Ooops! I'm Sick!

Well, when I get sick, I get a bunch of random thoughts that magically wiggle themselves on to my blog.  I try to slap them and tell them "no" but they won't listen to me.  They have a mind of their own.

Yes, I'm sick.  Sore throat, bad cough... I feel like I have a fever, but I don't.

These are some things I have learned over the past few weeks:

Drink water. LOTS OF IT!

Don't eat too much sugar.

Exercise.

Don't pretend like you're an insomniac.

As you may have guessed, I did the absolute OPPOSITE of all of these.  My poor adrenals are all shriveled up, and I feel naughty that I've neglected them for so long.  But hopefully my health-world will be back to normal before too long.  Oh! And another thing I've learned....

Trust in the Lord! Because if you don't, it causes TONS of emotional stress, and if you have depleted adrenals, emotional stress will take it's toll, and you will become sick (like me!)

So, these are the things I have learned.  And now I am most fervently following all of the above rules as best I can.

But being sick means being emotional, and being emotional means thinking about my favorite things, and thinking of my favorite things inevitably brings the inevitable... Which is the thought of my non-existent-beautiful-brown-and-white-milk-cow-Annabel.

That's right.

You heard me...

A milk cow.


I really am a city girl, in some ways... I don't know anything about animals or living in the country, or anything agricultural.  I just like the thought of wide open hilly country... green pastures... ponds... fences... dogs... Oh! And... cows. Lots of them... And horses. Lots of horses.

And hats....


And boots....


And everything else...


*drifts off to dream world... smiles lazily*....


OOPS!


I forgot that's not my life.

Cleveland actually is a nice city, when you think about it.  The lawns are green.  There are lots of trees... (And telephone poles.)

I pretend like I'm a cow/country-girl... When, in reality, I'm not.  And that's okay with me.  I like pretending.  I have seven wonderful siblings... (OH! and a sister in law!) we have two cats... three lizards...

Life in the city is nice...

But it's not my favorite thing, and since I'm sick, I'll stick to one of my favorite things... cows....

I did my research today.  I still have no idea how much a calf would cost.  (duh... city girl...) But the Guernsey cows are docile things... they are conformable to any climate.  They produce thick, yellowy milk, that has lots of Vitamin A in it.  And, also, I've read that something in the milk doesn't irritate dairy allergies... it actually soothes the sinuses.  (At least that's what I read.)  They are alert, but not irritable.  And they are oh-so-pretty!

Goats... ehhh... not so much.

But I can just picture it.... (picture with me... close your eyes, and in your mind, imagine everything black... oh, imagine it after you read this, cuz you can't imagine what I'm saying with your eyes closed while you're reading it...)

Black... everything's dark... Then... a streak of light.  Dawn breaks over the beautiful country of Nowheresville.  All that's visible is a faint streak of pink and orange.

Everything is soft and quiet....

Dark hills are outlined by the early morning light....

A milk cow lows softly in the barn... Imagine the barn... the smell of hay... manure....


A young, crazy, wild girl... in pink pajama pants, hoodie, and muck boots three sizes too big... walking sleepily towards the barn, with a black dog by her side....

She goes into the barn, and nuzzles her face against her beloved cow....

Hmm... Something doesn't sound right....

Maybe because when my alarm clock goes off at five in the morning I'll be thinking: "Darn it!! Got to milk that dumb cow again today! Why can't cows milk themselves!! ... just five more minutes..." 


At six thirty.  "RUBY! MOMMY NEEDS YOU TO MILK THE COW!!"

Ruby rolls over lazily and says: "Yeah, love, I know.  I'll milk her... don't worry... don't I always??"

Ruby walks into the barn, staggering very dangerously.  She looks at the cow, her eyes half closed... puffy... swollen... tired....

"Dude, as much as I like you, you're kinda a pain in the back."

*proceeds to milk for an hour.*  Oh, and the dog.  The dog is barking.  The dog doesn't stop barking.  Until I yell at the dog.  "BEOWULF! QUIT THAT!" (not like I'd name my dog Beowulf... or maybe I would...)

She talks to the cow:

"I mean, Annabel, will you ever understand it? I need to wash my hair, and I have four weeks of school I haven't done, the lawn needs to be mowed and somehow I'm the only one that can do it and I think I'm suddenly coming down with something which I'm pretty sure is mad-cow-disease and I'm almost certain I got it from you and you're going to have to have a calf this spring and I'm cold and you don't know what it's like having a nice warm bed with a down comforter and having to wake up to that alarm clock every morning and having to get out of that nice warm bed and I miss flowers.  Do you know what flowers are, Annabel? Of course you do... You ate all ours, I forgot.  Well, at least we both like flowers. That's something in common.  But you like wildflowers.  I think they must taste sweeter.  Maybe if I don't have to milk you every day I'll plant you a whole patch of Forget-Me-Nots.  You know.  Just so you'll remember what I do for you every single morning."

Is that what sounds wrong with it?? It's the confusing thing about your imagination, you never know what reality is like.

But a Guernsey cow! My sweet Annabel, with her thick milk that will turn into butter and what-not!  It's beautiful! It's surreal! (it must be dirty work living on a farm.)

I wonder if I'd like it....

But I've decided, if we ever move to the country, I will make the greatest effort to get a Guernsey cow and name her Annabel.

Annabel.

Annabel Lee died... In a kingdom by the sea... but that was many and many a year ago... And maybe the angels repented.

They shouldn't have sent that cold wind to chill and kill Annabel Lee.  Even if she was in the sepulcher by the sea.

I strongly resent that poem.

Burford

Dear Everybody...

I just got thinking about this little town in England called Burford, and wanted to post some pictures.  It's the quaintest little town you ever saw, and at the bottom of the hill a stream runs under a bridge, and past the bridge, you are suddenly on the green countryside.

Burford... Isn't it a lovely name for a town?

The little round thing on that building is a clock... Unfortunately the lighting was right for a silhouette, so you cant see the really cool face and hands of it.

Okay, this picture made me think about crossroads, and all the different signs pointing in different directions.  A few stories come to mind.  The first one is in a Beatrix Potter movie I used to watch when I was younger, and it was about the two pigs who wanted to go to the market.  When the one little pig loses his brother to a policeman because he didn't have papers, he comes to a crossroad with signs much like this one, and tries to find the one that leads to the market.  I THINK, but I can't remember for sure, but I think he ends up getting lost, because he took the wrong road.  (But I am probably wrong.)

The second one is this... In a book we have called The Squire and the Scroll, the young squire comes to a fork in the road.  Beside the fork are a pair of huge thigh-high boots.  He looked at the roads, and perceived that one road seemed like a slough, and that one would sink as soon as he stepped foot on it.  The other appeared dry and firm.  He consulted his scroll, and then asked himself why the boots would be there if the one road was dry... So he determined to take the slough type road wearing the boots.  Immediately as he made this decision, a rabbit hopped on to the dry road, and sunk beneath its deceiving surface.  The boy stepped onto the miry road and found it firm beneath his feet.

The third (and last one) is this.  In Pilgrim's Progress, Christian arrives at the foot of a mountain.  The road going straight also leads straight up the mountain, and looks treacherous and tedious.  There are two other roads branching off from the first, looking very easy and good to travel by.  Christian knew that the right way was straight, and as he was about to continue, two men come up and are discussing which way to take.  Christian attempts to dissuade them from taking the paths... I they were named treacherous names, but I cannot remember them.  The two men only said that they were named such to try and deceive the person.  So, one took the right, the other the left, and Christian went straight up the mountain.  The man who took the right hand way became lost in a forest, and fell into a pit.  The man who took the left path had a similar fate, and neither were ever heard of again. 

The road to righteousness is not wide, and it's not easy... it's filled with toil, and tribulation, and temptations... thousands of stumbling blocks.  It's an uphill climb, not a downhill run.  "There is a way that seems right to the end, but in the end it will only lead to death." Proverbs 14:12.  The counsel of God is the only one that we should abide by, and yet, so frequently, we turn and "go our own way" so to speak, and end up getting into tons of trouble.  So, though man may point to many ways that we should go, we should not follow any path unless it abides by God's word.  Christian knew that the right way was up the mountain, because he had been given directions.  The other men also knew, but they loved luxury more than toil for Christ, and it ended in their death.  Anyways, just some thoughts. :)

What the countryside looks like....

And more countryside.  I loved the image portrayed here... The wide open space, the golden against the green, and the cloudy sky... and the field dotted with orange lights with smoke streaming from them. I just hope that the fire wasn't accidental. ;)

 

A Bit Of Wilderness

I thought that I would post some pictures of where I work every week. :) I go to this farm every Saturday and work hard all day for a free riding lesson. (My brother, my friend Debbie and I go together.) We muck stalls, feed horses, groom horses, my brother helps with construction sometimes, we clean tack and saddles, change water buckets, empty manure and all sorts of stuff! It's a lot of fun, and pretty much the highlight of the week.

 These two horses are Abe and Walter.  Walter is the smaller horse; he's about a year old.  Abe is the big one - a Halflinger - and only 3 years old! He's one of the bigger horses in the barn, and he's really stocky and big for his breed.  Halflingers used to be bred big, but then they got bred smaller so that now they're only a little bigger than a pony.  Abe had a bad problem with his bones - it had something to do with his growing so fast - and they almost had him put down.  But he didn't seem to be complaining about the problem at all, so they decided to keep him and see what happened.  He seems fine, and they're hoping that by next Spring his bones will have evened out with his growing rate.  He boards at the barn.  They are about sixteen horses there, and about eight of them are owned by my boss. :)

These are Isaac's feet.  He's a thoroughbred horse, and the experienced riders who do big jumps and everything ride them.  He used to be a racehorse, I believe.  I just liked this picture because of the way he was holding his feet while he was being groomed. :D

So, that is where I work every week. I would have put more pictures up of the actual horses, but they weren't very good pictures, so maybe some other time. :)

MORE Brotherly/Sisterly Affection!!

Hmm...

Cemeteries of Hickville

Today Rachel, Gabriel, Asher and I went on a confused ramble with the ultimate point of getting to an old graveyard. With every quarter mile or so we decided to change the direction we were taking. But we finally got there, after all. It wasn't even a cemetery, as you can see... Just a few graves scattered here and there, battered, old, unreadable, and probably forgotten by most people. They drifted from early 1800's to the 1900's. Gabriel immediately sobered down and observed, "It seems like we're being watched." Of course this was rather absurd, but we got that kind of feeling. I guess it was because we were on the top of a hill, surrounded by old barren trees, a bunch of dark clouds coming together, and the wind blowing ever so hard. But we did have fun after all, AND GUESS WHAT?! On the way home, it started raining really hard... And we weren't anywhere near the house at all. We got soaked, obviously. But that was really fun. :)

Gabriel meandering thoughtfully around with Asher "for protection against the ghosts" he said.

Okay okay... Gabriels the only one who really LOOKS like he's crying... Rachel and I don't really have a general idea of what we're trying to accomplish. :P

Explanation needed? Well... I was trying to fix my hair... Only place to hold my hat was... there. Gabriel thought maybe sitting on Asher would be fun. But he didn't end up doing it after all, despite of the picture.

"FINE RACHEL! BE THAT WAY!"

Little boy on a country road.

Just finishing telling Rachel what sort of place this really feels like.

Couldn't catch the full name, but this was our favorite grave. The poem underneath read:

"An obedient child,

A Sister dear

A faithful wife

Is slumbering here."

Studying the graves... Trying to read the dates, but this one was so weatherbeaten it was almost just a blank stone.

"Guys... Is this place haunted?"

Good ol' Asher.

He's straying from the straight and narrow path....

Rachel and I.

I really like this picture. She was laughing at... *cough*... Gabriel. He gave us enough to laugh at. :P

No comment.

"Oh, no, I'm not related to him at all. Really... I'm not." :P My wonderful brother...

I get really happy in the country.

We didn't plan that.

"Hi kids!"

Happy Birthday Rachel!!!

(Because, you know, today IS her 14th birthday!)