howdy

Well it's been a while, I must admit.  We moved finally but not 100 percent.  Gopher count is well over 30 now and Gary has earned somewhat a reputation in the hood and is now a hired hand, a gopher assassin of sorts with his sidekick, Mason.  He has done well earning 5 bucks a gopher, we are up to 20 bucks or so. 

We have 16 laying chickens, and 6 more on the way tomorrow.  At first  I didn't think this was a lot, but after tonight I beg to differ.

It was my job to round up the five week old chicks.  We let them free range in our sunken backyard in the daytime and then round them up in the evening.  This little game happens every night, and will continue until Gary gets the permenant coop built.  Hopefully on Tuesday, he better hurry because like I stated earlier, I have six little polish crested black and white bantans on the way.  Oh you know what I am talking, it is a straight run too.  hahahahha  I have learned the language of chicken lingo.  Basically I ordered some very cute, extra small black chickens with a poofy white top of feathers on their heads.  Very adorable.  These will be our fun chickens as we are still not yet sure of the fate of the others.  Lets just say I doubt the others will die of natural causes. 

We also have a four year old  tortoise on the way Monday!  Super excited about that and we added a corn snake to the mix tonight.  Possibly bunnies in the future and another dog? :)

Well back to the point.  Gary is gone and it was up to me to do the nightly chicken round up.  I tried herding them with a stick, calling, bribing nothing worked.  Pizza in the oven, rounding chickens couldn't take more than 15 minutes.... right??   WRONG.  Talk about a work out.  I got 8 in the little coop and couldn't manage the other 8.  I am running around with a stick the big dog is barking wildly and the chihuahua was trying to get my back but the chickens at just five weeks were as big as her.  The door to our house is left open and since they are running around our sunken backyard three or four got in the house, where upon a few kids start to scream, mainly Abby.  One rouge chicken runs into- and I mean literally slams into her closet door, which is a mirror.   This sends her into a fit of laughter and this wakes the baby.  Now I am sweating, running up and down the hill trying to catch chickens and shut the dog up who thinks this is all a game.  I am also covered in chicken germs so I dare not touch my daughter.  Mason is holding her bouncing her very hard up and down, screaming at me something is wrong with her.  Ya, she is tired and you all woke her up.  Anyway...I remember the pizza and become super frustrated.  I now stop what I am doing to take a moment to  yell at the kids for waking Serenity.  I have one chicken in my hands and start in on my lecture when suddenly another chicken flies up and lands on my shoulder, out of nowhere!!!  then craps all over my shirt just a few daring inches from my nose!  I stand shocked.  I didn't know they could fly and what would posses this crazy chick to land on me out of the blue.  The kids all start laughing and cover their mouths in disgust and the giant green chicken poo running down the front of my shirt.  Then suddenly another chicken flies up on me and then another takes the daring leap.  So I am standing there dumb founded to think that these chickens I had been chasing for 20 minutes would have flown up on me had I just stood still.   NOW the kids are rolling in hysterics and start chanting "Chicken lady"  I walk very slowly as not to disturb this symbiotic human/chicken elevator union.  Then two chickens start fighting and get stuck in my hair, I do believe one was on top of my head by the time it was all said and done!  It was all very strange.  Regardless I put them away, the pizza was burnt, we ate it anyway, and a few hours later the baby was back to sleep.  Rough night home on the range.

So in conclusion... 16 chickens are a lot of chickens.  I have an idea !  how bout we get 6 more!!  splendid~

I will have to blog about chicken ortho tomorrow.  We do have one down with a broken leg. 

born

They had been waiting outside my bedroom door for hours. 
Turn the lights down now.
Time to get out of the water.
One step, two steps, stop.
My abdomen squeezed any effort to walk like the wringing of a dish towel.  I could only breath as I dripped naked onto the carpet.
Pain was now my guide.  The midwives were simple voices blurred in the background like the candle's soft haze breaking the darkness of my room.
In this garden a little seed was planted and in this garden I would bare that fruit.  Sweat dripped down my forehead and I trembled as I inched towards the toilet.  I was alone.  Suddenly it ripped me apart.  The ability to focus was lost in a wave of complete agony.  I longed to scream or cry or throw up, but even my voice was gagged in the grip of this contraction it's teeth burrowing into the secret place I reserved my will and resolve to finish this.   I am in jeopardy of loosing it as I ball my fist up to punch a hole in the wall.  There is no spare energy for gluttonous so I close my eyes and try to regain my ground.  . 
My eyes find their way back to the front of my head.  It didn't get me.   I held the monster off one more time.  I move back to my room before the next wave overtakes my senses.  There my grandmother, mother and sisters wait for me.  I can see their dark shadows, outlines of the three generations  expecting a miracle.
I find my bed.  The voices say to push.  I doubt them but do as they say.
She is stuck.  The heartbeat is going down.  I just want her out.  I hear whispers and prayers.  The baby isn't coming out.  Clarity is immediately discovered in the anxious eyes of my midwife as she leans over me yelling directions.  I have to do this right now.  I bare down.  I push I groan and push and into the world a purple head appears.  Two more pushes and she is out...nine and half pounds.
Yes I did it!  She is placed in my waiting arms, cheers erupt from the dark outlines.  Now I can wrap up everything "they" said and throw it away with the bloody labor.  I did it and "they" and all "their" stories were wrong about me and about my choice to homebirth.  I finished alive with my baby completely unmedicated.  My body is stretched and deep inside I find  the woman I knew I was.  I did something amazing that a lot of women would never dare to do in our Western culture.  I won.  I am the epitome of woman holding my breastfeeding baby.  My son comes in to see his new sister, everyone leaves my husband and I to hold our growing family tight.  He is looking at me different, and I see the world differently too.  I can probably do anything if I could do that, I think to myself.  Pride, wells up in me, I don't try to tame it when my friends tell me I am the "wo man!"  I have to agree, I am the woman.

Update from a post written 2007 my new comments in red

Letting God

"Let God and Let God"  I wrote this years ago expressing intense feelings on waiting for our daughter to come home from Ethiopia.  We had already adopted a son several years prior.  Unbeknownst to us the coruption that was taking place in Ethiopa as adoption began to hit an all time high.  I feel somewhere we were caught up in that and my husband and I desperately are searching for the truth.

Nice expression but hard to do sometimes.  still very hard to do

I am having trouble letting go today. I fill my mind and hands with a thousand other things so that I am not even to able to hang on to the one who created me and can save me. Even if it is from myself.

List of things to let go:

The idea of having one more biological baby. I can't and I won't be able to. I have to let God.  Four years later, I am contending with a six month old biological child, currently screaming because I am blogging.  My life is topsy turvey with a new baby I never thought I would be blessed with.

The fact that I lost Judah's babyhood. He was abandoned and I will never have baby pictures or really know what happened to him. I have to let go.  I still don't know what happened to him, but just the other day we have decided to finally look.  We have a great investagator and we should have at least something in the near future.   We also have a friend that has traveld to his region in Ethiopia and she has pictures for us.  That is a blessing beyond words when you know nothing about your child.
Adoption is a miracle. It can leave you breathless with anticipation, jittery with excitement, but it can also leave you quesioning everything you know about yourself and your reality.  Still does as we have come to learn the not so honest practices our agency used to bring our daughter home.  I am questioning more than ever the ethics of adoption.  It can leave you helpless and sleepless wide eyed, coffee strung out jumping everytime the phone rings or you check your email. In the end it leads to a child, a beautiful child that has a chance to make an impact on this world because you had the chance to make an impact on them. Adoption takes an exsisting soul and places thier sensitive hearts in your hands. I have empty hands, my little girl I am waiting for has noone, why wouldn't God match us?  All these years later, I find out not only does she have a father but more family there than here.  It is so hard to know why and even if she was part of something more than ethical.  We knew she had a father but that was it.  I am longing to know him and ask him some questions.  I wander if he is desperately looking for her.  As her forever parents here in the USA we are just trying to make sense of it all.
Lord help me to let go and to let you will in my life freely today as I wait, and realize there are things in my life I am yet mourning. Be with me through this time of quesitons and supply me with wisdom and knowledge to not just get through, but to grow. Thank you God.
Kim

As we start this new journey into finding the truth, I still pray this prayer.  We need peace and wisdom as we seach for birth parents in Africa.

Honest Truth

Fell asleep big time last night.  This no carb diet is kicking my but, or maybe it is just life in between moves and five kids and two houses that need repair, with a husband half here and a baby that is over the top clingy.  I have lost all sense of humor and my funny bone is broken in need of repair.

 Dogs are puking.

Great.

Okay done complaining.

Out to the farm today to do some work and visit with my sister.  Gary filled in the giant caved in gopher hole as required per our loan.  We forgot to order irrigation.  Hand watering the plants is tedious.  I NEED to plan the garden.  I feel like we are buckling down for summer.  Here in the desert going outside between 8am 8 pm is not an option.  For now here is a some pictures of our last little visit to the house, the girls decided to have a tea party on the floor. 

It is nice with no TV there as the kids have to find things to do.  At this point they are complaining that going out there is boring.  I really hope to find a way to shift their attitudes before the big move in a month.  There is so much work to do they all need to help.

Big Feelings

Just a quick one of all the girls.

sorry a bit blurry, I got nervous about taking pictures with the professional photographer :)

Today is a day of big feelings.

We got ourselves ready for the photo shoot, Abby wandered how come she wasn't picked.  She asked if she were pretty enough and brave enough.  I felt so sad for her, yet so happy for Nettie. 

We arrived early and were treated as royalty by handsome and beautiful young aspiring executives and art directors and photographers.  Lunch was provide as well as many tempting desserts. (non of which I had as I am on a diet, actually made it past Tuesday, ya for me!)

Right away the other girls welcomed Nettie with questions, hugs and giggles.  Nettie was in her element and it didn't take long to make new best friends.  In no time she was off like a flash, getting her hair done (I did it, they just put a couple of bobby pins in it) and make up done.  It was actually scary to see her with make up on, she was so beautiful.  It was really just a little foundation and  chap stick, but she enjoyed it.

They gave her a new Disney brand dress and she was thrilled to pieces.  They didn't even bother to look at the clothes I had brought.  I guess they saw how I was dressed and didn't think it was necessary to bother as I am having a 10 year fashion slump.  Regardless she glowed.

I met the person head of this campaign and she loved Nettie's story.  The photographer went to work and took several head shot pictures.  That was it.  I will put them online as soon as I can.  For now I took a few shots while we were waiting.

The whole day I thought about her birth parents in Ethiopia and wandered what they would think to see her.  It was quite the distraction, a pleasant moment mixed with sorrow, like every big moment we have.  Birthdays, mothers day, Christmas, you name it, I wander about them.

Something I haven't shared on this blog is that we have been searching for her birth parents.  Tonight we got word of them.  I can't say too much now as it wouldn't be fair for everyone but Nettie to know.  In fact I am not telling her anything until I can sort it out in my brain.  So many big feelings.  I cried and held her tighter tonight.  In fact today was her day that I dedicated to pray for her and it was her day to stay up late and snuggle with us.  Fitting today would be the day we learned a little bit more about her.  You would be surprised at how the simple things, like a name or what language she spoke can make a difference.  I really can't go on because it is so much and I have developed a head ache.

I will say as I reappeared out of my room, the kids could all see I had been crying.  Judah reached up on his tippy toes and touched my face and prayed for my jaw. (TMJ) It was so sweet and tender.  Then Mason called me to his room and prayed for me as well.  He told God that I had a gift to make others happy and that I made him happy and that even if he was having a bad day when he saw me his heart felt good again.

I guess I don't realize most the time the power I have has a mother.  Tonight I was able to comfort all of my kids, from spiders, hurt feelings, and the type of grief I hope I never really understand.  A soft touch a kiss a gentle look.  Nettie snuggled in my arms and plopped her feet up on Dad, and told me she doesn't ever want to loose me. I asked her on the way home what was the favorite part of her day.  I thought she would say getting her pictures and make up done.  Instead she said .... "Spending it with you."

The dress she got.  Just waiting for photographer

Okay this smile may be a bit big, but she was so  happy!

Getting her make up on

Photo Shoot

I must deviate from doing a farmy post today as it is a special occasion.  Netsanet is doing her photo shoot with award winning photographer Blair Bunting.  We are just putting on the finishing touches to her wardrobe and hair.  Of course she will have a stylist there and hair and make up, just in case!  You know when you are 7 it is so important to have your own stylist.

This is really a once in a lifetime chance and what is so cool in a weird way is that I have nothing to do with her biologically!   Meaning I don't have to pretend to be modest about my beautiful daughter!  I can sit back with the rest of the world and enjoy her moment without reservation.

Wish her luck.  It is going to be a long day with a baby in tow, but I always swing it.  Go Nettie!!!

The Skirt

I am trying out this new group called the Red Dress.  It is a creative writing group and each week you get a prompt.  This week is to describe a memory  of something ( a certain color, I can't say which one,)  without actually using the colors word.   See if you get it. :)



The blazing silk made it's way down my legs, it's fluid crimson trickling in the contrail of my gate.  The bias cut skirt dared to play a game of peek a boo with my black leather boots.  I picked up the pace, my parched skin longed for any shade to quench the toasted apples of my cheeks. Gravel crunched under the weight of my soul and shoe.  Beneath the tent ahead, loved ones convened, pointlessly fanning themselves as if to ward off the scorching afternoon sun.   I joined them and we stood as one being, fighting a loosing battle against the vampiric heat that drew the moisture from our skin before it ever had the chance to escape as droplets through our burning foreheads, necks and hairlines. 

Over a dozen long stem roses stood sublime and motionless in a vase adjacent to the shiny black casket.  The only movement was the intermittent breeze generated by the uncomfortable twisting and fanning of sweltering bodies gathered together to say good by.  I worried momentarily about the older folks coming to pay their last respects to my grandfather.  The sun was brutal, not affording us even one moment to grieve.  There was no grace given, not even the gossamer skin of the aged was spared.  Out of concern and respect I took my place standing off to the side of the tent to make way for the generation ahead of me.  Together we created a procession of time waiting for our turn,  younger, older, dead.  

There was no grass in this historic cemetery, and the trees were a native desert variety that offered little hope or comfort.  The pea gravel was bone colored and reflected itself in the sun, creating a glare that even the best RayBan's couldn't withstand.  Dusty hispanic relics embellished the mounds of their deceased residents.  Chihuahua statues, white crosses, the Virgin Mary and brightly colored silk flowers marked their lives in the festive Mexican tradition.  

In this cemetery each family was responsible for providing a memorial or head stone for their loved ones.  There were no rules, as evident to the eclectic tokens placed on top, next to and around the graves.  Our family had chosen a slab of veined, emerald marble that was once a mismeasured counter top for a hotel in Vegas.  It had been sitting in my garage for over ten  years, a yard sale find for 30 dollars.  I had hoped that one day it would be a coffee table in my living room, but in the end it was probably always meant to mark my grandfather's grave.  

Grandpa Jo was born in Mexico, his English was broken and covered in a thick, spicy, Hispanic glaze, even after years of living in Arizona.  He loved to eat cactus and dance the cumbia with pretty ladies.  He knew strange things like how to boil coyote bones to cure arthritis.  He ate and grew peppers and aloe plants and loved to garden.  He was daring and brash at times, especially if he had a few cervezas.  He would have loved my blood stained lipstick that screamed at my skirt's inappropriate, hue.  In life Grandpa didn't shy away from color or style.  I smiled to myself as I recalled the little dash of silky Tabasco he himself often sported, tucked in the front pocket of his suit jacket.  He would have thought I looked festive in such a deep, saucy, shade of amour and I can only imagine that he would have approved of my attire, proud that I stood out, a brazen statement against the stoic black suits and dresses. 

As the funeral began I was handed a rose, held at my side it's color fused with the soft, silk creases of my skirt.  I wanted to dance like we  used to when I was a child.  I wanted him to snatch the rose from my hand and clench it between his teeth like he did in life when he tried to be macho and daring in a humorous way.  If he could see me he would have laughed that crusty, barrel laugh beneath his gray handle bar mustache and called me mija!  We would have danced and my waiting, lifeless skirt would have caught fire, twirling with Grandpa Jo.


I realize after reading this, it is slightly flat and devoid of real emotion.  To be honest I think that is how I felt that day.  I wasn't as close to my grandfather as I wanted to be for different reasons.  I remember him fondly and I miss him, but there was a distance there.  I think I can see this in how I portrayed his funeral.

Monday tidbit- big muffins

Today a neighbor stopped by.  She doesn't have kids and is a self proclaimed "mother hen" type.  In her hands were 6 really big muffins!  What a treat.  I actually was craving a muffin.

I gobbled one down, because today is Saturday and I always start my diet on Monday, leaving  Tuesday through Sunday to gorge.  Which translates to, I really only diet on Monday.  (good intentions though, I may make it through Tuesday one day.) 

Anyway, there are seven in my family but considering Serenity doesn't eat muffins that leaves one for each of us.  Nettie was the first to ask for one.  They really were gigantic and my first inclination was to say no.  but then I felt God say, let them have it, all of it is free just like me. 

Here's the rest of it.

God has given Jesus as our free gift.  We don't have to be stingy about him, we don't have to worry if he is going to waste.  There is a huge portion for each one of us, more than we can use or have but that doesn't stop him from giving us exceedingly above and beyond, therefore we can give exceedingly above and beyond.    Take, Take and Take again He the son of God is a free gift.  Give, Give and Give again there is more than enough to go around.  He doesn't alot little tiny portions.  So sitting and watching Nettie with this great big muffin I didn't worry if she would waste it.  In fact she treasured it.   She nibbled as much as she could off the top and then carried it around trying to find someplace safe to keep it for later.  There is more than enough to go around.

By Golly She Did IT!

Well my daughter Nettie was chosen out of over 1,000 girls to be featured in the Girl Scouts Advertising Campaign.  

Let me just quickly share something with you about the casting call day.

When we arrived at the add company I was immediately taken back by all the cute little girls running around in the open air court yard. 

Out going, laughing, ball bouncing, sweet girl scouts. 

You could feel the weight of stares coming from the other moms.  Sizing up my daughter, checking out the competition.  I could see that my sensitive Nettie felt that pressure and immediately became shy.  Unfortunately she started to gaze outward and began comparing what she was wearing to everyone else.  Her insecurity slipped like a bike chain out of gear.  It took me a while to get her back to the Nettie we know and love.  By the time her turn came up she was ready to go~

The creative arts team called her outside to interview her while I stood on the sideline waiting.  Picture this little four foot creature, bold and standing alone, going after what she wanted with everything in her reaching out to the panel of five adults.  (Who by the way fit that very posh ad agency look and stereo type) Personally I had butterfly's. 

They asked her what her favorite cookie was, and how old she was and what she wanted to do when she grew up.  She told them she wanted to be a model.  I laughed and rolled my eyes because last week she wanted to be a police officer and last month she wanted to be a princess.  They told her in return she wouldn't have any problem doing that.  Which I took as a good sign.

Now here's the kicker, get a tissue.

After the questions they told her to stand up in front of the photographer and hold her card with her name and number. 

I suddenly had to choke back tears as I had an instant flash back.  The last time she held a name card in front of her for a picture, she was an orphaned girl in Africa.  The first picture of her I ever saw was a little girl in borrowed rags, holding a board that had her name scratched on it to identify her among hundreds of other abandoned and orphaned kids hoping for a home, a mom a dad a family.  In these pictures she has just lost her family days prior.  The wound so new.

This was our first picture of our daughter, she was 4.5 years old.

Now, look at her.  Proud,  healthy, bold, pursuing her dreams, given a chance.  I wanted to tell the photographer how far she had come, how she deserved to have a shot at this and how beautiful and sweet and cute she was. (and)   I had to be silent and let her speak for herself.  That was so hard.  I had to trust they could see all of what I prayed for in a daughter.  A shiny , happy, light up the room kind of gal.  I prayed they would see Jesus in her.  They did.  And by golly she did it!!! 

Now she will be representing an organization we love and more importantly her country and girls like her.

this is the look book for the shoot, the picture before this she was holding a sign with her name.

Thursday Farm Tid bit

I have a confession to make.  I have never grown anything worth eating.  Well once last summer we grew a strawberry.  Yes just one small strawberry and we split it between 6 excited people.  (it wasn't even good)  After that, well our garden died.  Yes we lost her even after hours of researching how to pollinate zucchinis and my husband q tipping the stamos of a male plant and adding it to a female, all while making bee noises. (which by the way I was mildly uncomfortable with, not the bee noises, the sexual nature of the pollination. blush)    A few years before that we spent a fair amount of money of tomato plants and peppers.  I let them die.  I don't think I was ready back then to care for the tomato plants.  I don't know,  it seemed at the time too much to handle.   (see this is the attitude that scares me about myself.) 

Anyway getting into this gardening thing is a bit more complicated than I thought.  For instance, after we planted our four grape vines we read that you should build a trellis  first.  ooops.  Then that led us to Youtube videos of pruning grapes and training them to go where you want.  Seriously??!, I can barely do that with my kids, now I have to train grape vines?  Ya right, the grape vines are probably going to talk back and be rebellious and leave toilet paper all over my bathroom floor. 

The whole thing left me scared and a bit insecure.  Not to mention, our fruit trees.  The bugs involved with eating certain leaves, making sure the graft doesn't take over, watering them, and making sure they are planted near the right trees that help with pollination.  I don't have a clue.  Notice how I added watering them as a complicated thing?  See that scares me.

So when approaching the planning of the garden I am a trembling mess.   There are rows going certain directions and spaced with very technical numbers, ( really just inches and such, but it seems so intimidating) and different seasons and the latest thing I just learned, companion planting.  That is when you plant complimentary plants next to each other to maximize soil and limit insects.  It is all very technical.  That ain't my thing jelly bean.  So here is something I found that helps.


Mother Earth News Garden Planner

The first 30 days are free so you can get on it and go crazy, then you have to pay.  But still I think it is worth it  as it is a no brainer really on how to get  your garden planned.  It even tells you the companion plants as you are clicking and dragging those adorable tomato icons.  It tells you the space you need, how big the rows are and how much you can plant.   It is like the garden training wheels. 



At least now I can mess up online rather than spending hundreds and getting it all wrong.  So far I am on my third online garden.  I am getting better as I go thanks to this garden planner and of course Mother Earth News.