No Guarantees

     Snow day today??  No guarantee... sure enough, we had school.  Life comes with no guarantees, no time outs, no rewind button.  While some say there are no guarantees in life, others say there are - death and taxes.  The guarantee that there is life beyond the grave exists if we put your trust and faith in God... then we will have eternal life with God in Heaven.

     Just because it is Friday the 13th, doesn't mean bad things will happen today. But I did feel unlucky due to the fact that we didn't get a snow day.  Good and bad can and does occur to us any time.  Life is uncertain, but there are consequences for our actions so we do have some control over our life.  What we do can help our life go better. And there are things we can do to help when the going gets tough.

     At the end of last week's Blog, I reflected on Britney and Daniel for a bit.  Courtney should have been included too,
                                                    but because I see her almost weekly,
I do not miss her as much as I do Britney and Daniel.  I also tend to worry about them more because they are so far away.  Since there is no guarantee to life, any of us; including my children, family or friends, could be gone tomorrow.  That is a very scary thought... so I try not to think about it.  However, I should try to live each day to its fullest, love like there is no tomorrow, and be thankful for every breath of life each of us is given. 

     Anyway, now I want to take a moment to reflect on Courtney who has also grown from a cute little girl into a wonderful young lady (and a very smart one I might add) right before our eyes... and in just the blink of an eye.    She has gone from...
   
a babe in arms                                     to a bathing cutie

                     she can be a crazy girl                   but is a successful lady

I can guarantee that I am very proud of each of my children 

and love them each very much! 

     Saturday morning I worked on lesson plans for a few hours.  Then I started on Christmas take down and stow away.  No carols and happy mood for this job... it was a bit depressing.  Since it was such a beautiful day, Joe and I spent much of the afternoon outside working.  We trimmed
                                         around some trees and then put fencing around
the trunks to save them from the herbivores.  I had to untwist and straighten much of the chain link fence first.
 










Then we opened up the temporary pen in back to allow the cows to go out in the side pasture with the horses.  Well, they were more interested in the
                                                                                    horses' hay bin...

     ....and the horses came in wanting to roam the paddock looking for good eating.

     All was well until Zorro started being a stinker.

He bothered Roni.





And then went after the cows.

     Eventually the novelty of the new space wore off, and all the grazers wondered out to the large pasture to eat.  Again Zorro was bothering Norman, Babe and Roni.  As I watch and continue to observe Zorro "chase" Roni, (several times on different days) I can't figure out if he is being playful or mean... or just plain ornery.  Amiga keeps a careful watch on them.

    

      After taking down our Christmas tree, I decided to put up our quick and easy to install travel tree.  I am glad to still have a little Christmas to hang on to for a tad bit longer.  I felt better about having Daniel's packages under a tree too.  But it will be nice to get the house straightened back up.  As the sun rises Sunday, it hits the little snowman under the tree.  Below, Abbey is investigating the pile of boxes that have arrived here for Dan from him.  I don't know what he has up his sleeve. 



Once fed, the cows were quick to get back out to the pasture that was new for them.

  





    

After second service, and a quick trip to the store, we did more work in the yard and around the farm, while also enjoying life. It was cloudy, but the air temperature was still quite warm.

Joe gives Norman some lovin'.

    Frankie puts the new fence around the trees to the test.


Bad Boy Frankie!




     I put new stakes up for three of the red buds along the drive and also started cutting out more dead growth in the rock garden.  The barn kitties enjoyed "helping".

They are always on the prowl,
and looking for trouble.







What's up duck?

After the cows had gotten their fill, they returned to the paddock to rest and chew their cud.




Eventually the horses and poultry also joined the menagerie behind the wood shed.

Roni comes near to see what I am doing. 







Amiga and Zorro join Roni, putting too much pressure on the cows, who finally get up and leave.

Babe and Norman, and then Frankie head back out to the side pasture.  











Once the cows had left, the poultry could move in to dig through the hay.

Farmers have no guarantee on their crops... which we realized on a more personal level this year.  We were not able to harvest much good hay and fear we will run short on it before spring.  The cows really made a killing of the round bale, and in three weeks time this is what it now looks like. 

     The chickens then made their way to the manure pile for more digging and pecking.

Tiny really digs in.



I managed to work outside up through chore time, and did not have the energy to tackle Christmas take down.  I did add cheap red garland (75% off for 2$) to the little tree I had up for Dan.  Here the setting sun lights it up.

     Monday was another beautiful sun shiny day in the mid 50s. It was such a warm morning, it felt like spring.  So I went out to walk around.  I enjoyed the moon setting in the west.












And watched the grazers with the sun rising in the east.





The cows looked peaceful.























Roni looked peaceful.





But then I caught Zorro in the act of being naughty... and there went the peace.  He is such a mischief.

     I ended up working late to set up a lab at school, so I had little time left to do much work when I got home.  A little grading and I was off to Growth Group. 

     I really want to get into a good routine... make more healthy choices on food and get more exercise, work with Amiga and Roni more, and read my Bible daily.  But I keep coming up with excuses; "Once all the Christmas stuff is put away", "After all the Christmas cookies and candy are gone", "When my wrist is better", or "I am just too tired to do it right now".  Needless to say, I am not doing too well so far.  I wish there was some way to guarantee success on theses resolutions.

     Tuesday I thought for sure I would make a big dent in the Christmas clean up, but Joe finally decided to mow for me.  I had been bugging him to hit the spot out where the dog does her business.  With all the leaves and taller grass, it is really difficult to see the "lawn mines" to clean them up.  Well, I had to scoop poop so he could mow.  And then while I was out I got busy cleaning dead perennial growth out of the rock garden.  I also raked a bunch of little rocks out of the grass where the chickens had flung them while scratching around the picnic shelter.  I then noticed several of the pine trees had the bark eaten off of them.  As I was walking around inspecting them, the culprit got caught.

No, no Norman.
Stop that.
Bad boy Norman!





     Needless to say, the cows have been permanently banded from the side pasture.  I don't want to lose all our nice pine trees.  Joe lit the three brush piles and I tended them while adding more sticks and other lawn and garden debris.  It was so nice out, feeling like a fall evening, that I did not want to break the spell.
                                                           Wednesday was a very long day,
leaving for school at 6 am and not getting home till after 4 pm.  I had a dentist appointment and then went shopping.  Man was Wal-mart crazy... worse than usual.  Everyone was doing their pre-snow storm shopping.  I should have known better than to step foot in there, but there were some things I really needed to pick up.  Before bed, I unrolled and secured the tarp for the north end of the barn.  I
                                                     wanted it to block the snow and wind.

     The snow didn't start until after 7 Thursday morning.  I was going to get a photo of the "cleaned" rock garden, and went ahead with it to show the start of the snowing.  It was coming down very slowly, and in tiny crystals... but with the wind, it was white out conditions.


The cattle and horses got extra hay since grazing was going to be more difficult.



As usual, Amiga and Zorro kind of excluded Roni.

     I enjoyed watching the horses race around outside before leaving for school, but I was a bit concerned they might hurt themselves... I guess they were keeping warm though.

     On the way to school I saw a car go in the ditch and had troubles getting traction three different times myself.  After school the roads were no better.  I went to my wrist therapy but then came straight home, thankful that the after school training session and evening program I was to help at were both canceled.  Recovery of movement and strength of my wrist is so slow.  My occupational therapist admitted recently that I probably won't completely get it back to normal.  I have no way of knowing... no guarantee.  But I will continue to work with it in hopes for the best.  My concern now is the possibility of having carpal tunnel in the same wrist.

     At chore time I noticed the plastic tarp doing a pretty good job of keeping the wind and snow out of that end of the barn, but the drift in front was growing.  The blowing tarp was making Roni nervous though. 





I was glad to see that not much snow was getting in the main part of the barn or corn crib either.  So the cows and horses were pretty comfortable.



I did have to catch and carry two chickens to the coop.  They had gotten trapped in the barn by the strong wind and blowing snow.

     Staying up past my bed time, added to the disappointment of discovering we did have school today.  I decided to leave the chickens in the coop and Roni in the barn, but I moved him to Zorro's stall.  The water tub outside had frozen solid because of a malfunction of the tank heater. (Wonder if it came with a guarantee?)  Because of limited water and I didn't want the horses chasing each other, I thought this would be better. 

 As soon as I was home from school, I checked on the chickens and ducks in the coop and let Roni out of the barn and put Zorro in.  I filled all water and hay feeders. 

The cattle were lowing out by the garden fence... they wanted to be fed too.

The drift in front of the barn was significantly larger.  While outside I decided to photograph several other cool drifts.

 






















  

 




I especially like this last one...
so cool.












     Earlier this week Daniel's supervisor had posted this on the 236th Facebook site:  "its getting really cold, please don't try to be weather heroes, wrap up and stay warm to prevent colds and injuries like mother always said. ...........................ps.  Holly, Daniel refuses to wear a coat."
This was then followed by a comment from
Courtney that Dan was the kid to wear shorts all winter (which was true).  Dan came back saying that his girl friend had chewed him out... so I too told him to shape up and wrap up. 

     The next day, this photo appeared, along with this comment:
"We will confirm that a mother's and girlfriend's words can be stronger than the supervisors. This young man refused to wear his gear to stay warm, so with some words of encouragement from home, he came fully loaded today, but I won't tell you it was only for an hour ;-)" 

     I am glad our soldiers can joke and have some fun in spite of the serious matter of their mission.  They need some comic relief.

     As I was quickly wrapping this up to post before going to bed, I somehow accidentally deleted half of it... gone for good... not to be recovered.  It has been ages since I have made similar errors.  I didn't even have much of it copied as a back up.  I was sooo mad.  But, I sat and hammered it back out, toiling over wording and photo placement once again.  It went much faster the second time, but didn't seem to flow as well.  I considered the possibility of Friday the 13th being bad luck.  I also thought about resolving to scale back on these posts.  Even though they are as much a journal for myself as they are a note to Mom, Britney, Daniel, and Carol... (and anyone else wanting to read them) they do not need to be so extensive.  

     Well, I am including this poster as a wrap up for the day and week because I really like its message, as there is no guarantee to tomorrow.

"God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way."
.