Lazy W Marie

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

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5 Senses Tour, Contemplative Tuesday in January

   Since its earliest hours, today has felt serious and more quiet than normal. I am wonderfully free from external pressure and hurry, unlike my husband who is at the salt mines again. I feel like we’re on the brink of something special, but something quiet maybe, and I don’t want to miss it. The easiest observation to make is that the animals are cuddling each other a bit more, wrapping up in closeness and affection against the chilly air that swept in overnight. Also, the gardens are turning inward, funneling all of their energy streams toward cold, dry roots and springtime fantasies. Today is a good day to take inventory, to reflect, and to nourish from the inside out.
What I See: Indoor plants newly fertilized and outdoor garden plots gone dormant, sitting expectantly like blank canvases or empty lined pages. Grassy, manure-covered rectangles teasing me for new designs this year and promising bigger, lusher harvests if I get around to building those raised beds.
“The violets  the mountains have broken the rocks.” ~Tennessee Williams
What I’m Reading: Three books this week, though the first one more than the others because it’s the subject of our Book Club dinner, which is this Saturday! 
    Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson. This is a page turner! Proper book review coming soon.
  Game Change, a behind-the-scenes account of the 2008 Presidential elections. Reads like a fiction, thoroughly enjoyable. 
   True Memoirs of Little K by Adrienne Sharp I’ve mentioned this one before, too long ago, and it is still unfinished because I didn’t read enough during the busy holidays. Review of this luscious book forthcoming too.

What I Hear: Very little apart from the gentle, sleepy murmurings of the animals. The guineas are free range now, all but four, and their songs pepper the farm from sun to sun.
What I Feel, What I’m Touching:  Lots of manure. My goal is to have the farm spotless by the end of the month or earlier and to have the gardens all spread with the rich, crumbly stuff well ahead of the spring rains.
This is a pile of chicken litter removed from our coop. 
See all the cool white shreddy stuff?
May I suggest if you have access to shredded paper, 
whether you use it as animal bedding or not, 
consider using it in your compost heap.
It retains moisture beautifully, lightens up our Oklahoma clay,
and keeps one more thing out of the landfills.

What I Smell: Cinnamon Scentsy, laundry soap, and my husband’s pillow while I write.


What I Taste: Orange juice, heavily buttered English muffin, and fried eggs.

   I can’t be sure exactly what’s on the horizon, friends, but I feel goodness all around us. I feel a surge of hope, an oceanic depth of love, and greater calm about our storms than I have felt in years. Happy Tuesday. Let me know if you see whatever it is I’m waiting on.

Feel Every Detail Today
xoxoxo
5 senses tour

Brushing Chanta (Small Stone January 7th)

   I drag the circular metal brush along his body, easily and gently sorting out the red dirt from his long winter hairs which have dried together in wavy, random peaks. He’s definitely been in the pond today. This boy smells of mud,  sunshine, and a little algae. 
   The longer I brush him the more he relaxes, until his left rear hoof cocks up nearly off the ground, transferring even more of his 1200 pounds forward. A good sign of sleepiness.
   He lets me smooth and clean his gorgeous neck, then every muscular part of his body, and then each of his four incredible legs, all the while listening to his deep, steady breathing, until all that remains uncombed are his belly and his throat. 
   His round belly is ticklish, so i have to be more careful here. Brushing it wakes him up a bit, and he bends that long, thick neck far to his left for a closer look at my progress. We Eskimo kiss peacefully and I continue. He exhales as if to surrender.
   Once his belly is clean and smooth again, liberated from that afternoon cloud of red dirt, I creep gingerly to kneel in front of this gentle giant. Brushing his throat, touching his feet, squeezing his knobby knees, inhaling his sweet, warm breath and noticing the halo of late day sun through the edge of his coat. So beautiful, this horse. His ankles, so strong and solid, are covered by tendrils of silver blond hair for winter.
   Now squatting in front of him, I rest my forehead on that plump, divided piece of flesh on his chest. Nuzzle him with my cheek. Kiss his furry shoulder. He returns the gesture by leaning way down and simply resting his chubby mouth on the top of my head. I am pretty sure he fell asleep again in this position, just for a couple of minutes. I sit very still and just accept it. Then without warning I feel him chewing sneakily on my ponytail. 
   I could stay here and do this all day. So could he, I think, because when I finally stand and walk reluctantly away he crosses my path and nudges my hands, insisting on more.

Bird Watching (Small Stone January 5th)

   Sitting in our big east window this Thursday morning, our large macaw on my shoulder, I can’t help but notice the barrier between wild and tame. I can smell his powdery dander, feel his smooth feathers against my face, and hear his gentle mornings clucks and kisses. He mostly focuses on me and only occasionally notices the flurry of activity outdoors. On the other side of the smooth glass pane, cardinals, blue jays, crows, and so many other birds are in swarms today. Zooming through the abundant sunshine, hunting breakfast, swirling patterns of love and freedom in the clean January sky. 
   The smallest birds are like specks compared to our huge blue and yellow baby, but despite his size and despite his massive hook bill and sharp talons, he is the most vulnerable of them all.
********************

Not two minutes after writing this, 
Pacino had returned to his cage 
and a very small, fat, gray and brown bird 
crashed violently into the picture window. 
Pacino jumped muttered seriously, “Uh-oh. What happened?”

Apparently domesticity breeds some compassion.  

I thanked my lucky bird-Momma stars that he was safe in his gilded cage,
perhaps a little less vulnerable than I a moment ago believed.

Buffalo Running

   Our sweet little Chunk-Hi is happy doing lots of things in this world. He is just one of those people animals who is easily pleased, easily amused, and easily satisfied. But a few things in life really put him over the top. One of them is running free. 
   He always has free run of his own field, together with our horse of choice, and he employs that liberty with zeal. But when we release Chunk to roam the range, so to speak, he really kicks up his skinny little heels. Following are a few photos of our sweet buff enjoying a little elbow room.
   We’re crazy about him. He likes us too, if only because we shower him with graham crackers and allow him running days like this.

Feel the Wind in Your Hair Today
xoxoxo

Sea Monkeys

   Over the weekend, as part of a short family trip to Woodward, Oklahoma,  Handsome and I spent about an hour in Atwoods with his brother and sister-in-law and one of their sons. Do you have an Atwoods in your corner of the world? It’s a retail store found almost exclusively in rural areas, and though they are expanding their product base they mostly sell great stuff for, well, country people. You know, large quantities of deer corn and gun safes and stuff. And John Deere tractor accessories and sparkly belts and baby chicks in the springtime. And pearl-snap button up shirts and live animals traps and ammo.
    And candy and toys and home decor.
    We cruised the candy aisles and collected all the oldest, funnest sugary teats that we could justify with childhood memories. They sell the paper-bagged treats like clove gum, cherry sours, and horehound candy sticks. 
    Yep. That’s for our parents’ generation.
   They also sell plain cellophane bags of those spongy pale orange circus peanuts. And Boston baked beans. And maple thingies. We loaded up on something for everyone and had a grand ole time doing it, as much fun exploring the candy aisles as we did eating the candy itself.
   We also bought a rusty tin star for the house, something that should look good all year long but is a perfect gift to ourselves right after Thanksgiving, when the Christmas decorating is about to ensue. Then we each bought a toy. 
    For ourselves. Because we’re mature, responsible adults.
   Handsome selected a plastic miniature farm scene that includes a modern windmill, not one of the more familiar paddle/tripod windmills we all associate with black and white movies and drives through Kansas on the way to Oz. The new kind. The tall, elegant, white giants that now perforate the Oklahoma landscape sending clean energy to tens of thousands of homes. More on that soon; it’s a big topic.
    For my personal early Christmas toy gift I selected Sea Monkeys. 
   Sea Monkeys were a frequent indulgence for me in childhood, the only mass marketed item I might have purchased or received as a gift more often than Lee press-on nails. Now, the little aquatic babies never really lived that long under my care, hence the frequent purchases. But my grief over the repeated loss could apparently be assuaged by another little plastic tank of Sea Monkeys.
   Maybe I have always been destined to have a farm full of animals, or maybe this mild obsession was an early signal to my dangerous penchant for  optimism. Either way, when I saw the neatly arranged rows of Sea Monkey tanks for sale in Atwoods, all of that weird maternal-slash-Island-of-Dr. Moureau stuff came bubbling to the surface.
   My most difficult decision was no longer what toy to buy but rather what color of Sea Monkey tank to take home. I chose the purple one. Purple is the color of creativity, you know.
   Today I started my kit. If you have raised Sea Monkeys before then you know there is a process and a schedule. Please say the word schedule with me in the elegant European way, “she-shu-ill.” Many thanks.

   Tomorrow midday I will add the “Instant Live Eggs.” This Friday will be the little critters’ first official feeding! They will become the only Lazy W residents whose diet does not support and fund our local feed store owners and their beautiful family. I predict Pacino will be jealous of the attention I am likely to pour over my new babies,  but he’s a tough bird. He’ll get over it eventually.

   I’m taking the Sea Monkeys seriously this time, folks. I am a grown up now, as mentioned above. Since my last foray into this treacherous world of care taking I have successfully nurtured formula-fed baby buffalo, helped with the castration of two very spirited colts, napped on the belly of a horse, and been loved by a goose though hated by a rooster. Surely this new brine shrimp experience will come with a deeper well of skill and wisdom.
   No need to wish me good luck; I think we’ve got it covered.

   Wait, please do wish me good luck after all. This is terrifying.

Love your animals, great and small!
“The Lord God Made Them All”
xoxoxo