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Lost things.

Last night I went to our local high school's commencement. My son and daughter were both playing in the band and I went mainly because I didn't have enough gas to make the trip home and back but partly because I love hearing the band. And this is likely the last time I'll hear either one of them in the band because neither one of them will be in it next year. 

As I leaned against the fence listening to the English teacher announcing the names of the graduates, listening to the applause from the moms and dads and aunts and uncles and grandparents as the class of 2013 was officially graduated, my heart started to break a little bit.

I've always scorned those women who defined themselves by their children. But that was way back when I was juggling the responsibilities of a teenage daughter, a tween son, toddler twins and an infant son and I felt like I would never find me again.  I'll admit it freely, my life now revolves around my kids. I don't like it when I don't hear from my oldest daughter EVERY day at least once, I don't like it that my oldest son doesn't text me every day and when I ask him what he's been up to, he just says 'stuff'.  I don't like it when my three younger kids aren't home. 

My kids' graduations are not a joyous occasion for me.  When my oldest graduated, I thought I was dealing with postpartum depression from the birth of my youngest but when my next oldest graduated and I was in mourning for a week.......I realized that it was graduation and the marking of the end of their childhood, the end of our family as a 'team', that from then on, they could choose - or not- to include me in their day-to-day activities. 

So I started riding horses - lessons that I can't afford but I know that two years from now, when it is two of kids walking across the stage to receive their diplomas and enter the adult world, I had better have some kind of diversion. Something new and exciting to occupy my time.  Because it is true - you need to rock your babies 'cause babies don't keep.  They really don't. And neither do tweens or teenagers. 

Gossip.

Have you ever seen such beautiful blue eyes?

Grey kitty's sister....or brother....

Tipper, Max, and Tucker - solving the problems of the world.

 I love being home at my little farm.  Even when my mouth feels as if I had been hit with a sledgehammer.  I love hanging with my family, my animals, my trees and my plants. It sickens me when the world intrudes on my little corner of the universe. In the way of gossip.  I've never really understood the purpose of gossip.  It has no value to me.  To talk about someone just because it is interesting, I don't get it.  Why spend precious breath telling stories about someone who will only be hurt if they knew they were being discussed? Why share negative information about someone at all? Especially if you don't know that it is true?  I really hope I've taught my kids that humans were given the gift of language to do good.  Not to hurt. Not to entertain.

Sebastian taking a swim in the creek.

This world can be a really unfriendly place sometimes. When words get thrown with the intention to hurt, I am quick to scurry back to my farm. Where I am safe. And happy.

Nice surprise.

 One thing I miss about 8mm cameras are those rolls of film that you happen upon years after taking the pictures.  It's almost like visiting the past.  I remember a few years ago during a move, I found a couple of undeveloped rolls of film in a drawer.  There were pictures of my then 17 year old daughter as a 3 year old.  I've found pictures of my family that I had forgotten I had ever taken.  In places I don't remember visiting.  But now, with our digital cameras and the ease in which we can upload pictures nearly instantly, we don't experience that surprise.  If we don't download our pictures, they stay on the camera until the memory is full. And then we risk losing them all.

But.....I have a little camera and a big camera.  The big camera takes better pictures but it is just that, big.  I lost the cable that fits it and I haven't been able to upload my pictures.  So yesterday when my daughter opened up her birthday camera, I gave her the memory card from my big camera. We found many not-so-old, but forgotten pictures.

A nice picture of our little farm on a wintry morning. A picture of baby Cookie Dough less than 15 minutes old.  Pictures of a field of day lilies on one of my favorite running routes.  These pictures are less than a year old, but it was still fun to look at them.

 My daughter was very happy with her camera and after charging it up, off she went to take pictures and to experiment with the different settings.  I found out a couple more things about that girl:  she knows had to take good pictures and she loves trees and animals. Just like her grampa.

A weekend to remember.

Memorial Day weekend. Tons of thought-provoking links and pictures being liked and shared across Facebook. Memorial Day can be viewed as lots of things: the bookends of summer, a day to get together with family and friends, the first camping trip of the season or simply an extra day to sleep in.  To be honest, it was nice to know that I didn't really have to get up so early. And I didn't. Well.....I did get up, toss some hay in for the goats, bring Clover out of her barn, make sure the chickens were good with feed and fresh water and then made sure that all the dogs got their morning chance to get outside and sniff.  Then I went back in and sat on the couch.

Memorial day weekend is also the weekend in which planting is done and I planted 16 of my tomato plants as well as carrots and some nasturtium.   Today is also my youngest son's birthday so as promised, I drove to Dunkin Donuts and bought him some glazed donuts - which is really a labor of love because Dunkin Donuts is 17 miles away.

But the best, most important part of the weekend was the Memorial Day service held in a local cemetery.  For the second year, my youngest son played the drumrolls as the roll of local soldiers was called.  Thanks to the help of our pastor's wonderful wife, we were able to secure a snare drum and a stand.  But 30 minutes prior to the start of the service, we realized that we had no drumsticks.  And he couldn't find his good white shirt.  And one of the cats had pooped on his good black pants. And we needed gas in the car.  A trifecta of calamities.

But we made it to the service in time. With an old pair of black, wedgie-inducing pants, a relatively white T-shirt and two twigs to serve as drumsticks.  And it was a wonderful service. One of our state representatives spoke as did a Vietnam vet from our local legion and there was the 21-gun salute which always reduces me to tears.  And then finally, Taps.  The drumroll was magnificent and you would never guess the boy was using sticks that he had picked off the ground.

And as I stood toward the back of the crowd and listened to the speaker, I thought of all of the men and women throughout the ages who had fought for my country.  Many of them paid the ultimate sacrifice and ALL of them were ready to die for us.  I thought about how I felt when my oldest daughter was in Iraq and how at times, I was extremely angry that she had offered up herself.  Not angry with her, but angry that I couldn't bring her back home safe with me.  How many hundreds of thousands of mothers have felt the same way?

It seems as if the audiences for these types of ceremonies has grown thinner and thinner throughout the years.  And I wonder if there will come a time when only a few old-timers will attend and will remember our fallen service members.  I wonder if I'm one of the last of a dying breed who stands in a cemetery on breezy, sunny spring day looking over a field of graves with flags flying in the wind.  I hope not.  Because if we forget the past, how will we ever know the value of our freedom?

It's been a year.

 It has been a year since my dad left this earth.  To say it has been difficult would be an understatement.  To lose such a powerful force in my life.........well, it has been a hard year.  I'm still not better.  I still can't look at pictures, I still can't really think of him, I still can't cry.  I still have to hold my memories an arm's length away because I think if I get too close, they'll blow me away.  But I do think of him constantly. I feel him around me always.  I can't scratch an animal without thinking of my dad.  How much he loved dogs and cats and horses.  Just like my dad, my tendency with the camera is to take pictures of trees and flowers and plants.  I hear my dad in the whisper of the wind through the leaves of the trees.  I feel him around me anytime I'm out in the woods, which is often.

Because of him, I think I appreciate things a little more.  I realize that people who you love won't always be with you. That you better have fun while you can. That you better reach for your dreams while you are still able.

Today I am going to take some time off of work.  Rumor has it, that my dad always felt it was important to make time for a nap.  He was always telling me to take it easy, get more sleep.  So today, I am going to go visit the horses with apples for all and then go home, sit under the lilac tree, listen to the wind whistling though the trees and take a nap.  And think of dad.

A good day for hike.

 This was a great weekend! My oldest daughter and my only grandson came to visit! The weather was beautiful and we were able to enjoy a great weekend outside!  We woke up yesterday and set off to do a few geocaches.  I have to say that my oldest daughter is a geocacher aficionado. Or at least she was a few years ago. We all loved to geocached and ended up in some pretty interesting places as a result.  I'm not entirely sure why stopped doing it.  But that doesn't matter, the bug has bitten again.  It is always amazing to me that no matter how long you've lived somewhere, there is always someplace that you haven't visited.     For instance, one of the geocaches we did was in a local town.  A place I've been to countless times.  But the geocache took us to a part of the town we never would have seen - totally inaccessible by car.  The other geocache was relatively closeby but again, had we not been searching for the little cache, we never would have looked twice at this long ago cemetery and we certainly never would have noticed the mammoth tulip tree!

On the surface, geocaching probably seems like an odd activity to most: people looking for a little box - sometimes smaller than a matchbox.  But it is so much fun and combines so many things - hiking (you can do geocaches that take as much as energy and fortitude as a marathon), using your brain (sure, the gps guides you to the general direction of the cache but you have to use common sense and reasoning to locate it), and if you want, family time.  These things are so much fun to do with family members.

It is amazing the stuff you can talk about when you are traipsing through the woods or down a sidewalk or through a cemetery.  And the value of simply being with someone is priceless.  I feel as if I know my kids so much better after doing this type of thing.  I am so incredibly thankful that many of my kids like to geocache and to hike.  I've always hoped that I've passed along my love of nature to my kids and I think I have.