Ready for Emme's adventures? Coming soon!
Little Country Girl
Little Country Girl
I loved living in the country as a young girl. Here I was, fresh from the city as a six year old and faced with ninety acres of pure bliss! A river to go fishing on and ice skating in the winter, golden fields of hay where I could dance with the grasshoppers and a big back porch where I could sing songs while I watched the fireflies drift in and out of the Tamarack trees. This new blog is going to be about my story! I hope you enjoy it as much as I will sharing it with you.
Emma and Rosie
I just love animals. I am sure for others out there that have little furry friends that they would quite agree. I have had such a many different kind of furry friends that I don't even know where to start. You see I used to live on a ninety acre farm on a river where we had every farm animal imaginable (well we just didn't have cows, but our next door neighbors had buffalo and ostrich!). I sometimes look back on those days as if it was a dream. I used to milk goats, fetch chicken eggs, breed bunnies, cuddle with dozens of kittens and run around in my Anne of Green Gables prairie dress (my Grandma made for me) all day long, singing Edelweiss and sweet little songs from church that I memorized and sang to the animals or while I rode my Spanish horse on the open field with daisies in my arms. Gosh those were the days.
One of my favorite memories was of Emma my baby lamb. You see, she and her twin sister Rosie were orphaned shortly after they were born. I remember driving with my mother deep into the woods over dirt roads early on a Saturday morning in 1991 to go and get her. I was so excited and this was our first introduction to livestock. I was seven years old and the idea of caring for a little helpless lamb who had lost her mommy was too much for me to handle. She needed me and little did I know I needed her too. So there we were with all of our supplies ready back at home. Rubber nipples, lamb starter formula, warm blankets, a little vintage clock to mimick the beating of her mothers heart and lots of fluffly hay. I was thrilled. Bumping along on the backroads to the next farm wasn't always my mother's favorite thing to do. It was a hair bit frightening, especially considering that she was all alone with three small children in the car (my sister Laura was four and Ashley was just a year) her husband was at work 45 minutes away and she had no backwoods/farmstyle self defense. Needless to say we managed to take the two little lambs and bundle them up in the car with us. Rosie on Laura's lap in the back seat with a googling baby and me in the front with little Emma on my lap, bleating her little heart out because she couldn't see her little sister in the back and she was getting panicky. Poor darling. I held her tight and cooed to her, telling her that I loved her and that nothing bad would happen to her. I was a mommy now and I loved caring for her. It seems that in an instant the little mothering instincts that every little girl has became alive for the first time in me and I loved it.
Bringing little Emma home was like a dream come true. Feeding her every four hours was another. I remember Mom having to wake me up in the middle of the night to go out and feed her. The minute she would hear the grating of the barn door opening I could hear her little cries for me. My sleepiness subsided quickly as I got into mothering mode. I would have her little bottle of warm formula ready and made in a plastic pop bottle and she would stand next to me sucking it, her little undocked tail wagging. She was the sweetest thing ever. Rosie on the other hand, loved playing around much more then eating and she would be bouncing on the floor at four o'clock in the morning and sucking on my little sisters earlobes, while she tried so hard to feed her. It was a crazy sight, all of us girls in our little nightgowns with braided hair. We were so in love with this new life and we lived it out to its fullest.
More on Emma and Rosie's story to be continued in another blog post.....
Emma and Rosie
I just love animals. I am sure for others out there that have little furry friends that they would quite agree. I have had such a many different kind of furry friends that I don't even know where to start. You see I used to live on a ninety acre farm on a river where we had every farm animal imaginable (well we just didn't have cows, but our next door neighbors had buffalo and ostrich!). I sometimes look back on those days as if it was a dream. I used to milk goats, fetch chicken eggs, breed bunnies, cuddle with dozens of kittens and run around in my Anne of Green Gables prairie dress (my Grandma made for me) all day long, singing Edelweiss and sweet little songs from church that I memorized and sang to the animals or while I rode my Spanish horse on the open field with daisies in my arms. Gosh those were the days.
One of my favorite memories was of Emma my baby lamb. You see, she and her twin sister Rosie were orphaned shortly after they were born. I remember driving with my mother deep into the woods over dirt roads early on a Saturday morning in 1991 to go and get her. I was so excited and this was our first introduction to livestock. I was seven years old and the idea of caring for a little helpless lamb who had lost her mommy was too much for me to handle. She needed me and little did I know I needed her too. So there we were with all of our supplies ready back at home. Rubber nipples, lamb starter formula, warm blankets, a little vintage clock to mimick the beating of her mothers heart and lots of fluffly hay. I was thrilled. Bumping along on the backroads to the next farm wasn't always my mother's favorite thing to do. It was a hair bit frightening, especially considering that she was all alone with three small children in the car (my sister Laura was four and Ashley was just a year) her husband was at work 45 minutes away and she had no backwoods/farmstyle self defense. Needless to say we managed to take the two little lambs and bundle them up in the car with us. Rosie on Laura's lap in the back seat with a googling baby and me in the front with little Emma on my lap, bleating her little heart out because she couldn't see her little sister in the back and she was getting panicky. Poor darling. I held her tight and cooed to her, telling her that I loved her and that nothing bad would happen to her. I was a mommy now and I loved caring for her. It seems that in an instant the little mothering instincts that every little girl has became alive for the first time in me and I loved it.
Bringing little Emma home was like a dream come true. Feeding her every four hours was another. I remember Mom having to wake me up in the middle of the night to go out and feed her. The minute she would hear the grating of the barn door opening I could hear her little cries for me. My sleepiness subsided quickly as I got into mothering mode. I would have her little bottle of warm formula ready and made in a plastic pop bottle and she would stand next to me sucking it, her little undocked tail wagging. She was the sweetest thing ever. Rosie on the other hand, loved playing around much more then eating and she would be bouncing on the floor at four o'clock in the morning and sucking on my little sisters earlobes, while she tried so hard to feed her. It was a crazy sight, all of us girls in our little nightgowns with braided hair. We were so in love with this new life and we lived it out to its fullest.
More on Emma and Rosie's story to be continued in another blog post.....
