...the four most worthwhile things I have ever done.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the other Mommies out there. Most of all to my Moma and my Grandma - Without both of you, where would I be?
After I went to America in October 2004 and visited our homestead, my Aunt sent me a CD loaded with old family pictures, letters and ‘memories’. I promptly put the CD in a safe place and have only rediscoved it today as I was clearing out my office. I haven’t had much time to find out what treasures are hidden on it. This was the first file I opened… enjoy!
‘Reminiscing Not Too Far Back’
by Mrs. Harry Yost, Maxwell
Some city people from the east, visiting a relative on his western Nebraska homestead in the ‘nineties were horribly shocked to find him burning cow chips. The following year they wrote him a letter in which they inquired, delicately, if he had become prosperous enough yet to afford something better than cow chips for fuel. “You bet,” he wrote back. “I’m burning Hereford Coal now.” Regardless of how people felt about them, if it hadn’t been for cow chips the settlement of much of the state would probably have been delayed for years. For on the great, treeless plains of Nebraska, there was other native fuel, and coal, shipped in from other states, was expensive and too bulky to haul in any quantity over long distances. The settlers of the farming communities soon replaced cow chips with corncobs and corn stalks, but in the vast ranch area cow chips continued to feed the home fires for more than a quarter of a century.
Cow chips had to be picked off the prairies, where they “grew”. The improvident settler picked them as he needed them. A sackfull, or possibly a light wagon load, at a time. When a long, rainy spell or a snow storm befell this fellow, he was very apt to be caught with his (unpicked) chips wet. There is nothing better calculated to bring a sinner to repentance than trying to start a fire with soggy wet cow chips. Better providers picked a three or four months supply of dry chips at a time and put them under shelter. But the ranchers of the cow chip country were the ones who reduced the chip business to a science - picking enough in the fall of the year, the season when chips are at their prime to last a full twelve months. Whole families went out day after day with the big wagon to harvest the winter’s fuel, Dragging sacks, buckets and tubs behind them, they gathered the light, dry “young browns,” and “old grays,” and hauled them home. Unloaded convenient to the kitchen door, the biggest chips were picked up, like bricks, to make a wall, and the rest of the load dumped inside. The chip pile, one-story high and topped out with more big, flat chips, arranged, like shingles, to shed water, was often the biggest structure on the place. As they were used. The chips were removed from a hole at the base of the pile leaving the rest of it intact. Thus, though stormy weather soaked the outside layers, the chips inside the cave were always dry. While dry, sun-cured cow chips make a quick hot fire, they burn out like paper, and leave almost their entire bulk behind in ashes. Nevertheless, for many years, everybody picked them, everybody burned them, and everybody complained about them. The story is told of two neighbors who met at the end of a long hard winter.
Said the first. “Why, hello John. I haven’t seen you in quite a spell. How are you, anyway?”
“Oh, I’m fine. How’re you?”
“Fine, and how’s your Misses?”
“Well she was all right last fall, the last time I saw her.”
“Oh, has she been gone? I hadn’t heard about that.”
“No, she’s been home all the time, only I’m always just coming in one door with a tub of chips as she’s going out the other one with a pan of ashes!”
Though Nebraska farm and ranch homes have, for a generation or more, been fueled with gas, oil or coal - and a few of its native sons and daughters under middle age even remember the cow chip era - there are old-timers who feel a nostalgia for the old cow chips days.
At a recent stockmen’s convention in one of the state’s larger cities, a group of white-haired be-furred, and be-jeweled ranch women who had come up via the cow chip trail were reminiscing. One told of the heart breaking autumn that she and her husband picked chips for a solid month, only to have their house burn down - and the huge, neatly picked chip pile along with it, “I actually felt worse about the chip pile than I did about the house,” she said. Another told of the time friends from town brought a stylish eastern guest out to show her the ranch country. “They stopped at our place for dinner and I cooked the nicest meal I knew how. Years later they told me that the lady, when she saw I was cooking with cow chips, said it upset her so she could hardly eat a bit,” “Well, sighed another, I only wish food tasted as good now as it used to when I cooked with cow chips"”
by Wilma Buske
All items were found in my house or garden this morning. There is no other colour that can make me ‘feel’ like red can.
*Click for slideshow*
All I know is (well not all I know) I have one serious hyperactive gag reflex. I opened the back door this morning and there staring at me, right on my door mat, was a regurgitated mouse. The flip-flops my tummy and esophagus were going though were enough send me running to the sink and to gain me the sympathy of all of my children. Heidi offered me a glass of water and Hannah stroked my back and said “Are you that afraid of mice mom?” I thank all that is holy and just that Len was still home to discard it for me! Anyway…
I was going to do a photo diary of my day today, but I forgot to start it this morning. Remind me and I will try and do it sometime this week. Ok? Ok. So for now you will have to sufice with a written snap shot of my day:
Reading: The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. I’m only on 35 pages into but loving it!
Eating: Kip Curry Sandwich - Think tuna salad only with chicken, curry and mayo. Mmmmm
Singing: “...cause no one’s lazy in Lazy Town” - But just that one phrase over and over and over and over in some sort of scary, constant loop.
Thinking: That Stephanie from Lazy Town (yeah her with the pink hair) needs a good slap!
Doing: So far today… I have gotten the girls ready for school, packed lunches, fed Daniel and Rosie (breakfast and lunch), listened to CBeebies all.morning.long, cleaned the kitchen, packed 3 boxes and labelled them with fancy little labels, ‘de-scudified’ the ceramic hob of my stove with a sharp flat utensil thingy, clean out half of the kitchen drawers, tidied and cleaned Rosie’s room, tidied the war zone we call the upstairs hall and have washed Daniel and Rosie’s bedding to ready for packing… Heading towards Daniel’s room and planning to pack all stuffed animals and half the toys in both Daniel and Rosie’s rooms… Sooo much more to do.
Drinking Diet Coke on crushed ice.
Feeling: Fiiine, jes fine.
How are you today?
From Pamalamadingdong: 10 Simple Pleasures
Walking bare foot in soft grass
My feather duvet
Laying under my duvet, bedroom window open, listening to the birds sing and church bells toll
A glass of red wine shared with friends
‘Whisper’ kisses…
“I love you Momma”
Cherries
Grubby, little, chubby hands placed on my cheeks
Bees buzzing on a warm spring day
Ice cream
...I could really just keep going here. What are some of yours?
In other news - We need to get the kids new bikes… and the lawn mower needs serviced before the grass gets much longer. Maybe I should just get four of these.
None of us have been feeling too well lately. The symptoms are quite unusual… Disorientation, dizziness, some nausea, an almost elastic quality to the skin and an overwhelming sense that “I just don’t feel myself today”. I mentioned it to my mom and she said she had heard of something similar before…
I wrote this in response to a recent comment....
Dear Sarah,
Thanks for the comment and the 2 hours of poring over my site! (OMG 2 hours??!!!) You words were very kind, and yes, I feel very fortunate about my life, but I feel like I should let you know that I’m not the most honest of bloggers.
Don’t get me wrong, nothing I write is false or even altered… but for the most part I only blog the good stuff. It bugs me that I hold back - but the rough stuff is hard to know how to blog about. Then there’s all the things I can’t/won’t blog about; things about my parents, sisters, arguments with husband, friends that piss me off and deeply personal things about me or my family. Deep inside I am a truly private person.
I don’t hide behind an alias (although I often think I should have done) so I feel I really limit myself in what I can actually blog about. My site has become (well I started blogging for this reason) a place where I can let my far-flung-friends/family keep up with the kids and the general, day-to-day of my life. But it rarely goes deeper than the surface.
I also tend to leave out things about me personally that I feel don’t show me in the best light - for example when I shout at the kids (then feel horrible about it), when I’ve put on weight (and am seriously pissed off with myself because of it), when I’m too lazy to clean the house (and get depressed about the mess I call home) etc… Why do I edit all the crap out of my life before it goes online? I don’t know - I guess I want to be liked, or I’m insecure but more than that I think I just prefer to see my life through the rose coloured glasses of ‘Amber… Bamberboo’. No, I’m not delusional, just an eternal optimist.
I think this can give a bit of a skewed perception of my life, who I am and how “lucky” I am. Let’s face, it we can be whoever we want to be on the internet, can’t we? The truth is I am extremely normal and I face all the normal family, relationship and personal struggles everyone else does.
In my case, what’s up here on my blog is all true. My kids ARE the most amazing creatures on the planet, I do have a wonderful, loving husband, I am a great mom and wife, and I am fortunate to get to live a life that is magical in many ways. But there is always more… and the more is what I omit from the blog.
I am touched that you found hope in what I have chosen to put on line, but concerned that you (or anyone else) might hold what you’ve read about me as some sort of unrealistic touchstone.
I have wittered on a bit (sorry) but this has been something that has been playing on my mind for a while… more than just being a response to your comment (and other comments and emails like this) I plan on posting this on my site. Hope you don’t mind.
Please don’t think that I am playing down the ‘wonderfulness’ of my life - just trying to put a little honest perspective on it.
I am sorry about your wedding (I once had a broken engagement and a broken heart) and I know how difficult it is to be at a loss and a crossroad at the same time… Keep hoping, and finding hope where ever you can and by all means try and find yourself some rose-coloured glasses!!
Thanks for taking the time to read…
xx
Amber
Although I wouldn’t call us fancy people, I would call us fortunate. Fortunate enough anyway… It’s all relative I suppose. We are fortunate enough to be living in a 6 bedroom house with 5 public rooms (not counting the kitchen) but not fancy enough to have thick, lush curtain on any of the window - well, any curtains on any windows actually. We are fortunate enough to have the house fully renovated but not fancy enough to have it fully redecorated. We are fortunate enough to always have enough to eat and clothes to wear but not fancy enough to mind if it’s a bowl of cereal for dinner and/or that we are *way* more Gap than Gucci. We are fortunate enough to have the house fully funished but not too fancy to furnish most of it from Ikea.
Now where I was going with this post? *dagnabit*
“Mom, can I have the keys to the car?”
-Rosie age 4
Bwahahahahahahahaha! Um… nooooo!
Rosie lost her new glasses a few nights ago. I have torn the house apart (and put it back together) looking for them, and all the while her little lazy eye has been going crazy. It just won’t stay in place. It breaks my heart really… Anyway, today we had to go get her a new, new pair of glasses. I could have done without forking out for new glasses right now, but like I said, her poor wee eye just breaks my heart… and the pleas of ‘my head hurts’ and ‘I feel sick’ that I know are instigated by bad vision.
So here is the spectacles re-run, 4.5 months later - the new, new glasses:
She was a proper little madam when we were choosing the frames and refused to go for anything more sensible than pink or purple. I think she chose well (even if it took far too long and they are bright purple - but hey, they are Raybans after all!
Then tonight, sporting her new snazzy bright purple frames she snuck into Daddy and Dan’s hair gel and pasted her hair to her scalp with the entire pot - I was laughing too hard (then pacifying her after hurting her feelings for laughing at her) to remember to grab the camera. She looked so much like Lou (out of Little Britain) it was scary!!
I sent her up to the bath and when I went up to wash her hair, there were her new, new glasses laying in the middle of the bathroom floor. I explained (again) how she must NOT do that and how she MUST always remember to put them where she could find them and she replied with:
“It’s ok if I break or lose them… you can just buy me some new, new glasses!” and she punctuated it with a grin!!
