Cheshire Farm Grows

She's here!

Buttercup Luck.

Zoe's Make A Wish dream has come true.

Something she's wanted since she was about 3 years old.

Something large that poops a lot and is much more complicated to take care of than a cat, goat or human child!

Yowzers.  

Charlie and Frances, along with their nephew Sam, brought Zoe her pony.  The pony was given to Sam when he was nine years old.  He's now a freshman in high school.  Too busy for a pony.  We are lucky that Charlie and Frances live 10 minutes away from us.  They have already been over once to give us some pointers and to see how things are going.  They are great people.  Frances told us that, as of yesterday,  Charlie hadn't stopped crying.  He misses his sweet pony.  Charlie is retired and takes care of all of their horses at their ranch.  He's good people. 

Check out this awesome saddle that Zoe got.  It's the saddle that fits Buttercup Luck and has been used with her for many years.  It's so silvery and sassy and I just love it.  It's a western saddle.  Zoe's a cowgirl through and through.  None of that "proper English riding" stuff over here. 

Zoe has been getting up at the butt crack of dawn to get out to the barn. 
Butt crack.
Today it was 4am.
Really? 
She came into my room and said that there was a cricket in her closet and she was scared.  I asked if it was chirping loudly and that's why she was scared and she said no. 
She climbed into bed next to me and it was then that I noticed she was wearing jeans and a long sleeved western shirt. 
She only stayed for a minute, then went back to her bed. 
At 6am she came bounding back in to our room with her cowgirl hat on, her boots and belt on and she was ready to go. 
Wow...

Buttercup Luck has been adjusting okay.  She paws at the ground a lot and paces in her stall.  She's not used to being in a pasture all day so we have to wean her onto it.  Frances said she will literally eat herself to death if we don't do it gradually.  When she is out she can tend to scarf the grass down instead of doing the nibbling thing.  She's just excited.   

She's used to living with other horses.  It's going to take some time for her to get used to being with goats and cats.  She wants to see the goats.  She's trying to figure them out.  They are terrified of her.  They are only 5 months old.  They have never seen a horse.  They must think that she's some sort of giant mutant goat and they are boggled.   

Yesterday Tulip the goat decided she had enough of the horse.  Shortly after I took this picture I went back into the house.  I was looking out of the kitchen window and saw Tulip jump over the fence.  Only she didn't make it.  Instead she was hanging upside down by one foot and screaming.  I did my best Jackie Joyner-Kersee moves and sprinted across the yard to her.  She seems okay.  The goat vet thinks it was just sprained.  She's walking around on it more today.  My dad says a limping goat can be a good thing...takes a bit of her "jump" out of her for awhile.     

Day two seems to be going a bit more smoothly...knocking on wood.
I'll keep you updated.
I'm exhausted and need some more coffee. 

Wishes

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you

Song lyrics by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington
For Walt Disney's Pinocchio, 1940

Two Cats

In the wold of catdom, there are two classes...

The older, wiser cat who basks in a ray of

sunshine found at the back door and

is content to lay there all day.  Purring all the while.

Tiger

And the kitten who doesn't know any better

and is just as content and happy

swinging in a swing in the backyard with his girl.

He would do anything she wanted. And he does.  While purring. 

Jumper and Zoe

Collecting

Collecting things runs in my family.  My grandmother whose house I now live in used to collect toothpick holders.  We still have quite a few here in her old buffet that is in our dining room.  She traveled quite extensively and picked up items as she went along.     

My dad collects LPs and old 45 records.  He goes to record shows and has amassed quite a collection.  

My mom collects cook books.  Only new ones though.  She also collects recipes.  It's bordering more on an obsession than a collection, though.    

Zoe and I are the collectors at our house.  

Chad starts out strong on a topic...movies, fossils, old farming tools...but then the fascination dies out for some reason.  

He's a fizzler and a poo-pooer.

Zoe and I are going strong, though.

I collect all things Alice in Wonderland.  I did a book report in 8th grade on Lewis Carroll and became fixated. 

I currently have books, figurines and a great bag. 

My fascination with the story of Alice was the inspiration for the name of our farm. 

Cheshire Cat/Cheshire Farm.

 

Zoe's currently fascinated with bones, snow globes and flattened pennies. 

It's quite a combination. 

She finds the bones in our yard or the surrounding woods.  She has quite a few skulls and various jaw bones, femurs, teeth.

Once we had an entire deer carcass in our back yard, but the coyotes dragged it all away before she could snag the skull once the decay process was complete.  

I like to think of her as a budding anthropologist/zoologist.  

Zoe and I started a feather collection many years ago.  We find feathers in our yard, at the zoo, any and everywhere.  Gigi helps us with this now.  We are getting her in the groove of collections.     

Dry Fields and Cute Sweaters

It's dry.

I don't think it's rained more than a sprinkle at our house since June. 

The back pasture plus the front and side yards are showing it. 

Poor grass. 

Brown and crunchy.

The goats pick out the green stuff poking through.

Spring brings the best stuff, soft and green and full of nutrients. 

By August it's had it. 

Just had it. 

Since it looks like fall out my window with the brown grass and the leaves of the walnut trees falling off already, I'm making a pot pie for dinner.  I don't care if it's 90 degrees outside.

Dry.

My hair is dry.

My skin is dry.

My bank account is dry.

Which leads to my current quandary...my dry wardrobe.

Like a lot of moms who always buy stuff for the kids first, themselves second, my wardrobe is in dire straights right now. 

I have 3 shirts that I wear all of the time. 

I try not to go out in public too much. 

I am in dire need of new pants. 

Some jeans and maybe a pair of grown up dark gray khakis would be nice...can you tell I've been thinking about this a lot? 

Bras.

I need new bras stat.

You don't even want to know about the state of my current bras.

I'm ashamed.

     

I have upped my shoe wardrobe a bit.  I have these cute suede wedge heels that I bought last year and I'm ready to start wearing them again.  But I need some new sassy flats.  Bought somewhere other than Target, please.  

I prefer fall and winter wear to warm weather clothing.  The more covered up I can be the better!  I adore sweaters that I can wrap myself up in.   

Isn't this cute?!

Oh well, like I said...it's dry.

At least the pot pie was moist.

My eyes as well as I keep looking at this sweater.

It's really, really cute.



First Day

The first day of school is both exciting and scary.  Zoe has always been a nervous girl.  The first day of school brings on anxiety, but once she's there she's golden.  This year brings on new anxieties for her.  Will she be able to stay the whole year?  Will she miss days and miss important school events?  We are going in with a positive spin and hope that she will get to finally enjoy a full school year.  There will be days when she will be absent because of chemo.  But she's like a rubber ball, bouncing right back.  Last year our lives changed forever 19 days after the "first day of school" picture was taken.  This year we are going in with a new sense of determination...a fight to stay healthy despite the odds and a fight for her to be just another one of the kids at Meridian Primary. 

You go girl! 

Remembering...

As our family has grown and we have faced turmoil and sickness,

it reminds me of those that came before us. 

My grandparents in particular. 

Of the trials that they had to face. 

That they had to overcome. 

My paternal grandmother Dorothy lost her spouse

in World War 2 and had to face each new day without him,

but with a determination to keep on living. 

She found my grandfather Vern eventually

and he brought a new joy to her life. 

Gave her a son.

 But she never forgot her first husband Harry. 

We still lay a flower on his grave every Memorial Day.

Just as she did.      

A life that had to be lived through the Great Depression. 

When they had to live without essentials,

 but they all got through it and still kept on smiling. 

We live in the home that this picture shows.  

We love to sit on this same porch and make new memories.  

  

My maternal grandmother Amelia Louise became

pen pals with a soldier in the Army. 

She became engaged to Grady Ray the

first time they saw one another.

Right before he left for the war.  

They would later have 5 children. 

They never had alot of money.

Times were tough for them.

Especially when grandma lost the fingers of her

left hand in a factory accident.

But she kept on going. She had to.

She had children to raise and laughter to create.

They always had a joke to tell and a hug to give

and I thank them for that.  

Times can be tough for us sometimes with Zoe and cancer. 

But her grandparents are the epitome of those that came before them. 

They are resilient and happy.      

Ready to create new memories with a new generation

even through the tough times.

Genius...

Sleep.

Everyone does it.

Everyone need it to survive.

Irrational behavior rears it's ugly head if you don't have enough of it.

Hallucinations and agonizing screams take over.

It's an essential part of the human body and it's many function.

Gigi hates to sleep.

Never has liked to do it.

Never likes to take in a quick nippy nap.

If there's one thing that Chad and I completely agree on in terms of our "bad parenting skills", it's our inability to get the girls into a proper sleep/nap groove.  We never insisted on a regular nap schedule for them.  If they got tired, they took a nap.  Wherever that may be...at the movie theater (thus missing the best part of Harry Potter when Dumbledore dies!), the hardware store, out to dinner (usually driving to the restaurant and then sleeping through the meal while laying prone on the booth seat), at Disney World.  

I have friends who don't do things during the day because the kids are sleeping...FOR 3 HOURS!

How do you do this?!

Alas, my girls seem to be handling things very well.  Zoe is super smart so I guess her brain gets charged at night sufficiently...(she's always been a good sleeper, getting up to 10-11 hours at night.)  

Gigi also has a big brain, even though she doesn't use it to her benefit yet...grrrrr. 

It seems that Gigi has bigger plans on her mind instead of sleeping. 

She likes to build things and has a knack for aerodynamic flight.

Maybe we have a genius in the making...

Kids Galore!

School starts in 10 days.

Summer is just about over.

The girls saw a lot of friends during

the dogs days of the summer solstice.

Let's see, there were...

The Libertyville Lounsburys

The Louisiana Cavins

The Phillips Kinfolk of Bethany 

The Argenta Munstermans

The Wons and Fischbachs of Evanston

The O'Malleys of Omaha

The Nelson boys from Fort Worth

The Maryland Floyds

and

The Texas Taylors

It seems as if we traveled far and wide this summer.

But we didn't.

A lot of our wonderful friends and family

hopped, skipped, and jumped over

to our house this summer.

The rest we saw in Chicago.

It's great to see my kids playing with the

offspring of my dearest and oldest friends.

Makes my heart go all a'flutter.

Daniel Day-Lewis and Ziploc Bags...

Some of the things that make me, me...also known as my quirks and secrets...

- I put my compact discs (yes, I still have a lot) in ziploc bags.  The cases are all in the basement in a large rubbermaid tote.  I have CDs in the car, but those are mostly in cases.  When I want to hear something I just peek through my ziploc pile and make my selection.  I recently bought one of those docks for my iPhone.  I have a few tunes on my iTunes account and I listen to Pandora.  It's ok.  I mostly use the dock when I'm in the pool.  I'm trying to get into the 21st century.

-I also have to write everything down on paper.  I try to get all activities and appointments onto a calendar that hangs on the wall in the dining room. If it's not on the calendar, it doesn't exist.  I must walk by and look at it a hundred times a day.  By constantly looking at it my brain gets bombarded by the activities on it and it becomes a sort of walk-by osmosis to my brain.  

-I could drink milk everyday, all day long.  My bones must be super-calciumed.  If I get a bone scan when I'm in my sixties and I don't have perfect bones, I'm gonna be red-hot mad!

-I could also eat pizza or pasta everyday of my life.  I'm not even Italian.

-I love love love English Period piece movies.  Think "Pride or Prejudice", "Emma", "Remains of the Day".  Swoon.  I don't know if it's the outfits or accents or what, but I just adore them.  I don't think I would like to live during the time of most of those films, though.  I also adore showers, Starbucks, and my iPhone. 

-Speaking of English Period piece movies...I also LOVE Daniel Day-Lewis.  Not just in those before mentioned types of movies,but in really everything he does.  I have never seen an actor totally transform himself into his characters as he does.  When he speaks at award ceremonies, he appears to be the nicest guy.  So humble and quiet.  From Daniel Plainview in "There Will Be Blood" to Cecil in "A Room With a View" to Jack in "The Ballad of Jack and Rose", I heart him and his authenticity.    

-My house has the world's filthiest windows.

Okay, maybe not the world, but they are darn dirty and I don't really care.

-The TV shows that I watch are as follows...

I Shouldn't Be Alive

Antiques Roadshow

The Real Housewives of NYC; not any of those other crazy ladies in other cities!  Geesh!

Project Runway

Top Chef 

Teen Mom; I don't know why, but i do.

Max and Ruby

Phineas and Ferb

quite a mix, huh?!  As is my life. 

Up and At 'Em...

I now live on "farmer hours."

Well, a modified version really.

I think true farmers are up at 5am or earlier.

I am more of a 6-6:15am farmer.

Up to see the low lying haze on the pasture and wooded outcrops.

Up to see the dew on the grass.

To dodge invisible cob webs that seem to string themselves right in the walking paths to the barn...ugh.

I don't dodge well. 

Up to feed the goats and kittens.

To open the barn doors so that they may go out and romp and graze.

To climb trees and tumble in the dirt as they show one another who's boss.

Goats head butting and kittens prowling. It's a wonderful way to wake up each day.

The girls wander out around 7am to see what's going on. 

To kiss the kittens and scratch Tulip and Yogurt between the ears.  

Then mom can go in and have her coffee... 

The heat is a bit unbearable. I can't imagine what it's like

having a fur coat on during this oven-like weather we are having.

This morning there was a nice breeze. It made the goats a bit more giddy, I think.

They were running and bounding and head butting away.

I am highly anticipating the Fall weather that will be coming.

I hope we don't have an Indian Summer. I'm ready for coolness. As is most of this country.

The farm animals are too, I suppose.

Now, if that darn pony would just get here.

Then our barn would be full.

Content and full.

Finally...

Chicago:

(she ka go)

Place of the Onion,
From the wild onions growing there.
City and port in NE IL on Lake Michigan.
Place of alleys and front stoops.
Ringing loud with the wonder and laughs of children,
of friends...