Lazy W Marie

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

friday 5 at the farm, late may 2022

Hello friends, happy Friday! And happy Memorial Day Weekend to everyone stateside. In Oklahoma, we are bouncing back from a week of luscious rainfall and unseasonably cool temperatures, and we are happy about all of it. The relief, the return to normal, the weird rhythm. Our pond is brimming, my rain barrel is full, and the gardens and pastures are deeply hydrated but not flooded. I think the four leggeds were growing weary of sheltering in place, haha, but they are now luxuriating in abundant sunshine, so no worries.

Little Lady Marigold enjoying breakfast at daybreak, with Klaus supervising
(look closely in the distance).

Here’s a short and sweet Friday Five at the Farm to catch us up.

ONE: The pizza garden is as planted as it will be for a while, and everything is growing measurably, especially since the rain. I need to do some more weeding and distribute more compost and shredded oak leaves, but overall I am thrilled with how this little experiment is progressing. It actually almost looks like a giant green pizza, ha!

TWO: I am happy to report that Zoom, our little pandemic hatchling, is now laying eggs reliably. She provides several small, bantam sized, off-white eggs per week, and I am so proud of her. I am sad, however, to report that the three little peeps who hatched this Mother’s Day have since perished. One by one, the broody hen who hatched them brought them out to learn normal chicken things, and one by one they did not survive. Next time we have a clutch warming, I will prepare a nursery like we did in the old days, to ensure their safety. Sometimes letting nature take its course works out; sometimes it does not.

THREE: Did I tell you yet that Little Lady Marigold received her first ever shearing? Approaching her Lazy W anniversary, we wrangled her up (Klaus helped), got her into the bright yellow halter, and imposed on her a haphazard but weather-appropriate, all over haircut. She looks so much smaller now, I can’t believe it. Her svelte little lamb figure really accentuates her menacing stick legs. And the heaps and mountains of sheared off wool are an amazing sight. I keep intending to give it to the chickens for their nesting boxes, but I don’t want to stop looking at it.

FOUR: Family fun abounds! Handsome recently brought home some exciting news from the Commish which heralds a brand new chapter not only for him but also for the entire agency, and I am so proud and happy. We are also preparing for a big party here next month, to host the entire Public Utilities Department. I love any big party, and I am beyond excited to see old Commish friends and meet new faces! Also, Jess and Alex are doing great, working hard as usual and spending time with us often, for which we are so thankful. Alex’s mom sweet mom Araceli was in town recently and joined us at the farm for dinner al fresco. The pups swam, and the weather was perfect. That same weekend, we gathered with dozens more friends and family to celebrate my sister Angela’s birthday and her seven years of sobriety. Our other little sister, Gen, flew in from LA to surprise her, as did Ang’s son and daughter in law. Over Father’s Day next month, Mom and Dad will be in Spain visiting my brother Joe and his family, so we had a small brunch for them while so many of us were together. SO much to celebrate right now! We are soaking it up. Letting the joy settle deep in our bones.

FIVE: Thank you to everyone who has been following the interviews! I sure had fun writing about my husband, and I have several more folks lined up. This next series will be about individual people I just happen to find fascinating, not necessarily pandemic questionnaires like last year. If you know someone who would be a fun read, send me a note!

Okay, that’s it for today. Gardening never stops, the animals keep me busy, I never have enough time to read all the books I want to read, and life is jaw-droppingly beautiful right now. I hope you feel the same. Thanks for checking in!

My dreams are tied to a horse that will never die
~Sting
XOXO

friday 5 at the farm, april 1, 2022

Hello friends, and happy Friday to you! Spring has 100% sprung at the farm, and I am staying pretty busy these days. As usual I have more stories to share than time to write them, but how about an old fashioned Friday 5 post, just to timestamp?

(1) SCARLETT: As of today, our precious adopted calf has officially been with us for four weeks. I could tell you at least thirteen stories from every single one of those days, she has so generously filled our home with love and dimension. She has the sweetest, most trusting, most innocent spirit (with eyes to match), and her frostbite injuries don’t seem to faze her too much (more updates on her in a separate post). Happy one month at the W, Little Miss!

(2) GARDENS & PROPERTY FACELIFTS: I can say with confidence and excitement that spring has sprung here. The redbuds and fruit trees are frilled with bright, tissue paper blossoms, the tulips and daffodils are showing off their Easter best, the hydrangeas and blackberry vines have sprouted tentative little green leaves, and one room of our house is overtaken with seed trays, heat mats, and grow lights. The seed sowing, misting, watching, reorienting, and misting again has been fun. I love the rush of “new life” energy this time of year. Outdoors, besides garden cleanup and planting a few beds of leafy greens and snow peas, I have enjoyed flipping, emptying, and refilling the three compost systems as often as natural decomposition allows it. A few days ago I discovered baby snakes had hatched in one compost bin, which is always a sure sign that warmth is here to stay. Handsome has been moving sapling pine trees to a new wildflower meadow for a privacy screen, and he is reconfiguring some of the pathways and driveways leading from the gravel drive to the lawn near the yurt, hoping to make circling through easier and prettier. Also, on a whim last weekend, he painted two large garage doors glossy black, to match other accents on our house and car shop. It looks so much better, I can’t believe we didn’t do that years ago! Love the black with our turquoise front door and lots of garden color, especially right now while the Jane magnolia is in bloom.

(3) SHEPPS: Velvet and Lincoln are visiting the farm this week, and we have been having some fun! They are all aging slowly and appreciate a good nap (as pictured below), but between naps they still play and romp with lots of puppy energy. Velvet has delighted us with a brand new surge of affection for Handsome, a privilege for which he has been bargaining all these (nearly) seven years.

(4) BOOKS: Because I am elbow deep in two heftier than usual writing projects, I am not reading anything new right now. Instead, in spare moments, I am rereading chunks of The Well Gardened Mind by Dr. Sue Stuart Smith. Chapter six is especially mouthwatering, all about the culture of gardening versus farming and the value of growing things for pleasure before necessity. Gardening to thrive, in other words, not merely survive. It’s a theme popping up everywhere I look lately, and it feels important. In a few weeks we will be hosting a dinner discussion for The Book of Hope. Very excited about that.

(5) CAR SHOW: Last weekend we (meaning my husband, ha! but I did bring donuts and a picnic and keep Klaus entertained) helped our friend’s daughter and her college group host a charity car show in Edmond. It was the most beautiful day to be outdoors, and we so enjoyed seeing car show friends we hadn’t seen in a while. He trailered the Batmobile fir display, too, which is always a good time. The group did an excellent job pulling everything together, and they raised several hundred dollars for their school’s campaign to benefit the Children’s Miracle Network. Hopefully it was the first of not only their ongoing car show efforts but also our own packed car show season. We have really missed it these past two years!

Okay friends, what’s going on in your world? Are you primed and ready to grow something beautiful this year? Are you deep cleaning your house or maybe wrapping up spring break? What are you reading these days?

Thanks for checking in. See you soon for Scarlett stories and a brand new interview.

Redeem the Time
XOXOXOXO

checking in post equinox

Friends, happy springtime. We made it! Barring the very real possibility of a frosty morning here and there, Oklahoma is on the cheerful upswing towards warmth and rebirth. Today we are drinking in a much needed gentle rainfall, windows open and a cleansing breeze combing through our senses. Clover patches are overtaking the dead lawns. Trees have leaf buds dotting their naked branches. Daffodils assure us that Old Man Winter had his rightful turn and is once again retreating.

Gardeners everywhere are either tending tray after tray of seedlings in their warmest interior rooms or already raking clean their flower beds and ruminating over their raised gardens for planting this year’s treasures. Will food prevail in 2022, to combat the price of groceries, or will more people grow flowers to celebrate a return to life and liberty? How will you pursue your gardening happiness?

((basil sprouts indoors, grown from last year’s seed))

For me, the answer is both, with a heavy lean to all things kitchen. I am also very excited to be actively mentoring a few friends plus Jessica and Alex for a big round of first time garden growers. This is a life pleasure I never knew to anticipate! Maybe the only thing more fun than growing my own garden is helping loved ones grow theirs.

I hope you’ll tune in again in the next few days. I have some stories to share about Miss Scarlett, our rescue calf. I have been sharing quite a bit about her on Facebook and Instagram, but right here on the blog will be a fun place to record more detailed updates for posterity. I also have a brand new interview to share, this one not about Pandemic, and the subject is our very own Handsome, aka BW, aka Farm Daddy, aka Director and Sir and brother and friend to so many. My husband!! I am so excited for this project, but I want it to be clean and sooth when I share it.

Until then, I will be writing stories and potting up seedlings, cleaning oak-leaf-filled garden beds and scrubbing dirty concrete floors. Feeding chickens and filling compost boxes, definitely making bottles for an unbelievably sweet baby cow. Keeping Klaus entertained but not reading much, not this week. In spare moments I have been rereading highlights from The Well Gardened Mind and drawing all kinds of fresh inspiration from that. I’ll find a new book once these two writing projects are complete.

((scarlett and her milk bubbles mouth))

What are you up to this week?

“The return of spring each year
can be endlessly relied on,
and in not dying when we die, we have a sense
of goodness going forward.
This is the garden’s most enduring consolation.”
~Dr. Sue Stuart Smith
The Well Gardened Mind
XOXOXOXO

winter wake up call

For the past few years, I have noticed a moment late in winter when I worry whether I can do it all again. Somewhere past the holidays and even past the worst of the cold but too far from true warmth for even an optimist to declare an early spring, I just feel so deeply exhausted. Or, if not exhausted, then supremely comfortable. I work steadily and contentedly through the short daylight hours of January and February, mostly a very quiet farm life, and wonder whether I will have the energy for another series of busy, warm weather months.

After the final thaw and first true green up, my life will be filled with gardening and traveling, entertaining and big project wrangling, animals and farm expansion, and more. This time of year I am again deciding between a focused marathon training cycle and feeling good in a bikini. (These two goals are not necessarily compatible, which is one of life’s biggest surprises, ha!) This time of year my husband has legislative season layered on top of his normal Commish duties, which are already voluminous, so his energy drains away completely day after day, and this depletion becomes mine in many ways. I become protective of our available time and energy, forgetting that effort begets effort and energy begets energy.

None of this is a complaint! I choose every bit of it and more. This is a beautiful, complex life we have designed and which I love in great detail. And yet, gosh my mind and my body, my actual spirit, are fairly bankrupt by late winter. Sallow, like my skin.

So I worry a little, am I up to the task again? I have just recently convinced myself it was okay to read books in the late afternoon and cook dinner already showered for bed and definitely wearing pajamas. I really love our cozy living room with white twinkle lights and our stacks of fuzzy blankets, and these many consecutive nights of luxurious, gold star sleeping hours are so so so nice.

Very soon, the quiet, often starry black sky we inhale during that first cup of coffee will be noisy with roosters and already Technicolor, already gleaming with daybreak and bursting with wild potential. Soon, instead of letting me take my time waiting for first light, the farm will be antsy while I stretch awake, and every task outdoors will compete for first attention. The days will be crammed full, so full I never finish everything on The List, and I will be lucky to have showered by sunset, much less before cooking dinner, ha. I yawn against these thoughts and doubt my stamina.

I look for the snooze button on seasons.

But then…

Then it happens. We are gifted with a few extraordinarily warm, gentle afternoons, a few skies that pulse that familiar childhood shade of blue, and that intoxicating scent of freshness everywhere. Can you smell photosynthesis, or chlorophyll? Can you hear roots shimmy underground, coming back to life? The newness grows and expands gently, every day, even when a cold snap reminds me it’s still winter. It all accrues slowly along with the lengthening days, and, thankfully, my energy does too. Just a little bit at a time.

Around the days I see the first daffodil sprouts emerge from the sleepy garden beds, I begin to think that my daily routine has been too much about easy maintenance. I naturally crave traction, progress, and creation. Coasting feels stale. Resting begins to feel wasteful. My hands itch for gardening gloves instead of cozy ones, skin also longing for the silkiness of warm soil. My legs flex involuntarily when I think of crunching a spade into raw earth or forking over the compost heaps. My eyes are desperate for new colors, no longer content with all the sepia. I begin to obsessively check the horses for signs of shedding.

Gradually, my body responds to more tasks and more opportunities, especially outdoors. I feel excited again for the longer days and everything they bring along.

Nature and all her interlocking cycles inch forward without our permission and unheeding of our understanding. Ready or not, the seasons make progress. Thankfully, we are more than passengers; we are part of nature. Our energies are all intimately connected, and as the outside world moves through changes, so do we. Trust that.

If you are feeling too tired or very comfy and maybe reluctant to think of doing much more than you have been doing, take heart. Your inner resources can expand greatly as the days lengthen and the temperatures rise. The sun and the moon are your allies. You are part of nature, and this recent season of hibernation was good and necessary. What’s coming next is good and necessary, too.

I am ready. Are you?

“If you want to make your dreams come true,
the first thing you have to do is wake up.”
~J.M. Power
XOXOXO

friday 5 at the farm: sometimes manure rolls uphill and Alexa, add body wash to the shopping list!

ONE: Sometimes manure rolls uphill, and compost is a miracle. If the field is quite dry and the breeze is strong enough, it is very normal for horse manure to roll uphill, away from my season. This phenomenon panicked me the first time I noticed it years ago. I thought it was one hundred percent paranormal. But I plan for it now. And, in case you’re wondering, this doesn’t really happen with llama manure. Also, ripening compost continues to amaze me with its winter-long incubation and promised garden magic.

TWO: Klaus temporarily smells like a human man.
Yesterday afternoon, and I cannot really explain how this started so just trust me, Klaus spontaneously joined me in the narrow, one person shower, upstairs. Normally I bathe him in the guest bathtub downstairs, where his proper dog shampoo is handy and a wide tiled floor (no carpets to soak or closets full of clothes to splatter) keep the clean-up job well contained. Upstairs, unplanned, I quickly grabbed Handsome’s two-in-one men’s shampoo-body wash combo and (I truly regret this) squeezed and drizzled about half a cup of it generously all over my half wet, 140-pound surprise guest. I now believe that people shampoo is designed to lather a lot more than dog shampoo, and I see that I made the situation much worse by dispensing so much. Within moments we were both covered in heaps and heaps and mountains of darkly masculine-scented, ever expanding, unrelenting piles of bubbles and suds. It took at least fifteen minutes of strategic spraying and rinsing to calm the fury of that lather. He just kept looking up at me like he had pulled off the biggest prank. Afterwards I used five clean beach towels to scrub away and absorb most of his wetness then blow-dried him while he smiled even more wolfishly and wagged his tail slowly. Now he smells like my husband, which is weird. But he is soft, and he loves it. He pranced around the house for hours like a shaggy, poofy, spiky black bear.

THREE: Waterfowl don’t know cold and will happily bathe in fresh water no matter the temperature. Even with nearly freezing air, our lone gander and two ducks thoroughly appreciate a fresh pool for swimming. They dive and splash and luxuriate blissfully, the same as they do in summer. It’s really quite a sight. I am still ruminating the puzzle of how to release them to free range again, for their safety and the safety of my gardens.

FOUR: People are complex and fascinating, and I have a new pandemic story coming soon! My friend and neighbor Mari shared her private pandemic experience with me, and as soon as we edit some details I will be posting that here on the blog. she is like a warm mug of good tea with honey in it. Then all of my pandemic interviews will be complete, and we will either embrace more or start on the book!

No photo description available.
Mari hand-wove this beautiful fabric basket and gifted it to me. I love it!

FIVE: I only have two new gardens planned this year. One is a pizza garden! I have wanted to do this for years, since my girls were small and my dad sent me a newspaper clipping about a farmer who did this in Yukon, and this year I’m finally going to make it happen here in Choctaw. It will be round in shape (pizza!), maybe twelve to fifteen feet across, with a tall bronze fennel (a nod to Italian sausage) growing in the center. From the fennel, it will be divided in wedges (like pizza slices, ha) with each section dedicated to a different pizza ingredient. Think… slicing tomatoes, peppers, parsley, oregano and basil, more paste and cherry tomatoes, what else? Maybe arugula! We should all team up to convince my husband we also need a dairy cow, so we can make fresh mozzarella. Then we should maybe grow wheat? This year’s second new garden space will be just for massive, colorful cut flowers, a sunflowers-and-zinnias patch, alongside the chicken coop just as you pull around the gravel driveway. Kind of across from the “Mural Garden,” where the okra went nuts last summer.

We are going to have so many different sunflowers this year xoxoxo

Okay friends, those are my updates for now! Good reading abounds too, and we have a wonderful Outreach project brewing for which we might ask a little help, but that will all keep for a few days. Please check in soon for Mari’s story! Tell me something random in your world, and happy weekend to you and yours!

“Even a rabbi should spend ten percent of his time
gardening and washing dishes and cooking
and tending to the basics of daily life.
There is something about it that connects you to other people.”
~Colin Beavan
XOXOXO