Crumb-day-la-crumb or Just Plain Phooey

I did not get very far. Headed out to visit y'all but every blog I opened wouldn't let me comment (is that a subtle hint from y'all or what?) or close the window so now after shutting down my internet a couple of times I'll just quit.

Besides the cacophony of calls from the work that lies ahead of me today is giving me a little headache so I better go feed the mill and get my nose to the grindstone!

Hey, Is That Ketchup on Your Shirt?

I think it may be. I think I am as caught up as I will ever be. No not on housework, duh, not on the garden and not on much of anything but blog reading. 'Cept that I hear there are a few new blogs out there that I ought to read and so off I go this morning to do just that and (this is an important and mind you) not fall behind on the ones I already have in the gun.

But along with not caught up on the ever present housework (please don't bother to send me organization tips, I am a whiz at organizing, maintenance is my issue. And don't send me maintenance tips, I know how, I just find I would rather walk out the door with my work gloves and hat on instead, well until company starts driving down the driveway. And no berating, "you ought to be better" speeches or "I'm watching you!" talks 'cause then I'll just pack my bags and go elsewhere to write) and not caught up with the gardening (that whole thing Dirt would boil down to biting off a bigger piece than can be chewed and swallowed) I am not caught up with web logging.

I have succumbed to the "I started a journal and now I am not journal-ing" syndrome once again. This time I did get farther than on paper (on paper I never got past one month let alone a whole year!) and I did continue in my slump though not daily. So in typical Lanny journal-ing fashion I feel, for my own purposes really, that I ought to back track, lest in a year or two I forget what the heck happened to me. In three years I might be liable to look back on this time and make up a story about being in a car crash or in the hospital or traveling around the world where there was no Internet connection, if I don't put down what the heck we've been up to.

So the next few days I hope to be slopping a lot more ketchup on myself in the web logging department and I have no idea what that is going to look like. But please Dear Reader, don't feel like you need to read all of it. It will just be a lot of old junk that probably ought to be thrown out but I want to get it logged down so that if it was good I do it again and if it was a mistake I hopefully will avoid it in the future, 'cause the only thing I remember well are phone numbers. Bad ideas repeat themselves often around here.

I will be writing quick and dirty (hope mom is on the other side of heaven watching one of her other children, they're so cute!) so if you already are holding your nose at the awful stench of horrifying spelling and grammar, ridiculous use of commas and, for crying out loud, all those blasted parenthesis I use, it will only get worse for a while not better.

Quite frankly you can blame it on college writing classes, they foolishly taught this girl "stream of conscious" writing and she has been using it ever since, well her own brand of it 'cause I'm sure it had rules too I just forgot them. Now that girl is an old lady and she can't stop and besides why should she, she is too old to become the writer that she thought she would so she will settle to be the writer she is. Horrible. But with cute pictures. Well there would be cute pictures if I would just sit and clean them up and post them along with all this yapping.

So you have been warned Dear Reader, I appreciate you too much to subject you to my quick and nasty writing, the worked over stuff is already far beyond what I would imagine anyone would bother to read.

Now for some coffee. (and no I don't belive my mom is really up there in heaven spying on me, it is just a silly cultural joke that I like to perpetuate every once in a while especially after being at a women's group and getting the smack down for being mean and saying that heaven is not what we think it will be, we will not be going up to heaven to ride the horse your dad never bought you or raft the Colorado River like you always wished you could before you had hip surgery. We will be up there in the in-your-face presence of God, nothing else will matter, really, it won't. And if you think that will be too boring, a lot like going to church, you're in the wrong church, better yet quit going to church altogether and just be church like God asked you to be.) Now for some coffee.

Ad Addendem

Please note Dear Reader, that in the post where I exposed my fond desire for a Dear Grandmamma, I did my best to point out that it isn't just Dirt that is in need of extra care. I am most likely the household's largest slob and project spreader-outter. It is just that when you add the dear man to the full day daily mix it does indeed get deep around here.

I'm not a very good conventional wife, I like to lift heavy objects and I like to do it out-of-doors. This has never been a complete disappointment to Dirt as he has all along appreciated that I desire to give a hand and flat out be the one to do some of the out-of-doors tasks. And that I am fairly capable of dealing with weights of more than five pounds without having to call him over or crush something in the process is a big plus in his world. So what if he has to eat peanut butter sandwiches for dinner sometimes? Although a steady diet of such is rather a bummer, I actually am the first to tire of not having "normal" suppers like my mom always had. Oh wait, I'm the mom now.

He says he married me for my .. let's call them sturdy yet shapely.. thick ankles and my mom's apple pie. He has repeated that and never wavered. He says that when he saw my ankles he knew I would never go lame. (He has skinny wimpy ankles and has "gone lame" often.)

The only problem with his reasons was that he made an assumption that if the mother could cook (and enjoyed it, day in, day out, morning, noon and evening) so did the daughter, ooops. My mother was nearly dead before I could roll a pie crust and get it to the pan, and so was I with the frustration of trying. I became very fond of cake. And I am certainly fond of cooking, at times horrifyingly passionate even, but the key is "at times." If I am consistent in anything, it is my inconsistancy. There isn't even any rhyme let alone reason to my inconsistent moods.

Oh, I cook when I don't feel like it. I'm not saying I am such a dud that I won't. The food from those moments is however perhaps two components away from making a good pesticide. It sure as heck is at the very least "just food" at that point and not life-sustaining love in the form of a culinary delight.

Outside is where I wanna be. I do not however, do anything mechanical any more, well obviously mechanical or at least maintainence on the car. (The word maintainance could be the dead give away, maintainence is not a project.) It is why I married a mechanic. Well that and the fact that my dad was a mechanic.

So actually, if our Dear Grandmamma could please add changing oil, filling window cleaner dispensers and a myriad of other car maintanence sorta stuff that I'd prefer to block from my brain, I am sure Dirt would appreciate that also. It would free him up to learn to make apple pie before the last of his girls leave.

A Flag On the Ceiling and a Promise Kept

I made a promise a moment ago to a new friend, A_Joyful_Chaos, (a blog well worth the read for sure) that I would attend to an award she bestowed upon me over a week ago. And even though the pumpkin patch is growing hotter by the moment I am going to take care of this before heading out.

I'm not sure exactly what the award was for, she had lots she was distributing, something about Memes I believe which I find ironic since I can never quite do them like you Dear Reader, "just answer the question and get on with it." I suffer verbosity. Arencha glad I've been taking a writing break and Dirt has kept me busy outside beyond the reach of the thingy that makes the internet work on my laptop, oh ya, router?

So for this award, which I will not be passing on because sure as shoot my brain will explode trying to decide to whom it should go, (Decisions, not a strong point in my life, the root of all my shortcomings I am sure. A yakky un-decider, if that is not crippling and deserving of sympathy and donations I don't know what is.) I need to tell you seven things you do not already know about me.

What the heck could that possibly be? Well I realized that this post that I started on the Fourth as a little of my experience with the Flag Code of the United States would be perfect. So here goes, you keep track of the number of things you didn't know about me on your fingers and when you get to seven I ought to be done and out cutting weeds (pulling them disturbs the roots and checks the growth of the desired plant, check it out, it is factual and scriptural, imagine that Dear Reader).


This fine couple are my folks, Bethel Jean (Pape) Barker, and Eldon Ray Barker. This must be some where around nineteen-seventy two. My dad always had that white patch of hair right there, a second pupil in one eye, enormous hands that were permanently rough and stained, and when he wore jeans they always had a cuff in them, but mostly he wore work pants.

I am an orphan now, my father died two weeks after my first baby was born and my mom died the year my last baby turned one, my baby is turning sixteen soon. I miss both my parents as if it were yesterday.

They were the tried yet patient parents of these three, the youngest of six. My brother Mike, six years older than myself, my brother Chris, the one with a clam part hanging from his mouth, is only two and a half years older than myself.

And me? Yes, I'd be the one in the lovely purple print overalls, whacked out hair from being in pony tails or clips and the giant loud laughing face! I remember those blue tenny shoes and the day I finally, with inner pride, wore a hole in the toe much to my momma's chagrin. This picture was most likely the summer of nineteen-seventy.

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It was a rough time, not financially, but our consciences were being tried. And I didn't fair too well. But that is another story or confession and testimony of God's infinite mercy and grace that I hope Dear Reader, you have come to know for your own.

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Today it would be enough to say that these three youngest experienced the turmoil of the ages with a mild buffer of protection from their father.

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Erb, was a man of conviction. He knew hard work was the only way to go. That our country is a great country no matter what. That all people deserve respect, unless they are purposely pusillanimous (Erb's favorite pejorative) then a person was pretty much dismissed and ignored, one of the many traits Dirt shares with my dad and most likely why I love him too.

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He taught us to think for ourselves, work hard and honestly for others, and respect all people, moms first. He did not mind our questioning the way things were as long as in the questioning we were not just idly grousing.

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And he let us know that it was a rarity in this world to be able to question what was going on and therefore, even if we were unhappy with what was going on in our country, what our leaders were saying or doing, that it was an immense privilege to live here and be able to express it. However, for Erb, and therefore for his children, there were correct ways to express it and incorrect ways to express it. He taught us indirectly that it was truly, and without a sneer or a self-centered belligerent arrogance, "Our country, right or wrong," because we were to always be working as true citizens toward the goal of, "Our country, may she always be right."

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We were never to disrespect any one in uniform.

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We were never to disrespect an elected official. Express our disagreement yes, but never to shame or disgrace ourselves by attempting to belittle or make the person appear comical.

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We were to respect the work of others that had gone before us, whether we thought it correct or not. Respect did not always mean agree or accept.

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We were to respect the symbol of our county.

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I may have taken the risk of getting caught smoking but no matter what things I dared to light up one of them was definitely not the flag.

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But the nuances of the Flag Code that my father so clearly knew inside and out, from where I won't ever know now, were a little more tricky. It was certainly made clear that it was better not to hang the flag if you were not going to make sure that in the putting up and the taking down you were incapable of making sure it wouldn't touch the ground or be tangled. But then there were the things I slowly learned and picked up such as, that while red, white and blue tablecloths and apparel were okay, things that looked more like the flag than not were not okay to be used as table coverings or clothes.

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But one incident that has stuck in my mind was when he found that my brothers had put a flag up on their ceiling over the center light fixture. He was visibly upset. I didn't quite understand, because I thought he would be happy to know that my brothers admired the flag so much as to hang it in their room, in spite of their lengthening hair and constantly verbalized disdain for the current leadership.

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I tucked into the flag corner of my brain that clearly there was a right way and a very wrong way to display one's patriotism by how you displayed the flag.

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It wasn't until just recently when I did a post on the flag for Flag Day and received some stern comments, that I researched more thoroughly what I had always just assumed. Even in this day of technological finger-tip information there are a lot of places where you can get misinformation not because they say the wrong thing but from what they leave out.

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Imagine my not-really-surprised surprise that in the actual flag code it really does say that the flag or any likeness that people see as the flag is not to be hung on a ceiling.

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So much for my rebel brothers asserting their patriotism with thumb tacking the flag to their bedroom ceiling.

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This flag code thing has me turning into a rather self-appointed American Flag police. I've pointed out paper plates and napkins in violation and in fair turn pointed out the ones that would be okay, in the middle of the store of course, rather noticably like any good embarrassing parent would. I've tisked-tisked a business community's over zealous and incorrect placement of flags. I am well aware of the obnoxiousness of my insistances, but remember, I'm a youngest of six, it is my duty to be obnoxious and annoying.

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In a week or two or maybe a year, my family and friends will assume I have calmed down a bit, but beware, I will always be on the look out for a violation of the code, especially in those I know now know.

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I know, Dear Reader, if you know me just a little you know I break laws all the time, my children are illegally home with me (yet another post for another day) and I have pushed the legal envelope in the past by letting people take milk from my outdoor refrigerator. So all of this "letter of the code" seems a bit much for me to you I am sure. And someday after my weeds are cut I will attempt to explain my seemingly idiosyncratic stances on things, for it all works out quite logically in my mind. But for now I really must go as I have one hour and ten minutes before the melting point is reached out in the patch where I have about six hours and forty-three minutes of work to do.

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I am postitive Dear Reader, that all of you, even the ones that have known me for years and years, clicked off seven fingers worth of things you didn't know of me already, and those of you that didn't know me all that well, put your shoes back on and the baby's too I'm heading out to quietly contemplate my Savior, I am thankful He is infinite in everything He is. And I am very glad that my salvation, and therefore my eternity, does not depend on legalistic things, like the US Code.

Another Day Off

No not me, Dirt. I don't work therefore I don't need a day off or a vacation. Dirt teaches aviation mechanics at the college so he gets vacations (aka end of quarter breaks) and national holidays off.

Last week, when I was completely absent the college ended spring quarter and began summer quarter, consequently Dirt was home from the afternoon of June eighteenth to the morning of June twenty-ninth. That my Dear Reader is a long time. A long time to have yet another body in and out of the house, using it as if there was a doting grandmother in residence, to pick up behind the hard workers.

Since I cannot in all good conscience talk Dirt into taking on another wife for the purpose of tidying up after everyone and cooking daily meals whether inspired or not, I have gone to praying for an elderly woman who would just like to adopt Dirt and I as her children and the girls as her granddaughters. A woman who lives for the delight of cooking and cleaning and picking up the dirty socks that were taken off with the boots right at the moment and left at the spot when and where the feet finally began to throb undeniably.

A woman willing to come into the household's only bathroom after the four farmers have bathed, to pick up scattered shampoo bottles and razors, hang up towels, wipe down the tub ledges and scoop out the hay and weeds collected in the drain.

A woman who would need very little sleep as a big full breakfast (the main meal of the day) is now becoming the daily custom here, served at a quarter to six, but yet still awake, alert and ready to do the last tidying in the kitchen and living room from the snacks and beverages enjoyed from nine to ten by those who just must stay up and watch every dance and the results of the call in votes on SYTYCD.

Then, at a little after ten or some nights eleven for the foolish, follow them into the one bathroom to rinse the sink of the toothpaste residue, tidy up the towels take a peek at the incubator and brooder box on the bathroom counter as she grabs the broom to do one last final sweep up behind the person that remembered they needed to do something in the barn before brushing their teeth, resulting in yet another trail of hay seed and other barn crumbs to pick up.

And we would like said "Dear Grandmama" to be sweet and gentle, to refrain from muttering under her breath about ungrateful children and insensitive grown-ups, to always have a lovely verse on her lips to straighten our errant thinking when our world goes a wry.

Not to mention, because we don't send our children to school, just our Dirt, we would appreciate it if she would write up wonderful lessons for us to learn while we are out hauling water hose, fixing broken pens, replanting the bean seed that the turkey ate, calculating the amount of fertilizer for a given area, hoicking hay bales above our heads... . So that when we came in for her beautifully prepared lunch and to get out of the worst of the day's sun, she could delight and teach the girls some fascinating things and reinforce their academic skills whilst I bask in the beauty of it all and maybe close my eyes for just a wee bit.

Basically we would like one of those mothers that the Christian homeschooling magazines tell women that they are to be and can be and should be twenty-four seven. I've never met one personally, but certainly they must exist beyond some one's imagination. And so if there is one out there who no longer has a family that needs her phenomenal skills and freakishly kind attitude, we would love to have her come and live with us.

We can't offer much in accommodations, maybe we could find her a small trailer to sleep in, and there really isn't any extra cash lying around to supplement her pension, but we would show our appreciation nearly daily. Well, at least weekly if she asked us how she was doing, and maybe we would honor her with one day a year by giving her cards, a couple of chocolates we would expect her to share back with us, and a day she wouldn't have to cook one or two of the days three or four meals and snacks. Yes, we would all just like a mom to come live with us.


Well Dear Reader, those are the fresh thoughts from my brain this morning as the man with the day off slept in just before his shearing job on the other side of the big valley, and then bringing in more hay here at the farm this afternoon. But now he has caught me writing (read that "wasting some time") and wants to know if I would like to be his assistant for today's shearing job. Well folks, that means a ride on the motorsickle! Since I have yet to ride the motorsickly this summer I am going to give the girls the list of things I was going to do this morning and skip reading the seven-hundred forty-three items on my Google Reader (those are post of yours, unread by me) and ride off into the suns.. the ... sun and be with Dirt for a few precious hours.

Hope you have enjoyed my wishful thinking and new header picture this morning. I also changed the weekly selection from the flag code over on the side board, you might take a few minutes to check it out. Hopefully I will have time later today or tomorrow during Independence Day festivities to tell you a few quick stories about flag code in my life. Although I refuse to make any promises, since all I do is break them once made. The day in my head holds way more hours that the one in real life, and I write way faster in my imagination than what appears to be reality.

Dear Reader, as I ride on the back of Dirt's sickle today, I will be praying that all those I know intimately all the way to barely, are well aware that we all, every last one of us, ride through life in the palm of the hand of mercy of our Creator, the one true God, and that then we live our lives accordingly in acknowlegement and thanksgiving.

Hang On Just a Little Longer

Unbeknownst to Dirt and the girls, I snuck away from all the work in order to sit down at the computer because the pressure in my brain was finally too great.

Unfortunately I have waited too long and my brain burst with a million things to write just as I headed to the computer.

So as soon as I collect my grey matter I will be back to down load all the stuff that has been going on around the Farm, as long as I'm not caught a loafin', or as Miss Bet says, "Shellackin' on duty".

Lots and lots to write but lots and lots of stuff demanding to be done and it will not be put off.

Dear Reader, have a great Independence Day if I can't slip away before then! And remember: God is infinite in all the things He is. He is merciful. No one is beyond His mercy or His justice.

Hate To Leave You Hanging

I'm sorry this picture is so fuzzy but in a way it rather fits. This is high up in one of our many many cottonwood trees on the Farm (high up and a small little camera is why it is fuzzy). The "cotton" hangs in great clumps awaiting a breeze to launch itself to swirl and swirl, up and down and up again and in and out and out and in our eyes and mouth and up our noses.

Cottonwoods, a member of the poplar family, love wet soils and is often found in riparian areas and boggy spots. So it is quite plentiful here.

It has little value, unless of course we were to install a paper mill. As firewood goes it would be better to just burn paper. Cottonwood maybe in the hardwoods but it is anything but hard. It takes forever to dry out, rather like that bacteria ridden sponge on your sink back.

Even if you get it to dry out so it will take a match you might as well sit back to enjoy the look of the flame because it is doubtful that you'll feel any heat from it. The heat it renders comes from wrasling with it because it does not split well at all because of the irregular grain, which also along with it sponginess also renders it rather useless for lumber save for pallets and such.

Oh, well suffice it to say they are here because they are here. And we have noticed them more this year than any other simply because we are enjoying the most unusual June for the Pacific Northwest ever. And trust me this is no complaint whatsoever!

What a friend of mine calls the "May-June Gloom" seems to have taken a break from us and gone somewhere else. So instead of a constant shower during the cottonwood bloom we have had nearly clear blue skies and only one or two showers that have only lasted an hour or two.

Consequently the outdoors looks as if it has snowed and it has even gotten into the house, the screen porch is socked in with fuzz nearly making the screen opaque. In the following pictures then don't be surprised if it looks as if it has snowed.

Another thing we found hanging 'round the farm is this lovely nest made by our little bushtits. We here the little bushtit family but they are one of many families of birds that we are only fortunate to hear but not yet see, or only see out of the corner of our eye.

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But this nest is out in the open for all to see, well all of the observant at least. We had a good time surveying this nest and checking to see which family it did indeed belong to.

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It is always exciting to see bird nests at the farm, it reassures a person that the birds are happily reproducing and the musical mornings will continue.

Someone else who was hanging around the farm is no longer hanging round a farm patrolled by faithful Rat Terriers. I know Dear Reader, how you love my upside down vermin and pests, so I couldn't leave for the day without giving you your weekly dose of yuk. But really you must see this fellows nose.

No wonder he can find our eggs, with a schnoz like that I'm surprised he didn't smell the Rat Terriers coming. The matted wet fur shows that whoever caught this farm marauder delighted in giving him a good chewing up. Good job gang.

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Have a great day Dear Reader the girls and I are headed into town, Bet managed to get the first appointment with her doctor this morning so with coffee cup in hand I am off.

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And Mildred, we will I am sure be looking for a cloche for Anna and her bird nest while we are in town today. Speaking of birds you'll never guess what the girls have now! Oh wait that is yet another story and I really must leave, so I guess I'll have to leave you hanging after all - Bye!