Month: May 2017
This moment
holdin’ my own
“If the world comes knocking, tell ’em I’m not home. Tell ’em, I’m holdin’ my own” -Eric Church
Well, spring sessions at the barn are in full swing. The hussle is on. It is good. The world is changing. And one tiny, little “barnraised” corner plays a part in it. Small when one steps back….huge when one breathes in and knows it in the present moment.
A little girl. She is small for her age. She is huge for her age. Her presence on the earth calls for space. Her grandparents say “she is small for her age…she is not held to very high expectations. She is very capable though”. Her body shifts shoulders back. Her soul speaks. A horse responds. The world spins consistently. No spoken change. The world moves on. The girl grows in her inner strength. The horse feeds from her leadership. And they go forward, together. That girl is old for her age, big for her age, huge for her age. I promise. Walk away, breathe, feel her strength. Walk away……
These are the little ways you change the world. Her world has changed. My world has changed. She can change the world.
this moment
totally normal day
Only at a 4-H fundraiser are you chasing a chicken through the Tractor Supply parking lot on a Saturday afternoon ….and nobody even thinks twice about it. Totally normal day.
Only when you live on a farm do you send texts like this to your kid’s friend’s mom….on a regular basis… “The girls were running with the goats on their leashes and [name here] fell down. She scraped her hand and knee a little. Just washed it up and put bandaids on. She is fine but wanted to let you know. ” Totally normal day.
Only when you live in a crazy barn do you have to spend 20 minutes figuring out how to feed the feral barn-cats in their transition cages without getting mauled by them because the farm dog decides she’s now a guard dog against those wild things. Totally normal day.
Ummm, did you really turn the goats loose in the back garden to eat the weeds? Now, call the crisis line–we have a jumper.
Only, ahem, ….here, do you find yourself stopped in the road waiting for cattle to cross on your way to a birthday party. And then find yourself at the end of a gated dirt road trying to climb a hill for signal to get better directions to the party…
And then, when you finally get back home and go inside for a break– there’s the chicks suddenly flying out of their brooder and the inevitable scramble for wire -or something, anything!- quick to cover them because it’s still too cold at night for them outside but now you have chickens flying …quite literally….down the hallway. Totally normal day.
At the end of the day, when the sun is starting to set and you finally think it’s time for things to quiet down…you find your kid in the arena training her dog to jump. “Watch mom! We’re going to enter agility competitions!”
And, of course, this was my day “off”. Totally normal day off.
Oh, should I even mention that one of the barn cats had her babies…
Sooooooo….. I’ll make some hot chocolate, put it in a thermos and say good night
Totally normal end to a totally normal day.
Good night from the barn folks.
the difference
A little story.
I can’t put books on hold at the library right now because my late fees went over $10. I need to go in and pay the fines. Homeschool parents and book addicts understand the pain. I used my daughter’s card to finish my hold request. Her fines are at $9.00. This is of utmost importance to take care of before all book access is cut off.
My daughter talks a lot about the girls at dance and their phone addictions. She doesn’t have a phone and we have limited technology/media use in our home. We often notice how others appear to be so caught up in it simply because we’re not so we pay attention to others more. She laughs about how the girls at dance hide in the locker room to be on their phones and then get in trouble for being late to class. They ask to go to the bathroom in order to check their phones. They text and Instagram each other on water breaks….when they are sitting right next to each other. One girl has tried hiding her phone where she can see it behind a fan at the ballet bar so she knows when a text comes in.
How are these two stories related? My daughter just told me that last night at dance a girl told everyone that she was “crying because she forgot her password and got locked out of her Instagram account”. My daughter said “you were crying over that? My mom was crying about getting locked out of her library account”.
barnraised 