Pink...

Pink Typewriter

Pink Sewing Machine

Pink Cowboy Boots

Pink Stove

Even though I can not afford any of these things...it just makes me happy that they exist.  More things should be pink. 

Smiles,

Lisa

MOVE THAT.......goat?

In the middle of the chaos, right smack dab in the middle of it...the boy's physical therapist nominated our family for Extreme Makeover Home Edition.  Which is an honor, truly.  Although I don't know if  I want them to knock my little house down. 

There are a lot of things that I don't over share on this blog.  I have mentioned that my boys have special needs, but I try not to focus on that.  I never want my children to be defined by their disability-though it is the first thing you notice about them.  If you spend any time with them at all, you see so much more.  They are amazingly sweet kids and I am blessed that someone up there thought that I had the fortitude and strength to parent them.  But the fact is that they are sick.  They have a very rare metabolic condition that has only been diagnosed in about 60 cases worldwide.  We have two.  This condition affects their vision, their physical development and their cognitive development.  Essentially they reached about a five or six month old level and stopped.  They will never walk or feed themselves or swear or throw rocks at the UPS truck and the doctors have given them a lifespan of mid to late teens.   That part sucks.  Bad. 

I like our house, and I have shown you the pretty parts of it.  I have never shown you the rotting sills or the leaking roof or the fact that we have two bedrooms and there are six people living here or the fact that we have one bathroom and it is not wheelchair accessible.  Our little house is 900 square feet and 111 years old.  We can't fit two wheelchairs into the house even if we could get them through the door.  So, yes, a handicapped accessible house would be AMAZING.  I'm just leery of opening up our weird little life to the world to maybe get it... 

So anyway, that's whats going on there.  If you want to, and please don't feel pressured to, here is the facebook link that the physical therapist set up.   TWOMBLY FAMILY

I appreciate any support you can show our boys, but please know that we won't be devastated if we don't get this.  It's just such an honor to see how many people truly care. 

Smiles from the farm,

Lisa

And then it got REALLY weird....

I have been sitting here for ten minutes with my fingers poised over the keys trying to begin to tell you about my week.  It just can't be done.  You wouldn't even believe me if I could tell you.  So I will just stick with the definable truths...

Jake is doing well physically.  He is still suffering from a little PTSD and needs lots of reassurance that he is not a bad boy.   I am anxious for him to regain his confidence.  I don't do well with needy men. 

Jake was hit on Tuesday.  It was a slow motion kind of day, scary and introspective.  One of those days that you can't wait to be over.  Well on Wednesday it got weirder.  There were police and ambulances involved.  The elementary school was put on a visual lock down so that we could exit without scaring the other children.  Then there were tazers and 16-year old daughters being hauled out of school.  A report of a vicious dog.    Continuous phone calls to check on our well being and a video camera focusing on the not so decorated and lovely aspects of our home.  Then, of course,  a goat went into labor, because, yeah, why wouldn't that happen...

Everyone is ok.  No one was arrested (or even close-it's actually a pretty funny story.  When I stop shaking, maybe I'll share it).  My house is still standing...for now (another surreal story, that I'm just watching unfurl in a haze of confusion).   The goat looked around at all of this and said, no thank you, I'll wait a few days. 

On Thursday we called in sick to school and stayed in our pajamas and watched Spider-man cartoons and ate pancakes for supper and felt blessed to be able to do that.   In light of the horror that is happening in Japan,  we are so very blessed and humble for a week wherein the pieces have fallen back in place, askew and worn perhaps, but at least somewhat in order. 

Smiles from the farm,
Lisa

A Very Bad Day...

Seven words you don't ever want to hear...

"I think I just killed your dog."

Followed by...

"He might still be alive, but he's in pretty bad shape." 

I stood on the steps and cried and couldn't move.  I think I scared the guy who thought he'd just killed my dog.   At the thought that he was dying in the road, alone and hurt I was able to go to him.  If he was going to die, I wanted him to know what a good boy he was and how much I loved him.  He wasn't dead.  He was in pretty bad shape.  There was a lot of blood.  He thought he'd done something wrong and he put his head down and looked up at me with those eyes and my heart broke into a million tiny pieces and I'm still not sure I gathered every little one up, there may still be some lying out there amongst the melting snow. 

I picked up his broken body and rushed him to the vet.  They all looked at me with those eyes and handed me tissues and asked what my financial limit was because it didn't look good.  He was in pretty bad shape.  And I sat down on the floor of the examining room and put his head on my lap and cried because I wasn't going to be able to save him.  Money's tight right now, stupid money was going to kill my dog. 

I gave them my financial limit and they nodded and asked me to sign a DNR slip.  I went home and disinfected my kitchen.  I washed the windows with vinegar and old newspaper.  I finished the laundry, called and checked on my taxes, swept the back hallway.  I called my best friend and she cried with me.  I kept opening the back door to check on him.  The top step looks huge with no black and white dog on it. 

At 2:00 the vet called and asked how I was doing.  I said ok.  And then there was a pause.  I don't know if they teach the pause in veterinary school.  I don't know if it works either way, for good news and bad news but it kind of sucks.  Just so you know, if you are in the veterinary profession, the pause sucks.  She told me he was going to be ok too.  No broken bones, no internal injuries.  Just a cut on his nose, a lacerated tongue and an abrasion on his leg.  He had been knocked unconsious and was severely bruised but he is going to be ok. 

We are installing a run in the backyard for when we can't be outside with him...oh and my children may not be able to go to college, but Jake is ok.  That is good.  Very, very good. 

Duck Prints in the Snow

A heartwarming drama inspired by the true story of Stanley The Duck who overcame a dibilitating disability (read here) only to undergo a personality conflict that had him believe that he was not a duck at all.  Left in his formative years without duck peers, Stanley forms a bond with five rag tag Nigerian dwarf goats in this epic period piece directed by Ron Howard The Duck.  Filmed on location in the goat barn, Stanley struggles through his journey of self enlightenment and self preservation.  Starring Dottie as the weathered matriarch with a sharp tongue, sharper horns and a heart of gold, Betty as Dottie's wild and unpredictable daughter, Stella, the innocent ingenue who longs to move to Paris and write romance novels on the banks of the Seine, Alice,  Stella's illigitimate daughter whose beauty and poise move men to tears and in her breakout performance, Chi-Chi as the conflicted girl from the country who refuses to relent to any man's embrace and fights barnyard convention that a doe need to flag her tail and stick out her tongue at any buck who ventures past and finally Jake the Dog who gives an Oscar winning performance in a role that he was born to play as the simple farmhand who unsuccessfully dreams of gaining Stanley's respect...

Probably not coming to a theatre anywhere, near anybody, ever.

Smiles from the farm,
Lisa

The Descent...

The little farmhouse was built in 1900.  We have a finished basement, IF the final product was meant to be a medieval torture chamber where milk fed chicks with Scandinavian heritage cannot walk upright and spiders hide amongst the rock foundation and there are ghosts too.  It's pretty scary is what I'm saying.  

The stairs are scary.  The stairs are less stairs and more ladder which maintains that you descend backwards.  That's fun.  Have I ever defined the level of my grace to you?  No?  Well there's a reason for that.  It's undefinable, in not a good way. 

I enter the basement less then frequently but the freezer is down there and sometimes it is necessary to crawl down those cursed steps. 

For some reason this always illicits an audience. 

He calls to his friend...

I can't decide if they are confused as to what I am doing or if they are plotting on how to keep me down there amongst the spiders and ghosts.   Something tells me that if I were to fall, they would just quietly close the door and go about their business. 

Which explains the massive ghost population in my cellar. 

Sewn...

Click to read more....

Whatcha been doing?

I started milking the goats...not this one though.  (Story for another post.)

In doing so, I now have to get up at 5:30.  IN---THE---MORNING.  In case you didn't get that.  Said goat needs to be milked twice a day, twelve hours apart.  I saw the sun rise this morning.   Meh, I'd rather be in bed.  Did I mention we have four feet of snow.  That's not an exaggeration, though I am prone to such.  We have FOUR feet of snow.  At 5:30 in the morning.  Are you feeling sorry for me?  Thank you. 

With my first gallon of milk I made cheese.  I used the recipe in LIVING WITH GOATS.  I won this book last year from their blog.  I met the author and her husband at  Goat School where they were taking photos for this book.  I am not in the book even though I was there.  Does it make me vain that I am disappointed that my picture was not in the book?  Probably.  ANYwho...I had some milk and I made some cheese and it was soooo good, I ate some of it.  A lot of it.  Most of it.  All of it...

Then I was bored and started a quilt for Big Bud who has been  having a rough winter.  It has sailboats on it.  I need a new floor in my kitchen.  Hey I never said this post was going to flow or make sense.  FOUR FEET OF SNOW, 5:30 in the morning,  remember?  The quilt will be six blocks wide by eight blocks long.  I have two strips done.  He may get his quilt by next winter. 

Then I was cleaning out some stuff and found two big boxes of photographs of people I don't know.  Old, dead people.  Well they aren't dead in the pictures, but they probably are in real life.    Why do I have these?  I don't know why, doesn't everyone have boxes of stranger's photos in their drawers?  Well you should.  I found this lady and became somewhat obsessed with her. 

Isn't she lovely?  What do you think, probably 1940's?  That's my guess.  I love her eyes and her hair of course.  There is nothing on the back of the picture so I have no idea her name or where she was from.  NOTE:  Please write identifying information on the back of your pictures in case you die and your ungrateful children sell your pictures to some weirdo at an auction.  It would be very helpful.  Thank you.  So how obsessed am I with this lady?  Umm, this obsessed...



I painted a portrait of a lady I don't know.  It's not quite done, and absolutely not quite accurate but it kept me busy for a few hours. 

Oh look, it's 2:30.  In three hours I get to milk the goat again. 

Smiles from the farm,

Lisa

Rocking with the B-Man

I went to a concert yesterday. 

Was it age-appropriate for me to enjoy it as much as I did?  Probably not.  But I'm a huge fan of the B. 

I'm not sure if it's the B-man's weird hank of hair or his big expressive eyes or his high nasally voice.  The dude's good and wow he puts on an amazing show, very versatile.

I just looked past all the internet rumours about his sexuality, his style and his attitude (he does seem a little high strung). 

The little girls in the crowd were just screaming.

Because boy can he rock a striped shirt/turtle neck combo...

Okay, they may have been screaming because it was lunch time and cotton candy turns to a  hallucinogenic drug the closer it gets to nap time...buy hey, whatever....

Who did you think I was talking about?  Justin who?

Smiles from the farm,
Lisa
 

Winter Math...

It has been snowing for a bajillion trillion hours.  Factoring in the number of children home from school (4) multiplied by the number of goats (6) that need to be fed (2X daily) and watered (3X daily) and the average number of chickens (22) that need to also be fed (1X daily) and watered (2X daily) added to the sum of this...

this...

this...

and this...

 

EQUALS....

Yeast donuts dipped in butter & granulated sugar....

What?  They're baked not fried, so you know, HEALTHY...

One little teenager minus SIX donuts...not one stinking ounce gained...brat.

Smiles from the farm,

Lisa