Focus

All right, I admit that I am just as easily persuaded to be glum as the next person when 6 newborn calves die in one week.  It's not that the cows didn't have lots of nice, dry straw to calve in.  Oh no, there were 2 big round bales spread out for them but they had to go and drop their calves right in the slop.  We can't watch constantly and it only takes an hour or so in 0 degree weather; with snow or rain coming down on top of you, when your mother drops you in the slop (mixture of melted snow; the soil; and manure), to snuff out your little life.

It was just too cold for too long for their little bodies to be able to snap out of it.   Although one went in the shower with Robert; one slept with Cora on the kitchen floor; and they all got cayenne pepper down their throat and BodyTalk from me, they died.  There is something terrible about death at the beginning of one's life!  So I admit that we have all been depressed all last week!
One thing about it, though, is I have changed my mind a LITTLE bit about 4 wheelers.  One home school family that we know lost their dad (Jim S.) to one of them PLUS a friend of mine will be crippled for life because of one.  Jacob's friend, Jacob Long, died at the age of 13 from a 4 wheeler accident and they have just given me the creeps for almost a decade since Jim's death. 
Still, the other night at 4:00 AM when Andrew banged on our bedroom wall from OUTSIDE that there was a new calf that needed to be dealt with, I didn't turn down his offer of a ride.  I literally haven't felt comfortable on them for years, so I swallowed hard.  Still, when there is slop a foot deep EVERYWHERE, it beat walking in the dark.  Andrew has always been a careful driver and I clung on to the back rack for dear life as it rocked back and forth in the moving slurry under the wheels. 
THAT was when I began to see why farmers have been buying those things like candy even though they are many times lethal when not handled with mature hands OR when a deer hits you.  So this morning, when it was time to get the bulls out of the herd and turn them into the bull pen, I found myself riding on the back of it with Cora as the driver.  She's a very good driver, too, but I sure didn't think that I'd find myself driving it.
As God continually works against my fears, He puts me in situations where I must rely on Him or walk in the muck.  When we were all finished, Robert came back with it and I realized that he meant for me to drive it.  Did you ever have a moment when your heart starts beating like mad and you just know that you will DIE if you have to do the thing that you fear? 
A quick prayer later found me slowly crawling my way back to the road going a very fast 4 mph.  Robert told everyone later that he wondered if I'd kill it but I did NOT!  I even got it up to 9mph on the road on the way back to the farm--so there.  Andrew even got a picture of me on his new wheels to prove that I conquered my fear--for today anyway.

As long as the camera was out, I decided to show you a bit of our mess.  This is in the yard sloping down towards the Quonset.  You can see the most of the water has drained off here and deep tracks are the reminders of the mess that just recently was here.

Just a few feet away, in the tractor ruts, are puddles of water still standing.

A few feet further South is the replacement Heifer pen.  These are the best of the girl calves that were born last year and we wanted to keep back for breeding.  They are one year old now and they will get bred this Summer so that their first calf will come into the world one year from now when they are 2 years old.  Robert bedded these down almost every day as they had no shelter from the storms.  There's not enough barn space for them but, when the wind was out of the North, we'd open the gate and let them get out of the wind be standing beside the barn.  It is VERY hard on me to see animals suffer like they have been suffering these past 2 weeks!
On my way back to the house, I took this picture of my front flower bed.  If you look closely, you can see little shoots of green starting to poke through the cold earth.

Here is my South flowerbed.  You may recall that it got away from us last year, after the tulips bloomed, and we just mowed it off.  I had an idea the other night of putting black plastic down between the tulips on the right and the irises on the left.  We can plant into the ground by cutting holes in the black plastic and the plastic will provide a week barrier.  We're going to try it in the garden this year so that's what gave me the idea to try it out front.

Heading back to the house, I saw my new wheels all full of mud.  We went to Mandan yesterday to spend some time with Robert's parents and things were sloppy on the way home--SURPRISE, SURPRISE!  This color of vehicle really seems to work well for us as it hides a LOT of mud which certainly comes in handy this time of year!

Here is a picture of my hopeless entryway.  I really despise the word, "Hopeless," as with God all things are possible, but it has been a hopeless task trying to keep it clean this Spring.  Mud, milk pails, and manure are everywhere and constantly coming in.  I keep putting essential oils out there, when the scent is more than I can bear, and so we limp along.  Can you believe that I have clients walk in the house through that mess?  Fortunately the only ones who come here to the house are farm wives themselves, or they grew up on farms, so they understand.

Now for the good news, when we were picking out some flowers for my in-laws yesterday, I simply could not resist bringing a bouquet home for us.  "We've had such a terrible week," I said to Robert, "WE need some flowers too," and so I did.
That brings me to the title of this blog post: we can always choose which things we're going to focus on, can't we?  The old, sad Dawn would be out cleaning that entryway right now (not like I haven't every week since we moved here).  All of the pain of shingles on the brain, though, has taught me that I need to find ways to delight myself in this sloppy, messy, sinful world.  Writing just happens to be one of the things that brings me delight so I am very happily typing away instead.  GOOD FOR ME!
Just so that you, too, can have delight in God's wonderful creation, I'm sharing a picture of my lovely Spring bouquet sitting on the table right now.  It has a huge Gerbara daisy on the top; 2 lovely roses;  tons and tons of daisies, and one yellow carnation which is almost like having yellow daisies.  I hope that you will enjoy them too!

Here I am holding the first flowers of the year--HAPPY SPRING EVERYONE!