What to Expect When Your Goat's Expecting...

So, um Dottie, when are those babies coming?  They should've been here today. 

They'll get here when they get here.  These things can't be rushed.  Besides, I just don't feeeeel like having babies today. 

and how do you REALLY know that I'm going to have babies at all?  What signs have I shown you that something like that is even going to happen?

You're HUGE and your udder is full and five months ago today you went on a date with Romeo.  I'm not that bright, but I'm a thinkin' you gonna have some babies. 

Well we'll just have to wait and see now won't we.  Perhaps I will have Skittles instead, or orange Starbursts, Swedish Fish or Twizzlers-I do so prefer candy to babies. 

But Dottie, I really want little goat babies!

Meh, babies are overrated.  Look at this thing you brought home the last time you had a yearning for a goat baby.  Haven't we learned from THAT mistake.  And really couldn't you have found one with real legs? Freakish is what that thing is. 

So about those babies?

....Dottie?

Smiles from the farm, with no babies...

Lisa

Rockin' the First Grade

I was digging through pictures today and found this.

Now before you go and think something like, "Well that's a normal looking class from the mid 1970's in Northern Maine.", well you are kind of wrong.  This is actually a little more than half of the entire population of Burlington Elementary School in 1976.  This is kindergarten, first AND second grade.  They had to combine the grades to fill up the picture.  The school has now closed, which is sad.  There were two classrooms, the kindergarten was in the same room as first and second with a divider and the third and fourth were in the room across the hall.  We ate our lunch in the classroom, there was no gym, no computer lab, no happy-rainbow-unicorn room.  Just the basics.  Our lunch was made and served by one woman, Edith Shorey.  It was made from scratch, no frozen chicken nuggets or mystery meat.  We had tuna wiggle, baked beans (personal worst lunch ever), homemade apple crisp and strawberry shortcake and pigs in blankets---so good.  It was like we lived on the banks of Plum Creek, or I guess it was more like living on the banks of the Passadumkeag River and Pa worked at Lincoln Pulp and Paper instead of on the homestead.  Ma sewed shoes for Dexter Shoes. 

When we went to the fifth grade in town, it came as a surprise to me that there was a cafeteria and you couldn't save your yeast roll in your desk to eat later on and you couldn't get seconds and during gym they wouldn't let you catch butterflies, play on the swings, or stay inside and draw pictures on the blackboard 'cause you just didn't "feel" like playing kickball. 

It was a good school and I don't know anyone who went there who doesn't have fond memories.  But, I wonder how well it prepared us for the real world.  I'm still waiting for someone to make me red jello with a perfect 1/2 inch of homemade whipped cream on the top and who will painstakingly make sure that the entire group gets at least one cherry in their fruit cocktail.  But most of all I am waiting for THIS look to come back.  I could still totally rock it.

Smiles from the farm,

Lisa

More fascinating thoughts on my dishes...

I know you can HARDLY wait! 

But do you know that I have owned this dish for many, many years.  It has held candy, pickles, berries, buttons, etc... 

I bought it at auction.  It was one of the finer things that was in the glass case, such things as I never buy as they cost money and I am cheap.  I coveted it when I saw it and asked to hold it and I turned it over in my hands and knew that it would go for some princely sum, like $20.00.  I'm a $5.00 kind of chick.  So I handed it back and went to the back to dig through boxes of broken china and chipped depression glass. 

At the end of the auction, I was in line to pay for my stuff and watching as they sold the last few boxes or stuff.  For some reason I bid $5.00 on the last box and I didn't even know what was in it.  Well imagine my surprise when this dish was lying on the top.  Some things are just meant to be, I guess.

But that wasn't why I was posting today.  The thing I wanted to tell you is...I NEVER knew that there was a lobster on the handle of this dish, 'cause roses and lobster...really?  But there is!  With feeler thingys and claws and a tail and everything.  Now why didn't I ever see that?  I guess it's nice to know I'm not too old to be surprised...yet. 

Smiles from the farm,
Lisa

My good dishes...

Do you have "good" dishes?  Do you use them?  Do you worry about them, wince when someone cuts their meat too vigorously on them?  Do you allow anyone else to wash them?  Do you only use them for special occasions?

I have so many questions.  I have good dishes.  They are about the only "good" thing I do have.  They are Royal Albert in the Old Country Roses pattern.  I love, love, love them.  A lot.  So much so that I have had them for about eleven years and yesterday...was the first time they have ever had food on them.  I had to soak the bar code stickers off of them.  I was saving them for when my formal dining room was finished and the house was perfect.  But you know what?  I don't want to die having never used my "good" dishes even if that means letting the cave people who live with me use them too.  After asking them to be careful because they were real china, it was asked how you could tell real china from other stuff.  So then everyone had to hold up the bread plate and look through it, which caused my heart to stop beating until the little plates were once again on the table. 

Needless to say, my Easter dinner was a little tense and it was asked kindly by the cave persons that unless we were eating oatmeal with plastic spoons for our next special occasion, could I please leave the "good" dishes in the cupboard.  Absolutely.  Then we ate cake....on paper plates.

Smiles from the farm,
Lisa

Oh bother...

I'm sick of the rain.  The rain makes bad pictures.  The rain makes lots of mud.  The rain makes me sad.  The end.

I made this pincushion but the rain makes bad pictures and it is so much cuter in real life.  Stupid rain. 

Maybe the sun will come out tommorow.  Yeah I'd bet my bottom dollar that tommorow they'll be sun.  Just thinking about....ok I'll shut up now.

Smiles from the soggy, wet, muddy farm,

Lisa

My free chairs...

These bentwood ice cream style chairs were thrown in for free with something I bought last summer at auction.  My husband kept bugging me to break them up and burn them.  Really, he has NO vision at all. 

All the poor dears needed was some love.  Well ok, they what they really needed was some stain and new seats.  Problem is that I just KNOW that I have four of these needlepoint seat covers but I can only find two.  But I KNOW they are here somewhere...I think.  

                                               

Smiles from the dump, uhhh I mean farm,

Lisa

Of picnics and roses...

Neither of which are in the immediate future for me--unless I want to sit in the cold mud and look at gardening magazines. 

SO, I made two more pin cushions.  First is a wee little picnic basket...

And then a little bucket of roses....

Smiles from the farm,

Lisa

Shall we dance?

Did you know that I am a very good dancer?  I mean grace just leaches from my very pores.  I glide through my life with poise and control like nothing you have ever seen.  I shall be idolized for all eternity for my skill and balance.  It is what I am known for.  I am like Baryshnikov, Ginger Rogers, Martha Graham, Gerald Ford...wait...what?

I haven't posted lately because I tripped over my camera UCB cordy thingy and broke it, so I can't add pictures.  I should be getting the new one today or tommorow, if I can make it to the mailbox without falling over.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Smiles,

Lisa

ADDENDUM:  USB-UCB, whatever, I broke it.  Also, anyone follow Pioneer Woman?  Did you read today?  A movie.  She is having a movie made of her life.  Please comment, I'm dying to know what other bloggers are thinking. 

The story Beatrix Potter never told...

Once upon a time Miss Molly McVermin decided to take up residence in a home that didn't belong to her!  Nowadays we call that trespassing if we've got manners and if not, we call it squatting.  If you're of a legal bent, it is called breaking and entering!  Oh that naughty Ms. Molly McVermin, tsk-tsk. 

Well it just so happened that the house she chose to barge right in and make herself at home at belonged to the Bea family.  The Bea family were plain old blue collar working folk,   They really were just trying to get by and they took the rude trespass of Miss Molly McVermin as just another bothersome weight on the burden of their already weary lives. 

All winter long Miss Molly McVermin languished in the warmth of the Bea home.  She ate from their larder, read their simple books, sullied their tidy housekeeping and generally made a nuisance of herself.  Still the Bea family kept on working, storing food only for their uninvited guest to not only eat it but destroy the containers it was kept in. 

Finally one day in early March when the sun shown warm, Ms. Molly McVermin put on her finest clothes, donned her prettiest hat and announced that she was going to go out for some fresh air.  She told the Bea daughters to clean up her room.  She told the Bea sons to fix the heel on her broken pump.  She told the Bea mothers to have tea ready for her when she returned.  She winked and smiled inappropriately at the Bea fathers and made them VERY uncomfortable.   

All of the Beas watched curiously as she sauntered toward the door.  Grunting and huffing she pushed her head and shoulders through the narrow opening.  "NEXT YEAR," she shouted, "NEXT YEAR we shall have a grand door for me to use."  The Beas rolled their eyes. 

Halfway out the door, Ms. Molly McVermin realized quite unfortunately that she was stuck.  "Oh COME ON!" she yelped.  "What am I, a silly old bear?"  The Beas' neighbors started to come out of their homes to see the commotion.  She asked them for help, but they were too busy.  She hollered for HER Beas to come help her.  They couldn't hear her, or if they could...they didn't let on. 

The sun rose high in the late winter sky, slowly it sank back down below the trees and still Ms. Molly McVermin struggled to get in or out of the Bea home.  To no avail, I am afraid. 

By morning, she was dead. 

The End

She's right you know...

GO READ THIS POST FIRST...REDNECK MOMMY

Ok, did you read it?  I grew up in a time and a very isolated place where the word "retarded" wasn't scary or mean or bad.  There was a girl (woman) that lived next to my grandmother who was retarded.  As a child I needed to know why she was the way she was.  I was told that she had temper tantrums and threw things and pulled her hair and talked funny and dressed different and looked different because she was retarded. I played with her when she had good days and went home when she had bad ones. She was my friend.  Simply that, not my retarded friend, just a friend who happened to be retarded.   My mother grew up playing with her too and I imagine was given the same explanation.   It never crossed my mind to call her anything but her name.  Her name was Cheryl.   I was never allowed to make fun of people with disabilites, if I had been caught by mama or my grandmother saying anything bad about a disabled person, I might have become disabled myself.  It was NOT permitted.  

When I was a teenager, a girl in my class had a brother with cerebral palsy.  She hated the word "retarded".  I didn't understand because in my world "retarded" had never been used as a bad word.  It was an explanation, like you can't eat any more 'cause your full, or you can't sleep 'cause you're not tired.  I just didn't get what the big deal was.  I even began to use the word myself in the place of something stupid or ridiculous. 

Tonight I realize how wrong that is.  I have had to label my children so that they could get the services they need.  According to the level of need, the money available, the ridiculousness of the bureaucracy involved, we have had to get them different diagnoses.  Autism, developmentally delayed, blind, MR, cognitive delayed.  I have to admit that until I read Tannis' post, I was at a point where I really didn't care if they called my kid ANYTHING as long as he got to go to school and eat lunch with the other kids.  As for the other people in the world, the ones who cringe at drool, shake their head at a 7 year old in diapers, the friends and family who don't call because they don't want to "bother" us, well I don't even see them anymore.  Their consequence means nothing to me.  It's the people, the kids that come up and call them by their names that matter.  The ones who ask them how they're doing when they know that they can't answer.

I think we softly walk through this life hoping no one sees our weaknesses. It's so easy to laugh at people who are so blatantly different on the outside when we are all, below the surface, different, because just maybe your laughter will drown out the person who is laughing at you.

So to hammer home Tannis' point...the next time you start to use the R word, please remember that you are telling the world that these children don't matter; that my child and all disabled people are stupid, boring, ridiculous, worthless, junk.  And man, go ahead and ask me if that's true.  Or better yet, ask him. 

Lisa