I Can't Believe It's Not Butter

Sorting through papers and notebooks, I found this would-be Christmas Letter-one of 8 that I never sent.  Why weren’t they sent?  Well, it’s complicated, but this one made me smile.  

Christmas letters typically do not contain the ugly, the brokenness of a year, the trials, and failures.  They contain the shiny, the beautiful, and sometimes the nauseatingly paraphrased lives of our loved ones, seemingly with no flaws, and no cobwebs in the corners.  We have cobwebs here, and sometimes more.

Unsent letter #6, 12/26/11

I really thought that this year we’d be on time.  OK, I hoped we would at least get them out, the cards.  I fantasized about learning to scan or download pictures in “the Letter.” I am writing low-tech on a notepad given as a stocking stuffer to my boys last year, the chaff of Christmas past.

The Holiday season began with cleaning the hutch.  

The kitchen has been under deconstruction since last year.  Two thirds of the floor is torn up.  The cupboards have been stripped and repainted.  A half wall seemingly attached to the very foundation of our home was sledge-hammered out by my burly and determined hubby.  

We hired an electrician and a plumber and moved, then replaced the (original to the house) broken electric stove with a new one with gas burners--ooh aah.  We also installed a plank ceiling to hide and hold up the cracking plaster that had started to lose its battle with gravity.

Dust is everywhere, hence the hutch cleaning.

The silver was dingy, the crystal smudgy, the candle sticks tilted awkwardly- perhaps from the earthquake in August, or perhaps from burly guy and I pounding and scraping and cursing at the floor.  

The somewhat brittle 50 year old linoleum 4 inch tiles pried off in pieces to expose a 1/8 inch layer of tar which had to be melted with a heat gun, and then scraped off quickly while still hot.  I am convinced we are headed toward cancer due to the volatilized toxins from the tar.  

Next is a layer of glue all swirly over the virgin red oak floor.  The glue was removed using a stripper (of the chemical kind).  After that I scrubbed the floor over and over and over to remove the sticky slimy feeling of deconstruction.  Someday, it will be lovely.  Today it is not.

tarnished and smudged

So…dust…hutch…and oh, what did I find during the deep clean?  I opened our smudgy tarnished silver butter dish, an heirloom from my hubby’s grandmother, and what to my wondering eyes did appear but a bright yellow rectangular object, without even a smear.  This bar of disturbingly bright yellow matter did not smell and held its’ shape disturbingly well.  I had two thoughts: 

butter or margarine? 

I reasoned that it had only been there since Easter, because somehow, I thought that should make me feel better!  No, I remembered we stopped eating margarine from January through June when our youngest son went on a wheat, egg, soy, and banana free diet.   This was supposed to cure him of repetitive behaviors, whining, and lapses in memory.  Instead he obsessed about the foods he couldn’t have, whined more, and I lost my mind.  Since margarine is made with soy, it was banned. 

That leaves last Christmas and almost a year in limbo in the hutch.

The mass was not even compost worthy.  I am a bit of a compost fanatic, but this was more like plastic than food. Besides, the wonderful, deaf, and old Springer that we adopted 3 years ago would absolutely consume it.  Lyme disease almost killed Hannah this year, and the plasticized margarine would be sure to do her in.  

Aside from protecting our compost eating 3 dogs and 4 cats, we have to look out for our 18 chickens.  Thankfully, the ducks stay out of the compost, mainly because their waddling impedes their ability to climb the pile.  It is comical to see them try.

The trash was the plastic yellow bar’s destiny, although, I was curious enough to think, “What would it look like in another year?”  How about 50 years?  Could this be the inspiration for a time capsule?  I didn’t voice my thought, because I knew that my sons and husband would insist on furthering the experiment.  I threw the mass in the trash and returned to cleaning, wondering what else was lurking...

Forward to 2013: 

shiny shiny

It is that time again for giving and receiving, but also for cleaning out, sorting, and parting with bits of us that have lingered too long to be useful.  It’s odd how Winter’s light can show the smudges everywhere.  Perhaps it’s simply the light of reflection that shows the wear and tear.  It’s also the light of reflection that reveals the sturdiness of a life, and the surety of all that is still standing.  

For us the light exposes a still unfinished kitchen, and yet a marriage that pushes forward and enjoys the projects even if they move slowly.  We see the lives of 2 teenaged boys who make us laugh, and spur us on to learn and understand their worlds.  My oldest son has helped me understand how to import photos and upload documents.  My youngest has helped me to be patient and loving especially when I don’t understand. 

"Mild He lay his glory by, born that man no more may die."

Of course, the light of reflection steadily shows the unseen and increases the value of it each year.  There are no smudges on God, no spots to clean.  In His eyes, through the gift of an infant, His precious Son, we are smudgeless as well.  

smudge-proofing

As long as we reflect on Him, we never lose our purpose, never get lost, never turn into a plasticized version of the real thing, and never get tossed in a trash can.   And most importantly, if we keep focused, nobody, including ourselves, will wonder what we are.

Merry Christmas!

In the Fall, the Birds Come

In the Fall, the Birds Come

 

The coldest morning so far this Fall greets me, and I answer back with smoky breath coming from my hooded head.  Fingers stiff in the leather gloves frozen in the shape of clenched hands.  Trees stoic and creaking, a slow ratcheting in the wind. 

The 3 dogs follow me closely waiting to see which path we will take to the barns.  We go the middle route,  through the fenced garden, still hairy and unkempt from August’s heated and aggressive growth.  It is a monument to the struggle to keep up, this farmer slowing in the heat and the weeds seemingly sprinting ahead and lapping me.  The frost evens the race, both weeds and farmer slow.

the barn "door"

We turn the corner and see the 8 barn doors latched closed, hear the ducks complaining, demanding to be released.  Pushing the low loose cinderblock into the barn, our liability turned door, the chickens and ducks pour out as if in a pressurized system.   The ducks quack happily looking for puddles, or bugs, or both.  The chickens mill about, curious and blinking in the daylight.

I open the top toors of the chicken barn only to close them again after seeing the shifting wind battering the wood.  It  is then that the wind squawks and flaps a rhythmic beating.  Above, a wave of birds ebb and flow, swirling, climbing and falling; the sky eddies made visible.  Thousands of starlings overhead charge South blocking daylight and casting an eerie shadow.

At once, my Son’s Fall art project from 10 years prior flutters to memory.  It says at the top:  “In the Fall______.”  My son writes “the birds come.”  I see it in indents and broken erased lines.  Written over his erased work is the teacher’s handwriting, “The leaves fall.”  This one memory, still wounding.  He always sees things differently.  He was right.  In the Fall, the birds come.

I fight regret, casting it aside as unproductive, but my heart aches from the scrape.  That battered part of me unsettled; the years of fighting for my son, the years of being treated as if I wanted him to be different, the doubts that always surfaced.  Am I a good parent?  Do I love my child enough?  Why can’t I fix this?  Please God, help me fix him.  Over and over this mantra resounded.

My son is different.  School, and grades, and expectations that he could not meet (ours included) almost kept him in the pit of depression.  It laid us low too.  As we tried to pull him out of that pit, we’d get suck there as well.  Worse yet, trying to escape the pit in our angered struggle, we would lash out at the one clinging to our legs trying deliberately, it seemed, to pull us back down.

By age 9, our insightful, quiet, and exceptionally introverted boy was repeatedly telling us, “I hate myself.  I hate my life.”  He started to fixate on dying asking me repeatedly whether he could live with God if he killed himself.  I always assured him that God is merciful and would love him no matter what, but that I felt strongly that God wanted him to stay here with us.  

One cold Winter’s day, he locked himself in our minivan announcing that he would freeze himself so that he could die.  The pit so deep, and I completely unprepared for this small boy’s spiraling despair, I called the doctor.

Our pediatrician prescribes Prozac.  I cried angry tears.  How could I put my 9 year old on Prozac?  How could I not?  My own pit whispered “Bad mother” over and over so softly and steadily, another heartbeat, my self doubt alive.  The shadow of that time still so present, but I shake myself back to farm work.

The birds, their dark cloud once enveloping, lighted in the near orchard.  Their language happy and flitting. Urgency gone for only seconds, they leave in a whoosh as quickly as they descended.  The only evidence of their arrival and departure are these words.

I stand in awe, wiping away a tear and give thanks to the God of bright clouds, and bird clouds.  I thank Him that today, my son lives well and I don’t wonder at how I can fix him.  That deep pit he lived in is being remade.  Fluffy pillows of self-confidence raise him up enough so that he, himself can climb out.  We cheer him on!

It took 6 years of fighting, 2 years of homeschooling, and 1 diagnosis of Autism to get here.

Where is here?

 

Here is a place of thankfulness for every place we went and for every place we are going.  Here is a place where “Bad Mother” has been erased and overwritten by faithful mother, thankful mother, hopeful mother.  My son is different, there is no doubt.  Now, I am fortunate to be that mother that wants him to be so.

 Note:  My son no longer takes Prozac but is on Zoloft.  According to our doctor, Prozac is a stimulant and many people on the autism spectrum have mood swings when given a stimulant.  We definitely experienced mood swings, but now are sailing at a much more even keel.

The first post- sort of

My first official post on this page!  This is monumental for this technologically challenged farmgirl.  In a scene from "Men Who Stare at Goats," a man walks past a row of computers and the computers blow up sequentially as he passes by.  Computers don't blow up in my presence, but I have developed a habit of  standing far away from cash registers and the like just to ensure that they work properly.  I get a lot of odd glances from the employees.  I digress...

My first blog ever debuted on http://whatthehellisrosedoingnow.  It is a story called 1-800-dead-cow.  It is a true story about a difficult Spring on our farm, and the beauty of people who are kind and who work in jobs that we would like to forget about.  Please read Rose's posts too.  She is quite amazing and funny! 

Here is the original story:
 
Spring is busting out all over and my friend Mimi lays dead.  A black 2000lb mass in the field, nature trying to absorb her.  So still, and I know that she is gone by the weight in my chest.  Soul, shedding carcass-gone weightless leaving her heavy black burden all goo and juice.

I cry as if a bit of my soul has been torn away.

The scientist in me calculates.  I have roughly 24 hours in this weather before she starts falling to pieces - not in the Patsy Cline way - much much more messy.  I envision our 3 dogs rolling in the morbidity and then the work of copious amounts of bathing.   What is the solution: burial, hauling, God forbid cutting her up into manageable pieces and carting her bag by bag to the dump?

Barely composed, ruse paper thin, I call the farmer neighbor.  He's a real farmer - big equipment - doesn't cry when cows die, doesn't name them, keeps perspective.  Might I pay him to bury a cow?  He reminds me of all the slate on our land and politely tells me that the job is too big.

I call the state lab.  Sure, they will take her but I will need to pay for an autopsy.  This on top of the expense of the vet who just put her down.  I call another farmer friend who agrees to haul her, but only if all other options fail.  In other words, "Your emergency cannot be my emergency right now."

Twenty two hours until fragmentation, loss of integrity.  It is Sunday night at 5:00 pm.  There are no others to call until tomorrow.  Besides, tears squeeze out all resolve.  Sleep is elusive, held captive by worry and the prednisone the doc gave me only hours before Mimi died.  Turned out the poison ivy on my forehead was really shingles.

The sun finally rose, a relief from attempted sleep.  I walk to the pasture to tend the living, and pray for a Lazarus moment. She lay unmoved, a massive black pock like the entrance to a cave amidst a field of tufty soft grass.  Ugh!  T minus 8 hours until the bloating and peeling.  Morning clings to my boots as I head back to our house.

I call numbers from the phone book and ask questions.  The answers are all "Sorry, and can't, and wish I could help."   

One suggests a number called 1-800 DEAD COW. Really? A solution to the 2000 lb dilemma?   
 
I call.  A woman answers and I inform her of the dead COW and ask how much for removal and especially how soon?  She transfers me to another woman who transfers me to the man who hauls.  Each person hears that I have a dead cow.  Each person is kind.  They tell me they will be at my farm in 2 hours, but that I have to get Mimi's body moved from the pasture to the gravel pad at my barn.
 
My farmer neighbor agrees to move her body.  He drives his massive tractor to her, hooks a chain to one leg and lifts her effortlessly.  As he drives to the gravel, I pray that she holds.  I pray that I hold, keep the shameful tears pressed back.

She lays now on gravel.  Tractor trails lead the farmer home.  In a few hours Mimi's 8 year old dead self will be gone.

With a Ziploc bag in hand and a $250 check for COW removal,  I head out the door to place payment near the remains of Mimi.  The phone rings and I scurry back into the house.  It's a woman from  1-800-DEAD-COW.  She starts out by apologizing but not apologizing.  Sort of like a "Whatever gave you the impression that you could hire us to remove a dead cow?  I'm sorry that you are not savvy enough to realize that we are not affiliated with the cow industry."  

My response is simply, "What?  I spoke to 3 people.  I wasn't trying to trick you.  I have a dead cow plain and simple.  Your number is 1-800-DEAD-COW!  What is it that you do?" The angry employee asked questions like, "Why do you have cows if you can't transport them?", and "Why don't you just let the cow decompose naturally on your land?"  At this point I started weeping, and I may have snorted into the phone.  The woman on the other side countered with an unemotional encyclopedia answer regarding mad cow disease and laws and your cow problem is not my problem.

I called the state lab for suggestions.  Uncle Al's towing was a possibility.  Uncle Al hauled dead things and had a bone to pick with 1-800-DEAD-COW.  My farm was too far outside his work zone and he earnestly wanted to help me just to get back at the dead cow folks. Uncle Al suggested that I call the dump to see if they would even take Mimi's carcass.

I called.  The number in the phone book was wrong.  Another exercise in futility it seemed.  The lady who answered sounded like Aunt Bea and I anticipated more Southern charm, but no solutions.  She put me on hold, but when she answered, she had answers. She had contacted the dump herself and yes they would take the body!  She also told me about a good man who hauled all of the road kill in Culpeper. 
  
It was as if I had gotten a wish from Glenda the good witch. Clicking my muck boots together, I wanted to chant, "There's no place like the dump for a rotting carcass."

I still shake my head in disbelief at her kindness- sheer mercy really. I was so sick from shingles and also heart warped by Mimi's death and her impending decomposition. A town employee saving the day-a miracle indeed.

The good man she recommended did not disappoint. He drove to our farm that night and hauled Mimi away. I watched him load her mass carefully, then drive off. I stood, the dusty cloud from his tires settling over me.

Only 8 days later, I called that good man again to remove another still mass lying heavy in the pasture. Our oldest cow, Mama died at 25. Her head tucked inward as if she were peacefully asleep.

A month later, my farmer friend bought the last two cows. The pasture is empty now, echoing the way a house's wall's do when the last box is put on the moving truck. Eerie still, lonely-scarred, and deeper than empty. Who do I hire to haul that away?