Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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Famous Last Words: the Forest Incident

   So, a few weeks ago my ten-four-good-buddy M Half was visiting the farm. Somewhere between her remote office laptop work and conference calls, my multitudinous farm chores, and the need for us both to get cleaned up for another installment of our world famous book club which we affectionately call “Dinner Club With a Reading Problem,” *take a deep breath* she and I decided to thrust ourselves into the quiet and solitude of the Pine Forest. We needed some Zen, you guys. We laid everything aside, found suitable footwear (okay, yes, I just kept my rubber boots on, whatever), and paced toward the green, threat-less edge of the wild. 
   Here’s the thing. In hindsight I see our crossing of that gated threshold between the Lazy W and the Pine Forest a bit like the beginning of a good thriller movie. Neither of us knew it at the time, but we were about to make a few memories. Like, for real you guys. 
   Why haven’t I written about this yet? Why now, almost a month late? Because it shook me to my core. My tree-climbing, childhood summers-in-the-country, horse whispering, ain’t-skeeird core. I have spent the last few weeks digesting and coming to terms with what happened, what almost happened, and how it all came out in the wash. Plus, of course, M Half wrote about it last night and spicily bet everyone ten bucks I would follow suit today. So here we go. Here is my ten dollar story.
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I. The Setting:

   The forest was bright and friendly that afternoon. We passed by the abandoned and mostly demolished workshop where the owls eat their prey then threaded our way between wild roses, dormant cherry trees, and baby loblolly pines. This is a sparse expanse of the property, easily navigated. The pale prairie grasses crunched beneath our feet. Sunshine sliced through the leafy canopy and warmed us up pretty quickly. I remember having worn a light jacket but not needing it for long.

   We paused at a particularly open, grassy spot where the sunshine poured in freely, like liquid gold, and we dubbed it Yoga Meadow. Having just pressed through a half hour of yoga together back at the house, M Half and I were in the mood to commemorate the peacefulness. We may or may not have done some heavy-footed, jacket-impeded spontaneous poses right there in Yoga Meadow. Imagine Madonna in Vogue crossed awkwardly with Mary Catherine Gallagher from SNL.
II. Onward…
   We descended through the forest, which slopes downhill as you head either north or west away from the farm. Perhaps this is a good time to point out that I was eventually unsure of what direction we were headed. We slipped through dilapidated interior gates (but never crossed a fence, this is crucial information). We followed deer trails and marveled at unusual divets in the thick pine needle floor. We listened. We admired. We soaked up nature and shared a certain astonishment that so much wildness was so near home.

   I think I said something like, “You know, I used to let the kids hike in here all the time, and I’ve been here a hundred times alone, but never this deep. We’ve never been past that fence.” M Half and I more or less agreed about the unlikelihood of getting lost so close to home. Which is to say that I arrogantly assured my friend there was no way we would ever get lost so close to home.

   People should keep track of the stupid things they say. 
   We hiked lower and lower, trading light, effortless conversation, touching the tree bark and watching the undergrowth increase dramatically with every step. I noticed my companion’s delicacy, her wish to disturb as little as possible, even if it meant doing some crazy bends and dips. She is an experienced, cosmopolitan hiker who has navigated beautiful places in Colorado, Arizona, and Costa Rica, probably much more. I am just a wide eyed tromper who is happy enough to have explored hundreds of great places right here in Oklahoma plus a few in Louisiana. (I don’t think a Mexico honeymoon counts for the purposes of this story.)

   While she was avoiding leaving even a footprint, I was collecting what few wildflowers I could find and snapping off slender tree branches so I could “force” them to bloom in a vase of water back home. I was raised to be respectful of nature but accept her wonderful gifts. This is not where the dissimilarity ended that day.


III. More Examples of How Differently We Experienced That Hike:

  • I climbed a tree that was designed specifically for climbing. It was perfect. She watched patiently from the ground and was apparently scripting in her head explanations to Handsome  about my inevitable mouth injuries. There were none, thanktheheavensabove.
  • Having been home when the storms hit a few years ago, I was relatively unfazed by our discovery of tornado debris still remaining in some of the trees. She seemed almost saddened by it, or at least stunned.
  • I must have looked behind us, over my shoulder, about ten thousand times, wondering over and over again why it suddenly got so quiet in there, while she just pressed confidently on the chosen path. No biggie, her posture seemed to say. We got this.
  • I was afraid. She was undisturbed. I would make it home in tears of panic. She would make it home in tears of laughter.
IV. Fast forward about 45 minutes, or maybe it was 3 hours: 

   At some point quite deep into the hike, my writerly friend and I discovered not only deer droppings but also cow patties. 

   Cow patties. In the forest.  The forest that is supposedly fenced off. Where no one lives. Where certainly no one keeps cows. A phantom cow. A phantom menace cow.
   
   Now, you guys, you know I have a buffalo who is as sweet as can be, and I know how to deal with him and horses and mean roosters and geese and everything, but cows are very different. 
V. My Fear of Cows Background: 

   When I was a little girl on one of those tromping expeditions with a few other young Okies (cousins), we were once viciously, rabidly, undeservedly chased and subsequently treed by a cow. This is one good reason to be a skilled tree climber, even past the age when most people find it reasonable to climb trees. You never know when a cow will chase you up one. It happened to us also on the edge of a forest, also in the quiet, like this day with M Half. My cousins and I were in that tree for over an hour, and it was flat out terrifying. I thought I was going to die. 

   The day of my hike with M Half, though, what did I actually say? Probably just, “Hey, look, I think that’s a cow patty. Huh” Trying to act all cool. She could not have known that from that moment on my heart was beating as fast as a hummingbird and as violently as a bass drum. My bovine terror was the beginning of the end of our peaceful adventure. 

VI. Things declined rapidly from there:
   We approached a new boundary, another dry creek bed, which M Half seemed happy to cross, and I nearly had a panic attack. I wanted to be home in the worst way, not extending our distance! I could not see any buildings, could not hear any of our animals, not even Mia’s heartsick moaning, could not even tell which direction was north, and I felt that prickly heat stabbing at my armpits. My eyes were glued open at maximum dilation. I was on high alert and was actively thanking God I had not brought my children on this misadventure. Because everyone knows that cows, vengeful creatures that they are, love to eat juicy, tender children.
   Then as we tried to elbow our way back from whence we came, the landmarks had shifted. We thought we were following the same trees and errant plastic milk crate, but then it was clear we were not. It was painfully clear to me and humorously clear to her that we were not headed back the same way we came.
   It took every ounce of self control I could muster to not break down into tears.  
   I was working my way through a maze of braided tree branches, desperate for a clear path and vowing to never again wander so far from home, when to my right appeared a low, thick, dome-topped structure. Kind of like a small hut. Kind of like a den. About two feet away from me. Where my boots were fairly stuck in the leaves, mud, and undergrowth.
   Oh my God, it’s probably a wolverine den, I moaned inwardly as the panic mounted in my body. But audibly all I said was “Hey look, some kind of a den.” Again, the undersell was pathetic and probably transparent.
   M Half, at that exact moment, said in her cheerful, experienced-hiker voice, “Hey do you have bears in Oklahoma?” 

   “WHAT?! Why would you SAY that?!” I was suddenly shrieking at her. I could no longer hide my terror. Without any warning my secret fears came spilling out all over my bewildered friend. I tore mercilessly through those low, braided branches, determined not to get caught by either a bear or a wolverine. Or a cow. Our pace increased tenfold as we searched for the red dirt road, for any dirt road, for any sign of civilization.

   Every twig that snapped beneath our feet was possibly a beast thirsty for our guts and marrow. When a rabbit darted in front of me I screamed bloody murder, a long, exaggerated wailing, pleading for my life kind of scream that unfortunately made M Half giggle uncontrollably.  It was, again, pathetic on my part, and it was also a recipe for our first real fight as friends. 

VII. The Attack:

   Out of nowhere appeared a coyote and a bobcat working in tandem to kill us. Or, according to M, they were two “smallish to medium sized” dogs, I am still not sure. They stopped on our path, looked us directly in the eyes, then turned on their murderous heels and ran in a straight line toward a property we had just noticed ourselves. It was hidden behind some trees, an unsavory and foreign looking place that was probably the home of a serial killer.

   M Half, still sweetly oblivious to the opposite effect being had by her attempts to calm me, said, “Don’t worry, they’re just going to tell their owner we’re here…”

   “Are you serious? That is not good! People have guns and I think we’re trespassing!!” I started jogging. Which is to say that I willingly left M Half to her own devices. Side note, when I told my Mom this part of the story about a week later, she scolded me for leaving my friend behind. Awesome.

VIII. Then the road: 

   We found it just as suddenly as we had discovered our desperation. The blessed, unpaved, tire tracks red dirt road which would prove to be either our salvation or the site of our final, ironic demise. I had the sensation of vertigo, where the actual length of the road stretched out elastically, bending and eluding my clumsy, rubber-booted feet. I would have felt more stable on a moving fun house floor.

   Within seconds, from that unfamiliar property behind us, a truck engine came to life. No, it roared to life. The driver who had turned its ignition key was clearly digging his foot deeply and repeatedly into the accelerator much the same way he wanted to dig a knife deep into my belly. Revving it wildly. I started to sprint, but M Half protested.

   “Just walk, calm down, it’s okay…”
   

   I have these vague, disconnected memories of my level headed (if slightly naive) buddy trying in different ways to calm me down, to slow me down a bit, assuring me of things like never in the daylight, never so close to home, we’re not even wearing bikinis, etc, etc. Part of me remembers her trying to touch my arm, to soothe me, and I tossed her off, brimming with bitter adrenaline, unwilling to be talked down from my ledge of hysteria.

IX. Home Sweet Home:

   Eventually, of course, we made it down that elastic length of red dirt and found the perpendicular paved road which would lead us home. Although I felt like we had hiked to the ends of the known world, the farm was in fact only about a quarter of a mile away. M Half was full on laughing by then, and I really can’t blame her. But it was a while before I could sincerely join her in that levity.

   As we shoved open the front gate and walked sweatily and trembling up the driveway, she and I both noticed that the Lazy W animals were also on high alert. The horses were tense, ears pricked forward and eyes wide, the buffalo’s tail was straight up in the air like an exclamation point, and the geese and guineas were screaming and flying around the yard, definitely panic stricken.

   We can only guess exactly why the barnyard was so steeped in chaos upon our return, but in my heart I know they felt my fear. They might have even heard me scream, realizing now how close to home we actually were when it happened. But we were safe. No serial killer or cow or coyote would dare battle our many loving animals for my life or that of my friend.

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   So that’s my ten dollar story. Please compare it to M Half’s to get an alternate version of the truth (rib-rib). And for goodness’ sake, if you go on a hike, use breadcrumbs.
Hansel & Gretel Were Smart
xoxoxoxo

Cheer Us Up You Guys!

   We are in desperate need of some cheering up around here, you guys! Both of us for a change, not just one of us, so I am doing what any self respecting Apronista would do… cooking up a house full of comfort food. My friend Marci would be so proud. Her favorite method of stress management is definitely cooking (she is highly skilled in the kitchen, that doesn’t hurt), followed closely by laughing till her face hurts. So maybe tonight after we fill our bellies Handsome and I can latch onto something hilarious. 
   For supper we’re having roasted garlic-lemon chicken with the skin on so it gets all crispy golden and a little greasy. Also Parmesan-stuffed zucchini and hot buttered egg noodles. Perhaps you’ve noticed we are on neither the Paleo diet nor Atkins. And I wish I could boast that the noodles are made from scratch, but they’re just not. They were on sale, though. So there’s that.
   Then to wash all of that down we’ll try a new chocolate chip cookie recipe. Like most people, we have had our favorite said cookie for many years and don’t deviate too easily. But sweet Edie over at lifeingrace says that these delicacies are worthy of their own Facebook page. Ha!! Awesome. That’s my kinda cookie!  So I have a big sweet, salty batch mixed up and am just now inhaling the first tendrils of sugary, chocolaty aromas from the oven. The fact that it’s interlaced with buttery garlic and sometimes that bright green jolt of softening zucchini does not hurting my feelings.
   I seem to have our caloric intake covered for tonight. Maybe enough for tomorrow, too. So that leaves us still needing the hysterical, eye watering, stomach stiffening laughter. What do you say? What can you offer us that might make us laugh uncontrollably tonight??
LOL, please!
xoxoxoxo

There’s a New Tree Farm in Town

   For about two years we have watched with great curiosity as  a section of land just past Midwest City, parallel to I-40 westbound, was cleared, plowed, reshaped, and built upon or some mysterious new business. For a while we thought with chagrin it would be another neighborhood development, but eventually we saw signs popping up about a tree farm. Then, because we are generally bitter people with snarky senses of humor, we rolled our eyes about the irony of clearing out trees in order to then sell trees. (Insert here all of the very legitimate information about what types of trees were actually cleared: Probably tons and tons of red cedars, not pines or red buds…)
   You guys, I humbly report that all of the nose upturning these past couple of years was for naught. Last week this new tree farm finally opened, and I paid them a visit. It is breathtakingly beautiful inside and out, a home landscaper’s paradise! If you live in the area and have any interest in gardening, plan to spend an afternoon here. But do not bother taking your camera.
   I entered the store like a kid in a candy shop but also impersonating a journalist because I had a camera strapped around my neck and was wearing very clackety high heeled boots. I started snapping photos of all the beautiful displays, the distressed wood furniture, the artwork, the pottery, the wall murals… Until I was delicately asked to not do that anymore. Cease and desist. The manager and cashier were ever so polite about it, but they preferred not to have the retail spaces photographed. I suppose that makes sense, because so much of it was original artwork and such. 
   It didn’t sit so well with me at first, though. I protested mildly, saying, “But I live in the area and I have a blog, I wanted to write a little advertisement for you guys.” Public service announcement: They don’t care if you have a blog.
    “I’m so sorry, ma’am, we really aren’t comfortable having the store photographed.”
   We volleyed the issue a few times. I might have even thrown in the word Langley for good measure, but finally I switched my camera off, swung it behind my back, and proceeded to take in the expansive place just as a customer.
   This gorgeous floor mosaic welcomes you just as you cross the threshold. This photo is the only one of the interior I actually had permission to take, so I’m sharing it. The rest I will keep to myself. Just go see this place, you guys! You will gasp and grin over and over. They have gifts for children, gifts for serious gardeners, gifts for beginning gardeners, gifts for home decorators, gifts for just about anyone. They even have a landscape artist right there in the store! He was drawing these very professional looking diagrams and aerial views of properties in pastel colors, perfect circles, and triangles… I think as I approached that corner of the room he could sense that a haphazard garden experimenter was nearby, and his orderliness went into overdrive. This pressed me away silently.
   The grounds outside were just as breathtaking! What you see driving past on the Interstate is only a sliver of what they have built at Tony’s Tree Plantation. 
   They have a spectacular greenhouse, of course, filled with Oklahoma standards, herbs, veggies, and some tempting exotics. I purchased two rosemary babies and a mammoth spider plant at very good prices. All of their plants looked ferociously healthy, and the fragrances in the greenhouse were absolutely intoxicating. I caught myself walking in these little spirals, touching the ruffled greens, inhaling the lemony blooms, feeling the crunch of wet gravel beneath my boots… 
   They have several acres of tree rows out back where I will eventually buy some more fruit trees for the Lazy W orchard. Their collection of evergreens is so vast that I wonder now if they also plan to sell  live Christmas trees? Not sure. But it is a beautiful space.
   And they have curvaceous stone paths, intimate garden settees, and probably half a dozen fish ponds embracing two sides of the property. Walking through so much lushness really got me motivated to complete a few gardening projects at home.
   Oh! And their collections of both Vietnamese and Mexican pottery pretty much blew my socks off. Except I wasn’t wearing socks. But I did gasp out loud and get a weird look from a fellow shopper.
What is this???
I need this.
I need it like I have never needed 
even a blue hydrangea.
   I meandered for over an hour, filling my mind with bold new ideas for inserting artwork into the garden and for growing new, unusual things. And the whole no photos bit of drama could not have ended more gently. The manager carried my purchases to my car and apologized if it had offended me, which of course it really did not, though I played it up pretty good on Facebook that afternoon. Because that’s how I roll.
   I must admit that my Oklahoma City heart still belongs to Horn Seed Company, located just a bike ride away from my childhood home. But that is a forty minute drive now, so Tony’s will very likely become my local haunt. Please pay a visit when you can, and to make the drive worthwhile, come to the farm for some fresh sweet tea. I’ll show you the forbidden retail photos!! Mwa-ha-ha…

Twelve Days Till My Beekeeping Class!
xoxoxo

Saying Goodbye to Ms. Red

   We lost a hen today, one of the very best ever. 
   She was the regal, highly personable, indefatigable Red. I first wrote about her in this interview and have wanted to share more about her with you guys, but here we are. If you have been a visitor at the dirt-and-hooves Lazy W then you have probably noticed her plenty, though she wasn’t ever the sort of girl who craved cuddling, like Mia does. Instead, she was the mover and shaker. The kinetic energy, mission impossible personality who kept all the birds motivated.
   Red was always the first person to rise and shine in the morning as well as the first to pull up a chair at the open grain bin. Usually she would just hop right in and help herself. I never once scolded her for this, because she always allowed me to retrieve enough for the others and never once pecked me. In recent days, she had even started allowing a certain rooster to join her.

   She was such a woman of action that the only times Red wasn’t already waiting at the chicken yard gate at dawn, she was either laying an egg herself or dutifully sitting on a community clutch. But even then I could always touch her and hand feed her, multi-tasker that she was. She was all at once easy going and alert. This kind of approachability is not universal to all hens, folks, but I bet you know that.
   Like I mentioned, Red was a very attentive brooder, sitting on anyone’s egg no matter the shape or color, and she was an excellent mother. My best guess is that in her Lazy W years she provided us with nearly two dozen live chicks. Tomato is in this group! Have you heard of Tomato? She’s also laid about seventy four million large, delicious green eggs. And aside from three or four little sickly days which were all easily remedied with standard home health care TLC, she was a healthy, vibrant bird. Strapping, even.
   Red lived well past the expected life span for her breed, so while we are very sad she is gone, we are truly happy to celebrate her long, happy life. She seems to have died peacefully. When we said our silent goodbyes to each other she had sunshine on her feathers and clover in her belly. 
   I chose to bury her in the back field, halfway down the hill, at the site of the kids’ old playhouse. This is also where Jess chose to bury her beloved fish named Banana. Banana was a very good fish. Red was a very good chicken. And they were both deeply loved, so it’s fitting that they are buried near each other at a place where so much fun and creativity happened. Dusty, Mia, and Momma Goose all attended the burial.
   Thank you, Red, for all of the life you brought the farm. Thank you for the wonderful, nutritious eggs which we have shared with so many loved ones. Thank you for all of those beautiful fluffy little babies, for the upbeat atmosphere and beauty you always provided, and for showing us that a person really can live fully right up to the last day. Rest in Peace. We love you.
Be Vibrant Like Red…
xoxoxoxo   
   
   

Sun Worshipers Rejoice!

   In our little slice of heaven, the clock has made its annual adjustment forward, making the sunrise a bit later and the sunset later too. And I could not be happier! The first morning is always the most difficult, of course, and most of my friends joined me in accidentally sleeping late because the sun was nowhere to be found at the usual “time.” Whatever “time” means to you.
This leafy mess is the area outside my kitchen window 
where I’ll soon be installing an herb garden.
   Aside from this first dark thrust into the new work week, though, the beginning of Daylight Savings Time is a wonderful thrill for me! It is one more signal that winter is closing up shop. Springtime conditions are in full force in Oklahoma already, but now even the calendar agrees. It gives me butterflies. Or, chickens. Or whatever.
The chickens are more than happy to scratch up the weeds
and devour whatever bugs they can find,
especially when I tempt them with a good layer of manure.
This loosens up the heavy clay and saves me a lot of time with the spade.
It’s like slave labor. Only more symbiotic.
   Now we can cook more slowly in the evening and hopefully crave less heavy meals, too. We can eat dinner, clean up the dishes, and still have time to walk around the farm without a flashlight. We can feed a second round of kitchen scraps to the chickens in the evenings because they’ll be foraging still. Handsome can feel the sun on his skin every day now, rather than just see it through his airtight office windows, so we anticipate spending more hours together outside, and not just on the weekends. This is such a good time of year.
Of course, Mia supervises the whole operation.
   On top of all of this, I am feeling so thankful for the gentle, consistent rain! It bears repeating that after last year’s brutality, this year’s mildness will be reverently accepted as an undeserved gift every single day.
   Interestingly, in addition to the clock shift, we are also in the beginning days of a waning moon here. So I suppose after finishing some housework I should get to work on soil amendment and planting potatoes, garlic, carrots, and radishes, which are all below ground crops.

   The many slices of time and season that God gives us are so fascinating! A time for everything, for every purpose under heaven.

Thirteen Days Till my Beekeeping Class!!
Have a Beautiful, Productive Day, Everyone!
xoxoxo