You do not control everything; just the story!

My best friend once called me a control freak. I argued with her over and over. But, it was true. I think it was because I always believed I was in control of what happened to me. When bad things happened it was my fault. It took a lot of blame, guilt and shame to understand that is not the case. We do not have control over everything that happens to us, but we may be able to control the effect that event has on the rest of our lives.

Take time to make real lemonade! Here’s my favorite recipe: https://pin.it/5NRCF9F

My mother always called it “making lemonade”. Life hands you lemons and you make lemonade! I cannot begin to explain the amount of lemonade I have made in my life (literally and figuratively). I had a realization the other day that my amount of lemonade is likely no different to anyone else’s. Even those who are seemingly #blessed have faced a fair share of disappointment. We CANNOT grow as fast from success as we can from failure. If you were handed everything that you thought you needed at the time, where would you be today? Think about it! I would have 5 children with my first husband! Insert eye roll emoji (which is by far my favorite)!

Whatever you have today, let it fuel your future story. Maybe it needs to create your right-now story. We do NOT control this pandemic. We do NOT control stay at home orders or toilet paper shortages. We DO control what we do! We have power to use our time at home for good. Most importantly, we DO control what our mind creates during this time. Do you know that 77% of your thoughts in a day are negative? Here are a couple of tips to help you deal with the things you do not control:

MAKE A PLAN If you need a schedule to maintain sanity, make it! But if you just need a “Here’s what we are doing today,” that’s okay too. But allow yourself the freedom to change it or break it!

FIND PROJECTS Not like mowing the grass, but now is the time to do things you never had time to do before. Make them lofty goals and major endeavors. We have plenty of time.

GO OUTSIDE Sunshine is the only real source of Vitamin D…and that helps your immune system. Period.

REST What a great time to get 8 hours of sleep a day! Your immune system needs that. Your brain needs that. Your mood needs that. But make sure you have a time to get up.

EXERCISE There are tons of online exercise options right now! Many trainers, dancers, gyms, equipment manufacturers are offering free sessions. Search YouTube and the internet! My faves…The Journey Junkie, Yoga Girl, CLI Studios, Twitch and Allison Holker.

COOK Food fuels your body! Do you have a favorite food that you can’t get right now? Have you always wanted to master some recipe? I’ve always wanted to master making bread!

INTERACT Call people! Write letters! FaceTime! Zoom! Send smoke signals! Something! Humans require interaction…we are social beings, so find a way to talk to someone about something somehow.

I did not control or create the abuse I suffered during 2 marriages. I did not cause the financial hardship my family has always endured. I was never able to alter the way men objectified and treated me. There is no way to take power over the senseless deaths and injuries suffered by my friends and family. I DID control the ability to walk away from abusers. I CREATED financial security for my family. I LEARNED that the objectification was the reason for 2 abusive marriages, not my inabilities to commit or judge people. I FIND spiritual solace in the memories of the ones I’ve loved that no longer exist on this earth. The point is that none of these things made me a worse person, they made me better!

Planning on the Farm

To say that 2018 has been a year of changes for me and mine would be a major understatement. And through it all we have grown, molded, bent, and evolved. One of my very favorite things to do is plan. I love figuring out how to make things work to the best advantage of all involved. My favorite yoga teacher says “you have to look back to move forward.” I love that idea of reflecting on the past to move on with your future. I think planning for the future is vital, but understanding that plans were made to be broken is essential for keeping my sanity.

I change the way I reflect and plan every year. This year I learned infinitely more about planning and vision casting than I had ever known before.  Because my new career labels me as a sole proprietor, I chose to start my reflection with my professional goals. Not because I want to be controlled throughout the year by my professional schedule, but because my business plan was a solid, written plan to reflect on. When I started in real estate, my Broker In Charge, whom is a world renowned coach, made me write a business plan ON PAPER, and set goals, ON PAPER. I had the ultimate satisfaction of checking off those that I achieved, and the equal disappointment of revising those that I did not.

For me, it has to be on paper. Maybe it’s because I’m a writer in my soul, or maybe it is my middle agedness. But I have to write it to make it real. Scientifically, they say that the more you experience something using a variety of senses the more it becomes learned. So if it is said, heard, written and read, it sticks in your brain a little easier. [Maybe I need to start smelling money…] This year I have upped my goal planning, vision casting game. I have short-term (6 month), yearly (1 year), and long-term (5 year) goals. This year I added “Action Steps”. It reminds me a lot of Design Down, an education concept I studied years ago, where you know what the end goal is and you plan backwards how to get there. For example, by the end of this year I would like to make X amount of money…now work backwards. That means how much per month, how many homes (on average), how many leads (on average), how many touches per person (on average), and how many hours a week will that take (on average). There’s something very mathematical about it. And when it is written in pretty purple felt tip pen, it is beautiful.

We’ve done the same sort of planning for our family too.My husband and I have a lot in common, but maybe not the planning. What he does have, though, is faith and trust in me. So when I tell him that we are going to set short term and long term goals over a two day period of doing nothing but reflecting and planning and vision casting, he goes in full strength. Our “vision retreat” was just down the road at a local coffee shop, then our favorite restaurant for lunch, then a park. We made a calendar of big goals for the year. We imagined where we need to be in 5 years. We budgeted, time blocked, and dreamed a little. We wrapped it up by the fire pit in our back yard. One day, we will actually take a retreat, but for now we got things accomplished. And, yes, it was all on paper.

I have huge, high, impatient hopes for 2019. I am extremely thankful for all the lessons I learned about myself and my family in 2018. So now I look forward to all the crazy good things we will do this year. And I wish the same for your family! Email me, and I will send you our vision retreat plan to use on your own family!

 

Winter #farmlife

I am not a fan of winter.  As you may be able to guess from my page title, I am a born and reared southern girl; therefor, I enjoy humidity, sunshine and a little sweat coming from my pores.  It’s almost like that is how I feel alive.  Humidity makes my skin feel healthy. Sunshine makes my heart and soul happy. Warm air is like breath in my body.  So for the small amount of time during the year that all of those things disappear, I struggle.  Maybe this year more than others.

Not really sure about the rest of the US, but we were hit this year with a huge snow very early in the winter season.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful, as the picture clearly shows above. But with this beauty came record cold temperatures…I’m talking 18 degrees and lower.

When you live on a farm or homestead and personally care for the land, animals, and humans that live there, life has to be conducted a little different on days when the thermometer doesn’t rise or the animals walk timidly because of the unknown depth of all that white stuff.  I feel like city and suburbian Americans may have put on their thick coats, scarves, and gloves, grabbed a warm drink, and headed on about their day.  Here, going out at 6AM to feed animals involved 4 layers – long-susies (leggings, cuddleduds, whatever you can find to fit under jeans), clothes (like jeans and sweaters), winter coat (I like the thick, bubble kind), and onesie (my dads old cover-alls, loving referred to as the “burnt marshmellow” suit).  The daily activities have to be completely rethought because water buckets are frozen or water doesn’t come from the spigot or hose so warm or hot water has to be carried from the house.  Animals may have to spend the entire day or a portion of their day indoors, completely rearranging the very strict schedule we try to stick to around here.  Even the calculations done for feeding have to be re-evaluated when the weather goes cold because there’s no grass to munch on and eating generates heat in enclosed spaces like barns and coops.  And all of this is done before we step foot out the door at 6 AM.  Heaven forbid you do this part time like me, and still have to consider how to get to your “real” job and your kids to school!

But all of that is fine by me for a little while.  I appreciate the importance of winter to make dormant all the things of nature that will wake in the Spring.  Except for my fingers. This winter I have discovered that they DO NOT make winter gloves worth a hoot for farm life!  I need them thick or thermal, because I’m old and my extremeties get the coldest, but I need them waterproof because I am constantly stiking my hand in frozen water buckets or troughs to fish out ice.  There is no solution currently manufactured. Maybe I will manufacture my own!  Fur or wool lined on the inside, completely waterproof on the outside, and thin enough to maneuver a buckle or latch!

At the end of one of these cold, long days, its the hot beverage that I’m really looking forward to.  Some days its a cup of tea…my favorite is Tazo Chocolate Chai or Bigelow Vanilla Chai.  For the kids, its a home made hot cocoa.  This year, we discovered a new adult version of something warm and snuggly!  We made 2 separate thermoses on a few occasions this winter.

For The Kids

Warm up your favorite milk, slowly on the stove, not in the microwave.  Our fave is vanilla almond milk.

Mix in homemade chocolate syrup (1 cup sugar, 1 cup water, 1/4 to 1/2 cup cocoa powder combined over low heat, stirring constantly until dissolved).

Top with whip cream and/or a candy cane.

For The Adults

Warm up spiced apple cider, like RW Knudsen Cider and Spice, or make your own with you favorite spices.

Mix in 1 – 3 ounces of your favorite spiced rum.  We are big fans of Cruzan, not spiced, but Capt Morgan Spiced gives it a greater flavor.

 

Harvest Season

This, my friends, is the little pumpkin that could!  Let me explain…

Out here on our little farm in Nowhere, North Carolina, we decided to try raising chickens.  If you’ve read some of my other posts, you will see that it wasn’t easy, but we have enjoyed it, learned A LOT, and persevered.  Well, so did this pumpkin!  One day, while cleaning the coop, I noticed a strange plant starting to sprout.  In my usual fashion, I decided to let it be and see what happened.  It began to grow into a gorgeous vine that climbed and wrapped around the sloped side of the chicken coop.  As it grew, the leaves got huge, but they were so beautiful, giant, green, variegated with whit stripes.  It offered shade through the hot summer to the chickens inside and I found it a beautiful edition to the middle of my pasture.  The blossoms were as big as the leaves and equally as beautiful.  They also confirmed my original opinion that this was some sort of squash plant, mainly because I love a good fried squash blossom!  Then, in late June, early July, we noticed a couple of balls where the blossoms used to be!  The were perfectly round, and green.  I racked my brain to figure out what this could be and where it could have possibly come from.  As time passed, only one of the balls survived and grew…and grew….and grew, until it was obvious that this was a pumpkin from its linear stripes and shapes.  It began to turn white and go so heavy I was afraid it would break the fencing on the side of the coop.  But we left it, right where it was, and used every ounce of patience we possibly could not to pick it.  And then tragedy struck!  While cutting the grass/weeds in the front pasture someone got a little too close to the vine.  The leaves began to wilt and shrivel.  I made the executive decision to pick the giant pumpkin from the vine.  To be honest, it was a really sad decision for me.  That was in September.

I left the pumpkin as outdoor decoration for the fall season.  We bought others and carved them for Halloween.  They grew moldy and gross and had to be thrown out.  But I wouldn’t let anyone touch this guy.

I was saving him for a special purpose…Thanksgiving!  You see, Thanksgiving is my favorite day.  I get to cook and eat all day, and for days before, and for days after.  But most importantly it’s a time where people are forced to be reflective on their year and thankful for the good and the light in their life.  We spend so much time focusing on the negative.  As humans, we are psychologically wired to pull from our experiences the negative and the bad, because that is what makes a stronger biological connection through the wires in our brain.  But during this one season, we are forced to reach through our memory files and find the good.  The good usually outnumbers the bad.  It is an exercise in memory recovery that humans struggle doing on a daily basis.  But they shouldn’t, because there is way more joy in life than sorrow.  Yes, bad things happen!  Husbands turn alcoholic and abusive, family members and friends pass away, careers are ended, physical health fails, emotional health deteriorates, children suffer, pain continues.  But the sunset in your favorite corner of the world is even more beautiful when you put it in a perspective of how far you have come.

And the pumpkin pie is even more delicious when it is from the accidental pumpkin that took root in the middle of a pasture!

Roasted Pumpkin

Do’t’ ever buy canned pumpkin again!

Buy a regular pumpkin, not a baking pumpkin, and not a carving pumpkin.  I prefer the white varieties for their extra sweet taste and smooth texture, but you may need to experiment with what is available in your area.

Slice the pumpkin in half.  This can be really difficult considering the size, so choose your weapon carefully, and give yourself enough space!  I had to use a butcher knife and the kitchen floor.

Clean out the seeds and stringy insides.  Pick out the seeds to roast, washed and tossed with olive oil, salt, and a dash of cayenne pepper.  Feed the stringy insides to the chickens, goats, or cook for the dog.

Cut the monster (pumpkin) into manageable pieces.

Roast upside down in the oven at 400 degrees until the skin is fork tender.

Use a spoon to separate the flesh from the skin.  In a large bowl, or many small containers, use an immersion blender to puree the flesh until smooth.

Use 2 cups in your favorite pumpkin pie recipe, and freeze the rest for later!

My favorite use…a spoonful in my oatmeal with a drizzle of sorghum and a sprinkle of cinnamon for breakfast!

Do You Snuggle Your Chicken?

Well I sure do! How could you not when she is literally that cute!  This is Willow.  She was the runt of the 4 chicks we purchased as Christmas presents for our daughters.  We picked out 2 Silkie chicks and 2 what we thought were Ameraucanas.  I had done hours of research and searching for just the right members to our farm family.  As I always say, story of my life!  Oh, the things that we have learned in the last year and a half!

Though it is true that chickens are low maintenance, they definitely are not “no” maintenance.  Here are some of the biggest lessons learned, Through trial and error, of course!

• Make sure you see the mamma or daddy chicken! My Ameraucanas, which are usually docile and smaller in size, thus the reason I picked them, turned out to be mean, little-chicken-attacking, Rhode Island Reds or something! Yes I got 2 extra large eggs a day from them, as long as they were on organic layer feed, but they harassed chickens, dogs, humans, horses, everything!
• Free Range is great for the chicken, except in the presence of dogs.  On one occasion it was a stray that wondered into the pasture, on another it was my own dog that broke her collar to get to them, and finally there is no telling what is was that attacked.
• Growing your own feed is great, but they need tons of protein to make eggs.  I have tried fodder, beans, seeds and many variations.  Best results in egg production were from organic layer feed.  Now we do a mix of homemade and organic layer feed because these girls are just here for fun!
• Chickens are resilient!  We have survived storms, snow, hurricanes, bugs, mice, dog attacks, and our learning curve.  I have nursed all 4 from one type of injury or another in my master bath tub using syringes to not only clean wounds but also make them drink water.  Feathers grow back, skin regenerates, and they know that I take care of them, thus the reason for the snuggles!

My favorite time of day is when the horses are all up, little chickens are running around the pasture, the hound dog is lounging in the dirt, and I am watching the pink-sky sunset on a farm I have worked my entire life to find beside my best friend and love listening to the chatter of my beautiful little people.  There may not be peace on Earth, but there is peace at home!

From the Garden

Nature’s bounty is upon us! Along with the bounty of bugs, heat, and for some reason this year, rain here in the South, I am beginning to collect the veggies from the garden!  It’s a time of celebration on my little farm.  But I often wonder if the celebration is the same in other homes and farms around the country?

I celebrate the obvious, that those teeny-tiny seeds and plants that I put in the ground actually turned into something!  In all honesty, that is not something I get to celebrate often.  Though I grew up with a grandfather who could grow 10 acres of corn and fruit in an orchard, and a father who grew enough veggies in our city garden to can and eat all year long, my experience with growing veggies in the garden has been disappointing.  There was the summer of the drought when nothing grew.  Once there was the summer of the tomato caterpillars when all the leaves disappeared, but my oldest daughter got to watch a gorgeous caterpillar go through all those life cycles she had learned about in school.  Worst of all was the summers of the condo where I tried with great desperation and angst to grow a container garden on my third floor balcony where it seemed, for good reason, that my entire existence depended on growing just one tomato (if you can’t grow it in the ground, you probably can’t grow it in an old coffee can).

This year is year 2 of our raised garden beds on the new farm and I am ECSTATIC!  Pictured above is my first picking of the year and it comes with great promise, assuming I don’t forget to water the garden, though it seems like a ridiculously wet summer this year.

If you look closely, you will see my first zucchini, which is special because there weren’t supposed to be any zucchini plants in my seedlings.  Ya see, my 84-year-old father, who has been growing everything from cotton to children his entire life decided to grow seedlings indoors this winter after I told him that I was giving it a go.  Well, my cat used ours for a litter box, while dad had so many I gave them away at Easter dinner!  But when we planted all the seedlings in his garden and in mine, it looked as if there were no zucchini.  He was sure the only squash we would get this year would be summer squash, and tons of it.  We had multiple conversations of how to make good use of it.  Then this beauty showed up!  Hallelujah!  I enjoy summer, yellow, crook-neck, or whatever you want to call it, but I have a million more uses for zucchini!

Below is one of my favorite uses for both…

Roasted Veggies

Cut veggies into like-sized pieces.  My favorite combination is zucchini, summer squash, red onion, bell pepper, and chickpeas.

Add some olive oil in a large bowl and toss the veggies around to coat. Add a large pinch of salt and a handful of basil (fresh is great if chopped fine, but will burn during roasting if not, so dried works in a dry spell)!

Pour out onto a sheet pan or roasting pan (that thing that came with your oven that you never use…you put water in the bottom of it and it keeps whatever you’re roasting from drying out).  Make sure veggies are in a single layer on the pan.  Roast at 400 for about 20 minutes, tossing veggies half way through.  They are done when they are a little browned on the outside, but soft and fork-tender on the inside.  The chickpeas should be crunch and you can eat them like potato chips!  (In fact, sometimes I roast just those with a hint of cayenne for a snack!)

I like to make a huge pan of this on Sunday to go with chicken or roast, then eat the left overs in a million different ways during the week…in my omelet, wrapped in a tortilla, over rice or quinoa, in a salad…you get the idea!

 

Happy Gardening!

Strawberry Season

For this Southern Girl, berry season is a momentous occasion!  It means the beginning of summer and all things fresh.  I don’t mind the heat and humidity, when it means I can eat all kinds of fresh fruit and veggies.  Ya see, I don’t buy strawberries in October, or tomatoes in December, because that’s not when they are in season, so the reward of waiting until the opportune moment is a farmhouse sink full of ripe, juicy strawberries that have to be washed, cut, frozen, cooked, jellied, or just eaten (that’s my favorite!).  Many of my friends call me crazy…”modern technology makes strawberries available all the time”…”I don’t have time to do all those strawberries before they go bad”…”why work so hard when you can just go to the store and buy them”.  Sorry, y’all, but 2 hours spent with my kids at the strawberry farm then an hour washing and processing (while munching) seems like a much better way to spend my Saturday!

Here’s my favorite thing to do with them:

Strawberry Shortcake

Cut about 2 cups of strawberries into extra small pieces.  Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon sugar and stir.

Cut a slice of Entenmann’s Pound Cake (or make your own, but even I’m not that ambitious!).

Whip up some homemade whip cream by combining whipping cream, a little sugar (to your liking) and a splash of vanilla.  Turn the mixer on a high setting and let it go. (Homemade whip cream is not ambitious; it’s easy!)

Layer on a plate or in a bowl and enjoy!

{Got some extra calories stored up from eating that salad for lunch?  Replace the whip cream with vanilla ice cream!}