Beginning

LF Diamond Rose

 She started what became a decades long obsession for me. Breeding and raising horses. Before she entered my life I was happy owning a riding gelding, that I boarded, living my city life. Before I knew it, I was in a rural area, on a farm, sort of wondering what I had done. She changed me, probably for the better, although I would have a whole lot more money if I hadn't taken that fork in the road. She died in 2001, while delivering her fifth foal, WF Last of Roses. It took me a year to recover from her death. I have three of her five, they are old now, 27, 25, 21. It's hard to believe Mama Rose died 21 years ago, but then I look at Zing in his paddock and know it's true. My hand raised baby, so even tempered and silly, very much her son. Life throws curves at us. Sometimes those curves show us who we are. My horses showed me I was more than I had thought. 

 

Bathing Beauties

When I cleared my mother's house out, eight months of work, I found a lot of photos. These lovelies, from left to right are: Susan, Judy, and Sandra (me). We lived on the same block, we grew up together. Judy had a hard life, a drunken wife beating father, the oldest child in a family of seven children. Her Catholic mother finally decided to divorce him, I don't know if she got dispensation from the church or if she'd had one too many black eyes. The year she kicked him out I watched the kids over summer break. Judy was two years younger than I. I was 13. They ended up poor in a housing project. Judy stopped talking to me, I understand now, but I didn't then. Not all childhoods are idyllic. Not all memories are rosy. 

 I connected with Susan several years ago. She commented that her family and mine were the only normal people on the block. She didn't know what went on behind the walls of my house, we looked so normal. Susan ended up with a good life after a rocky start. I ended up with a good life, also after a rocky start. I hope Judy did, too. 

Retrograde

1978? We were skiing with my friend, Wally. He was a real smart ass, right up my alley. He must have made a comment, which I reacted to and he snapped the photo. I not only kept it, I had it enlarged and framed!

I don't seem to mind looking like an idiot.

 Wally died in 1994. He was my best friend. He was also Mark's friend, but mine first. I belonged to a ski club, there were weekly gatherings at a hotel in the winter and volley ball in the summer. Wally approached me at the hotel gathering and handed me a pick up line. I asked him if that had ever worked for him? We became great friends. Both Wally and I had been married and divorced, we both had a child. He a daughter, I a son. Both of us were cocksure and wise guys. A perfect pair for friendship.

Reflections

From the corner of my mind

 

Minnesota can be counted on for soup weather into May. I'm known as The Soup Goddess in my house, a name I shamelessly gave to myself.

 

It's cold for one more day, then we begin to warm. We often get at least one heavy snowfall in March and often snow in April, so it's not over yet. I've been trapped in my house for so long it's difficult to believe I'll get out and about again. I have underlying health issues, so I have stayed home. I also have developed a back problem that presents as spinal stenosis, but isn't. PT didn't help me, which means I did get out last year for appointments. It all blurs together into what feels like forever. It's been a strange time indeed. I actually am enjoying writing these little notes to myself, it gives me a bit of purpose every day. I guess I'll continue until I don't. Until tomorrow.

Echos

I am fortunate to have items from the past. My great-grandfather's cello. His chair. My maternal great-grandmother's (known to me as my grandma) side table. The relics of the past are not always valued anymore. Perhaps because the younger ones live differently, or perhaps have no connection to those these things belonged.

 

I have a friend whose parents grew up poor so there are no family heirlooms. He has collected beautiful pieces over the years, his preferred is Craftsman. He has become an expert restorer so he has a bit of himself invested in his echos of someone's past. They will become his legacy to the future for someone, as I hope mine will as well.

First World Problems

I became upset today when I received my order from Misfits Market. What is in the photo are some of what I should've received, But I got someone else's much smaller and completely different order. I've contacted them about this and hope it will be resolved without giving me a headache. The local food shelf will be getting what I got since I doubt they will want it returned. Most of that order are things I don't like.

 My aggravated response brought me to thinking about the cloak of privilege, that I have the comfort in my life to feel angry about a mislabeled order for vegetables and sea food. Yes, I paid for it and should get it, but should I feel so mistreated? No, I shouldn't. I know it's partly due to being isolated on my farm for two years. It's also the tension everyone is feeling over a mad man storming into a sovereign country, destroying and murdering in his quest for dominance. It's also my privileged life. My White American life. 

Another Day, Another Soup

The sauce that soothes the soul.

 I started writing here again, I guess, because having done it once, I found I felt better. It doesn't matter that I am writing to myself, I sit down for a few moments at my rather neglected computer and have a brief flashback to days when blogging was a way of communicating with more than a few lines and a"like" button. Over time I've moved away from social media. The name is misleading, it really isn't social at all. So, I pull up a photo, write a little something, publish and move on with my day. It feels good. I will do it as long as I am enjoying the doing. 

Marching On

March is a winter month in Minnesota. We are lucky if we see spring in April, although this has been changing over the last dozen years or so. Yesterday we had rain, then snow overnight, giving us a welcome 5" of heavy snow over the ice. This is a tough time of year to have horses. 

 We have taken advantage of the fireplaces we are graced with in this, our home of nearly thirty years. We live in a place which wants to be a softwood forest and softwood being what it is, it propagates freely. It also comes down seemingly easily, so we have a lot of wood to burn. Mark is happy to replenish the woodbox daily, as he has spent countless hours cutting and stacking the wood. He wants it used. So, I use it.

So much is happening in the US and around the world which is out of our control. So much unprovoked misery in Ukraine, so much concern for what the mad man across the water will do next in his deranged need to be a big man. I light my fires, bake my bread, hold my cat and pet my dog. 

Loaves of February

I am a maker of bread. I have been for a long time. There is something in taking a thing as simple as flour, water, salt and a leavener, or not, that satisfies my being. Every week or so I mix dough, let it rise, bake and happily eat fresh, nourishing bread. I'm not being dramatic when I say bread has helped keep me sane during the two years of almost total isolation I have experienced. Bread and soup have fed my soul as well as my body.