Monthly Archives: April 2009

Spring Is Spelled A-S-P-E-R-G-U-S

[Previous Rural Farmgirl, April 2009 – May 2010]
I think there is an invisible official standing out in a field somewhere, waiting to usher in spring. With cap gun in hand, it awaits the first spear of asparagus to shoot out of the ground, at which time it fires off the gun notifying all citizens that spring has officially sprung. Then, because we all know there is just a short asparagus season ahead, we cook it, dice it, pickle it, deep fry it, and find a million more ways to add it to every meal until we are practically green.
Usually, by the time the last handful is sold and a collective sigh of relief heard I swear that I will never touch another plate of it. Yet every spring there I am, the first in line, standing on the roadside and buying it by the box loads out of back of some farmer’s truck.

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Small Wonders…

[Previous Rural Farmgirl, April 2009 – May 2010]
There are seven wonders in the world that have earned the right to be called “Wonders,” with a capital “w.” They are the Big Ben clock tower, the Eiffel Tower, the Gateway Arch, the Aswan Dam, The Hoover Dam, Mount Rushmore National Memorial, and the PETRONAS Twin Towers.
Then there are those wonderful life-changing wonders, like the birth of a baby, a rainbow, and seeing life through the eyes of a child.
But to me, there are also a million “lesser wonders,” those things that I call the lower-case “w” wonders. They are those things that you could sit in front of for hours and still not really grasp how they fit into the world. They are those things that cause you to pause and just say, “Huh.”

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Farm Hands

I sometimes wish I was more handy. I wish I knew how to do things and fix things around the house. How does one learn that kind of thing? I’ve just never known.
We had been planning for the past several weekends to go up to our farm, but something or another would get in the way at the last minute. Well, this past weekend, we finally did it. We headed up at last.
I think I’ve told you before, that this farm-thing is mine and mine alone. I’ve always had a certain pull towards wide open spaces and a house in the country like Grandma’s. Not so much the case for my husband. He goes along with it, like he goes along with my cats, because he loves me. I love cats and he loves me, so he puts up with them. I love farms and he loves me, so he puts up with it.
But back to my general lack of handy-ness. Well, no. First let me tell you about the drive to our farm. It was such a pleasurable drive and I was beyond excited to finally be going. And of course, spring is a beautiful time of the year to be out and about. I couldn’t believe all the different shades of green on the trees on the passing hillsides. If someone had painted them, it would be look surreal. It was simply a perfect trip there, all four hours of it filled with singing and goofing and having fun. 

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Meet My Girls

[Previous Rural Farmgirl, April 2009 – May 2010]
I traded working in an office for spending time with my girls.
They are the perfect example of how “girls” can get along. Each of them seems to be quite content going about her day in her own fashion. Some of them are a little more pushy then others, some a little more shy, and some a little more adventuresome; yet all seem content in a weird sort of way, like they are all totally “okay with their lot in life.” I never pick up on jealousy or cattiness; they just go about their day mindful of each other yet content to be themselves.

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Will The Real René Please Sit Down…

[Previous Rural Farmgirl, April 2009 – May 2010]
As I start this blog, I thought it would be fun to share some of my quirks. My quirkiness is a part of me that I honestly try hard to hide, but sometimes it just oozes out with no real way to contain it.
Last fall, on a trip to MaryJanesFarm, my youngest son Matthew and I were settling into our beloved soft-wall tent. Our hearts were light, our mood giddy, and Matthew was running from one task to another. Once things were put away and our temporary home set up, we started dinner in our amazing outdoor kitchen. Matthew is a very busy and very funny kid, so when I heard a loud growling noise I naturally assumed it was him being his normally precocious self. Without missing a beat, I continued to dice the veggies for the salad and said over my shoulder, “Hey buddy, good try, but I know that was you.” As he began to plead his case that it wasn’t him, we heard the growl again. Glancing around, I could see a black hump on the south side of the tent. I gently motioned to Matthew to head for the farm kitchen. Once we were safely in the shack I asked the cook if there had been any bear sightings. There hadn’t. Needing to get to the bottom of it, I ventured out to investigate. There it was, right where I saw it before, the biggest black…

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Creatures Great and Small

I came home with muddy shoes the other day. I mean MUDDY. Mud so thick my shoes were too heavy to wear. Mud so thick my shoes would probably never recover. I tried to get the mud off to no avail. So I put them in the garage to dry, thinking that once that once the mud dried, it might come off easier. As in…fling in all directions as I hit the bottoms of the shoes together with force. You know that routine, right? 

My husband noticed them days later, two big balls of mud sitting in the garage. When he looked more closely, he saw they were my Sketchers. So, he asked.

I told him the story. You see, I was coming home the other day from someplace or another and there, in the middle of the road, was a dog. He moved from lane to lane to avoid being struck by cars, but he obviously had no street sense or car sense. I think he might have just been dumped there because the dog seemed “dazed and confused.”

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Hundred Acre Wood

How much is enough?
That’s a tough one, isn’t it? My “wondering” for the day is a tough-y, alright.
But first. I get so many requests to link your blogs to this one and I wish I could; but that’s not a feature this “blog-ware” has. So send me your own blog links and those of your favorite blogs. I’ll post them in a very special upcoming post. I’m thinking a “contest” would be fun! What do you think? Either email me using the link at the right or leave a comment below with the blog addresses.
Now on to my wondering of the day:
How much is enough?

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