Little Patch of Paradise

Spring beauty at my farmstead

It's a another beautiful Spring morn.  I'm taking a break from spraying herbicide on my driveway.  Don't hate on me.  It's Cowboy's chosen procedure and I'm supposed to respect him (God said).  I'm very judicious when I spray.  I'm careful that there is absolutely no drift and I never spray it on anyone's food supply.    The weeds exploded over the last few warm days!  Cowboy is very particular in keeping our paradise perfect.  I don't want him to stress out when he comes home from the Western Edge over weeds growing among the bright white stones in our drive.  He designed our drive to curve smartly around our farmstead connecting our house and barns in a circuit.  Before, the buildings looked random and disjointed.  Now it all looks like he followed a plot plan.  If you straightened our drive, I imagine it's over a half-mile of drive.  That doesn't seem like much until you're the one lugging a full 3 gallon pump-up sprayer to kill about 17 million tiny "weedlets".

I was out by the far barn (remember, that's the chicken condo).  Some major cackling was going on.  See, I have more nesting boxes than hens, a fact too often overlooked by the hens.  About 5 of them use the same nesting box to lay their eggs.  If one hen is taking too long to lay, the hen next in line cackles incessantly.  The one inside called it first:  Face it, girls, I'm smarter and faster! 

Which reminds me---when the kids were small, we had to make a rule regarding calling shotgun.  You know what calling shotgun is?  It's a way of reserving for yourself the honor of riding in the front passenger seat of the car or crewcab truck.  Our rule:  NO CALLING SHOTGUN.  It was our method of thwarting wars and skirmishes.  Keepin' the peace, baby.  Mom can take only so much fighting.

I'm in a reminiscing mood today...yesterday was my 49th birthday.  The gang was all here to help me celebrate:  Deputy and Honey with Angel A and Baby E; Peach and Boy Wonder (and Baby J still in the "oven"); Princess and Prince Charming; and, of course, Cowboy.   Ice cream and a beautiful cake decorated with Peeps (I love Peeps!  I had Peeps for breakfast this morning--don't judge!)   I wore my birthday queen crown and they all sang to me.  How blessed I am!

Back to reminiscing....   This little patch of paradise has been so wonderful for our family.  Over the years we have been approached by like-minded folks who've offered to buy our place.  Being the quintessential businessman, Cowboy has put a price on paradise--too far out of reach for common man.  If someone ever took us up on it, we would probably refuse....and kick ourselves if money ever got tight.  The other day we were discussing if we would ever sell...and believe it or not, Cowboy's eyes misted over and he reminded me (and himself, too) that our kids' memories are here and they may want to "show and tell" their own stories to our grandchildren.  What a softy!!!...excuse me, I've gotta grab a tissue.....