BonBons and Babies

There seems to be this overwhelming impression that all modern women do is sit around with their feet propped up eating bonbons, watching reality TV.  Funny, I really don’t know what a bonbon is.  I think it involves little balls of ice cream dipped in chocolate.  If you happen to know, please enlighten me.  Until then, I will create new delicious flavors in my mind, where there are no calories or blood sugar peaks and crashes.

So in the reality show known as my life, I work, manage the farm and family business, raise children, drive the kids to school (35 miles from home) and handle homework, extracurricular activities and whatever life throws at me. This week, Charlie left early Monday for a last minute trip to fix an airplane (or to try to fix it) that was stuck in Louisiana. Monday night, we dropped into a hard freeze. Having prepped as best we could, the kids and I went to bed, leaving baby goats snuggled into straw with their mama, and a tiny drip from a hose run in a direction away from the pens.


As you can guess from the foreshadowing, we woke to a geyser from a burst pipe and shivering babies (separate area) at 5am. Bailey ran the babies in to stuff into my jacket while I prepped for the day, and the kids got busy breaking icy waters and tending to the other animals. As I started loading the car just at first light, I found the noise I had been chasing- the water junction on the outside that had burst. I called Charlie, trying to isolate the right shut off without making us late.

In the end, we were still late for the meeting time at the carpool, and we arrived with baby goats in the car. The babies were still shivering in the house after an hour, and it was still only 26 degrees, so I had to take them along and run them back home before going to work.

So the baby goats got to go to school for a few minutes, which the students in Wyatt’s class, and some of Bailey’s friends, appreciated. And when I got home to drop them off, it was up to 35 degrees and the babies were finally warm, playing in the car on their little blanket. There were still icicles from the consistent drip of the leaking pipe fittings, so I decided to take a photo of that too.

All this had sidetracked my visit with my Aunt, my morning workout and my pre-class grading and prep time, but my students seemed to like the class anyway. Then on to the weight room for more teaching, and a fast break to pick the kids- Wyatt had a paper due and Bailey had forgotten the proper shoes for basketball in the melee, so they were all quite ready by the time I reached the school.

After reaching home and tending to all of the animals, homework ran until 11, and we decided to keep the baby goats inside as we were facing similar temperatures. They kept Bailey up most of the night demanding to be cuddled from the playpen.

Mmmm… caramel coconut pecan bonbons…

The business counselor tells me the purpose of blogging is that the outside world will understand the worth of the lifestyle we live, and the locally handmade arts and crafts and organic farming. But the truth is- it is hard work, a labor of love. It is exhaustion and long hours, guilt over the drive needed to get the children to a good school, running through lightning to save animals when the barn roof has partly sheared off leaving does cornered, pulling my wedding dress from the broken glass and retrieving Charlie’s football memorabilia after a tornado sends the storage shed flying.

Chris Ledoux (my ultimate favorite singer) sang a song about how everyone should come move out to the country where life is good. Part way through the song he realizes that then the country won’t be country anymore. The he tells the listener to go themselves a city park, where they won’t have to work about the dust and snow and heat and cold and rattlesnakes or any of that.

The business counselor tells me the purpose of blogging is that the outside world will understand the worth of the lifestyle we live, and the locally handmade arts and crafts and organic farming. But the truth is- it is hard work, a labor of love. It is exhaustion and long hours, guilt over the drive needed to get the children to a good school, running through lightning to save animals when the barn roof has partly sheared off leaving does cornered, pulling my wedding dress from the broken glass and retrieving Charlie’s football memorabilia after a tornado sends the storage shed flying.

Chris Ledoux (my ultimate favorite singer) sang a song about how everyone should come move out to the country where life is good. Part way through the song he realizes that then the country won’t be country anymore. The he tells the listener to go themselves a city park, where they won’t have to work about the dust and snow and heat and cold and rattlesnakes or any of that.

In fact, I invite everyone to come visit Patriot’s Dream. Call first, so we can make sure to be there, and give me a chance to run a broom through the house, and don’t be disturbed by the crazy, though. I would love for everyone to understand where the love of this life comes from. And I would love them to leave the expanse of land untamed, so I can still have the amazing stars, and share them with you when you visit. Come do yoga, sink your hands in the soil, hold babies and help collect eggs. Participate in fitness and nutrition. Bask in the beauty of our sunsets.


But this life can be hard, devastating, exhilarating and exhausting all at the same time. My husband came home the other night. He will be with us for a few weeks before the next trip. I am going to remind myself that we are lucky he is stateside this time of year, unlike so many of our brothers and sisters in our extended military family. So I am hoping to be working in the greenhouse over Christmas, while we watch for more baby goats to arrive. Doing extra workouts with Bailey, and trying to catch up on chores and repairs.

I don’t expect to prop me feet up much more than for a few hours of sleep here and there. But I am thinking up new bonbons. Praline Almond, anyone?

Your Own Best Self

I have spent a lot of time lately discussing goals with a whole range of folks. Be it my children, and discussing what the feel is the most important to them, my clients and what their goals are or my students and the goals they are required to set in order to get a good grade in their fitness class. At the same time, we ask “how will you know when you get there?” of ourselves and those we do goal setting with, and it is funny how the answers change as the journey toward the goals unfolds.



I spent some time with one of my older students yesterday, discussing the fact that the younger students often don’t want to listen to the instructors, and that sometimes we all struggle with the balance of learning o listen to the needs of the body while not giving up or cutting short the push to reach for our goals (and even beyond the goals). This particular student is a testament to never giving up. He is self described as the smallest of the brothers in his family, the least physically inclined. Yet in his return to college, he took the time to take classes in becoming a better student and has listened to the feedback of the instructors whenever we talk with him.


From a distance, this student is the big bulky weight lifter many strive to become, do-rag and all, former service member and champion arm wrestler. He comes every day, is completely comfortable in the gym, has a catalog in his mind of hundreds of exercises. But he has spent this semester going back to basics to overcome injuries and redefine his goals, has decreased weight significantly and used that refocus to become stronger than he thought he might. He takes every opportunity to learn new things and try things. And despite his experience, he never acts above others, and takes time to get to know the young guys who are just stepping into a gym for the first time. He is a great example.


While I don’t know his whole story, I always enjoy his positive attitude. We were discussing yesterday he younger students who don’t always want to take direction. One younger boy had been very defensive to another instructor recently, and this student was a bit put off by his unwillingness to learn or talk with the instructor. And he has been taking some of the younger students under his wing. One of the students he had been trying to encourage was one I have been working with regularly, a sixteen year old who is trying to learn everything he can and find his own goals. Funny he brought him up, because that boy had left me thinking earlier in the week.


It was after my usual teaching shift, and I had corrected something for the boy and discussed different modes of cardio after finishing my own workout. He didn’t really want to try my suggestion, and I was trying to figure out what was really motivating his questions. I asked if there was something in particular he wanted to try. He asked about the workout I had done with a student the previous afternoon. This brought a lot of clarity for me. The student he had seen me working with was a football player who is sitting the year out, working through college and trying to get stronger to try out to return to the team next year. He does much of his lifting on his own, and works with trainers a couple times a week on intense plyometric work.


For this young student, I answered that we could certainly teach him a couple new exercises. It wouldn’t address the area he was pointing to, though. I explained I would be glad to give him a few plyo options to try, but he was going to have to practice them a bit before he could start with the larger box he had seen the day before. I asked a loaded question, not sre what the response would be “What are you hoping to get out of these exercises, so we balance your workout properly with the cardio and strength training?” Ouch, the sly grin came with the slow response I had been hoping not to learn. He wanted to get the muscles stronger and bigger. And he wanted to look like the other student.


This young boy, who is several steps ahead of his peers academically, is very detailed and conscientious, but is not really predisposed genetically to the large muscled shape he is looking up to. As I talked to this young student, he revealed a lot about himself. He is still slowly becoming comfortable in his own skin. He really looks up to this other student, whose confidence and muscle and laughter sound like what he feels he is missing.


Funny, the student he seems to want to be like is struggling with a very long commute to school, working, attending school, and trying to figure out how to properly eat and maintain everything simultaneously. Maybe it isn’t as simple as it looks on the outside.


On top of that, my entire yoga class had turned around to look at one another during an advanced option early in the week. So much for focusing on their own mat.


As I was speaking with this first student yesterday, we were talking about how hard the balance is, and how everyone seems to look at one another for comparison. This student said to become “your own best self.” Funny how hard that can be. He reflected on the ups and downs of his own training and the challenges we all face. I agreed that this is always a process for so many, myself included. But watching the interactions of the week made for such a profound statement for me. I will keep trying, for my own balance and for the example of that I set for others.


How will you be your own best self? And how will you know when you get there? What then?

Why my Math Homework looks funny...

Sure, he could have sat at the dining table to finish his math, like Mama said to, but then there would not have been a king of the mountain contest on his back...

Life as an Accidental Rescue

Life as an Accidental Rescue


The gate to our little farm is on a cul-de-sac that borders a very fast-moving road. The road is also popular for truckers trying to avoid the interstate, as well as those running things up from the Arizona- Mexico border. When my husband and I bought the property eleven years ago, the perimeter fence set in concrete and rimmed with barbed wire was a selling point. Despite the fact that the road was much less busy then and there having been far fewer folks living nearby, we could see the growth potential for the road which extends much of the length of the greater Tucson area.


Back then, our dog Callie Jo patrolled the fence line fiercely. Parents weren’t even allowed through the gate to pick up their children from sleepovers without my opening the gate and granting specific permission. Vegas Ace and Hopper Spark would eventually join the pack. After Callie Jo passed away, Remington rounded out the trio of four-legged guardians helping me run the farm. By then goats are gardens were the norm, by the chickens were just about to come along.


The fall after she joined us, when Remi was still awaiting her spay appointment, a little boy dog came calling at the gate. He was not yet fixed either, and had come visiting with less than pure intentions. I thought he must have a home, but after several weeks of trying, I was having a very difficult time finding it, and being a small dog it was getting to the point was I was resorting to crating him almost all the time to keep him away from Remi. In the end, some nice folks at NSG Rescue somewhere on the other end of Sandario, who sweetly gathered him from me during kidding season. I hear he has since found a wonderful home.


In the last several years, we have returned a number of wandering horses and cattle to owners or at least to friends with facilities to hold them while we found the owners. We are almost always successful in returning them. The recent economy, however, has been hard, and the tables have turned some. A month or so ago, followers of our website and blog met a boy we called Bucky. He was apparently dumped near our place, and followed his nose to our property (I think looking for food, water and does.) After two weeks of looking for his family, and following all clues which turned up to support the fear that he was dumped. The livestock officer asked if we would like to keep him. The prospect of another buck was not one we were looking forward to, especially one with horn who wished to challenge Huey for his does. We did end up finding him a herd of does of his own, a family near the university was looking forward to a new friend.


A few weeks later, a mama doe with a broken leg and her baby doe were wandering the same big road. I lost sight of them, but in the morning as I was packing lunches, neighbors came for help catching them. Before I knew it, my neighbors, my daughter and I had caught the does and carried them to one of our pens. The mama had a broken leg, though it seemed to have been broken for some time. As we were soon expecting kids, we were glad when the livestock inspector called the next day with arrangements to take them to the holding facility. I hope they were able to find good homes in a quick manner.


Rescues have come to take a special place in the landscape of modern American culture. They take in the animals whose families are lost or have abandoned them, giving them a new chance at a full life. That is how Hopper Spark came to us all those years ago, and I couldn’t imagine a better best friend for Wyatt Clay. While we have re-homed or returned animals that have come to our little haven, our lives have been enriched by the effort. We are not a regular rescue, just an accidental one where new friends drop in, make an impact on our lives, and move on to new pastures. We sure respect the tireless work of those who can do all they do and rescue every day to boot. It is tiring and happy, all at the same time, and quite a way to get to know the neighbors!