Lazy W Marie

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

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friday 5 at the farm: busy, happy, thankful week

Last weekend was a long one for us, four days of much needed deep refreshment, and this work week that wraps up today has been solid. It was solid, happy, productive, and good in many ways. Last week’s extended recharge has been put to good use. Here are some headlines from the Lazy W!

001 Dad’s Birthday!

My Dear Ol’ Dad turned 61 this week, and last night we all gathered at home for his requested dinner of, “ribeyes and hot fudge sundaes.”  Yum! I took exactly zero photos because we were having so much fun and my hands were always full. My sister Angela and I shopped and cooked dinner, then seven of us (all adults this time, which is rare) sat around the dining room table talking about DNA testing, conspiracy theories, some wild family history, and more. Everything. We feasted on food and love and excellent conversation. Jessica drove over, too, and we all had such a great time. Laugh upon laugh upon laugh! Happiest of birthdays, Dad, we love you so much!

002 Batmobile Progress

This morning, between meetings and court and who knows what else at the Commish, Handsome stole some time at a very cool Oklahoma City business to help blow the “bubbles” that will crown the Batmobile. And he invited me last minute to watch! So I dropped everything at the farm and drove to town. I haven’t told you much about this project yet, but I will soon.

Short version: It’s a fun and labor-intensive old-car restoration that will play a big role in our community outreach hopes and dreams. And it becomes more fun and exciting every week. When I say “bubbles” and “Batmobile” in the same sentence, do you picture exactly what I’m talking about? Cool.

003 Halloween Vibes

Thanks to an attic full of Halloween decorations and some pumpkin fun with friends last Saturday night, our house is festooned with all the seasonal details. We love it. And we are living our best hide-pounce-scream-recover life, too, especially after dark. So fun. Even the gardens are in on the spooky mood, and I take every opportunity to walk around the farm in galoshes and sweaters.

004 Aprons & Organization

Domestically, I have been working steadily to empty drawers and closets, purge, reorder, clean, and hold space everywhere I can find a bit of congestion. I crave space physically and emotionally. It feels amazing, like the best precursor to nesting. It’s that deep-breathing, roll-your-shoulders kind of private survey I like to do just as the seasons really trade. It feels great, and every day I find new things to do around here.

This afternoon my plate was clear enough to sew two fun apron designs that have been swimming in my head. (This one is for a very special local podcaster!)

005 Fat, Fuzzy Horses

In keeping with the season change, our farm-ily is fattened up and beginning to retain a certain amount of fluff and fuzz. It’s definitely time. The horses are eating all the hay I offer them (so much), and the chickens are feasting on more than the usual amount of herbs, rose hips, and grass clippings, plus all the average fare. Fingers crossed that they soon decided to lay some eggs.

Okay, that’s our little sum up from the week. Approximately one million other things happened, too, because life is full and beautiful. If our internet cooperates, I’ll have a post up sometime Saturday about what I’ve been reading, watching, and listening to. Good stuff.

Happy weekend!

Redeem the Time
Even the Weird Days & Moments
XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

 

haunted farm (part 3)

haunted farm part one

haunted farm part two

 

So each of us had slept through the night believing the other had crept into bed (or couch) with us. Each of us had different tactile experiences then feelings of peace and reconciliation (maybe even victory). Finally, we both woke up the next morning to realize we had actually slept alone and were technically still in the middle of a marital standoff. Those next several hours of radio silence between us probably ramped up our anxiety but also helped us crystallize our questions. We eventually compared notes and formed a picture, a timeline, of all the strange things that had transpired. It was by far the most spiritually unsettling thing that had ever happened to us as a couple, and it caused us to hug pretty tight that evening.

********************

This series of strange events is hard to understand, even for people like us who aren’t bothered by the occasional bump in the night or playful relocation of small objects in the house. Handsome and I tend to relish in ghost stories and have no trouble believing in all kinds of stuff. But this was different. Parts of it felt aggressive, negative, and deceptive. We both felt watched and manipulated, and it just wasn’t funny. Depending on your spiritual leanings, these encounters might make more sense in the context of what happened that spring.

In early March of that year, we were pulling up to the farm late at night and discovered a pickup truck flipped over, badly crashed, its driver having been thrown through the glass and lying still on the road in front of our farm. He did not live. It was a deeply troubling, violent sight, something I will never forget. My husband dealt with the emergency responders all night. I called my Mom and cried and cried, sobbed really. It was truly the saddest thing I’d ever seen and the sadness clung to us for a while afterward. I couldn’t get over the image of this man dying so badly, alone until the very last minute when Handsome held his head and spoke to him.

I wrote about it in detail that year, you can click on part three right here, but for the purposes of today’s story, I just want to tell you that I attended the man’s funeral. I met some of his sweet family who obviously loved him so much, and I saw a beautiful photo slideshow of his life, enjoyed a deep drink of the love he had been pouring out for decades. I saw what he looked like in life: Tall, broad shouldered, a shock of white hair. Friends, and I do not say this lightly, the vision I saw in the dining room window was very similar, frighteningly similar, to the image of the man I saw at that funeral.

***************

It took us a long time to connect these dots. Actually, it took us a long time to even talk to our friends about that night we fought and had separate bizarre encounters. But when we finally did, when we had some distance and perspective and rolled around ideas of what might be happening, it struck like lightning. I instantly understood at least part of the presence in our home.

I wasn’t the least bit afraid of the man then. And I’m not now. I don’t think he had anything to do with us fighting or with the mood of separation in our home that week. I think now that he actually played some part in making both Handsome and me feel reconnected to each other.

Something else was causing us to bicker and act childishly, or to be more precise, we both chose to succumb to that weight. There was definitely a dark, heavy cloud over us for a time. But something else, possibly a spirit? or possibly just Love manifesting in ways we’d never seen before? …was helping us each feel our spouse’s closeness despite our bad behavior.

Do you think I’m crazy yet? Or… even crazier than you already thought I was? That’s okay. I know everyone has a unique temperature on these matters, and even inside my own head I don’t have everything quite worked out. But I know how I feel, and I feel at peace with all of it.

sunset blue

 

Soon after we reconciled (in the daylight, eyes wide open!), Handsome and I took steps to sort of cleanse the entire property and dismiss negative spirits and energy. We believe in the power of Love and words and prayer, and we are very focused on having a positive environment here. Since that super bizarre night, we are happy to say that nothing remotely like that has happened again.

Unless you count Sasquatch sightings in the Pine Forest.

Until next time, thanks for reading!!

Have you ever experienced a true ghost story? Do you believe spirits can manipulate you emotionally? Are you shaking your head at me now, wondering why you ever started reading my blog in the first place?

XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

haunted farm (part 2)

read part one here

Where we left off, it was early morning the day after the event. I had just woken up to the sounds of my husband returning to our bedroom, not rising from our bed as I expected (remember I thought he had come upstairs sometime during the night and wrapped himself around me). He got ready for work, left without saying goodbye. The previous day’s thick tension swelled up again.

I moved through my chores around the farm, grumpy and indignant, refusing to be the one to break the silence. But as the hours passed it became increasingly difficult to ignore the eerie vision I’d had at the dining room window. I couldn’t shake the steeliness of that eye contact. I needed to talk to my guy about this but waited until the afternoon to even text him.

haunted farm, lazy w, ghost stories, haunted oklahoma
This is the door where around 10:00 the previous night I saw an unidentified man standing and staring at me.

When I finally did break down and text him I’m sure it was about something trite and petty, any dumb excuse to connect. Thankfully he answered and was in a similar state of needing to talk. As it turns out, his evening was no less bizarre than mine. We broached the topic casually, cautiously, not with the kind of gleeful delight you might have when telling a second-hand ghost story. The mood from both of us was very much I can’t believe I’m saying this but what happened last night?

To hear my husband tell his side of the story, this is what happened inside the house while I was simmering angrily outside:

After the fight, the fight about nothing, he set up camp in the greenroom downstairs and purposefully watched shows we both love, at full volume. He saw and heard me walk through the house toward the hot tub but remained stoic. This, folks, is how we hurt each other. This is about as bad as it ever gets.

To fully paint the next part of this picture, you have to understand that he is a creature of such unerring habit that the following details are key: He laid on exactly the same pillows as always. He arranged his three (why are there so many?) remotes in exactly the same order as always. And because he was downstairs there was no timer set on the television. There was no provision for it to click off at a certain time.

A little while after starting his shows and hearing me walk outside (in a huff, by his account), Handsome heard me come back inside and close the door kind of hard. I made coffee for the morning and marched upstairs. He loves to know he’s gotten under my skin, so surely this helped him relax. He fell asleep watching whatever.

Then.

At some point during the night he claims to have woken up to me pulling a blanket up over his shoulder. Our couch in this room is an L-shaped sectional, allowing for sort of perpendicular cuddling, and he says that I laid down on the opposite expanse from his, our heads near each other, and cuddled him. He reached over, thinking I had returned in love and that we were reconciled, and he stroked my hair.

Or so he thought.

to be continued

haunted farm (part 1)

The Lazy W is haunted is a few ways, mostly friendly.
But a few years ago we experienced something not so friendly
and defying explanations.

haunted farm lazy w oklahoma ghost story
My friend Heather takes the most amazing photos, and she has a particular eye for the sky. Mesmerizing. This crescent moon from a few day ago reminds me a lot of the moon on this night in question.

I cannot remember the exact month this happened, but in my memory the weather was cool but warming slowly. The sky was cloudy but dry. This all started late at night, maybe around ten.

For some reason neither of can remember now, Handsome and I were in a pretty big fight. The angriest words were long over and we had moved into that simmering heat and silence. It was a standoff, we both remember that, but we really have no idea why we were fighting. Looking back, there was just a vague, oppressive tension that hung over the house, and we had both succumbed to it.

He set up his angry, silent camp in the green room downstairs, where we normally watch movies together, cuddle, and sometimes even spend he night. I felt so hurt and angry that I did something fairly radical and went out to the hot tub by myself. That may not seem like such a big deal to you, but around here we rarely, if ever, do this. The hot tub is an annex to our bedroom, the place where we start our mornings together with coffee, and just generally a special place. But so is the green room! And I kinda remember he was watching a show we usually watch together. Not cool. That was his big silent statement. So mine was to walk through the house in a just towel and soak in our hot tub alone. Simmering in every way.

So I was outside in the scalding, frothy water, maybe thirty yards from the house, on the edge of the south lawn. I remember lots of moonlight and clouds. The heat was helping me relax, but whatever anger I’d patted down began to resurface when I looked up. I thought I saw my husband standing at the dining room door and staring at me through the window. You know that feeling when, even at a great distance, you sense eye contact? I felt that. And it made me even angrier. I wasn’t surprised that knowing I was in the hot tub alone made him angry and prompted him to come see for himself; that’s pretty much what I was going for. What made me so mad was that he continued to just stand there and stare at me for about five minutes, just looking. Not coming to talk to me, no apologies (for what I still have no idea), nothing. Not even a hand gesture or movement. Just standing behind the glass pane and staring.

Then I noticed the silhouette wasn’t exactly my husband’s. The standing, staring figure was significantly taller than the glass, while my husband might stand right below it, just barely. And the figure watching me had shoulders much wider than the glass, too. The glass is almost three feet wide. Finally, what hair of his I could see was shocking silver-white. Moppy. This was not my husband, but he continued to stare.

I was instantly alert and wanted to scream but had that paralytic, wide eyed rigidity. I sat there with steam rising in front of my face, returning the eerie stare coming at me from the house. Somehow I scrambled out of the hot tub, wrapped up in my towel, and decided to run to the house.

Looking back I cannot remember exactly when I stopped seeing the figure in the dining room window, or why I felt safer running toward it than away, but all I wanted to do was get closer to my husband, this man I was who was helping me maintain the adolescent silent treatment.

Once inside the house, everything seemed normal. The television was still on but Handsome said nothing to me. I assumed he was awake and therefore choosing to say nothing to me, so I renewed my pout and walked upstairs. Going to bed alone is about as unheard of as hot tub soaking alone, so I was really laying it on thick now.

Once dry and warm and snuggled in bed alone, I started thinking more about the weird vision and wondered what to make of it. I consciously dismissed it and drifted off to sleep. Sometime during the night, I felt my husband crawl into bed with me, warm and strong, and wrap himself around me. Or so I thought.

The next morning I woke up alone in our cold bed to the sound of him walking into our bedroom, not trying at all to be quiet. He showered and dressed for work then left without saying goodbye. I was stunned. It colored my entire day.

to be continued

Nevermore


Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
  Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
   As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
  "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-
                Only this, and nothing more."

    Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
  And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
    Eagerly I wished the morrow;- vainly I had sought to borrow
    From my books surcease of sorrow- sorrow for the lost Lenore-
  For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
                Nameless here for evermore.

    And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
  Thrilled me- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
    So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
    "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door-
  Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;-
                This it is, and nothing more."

    Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
  "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
    But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
    And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
  That I scarce was sure I heard you"- here I opened wide the door;-
                Darkness there, and nothing more.

    Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering,
        fearing,
  Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
    But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
    And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore!"
  This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"-
                Merely this, and nothing more.

    Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
   Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
    "Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice:
    Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore-
  Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;-
                'Tis the wind and nothing more."

    Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and
        flutter,
  In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;
    Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed
        he;
    But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door-
  Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door-
                Perched, and sat, and nothing more.










   Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
  By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.
   "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no
        craven,
   Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore-
  Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
                Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

    Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
  Though its answer little meaning- little relevancy bore;
    For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
    Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door-
  Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
                With such name as "Nevermore."

    But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
  That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
    Nothing further then he uttered- not a feather then he fluttered-
    Till I scarcely more than muttered, "other friends have flown
        before-
  On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
                Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

     Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
  "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
     Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
     Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore-
  Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
                Of 'Never- nevermore'."

    But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
  Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and
        door;
    Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
    Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore-
  What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
                Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

    This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
  To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
    This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
    On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
  But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er,
                She shall press, ah, nevermore!

    Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
  Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
    "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee- by these angels he
        hath sent thee
    Respite- respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore!
  Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
                Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

    "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!- prophet still, if bird or
        devil!-
  Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
    Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-
    On this home by horror haunted- tell me truly, I implore-
  Is there- is there balm in Gilead?- tell me- tell me, I implore!"
                Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

    "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil- prophet still, if bird or
        devil!
  By that Heaven that bends above us- by that God we both adore-
    Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
    It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
  Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
                Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

    "Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend," I shrieked,
        upstarting-
  "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
    Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
    Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door!
  Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my
        door!"
               Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

    And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
  On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
    And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
    And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the
        floor;
  And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
                Shall be lifted- nevermore!