Lazy W Marie

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

a new spin on victory gardens

Our grandparents and great grandparents had wartime versions of Victory Gardens that served them well and helped their families thrive in uncertain times. The government endorsed these efforts and more before industrialized farming took over.

Lately we are hearing more and more about “Victory Gardens,” and I expect that will only gain momentum. For a variety of good reasons, everyone seems to be rediscovering the appeal of growing food and maybe tip-toeing into sustainability.

I love this!

But…

I also see the idea ballooning in such a way that people are becoming discouraged almost as soon as they feel inspired. Lots of people are also beginning their adventure from a place of absolute terror.

In an environment of fear over rising food prices and broken supply chains, it’s easy to let something as natural and beautiful as home gardening fall into the category of obligation, panic, and unrealistic standards for success.

Let’s fix that.

Right here, today, with just a mindset shift, let’s reset. Before we write a single letter to a single lawmaker or even before we spend one dollar on grow lights or join any online forums trying to learn it all in one day, let’s rethink what a Victory Garden could possibly be, for you.

OSU OKC teaching garden

Victory could look like adding beauty, fragrance, creativity, and dimension to your life. Victory could be saving money by growing fancy herbs and better ingredients, just a little bit here and there. Victory might include just occasionally stepping aside from the bizarre supply chains we have created for ourselves or cultivating small, meaningful skills that build and compound on themselves every year. No need to be perfectly successful on your first try. Everyone fails. A lot.

squash bugs
((hell hath no fury like a gardener overrun with these monsters))

Maybe victory for you would be making memories with your children and helping them see the natural world as a source of beauty and pleasure, and then one day helping them install their own gardens. Victory could be growing chemical free food more often, while at the same time rejecting stress and guilt over still buying average stuff from the store. It’s fine! Mix it up! You garden can be a supplement way before it is a substitute.

Victory is certainly discovering new ways to enhance your outdoor space, discovering a new hobby that keeps your body lifting and stretching and breathing fresh air, keeping your eyes off of electronics for a slice of each day. Victory is blanketing the earth with more trees, flowers, mulch, and foods. Victory is attracting and feeding all kinds of pollinators and wildlife. A very beautiful Victory Garden is one that encourages diversity.

Victory might be witnessing and immersing ourselves in the intricate, powerful, unstoppable Cycle of Life, participating in the seasons instead of complaining about them, being swept up in the life affirming wealth of daylight and the nitrogen rich snow and rainfall. Victory is learning to use kitchen scraps to feed your garden rather than overstuff the landfill. Victory is being part of the solution, in your own way, in your own time, with joy and freedom and confidence, rejecting fear.

I believe that working with fear, shame, or panic will not only kill your spirit but also at least stall your garden, maybe sabotage it completely. Your mindset matters. So get that sweet and level first. Rethink what a Victory Garden could be in your life, with your circumstances, needs, and cravings. What problems are you trying to solve? Where do your passions fall, naturally? There is a garden for you out there.

fresh homegrown watermelon oklahoma
((If 2013 was the Summer of Basil, then 2014 was the Summer of Watermelon…xoxo))

Please consider growing something that makes you authentically happy. I want you, if you haven’t already, to discover for what “Victory” means for you and how to use gardening to pursue that in uniquely pleasing ways.

((20 sunflowers for Jessica’s 20th birthday… she came home the next year))

There are hundreds of ways to be a Victory Gardener.

Far be it from me to discourage anyone from attempting a true, traditional, full-fledged Victory Garden that increases your family’s groceries and stocks your pantry for winter, the kind your great-grandmother probably mastered. That is certainly within reach if you have the space and the time to devote to it. And what a noble goal! But also, I believe these other, very different gardening goals are every bit as noble.

Bonus points, always, for not using chemicals on your garden. Double bonus points for using natural fertilizers and compost. Triple bonus points for sharing your bounty and staying true to yourself as you go.

Almost done with these thoughts.

My Grandpa gave me lots of gardening advice, and it was all good. But one thing bears repeating here:

“The best fertilizer is the gardener’s shadow.” Spend time in your growing spaces, however large or small or weird or formal they are. Just be present, frequently. Watch, enjoy, pay attention, apply your considerable knowledge and creative energy there. It needs you as much as you need it. It will reward you by growing you right alongside it.

Let’s release that weirdo pressure to be the same kind of gardener as anyone else, friends. Let’s drop the fear and panic and just grow something. Anything. Nature will support us.

Life began in a Garden,
and Victory is our birthright
XOXOXO

respect your life

At the risk of fully enraging my husband who just wants light and easy stuff to stay light and easy, I am about to ruin a perfectly good raunchy comedy by extracting from it a luscious bit of wisdom. Please join me in this meanness.

A couple of weeks ago, Handsome and I indulged in some vegetative relaxation by re-watching some old comedies. Among them was The Change Up starring Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds. If you haven’t seen it, the premise is this: Two life long best friends, now adults but leading very different lives, are suffering from respective versions of burnout. To remedy their angst, they hit the town for a night of revelry which culminates in them both urinating in a public fountain. While peeing side by side in the fountain, they make a wish simultaneously, I think just as lightning strikes? Or maybe it’s just at the stroke of midnight. Either way, their mutual wish, uncoordinated, is to have each other’s life.

Bam! Their mutual wish is granted, and the hilarious, predictable chaos ensues. Jason Bateman’s middle class, somewhat-happily married-with-children, upwardly mobile-white-collar-career, suburbian lifestyle is swapped with Ryan Reynold’s scruffy, ill mannered, sad-bachelor, rarely sober, disconnected-from-his-father, free wheeling, barely-surviving-but-also-very-free-and-promiscuous lifestyle. The connective tissue between them is the married guy’s house and wife. The men both float in and out of the domestic scene freely, and the wife, unaware that her husband and her husband’s best friend have switched bodies, well, it’s all so cringey. Lots of fun.

Here’s where I ruin the fun by extracting a message.

Somewhere past the middle point of the escapade, deep in the predictable and hilarious parts where each man is really sinking into the newness and novelty of his best friend’s exotic and unfamiliar, supposedly much craved lifestyle, one of them admonishes the other for not appreciating his life more. I can’t remember which one says it and at exactly what moment, but I think he says, “Respect your life, man!”

Respect your life.

Everyone in the world is susceptible to burnout, no matter how their life looks from the outside.

Most people will at some point wish for a different reality. It’s a normal and common human phenomenon. This shows imaginative pliability and an openness to growth, as long as we can avoid the sticky territory of envy and bitterness.

Respect your life.

This message was well timed for me. Every single day since we watched that movie, the phrase has hung in the air. I have felt more inspired to see the uniqueness of my days, the particular opportunities I have, and the weirdly beautiful custom fit between my talents, my responsibilities, and the needs I can perceive around me. Such a fast acting antidote to any comparison traps.

I have also tried to step outside of myself and see what I might be forgetting to notice, by viewing my life briefly as an outsider. That ones takes some effort, and who knows how effective it really is? But it’s a fun exercise. It invites me to dive more deeply into everything, and I love that feeling.

Respect your life.

Maybe you are familiar with the modern parable of the room full of crosses: A man issues a litany of complaints to God, that the cross he has been carrying in life is too big, too heavy, too cumbersome, too splintery. He is exhausted and wonders why everyone else has such lightweight, smooth, manageable crosses to bear. So God offers him a chance to exchange crosses. He ushers the man into a large room filled with hundreds of other crosses of varying sizes, materials, weights, and apparent difficulties. There are mammoth sized crosses that must have required the strength of armies. Ones made of rusted iron and spikes and ones so rough and shifting they were barely in one piece. Every option looked brutal and beyond his scope. The man scans his options, evaluating the various burdens carefully, and eventually chooses one. He finds a smaller one, a cross he can lift with a moderate effort, one shaped to his back and shoulders perfectly. It’s not smooth, but his shirt protects him just fine. He thanks God for the opportunity to trade down on his burden. God smiles and reveals that the cross he selected was the same one he had been carrying all along, that in His infinite wisdom, God had always known it was exactly what the man could bear safely.

Respect your life.

((Klaus tempting me with soccer on a snowy day))

If you feel weary of your life burdens, how could you reframe your thoughts about them, to know all over again, deep down, that you are not just capable of carrying them, but maybe destined to? That certainly you are the perfect person for the task?

If you are noticing the beauty in someone else’s life and quietly wishing it was yours, how could you remind yourself of the pain they might be hiding, of the sacrifices and responsibilities that come with their outward success? Better yet, how could you reinvigorate appreciation for the beauty in your own life?

I believe pretty deeply that the life situations into which we are born and the uniqueness with which we are each created are exactly the magic raw materials each of us needs to slowly and deliberately imagine, form, and refine a living masterpiece. Wishing for someone else’s life not only invites burdens we might now be able to handle; it also leaves our unique offerings on the table.

Respect your life.

And watch a lightweight comedy with me at your own peril. : )

“Be yourself.
Everyone else is already taken.”
~Oscar Wilde
XOXOXO

adieu to the queen of hearts

She was our brush with royalty.

((Little Lady Marigold, January, 2023))

She was diminutive, self assured and confident, fast as a cheetah, and studious. She was picky about who could touch her and gluttonous about food. I once couldn’t find her and thought she had liberated herself (again) from Retirement Village but found her buried, head first, inside her paddock’s enormous round bale of hay. She had burrowed into it by eating! She literally ate her way, all the way, to the center, and I just respect that so much. When she heard me calling, she casually backed out and popped her happy little head into the sunshine, all matted with hay, still chewing, and she looked at me. Nonplussed.

She hated being sheared but allowed it. Maybe she was smart enough to understand the relief that would come with a freshly shorn body, mid-summer. And her body was small! Startlingly petite without all that wool. She also hated fireworks but seemed to gather near to a bonfire.

She knew Klaus apart from all visiting dogs but still gave him a gentle little Stick Leg Treatment when he was being spicy. She knew to hide behind the legs of the tall bachelors, perhaps thinking her round little body was invisible, but most likely not caring, just calculating her next sprint around the back field.

Her name was Marigold because the day she came to live here, in June of 2020, was the first day that our French marigolds bloomed that year. Little Lady because, well because that’s what she was.

Her eyes were domed, always glassy and clear, with perfectly straight, slotted pupils. She had an honest, private gaze. She had hooves like little high heels and intense little legs. Solid black. And she chewed with a slight sideways grind that frequently made me hungry. After a long while and many pep talks, we got her to wear a little yellow halter, just to make capturing that much simpler, and I loved how it looked on her, with her floofy gray and white wool exploding in great clouds all around it. The day she got sick I removed her halter to make her as absolutely as comfortable as possible and it left a slight indentation in her face hairs. She let me massage it and sing Norwegian Wood.

She had triangle ears, soft and black and attentive to every sound. She was fond of sitting out in the sun or out in the moonglow, often staring downhill. She was impervious to snow. Her pasture mate, Romulus, is equally stout and contemplative, so they made a great match. The day she died, he watched over her and observed her removal solemnly. He lost all protectiveness. His guard had fully dropped.

*reigning queen of kicking rambunctious puppies*

Little Lady Marigold was a Suffolk sheep, a stunning fifteen years old this year. She was vivacious and low maintenance in all conditions. She ate well and drank well too, as evidenced by the little rainbow sheen her lanolin fleece left on the surface of her drinking water. We never knew her to be sick or even slow moving, not once, not until this week.

This Monday morning when LLM would normally be bleating and running left and right along the red steel gate for her breakfast happy to tell Romulus she was first today, she was downhill instead, and quiet. She was standing upright but would not come to me. I took a deep breath and said a prayer, heavy with that familiar sensation of this is bad. She let me approach and hold her but would not eat. Her breathing was a little challenged, a little shallow, and she just seemed… sad. She had lost all of her bounce. Gradually she walked around more, and I was too encouraged by that. She sought the sun on her face. She napped. She sipped water. And she hid herself away in her shelter.

The next two days were quiet for our regal little woman, and the gentle January weather was a blessing. It made it easier for me to make sure she was dry and softly bedded down, surrounded by eating and drinking options. I stayed with her most of those two days, only touching her when she said ok. My husband started her on a round of penicillin just in case she had a respiratory illness, but deep down we already felt she was just dying gently. Our friend and mentor, Maribeth, who was Marigold’s first farm mom, reminded me of LLM’s age and how very far past life expectancy she already was when she came to the Lazy W.

Early Wednesday morning, we discovered that Marigold had passed in her sleep. She was never in acute distress as far as we could tell, and she had curled herself up neatly, hopefully feeling safe and cozy and loved. Gosh she was loved. We wrapped her in two floral bedsheets and buried her gently, in that meadow behind the yurt. We gather there frequently to pray and be reflective, so she will be near lots of loving energy forever. I plan to grow a thick patch of French marigolds for her there, and BW has designated a gorgeous old tree stump as her grave marker.

Romulus and the other three bachelors watched from a distance, and Klaus stood with us. He got to say goodbye up close, and as he did so we gave thanks for Marigold teaching him how to gather and collect an animal safely. A shepherd, after all, he did this with her as needed, maybe a handful of times, and it was amazing. He was swift, gentle, and smart about it. She was an excellent teacher, and held a grudge of course, as was her right to do.

We already miss her so much. She was a singular presence here at the farm, a vibrant energy with an irreplaceable voice. If you have ever visited and heard Marigold “bleating” you know what I mean! It was a heavy handed, guttural sound that in no way matched her sweet appearance!

I would never have thought to myself, “You know what I want? An elderly Suffolk sheep!” But now I cannot imagine not having known her. Now, I see that she was gift, a beautiful, low, round, bossy, affectionate, introverted, brilliant little soul, and we will never forget her. I will also never stop giving thanks for her peaceful end, for the void of tragedy in her long, lovely life. She was a Lady, the Queen of Hearts.

If you grow some French marigolds this, year, please think of her.

“I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.”
xoxo

checking in on a dewy morning (and my lesson on toxic positivity)

Hello friends, and happy December! How was your Thanksgiving? How is your holiday spirit in general? How is the weather where you living out your life story?

((still rewilding the front field…xoxo))

Here at the farm we are enjoying dark, dewy nature walks and dense fog advisories, plus the luscious promise of more rain soon. We hosted a small, magical family Thanksgiving here, and our holiday spirits are high. From our nieces’ high school orchestra concerts and dance recitals to silly parties with friends and lots of simple weekly gatherings, we have more seasonal thrills and pleasures than we can count. I hope you do, too. I also hope that on the days your calendar is less full, you breathe deeply and rest. Soak up the nutrients of all those traditions and activities.

Do you have a moment for me to share a little lesson I learned recently?

Last week I ran across a simple passage about the value of letting people feel however they feel. Often I rail against charges of “toxic positivity” because, in my own experience, I have suffered greatly and fought hard for my outlook on life, so I see with unshakable clarity the fundamental and life-changing value of hope and optimism. For anyone to call me toxic because of that has so far felt hurtful and, ironically, umm, toxic? haha… A simple reminder shifted my perspective even on this: Denying anyone the space to fully experience their emotions, whatever they are, dehumanizes them.

OUCH. I would never consciously dehumanize another person, not even in an effort to help them. This was such a valuable redirection for me. Since reading this, I have noticed something beautiful. I am giving fewer pep talks to rescue people from sadness or despair, and I am spending much more time in private prayer. I ask for more miracles on their behalf but offer fewer bright sides and silver linings to gaze at. (Maybe I just offer encouragement to keep going.)

Many of those prayers are already being answered, and I know more answers are coming. I get to witness my loved ones enjoying not only better circumstances but also better outlooks, all on their own, without me possibly annoying them (or dehumanizing them) with the spiritual cheerleader bit.

Privately, of course, I am still free to maintain my own outlook and convictions. All by myself I know that life is good, that counting joys produces miracles, and that believing in Love means things tend to work out in our favor.

fog, lazy w, oklahoma, faith

Choosing to step back and allow others to feel their emotions fully and experience their days and perspectives means I get to do the same, whether anyone agrees with me or not. Seeing this also showed me that all along I may have had a grain of loneliness in my pep talks, something in my heart that needed someone “out there” to agree with me that things were going to be ok, in order to fully believe so myself. I guess that’s human. But now, it feels incredible to pray and believe in impossible things all by myself, with just that intense, private assurance that God is listening and acting behind the scenes. He has been all along. He has been showing me new and amazing power in my life story, and He is doing the same for my loved ones. Why would I deny anyone that beautiful adventure?

Advent 2021 post about LOVE

Advent 2021 post about JOY

A 2018 post about fractals

A different mustard seed parable than we grew up hearing

Count it All Joy

Witness Me

I want to be an encouragement but not a stumbling block, as they say. If you need me to pray and agree with you about a miracle you need, speak up. If you want a specific encouragement, let me know. Otherwise I will just be here, quietly knowing that things are going to work out. Probably in ways you have yet to imagine.

“Faith is the bird that feels the light
and sings when the dawn is still dark.”
~Rabindranath Tagore
XOXOXOXO

the mutual admiration society

The week before last was replete with special events. We finally gathered to celebrate Alex’s 29th birthday. I joined my friend Keri for an evening of sorority fun. We hosted the 6th annual Lazy W Talent Show, Thrift Store Prom style!! And one afternoon that week I drove to the city to attend the Public Utilities Division October team builder. I have great stories from each of these memorable events, but today I want to express some gratitude about the team builder. If my dad catches wind of this, he will chalk it up to an episode of the Mutual Admiration Society.

((with this cutie at the Jim Thorpe Building, Oct 2022))

When Handsome first told me we were both invited to this luncheon, I was excited to bear witness to what I thought would be the group’s loving sendoff to their fearless leader. In case you don’t know, back in May, BW accepted a new position at the Commish, which has gradually meant less and less time with the Public Utilities crew. It’s bittersweet. He has been there for so long, seen so much and been a part of so much history, made so many connections and started more than a few revolutions (my words, not his). He has had myriad opportunities to leave the Commish itself over the years, but it was never a real consideration. He has always felt there was more to do there, and he has been right. By taking this new job, though, he has better opportunity to do more of what he has been doing. Exactly the latitude and support to affect even more real change than before, and everyone is excited. Still, as bittersweet changes go, it means stepping away from the beloved fifth floor.

I am not exaggerating to say that the fifth floor is beloved. The people there in Public Utilities, the work everyone does, ongoing, storm after storm, crisis after crisis, almost always going unrecognized and unappreciated by the citizens and companies under their watchful protection, it all blows my mind. The Public Utilities Division is filled with some of the smartest, most motivated people in Oklahoma. A family of their own, too, in all the ways that a workplace can be a family. My husband loves them, as people and as a little community, an organism. And they love my husband.

I love them too, from a distance. I always relish hearing about the group’s accomplishments and culture shifts. I have been fascinated to see how the team builder tradition has evolved over the years. I admire how they have implemented so many strong policies that ensure the best possible work environment, transparency, cohesiveness, efficiency, you name it. They shine with both excellence and work-life balance.

It’s better than a James Clear newsletter, all respect to Atomic Habits. It’s even better than Adam Grant, and man that’s saying a lot. So I make them lots of cinnamon rolls and cookies to show my admiration.

The belated farewell to him is what I thought we were attending.

How humbling then, when as we sat down for lunch, after trading hugs and greetings with as many people as possible, that they surprised me and took so much time to pour their love out to me, personally. I was not expecting it. I was expecting a creative sendoff to BW, something akin to a retirement farewell, even though he is very much still in the building and involved in their culture. I was not expecting that personal show of Love.

They made me feel appreciated for supporting the man who has done so much for them, and they made that seem important. Valuable. They showed that the love I try to transmit to them has been felt along the way, which makes me so happy. These men and women are captivating to me, whether they know it or not. It’s also gratifying, I have to admit, to sense the far reaching effects of nourishing and supporting my husband so that he can perform well. His performance impacts so many people, and their outpouring connected us, included me in this beautiful fabric.

It all widened what can sometimes feel like a very small, isolated world here at the farm. And hearing from individual people I have been admiring and emulating in private ways just moved my heart. Lesia looked me straight in the eyes and convinced me that I belong to them, and I hope she knows how much I needed to hear that.

Thankfully the group did finally move on to honor BW, ha! I could allow the heat in my face to cool a bit. I could try to hold back tears for him instead of for myself.

What a gift to hear the full spectrum of ways he has impacted people’s lives and careers, their happiness at work, their sense of purpose and personal development. I know how much they mean to him, how invested he has been in them over the years, so it fed my heart mightily to see him honored. They all shared a beautiful euphony of how he has steered the division into a position of leadership and example for the agency at large. It’s good, very good, to have some home team pride, and this group has it. They deserve to be proud of themselves and where they are headed, collectively and individually.

When BW stood to speak to the group, the Love just continued to flow. I felt like we were at church. He mirrored every scrap of appreciation right back to them, and he pointed them straight and true to the future, to the next chapter. He reminded them that they are the ones making everything happen. I sat there beaming inwardly and having a crush on him with every word he spoke, knowing how earnestly he means what he says. Knowing how satisfied he always is by not just the hard work and brilliant results for which PUD is known, but also the culture of respect and appreciation they all foster.

It is a workplace, sure, and a government office at that; but Love reigns there. I felt it that day in overwhelming ways. Love streams through those complex relationships, the projects, the unprecedented challenges, the thrilling solutions. Love buoys them all and delivers them to shores beyond reasonable expectations. This is why I do not worry about the current storms or the unseen ones. Storms always pass, even the scariest ones. Love abides.

After the luncheon and several more hugs and precious conversations which I tucked away in my heart, BW took me around the building to see friends I had not seen in many years and to meet lots of new (to me) faces. The Commission is teeming with talent and passion, and those marble floors and art deco rooms have seen some amazing events. I felt deeply inspired by the end of our tour, and I appreciate my husband sharing so much with me that day.

I am sure looking forward to getting better acquainted with more people from all over the building. I am excited to bake for their meetings and hear their stories, to bear witness to their revolutions and wild, overcoming successes. A lot of glory is on the horizon for Oklahoma and the agencies that support her. How exciting to witness it all.

But Public Utilities will always have my heart. I hope they know that.

((a banner from our summertime PUD event at the farm, I keep it in the Apartment))

Signed,
With much gratitude and very real affection,
Former PUD Homeroom Mom
XOXO