Lazy W Marie

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

You are here: Home / Archives for love

BW, part 1: if looks could kill he would be an uzi

(Part One of Three, continuing with The People Who Loved Him Into Being and Paradigm Shifts & Looking Forward)

Brandy Loyd Wreath, 46 years old, Choctaw, OK:

Handsome behind the wheel on a country drive…xoxo

Born and bred Oklahoman, youngest son in the blended family of a Pastor-Police Chief and Juvenile Officer, also church preacher and organist, descendant of Land Run farmer and ranchers, small town entrepreneurs, church founders and conservative local politicians and campaign workers, Brandy is a fascinating and ever evolving portrait of both deeply rooted heritage and modern cowboy self determination. It’s a rare and beautiful, very Oklahoman combination of qualities. He loves fiercely, works himself to the bone, and never stops dreaming for the future. Please enjoy a distilled version of our long and meandering conversation!

What kind of potato chip would you be? “Cool Ranch Doritos, because, “I am cool and live on a ranch.”

Does 46 years old feel anything like how you thought it would? “Sometimes, but no, it’s much better. I thought it would be boring and we would eat at Applebee’s every day at four. While I have nothing against a 4 pm dinnertime, life is not boring.”

What are your love languages? “Things and gifts, as much as I hate to admit it, especially toys. Also food and a specific love language not fit for public sharing.” (The not-fit for-public-sharing asterisk occurred several times in our Q&A.) Brandy also appreciates words of appreciation, more than he likes to admit. He just likes to know his efforts are not in vain, and I don’t blame him. It is in his nature to want to make a difference.

In 46 years you have already witnessed a stunning array of history being made in real time (as he sat for this interview in our living room, every headline was about Russia invading Ukraine.) What comes to mind, what made deep impressions on you? He quickly rattled off memories about the Capitol riots last year, the space shuttle Challenger explosion (one of his grade school teachers had been named as an alternate to Christa McAuliffe), Desert Storm, the Murrah Building bombing (this was particularly pivotal in his life, as both of his parents served as first responders and continued serving for weeks after April 19, 1995), September 11, and more. He said solemnly, “All these bad things kind of stick out as chapter markers, they say our innocence has changed.” Then he added, “But the Berlin Wall coming down, The European Union, those were good.” I love to watch his countenance shift as he carefully guides his own perspective.

Brandy breezed through his public school education in Moore, Oklahoma, where he enjoyed myriad sports as well as band instruction in junior high. By high school he chose to pursue more business and professional classes instead of music, but he continued playing trumpet for church and still today has an easy time picking through new songs on our piano. He just has an ear for melody. He can actually play all the brass instruments, plus drums, but he does regret not taking his mom’s offer to learn piano more seriously, as well as his grandpa’s offer to learn guitar. When he remembers them both, his voice drips with affection.

Brandy’s present career is in government with the utilities industry. He serves as Director of Public Utilities at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, but he provides more support to the agency and the people there than his title can possibly convey (those are my words, not his). He cares deeply about the agency and industry as an interconnected organism, and he has a talent for developing talent. This and more shine through in his long-cultivated professional relationships as well as in his team’s results year after year, crisis after crisis (again, my words, not his).

Does your career reflect what you thought you would be doing at this point in life? Is this what you wanted to be when you grew up? He laughed, “Not at all. Not in any way, shape or form.” As a little boy, Brandy wanted to be a race car driver and a banker. He got to be a banker already, which he said was horrible. So far he has not been a race car driver… legally.

This Commish job is nothing like what little red headed Brandy from Moore, OK, dreamed of doing. And yet here he is, excelling and building his division in ways that only surprise people who don’t know him. His knack for managing people as full spectrum human beings, not just resumes, makes him effective, not to mention his deep concern for fairness and transparency. (These are my words again. He will groan when he sees this.)

How did your education prepare you for what you do now? “My education? I don’t really think it did. I think that what prepared me for what I do was the way I was raised.” He spoke so gently of his upbringing, it conjured in my mind dozens of little boy photos and stories I have heard so many times over the years.

He became animated, almost defensive, definitely proud: “Being born into service and politics and respecting government. You know, I wasn’t raised in a house that complained about government all the time. I was raised in a house that appreciated the sacrifice. I was raised in a house that acknowledged people were doing the same for less money, or for no appreciation. I was raised in a house that, someone ran for public office and I saw what people did, even back then, how they were treated just for trying to serve. I was raised understanding that people are just really ungrateful, but that someone’s got to do it. So I think that it’s helped me in my role, to be able to endure that. Because I was raised with people treating government that way. Even 30, 40 years ago, people treated government this way. It may not have been on social media, but people said it everywhere you went. I remember hearing comments when Dad was Mayor. As a little kid. I remember comments at coffee shops.” 

Brandy illustrated his Dad’s triple-threat career of being Councilman and Mayor of Moore, running an auto body shop in Moore, and also maintaining law enforcement hours as Chief of Police in Hallpark, all with a bonus side of helping to found a church. Brandy’s admiration for Harvey is always palpable. But he describes it all as service. “It angered me as a kid, long before I was in government. I know that gave me an appreciation that we’re there for more than money.”

Brandy also believes that government work is a privilege. “It may not get you rich, but it takes a calling.” He likes to include in the concept of public heroes those people who “sacrifice their amazing skill sets to try to make the world better.” He selects his employees based on a willingness to make meaningful contributions, rather than people obviously seeking an ego-boosting job or immense wealth. He seeks after people seeking to make a difference. He offered this about his management experience over the years: “I’ve had hundreds of employees (with a) background (not) great for this job. I think the way I was raised made me appreciate (this job) more.”

To be clear, his college education did weigh heavily in math, science, business, and ethics; and his years in banking gave him experience and licensure in the stock market. He certainly acknowledges that practical foundation. But what drives him and keeps his momentum strong is how his values were formed, by his upbringing.

I asked him what might be next in his career. His answer was so honest, so calming and satisfying, that it made me hope everyone can find a path in life where they can work so steadily, and with such satisfaction: “I honestly don’t want to do anything different; I just want to do this better. I like what I do. I want to appreciate it more. I want to find ways to get more people to appreciate it. That’s when I will feel successful. When there aren’t people complaining about things they should be saying thank you for. You know, that would be a great day. So there’s still plenty to do now before I worry about what’s next frankly. ”

I had already planned to ask him about how he might advice young adults just starting their careers, or high school and college students planning a brand new path. His answers about his own path were deeper than I expected. He provided more than a scholastic guidance counselor might, and I was equally delighted when I finally asked: What advice would you give to high school or college students, or to any young adult planning their career path? He broke down a bit, seemingly lost again in some nostalgia. “Take more time learning from the people that are around you. The classroom is great. I would not detract from the great teachers or professors I had. I mean they were incredible, and they taught me a lot. But the real education I got was from the people right there, all day, every day. The amazing things that I saw my parents doing and involved in that I took for granted as a kid. Maybe I was lucky.”

He gathered his emotions and continued, “Find people in your life. See the amazing people around you. Start having some wonder about the people who are right there. Look to those people and learn from them. College is great, but that is not what’s gonna make you different.”

Describe your ideal day off in winter: “Comfy clothes, whatever food I want on tap, TV, a cuddle, pet my dog. It’s a little gray outside instead of fake sunshine that tricks my mind into wanting to do something productive or be out and about.” We talked about how he wants nothing to be broken or in need of repair or construction, how he wants the office to leave him alone, and how he hopes nobody needs him for that day. His body relaxed into the leather couch as he affirmed these requirements.

Describe your ideal day off in summer: “Sunshine, swimming pool, bikini (he quickly clarified that the bikini is for me, not him), a steak, and then air conditioning to come inside to at night. And again work not needing me, no one else needing me, also definitely nothing broken.”

What recharges you, what restores you to feeling like yourself when you are depleted? “Easy answer? Laughter. True recharge is just to enjoy, be happy.”

For all his math-mindedness, Brandy has one of the richest artistic streaks I have ever seen, and he creates and solves problems prolifically, with bendiness and inventiveness. I asked him to distinguish between art and creativity: “Creativity to me is something that just feels good to do. Like I feel I’m creative, but to me art is something other people can enjoy, which does not feel like my bag,” he laughed that off. He asserted that art “is done for other people to enjoy,” whether it’s music, the spoken word, paintings. “That’s how I see it anyway.”

I asked him about favorite styles of art, and his answer was quick: “Probably most powerful is music.” He comes by this honestly. His mom, Judy Wreath, was a talented musician who raised him on all things piano and organ, Elvis and Beethoven, and she encouraged him to practice his own music, in church and beyond. “But I love almost all of it. Can’t think of any art I don’t enjoy.” His favorite music? “It’s impossible. I love all music. Just depends on the mood. Classical, country, rock, rap. Honestly there are days that it’s all the favorite, depending on the mood, the activity.”

What are some of your favorite personal creative projects? He quickly nominated the newly constructed Batmobile as his favorite. “It’s not traditional but a lot of heart and art got put into it.” He also loves his simple welded green Dino, something he had always wanted but couldn’t afford from Sinclair, and he is still planning to add more to it. He mentioned the colorful skull mural on our big barn. Brandy also greatly enjoyed designing and building all of our wooden easels for Outreach painting nights. He said that project was maybe more fun than the painting event itself. “Doing things to prepare for fun ends up being a big part of the fun.” Probably still in its infancy of usefulness is the yurt, another favored Pandemic build.  One day we added huge lettering to the canvas roof, words like “healing” and “you are loved.” They are big enough that maybe Mediflight helicopters flying over could see them. Knowing the words are there for strangers is a precious feeling.  

Which was your favorite Star Trek Series? (We have over the past few years worked our way through each of the spinoffs in storyline order, as opposed to production order.)  He said, “Probably Enterprise, because it was innocent, and while they had technology, they weren’t fully dependent on it yet. They had to be problem solvers. And I really liked the captain, Archer. Kinda cowboy, kinda just get it done attitude. Not a womanizer like Kirk, not pretentious like Picard, he just wanted to get things done. He took care of his people.”

Ok but why do you always root for the villain in a movie or television show? His answer was shockingly thorough and worthy of an entire college class on either obvious psychology or anarchy; it’s often hard for me to know the difference. He listed as his irrefutable criteria for favoring the Bad Guy, four common traits of the best characters: 1) Villains tend to live more genuinely, being unapologetic about what they want. 2) Villains do not behave in polite, inefficient ways. 3) Villains usually dress cooler, specifically wearing lots more black. And, 4) Villains have better cars.

My husband went on to provide a litany of supporting stories as evidence. “Skeletor was always laughing and having fun, and I mean Jedis were wearing bathrobes, so…” His shrug and unblinking expression dared me to pull apart his answer. I chose to let it sit but circled back to it later, when we discussed The Walking Dead. We also circled back to cars.

What would you think if someone saw you as the villain in a story? He shrugged again and smirked, “Oh well! I must be being very efficient!” We both laughed, him confidently and me a bit nervously. I shuffled my papers before moving on.

“The Law of Attraction’s Not Real, Babe.
Mitt Romney Wanted to be President Real Bad.”
XOXOXOXO
~Brandy Wreath, innocent dreamer
and shameless pragmatist

Check back throughout the coming days for parts 2 and 3.

a close call with Dusty and a story about the leaf blower guy

The other day we had a scare with one of our horses, Dusty, the squatty, deep voiced grey and white cutie pie who has grown up with our girls. He is fine now, everything turned out great, but it was a tense and scary few hours.

Dusty in his younger, slimmer, fashion model days xoxo

In the middle of a hectic morning at work, my husband rushed home to help, and after an hour or so of watching and evaluating, we felt comfortable enough with Dusty’s progress to drive up the road to Tractor Supply Co for electrolytes and probiotic chews.

Tuesday was a warm and bright, violently windy day. The weather was beginning to turn, with both straight-line gusts and the twirling, circular kind of wind that creates sudden little leaf-and-stick tornadoes.

As we drove the few miles north, we passed a man tending his lawn with a leaf blower. In Oklahoma. On a wind advisory day.

He was really bundled up, as if the temperatures were actually about thirty degrees colder. He was wearing a thermal hat and massive gloves and jeans and boots, plus a substantial brown canvas coat, no doubt thickly insulated. I registered all of this plus his solemn expression. Then I marveled at the tedious attention he was paying to his leaf blower chore.

The dried oak leaves flew slightly away from his mechanical dismissal then spiraled back on him, then scattered sideways, then blew ahead of him in short, straight bursts, then flew wildly again, caught in another random gust. They flew up and away and directly over his hat. He was in the middle of a late winter ticker tape parade, like a cash tornado for people who believe that decomposing organic matter is black gold (these people are correct).

He was making exactly zero progress, but still he gripped that power tool with an air of focus and calm determination. He remained bent over his incomprehensible task. He walked slowly across the curved concrete driveway, pointing himself and his apparatus at each next area of chaos, and he never looked up or ahead of his immediate steps.

I have so many questions for him.

Maybe he was commanded by a spouse or an employer to do this job, regardless of weather, and dared not argue.

Maybe he recently received this leaf blower as a gift and thought a windy day would make for a fun maiden voyage.

Maybe he was in shock from some catastrophic family news and needed a rote, mind numbing activity to distract him, to help him gather his strength.

Maybe he was in covid-19 quarantine and needed to be outdoors for his mental health but couldn’t allow himself to just sit still.

Maybe he was an environmental scientist studying wind shears, but on, like, a really small scale.

Maybe he was a gardener desperate for some kind of gardening activity but couldn’t find his shovel.

Did he think he was helping something, serving some purpose? Was he having fun? Was that even his house, his leaf blower, his heavy coat? Maybe he was a shape shifter or an alien invader occupying Choctaw, Oklahoma, mimicking human behavior without really understanding the hilarity of the situation. (Forgive me, we have been watching lots of vintage X-Files.)

We drove past this man in the briefest moment, but he made such in impression on me. After we purchased the horse medicine at TSC and drove back south toward the farm, I looked for him. He was gone by then, but the leaves on his property (or on the property where the aliens had recently landed or where he is being held captive by a weird, mind-games playing taskmaster) were still swirling and thrusting against nothing with wild energy.

Maybe I had imagined him, except that I think my husband had seen him, too.

May be an image of 1 person, horse, nature and grass
We are so very thankful this boy is healthy and happy again!

Dusty continued to make progress all day, eventually acting exactly like his normal sweet, spicy self, eager to rejoin the bachelor herd and eat a late breakfast. I gave thanks constantly (gosh I love this horse) and thought too much about the things we do for animals, the care we try to provide, the good habits we try to maintain, the love we try to show. I thought about the prayers we whisper urgently when none of that seems to add up to enough.

I marveled at how little control we have over some things.

About as much control as the leaf blower guy.

XOXOXOXO

little lady marigold xoxo

Little Lady Marigold is the precious, diminutive, wild sheep I have always wanted. She is opinionated, lucid, brave, and full of energy.

She got her fancy name by two strokes of beautiful timing. First, I asked Handsome and Jessica separately for name ideas, and within an hour of each other they both texted, “Little Lady.” Then I added “Marigold” because the day she arrived here at our farm was the first day my French marigolds bloomed that spring. So she became Little Lady Marigold, LLM for short.

Little Lady Marigold is a Shetland sheep, diminutive in stature but bold in spirit. Her fleece is mostly white or white adjacent, dirty after many months of growing free and wild, and her face and legs are coal black. Lovely. I cannot get enough of gazing into her domed eyes and slotted pupils.

LLM is lightning fast and agile, able to glide and bolt low and quick, in and around both trees and horse legs alike. She is skeptical and fussy and makes you earn her trust, which I respect. When Klaus is being just too much, she raises one of her stiffened front legs, tiny black hoof shining with anger, and bows her forehead as if to warn him of a good noggin ramming (which, in fact, she is very able to deliver). We call this warning the Stick Leg Treatment. It looks like a great, fluffy praying mantis preparing to do battle, and it almost always shoos Klaus and any other nearby animal, including her huge pasture mate Romulus the King of Llamas, right away. On the rare occasion that the Stick Leg Treatment does not work, she squares off, keeps that woolly head lowered, and charges forward in mean, fearless thrusts until her opponent is properly humiliated and retreats. No one has bested her yet, and she is the tiniest of all our animals, save the cats and chickens.

Nephews Greg and Connor wanted her way too much.
She can smell it. She eschews sincere desire.

Marigold was borderline feral when we first brought her here. It took many weeks of slow, quiet movements and cautious approaches to convince her to eat sweet grain out of my hands, and now she practically climbs my leg when I swing it over the gate to her enclosure. I love scruffing her pretty face and stroking her slender, knobby legs. Her hooves are unbelievably tiny! And that wool, you guys, oof!! It is voluminous and full of mystery (also sticks and dried leaves). If I have a lucky day and get to handle her enough, my hands feel oily and a bit slick from the lanolin. She is usually pretty content having the heaps of gray and white wool on her back scruffed. Or, perhaps this is the truth, there is so much there that she cannot always feel me scruffing her?

Speaking of that massive woolly burden, our Shetland sweetie is destined for a spring shearing this year, so I have begun desensitizing her to a halter, noisy with metal buckles, during hand feeding. I wear it on my wrist like a bracelet, making it necessary for her face to be almost up against it while she nibbles grain from my palm. Occasionally I jingle the buckle and flip the straps, so she gets used to seeing and hearing it while staying safe. She absolutely hates it, ha! But if this slow, steady process works, it will lead to her next level of elegance and domesticity and to my next life accomplishment. I’ll keep you posted.

Little Lady Marigold’s favorite song is Norwegian Wood by The Beatles, followed closely by Never Gonna Gove You Up by Rick Astlee, if I have just left the duck pond and chicken coop.  Soft songs. Easy words. Pretty things that cool her hot temper. She sleeps either beneath a wild cedar tree near the pond-facing hill or in her little shed. Also in the hay! Rather than calmly eat from the outer surface of a large hay bale, she burrows deeply in it, snoot forward, then naps in the tunnel she has eaten away. Upon waking she emerges with an ill balanced hay bonnet. I love this more than words can say. Which is another song she might like. I’ll try it.

Little Lady enjoyed a good, healthy, stress free week of winter here, for which we are so thankful. She is spicy and personable, and I just love her so much. If you ever visit the farm and want to meet her, don’t be shy! I’ll take you over and make the proper introductions. Just know that so far, my little sister Genevieve is the only other person who has successfully hand fed this animal. I think the secret is that Gen didn’t care that much. She lacked the stench of desperation most visitors emit, ha.

Okay that’s it for today! I just wanted to share some of my sheep love.

I hope you’re having a beautiful weekend filled with everything that refreshes your soul. Remember you are deeply and wildly loved, your potential is untapped, and your emotions and imagination have actual creative power in this world.

“Patience is passion tamed.”
~Lyman Abbott
XOXOXOXO

P.S. President Roosevelt also kept Shetland sheep, but one of his rams attacked several people and killed a small boy, so he had to relocate them all to Monticello. The End.

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

a happy, messy look back at 2021

Closing out the year 2021, I feel maybe more wide-eyed and open-hearted than ever in my life, which is wonderful. I also feel a bit weirded out by how quickly time has been passing. Lots of my friends feel this way, too, about the speeding clock, and theories abound about why this is happening. Whatever the reasons, our days and months seem to be gaining momentum. In the New Year, my remedy for this sensation will be to schedule in more free time, more protected white space for play and spontaneity, and more rest days that I can redeem however I need to at that time, trusting in my overall work product. Trusting that life can and should contain more wiggle room.

Looking back over the past twelve months, I am in awe of all the hard work and dazzled by all of the intense Love. I am deeply grateful for the relief sent our way, for the grace supplied to handle difficulties we have never handled before, and for the fresh inspiration. I feel a gorgeous weaving together of sincere effort and desire, and it is thrilling.

As last year began, we spent time with Handsome’s cousin, Shane, and his beautiful little family, while they were in Oklahoma to bury Shane’s dad, Wes. It was a profoundly sad time but a happy reunion too, and we were thankful everyone was healthy and safe enough to be together. During their stay, Oklahoma was blanketed by snow and the farm was without power for several days, so that was definitely a memory maker! We did our best to cling to New Year’s Eve traditions and have fun outdoors when possible, and we just covered each other in love.

During that visit, while cooking dinner for the group, I received a phone call from Jessica that changed everything. She and Alex had just decided to get married! The engagement was no surprise to us, but their timeline was: They set a date exactly two weeks from the date of that phone call, ha! So we were thrown immediately into some of the most joyful, also the most feverish, most love-drenched planning and farm beautification days ever. Jessica and Alex were the picture of young love and true, warm-hearted family love. They deserve the world. As I type this, these lovebirds are fast approaching their first anniversary!

Handsome and his team at the Public Utilities Division made history with their unrelenting work and fierce, talented attention during Oklahoma’s Polar Vortex and all of the precipitating (no pun intended) energy crises. It was a long, cold, challenging season for them, and I am so proud. He coined the saying, “We’ll keep them alive today so they can hate us tomorrow,” and my smart husband got to be on television press conferences with Oklahoma’s favorite ASL translator. Who remembers this guy?? He was amazing.

We celebrated Easter outdoors with our local family!! The tulips and daffodils were blooming, the sun emerged with extra early heat, and everyone brought their pups. I remember feeling hope for normalcy, something even bigger than the seasonal dose of excitement springtime delivers.

Eventually vaccines rolled out, and we were thankful to partake. Beyond thankful for our health and our family’s health, thankful for the preservation of life so far. We know intimately that not everyone has been so lucky.

Sometime during the warm months last year, I cannot remember exactly when, we finally met some longtime neighbors and struck up a new friendship. Rex and Cathy live down the road from us, and their German shepherd (Max) is a neighborhood celebrity. It was with the excuse that Max and Klaus become buddies that we started talking, and soon enough we all just clicked. It turns out that their (now grown) daughter grew up as best friends with the little girl who grew up here, in our house at the Lazy W (but long before it was the Lazy W, ha)! Rex and Cathy have quickly become two of our favorite people. A very happy development this year.

If I look back on the gardening year of 2021, I will remember mostly flowers. Lots of different lilies, hydrangeas, zinnias and marigolds of course, some sunflowers, shady beds full of soft impatiens, blooming sage, and even roses. Gosh so many roses! I will also remember the castor bean plants that my running friend Mike gifted us in the form of bizarre, prickly, sappy little seed pods. The plants are ultimately sky-scraping, elegant monsters. I will also remember the okra. Oh good grief, those plants produced three times per day all summer long! Okra and tomatoes were the bulk of our little farm’s food production this year. My focus was more on flowers, to make sure we had lots of bouquets for our vow renewal. It was a fun diversion, but I’ll get back to food in 2022.

2021 was the year that we almost lost Rick Astlee, the bully duck, thanks to an attack by Johnny Cash, the bully goose; but Rick convalesced in our bathtub for two weeks and survived to enjoy a happy summer with his guide duck, Mike Meyers Lemon. Klaus was enraptured, and we were relieved. It was also this year that our chickens enjoyed a free range experiment, which we will repeat after winter, once I have figured out how to protect my gardens better.

In spring, Lady Marigold celebrated her first year with us. She has grow daily into a bossy little hand-fed, spoiled rotten, circle-zooming miss fancy pants. We lubb her.

Our nieces and nephews insist on growing up. Chloe has her driver’s license? Connor is speaking Spanish??

Our own beautiful kids are healing and growing in their own ways, both with and without us, proving that we are only vessels or conduits for God’s Love, not the source. He is always the Source.

We learned so much about friendship and family and social evolution, about teamwork and thriving in harmony. Community has taken on new and deeper meaning, as I know many of you will agree.

We celebrated out twentieth wedding anniversary with an outdoor vow renewal, which was definitely postponed once and almost postponed twice, for monsoon-level rainstorms! We were surrounded by friends and family and could not have felt happier or more in love.

Not much travel this past year, despite having tried. Three good trips were all cancelled at the last minute due to covid outbreaks or upswings, but we barely pouted at all. It seems like life at home, on this farm, with each other, has become so nourishing and relaxing that we recharge just fine, right here. We did make one quick getaway to the Palo Duro Canyon area in the panhandle of Texas, which was absolutely enchanting. We enjoyed that quick visit so much, we intend to make a longer adventure of it soon. Rent a cabin, go for long hikes, pack our own groceries to cook, have some no-cell-service kind of romance. We love that it’s a Klaus-friendly trip.

All the hardscape improvements we made to the farm during the first year of pandemic have held up, and this year I think we mostly just added gravel. Lots and lots of gravel, ha! We also bought a zero-turn-radius riding lawn mower, which makes life so much easier. We also hosted the Master Gardeners for a second time at the end of summer, also nearly derailed by a freakish monsoon, but gosh that turned out to be a wonderful memory maker too.

The fifth annual Lazy W Talent Show was a huge success! We hosted it in October and called it “Fright Night,” and everyone brought the Halloween vibes! So much fun. That will go down in history for us.

Mom and Dad hosted Thanksgiving this year, and Gen was in town, wahoo! We were missing Jocelyn, Dante and Deaven, and Joe and Halee and their magical boys (stationed in Spain right now). But we ate their share of turkey and pecan pie and stayed fixed in gratitude for everything and everyone. I will remember Thanksgiving Week 2021 as one especially full of games and laughter, team efforts and shimmering affection for each other.

Christmas was overall the quietest holiday of the year, and honestly we needed it to be that way. It felt restful and intimate, and it gave us time to just soak up Jess and her beautiful little family, and we slept a lot that weekend. My heart has felt comforted and joyful, just as the carol offers.

I ran one speck less than 2,121 miles this year, which means absolutely nothing except that I stayed healthy and consistent, uninjured and very happy, and overall a bit stronger thanks to more regular gym days. I have actual running goals for 2022, wahoo!

Of course there have been heartaches, there always are, and there always will be. But I feel content. Well seasoned. I feel good despite the hard times, or maybe in part because of them. God has grown us so much this year.

Happy New Year, friends. I hope your pain is eased and your joy is rekindled. I hope your faith is stronger than ever. And I hope your dreams begin to come true right before your wide open eyes.

“Open yourself to every possibility,
for there is nothing your heart can imagine
that is not so.”
~This Tender Land,
William Kent Kreuger
XOXOXOXO