Lazy W Marie

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

You are here: Home / Archives for Uncategorized

snowmelt & hope for change

All week we been shivering and hiding ourselves away in near-zero temps, shrouded in snow and ice. Dark, moody skies. Until today.

Today, the sun reappeared. It started with a raw, rusty edge in the east, a quiet daybreak already more promising than the previous few. And although the morning was still frigid, still just four dergrees Farenheit, the brightness made it bearable. Then the sun rose fully and the sky turned from silver-grey to true blue, and I got very excited.

By lunchtime, sunlight was bouncing off of every surface, really truly streaming through the windows. I caught glossy reflections of water here and there. I saw drips, too. Wait, water? The ice is melting! I looked through a window in the Apartment and saw that the middle field, solid white just a few hours ago, was suddenly half mud. The pine trees were suddenly relieved of their snowy burdens, too, and the horses’ manes looked dry. Everything was bright and saturated with color. I ran downstairs to grab a light jacket to go play outside, and when I opened the door the cold nearly took my breath away. I folded in half and shut the door. It was still only around ten degrees, ha! Still frigid cold, even with the evidence of melt.

((snow day in January with Klaus, Max, Sadie, and Charlie!!))

So I bundled up properly this time and invited Klaus on a walk. He loves the cold. We checked on all the animals, distributed carrots to the horses and extra biscuits to the cows, made a bouncy loop around the back field, and caught Johnny Ringo on our way back uphill. When we passed the Batmobile and walked to get the mail, I started thinking about the sunlight and low temps and how we can enjoy a thaw even before we approach thirty two degrees. The concentration of light, I suppose, is pretty powerful.

You must already know where I’m going with this, if you’ve been here very long.

A little bit of weak sunlight, at low angles, is no match for ice in low temperatures.

But strong, abundant, uninterrupted rays of light, concentrated, directed energy, maybe bouncing off of surrounding walls and objects, can absolutely melt ice, even in low temperatures. That’s amazing.

I’m taking this as a reminder that focused attention can make all the difference in our work. That prayer can change things, if it is strong and focused. Abundant.

Maybe I’ve been playing a few things too softly, just casting my energy and attention vaguely where more focus is needed to accomplish something. Praying only in background ways, saying I trust God, when something more fervent is required. Pursuing a few worthy goals too lightly.

Maybe it was just a really beautiful, snowy day with a really beautiful, melty surprise tucked in. Maybe it was just nature doing her thing. But I can’t help but see the message and the promise:

If you focus your energy better, things will change.
XOXOXO

a charlie and rhett story

Read this short story in your best Rod Serling voice:

Imagine if you will, a ten degree morning on an ice covered farm. The sun is brilliant, bouncing wide, metallic sheets of light off of every surface. The wind is mercifully nonexistent.

Everywhere you look is a snow dusted pine tree or a pile of oak leaves, crunchy and frosted and as still as a sculpture. Chickens are clucking, a goose is skronking, and horses are whinnying their demands for breakfast.

Now you see a happy and energetic Puppy following his giant best friend German Shepherd during morning chores. They are flipping like fish and bounding across the weather stiffened tundra. Their claws mostly grip the ice, but not always. Still, they run and chase and beg the Lady to play fetch and keepaway with a frozen softball. When the Lady throws it, the puppy runs with absolute abandon, no thought given to its trajectory or obstacles or ice or anything.

The Lady is not great at throwing. The Puppy has not learned this yet.

The softball lands on this side of a wire fence, in the vicinity of a young steer, his face buried in a pile of soft hay. The puppy is exactly one second behind the ball. He hits his brakes. His claws fail. He skids on his bottom, pliable young puppy legs splayed, toward the ice dusted Thing With Horns. Thankfully, the fence is between them, but still they bump, giant face to small body, and the Thing With Horns emits the deepest, most baritone objection the puppy has ever heard. A rare sound, it startles the Lady too.

The Puppy regroups, retreats to the Lady without the prize, and checks over his shoulder to see that the fence is still in place. Fetch and Keepaway continue but not without some anxiety.

The End.

space to feel my feelings about Joc

My energy has been stalled for a few hours. I thought surely it was just from this spell of cold, dark weather. Or maybe from having a list of important but not very challenging tasks to finish today. Or maybe it’s the ambiguity of not being on a training plan right now. Some days I embrace my freedom and really squeeze a lot out of it. Other days, when I am low on motivation, the great openness is unnerving. I feel unmoored. Whether with fitness goals or caring for the farm or writing or anything, too much blank space can, well, stall me out. I guess I need to reestablish some structure, I think to myself, fill the calendar back up. Train for another marathon.

Then I noticed two prevailing trains of thought, both about Jocelyn.

One has surfaced almost every time lately when I get on the floor to cuddle Klaus, nearly every time we play outside: I am keenly aware that Jocelyn’s dog, Bridget, was a puppy when Klaus was a puppy. They were well acquainted then and even sometimes “corresponded” through the mail, when she and Joc first lived in Colorado. I see Klaus’ silver whiskers and ample belly, hear his gentlemanly groans and notice how his energy is so different now than it was nine years ago, and I cannot help but wonder what Bridget looks like now, how her energy is, what middle age looks like on such a strong and adventurous little woman. These are bittersweet imaginations, and I think maybe I can tilt that scale away from bitter, to mostly sweet. Maybe I can willfully conjure up how the reunion will soon look and feel. Bridget running in the grass towards us, no doubt carrying a rock for someone to throw. Retrieving rocks was once her favorite thing next to chasing bears off their cabin porch and stampeding behind deer up the mountain.

The second prevailing thought is much darker. I have been trying to silence a voice in my head that says, “She’s just not coming home. It’s been too long.” And I have no idea what to do with this, because it won’t stop. Hourly, at odd intervals, it just echoes. The actual words, typed out and spoken silenty in my head, are cruel enough. I don’t have to hear them to recoil. It makes me physically nauseated.

When people ask me if I have heard from her, the truth is awful. I have not. I sometimes hear updates about her, not from her. But I do appreciate hearing her name spoken. When noone asks, that hurts too. But I kind of understand why they don’t want to bring it up. When I see photos of her on my phone or her artwork around the farm, or even when I care for the horses she once loved so much, my god. Everything hurts so much. Sometimes it all serves to keep her “with us,” but right now it is terrifying. And complaining about this pain when so many people have lost their children forever, in undeniable and truly hopeless ways, feels so self indulgent and ridculous.

I still do have hope. Right?

Maybe these are just the emotions I have successfully avoided in all the previous months and years of being extremely busy and overcommitted. I probably was staying busy to not have to feel it all. Maybe this short season of loose schedules and low commitments have simply given my heart some space to unfold. Maybe this is what I have been feeling for a really long time, in other words, and none of it is a signal to any new and terrible thing happening. It’s not a prophetic warning, which is something else I fear; it’s just an emotional landscape finally visible because I have cleared some distractions. Is this a true psychological phenomenon, or have I invented it to make myself feel better? Does anyone know?

I tell myself again that this is just a season. A test. That one day we will be celebrating again, just as we have so many times already! And in that bright future, I will be ashamed to look back at any point before when I had given up hope (which is impossible to do with your children, actually) or indulged in sadness. So today, I’ll finish some work worth doing and get some exercise. I’ll bend some deliberate thought toward good things coming soon. And, because this feels like an instructive moment, I’ll be honest with myself about how I’m really doing: Not great. This is hard.

I love you so much, Joc. Nothing can change that.
I dream of you almost every night, and I talk to you all day, every day,
so much so, that I often trick myself into thinking you’re just across town
and could surprise me at the front door any minute.
I hope you are happy and being loved fully.
I hope you know that we are still here,
still loving and missing you.
XOXO

read, watch, listen January 18, 2025

The brain food lately has been delicious, friends.

The Huberman Lab Podcast always has great episodes, but I got more out of this conversation with Dr. Laurie Santos than most others. They explore happiness and biochemistry. They discuss all kinds of great reesearch and compare it to social norms, gender, dogs versus cats, you name it. They direct you to other authors on the topic, too. And their deep look at dopamine was extra valuable to me. Key takeaway: Beware any dopamine you haven’t worked for! Check it out for mentions of “time confetti” if nothing else. Yes, it’s long. It look me several sessions of housework or running at the lake to listen to it all, ha! But it was time well spent. This morning I started (but did not come close to finishing) a different episode he recorded with his Dad. They have a very sweet, respectful rapport, and the material is worthwhile: “How to Use Curiosoty & Focus to Create a Joyful & Meaningful Life.”

Also in my ears recently has been Ina Garten’s memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens. Oh my gosh. You guys. If you are already an Ina fan, then this book is a must read for you. Or consider it a must listen, because she narrates it herself, and she is a gifted storyteller with a voice like browned butter. If you don’t consider youself an Ina fan but you do love a nourishing memoir, you should still check this out. Her life story and career path are fascinating, and the way she infuses her expereinces with meaning is inspiring. She distills everything into translatable life lessons, useful to anyone. Of interest to me: She waited until the epilogue to utter the words in the title of her book.

I have been nibbling away at a book called Philosophy for Gardeners: Ideas and Paradoxes to Ponder in the Garden. I wanted it to be so great, you guys, and it may still be. I ordered it thinking it would be the book I always wanted to write myself, you know? But so far I am having trouble catching its rhythm. I’ll keep trying, because it’s such a great combination of topics. I have always thought of gardening in philosophical terms! But it feels a bit like an assignment. Wish me luck.

A book that has been easy to collaspe into is a Pulitzer Prize finalist from over twenty ears ago: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. When I can talk myself into sitting still to read, the words are like music to my eyes.

Our son in law Alex has a voracious and interesting appetite for information. He and I have lots of overlap, so I always take his sugestions when he sends them. This week he suggested the podcast “Unexplainable.” There is a great episode on whether AI can feel, and whoooooo that one is thought provoking. Since listening to that one, I flew through several more, various topics.

Handsome and I have been watching a trainwreck of a show called 90 Day Fiance. It is about as bad as it sounds, except for the deep dive into human nature. Love is an irreducible need, you know? Cannot say I reccommend it exactly, but there ya go, ha!

Okay, that’s what I’ve got to offer this week! What have you read or listened to that’s worth sharing? January is a pretty wonderful time to cozy up and feed yoru brain.

If you can’t find orgaic, farm fresh books to read,
Store bought is fine.
XOXOXO

the first two weeks of this sparkly new year

Friends, hello! Happy New Year to you! I am coming up for some serious air from a rabbit hole of my own making, a rabbit hole of my own words in fact, trying to get my house in order on this blog. I made a Farm Journal Entry earlier this week and had to verify the date twice after typing it. Only the fourtheenth of January? Are we sure? It feels like many weeks have passed since our litte NYE shin dig with friends. So much has happened.

The weather shifted from weirdly mild to bitter cold but dry and then to a Narnia-like snowy paradise, followed again by sundrenched, early spring vibes. All in two weeks. At this writing we are just a couple of days away from another Arctic front, potentially a wet one, which is not great. So there is some work to do to prepare the farm for that.

((snow day with Klaus, Max, Sadie, and Charlie!!))

We give thanks constantly for fat, healthy animals, more grain and hay than we need, abundant water, and a warm house full of groceries. I do worry sometimes about the horses in this cold, but we have made it through seventeen years of extreme weather so far. I feel like worrying is not the right move.

((Dusty has at last found peace with Scarlett and Rhett))
((Chanta is only growing sweeter and more mellow in his gentlemanly years))

The Commish has entered a new era this week, and if you know you know, this is huge news. I get chills thinking about the momentum that Handsome will now be free to build, all the progress and grit and joy he will now have the bandwidth to generate.

Sorry for saying bandwidth. I know that expression has run its course.

It took me every bit of two weeks to remove every little speck of our Christmas decor, including spent paperwhites. It was a gorgeous, sparkling season that lasted for over two months, and it just felt so cozy and cheerful. I gave myself permission to dismantle it all in stages, so the house did not suddenly feel bare and sterile.

((taking Klaus to see Santa at the Choctaw Christmas festival))

Well, sterile, ha! As sterile as an actual farmhouse can possibley feel.

I don’t really have the bandwidth to keep this house sterile.

LOL

So sorry. I cannot help myself.

So the house is just cozy and wintry now, with a tiny dose of Valentine pink and red here and there. And we are enjoying it very much. The older I get, the more I find myself deeply relishing each season and all kinds of weather. The only thing that really bothers me about winter is how it can hurt the animals. Personally, I feel well adapted. I walk outside as much as possible all day long, and my eyes have grown so accustomed to the browns and sepias of the landscpape, plus the glittery white snow when it falls, that when I happened upon a photo of the garden from last June it was truly startling. All that emerald green grass! All that saturated color in the flowers! It was almost too much. It felt to my eyes the way too much icing on a bakery cake feels to my teeth. That’s crazy, how thoroughly we can adapt to anything, even dormancy and slowness. Even cold, mostly.

Speaking of adaptation, my body is no longer in marathon shape, ha! I felt incredible for the race on October 27. It was a day I will remember forever. My brother and I walked a few miles the very next day. Then I took it easy and I mean super easy for the following four weeks or so. For one of those weeks, for the first time in ten years, I only walked a tiny bit, zero running, while in Los Angeles getting acquainted with my baby nephew. Since Thanksgiving my daily activity has increased gradually, but it is literally hilarious to me at this moment to think of getting up to run hard workouts of 10 to 14 miles on a weekday before working outside until dusk. Ha! The adaptations that got me to that start line healthy and strong happened pretty quickly, and the deconditioning has happened even more quickly. Human bodies are miraculous and humbling.

One of the projects on my heart for this new year is to complete and nicely polish a manuscript and book proposal for The Lazy W Farmily, a collection of children’s stories to document all of our beloved animals and their antics over the years. I have been chipping away at individual characters’ stories, but now I feel strongly that they all need to be synthesized into one book, like maybe a longer chapter book for reading aloud. I have tried doing a little DIY market research to learn what age group I want to target and whether it should, in fact, be a thick chapter book or, instead, a set of slim volumes; but I feel a little lost, to be honest. At least the stories flow onto paper well. We have enjoyed so many magical relationships with animals in the seventeen years here on these nine acres. I am overjoyed at the thought of documenting it all.

Today, January 16th, 2025, is Jessica and Alejandro’s fourth wedding anniversary! We feel so priviledged and happy to be on the front row, watching their little universe grow and expand and solidify. They are very generous with their time as newlyweds, so we get to see them lots. Holidays and brthdays, of course, but all the other times in between, too, in dozens of casual, meaningful, fun and important ways. They are one of the most compatible, effervescent pairings I have ever seen. And gosh we just love them and their pups so much.

((alex and jess on their cold, beautiful wedding day in 2021))
((Alex, Jess, Bean & Laika, Christmas Day 2024))

I did a quick tally of all the hosting we did here in 2024. The statisctics surprised us! The year passed in such a blur of energy and effort, so much color, you know? And overlapping heat waves of activity? That by New Year’s Day we were a bit numb from it all. It felt good to put a few numbers to why we landed on January first so tired, ha! More on this soon. But let me just say that we did not exactly set out last January with a clear cut plan to open the farm thirty-nine times or to dog sit for eight cumulative weeks; that’s just precisely what we felt called to do, gradually, and it was also just exactly what our souls needed.

Happy middle of January, friends! Thank you so much for checking in. As I contimue to clean house on this blog, I am open to suggestions, topic requests, and more. And if you have some insight for me on the children’s book, please track me down. I woudl appreciate a bit of guidance. Stay cozy and safe. Keep on choosing JOY!

“We are living out the stories we tell.”
XOXOXO