Category Archives: Little Farm

Muskrat Mornin

Not Quite But It’ll Do. For Now.

It was Fairbanks for poems then Juneau for horses and all I did in those quiet moments between busy when I wasn’t writing…

…was think about writing.

So much to write about.

The beauty.

The fun.

The growing.

The goodness.

But laundry calls and the animals are hungry and the sun is shining…

…and the chores they just won’t wait.

If I start writing today I just might not stop.

So it’s not quite writing these ten minutes of being here.

No, not quite.

But almost.

It’ll do.

But only for now.

Chicks on the Farm {{Cuuute-nesss Ovvvverload}}

Gone Goldie

3 Replies

We’ve had a chicken go missing.

I should say, we’ve likely had a chicken get killed.

In our fourth year of our little farm, this is our first loss to predation.

We love our chickens. Actually, we pretty much adore our chickens.

My husband told me from the time he met me that he would never in his life, ever.e.v.e.r.EHHH-VURRR have chickens.

Never.

Until his eldest, his little buddy, his My-Dad-Is-My-Hero firstborn thought maybe he might like to try raising chickens for 4-H.

So what’s a dad to do?

1170877_10200719855619692_506173140_n

Get busy putting together a chicken coop of course.

And two years later, here we are, bushels of poultry experience under our belts and pecks of chicken manure in our boots. We’re tried and true farm fresh egg snobs to the death, and have been converted into constant watchers and worriers over a bunch of feathered personalities that dwell on our little ranch.

Our little laying flock of thirteen hens.

Well, twelve now.

Because Goldie’s gone.

And we don’t know what happened to her.

Goldie came to us one sunny late spring day just a couple weeks after the Orloff got squished, and hours after the rooster got killed. (His killing was not of the predatorial kind of death but rather what we here in Alaska call a Defense of Life and Property killing. Another blog post..and maybe too sensitive for the squeamish of heart. All you really need to know is that the Russian got flat, Lolly got dead, and my little guy was pretty tore up about the whole ordeal.)

So.

In swoops my hero neighbor bff with a sweet little chick for my sweet little guy and he’s not quite ready to hold it on his own but he tries hard and pretty soon he’s sitting on a stump snuggling his sweet new baby hen and he names her Goldie because her feathers are gold like the sun Mom.

And that little hen was the best layer in our bunch. How excited we were when she laid her first egg.

It took her a while to fit in with the older hens, but soon enough, Goldie was pecking right along with them like an old bird and acting like she had just as much right as any of them there old biddies to be here.

When my son did the twice-daily counts, he’d roll on down the list…Sweetie and Big Chicken, April and Gertrude, The Wyandotts, two Russians…

…and Goldie.

But she wasn’t at the head count on Monday and we still don’t know where she went.

The kids scouted and found some tracks and some wingbeats in the snow. That’s all we know of her fate. There was some kind of chase.

The wingbeats look to be hers, but who knows? Owls are a major predator of chicken. So are hawks.

Was she taken by a large bird?

Did a coyote get brave and ignore the smells of our dogs and come up to the barnyard and snatch her? Or did a fox, rare in our parts, sneak in for an easy breakfast?

We’ve pretty much ruled out neighborhood dogs, mostly because dogs tend to be messy and bumbly and would’ve made more mess and more noise.

Unless it was OUR dog. My fear is that my Annie decided to play chase with Goldie and rather than leave a bloody mess like dogs will do, she just injured her, forcing Goldie out into the woods, hurt and alone and cold.

My whole family is sure if that was the case, there would be a mess.

So what happened?

On the way to town the day she went missing, my son and I puzzled over it for thirty minutes straight. What could’ve happened? Why is there no kill site? No blood anywhere?

Where is our Goldie?

It was a horrible feeling and I know she’s just a chicken, but the mama in me and the caretaker in me and the farmer in me thinks of her out there in the cold -far below zero at night now- and I can hardly stand it.

So when I puzzle over it that night and give my husband the run down and fret over Goldie and then wonder out loud if this is what Jesus was talking about when the shepherd left the flock to go find that one lost sheep that had wandered away and state that maybe THIS is EXACTLY how Jesus feels when WE drift away from Him and the flock…my husband just looks at me and cocks his head a little bit and I can tell he’s trying to be sensitive and not break out laughing.

“Wow. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of us being compared to a chicken.”

“Well. You know. Not really. But..kinda. She’s LOST.”

“All this talk about Jesus finding a lost chicken…honey you must’ve really liked that little chicken.”

Yeah.

Comparing our lost chicken to the lost sheep in the Bible might be a stretch.

It might be a little dramatic.

It might be a little womanly and hand-wringing and not-so-farmer-tough and making a big deal out of a small one.

But he’s right.

I kinda liked that little chicken.

Morning by Morning…

Hands

1 Reply

Ever since the guinea pig died I’ve been thinking a lot about hands. Working hands. What kind of work our hands do, to be precise. My husband’s hands pet the soft hair of his baby daughter with her tears falling on his big shoulder as she says good bye to the little sick animal she’s loved for years. And then those same hands take a frail and fragile creature that breathes and they turn it into a still and lifeless form with no air left in its lungs. How many times has he been the one to do this? Oh, I could lose count. And on butchering day he is the one to do the killing part, and he teaches his boy to be a gentleman and do the killing part too… …because my soft mama hands are healing hands, not hurting hands he tells me. What about your hands? What kind of work do they do? What do I do with mine that sometimes look pretty but usually have dirt under nails that peel? Up until recently, they used to change diapers. And prepare bottles and pick noses and wash sheets. Today though, they tap out words. And comb hair. And pet horses. Help with schoolwork and fold clothes and read books. But mostly… …they just point the way. Today in church I thought of the smells in the stable because I know what it would’ve smelled like. When I think of a barn…my barn…my brain automatically makes the smell, and it’s hay and it’s wood and it’s cobwebs and manure and animals and life and earth. I might know the smell, but what I don’t know is who built the manger. Who wove the reeds or who cut the tree and if it was a tree, who chose the wood and who planed it soft so that it wouldn’t rip the lip of a feeding animal? Who made the joints and dovetailed it all together so it’d last long in the stable and not fall apart? My husband used his hands to make a trunk for me once. Took wood and tools and a brush and some stain and made it all into a box so simple and beautiful I love to just run my hand over its smooth sides. What does a man think of when he crafts a manger? His hands must’ve been sure and confident but he probably didn’t even have a thought that the box he was making would someday hold the most important baby ever born. And what about the hands that took tools and a tree and worked just as hard some thirty-three years later? Were those hands rough and were they accurate and did the mind that made the hands move think of what he was making his hands do? How strong do your hands have to be to plane the pole that will bear the dead weight of the savior of the world as He hangs onto every sin ever committed?

photo credit: the gospel coalition

Did a little sliver of that tree get stuck into a rough callous…a little stick, wedged tight and prickling under the skin of a knarled finger that helped craft the tool to crucify. How long does it take to make a bed for a king? How long does it take to carve an executioner’s tree? And what do those hands look like? My mind sees the task and my mind sees the tools and when my mind sees the hands, they are strong and they work hard and they all look the same. Hands that build good. And then those same looking hands…constructing for evil. What about yours? What are your hands building? We laid the guinea pig in the ground and my girl took her little nine-year old hands and she shoveled dirt and she tamped earth. And we all circled round and said something sweet. You get used to this dying when you live on a farm. That didn’t stop a tear from coming to her eye though. And when we walked away and started back to the house, she walked with her Daddy… ..and he held her hand.

Lola and My Boy

2 Replies

I named her Lola and had my son put a little red tag around her ankle.

After losing a little chick from the meat flock just a few weeks prior, I didn’t want to lose Lola too. The tiny red band around her yellow leg flopped loosely and she joined the rest of the all-white flock at the feeder.

She was tiny. But she was scrappy.

I liked how her little body would push its way into the sea of white and fight for a place at the feed tray.

We’d purchased the thirty chicks as a summer project after my son raised a small batch for 4-H. They fit perfect on our little farm. They fit perfect in my son’s farmer life. And they were going to fit perfect in our stash of freezer meat.

I didn’t think Lola would make it. When I saw she wasn’t thriving, I thought she’d succumb like the little one I’d named Emily just a month before had. That’s the way of life after all…the sad facts of it…but Lola kept on and she made me smile when she’d shove her little white body to the feeder and climb on the backs of her flock mates to find a spot to eat.

I thought I’d keep her.

She could hobble around with our laying flock and look cute.

She’d be the odd-shaped fat girl in the gang of our lean working hens and she’d remind me of the fight in all of us. The instinct God writes into our cells. To live. To survive.

To grow.

But she didn’t. Along with the rest of her 28 pen mates, Lola stayed too small no matter how much my son increased their feed. The first batch had been fat, robust, healthy and happy, but this batch was two weeks past our scheduled butcher date and still not up to a weight that would bring an expected yield.

We talked to folks who raised chickens. It was a weird summer they said. Chickens weren’t growing to their full weight. Blame all the rain we had this summer.

It was getting cold outside and my Lola and the rest of her pen mates just weren’t growing any bigger so we decided it was time. We needed to butcher before it got any colder and my son and I did what we’ve learned to do…sharpen our knives and turn on the music while I put my big girl in charge of the littler kids and get to work, side by side doing what families have done for thousands of years.

“Mom what do you want me to do with Lola?”

He asks me quiet and tender after we’ve clasped hands and thanked the Maker of life for the gift of these lives and asked for the provision of kind hands that do their work gently and sure.

“Oh right. Lola.”

I tidy my table and give him the let’s-get-to-it look.

Lola.

We’d picked up the chicks on one of the last days of radiation. They came home with us in a feed-store box on the morning we’d had a date with laser beams.

Lola reminded me that just like my husband had that morning and every morning prior for seven straight weeks…

…sometimes we have to fight to live.

Lola reminded me that even though we’re tiny and part of a big flock…

…we can still find our way.

Lola reminded me that sometimes we just have to use the strength we were given and it’ll help us. Sometimes…

…we just have to push a little harder.

Lola reminded me that our shepherd has his seal on us and that we’re easy for Him to find. There’s no doubt…

…He knows exactly which one we are.

Lola’s red band on her scrawny little ankle reminded me that sometimes we just need a little extra attention…

…to make sure we’re growing.

So as I worked shoulder-to-shoulder with my son whose shoulders are wide now like his daddy’s, I thought of the summer and the season and the past thirteen years…growing as a Mama. Growing as a child of God.

How does the time go so fast when you still feel so small?

How do I forget how much I grow every day until one day I look at the man I’ve grown up with and realize it’s been twenty years and four children and a houseful of prayers and a faith that leads upon waters without even thinking?

I’ve moved my truck to where we are so we can hear the radio and there comes the song. It used to play in the headphones of my Walkman and as the pretty girl sings time after some time you’ll picture me I’m walking too far ahead…

I realize my boy is the age I was when we all fell in love with that song.

We’ve walked ahead some.

And like my boy, we’re growing too.

Every year, every child, every friend, every prayer…

…every tear…

…He holds them in His hand right there where our names are written in red.

Time after time.

“Mama?”

We’re about halfway through with the task and the smells from the house are of broth and winter provision and I know what he’s going to ask me.

“Let me go look at her first before I decide, son.”

We walk to the pen and he finds her, small still but as big now as the rest of the chickens with her there.

I think of our season…

…the extra years I’ve been given with my husband. The shed full of hay. The house full of children.

I think of what Lola has taught me. I think of how I’ve grown without even realizing it. How, in the scrappy fight to stay alive and keep thriving, I’ve felt the band of the one who’s marked me with His seal.

“Mom, it would be real hard to incorporate her into the layer hens. They probably wouldn’t let her in right away and she could probably die out in the cold.”

She’s not a keeper chicken. Her breed can develop fatal health problems if they’re kept past butchering age.

Lola is a meat bird bred to grow fast and then die.

To keep her would stress our farm and stress her, most likely to the point of death.

I realize all these things as I look on her little white form, -her little lesson-giving shape- and my farmer mind wins practical but can’t stop my soft side from releasing a tear and smiling thankful.

“Could you take her tag off son?”

“Okay?” His voice is quiet and his hands are bloody from the work he does so his Mama doesn’t have to, and in his blue eyes that were just baby eyes but are growing now into man eyes I see the asking. Are you sure?

“She wouldn’t survive son. She was a good chick. But it’s her time. This is what we got her for. This is her purpose. Just take her tag off. And please don’t tell me if you know it’s her when she comes through.”

He goes into the pen and I go back to our tables, hosing them off and getting ready to process the next chicken that my man-boy will gently and humanely send into eternity.

Lola had grown into her purpose.

And as I worked with my son in the chilling autumn evening, I realized that as he grows into his purpose, and my husband grows into his purpose, and you grow into your purpose…

…I’m growing into my purpose too.

A little flock of ducks flies over, their wings whooshing and their calls quiet. Their v-form heads due south and the sun slips behind the spruce trees.

We finish our work, wash up the knives, rinse down the table, and take one last look around the barnyard.

My son…the one I first held in my arms yesterday it seems…I ask him if he wouldn’t please move the truck back up to the house.

“Me?”

The surprise and excitement hit his face in a scared little smile he works hard to contain and I nod, smiling.

How long before he knows his purpose? Later that night, it dawned on me that, at twelve years old, my boy is two-thirds of the way through his trek to adulthood.

But now though, as I watch his nervous face maneuver my truck the twenty feet that must seem like a mile to him, I realize his purpose for now is the same purpose we all share…

…to keep up the fight to thrive…

…to push through the struggles…

…to rest in knowing who we belong to…

…and most of all…

…to just keep growing.

…I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received…Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession…

Ephesians 4:1, 1:13

Life is Messy and Things Aren’t Always So Little on this Crazy Little Farm

1 Reply

“…for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine.” ~Psalm 50:10-11

We’ve had our little farm just three years. Not long in the grand scheme of things. But you’d be amazed what a mama can learn in three years, especially when it comes to animals. And kids of course.

An especially poignant day comes to mind when this mama found herself in the surreal situation of stuffing the way-back of the Ford Expedition full to the ceiling before sunup one morning, cages and kennels teetering while she drove through the early morning dark, her children’s faces in the rearview, solemnly brushing the lint off their white fancy shirts as they combed their hair and their coon skin caps and quietly practiced their showmanship routine.

Guinea pig shows will do that to a family. You see, this raising animals gig ain’t for the faint of heart. I said it after my kids raised the roof and cleaned house with their little pig herd, winning ribbons and prizes and honorable mentions as I just sat bewildered, shaking my head slowly. I told the judge then and I maintain it now, you just never know what road you’re gonna travel once you become a mother.

And that’s the way it is with farm life too. We’re little. We have pets on the barnyard, not dairy cows or beef cattle. Our little herd of mini horses and goats are just fun family members who fill our table talk and empty our checking account. We’re not pros, heck we have to pray for strength and fortitude before we even butcher up a few chickens. Big ranchers are tough and strong and get thrown off bulls and cut their hands on barbed wire. We’re what you’d call a much softer, fluffier version of that. Think petting zoo but not quite as cute. That’s us. With some guinea pigs and a two-toed rooster thrown into the mix.

Large scale farmers or not though, we’ve still learned a peck about life from these crazy animals. In fact, I’d venture to say I’ve learned more about life and love and how this whole operation works in the three little years we’ve had this crazy farm than I probably did in all the years before. You see, when God made animals, He gave them to us humans to take care of. And yes, some animals are with us just for companionship and keeping our feet warm at night, and that’s a wonderful thing. But there’s more to it too.

The way I figure it, as long as this big old world keeps spinning, and no matter what happens on it, there will always be animals. Always. For friendship, for work, for transportation, for eats. Where there are people, there will be animals. And as long as there are animals, there will always be a need for people who know how to care for them. So that’s what we’re doing. We’re learning how to care for animals. And in learning how to care for animals, we’re learning a whole bunch about how to care for people too. These are just a few of the tidbits we’ve garnered:

Life is messy. Farm life isn’t like what we see on TV. The farms on TV have us thinking barns clean themselves, manure evaporates, animals quietly graze on grass all their livelong days and no one ever gets sick. Or when they do, a quick visit from the vet fixes them up lickety split.

Life, real life, is messy.

And you’ll more than once find yourself standing in a pile of poop, wondering how you got there, and having no other option than to just take your shovel and get after it. But after a few times of mucking, it’ll get to become a little more familiar. It won’t be so alarming after you’ve been through it once or twice. You’ll get better at dealing with the poop. And you might even start to figure out ways to head off big messes. But it’s still going to always be there. In life, there’s poop. You just gotta learn to deal with it.

Life is unpredictable. You learn to deal with messes and may even get good at it. But then, in farming, and in life, something’ll get thrown at you that you have no idea where it came from or how to deal with it. The pony will get sick and you’ll find yourself giving him shots in the neck twice a day for two weeks straight even though you can barely calm the shaking in your hands. Or the hedgehog will develop a very sudden onset of Wobbly Hedgehog Syndrome one morning which will force you to ask your husband twelve hours later, if he wouldn’t mind just getting it over with by gently sending the poor animal to the hereafter while you and the kids run into town. Things happen that’d you’d never even think of when you woke up in the morning and the older you get, the harder it is to deal with sudden happenings, but the easier it gets too because when it comes down to it, isn’t that real life? Interruptions. Surprises. Messes. Unpredictable.

Life needs our attention. When you’ve got critters, you study them close and you study them long. You come to know what an animal needs from you. You understand more than anyone else on earth what they need for food, shelter, routine, training, affection. That animal has specific needs as an individual. You are the person that’s been commissioned to meet the needs of that critter. If I don’t study the critters on my barnyard, if I don’t know what they need, I’ll wake up one morning to a loose animal, a sick animal or a dead animal. It’s my job to give them my attention.

This life needs our attention.

Careers, worship, recreation, sports, education…all contain one common thing: people. There are people under my roof I need to study close and I need to study long. They have needs that only I can meet. I’ve been commissioned. I need to know how they learn, what their favorites are, what makes them thrive, what makes them shrivel.

Who needs your attention? Study them close and study them long. Make sure they’re warm and fed and sheltered and that they have your affection. We don’t want our people lost, or sick or spiritually dead.

Life needs our commitment. As I write, it is six degrees below zero. Yesterday it was 15 below, the day before 17 below zero. It gets dark at 4:30 p.m. This will go on for months, at least four, usually more like five, depending on our weather pattern. The animals on our barnyard don’t comprehend these details, but they have a keen understanding of when they’re too cold, when their water has frozen solid, when it’s chow time and who brings these things to them. Life isn’t a joy ride. It gets ugly, it gets messy and it gets cold. You have to do it anyway. Because you committed to it and because there are critters, and people, who need you.

Take care of the outcasts. Every herd has an outcast. That one who’s never invited in, who tends to stand off alone, sometimes by choice, but most times because they’re driven off.

My little horse is an outcast. So she eats first on our farm. Every day. She still bristles though when I want to come in close. Her first instinct is to want to run. But when I use my soft voice, and gently reach out to her, she’ll come in close and let me hug her neck. She stands still and her eyes go soft. She’ll blink, almost in puzzlement. Then she’ll sigh. She receives my love. She knows that I love her even though something in her just wants to run. Even though she feels outside of the herd, she knows she is safe with me.

I’m an outcast. Somewhere, somehow, aren’t you one too? Don’t we all sometimes feel like we don’t fit? Like we want to bristle? To run? And if you don’t, trust me, someone you know does. We’re walking and talking with folks on this planet every day who’ve been run off, who aren’t invited in, who are just plain scared of the herd. Love them. Jesus told us to. You might help heal their heart. And you’ll both have a friend forever.

Kindness usually works. When an animal is mean, it is usually because it is scared or sick. Sometimes people are mean. They are usually scared or sick too. Don’t be mean back. Kindness usually works.

It doesn’t always go the way you’d hope. Death is part of life and even though we hate it, we’ll have to say goodbye to those we love. It will almost break your heart in two to see an animal you’ve loved, tended to, syringe fed, kept hydrated, administered shots to – lying there lifeless, eyes dull, no more movement in their once-strong muscles. It will break your heart in two to see the tears rolling down your children’s chins as they look on that same animal. But it will happen. It’s part of life’s natural process and seeing death in our animals helps us appreciate life with our people all the more.

Life requires help. It might be in the form of getting the sweet neighbor boys to do some work for you, or hiring a babysitter, or someone to mop your floors, or asking your best friend to go for a walk. We aren’t an island and this life wasn’t meant to be solitary and we need people. Especially during the extra messy times. When we try to walk it alone we walk it hard and in the hardness bitter is born. We need help.

It takes two. When I carry one bucket I’m a weakling. I slosh the water all over my pant leg and into my boot and bring a half empty haul to the trough. When I carry two I am strong like a teenaged boy and deliver full buckets to the barn. It’s uneven with one. Heavy. Too much to carry. It takes two. It’s balanced with two. God wasn’t kidding us when He said it right there in Ecclesiastes 4, “two are better than one”. Friend. Family. Spouse. Neighbor. Pair up with someone. Get a buddy. Share the load. In this life, it takes two.

There’s more. So much more.

Like how I’ve learned so much about my obedience to God when I train my misfit mini horse. How some animals will listen to certain people but treat others like poo on a shoe. How maddening that is, in animal world and in people world.

How sneaky little goats make you think they’re the cutest thing in the world and then you turn your back and they cause a ruckus that raises the roof, much like the willful and exploratory two-year-old.

sun bathing ruby

How a rabbit will warn all in the hutch of oncoming danger. They look out for one another and will even let kits from another nest nurse and move into their nest if need be. They instinctively take care of the helpless.

Some things are just good plain fun to watch and bring tranquility. Like a flock of chickens. Talk about boring and tranquil entertainment. And even then, there’s the blessing of eggs. Life doesn’t always have to be serious and industrious. We sometimes need a little boring entertainment. A place to sit. Something goofy to watch.

And when we do, even in the boring…

…we’ll find blessing.

{{{Author’s Note: Life is Messy was recently selected as the first prize winner in the Inspirational category for Writer’s Digest’s 83rd Annual writing competition and will be published in their collection of all of this year’s winners!! Exciting news here on our little farm!}}}

Favorite farm posts:

Meet the Critters

Little Emily the Three Dollar Chick

Good Morning Rooster and a Moose on the Barnyard

Little Emily the Three Dollar Chick

1 Reply

It wasn’t the dying baby chicken that pushed the tears on out and sent them spilling –on again, off again- all morning.

Or maybe it was.

I’d never had a chicken of my own before.

They stink, really.

But in the big cardboard box, there she wobbled, one third the size of the other five, and my heart went out to her.

I named her Emily.

Silly, they told me. To name a chicken.

She was one of our meat chickens.

Raised for the auction.

Headed for the fair.

Destined for the freezer.

I knew all that.

Still, I named her anyway.

And when she seemed a little cold I wrapped her up and put her on my chest as we watched a movie.

They laughed and called her Edible Emily and said I couldn’t keep a meat chicken for a pet. Told me to claim one of the layers out in the coop.

I can too keep a chicken if I want.

And after that, she was just Emily, Mom’s chicken.

Isn’t there a little fragile in all of us…a fragile that needs to be held close to a big and strong warm chest?

She was so small the other chicks would trample her so we put up a divider in the pen and don’t we sometimes get trampled most by our own?

The ones that look like us, talk like us, do the same things we do…aren’t they the ones that sometimes forget to look where they’re walking and in doing so, they sometimes walk straight on over us?

My friend with family that’s breaking her heart…

…the quiet person at church who’s attended for years but still leaves feeling lonely and outside the happening group…

…the mama who feels unappreciated and invisible in her own home…

…can’t we sometimes feel crushed by those we share this life with?

So when I greeted the day and the strong legs were replaced by a wobbly heart, sad over the weight of it all, -the weight that crept on over winter and made the clothes tight, the weight of a too-short summer filled to Fall with farm work needing done, the weight of yearning for a day…a break…some time…some attention- it was easy to let weighty tears slip on out when I saw my chicken was hurting and I asked my husband if he wouldn’t please end little Emily’s suffering.

One little three dollar chick, dozens just like her at the feed store, one of forty-two critters here on our farm…and the snot is running like I’m saying good bye to an old friend.

Just a silly chicken.

But don’t our red letters say not even a little bird falls without our Father in Heaven knowing it?

So when my men folk take my weak bird and tenderly and mercifully send her into eternity, somewhere my heart stirs and I know that my Father knows I’m wobbly today like my chicken.

As they bring me to her grave and I look at the cross in the ground constructed by my son in honor of my chicken, -two sticks and some duct tape- I’m reminded that one day the burdens that crush on the days that we’re weak will be no more…and I’ll be in my eternal home.

I’m reminded that, on hard days, days like today, I don’t have to carry the weight.

He carries it all.

I’m reminded that because He carries it, my legs can stand up and walk strong.

That I may be just one of a huge flock, but He knows me.

He knows you.

He sees.

We are not invisible.

We are growing strong.

And someday soon…

…we’ll fly.

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. ~Jesus

Luke 12:6-8

Thank you for the lessons sweet Emily, Mom’s chicken.

June 5 – June 19, 2014

More posts about the small critters round here:

Patrick Hugo the Craziest of All

Meet the Critters

Spring Break – 100 Words

4 Replies

It was time.

Too much work, too many appointments, too long running.

We homeschool. I can do this. Time out. Week-long break.

Spring at last.

My babies needed down time. Desperately, so did their Mama.

Cancelled outside commitments, made a project list.

We cleared brush. We picked trash. We raked flat the snow piles littering the lawn, stubbornly refusing to break it off with winter’s frozen ground, even after hours of sunlit heat.

My big boy, whole year older, he wore the man’s boots and started the first campfire of the year.

And I inhaled the scent of this family.

{{Entered in 100 Words at Velvet Verbosity, http://www.velvetverbosity.com/100-words/}}

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

Cassandra Rankin

Life is Messy and Things Aren't Always Little on this Crazy Little Farm

Category Archives: Little Farm

Muskrat Mornin

Not Quite But It’ll Do. For Now.

Chicks on the Farm {{Cuuute-nesss Ovvvverload}}

Gone Goldie

Morning by Morning…

Hands

Lola and My Boy

Life is Messy and Things Aren’t Always So Little on this Crazy Little Farm

Little Emily the Three Dollar Chick

Spring Break – 100 Words

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: