{remembering paul bunyan}

on our farm we had the most beautiful white pines that i think have ever graced the face of the earth. one of them was so tall that i called him paul bunyan only because he was one of a very few left that survived the logging era of the iron range. he stood stately against every storm and often provided solace for a girl who sometimes felt misunderstood. i stumbled upon this picture today by alicia bock and their was so much familiarity in the image of what the late winter days were like on the farm that i just had to post it. having 90 acres to roam and adventure around could be sometimes a little scary if i took the wrong turn. but i could always see paul above everything else and i knew i was safe. in fact, the whole town could see paul from where he stood proudly in our back yard, skirting the white face river. funny how sometimes little things like that still bring happy sighs to your heart. i have more stories of paul and pictures to come in the near future. as soon as i get them scanned.
Photo Courtesy of Alicia Bock.

{ emma & 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 1998 to go and get her. i was so excited and this was our first introduction to livestock. i was eight 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 five and Ashley was two) 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.....

{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.

Do you need a hug?

There is nothing like feeling the comfort of being wrapped in someones arms. Sometimes you just need a little hug to get through the day. It doesn't have to be for any special reason but just because. Today, while checking up on my favorite blogs I stumbled on a post from Farmgirl Fare back in August of 2006. When I saw this sweet little nest it reminded me of one of my favorite Bible verses: "Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings." Psalms 63:7. When I lived on the farm as a little girl I would occasionally find nests that looked like this one. All decked out in the softest wool a mother bird could find and often times the resiliency of a few strands of our horses' mane. Whenever I found them it always reminded me of how undconditional that mother birds love was towards her babies. These nests were magnificently crafted and they were also lovely to look at. So today, if you need a hug, consider yourself tucked safely and warmly inside this little nest. It comforts me just looking at it and I hope it does for you too!

Life on the Farm and More...

I love vintage anything. I grew up wishing to be born in another time. Only because I understood it more and it understood me. One of my dreams some day is to acquire an old fashioned wood burning stove. My best friend who used to live five miles away from me lived in a one room log home that was heated by their wood burning stove. She was one of four girls. She taught me how to milk cows, bind hay in the summer from their fields and make dandelion wine. Her mother was from Canada and grew up learning from her Menonite Grandmother some very old fashioned housekeeping. I loved every minute of it and spent alot of time over at their house. They drank fresh milk every day, made squeaky cheese (it is cheese that squeaks when you eat it) and had a root celler that would bring Martha Stewart's to shame. Well enough rambling. Any how, I just love this picture. There.