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Renaissance Mama
Apr. 21, 2006
The sweet life.....
| Our days are so busy. My oldest is working hard to finish up his schooling for the year. The other kids and I are working hard to fit school in with all of life crowding in on us. Luckily, we have found that schooling all year with a lighter summer schedule gets it all done.
My alarm clock is named Seth and he is 12 years old. He faithfully shakes me each morning at a little before 6:00 am. Sometimes I am up before he is and sometimes he is taking his life in his hands when he wakes me up after a long night. His reflexes are pretty quick after all these years of Tai Kwan Do.
Seth takes great delight in waking up his sister. It is his only chance of the day to boss her around for a change.
We set goals each day for us to get accomplished. We dash around in the early morning to get all of the outside chores done and be back in the house by a little after 8:00am. We do about 45 minutes of housework and then school until lunch. After lunch, it is farm work and projects. On Friday, we do not even attempt to do any school but call it an extra work day. This is the day we try to get all the stuff finished that we haven't managed to get done during the week.
Since it has warmed up, the number of outside projects keeps getting bigger. On Wednesday, I was working in my little orchard spraying bermuda grass. I have some old bee hives nearby that died out a couple of years ago. The guy who farms the land around us had hired a crop duster for his sunflower crop. He forgot about my bees and wiped out about ten hives. While I was working, I kept hearing bees buzzing. I glanced up into a dwarf apricot tree and there was a BIG swarm of bees hanging from a spindly little limb.
What a blessing! I had planned on trying to squeeze enough money out of the budget to buy a few more hives and now I had one for free! I quickly found an old bee box with some frames in it and put the swarm in it. There must have been 2000 or more bees in that clump. I didn't have my veil or bee suit handy so I just worked slow and easy and got most of them in the box. I left the box under the tree so that the stragglers would find thier way in. I walked off very pleased with myself because in all the years I have done this, I have rarely been stung while catching a swarm.
Pride goeth before a fall....... I got to the gate of the orchard and turned around to take one last look and a stray bee popped me on my left eye lid. I got to the house and put a cold cloth on it but it was too late. I have been walking around for the last two days looking as if I have been in a prize fight.
We are members of the Southeast Kansas Dairy Goat Club and this year, I am the show chairman. That means that I have been absolutely crazy trying to get things ready for a two day show on the first weekend of June. I have never done this before. The kids have been helping me oragnize and plan things and we got the contracts back from our judges yesterday. We may actually pull this off! Our club is also doing a calendar for a fund raiser. You guessed it! I am the chief calendar girl! The kids have been helping me sell ads , design pages, and take pictures. Today, we are taking the first part to the printer. We are very excited. I guess this would be our version of a yearbook!
Some have accused me of not doing "enough school" with my kids. I really scratch my at this. My kids have more life skills than some adults that I know. More improtantly, they are able to set goals and accomplish them. If they don't know or understand something, they know how to go about finding out the answers.
They all have a confidence that sometimes gets a little scarey. What ever they want or want to do, they really think that they can get it or do it and are willing to save, work or struggle to make it happen. Sometimes it makes my mother's heart quiver with dread, fear, weariness and pride. Yesterday, the clan voted for us to begin working on getting ready for a 3 day trail ride from Caney, Ks to Pawhuska, Ok. It covers about 70 miles of tough riding in July. My daughter and I did it last year. This year, the plan is to take and ride the green broke colts and Seth gets to go along. What a goal! I hope I live throught it! LOL!!
Recently, there was some conversation with some one outside of the family. I don't remember exactly what it was about but the other person was lamenting that whatever the problem was, it was going to be too much work to fix. My 15 year old daughter rolled her eyes and retorted," Hard work doesn't EVEN begin to scare me!". It was a sweet moment for me.... Tell me again what it is that we don't do enough of.....
Please Lord, temper my pride. My cup runneth over......
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Apr. 27, 2006 - Untitled Comment
Hugs, J