besides look at little houses.

I stayed for a whole day at Thurber's breeder's house and then drove the full ten hours home, which was a looooong drive for me. Meg drives that kind of distance routinely, but I really don't like driving farther than about half an hour. Heck, if I had my druthers, I'd never leave home at all. I love my house and land so much!

It's just perfect weather right now—sixties and maybe even seventies most of the time. I should have been out preparing the pumpkin field, but I've been exhausted since I returned. I've taken three naps in two days, and I'm still tired. Maybe if I did more work outside, I'd feel less tired. Unfortunately, tomorrow I have a six-hour foster parenting class, so I doubt I'll be able to do much outside then.

In the meantime, here's a shot from last year. It has nothing to do with anything, but it's a picture, so you'll like it, right?

The Liebster, only not really

Kendra at Catholic All Year nominated a bunch of people for the Liebster Award and generously invited everybody who has a blog to share in the nomination. This is part of why people love Kendra. Well, it's part of why I do, anyway. And because I love procrastination even more than the next person, here's my response to her (lack of) nomination.

1. Where do you live? And why do you live there?
I live in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. My husband and I lived in northern VA for more than 20 years as a married couple, and we realized towards the end of it that we wanted more space and peace. So when our youngest child graduated from high school, we hightailed it out here to these lovely three acres.

2. What are you currently watching and/or reading?
Hmm. Mad Men season 6, I think it is. On Netflix. I'm thinking about getting rid of our cable TV, because I don't use it.

3. What kind of Catholic are you: cradle, or convert? (Or considering?)
Convert! I was baptized Methodist as a baby, confirmed Episcopalian at 10, and married my cradle Catholic husband intending never to become Catholic. God had another idea, but it wasn't clear to me until we had been married for 17 years.

4. Can you point to one moment or experience that made you a practicing Catholic? (Or want to be?)
God has used distinct words to speak to me three times in my life. The second time was when God told me it was time to become Catholic (see #3). I was annoyed, but I know that if you don't do what you know God wants you to do, you'll be sorry, so I joined RCIA when the classes started up a few months later.

5. How many pairs of shoes do you own?
Um. Well. That's kind of difficult. I'm still cleaning out a lot of mess in my house, so I have a lot of pairs of shoes that I still need to sort through and several in bags ready to be given away. For my own current use, maybe six pairs? Not sure.

6. Are you a good dancer?
Absolutely not. ::shudder::

7. Who usually drives, you or your husband?
I used to, because my husband started having accidents and then we decided that he wouldn't drive any more. Now he's dead, so he really isn't driving!

8. What's your favorite holiday and how do you celebrate it?
Augh! See, I am sooooo lazy ("How lazy are you?" the audience yells)—I am so lazy that I don't really like to celebrate any holidays. They all involve work, and where's the fun of that? 

9. Which is correct? Left or right?

Left. Absolutely left. People who do the thing on the right are going to hell. 

10. Do you have any scars?
You don't get to be as old as I am without scars! I have a smallpox vaccination scar, scars from some kind of weird dermatological thing that gave me itching sores for more than a year (never did find out what that was), a scar on my neck from a thyroglossal duct cyst removal, and probably some others I'm forgetting.

11. What's the most famous thing you've ever done? 
I can't think of anything I've done that's made me even remotely famous.

And there you have it, folks! Thanks again to the delightful Kendra for inviting all and sundry to post!

Advent Is Here? Christmas Is Coming? Huh?

C.S. Lewis used the time after his wife's death to write A Grief Observed. It isn't one of my favorites of his, but it's pretty good—and "pretty good" for him is "astoundingly wonderful" for anybody else, in my book.

But I'm not C.S. Lewis. (Shocker, huh?) I feel numb, and I have trouble using my words, which is a strange thing for me. I just feel numb. Tired, too, and maybe a bit sick, as if I have a cold that stuffs up my head with cotton, hay, and rags, as are women's heads in Professor Henry Higgins's world.

O come, O come, Emmanuel? Who's that? What could come to this fog? Why is everybody else putting lights up when there will never be any more light, ever? How can everybody outside my family be excited about something that will never be the same for the rest of my life?

How can I sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?

The Stuff They Said

Because Rosie challenged people to write up their favorite kids' utterances, I need to put down some of the things my own kids said. They're part of family lore and so I'm sure that Patrick (our firstborn) will take issue with some or all of them.
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Speaking of Patrick, check out my favorite story about him. I can't write it up any better than he did! By the way, in the story, "Charlotte" is actually Rosie.

Patrick is also known for another wonderfully embarrassing story. When he was about three (and no, Patrick, I don't remember exactly how old you were), he and I were at a wedding rehearsal in a church that we did not attend. I don't remember why we were there, but I know we were waiting for somebody to be finished. So we marked time in the back of the church. We were right behind somebody we didn't know, somebody with shortish dirty-blond-gray hair and a corduroy blazer.

Patrick got more and more interested in this person. Suddenly, he asked, "Are you a man or a woman?"

If only the earth could have opened up and swallowed us both! But no, my world continued to exist. And I couldn't say to Patrick, "Honey, how can you say that? S/he is obviously a woman/man." Because I had no idea! Talk about Pat of SNL! So I apologized profusely to the person. Thank God, he was nice about it! He responded kindly to Patrick, "I'm a man. What are you?" Patrick responded helpfully, "I'm a boy." And they went on to have a pleasant conversation.

If I had been a more experienced parent, I would have known that embarrassment was about to ensue; I would just taken us to another part of the church. But then I would not have this story to tell, so it's just as well.
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A very young Meg once referred to her Aunt Miriam's cat as Minganoose. Her name was actually Marigold. We still refer to that now-deceased cat as Minganoose.

When she was about three, she had diarrhea and we needed to check her poop every time she went on the toilet. We had to see if she was ready to eat fiber-filled food again.

So when we were at her paternal grandparents' house and she used the toilet, she rejoined the family by saying loudly, "Daaaaaaddy, wanna see my good poooooops?"
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In our family, Rosie is famous for her many non sequiturs. We realized later that she had several tracks of conversation going on in her head at once and figured that everybody else was like her. She has now learned to harness that talent for good and not for eeeeevil. But when she was six, in 1992, not so much. While we were all in the car and her parents were looking for the correct exit, Rosie piped up: "Why does Ross Perot have such big ears?"

This one comes from when Rosie was about three. "Mouses don't have bottoms. They pee on a shark." We still have no idea where that came from.

Some more Rosie-isms:
buttersly
bret-thixt (breakfast)
nose-ills (nostrils)
fidgerdrater (refrigerator)
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Timmy has always been very protective of his sisters, especially Rosie. When the kids were two, four, six, and eight, Patrick and Meg were on a softball team. We all went to their games, and Jonathan generally took the younger two somewhere nearby to play. It was high summer, and Timmy was wearing nothing but a droopy diaper. An older boy, maybe five years old, hit Rosie and walked away. Little Timmy ran after him as fast as he could, which wasn't very fast. When he finally caught up to the boy, Timmy yelled at him, "Boy, don't hit Yodie!"

The boy ran to a woman who was probably his mother. Jonathan didn't hear exactly what she said, but he could see the boy crying and pointing at Timmy. The woman pointed at Timmy, made a gesture indicating how short Timmy was, and then seemed to ask her son, "What, that little boy? That one? You're worried about him?" Hey, lady, you don't mess with Timmy's sister!

The summer between Meg's ninth and tenth grades, she was assigned to read Hiroshima, which is about exactly what you would think. Timmy was not yet twelve and a prodigious reader. Before we knew he was reading it, he had finished it. He told his daddy, "Don't let Rosie read it. It is too sad. It would make her upset."
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Okay, nothing really cute there, even though my kids said many, many cute and funny things. Maybe I'll remember them some other day. In the meantime, as Rosie says, go to Rosie's blog and "[a]dd a link to post about funny things your kids (or husbands or friends or you) have said—we could all use a little more laughter!"

Twenty Things You Probably Don't Know About Me

Rabia blogged in January about this. Naturally, it takes me forever to do anything. I wouldn't be surprised if I never finish it. Anyway . . . 

1. I spent part of a college summer counting earthworms for my dad.
2. Cilantro tastes like soapy water to me.
3. The smell of cooked cauliflower, broccoli, and (especially) brussels sprouts turns my stomach.
4. On the other hand, talking about and seeing blood, gore, poop, bodily functions, etc. doesn't put me off my feed.
5. Okay, now you're grossed out. Let's switch gears. I love doing origami, especially on those pretty, delicate, special origami papers.
6. And snickerdoodles. Nothing comes close to my mother's recipe. 
7. On the other hand, I am annoyed, even angered, by soppy memes about how all mothers love their kids and all grandmothers adore their grandchildren. 
8. I can't draw to save my life, but I love great art.
9. That doesn't include Hummels, Precious Moments, or anything with big-eyed children.
10. I was once strip-searched. (It's a great story.)
11. I carpeted my tenth-grade locker with actual Turkish carpet.
12. I was confirmed by the bishop of Paris. (As an Episcopalian, that is.)
13. If I were ever forced to go to a fancy function at somewhere like the White House, I could manage so well that you wouldn't know how much I hated it.
14. Anapestic tetrameter, dactylic hexameter, etc.—I know the five main kinds of English poetic meter and tricks on how to identify them.
15. I've sung in a (mostly) black gospel choir and a touring college choir. I even directed a select girls' group for a while.
16. I am sad that I can never again visit four of the schools I attended; they've been given back to the Germans.
17. I love the way coffee smells, but I drink it only to stay awake and only with lots of cream and sugar, because it tastes horrible otherwise.
18. I can't stand the idea of wearing make-up or perfume, and I rarely wear jewelry other than my wedding ring.
19. I can make my elbows bend in a way that will freak you out.
20. If you ask me where I'm from, I have to make a split-second determination—how much information do you really want?

Now you try it! And link back here!