Over the top.

This morning as I came downstairs I was thinking about my dad, as I had said yesterday, today is the ninth anniversary of his death. I went to make breakfast and looked out the window. I know it's silly but I was looking for another sign, would the mother deer come back. Nothing, not even a cat. I went ahead, made breakfast, checked to see what all you brats were up to and sat down to eat.

 Suddenly there she was, the deer returned. I grabbed my binoculars to get a good close up view. I said out loud, "nothing could be more cute than a baby deer nursing". Suddenly a second baby deer appeared and ran to mom. That made me laugh, because if mother nature was sending me a message, the only thing sweeter than a baby deer, is two baby deer lol. The mother began to walk behind the barns and the babies were frolicking in circles around her through the daisies and other wild flowers, I found this hilarious because it was just too sweet, like a Disney movie. Then as she walked past a gate, a blue bird landed on the gate, no joking I then said out loud to whoever, "okay now you are just showing off"!

Year Nine.

 Sometimes I can't believe the way time has slipped by. In 2009, I was trying to take care of this farm and my dad as well. We had brought him home from the hospital, he was terminally ill with cancer and we felt we could look after him better here; however he was nearing the end and his care had become overwhelming. I had sold the cattle but the new owner needed to wait for a couple of weeks before he could bring them to his farm, I wasn't thinking clearly and shouldn't have made that deal because I felt more stress with the cattle being owned by someone else, than if they were still mine. If something went wrong, he could back out of the deal.

 Nine years ago, the trucks came and we loaded the cattle, in the back of my mind it was a sad moment, for the first time in the history of this farm, there would be no cattle here, our herd descended from my Great grandfather's herd had come to an end. I didn't have time to be sad, the only thing I felt was tired.

 My sister came up that evening, I had to have my car repaired in the city, so I decided I would go down that night and stay in town since my appointment was early. I went in to say goodbye to dad but he was sleeping peacefully, something he didn't get to do very much by then. I stared at him for a moment, I decided not to wake him, also saying goodbye would nearly bring me to tears because it took on a different meaning in those final days. I watched him for a few seconds more and then left. That was the last time I would see my father alive, he would die the next day before I got back home.

 I find it starting to affect me again, I think because next year will be the ten years mark. It makes me feel a little sad, I think also combined with the shock of it being nine years already, to me it feels like only three or four years at the most. I guess that's an age thing, along with forgetting my glasses. Is this a sad day or just an anniversary of a sad day, the healthy choice would be to think of it as just a marker in my life. Maybe life is sending me a message, this morning when I came down for breakfast, a deer was feeding a baby fawn in the yard, little white spots, wobbly stick legs and all and now happily, that will be a memory also tied to this day going forward as well.

The Beginning of Gay being Okay.

 The other day some of my friends were talking about gay people, they don't know about me... yet that is, lol. They were saying things like how nice it is that gay people can live their lives and feel free to date whomever they want to now. Of course it depends on where you live in the world but most western countries are legalizing gay marriage so for us it's becoming a non issue. It wasn't always this way, in fact those same people would have rejected me at one time as a perverted freak.

 A lot of the younger gay people tend to forget that, they have this scene in their head where they go back in time and tell everyone off and then live happily ever after because they changed society with one snappy comeback. We have to ask how did we (LGBTQ people) get here. Yesterday I read a great post on The Gay Almanac about the Stonewall riots, that was the beginning of the LGBTQ community pushing back, standing up for themselves, forming activist groups and saying no more to the bigotry towards us. If you have time, read the post and get a sense of our history, if you are part of the community, I will be giving out an exam on the subject tomorrow, all written no oral (no complaining Maddie). However you can be exempted from the exam if you give the gentleman some sugar for posting an interesting piece. READ

Not 3.14 but lemon.

Pie, not the math kind, the lemon meringue kind. On the weekend I made a lemon meringue pie, it was my first one, my mother and grandmothers used to make them all the time. I suddenly felt nostalgic and wanted to try making one.

 I took longer than I was supposed to and my meringue sat a little too long so it didn't spread properly. It taste great however, embarrassingly, I ate it myself.

 I was trimming around the flowers and broke one, rather than let its beauty go to waste, I brought it in to enjoy the colour, (that's "color" in American, @ Deedles lol). Petunias were my mother's favorite go to flower, as it was her mother's favorite also, they are quite hardy and can take a lot of heat and sun.

 Bunnies, I love just saying that word... bunnies,
it's a happy place kind of word, one of my straight friends, a tall hockey loving typical Canadian guy, always calls them that, he never says rabbits, he keeps some as well, I think that is cute.

 This again is Grey Poupon, ( her previous owner called her that not me) with her baby. That's it.... the end.

I forgot to mention...

When I first started blogging it was a way for me to try and figure out how to break free of the prison cell of fear, that I had built to keep myself from coming out. I met on line an entire community of people (mostly men) who were trying to do the same. When they reached their goal, they felt it no longer necessary to be part of the blogosphere, I understood that, I wish them all well. Fast forward to today and all the people who read or comment on this blog are a completely different crowd, so I will let you people in on a little secret that I didn't think I could explain to my first group of readers.

 When I went to tell my sister that I am gay, it was hard but I knew it would be ok. Some funny events kept taking place that seemed to be signs that it was time to tell her. We were never close to each other and that's why I held back. When I said, "I'm gay" I cried a little from the relief I think. She said, "it's ok, it's ok, I already knew, I was just waiting for you to tell me". We talked, it was like a flood gate opened. Here comes the secret part.... then her partner came into the kitchen and asked what was wrong, I told "her" that I am gay and she gave me a big hug. It runs in the family I guess lol, it's common from what I am seeing. I never felt that I could explain how afraid I was of coming out to my old group of readers while having a gay sister who was living a full life. She and her partner have been together for nearly twenty five years. I also felt I didn't have the right to talk about my sister's personal life but she doesn't really care, she feels if everyone knows then she doesn't have to keep explaining it to people.

 This week her partner lost her father and that's why I felt it was an opportunity to mention this part of my life. She is a really sweet person, I sometimes call her my sister in law just to tease her but in reality she is basically my sister in law, she certainly is family and I feel for her loss.

 This way by revealing the truth, I feel I don't have to be cautious about slipping up on what I write. This also explains why I am always buying Home Depot gift cards.  Well I should add that they are the sporty petite type of lesbians that love hiking, eating healthy and camping, not the tattoo lumber jack, put you in a headlock type of lesbians... lol. I can just hear my sister now, "oh shut up"!

Hey life, you're just being a bitch!

 This past week a friend of my parents passed away, this seems to be a trend now given the age group that my parent's friends are in. I didn't go to the funeral as it was far, plus I hadn't really seen him or his family for years, we were not close. In his younger days he played in a band that my dad was also part of. He was married to a distant cousin of mine, he was a good man, kind, respected and a good father. He was 87, a fine age I think, he was still sharp in his thinking and in good health also.

 Life can be such a butt-hole however in the way things play out. This man's wife was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and until last week he cared for her. He reached a point where he could no longer give her the care she needed and had made arrangements to place her in a nursing home. Having done that myself with mom, I had complete empathy for him. His son was worried about him being alone at that age but being a sensible man, he told his son that he knew it was better to move into a seniors home while he could still make that decision for himself. Unfortunately because of the special care his wife needed, they would be separated but he planned to come visit her as often as he could. Having placed her in care, he moved into his new home. The stress of it all must have been too great as he suffered a stroke that night and died a few days later.

 I just shook my head, so typical that the healthy partner dies while the ill partner lives on. I have dozens and dozens of these stories, how can you explain to that woman why her husband doesn't come to see her and all the sad parts that go with this story. You almost have to laugh in disgust, I predict this woman will live for years and years because that's life, when life wants to be a cruel bitch, there is no bounds it won't cross. People were talking about this event in shock, I just pull out my favorite saying, shrug and say, "it is, what it is" because there is nothing we can do about it and I think we have to be a little cold in these situations to survive.

Lonely wittle chicken. :(

 I let a number of my hens hatch chicks this year and for the most part, it has gone smoothly. The other day I noticed some little faces peeking out from under mom, usually they like to sleep for a day or so, I just leave them alone until everyone has hatched. If you look closely, you can see one little guy coming out just below mom's beak.

 By the next afternoon I checked and all the eggs seemed to have hatched plus everyone was hungry and thirsty. As I was moving the little family to a pen where they could eat and drink, I noticed one egg didn't hatch, that's common but when I picked it up, I realized it was hatching. It was important to get the others to eat and drink as soon as possible so the only thing I could do was put it in my incubator and I would slip him back in during the night. About thirty minutes after I put the egg in, POP... out came a little chicken. I felt sorry for it, too little and wet to go with the rest, I would have to wait until later that night.

Poor little guy, alone, scared and looking for mom, it really cried all day, then I suddenly felt really sick to my stomach because here I was feeling empathy for a chick and its distress, while I couldn't imagine the distress of the toddlers I had watched crying the night before on the news. Watching their parents being dragged off by people in uniforms, left there to wander and sob throughout the yards. The feeling of abandonment must have been overwhelming for those little minds, I can't believe the United States has become this. Those children will grow up with an ingrained distrust of authority.

 In fairness Fox News did say they were only Mexican children and not real children so it's not as bad as you think. Plus the prison camps that are warehousing the babies are actually like summer camps, if the kids would only stop crying long enough to enjoy the gift that the Overlord has given them.

 I remember once when I was six, I had to be hospitalized, being taken away from mom and dad was traumatic and yet at least they could visit me and I knew the doctors and nurses were trying to help me. I wonder about the damage that has been done.

 As evening fell and it started to get dark, I took my sad little chicken out to the barn where it could be reunited with mom, she snuggled him up and all was well. However I couldn't help thinking about the little kids lying in bed wondering where their mom is.