An interesting twist

This farm is surrounded by Amish families, when I purchased this place I was immediately introduced to one of my neighbors, Abe. Since I've lived here Abe has built on to the barn, installed the horse fencing, built a new porch and put beautiful wood floor in the sunroom.

Abe is a master carpenter, everything he has done here has been done with hand tools and occasionally a gas powered table saw. Abe and his helpers do beautiful work.

The Amish believe in neighboring, that means that they strive to be good neighbors and enjoy having neighbors that feel the same way. I am what they call an "English" but I am a good English becauses I understand and try to practice neighboring.

Abe and his family have become more than just good Amish carpenters, I have enjoyed eating at his table, his visits and trading. Most of all we spar because Abe has a very colorful personality and a very good sense of humor.

There are a few things about the Amish that is not common knowledge, one is that even though they do not have phones and cars news travels like wildfire among their community. Also, they have super powers, they see everything like people visiting or a hay delivery and even a Vet visit. Abe does not live right next to me but he knows everything that goes on at my place, it's like he has x ray vision through several acres of woods and fields.

The other very important thing to know about Amish is that they love ice cream, I mean they LOVE ice cream. The love of ice cream comes from not having a way to keep it for long. Also, Amish work all the time and do not have many places to sit in their homes. They are always moving and won't sit long as a rule, this equates to being able to eat a lot of ice cream and burn off the calories without blinking an eye.

Abe was a gateway to the Amish community all around me. I am visited by other Amish and when they need to call a doctor or sometimes to be driven somewhere because of a medical need. In return, I have been given homemade bread from their tables and other items that they produce.

I am "in" their circle to a point because when they interact with me they are themselves, when another English is present though they will become stoic and Amish. Some have shared their knowledge of home remedies and experience.

The most valuable gift I have received from my Amish friends is learning about their goodness, they do love and care for animals, they love their children and do everything with them. People think their life is a hard one but they work and live at a pace, they do not obsess and they do not worry about material things. Amish value family and community more than anything else they could possess.

My neighbors bring back memories of and have so much in common with the family I grew up with. My adopted grandfather was born in 1884, he wore very plain work clothes, laced boots and a straw hat in the summer, my adopted mother canned everything. I grew up with stories of their lives when they did not have electricity and running water. I relate to the people around me now sometimes more than my own English kind.

Tonight we visited Levi who is Abe's younger brother. Levi is the sweetest and kindest and he looks just like his dad. I met Levi's children and his wife too. We went to Levi's house to take pictures to help him sell it, he wants to move to Kentucky where land is cheaper and the farms are larger. Levi has six children, he will have more and he wants to live where his children can live and have farms when they grow up. There is not enough land here now at a reasonable price to expand the community.

We walked across the road and visited Levi's father's metal working shop which was filled with large old fashioned machining equipment. Outside the shop is all the equipment Levi and the other Amish have manufactured by hand, all farm implements. The workmanship is pristine and impressive because the work was done the old way without modern machining equipment.

 The picture above is of a simple kitchen in Levi's home, it is complete with a woodburning stove and a long dining room table lined with plain wooden chairs. The home was simplistic, warm, clean and filled with family love.

My life has taken a very interesting twist moving here, I have learned about another culture, I have become the proud owner of domestic geese which yields amusement and endless stories, I have a huge spring fed pond teeming with life that shares it's secrets with me with every season that passes. All of these things are amazing to me, my life has been deeply enriched and I am grateful for them. 

Now enters Elsa

I will never get over the passing of Daniel. Every day he is in my thoughts and I feel a great weight of sorrow for him in my heart. He was my heart.

But, Cooper and Micah are getting older and if a new puppy was to be introduced it had to be soon.

Enters Elsa, a little Sheltie mix puppy that I took home at 8 weeks old. My first girl dog, the runt and what appeared to be a very quiet and timid puppy. Maybe at first she was quiet and timid but she was also very small and very young.

Elsa is 6 months old now, she was quiet a shock to the two old boys and I knew with Micah being a very short tempered dog that a girl would be easier for him to tolerate than a boy. I was right, he puts up with so much and Elsa pretty much does what she wants.

It has brought joy back into the home especially since Elsa and Mia (the sick kitten that is now grown and healthy) are best buddies and rough house with each other relentlessly. It can be a real circus with both of them racing through the house at play.

Daniel would have loved Elsa, she loves toys as much as he did and loves to play. Micah likes to play with her and I keep a watchful eye on him just in case.

As much as my heartaches for Daniel and I long to turn time backwards to hold him again I am forced to continue on. Our loved ones pass, time passes but there is always new life and it catches ups and carries us along with it. 

2019 a new direction

I work really hard, I mean really hard. I work from home but my job is very stressful, I am a full time mortgage underwriter. I also have my brother and daughter depending on me for a place to live and support. My quest to help them and make things easier started me down the path buying a duplex.

Fast forward, a friend found a very unique and profitable 6 unit that was for sale and I am now the proud owner. I prayed very hard and although it was kind of scary and intimidating to plunge into buying another property I knew it was right because the whole transaction went smoothly.

I had made up my mind that I would just look and wait until the "right" property came up. I was willing to walk a way from anything that seemed perfect but for some reason didn't feel right or there was a hurdle to overcome.

At this point in my life, time is becoming even more important to me. Days of working and then doing what I have to do here on the farm without enough time to really enjoy it is not an ideal lifestyle.

Hopefully in the next few years I will reposition myself and be able to work a little less and still have an income that provides for my two human dependants and my oh so many creature dependents.

I love them all and really want to spend more time with them.

2018 is over retrospect

I lost a very dear and special dog in 2018, I can remember last year with Daniel at Christmas time and it was one of  our better ones.

In the beginning of June I had to rush Cody to the emergency equine hospital, he almost died.

My brother found out last month he has cancer.

In January of 2018 I was laid off briefly and in February in really bad weather drove to Maryland for a week for training to start a new job.

Kylie had some things happen and she has moved back at the same time my brother moved in and he is struggling with Parkinson along with the cancer.

The weather was a challenge in the summer, it was just a harder year with the heat seeming more intense.

I went through a bout of depression on and off.

A lot of little things I think with the added responsibility of having my brother here, a bigger farm, the weather and working full time. I had a lot of overtime too that all in all spread me kind of thin.

It was a hard year in 2018, I know it could have been worse and perhaps I've had harder years. My hope for 2018 was that the time had come where things would be a little easier and there would be more me time.

It didn't turn out that way and I don't know what 2019 will be like. I know I will miss Daniel always. It is total mud outside and the weather is nothing like I can remember for winter. The job is going good and I don't think there will be a layoff but you never really know for certain.

I worry with the passing time how much time I will have left with Cody and stress because I still don't get much time to do things with him. I see him everyday and he goes out and has a very comfortable life, he knows I love him, I know he loves me. I want to make some good memories with Cody in 2019, that is my hope.

I know I will have to get Uncle Gregg through is cancer surgery and treatment and I will have to get Kylie on her feet again.

I'll end with the hope and the prayer that we all make it through 2019 and it is filled with peace and love and happiness.  

My Daniel

The first few days after Daniel's passing were horrible for me, I had one prayer that this time I would be assured I would see him again. I have lost other dogs and pets but Daniel was very special, we were joined at the heart and it was like a two way connection.

I prayed to God that just once somehow I would be blessed with something that would reassure me that Daniel was not lost forever and that he was okay. I think my prayers were answered in a very unusual way and this is how it went.

I collected the many dog toys from the yard that Daniel had and I took them downstairs to wash them. The next day I noted on the sidewalk in my fenced in yard there was one just laying right in my path. I decided I would come back and get that one later and take it and wash it.

The third day at night I went out to the barn to throw hay to the horses, there were kittens running around as usual and I wasn't looking down when I walked in. On the way back up the row of stalls I was heading back to feed the barn cats and I was looking down, right in the middle of the aisle way was Daniels toy. It had traveled from just outside the patio doors through the yard, a gate and down the driveway.

I never take the dogs to the barn, I never take dog toys to the barn and cats don't carry dog toys. I thought my brother might have brought it to the barn so I went in the house and woke him up, the answer was no. There had never been a dog toy in the barn period.

The day that Daniel passed I collapsed on the couch with my other dogs and screamed and cried, I wanted to die and I wanted to be where Daniel was at too, my prayer was very serious and I meant it. The only thing other than asking God to take me to and then realizing I had all of my other animals that needed me to was to ask God for one special thing.

My spiritual friend and I mean a powerful person in prayer text me a prayer later that evening, she never knows what or how the prayer will go till she begins to write it and I cried when I read it. My friend had almost word for word prayed for what I had ask God for. So we waited and what came was the mysterious dog toy.

At first I did not believe it was what I thought it was and I was emotionally numb by the third day but over the next few days I allowed myself to be comforted by the strange thing that had happened.

I miss Daniel so and I know I will never not miss him, I am so deeply connected to him and his loving heart but I am able to cope with it now. I will never have another Golden Retriever, I could not bare it but another puppy was soon in my future.

My other 2 dogs are getting old and I have always wanted a female Sheltie. During the week of Thanksgiving I happened to jump on my computer early one morning and as soon as my facebook page loaded there was a picture of a large litter of Shelties at a rescue, all females. I fought the urge because I didn't think now was a good time and spring would be better but Sheltie puppies at a rescue is rare. I talked myself into at least going and looking, it was a two hour drive.

I walked into the room with the puppies and suddenly became engulfed in puppy love and just plain puppiness. I sat down and watched each one, they tackled me with kisses. The smallest one however took her time and slowly approached me after a minute or so and licked my hand. My daughter picked her up and held her and she was quiet and looked around thoughtfully.

She was the smallest and I took her home. Her name is Elsa, she is very good and also now full of life and although she is sweet she is much more bold. The cat Mia who was almost dead when my daughter dropped her off in my barn and I nursed her back to life is Elsa's partner in crime and they run and play.

My Micah who has always been overbearing and grumpy is now the number one puppy babysitter, after about a week he came around to playing with her. Cooper my old Sheltie has accepted her.

I forgot to mention the sadness in Micah and Cooper over the loss of Daniel, they wouldn't lay next to me where he used to or play with any of his toys, this went on for about 2 weeks. Micah especially missed Daniel. They both comforted me and I comforted them.

It is interesting how quickly life can change and the dynamics of a household. I believe God jump started me with seeing the puppies online, it is hard to be so deeply in grief at the same time new life bursts into your life.

My precious Daniel has passed away

My precious Daniel passed away on October 17th, no words can comfort, I have died a thousand deaths in my heart the moment his stopped beating. 

Finally a sign for the farm

There has been a lot of hard times in my life, lots of changes. Mostly it has turned out good. It took awhile for me to settle into this farm because I loved the old one so much and I don't think I was over losing it.

This place is very different than the old farm, the house is very nice and there is 10 acres and a huge spring fed pond. The arena is nice and the stalls Abe build have all the things I liked from the old farm. Special stall mats and a skylight for each stall. It's quiet here and the land has lots of trees and is rich with life.

I wanted to have a feeling of completion and permanency so I had an artist make a sign with my favorite drawing to represent what I feel about the farm and animals living here. It turned out really nice.

Cody almost died this year, I took him to Ohio State and he made it through. It was a wake up call, all these years I have struggled to survive and haven't been able to spend time with him as much as I should have.

When Cody was really sick all I could say to him over and over again was I still need you. It is true, Cody was the beginning of horses and farms and living the life I have chosen. We lost pony before I moved here and that makes me sad and now there is Hugh. Bit and Aubrey are doing well.

My life has been enriched with geese and lots of feral barn cats and trying to stem the litters of kittens that come with them. All together, there have been nine cats fixed and several more to go provided I can trap them.

There are water turtles, snapping turtles, snakes in the water and on land and countless other creatures. We have lizards also. I see the beauty of life all around me everyday.

Kylie brought a kitten to the farm late one night that was very sick, now I have a house cat which I wasn't looking for. The parrots are still with me too and 3 dogs. The best of it is the love I am surrounded with and the humor provided mostly by the geese.