Lazy W Marie

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

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Archives for January 2022

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

Year One

Today’s weather is very much like the weather we had on this date last year, if maybe a touch colder. The sunshine is abundant and vibrating with energy. The wind is low, skies clear.

Today, Jessica and Alex celebrate their first wedding anniversary and, just as before, Love is winning.

Love wins…xoxoxo

After their first full year, a young couple could measure their marriage in bills paid and paychecks hard earned, in emergencies resolved, in how many friends they welcomed into their home to help them get back on their feet, in how many extended family crises they endured. They might look back over twelve months and remember strong grief for lost loved ones and fresh grief for hurting loved ones.

A young couple can cry a lot of tears in their first year, under the very best circumstances. In a global pandemic, with ancient, unrelenting storms still circling them, it can be an awful lot.

I think those and many more hardships are actually opportunities for growth and can be beautiful ways to measure your first year. But I vote for measuring and counting the outright joys, too.

A milestone year can be measured by how many road trips you’ve taken, how many spontaneous date nights your romance has sparked, how many fun parties you’ve thrown for your people! How many home cooked meals and nest feathering projects you’ve enjoyed, even the dozens of times you’ve lovingly taken your perfect pups to the park and to the groomer and (when necessary) to the vet. How many times did you buy delicious groceries together or rearrange the furniture, listen to music and sing and watch documentaries and discuss the world and politics? How many college classes and appointments and important meetings did you check off your list?

All the cozy bonfires you burned in your backyard firepit, they all count. All the many new traditions you cultivated, all on your own, for no one but yourselves, they definitely beef up the first year. Every time you lovingly participated in family events even when you weren’t quite up for it? Extra credit, babes. In a year, there are so many amors uttered, and plenty of movie nights and star gazing nights. They are all riches for your hearts.

Alone, these life details may feel small, but together they are good, solid building blocks for a happy, textured life. Three hundred and sixty five days worth of life well lived, of love exchanged and grown and realized.

A year is a nice long time to learn each other’s rhythms and habits, preferences and strengths, to begin to really galvanize and harmonize the cultures you have united. And these precious young people are just getting started.

Alex and Jessica, as you step across the calendar into January 17, 2022, into your second year as husband and wife, we wish you more time for each other, more opportunities to travel and more parties and fun. We wish you success at school and in business, fulfillment in every creative endeavor.

We also wish you all the strength and wisdom you will need for the inevitable challenges that are coming. You already know that the obstacle is the way; may you also begin to see that your dreams and visions are powerful forces. Craft your life, your marriage, own it, make it yours.

Wear the fur, eat the cake. Laugh as much as possible.

We love you so much.

Happy First Anniversary.

“Every love story is beautiful,
but ours is my favorite.”
XOXOXOXO

the thank you habit that helps me

For the past several days I have been employing an old standby habit, something that felt awkward at first but then got me through a crisis when my girls were toddlers, and these recent days it has felt luscious. I call it the Thank You Habit: While still lying in bed, in the dark, before speaking to anyone or even checking the time, before my feet hit the carpeted floor, I start silently saying thank you for as much as I can think of.

I let my mind float from person to person in my life and say thank you for them, then thank you for every modern convenience and insane material comfort we have, for the specific problems we overcame the day before and for the satisfying goals we met, thank you for the food I know is in the kitchen waiting to be prepared (and for the coffee that is probably brewing automatically at that moment), for the animals outside who trust me to meet their daily needs and for the supplies I have available to make my job so pleasant.

I say thank you for the hundreds of miracles we have witnessed over the years, as they come randomly to mind (these will gain momentum if you allow them to!), and thank you for the miracles still on their way. Thank you for my husband’s job which provides not just abundance in the practical sense but also abundance for the state of Oklahoma, for the people on his team, and for him as a person who was born to do this work and much more. Thank you that both of my girls are breathing and have hope, beauty and spiritual gifts to develop, despite their intense grief. I say thank you that both of my parents are alive and nearby, and that I enjoy true adult friendships with every single one of my siblings. These are blessings that only few of my friends have, and the older I get the more I see them as wild, amazing gifts.

thick night snow, moonglow, & a flashlight path…
I believe some moments of deliberate thanksgiving
can slice through the dark just like this

Before even standing up, I say thank you to God for the day ahead, for the problems we will inevitably face, because I know He has help available, and I know that in facing them we always emerge stronger. I tell Him how excited I am to see what kind of sunrise he has designed that day (I imagine Him staying up all night like an artist feverishly painting, waiting to display His new work), and thank you for what I will learn or enjoy on my run, and for what random surprises might happen. Thank you for the colorful fresh eggs our hens will lay. Thank you for the phone calls and texts with loved ones I might receive or make, thank you for the many people my sister will help that day and for the students at school and just as much as my mind will collect. Thank you for every hour coming, for every scrap of grace I will be afforded in the new day. Thank you for the near misses and close calls, for crises averted (there are many, you know).

This is just paving the way ahead with generous rivers of heartfelt gratitude, a way of attaching my day and my mind to the best possible outcomes.

This habit may sound goofy or trite, but I promise you it will feel smoother and more natural the more you practice it. After a couple of days, it tends to give me a glowy buoyancy, an inner sense of expectation that good things actually are coming. After this predawn ritual, I often catch myself throughout the rest of that day taking mental notes, “Oohh, tomorrow morning you can say thank you for that! That was cool.” This thought of course just sparks a midday thank you fest, which feels wonderful.

What this habit does not do is perfectly insulate me from dark thoughts or bad attitudes, for slipping emotionally from faith into fear. I am still susceptible to all of these errors and more; but the ongoing habit of saying thank you can even permeate this very real part of life: “Thank you for this frustrating challenge, thank you for this important relationship that may not come easily to me right now, but I know you are growing me here. Thank you for this deep pain, because it shows met how deeply I feel love, and it reminds me to be more loving. Thank you for the dreary landscape that makes me crave color, because I know you have built in this season of rest for a purpose, and I know this appetite for new life will help me enjoy springtime so much more. Thank you for this anger that awakens my protectiveness, and thank you for absorbing it cooling me down before I lashed out.”

If you try this one day and find your mind blocked or your words jammed up, or maybe you are in such abject pain that you cannot fathom a sincere thank you, I believe in my heart that is okay, too. This is not meant to be a saccharine exercise. I encourage you to try privately thinking only the words thank you a few times in a row, with no expectations or embellishments, and breathe deeply and say it again, while you are still in bed. Just rest for a moment longer before lunging desperately and painfully into your day. Whatever you face next, you have taken control of your energy for a moment. You have set the tone.

You know this drill, friends. We all know it in different expressions.

I just wanted to share my version as this brand new year takes hold, because the daily, hourly, private practice has helped me tremendously. My husband and I are facing some mammoth stressors lately, as I know you certainly are, and we are still enduring the same family heartaches as ever, still praying and watching for signs and still hoping for the next homecoming. Saying thank you ahead of time keeps me both tempered and lively. It keeps me happily tuned into good news, instead of staying vigilant, waiting for the next shoe to drop; and it helps me feel like the Universe is wired to my advantage, if that makes sense. That feeling that God is on your side, as silly as it may seem, works wonders. It magnetizes you for more goodness, and (at least for me) it sums up how it feels to trust God, to look Him straight in the eyes and willingly be held by His absolute goodness.

I heard a gorgeous interview that I will share in better ways soon, but for today, within the conversation the speaker shared a meditation:

“You are loved, you are held, you are guided, and you are never alone.”

Thank you for that assurance!