Ordinary Time

I made the realization today that it was seven years ago today that we signed the contract on this house. (You can read about that day on God's Provision .) It made me sit back a bit and appreciate how much has changed in the past seven years. It is also a little painful to read all my emotional roilings from that time. We were in the throws of possibly the biggest change in our married life and I was a mess. I knew I was a mess, but couldn't be anything else. There were too many unknowns and too much imminent loss which could not be counterbalanced by the vague hopes and dreams I had for what was to come.  Yet here we are, settled in a good place with friends and connections of many varieties in the community. There are even horses, five of them!, in the barn. In those first years I didn't think we would ever really feel comfortable here, then just as we thought we were finding our feet, Covid hit and we very much went nearly back to square one. It feels good to be on this...

Today was a gorgeous day and the first day where it felt comfortable enough to have teatime outside. Here was our view. Everything is starting to bud out and there is a light green haze beginning to cover all the trees and plants. I do love this part of spring.  But onto Lonesome Dove. After three months, we are now a little bit over halfway through. Yesterday we read chapters 57 and 58. They were brutal. In my looking to see if this was an appropriate book for high schoolers I never saw these chapters mentioned. Had I known they were coming up, I would have skipped them and given a synopsis. Of course that would have meant I had to read them beforehand, and really I would have preferred a synopsis as well. You would think someone would have mentioned them. We were caught completely by surprise. And not in a good way. Plus, I have never been so angry at an author for killing off characters that I liked. It was just traumatic all the way around. Today when we sat down to read, I sai...

The eclipse took over yesterday, so here we are discussing fiber on a Tuesday. And believe it or not, I have a couple of small things to share.  The first is that my long awaited heddle bars for my loom arrived.  They are very long, thin pieces of metal that hold the heddles (what the yarn is threaded through) on the shafts. Each shaft needs two, a top and a bottom. I have six shafts that needed them, so there are twelve heddle bars in that box.  It's going to be a process to get them on. The six shafts need to be removed from the loom (they're heavy), then the bars need to be installed. Once they are on, I have hundreds of heddles (~200 for each shaft) that need to be threaded on. Finally, the shafts need to be rehung. It doesn't sound like a quiche weekend project, so I'm anticipating the loom being out of commission for a couple of weeks. But once it's back together, I'll have twelve shafts to play with which I am very excited about. My painted warp scarf has...

Because, really, what else could today's post be about? We did do other things, such as learn about Renaissance music, did some math, had a business call, paid bills, and did the grocery shopping, but aside from that it was the eclipse. L. also spent part of the morning researching eclipse conspiracy theories for fun.  But after lunch we all headed outside to enjoy the beautiful weather and use our eclipse glasses. R. looked through her glasses, but I think she was pretty be baffled by the whole thing. Y. and K. H. understood something of what was happening. Our explanations about why the moon waxes and wanes were too good, though, because I couldn't convince her that she was seeing the actual moon and not a shadow. L. L.  For a treat to go along with the eclipse viewing, I bought ice cream cones. We also had Magpie and Mambo here because W. and MC drove down to the area of totality.  We were at 94% coverage, but even that wasn't quite enough to make it look that much dif...

I listen to a lot of Wondrium lectures while I clean the barn every morning. Every so often, I hear something that captures my interest. The trouble is that I don't always manage to hear the source that the interesting as something comes from.  This is certainly the case with the bit I'm going to share with you, but I think it is possible for it to stand in its own. I was listening to a course on managing and resolving conflict, paying marginal attention when I hear the lecturer say that for someone to be able to accept challenging feedback from another person, that 80% of the interactions with that person need to be positive. While this can be important in a work setting (the main audience for these series of lectures), I automatically jumped to how incredibly important this piece of information is in the parenting realm.  I know in some of our more challenging years of parenting that I did not come even close to 80% positive interactions. The reality was closer to its recipr...

This morning my friend and I headed out to collect Buddy the pony and bring him home. You always kind of expect the worst when loading a horse you don't know, so we tried to be realistic in our expectations. It turned out to be incredibly easy with Buddy being a very cooperative well behaved gentleman. Actually, that describes how the whole day has gone. I've never seen a new horse added to a herd with such little drama.  First a meeting over the fence. Actually, Major provided some drama. See the ears? That pretty much describes his opinion to begin with. Buddy seemed completely unruffled by the large horse trying to eat him. Then it was time to move him into the dry lot. Vienna had seemed very interested over the fence. This was within ten minutes of meeting. Vienna did set her boundaries initially catching Buddy in the side with a double barreled kick. Once again, he was undisturbed and just moved away.  They spent the day in the dry lot together and even ate the hay I put ...

Vienna continues to improve, though she could use a few more pounds on her frame which seems an odd sort of concern for a pony. Usually concern about a pony's weight goes the other way. But she is lonely, especially when the big horses are in the far pasture. She calls for them quite a bit. Getting her a small friend who can live in the dry lot with her had been the plan.  As I was discussing this with our farrier, she said she might know of a pony who would work and asked if she could pass along my name. A few days later I received a text about a pony and the next day J. and I went out to meet him. He seemed like a sweet guy who would be a good match both for Vienna and for being added to my EAL work. The only hitch in the plans was a place for the pony to live.  This is why J., my ever supportive husband spent two weekends rebuilding stalls. He extended Vienna's stall and then had to remove a wall to make one large one. It was a kind of a big project. J. is now very good at ...