Favorite Farm Day

I received the sweetest email from Tracy in Florida. Shall I spare you the flattery contained therein? (Flattery gets you everywhere.) Well, maybe for the beginning of this post. Further on, well, no indeed, I shall not spare you. I shall boldly and unabashedly and without humility, BASK in the flattery. Cause I love it.

But for now. Let me just share with you the question she asked that really really really REALLY got me to thinking.

“I’m stuck without property or money to buy property at this point in my life. I soak up your blog every time you post something. I read it repeatedly and dream about my life some day. One day! I have followed you since you were farmless like me. And now you’re there so I’d like to know what day has been your favorite day on your farm so far. I want details!”

My very “favorite” day on my farm yet so farm? Hmmm…. I’ve been here for over a year now, so I’ve got a lot of days to consider. This is a real tough-y.

I’m tempted to say the day we got our first snow last year. It was October and it was a doozey. It was deep and lasted for days. Being snow-deprived my entire life, I was thrilled and enchanted and enamored and elated. It was a dream come true for me. This photo is INSIDE my barn. This is the day that I realized my barn was not anything-proof, including snow. Not snow proof. Not rain proof. Not snake proof. I had to quit storing stuff in there.

I’m tempted to say the day my Soul Horse was delivered to my farm.

It was November 14 last year and I cried. Oh my, but did I cry. I knew he belonged here when he leaned down and hugged my daughter the day we went to see him. It was fate. Caught this moment just the other day…

However, I had dreams and visions of ME doing groundwork with him and grooming and snuggling with him and riding him through the Christmas trees. My horse angel.  Alas, we’re not there yet. I named him “Snowflake” then realized he is a “Blizzard” and then abandoned a name change altogether. I ended up keeping the name he came with: “Merlin.” And eventually a nickname came to be, “Merzey.” And sometimes “Merzi-kins.” And also “Mer-zi-cal” and “MerMer.”

This is his farm and he knows it. His barn, his shed, his hay, his herd of our three other horses, his everything. Even my truck. His. All his.

Merzey and I are a match made in heaven. We love each other. We challenge each other. We are good for each other.

He’s stubborn and moody. I’m stubborn and moody.

He has some emotional baggage. I’m gentle and patient.

He’s smart and savvy when it comes to people. I’m an idiot when it comes to horses.

Match made in heaven.

I live by these words, so I added them to a photo of Merzey.

 

My personal goal is getting on him more and staying on longer.

I’m unclear about his personal goal. Retire, I think.

I’m tempted to say the day my chicks arrived at the local US Post Office. Cute little peeps. We were SO unprepared and ignorant about all things chicken. But we figured it out.

And then the day I found my first egg in the nest box! What a day that was! That was a favorite day, for sure. I learned that farm eggs look different–BETTER–than store eggs. And taste better.

Or the day I heard a faint “cock-a-doodle-doo” in the hen house! That’s when I knew that I was blessed with a rooster in my hen collection. I SOOOOOOO wanted one of those hens to turn out to be a roo! He’s a calm, friendly, lovely rooster. Lucky us!

I’m tempted to say the day my husband surprised me with my Teal colored truck to “haul things” with. It can haul anything. At. All. Yes, this is the truck that is Merzey’s. There’s a horse trailer that’s his too.

I’m tempted to say the day I walked up the trails behind the house and discovered an old fallen down house, chimney still standing.

Or the day we walked WAY up other trails behind the house and found this view:

Felt very close to heaven that day.

I’m tempted to say the first day a horse drawn wagon came down our road. I learned later that I’d see many horse drawn wagons, as this road is a favorite trek for them. Unbelievably cool. Icing on the cake.

But the real answer is “today.” Each day, as it comes and goes, really is my favorite day on the farm. Each day holds something wonderful for me. Like today, for example. This morning I woke up to a world of cold frost. The tops of the Christmas trees looked sparkly and mystical in the field behind my house that I see outside my kitchen window.

My dog, Oreo, is curled up beside me on the couch as I type this.

Hubs started a fire in the fireplace a bit ago when he got home. He had dropped by the local store and visited with folks this morning. I love this community. He tells me all the news he heard there. A neighbor’s baby, born premature a few weeks ago, is doing fine. Another neighbor, who fell and broke her hip is holding her own.

Wait. He just told me that I was the subject of some of the talk at the store this morning. HIS talk. He told them the mouse and the Mercedes story. Oh my. He tells it WAY better than I do, but here’s my version if you missed it. haha

I’m warming up with a cup of chamomile tea, visiting with all of you. I’ve just come in from feeding the chickens some leftover Vegetable Lasagna, which was delicious.  This recipe is seriously killer; I really should post it. It’s got walnuts and baked zucchini. Really yum.

(I know! I had no idea that chickens eat so much of all kinds of things. But I looked it up before I offered it to them. The experts said they’d love it and they did!)

I realize now that I’ve still got my favorite red hat on my head from my jaunt outside. This is by far my favorite winter hat. Unfortunately, the aforementioned dog, Oreo, chewed it up a bit last year. So I’m in the market for a new red hat. It’s just a barn hat now. It used to look like this:

We’ve been blessed with an amazing worker to help us on the barn project and I can hear the faint pounding of his hammer.

The horse trainer who has been working with our colt, Jessi, should be here in a little while.

I’m thrilled with the progress she’s made with him, using natural horsemanship techniques. They work!

I see the four horses outside the window now. I tried to get them in the barn last night which is in a different pasture. I knew it would be cold. But Merzey said “no thanks.” He spent most of his 16 years in a stable and enjoys his freedom. I can’t blame him.

I hung some solar lights on the new horse shed. We’ll see if they shine tonight.

Hey, guess what? The tree baler came this morning:

‘Tis the season to harvest trees for Christmas. Maybe one of mine is coming to your neighborhood? I hear the chainsaws now.

I’m thinking of Thanksgiving and wondering what that will look like for us this year, so far from home and family. We’re trying to talk a very special aunt into coming to our farm to join us. (Come see us for Thanksgiving, Aunt Jan!!!!) So far, no go. Hubs is working on his family as well. We’ll see.

I’ll spend a few minutes today playing the piano, trying to decide if I have the courage to play a song at the local church on Christmas Eve. We aren’t members there, but they host a community service and asked me to participate.

And, I’ve got to tell you, I’m honored that they would ask me to play something at the service. It surely makes me feel like we BELONG and are ACCEPTED. That’s huge when you move into a place. That’s the church, on the hill behind Merzey and his shed and his herd. That might be his church too.

Do you see why each day is my favorite day so far on my farm? Today, the present, the moment, is what I’ve got.

So okay, this post has gotten long so I’ll spare you the flattery. But, Tracy, and everyone else who has ever said a kind and generous thing to me or about me: thanks for every single word. I swaneeeee, I don’t know how I got so lucky to get to be here and connect with the most fabulous bunch of people EVER. I sometimes sit down to write a post and think how I’ve got nothing to say, how boring my posts are getting (ho hum). And then I get precious, supportive notes from you and they give me the fuel to just keep on keeping on. Thank you all for the inspiration and encouragement. Always.

Now, talk to me. Have you had a “favorite” day this last year? It’s a hard question, isn’t it! Give it your best shot. We want to hear it!

Until next time, Friends, savor the flavor of life!

Lots of love, The City Farmgirl who’s now gone country, Rebekah