Jonny, 10, stretching after a big lunch: “I feel like doing yoga today. Too bad I don’t know any.”
Bad blogger. Bad, bad blogger.
But I’m pretty good with the children, and I understand my cows better even than my vet, and feeding random stuff I find in the kitchen to the chickens is one of the highlights of my day. Also, my dog thinks I’m awesome and my prodigal cat came back, and she’s pretty fond of me, too, even going so far as to meet the van in driveway when we come home so she can twist and curl around my feet. The laundry is always clean and the dinners are pretty good and the floor is usually swept and other people know they’re welcome for a cup of coffee any old time at all.
So I guess being a bad blogger isn’t really the end of the world now, is it?
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One of the things I have been working on this week is producing a hard cheese with no added cultures beyond what is naturally present in the milk. The best cheeses belong to a particular place and by trying to make for myself the cheeses that belong to other climates, other forages, other bacteria, I am fighting a losing battle. So I am trying to make a palatable cheese based on our own place. It should, if this works, be a perfect synthesis of our own animals, the weather, the grasses, the native germs, turning ordinary milk into a delicious food that goes well with crackers, and possibly tacos and pizza. 
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There are R.O.U.Ses living in my chicken coop. I saw one yesterday when I went out – earlier than usual – to gather the last eggs of the day. They’ve been stealing eggs, too, not just chicken feed. I don’t know how to kill them without running the risk of killing the cats, too. Poison is out, for if the cats try to eat poisoned rats, we poison the cats, too. Rats, I’ve read, are suspicious, but whatever we try to trap them with has to be undercover because of the amount of dust and straw and mess they will encounter in the chicken coop. Rats are disgusting. Evil. Mice are bad, but nothing like rats.
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I’ve been married to my soldier for seventeen years now, and at no point has time dragged on so slowly as these last few weeks in the Army. Five weeks left! But it might as well be an eternity. (Why, yes, I am a little dramatic.)
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People keep asking me how terrible the change from military life to home-all-the-time civilian life is going to be. I didn’t know, honestly, until New Year’s Day. That was our anniversary, and we’d ditched the kids after Mass and gone out to lunch. While we waited for our food to arrive, Davey daydreamed aloud about working out in the back field, seeing me coming carrying a picnic basket, the two of us sharing a meal together on a sunny hillside with the tractor parked nearby. I knew right then that everything was going to be fine, because just a couple of mornings before, I’d had the same daydream. Yes, I really do believe that it’s all going to turn out just fine.
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Hope you all have a lovely weekend. I’m going to email my sisters now about their upcoming visit. Only six months to go! 
Four year old Penelope says, “I talked to Daddy on the telephone a couple of whiles ago.”
Seven year old Rosie was riding in the first bench, where she could see all the happenings of the driver. Noticing that the blinker came on every time we turned, she asked, “How does the car know which way we’re going?”
“Well, I tell it, of course!” I replied.
“Oh,” said Rosie with a knowing smile. “I thought I heard you whispering!”
1. I went to the doctor this morning for persistent pain in my middle finger, right hand. It’s not major pain; it’s just mildly irritating, and it’s been hurting for two months, so I figured it was time to check it out. No fractures, fortunately – or not. The doctor wants me to go see an orthopedist (?) and a little fracture would have been, well, easier.
2. It is really, really cold out there. The temperature plummeted yesterday and we got a nice dusting of snow overnight, enough that the kids are dreaming of sleds and hot cocoa, but no so much that they can actually turn their dreams into reality. By Monday afternoon, it’ll be back in the 50s, so we’ll just suck it up and pretend to enjoy it, right? (Cold weather is not my favorite!)
3. I’m dreaming of my garden this year, thinking along the lines of plans put forth in this book
4. I’m thinking about obedience, which is not one of my virtues. We were married in a secular ceremony, and I intentionally had that word written out of our vows. But I’m contemplating it now, suddenly, in relationship to marriage and am interested in any thoughts you may have on the subject. (I’m reading the book, A Right to Be Merry
5. It just might come to pass this summer that my whole family will visit at the same time. Call me crazy, but I think that’ll be so much fun! I have three married sisters with ten kids between them, plus my parents. Believe it or not, if they want to sleep here, we’ve got room for them all, but I’m beyond flabbergasted at the idea of feeding that many people! Luckily, I’ve got great sisters. I’m sure it’ll be fine. Right?
