Roses and Dreams

We’ve had a busy and productive weekend!!
Friday was the boys last day of school, and so it was Play Day. Both did well. That was our last play day for J. Next year it will be real track meets instead for him.
Summer will be here soon. The baseball practices have started and soon it will be games and talk of getting a move on the fair projects. I might gripe a lot, but I just love this time of year.
Friday afternoon we spent at the farm with my dad, just kind of tinkering around. T is doing entomology for 4-H this year, and has started looking for different bugs. I dug up a shoot of my grandmother’s wild rose bush that she planted to hide the propane tank. I also dug one up from my mom and dad’s. Dad tells me my great grandmother planted it there. That one has big pretty roses, which are almost white with just a touch of pink to them. I can’t remember what the wild rose bush puts out. I was thinking yellow, but remember for sure.
Speaking of rosebushes, the picture above is my Grandma Moreton’s.(Granny Nanny) She died in 2001. A couple of days after she had passed away we were helping mom clean out her apartment and I kept looking at the rosebush, almost panicking. She has planted it there right after she has moved in and it had been there ever since. I was afraid that the next people to move in wouldn’t take care of it or just rip it out so I started hinting around to my poor husband that I’d like to take it home with us. By that evening, me, D, and my Aunt Karen, with our scratched up arms, were digging that darn thing out and we drug it home with us. I don’t really think any of us had any hope that it would make it, but it sure did. I need to remember to cut it back this year. I always look at it and smile. She always pointed it out to everyone when it was blooming.
I guess it may seem strange to some people that I get attached to things such as rose bushes instead of heirloom things like jewelry. =-) I can’t wait to see what my other rose bushes I drug home do!
I stopped to think today about the turn my life has taken on the past couple of years. 3 years ago we were making plans to fix the old farm house up and move to the country. I had all these dreams of a bright red barn with cows, chickens, raising rabbits and a HUGE garden.
Those plans fell through and we began to make new plans. My brother and his wife have taken on the farm house. I am really happy about this as it was hard to walk away from it, and watch it begin to fall down. However, it was still hard to walk away from the dreams we had. Today, I realized, I have my chickens, my big garden, we have our rabbits, and next week we will be getting cows, all while slowly fixing up the old barn out there…and painting it red, of course. My dad’s made it very clear to all of us that we each have a spot out there. We may not be living out there, but it's still very important to me to be able to be out there. There is so much family history out there, as well as the sentimentalism of watching my boys run around the place where I grew up. And I want my boys to experience a bit of farm life. I look around and smile...God had a plan. Sometimes it’s not clear till later, but it all fits together in the end. It’s not what I had imagined in my head, but somehow, all works out and I am pretty darn happy with our life.
So, as I mentioned before, we are getting cows this weekend. Only 2 baby Holsteins to start out, but will slowly build up to a small herd. Or that’s the plan anyway. I’ve always wanted black and white milk cows. (I have no idea why…I just think they are cute.) I remember asking my dad one time, when I was 8 or 9 if we could get a b/w cow. They went to a sale and brought home ANOTHER red bull! HA! I am not even sure we will stay with Holsteins after it’s time to get rid of these, but I am excited to FINALLY have black and white cows.
The basement project has taken ANOTHER screeching halt. It’s patiently waiting to be sanded and painted, and then after the carpet is laid at least the front part will be done. I REALLY need to find the time to just get that done!!!
My garden just keeps growing!! I can’t believe the thrill I get going out just to see how much things have grown since the previous day! I still haven’t mulched the rest, but I think my plants are all big enough now that I could probably do it.
We spend part of Memorial Day at the farm. D got a rocket kit from me at Christmas that takes digital video as it goes up. He was waiting till things greened up a bit to fly it and today was the day!! However, the wind carried it into the tree row and we spent a hour or so looking for it. *I* finally spotted it up in a tree, and Monkey Man D climbed the tree to snatch it. We watched the video on Dad’s computer…very cool!!
While we were looking for the rocket, I looked down to see something flip off a plant and I found the biggest caterpillar I have ever seen! It was as big around as a hot dog, and longer than my pinkie. T ran and put it into a jar and we brought it home to see if we could find what it is. As we were putting it in the jar, it barfed up this dark green slime…very cool to a 9 year old!

Anyway, it’s called a White Lined Sphinx Caterpillar and will turn into one of those HUGE hummingbird moths. He wanted to keep it to watch it change, but we read that they bury and change into moths underground, so we let that bad boy go. 11 years ago, I never thought I would willingly be helping a little boy put a mutated barfing caterpillar into a jar...my, how my life has changed!