Life is a Quadratic Equation

The Problem:

I grew up in the suburbs, an indoor girl, a reader, a doodler. The extent of my gardening knowlege reached to the far side of my grandmother's garden ~ and the only real expertise I gleaned there was a quick eye for the the spiders and caterpillars I helped pick off before Mommom washed and cooked up a batch of collards for us.

Our family had a couple of cats and a couple of dogs through the years, and I pig-sat our classroom guinea pig in the fourth grade. But that was the extent of my dealings with critters before we moved out to the country and started collecting a furry menagerie. A thing which we did because we had a quiver full of children that we wanted to keep busy. And, boy, did we keep them busy. We got the big boys started on the farm project and they took off with it ~ while I kept house, home, new babies and schoolbooks together, swept up around the edges, and grumbled a good part of the time.

'Cause, see, the problem is: I'm really a lazy city girl masquerading as a farm girl.

These ten-odd years in the country, sweeping up hay and scraping hog manure off of the boys' boots has not been my idea of nirvana. I learned early on (like the first week out here) that "homesteading" is not the idyllic life I might have imagined reading the Little House books. It's hard, it's gritty, and it's unrelenting. And, in all honesty, I never have liked the physical reality of it. I don't like the sweat, you know. I don't like the dirt. I don't even really like eastern Colorado. My favorite exercise is swinging in a hammock. With a glass of ice tea. And a book. In the shade.

=sigh=

I haven't had much time for the hammock thing, though, with this, that, and another thing through the years. But I've had plenty of time for whining jags. I admit it, but I'm not proud of it.

I've gone through phases these last ten years where all the "don't likes" of my life were like gremlins meeting me around every corner: mocking me through windows always dusty from the prairie wind, snorting at me through ancient plumbing, kicking at me through the mountains of tumbleweeds piled on the fences. They rode on my shoulders; they put their hands over my eyes and their fingers in my ears. They've been the chief instigators of my ongoing attitude problem. It's been real easy to find things not to like.

But I've hit upon a solution, of sorts:

There always is one. (You find that out as you go along, don't you? When we say there isn't a solution it's because we don't like the one we know is there, or we don't like the work we have to do to get to one. ) And recently I found my solution ~ or at least a reason ~ for my chronic dissatisfaction. Of all things, I recognized the mote in my own eye when I was lecturing Michelle about how important it is to get through Algebra, whether one likes it or not.

"It's hard," I told her, "and it may seem pointless to us, but, that is what makes it character building. We dont' have to aspire to being a mathmetician to benefit from the discipline and hard work needed to conquer a quadratic equation," I said. "Like a lot of things, it's all about the journey of math. If all we ever do is practice simple addition, or just hang out in the playground all day (seriously, Michelle...), it won't ever profit us a thing; our minds won't grow, our horizons won't expand. We have to climb the math hill to develop brain muscle. If you go after Algebra with the right attitude, with that in mind, you might find out it's not so terrible. You might find out that you're actually pretty good at it. You might even find out that you enjoy it."

Well, Algebra for Michelle is the farm for me. It's always been a hill to climb, a dusty dirt road to travel. It's a type of life that doesn't necessarily come naturally to me. I have to work at it: I have to struggle against my own laziness and inclination to whine. But, I've had the feeling more and more lately that the farm has been more than our attempt to keep our many growing children busy and challenged. It was meant for me, too ~ though I've never had the sense to think of it that way. God knew that I needed the physical, mental, and spiritual challenge of this life at least as much as my children have needed it. He's been giving me weights to build muscle all this time and I've been whining and lolly-gagging. I tried to get away from the farm, and because He is so good (not because I deserved it), He gave me a two-year vacation (when we got to live on the western slope of Colorado), but then He sent me right back. Back to the farm. Back to work.

It's His plan for perfecting our particular family, and now I understand that He means for me to perfect myself through it, too.

So here I am. We have the garden started, and just got the chickens going this past week. A dairy goat is likely on its way the end of this week. We've been drying apples (we got on sale), and looking at goat milk soap recipes. I'm dragging my eyes away from the life I thought I wanted (that nice, new, modern house with a small yard in the suburbs), and zeroing in on the meadowlark perched on my garden gate.

It's not like I won't have any relapses, but I'm trying to be focused, to be grateful for this life and the benefit that comes with sweat, mud, hay, and manure. I've done the work before, but now I want to build the muscle. Hopefully I'll be able to get into the swing again, the right swing.

And it'll only be a hammock if all my work is done first.

(Most of the time, anyway...)

* Sidenote: Michelle's not into quadratic equations yet; she's just finishing algebra I. The spectre of quadratic equations made a natural juxtaposition for me, because they're a nightmare from my own highschool experience... Shell and I share a common dread of math, I'm afraid.

Was there a westerly wind at your house this morning?

That would have been Colorado sighing ~ when we all woke up this morning, looked out the window, and saw this:

The Weather With William

Cloudy Day

Thunderstorm

The Blessings Yesterday

On the Feast of St. Mark

These blessings are performed in an official capacity by the Church, but it's also a nice family custom, one that literally "brings home" the importance of formally asking God's intercession in our daily lives, for the success of our endeavors and the safety of our homes. We all felt very safe here on our little farm when we had finished!

The Blessing of Crosses to be Placed in Fields and Vineyards

(Usually said on May 3rd, on the Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross ~ But we decided to add it to our Greater Litany blessings. We placed four crosses made from pickets in the four corners of our "close in" acreage.)

Almighty, everlasting God, Father of goodness and consolation, in virtue of the bitter suffering of Thy Sole-Begotten Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, endured for us sinners on the wood of the Cross, bless these crosses which Thy Faithful will erect in their vineyards, fields, and gardens. Protect the land where they are placed from hail, tornado, storm, and every assault of the enemy, so that their fruits ripened to the harvest may be gathered to Thy honor by those who place their hope in the holy Cross of thy Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, Who livest and reigneth with Thee eternally.
Amen.

Blessing of Pasture, Meadows, and Fields

(To be prayed sometime before the cattle are put on pasture for the summer. )

O God, through whom every good thing has its beginning, and through whom it is improved and increased; grant, we beseech Thee, to us who cry to Thee, that this work, which we are beginning for the praise of Thy name, may be happily brought to completion through the never-failing gift of Thy fatherly wisdom. Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Blessing of the Sprouting Seed

(We all especially loved this sweet little prayer, and, in light of where we live, put special emphasis on the the word "soft"...)

Bless this sprouting seed, strengthen it in the gentle movement of soft winds, refresh it with the dew of heaven, and let it grow to full maturity for the good of body and soul.

Amen.

Processing while praying the Litany of the Saints.

Blessing of a Farm

(We like this prayer, especially, too; I hope to incorporate it into our daily prayers.)

Bless, O Lord Almighty God, this house (and/or farm). May health and purity, goodness and meekness, and every virtue reign here. May all those who dwell here be filled with faithfulness to Thy law and with thanksgiving to God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. May this blessing remain on this house (and/or farm) and all who dwell here. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Blessing of All Domestic Animals

(Chickens, in this case...)

Lord God King of heaven and earth, Thou the Word of the Father by Whom all creatures were given us for our support: look down, we beseech Thee, on our lowliness. As Thou has given us these animals to assist us in our labor and needs, so mayest Thou in Thy great goodness and mercy bless them from above, guard and preserve them; and, while Thou givest Thy servants temporal benefits, mayest Thou grant us Thy continual grace, so that we may praise Thy holy name with thanksgiving.

Amen.

Blessing of a Stable

Blessing of a Stable O Lord, Almighty God, who didst decree that Thy only- begotten Son, our Redeemer, should be born in a stable and laid in a manger between an ox and an ass, bless, we beseech Thee, this stable and preserve it from every deceit and snare of the devil that horses and cattle within it may be healthy and secure from all harm. And if "the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib," grant that Thy servants, whom Thou hast made to Thy own image and hast placed only a little lower than the angels may not be like unreasoning animals; that they may not be like the horse and the mule that have no understanding, but that they may acknowledge Thee, the one true God, the Author of all good, and that Thy servants may persevere in Thy service. Grant that Thy servants may always give thanks to Thee for the gifts they have received from Thee; and make them worthy to receive ever greater benefits. Through the same Christ our Lord.

Amen.

The Greater Litanies

On the Feast of St. Mark...

...we remember one of the great evangelists (one of my husband's patron saints!), but this day in the liturgical year is set apart from the others to take care of other business, as well.

As explained in The Liturgical Year, the Church breaks for a moment today from the joy of the Easter Season to offer prayers of reparation: the vestments return for a moment to the violet of Lent, the Mass of the Stations (the Rogation Mass) is offered, and the Faithful process outside the church, while singing the Litany of the Saints. This tradition of the Church goes back to before the time of St. Gregory the Great.

It seems a little incongruous, maybe, to throw a wet blanket on Eastertide with a day of penance like this one, but I think, as always, the Church has a good thought here. Sort of the flip side of Laetare Sunday (when the Church brings out the pink vestments and incorporates a spirit of joy in the middle of a penitential season). It's like taking a little time during a period of plenty and ease to clean out the cellar and take stock of our stores. We should never be presumptuous or forgetful, even in our joy.

But, we don't take long in our backward (or maybe I should say inward) look on this feast day, as the Church turns our faces forward to the hope of spring. Today is crop blessing day!

In lieu of a traditional blessing, since we're not able to have the Greater Litanies celebrated in our parish today, we'll be heading out to the garden this afternoon to say the Litany of the Saints and bless our crops ourselves. Catholic Culture has a wonderful description of how a family can do this!

Go figure; it looks like we may have rain for our blessing, though. The children were just saying it always rains on the Feast of St. Mark.

Which makes me think that's just part of the blessing...

A Monkey Tale

In which Lester, the stuffed monkey, has an adventure and Gabey learns not to stand under trees and throw his toys in the air.

All's well that ends well.

Time to start...

... a novena to St. Joseph in order to end on his feastday, May 1st!
(Can you believe April is this close to being over already?)

Lots of things to commend to dear St. Joseph's hands these days. I'm remembering my husband, whose labor all these years has sustained our family so well ~ and I'm asking St. Joseph for his continued aid for my husband in the coming storms. And for my own improved industriousness and efficiency...

(Can you ask for too many things on the coattails of one novena, I wonder?)

Because I also want to ask prayers for St. Joseph's powerful intercession for the Universal Church.

And a word for all the Josephs in our life
(That's you, Paul, Gabe, and Grandpa!)...

St. Joseph, Patron of Workers

(Feast – May 1)

O GLORIOUS ST. JOSEPH,

Model of all who are devoted to toil,

Obtain for me the grace to toil

In the spirit of penance,

In order thereby to atone

For my many sins;

To toil conscientiously,

Putting devotion to duty

Before my own inclinations;

To labor with thankfulness and joy,

Deeming it an honor

To employ and to develop by my labor

The gifts I have received from Almighty God;

To work with order,

Peace, moderation and patience,

Without ever shrinking

From weariness and difficulties;

To work, above all,

With a pure intention

And with detachment from ourselves,

Having always before my eyes

The hour of death

And the accounting

Which I must then render

Of time ill-spent,

Of talents unemployed,

Of good undone

And of empty pride in success,

Which is so fatal to the work of God.

All for Jesus,

All through Mary,

All in imitation of you,

O Patriarch Joseph!

This shall be my motto

In life and in death.

Amen.

H/T: Esther, whom I sincerely thank for the reminder!

And the Lion Lay Down with the Lamb

(In case you didn't guess, Bella is the lamb; Bo is definitely the Lion...)

Something to see...

Check out this movie, about home schoolers, produced by home schoolers!

It won Best of Festival this year at the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival and is open now in ninety-four theaters throughout the country, including here in Colorado at Chapel Hills in Colorado Springs and at the Carmike 10 in Fort Collins.

Definitely a movie that not only deserves our patronage, but demands our support!

It's so important that our entertainment dollars support wholesome movies and do not support the bad ones. It's the only way we'll ever get more decent movies to watch.

Maybe.

Oh, for the days when our priests warned us against attending the handful of notorious movies the studios dared to produce each season. Remember the Catholic "black list?" There are so many objectionable movies now, it'd be impossible to have a list. And now our priests recommend to us the one or two good movies that are permissible to see. Sad. Especially since we're big movie fans at our house. There are so few films I can recommend wholeheartedly. It's a battle around here to steer our children away from the popular flicks, but how can I blame them for being interested, when I'm drawn in by the trailers as much as they are? But, aside from the immodesty and foul language, most movies today take for granted worldliness and blatant immorality that must make Heaven shudder. How many movies can you think of, even in the children's genre, that don't include broken families, for instance?

It's a struggle to convince our grown children how important our example is, not only in the physical act of walking into a questionable movie, but in the tangible message our dollars send to the movie studios. And, though I know they sometimes see movies I would flick their ears for, I hope they've learned to recognize before-hand and avoid those that are truly occasions of sin. There's enough temptation in the real world without borrowing trouble from a make-believe world.

If you haven't seen it yet, make sure and take a look at the Vatican Movie List!

And here are a few of the more recent movies we can recommend without reservations:

I am David (A touching tale of WWII, starring Jim Caviezel)

Wall*e (Gotta love Pixar)

Inkheart (Fun, clean, fantasy adventure)

Adventure at the Center of the Earth (Another Brendan Fraser film that the kids loved)

Valkyrie (True, inspiring story of a Catholic hero in WWII Germany)

Kung Fu Panda (not my taste, but clean and harmless)

The Chronicles of Narnia (I and II)

Nim's Island (Clean, fun adventure)

Horton Hears a Who (Love this one for it's underlying pro-life message, especially)

The Water Horse (One of my personal favorites ~ a fantasy tale about the Loch Ness Monster)

Ratatouille (Another fun Pixar)

Miss Potter (One of my all time favorite movies, a biography of Peter Rabbit's "Mom")

There are probably some I've missed... We check out the content of anything we view at Screenit, but there may be many movies out there that are perfectly fine which just don't get on our radar. Let us know any good ones we missed!

Oh! And here are two films we are dying to be released:

The Dawn Treader (This is the favorite Narnia chronicle of many of us here, scheduled to be released December, '10)

The Hobbit movies (How could this not thrill us? They're due to be out in 2011 and 2012)

Makes My Monday

Little Girls

Who Turn Lemons

(The result of Saturday's very wet snow which filled the chimney and melted down onto our hearth)

Into Pink Polly Pocket Lemonade!

* Go check in with Cheryl for lots of Makes My Monday fun!

Notes From Grain Bin B

Because it has the best acoustics on the farm, this grain bin (where we currently store old furniture) has been re-purposed...


Here are:

Jon, friend, Justin, Kevin, Michelle, and Dominic

singing Alma Redemptoris:

(They say to be clear that this was sung without their music)

And here are the boys in the same vaulted chamber

singing Irish folk song, Dúlamán...

Check out the English Translation of this Celtic song!
I guarantee the boys don't know how this translates.
But, I think it's pretty funny that the gist is: Look out, girls!
The opening lines are:

Oh gentle daughter, here come the wooing men
Oh gentle mother, put the wheels in motion for me.

(l-r: Dominic, Justin, Michelle, Kevin, Jon)

Kevvy is driving the boys back to Omaha this evening and returning Tuesday. We'll get Jon and Dominic back after Jon's graduation in a month!

White Pina Colada Slurpee Snow

Five to six inches of it here ~ lots more in the Denver area.

Wet, wet, wet snow. As soon as you step on it, it turns to water. It's easy to shovel away, but really, really heavy.

The kids call him "Alphonso." Don't ask me why; I don't know.

ARGH.

Go figure.

The rain just turned to snow.

Quick Takes Friday

1. It's precipitating in Colorado. We've had two whole days of steady rain, which is almost unheard of here. Rain and drizzle. Drizzle and rain. And mud.

Theresa just said she expects to see some kayakers paddling up the front ten pasture. She knew I'd laugh at that; it's a reference to a family legend, one hard for the Littles to believe in light of the years of drought and semi-drought that we've all grown accustomed to, but true, nevertheless.

It's almost ancient history now, but the first two summers we lived here in the country, we got so much rain we had cuttings of straw hay in both of our pastures ~ which might not sound like much to farmers who have irrigation or folks who live in rainy climates, but it's a big deal to us here in an area which is technically called "high desert." But, it's a cyclical thing, not always desert-like here. The old-timers will tell you that weather comes in seven-year cycles of drought and moisture and that seems to be loosely true. If this rain keeps up through the summer, we've ended one cycle and are moving into another one.

The kayaking incident came at the wet end of our first seven-year cycle in eastern Colorado. It rained so much one summer that we had a pond at the bottom of our front pasture and the ditch that runs along the other side of the road was full to overflowing. All that moisture wakened up a crowd of toads that serenaded us most of the summer and it took so long for the water to absorb into the ground that some of our neighbor children navigated around the neighborhood in a kayak. That was the summer of the thunderstorms, the summer we read Huck Finn.

I'm thinking if we get even a few toads from this little deluge ~ and especially if we start in on a good series of afternoon thunderstorms, we're going to have to hunt down our Mark Twain books for the benefit of the younger set who don't remember it from the first time around.

2. And here we are ~ a chilly, rainy Friday ~ tomato soup and grilled cheese weather...

Check out the pinky.

3. Jon downloaded half his pictures from Rome this morning. (Here he is at right in front of the Coliseum.) He went through the pictures, explaining where each was and the wonders and marvel he got to see ~ the beautiful churches, the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Catacombs (where Father G., who accompanied the class was permitted to offer Holy Mass in one of the tombs!). And, as if these were not amazing enough, around every corner, they discovered other wonders ~ things like: the incorrupt body of St. Paul of the Cross, the head of St. John the Baptist, the finger of St. Thomas, the relics of the true Cross and the instruments of the Crucifixion, Jesus' footprints in the rock at the Church of Quo Vadis... The list goes on and on! It was overwhelming just looking over Jon's shoulder as he reviewed the pictures with us on the computer ~ I can't imagine the wonder of walking the streets of Rome where so many saints also walked, the springboard to Heaven of so many of the martyrs. I'm so glad Jon got to go with his graduating class! But, now I'm dying to go, too!

4. Tomatoes and peppers started in the kitchen window. Carrots, lettuce, radishes and spinach seeded out in the garden just in time for all this nice rain. We just can't seem to get the peas planted, though. I'm thinking it may be too late now...

5. And, since we're already talking about water... I had a freak accident with my phone yesterday. It went through the washing machine in the pocket of my blue jeans. I shouldn't defer the guilt by using passive voice, though, because it really was all my fault...

Still, it really was freakish. My laundry is never so caught up that a pair of jeans could possibly get from the hamper into the washing machine before an APB has gone out for a missing phone. Alas, though, the turnover was weirdly fast this time and my phone got to go on a wild ride.

My kids tell me that if you take the battery out and leave the phone open and turned downward to dry out, it may still be resuscitated. It seems they have experience in these matters. But, so far no such luck. Durn. Guess I'll have to get a new phone. Or steal Dominic's...

6. Before the rains came, the girls made the first dandilion chain of the season and gave it to the Blessed Mother...

7. The last day of April is the feast of St. Catherine of Siena, one of the great saints of the Church. It's not insignificant to us, and all proponents of the sanctity of life and the blessings of big families that St. Catherine was the twenty-fifth child of a pious Catholic family. I've been informally collecting saints who were members of large families, and her name is at the top of the list, but I'm looking for more. I'd like to post a long list of big family saints on St. Catherine's feast day. If anyone knows of saints from families of five or more children, can you please leave me a note in the combox?

Here's the list so far:
St. Catherine of Siena, one of twenty-five
Queen St. Margaret of Scotland, the mother of eight children
St. Therese of Lisieux, the ninth child
St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother was the eleventh of thirteen children
St. Thomas Aquinas was the sixth son of the noble Aquino family
Pope St. Piux X was the second of eleven children in the Sarto family
Queen St. Clotilda bore five children
St. Catherine of Genoa was the youngest of five children
St. Bridget of Sweden was the mother of eight children
St. Hedwig was one of eight children and the mother of seven
St. Charles Borromeo was the third of six children
St. Thomas More was the father of four children, but also had a stepdaughter and two wards, plus several other students whom he menored

I know I've missed scads! Who else can we add?