Lazy W Marie

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

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Interim Autumn Decor

   Hello there… Despite temperatures nearing ninety degrees today, Oklahoma is firmly in the grip of autumn. Football fans have their weekends planned far in advance. High schools are enjoying homecoming festivities. Scarecrows have sprouted on so many grassy, hay-bedecked rural corners. All of that, AND two thirds of everyone’s social media is full of pumpkin-spice latte updates.

   Other than cleaning out the summer gardens (mostly) and changing out just a speck of artwork downstairs, I have so far done very little in the way of autumnal nesting. Life is not only full every single day; the seasons here in Oklahoma are in that wonderful transition time. Cool mornings. Warm afternoons. Often downright cold nights. Then hot again. And while many plants are slipping into the elegant beauty of dormancy, just as many are still going strong, Still washing the farm with color and glossiness, life abundant.

   So to answer Mama Kat’s  lively question about what we have done to celebrate the fist days of fall, I have only a few photos to share. For now. Next week may be a whole new story…

I love our cranberry red front door now even more than we first painted it.
Those dried corn stalks are cut from my garden. 
I consider them a consolation prize, because we only yielded 
three paltry ears of sweet corn from the entire bed this month.
That’s more than ever before, but still… Lots to learn.
I think this front door area could use more oomph, 
maybe raise the corn stalks?
…but I still love the warm entry to our home.
This is our anniversary garden bench, the rusted metal treasure Handsome gave me over the summer.
It moves around the farm, but right now it is perched at our front door.
It’s cushioned on one end with fun pillows, including the one from this love story,
and loaded on the other end with some potted flowers, an old pitchfork, and two watermelons.
I haven’t purchased decorative pumpkins yet, y’all.
Free melons from the Lazy W garden with cool old stems and vines still attached suit me just fine.
And do you see what I mean about a blend of summer and fall plants?
I am crazy about sprinkling pansies in with everything else. Cabbages next.
Filled with sweet potato vine, vinca vine, some pansies, and a few old castoff junk items, 
this weathered old clay pot is my favorite.
It has nothing to do with the fact that my youngest daughter painted 
that blue “Welcome” sign years ago and my heart feels her bright smile every time I see it.

   So there you have my slow beginnings. My interim autumn decor. Thanks for visiting! I wish you could come to the Lazy W and sit on this bench and drink coffee with me. Or play with the llamas. Or scruff the buffalo. Or collect eggs then cook something fabulous with them and discuss great books. Or watch the sun set behind the pond and wait for bats and screech owls.

   Happy autumn, friends!

“Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
 fluttering from the autumn tree.”
 ~Emily Bronte
XOXOXOXO

Chilled Saturday & Reviving Proverbs 31

   Hello you fine people… How goes your early autumn weekend so far? Everything here is great. Handsome and I have endured a very long, VERY emotional and hard working week and have since late last night been marinating in romance and worldly pleasures. We have been filling our bellies with comfort foods like slow cooked chicken and dumplings, excellent coffee, and made from scratch pumpkin bread. We’ve watched horror movies and plugged in way too many strands of decorative lights. We are just about caught up on rest, thanks in big part to some much needed dark, rainy weather. And there is not a frenzied expression anywhere in this house.

   Yesterday I enjoyed a restorative street taco lunch and shopping trip with my sweet friend Melissa, noticed I’d racked off 20 miles of running this week, and remembered the Worry Room and how closed it is supposed to be. And this morning, thanks to a head’s up from our friend and neighbor Seri, we scored about a thousand garage sale treasures ranging from a yellow chenille bedspread to a rusted iron chandelier and big, heavy cedar scraps that are just perfect for making long benches out by the fire pit. Cozy, cozy stuff, man. 
   Oh! And a brass floor lamp that is begging to be up-cycled and re-imagined. Can. Not. Wait. I already know five places in the house where it will look perfect.
   Hey, I just noticed that both Melissa and Seri are members of our world famous Oklahoma book club. These women have a way of weaving joy into my life even without ever touching a book. Thanks, ladies. xoxo
   After one more afternoon nap and maybe a trip to our local feed store, I expect we will be getting ready for house guests! My baby sister, her childhood friend Erin, and Erin’s baby girl Elise are all staying over at the farm, making me feel 34% like a grandma. I am so okay with this feeling, in tiny little doses, for pretend only. Although the kitchen is overflowing with leftovers, we are planning a beef roast, garlic-roasted carrots, and cheese-stuffed buns for dinner. What is it about chilly, damp weather that makes a salad with cold chicken breast a ridiculous choice for a family meal? Because that is just not happening.
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   So, as we put the final, warm and luscious touches on this packed month of September, a month replete with both heartache and elation, both work and play, I have decided something. Thanks to a gentle nudge from Melissa, I have decided to revive my 2011 month-long study on Proverbs 31, the 31 day series I dropped about halfway through the month last year due to some family circumstances.

   Now, chances are I will recycle some of last year’s material, but I am still super excited. The book of Proverbs has always spoken to me personally, and the thirty-first chapter especially is a great source of inspiration as the season shifts us more inward.
   What say you? Are you also dazzled by this little slice of the Bible? Are you perhaps interested in doing a guest post, or leading a discussion with us? If so, I hope you’ll email me or something. My writing this Proverbs 31 series has zero to do with being an authority on the subject. I need input, you guys, and I welcome a curious,  learning community.
   Well, happy Saturday evening to you all! I hope it includes plans for a few of your favorite things, and I hope that however you worship or study or reflect on Sunday serves you in an extra beautiful way tomorrow. If all goes well, I will be back on Monday to kick this thing off right.
   Love your people. Enjoy your children. Think good thoughts. Resist worry. Fall asleep to the rain if you can. And bake something.
“If we have no peace, it is because
we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
~Mother Teresa
xoxoxoxo

Autumn Arrives

   Happy First Day of Fall, Y’all!! Everywhere I look this week people are gearing up for and smiling about the official change in seasons. Women are wearing knee high boots (guilty) even though it’s not quite chilly enough; stores are happy to sell us artificially colored plastic leaves because our real leaves are still too green to collect; and the Pinterest boards have been flooded with football “game day” recipes. This exuberant thrust into the future tends to happen with a little extra oomph after any one season has been particularly brutal, as was the case with summertime 2012 in Oklahoma.

   I have made my peace with the end of summer.

   Mostly.

   I mean, our pool is still open, soooo…

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   This time of year is sensationally beautiful, of course. In most parts of the country but especially in Oklahoma, we can enjoy all variations of weather and foliage and local foods and also new, boredom-busting activities. Longer, slower hikes outside, pots of soup simmering on the stove, gardening without melting your face off. Watching the sun set comfortably, maybe even with a blanket wrapped around your shoulders. Crisp apples, moist pumpkin bread, and cotton table cloths that you would never use any other time of year…

   I must admit that early autumn is a little bittersweet for Handsome and me. It is the time of year when each of my girls made the decision to live with their Dad. On different years, mind you, but at the same season. On bad days, this is all bitter and no sweet. But then sometimes I can vividly imagine that their homecoming will happen in the fall, perhaps sometime far into the future, to replace the echo of that heartbreak with the celebration of our long awaited miracle. Hope is always sweet.
Our beloved Talking Tree on a particularly foggy morning

   Autumn is also when we had that house fire here at the farm that was started by (get this) a candle I had just purchased at Michael’s THAT SAME DAY to celebrate the arrival of fall!! Can you even believe the poetry in that?! I think it was a cinnamon-apple candle in a big glass jar, and it was almost three years before I could smell anything cinnamon with out feeling nauseous. “Hi, my name is Marie and I am terrified of cinnamon.”
Our front door and first floor may have been gutted, 
but our porch lights stayed lit and the flowers kept on blooming!

   Fortunately, and as a testament to both the power of Nature to overcome everything else and to our wealth of happy family memories, so much beauty remains that every year I cannot help but fall madly in love with autumn all over again.

   I love the flowers of the season…

   I love the pumpkin carving…
Look closely at these seeds… they are actually sprouts! 
They had sprouted inside the pumpkin, in the dark! 
Nature is amazing.
We fed them to the chickens.

…and I love the animal pranks. Kitten-Stuffed-Inside-Pumpkin is a classic. 

Unsuspecting Cat, “Fast Woman,” Circa 2008
Note the wary goat int he background. 
That is Marshmallow. She was no dummy.

 

Unsuspecting  and Unnamed Offspring of Fast Woman’s, Circa 2010
I was more than slightly amused to realize that
our feline-jack o’lantern tradition spanned many years.

But do NOT try this stunt with a goat. Or a buffalo. By comparison, cats are defenseless.
Sweet little Chunk-Hi back when he was still little and free to roam the yard.
See his stubby horn buds? Such a scruffy age, and so tender hearted, 
but still not appropriate for pumpkin-stuffing.

   Speaking of animal pranks, fall is a great time of year to bring your pretty little hens inside…

 …and make them look at fake, Styrofoam poultry stapled to little squares of cardboard. Seriously, if you have chickens just do this, ok? You should SEE the looks on their faces! It’s awesome.

   I love bonfires SO MUCH. Bonfires are easily my favorite thing about autumn. They encourage people to cuddle and talk and laugh hard and loud without worrying how weird their faces look. They send up smoke and embers to point our eyes toward the stars in the moody, changing sky… Bonfires are for s’mores and ghost stories, romance and memories.

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   I love that life is so full of texture. So rich with change and surprise, yet also filled with constant offers of strength and Truth. We just have to accept them. The painful times help us appreciate the happy times. The joyful times insulate us for the inevitable devastation.

   Take time to soak up the details and texture of whatever season you find yourself in. Accept its gifts, rise to its challenges, and whenever possible gather your loved ones around a bonfire and love each other through it.

And Take More Pictures!!
xoxoxo