Spring is Coming!

Really it is!

You Are Blooming Flowers

You are an optimistic person by nature. In even the darkest times, you are hopeful about the future. You feel truly blessed in life and can sometimes be overwhelmed with emotions. You have an artist's eye. You are always looking for beauty in the mundane. You have a good sense of aesthetics, especially when it comes to shapes and color.

What Part of Spring Are You?

H/T: Charlotte

Real Quick, Real Quick

The difference between boys and girls, part I

Picking names for a playgame:
Michelle -- Elinore Evenstar
Theresa -- Gwen
Catherine -- Mamie
Anna -- Princess Alaya
William -- Brachiasaurus
Gabe -- "Just call me King of the Monkeys"

Our Latest Birthday Boy

Can do this...

And this...

Plays this...

And this...

Occasionally this...

(when school theatricals call for it)

And this...

(And pretty much every other sport, indoor and outdoor...)

Paints things like this...

Permits this...

And can juggle school, and choir, and boarder supervisory duties
with five black olives on one hand.
And smile while he does it.

Jonathan Charles:


A True Renaissance Man

Jon turned 18 on March 28th... and lucky guy, he got to spend his birthday in Italy! We missed seeing him on his special day, but we didn't wish he was here.

Happy Birthday, Jon, dove mai si trova!

We love, love, love you!

(Yeah, we're having a run of birthdays lately, aren't we? They come in bunches around here, clustering

around March/April and September/October mainly. Gabe's birthday is next on Easter Sunday, and then we have a rest until our daughter-in-law-to-be's birthday in May...)

PS: Bia, my favorite Italian translator, did I use the English/Italian translator site properly above?

Powerful!

I'm not sure how I feel about Universal Service... And I don't believe the Electoral College should be replaced by the popular vote, but the rest of this is spot on.

Should we send English Breakfast Tea or Chamomile?

Quick Takes

1. Colorado weather It's true what they say: If you don't like it, wait a while or walk a mile.

Here are the kids on Sunday climbing the rocks near Estes Park, Colorado.

Beautiful, short-sleeves weather...

But look at our backyard today.

You'll notice Cathy's still in her shirtsleeves (that's a problem around here....), but check out the snow...

2. Places We Visited on Laetare Sunday See, below, a shot we took last weekend of the famous Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. It really is a gorgeous place, set in the most beautiful panorama of views you can imagine. But, is it really haunted? My parents stayed in Steven King's room at the hotel a few years ago and slept through the night with no troubles. They didn't even know who Steven King was at the time, and couldn't figure out why everyone at the hotel was so curious to know how they slept. According to them, if there are ghosts, none came to visit them.

The Hotel:

The Views from the Hotel:

Some of the elk that wander the streets of Estes ~ taking an afternoon siesta:

3. Work day Saturday Saturday is always reserved for projects and right now, when the weather cooperates, we're concentrating on the garden and the rest of the grounds. Here's Michelle last Saturday painting the new posts to make up a better fence to keep Bella out of the garden. She (Bella, not Michelle) likes to wallow all over the raised beds and we can't have that, of course.

Here we are carrying out the old picnic table. It was already here when we moved into this house twelve years ago, but it's finally reached retirement age. After more than a decade of barbecues and being used as a sawhorse, it's next duty will be to warm the house next winter in the wood stove. We're taking it to the staging area for wood chopping.



4. Here's the little boy who, from day one, has never been afraid of the slide. Or of anything tangible. Big dogs don't scare him; climbing to the tops of trees doesn't bother him; he loves it when his big brothers "whoop up" on him; one year he tried to get into the pen of a charging bull at an autumn festival. But... if you ask him he'll tel lyou that he is afraid of monsters. Big monsters. Monsters in the dark.

I wonder what it is that makes some children afraid of the dark. Most of our children have no trouble with a dark room at night. In fact, two of our girls are obsessive about there not being the least sliver of light in their room in order to sleep. But, William (3), given his choice, would sleep with the overhead light and all the lamps on. We respect his fear and have compromised with him, leaving on the landing light at bedtime, regardless of his sisters' protests. But what started this fear, I wonder? Did something happened in the dark when he was smaller that frightened him? Or did he overhear the girls telling ghost stories after lights-out? With so many older brothers and sisters, it's hard to shield him from potentially scary things like tales of monsters, or Big Foot, or dust mice that come to life. I'm certain Yuyum will outgrow his fear of the dark (at least, I certainly hope he does!), but it's such a funny thing, considering this child is positively fearless in daylight.

5. Along with other things, we've been redoing our kitchen floor over the last couple of weeks, rebuilding the subfloor, in fact, before we can re-tile it. So, since we really don't have anywhere else to stage our kitchen appliances, we've just been moving them all over the kitchen and into dining room. And, since it was blizzarding here yesterday and snow still covers the patio where Dan usually cuts wood, all the wood cutting is being done in the house. It's certainly nice to see things taking shape, but, boy, it can be trying...

So, here are two Chesterton quotes I found to cheer myself up:

"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." - On Running After Ones Hat, All Things Considered, 1908

"The comedy of man survives the tragedy of man." - ILN 2-10-06

6. On My Lent So Far It's been hit and miss. Some of my planned sacrifices and offerings have worked well, some haven't. So, I've been tweaking my Lent as I've gone along. Is that a cop out, you think? It's a funny thing, but, honest-to-goodness, I can count on one hand the number of Lents in my grown up life, where I've been subject to the entire Lenten fasting rules. I've always been either pregnant or nursing. So, now that I have no restrictions, I think I've been inclined to bite off more than I can chew. The whole Lenten fast requirement takes more out of me than I realized and I started out adding too much on top of it. I admit it. I've been somewhat a failure so far this Lent. But, I'm learning about my limits, and making rules for myself. Next year I'll know better, I hope, how to choose sacrifices that will last through to Easter.

Here are a couple of things I've found out...

New Lenten rule for myself #1: If a Lenten sacrifice negatively impacts others, drop or amend it. (Not checking my e-mail often caused me to miss important notes from others, and incline my loved ones to think I didn't love them any more...)

New rule for myself #2: If a sacrifice causes you to be a cross to everyone around you, delete or change it. (Cutting out the caffeine, especially while battling insomnia, was making me a bear, so I thought it was better for everybody if I added some back in...)

New Lenten rule for myself #3: If a sacrifice actually prevents an opportunity for your or anyone else's spiritual progress in some way, it's necessary to cut it or alter it. (I found that I couldn't resist posting on special feast days throughout the week, even though I'd originally planned to limit my blog-work to twice a week. But, then, what purpose was better served by not posting about the lives of the saints? And how could I not celebrate my sons' birthdays with a post?)

Along with the prescribed sacrifices, I think the trick is to pick one or two irksome little sacrifices at the beginning of Lent, then add on, as I feel I can. It's better, I think to add on, than to take away the closer we get to Holy Week.

See? Forty-four years old and still learning. I hope. We'll see how the rest of the season goes.

Celebrating Feasts Days

I'm always amazed by the creativity and time spent by some of the Catholic mothers online. Amazed and awed and, sure, inspired ~ but, honestly... for a while, when I first started reading about the gorgeous feastday celebrations being staged out there, I was a little depressed! How on earth could I compare to that? It boggled the mind how many feast days I found could be celebrated in high style! Everything from St. Martin to the Ember Days and everything in-between had beautiful menus and crafts and meaningful lesson plans to be explored. But, Jimminy Cricket! I'm only one mom here. There just isn't enough time in the day and there just aren't enough grey cells in my brain to do it all. It's overwhelming!

But, then it occurred to me that none of the wonderful, inspiring ladies of the internet does every single one of the feast days. Most moms do one or two a season, I'm thinking ~ if that. (Big Sigh of Relief!) We all try to make Christmas and Easter as meaningful as we can, I think. It's such a struggle to overcome the worldliness that has crept into those holidays (read that: holy days), that it's especially important to hilight the beauty of our Faith as it retells the life of Christ at those times. But, then, after that, which feast days rise up to be occasions in our homes is a matter of each family's personal taste and time. And the number of items on each mom's calendar in a given week of the liturgical year.

Our family does have a few favorites that we almost always celebrate big. We love the Epiphany, for example, St. Valentine's Day is a big one for us, and we all have a special love for the October saints. But, we really can't "do up" all the feast days. We do try to honor them and take special note in our prayers and we read the lives of the saint-of-the-day every day. We love it when we can find a coloring page to add to our school day, and we'll occasionally pull down extra activities that coincide with a saint's feast day if we can find them.

But, we do try to take special care to remember all the feasts of Our Lady.

Of the many ways to join heaven's celebration on the feasts of the Blessed Mother, I think our favorite is the tradition of decorating our family shrine. Since we have a little niche right by our front door, we are greeted by our special statue when we come in and blessed by it when we go out. Mary is at center stage. All our family rosaries are prayed before this image of Our Lady. Many, many dandilions have been placed at her feet. I've pointed to this statue countless times to remind the children to make the Blessed Mother proud of them, and have turned to it to gain my own composure more times than I can remember.

t's a natural part of our seasonal decorating to change the look of Our Lady's niche ~ most especially in honor of her feasts. We always have a triangular (to denote the Trinity), decorated paper with a quote for the day or season. Today, for the Feast of the Annunciation, it read: I am the handmaiden of the Lord; be it done unto me according to Thy word. For St. Valentine's it said: Our Valentine -- Our Sweetness and Our Hope. At All Saints' Day, we put the title: Queen of All Saints.

We add flowers as we're able. Today we found a white orchid at the grocery store for half price and couldn't resist the fresia because it smelled so good. Then my Mom brought some daffodils and added them later (you can see them in thecorner of the above photo). Our Blessed Mother's crown of roses is white now. We'll take it off during Holy Week, and lay a homemade crown of thorns at her feet in respect for Our Lord's passion. But, we'll fashion a new crown for her for Easter and another for the month of May, then a crown of autumn leaves come September, etc. (We can't stand for her not to have a crown of some kind, so she's almost always wearing one.)

Pictured below is our holy water font and beside it you can see a bit of the garland we hung. The girls made the garland by cutting out the flowers on some printed tissue and stapling it to curling ribbon.

Here is the border/frame we cut out of scrapbooking paper with an exacto. We made it for St. Valentine's Day, but liked it enough to keep it up a while longer...

Since today was also our son, Kevin's, birthday, we had the whole family over for a celebration. There are only three reasons we bend our personal sacrifice rules during Lent: 1. St. Patrick's Day, 2. Feasts of Our Lady, 3. Birthdays. So everyone was free to enjoy cake and ice cream with particular abondon, today being both Kevvy's birthday and the Anunciation.

Here is the recipe for the cake we made tonight ~ a good, old fashioned layer cake, popular in the south. We call it a Pig-Pickin' Cake, because it's the sort of dessert one takes to impress a crowd at a barbeque back where my mother's people come from.

INGREDIENTS
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1 (11 ounce) can mandarin oranges, juice reserved
4 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 (16 ounce) package frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 (15 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained

1 cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)
1 (3.5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix

DIRECTIONS
Mix together cake mix, canned oranges with juice, eggs, and oil. Pour batter into three greased and floured 8 inch round pans. Layers will be thin.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 25 to 30 minutes, or until cake tests done. Cool layers on wire racks.
Mix together whipped topping, drained pineapple, nuts, and instant pudding mix. Fill and frost the cooled cake.

Refrigerate until ready to eat.

We decorated Kevin's cake with green icing (Kev's favorite color) in the form of a celtic knot (since Kevvy loves anything Irish).

We also served "crockpot enchiladas," a recipe we tried out for the first time tonight. It was a resounding success ~ and thank goodness for that (!) because I quadrupled the recipe to feed our gang and cooked it in a roaster. I highly recommend this for get-together where you don't want to be scrambling at the last minute to make dinner.

Thanks to Peggy at a Catholic Notebook for asking about how we celebrated the day. (Hi, Peggy!)

On this day in history...

...twenty years ago, Kevin Christopher came into the world! Kevvy, dedicated to the Blessed Mother at his Baptism, has the honor and distinction of sharing his birthday with the Feast of the Annunciation.

Here's to Kevvy:

Man of a thousand green shirts

(Yes, I said a thousand.)

Our second son:

A leader of men

Friend to all.


Beloved by his siblings.

Never off point.

Always in key.

. As upstanding as they come. Kevin, a graduate from Catholic schools, plays for a minor league football team here in Denver, sings in the choir, is a longstanding Knight of the Altar, and is preparing to start college this spring. He has never failed to make us proud and always leaves us laughing.

Happy Birthday, Kevin!

We love you!

On the Feast of the Annunciation

The Angelus

The Angel of the Lord declared to Mary:

And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour ofour death. Amen.

Behold the handmaid of the Lord:

Be it done unto me according to Thy word.

Hail Mary . . .

And the Word was made Flesh:

And dwelt among us.

Hail Mary . . .

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God,

that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray:
Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts; that we, to whom the incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may by His Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of His Resurrection, through the same Christ Our Lord.
Amen.

The boys (Our three, Kevin, Jon, and Dominic, and friend, Tim)

singing The Magnificat in Omaha, March of last year.

Wish I could get to Omaha to do some recording this season, but it doesn't look like that'll be possible. The big boys and Michelle all have their hearts set on singing at their Alma Mater during Holy Week and on Easter, and then will stay for the final vows of a dear Sister we know. Kevin will be driving out to Omaha with Michelle before Holy Week begins. The rest of us will stay in Denver to celebrate the season with the extended family at our own parish. Maybe I'll send my camera along with Kevin, though.... Hmmm... that's a thought.

The Feast of St. Gabriel

Blessed Saint Gabriel, Archangel

We beseech you to intercede for us at the throne of divine mercy:
As you announced the mystery of the Incarnation to Mary,
so through your prayers
may we receive strength of faith and courage of spirit,
and thus find favor with God
and redemption through Christ Our Lord.
May we sing the praise of God our Savior
with the angels and saints in heaven
forever and ever.
Amen.

Happy Nameday...

Gabriel Joseph!

Today's Feast and Some Thoughts on Farming

St. Isidore the Farmer

Prayer to St. Isidore

O tiller of the soil, dear St. Isidore, it is said that while you labored in the field, "your hand was on the plow but your heart was ever blessed with the thought of God." Now that you are with our Lord in Heaven, ask Him to give us the grace to become accustomed to offer our daily toil to Him; ask Him to bless our land and our home and our harvest; ask Him to bless us in time and in eternity. Amen.

100 Things We Learned the Hard Way

The Farming Edition
Let it be known...


We are hobby farmers, at best. We've never made any money with our operation, but we have raised a menagerie of different farm animals and had gardens of varying sizes over the last twenty years. In that time, with the help of good St. Isidore, we've enriched our diets with healthful homeraised food and stock, we've strengthened our bodies, deepened our tans, and we've learned a few things.

Such as:

81. Not everyone can grow everything. We can't grow peach trees out here on the high prairie; it's not possible. And, no matter how hard I try, I can't grow the big beautiful aloe vera plant that I envy at my friend's house. Yes, I know, everyone should be able to grow aloe veras, but I can't. It's ok. I accept it as a personal weakness.

82. Carrots really do Love Tomatoes and Roses really do Love Garlic. We've used companion planting for most of our gardening lives and can vouch for its effectiveness. There really are lots of benefits, but one of the best little tricks we've found is to plant dill just out of reach of your tomato plants. Hornworms can't resist dill and will hang out in its branches instead of on the tomatoes. There should be something like dill that would work the same way for door-to-door solicitors.

83. Let your chickens into the garden to clear out the bugs before and after planting, but don't trust them when there's anything growing there. Chickens will eat anything. Seriously. They are pigs.

84. On the subject of pigs, let me just say this: Pigs are stupid. I dont' care what they say about pigs being intelligent. Those trick pigs you see on the Animal Channel -- it's all done with mirrors. Trust me. They're stupid. Pigs will eat concrete. Pigs will roll over their own suckling offspring. Pigs will go everywhere you don't want them and will not go where you do want them. Pigs have small eyes and dirty noses and they stink. Pigs are good for bacon and little else. (Sorry, Miss Piggy. And sorry, Cathy... My mind is made up on this one.)


85. Cows are very interesting, very social, but very frustrating animals. Our first cow experience was with a beautiful black angus that we got for a deal as a bucket calf and raised up to its full half-ton adulthood. She had the most beautiful almond-shaped, shining black eyes, and long lashes. Her coat was black velvet. We named her Victoria. And we loved her; she was like a big dog and loved to follow us around, which was great until she grew up. After her babyhood was over, Victoria had to leave the companionable confines of the corral and moved out to the front-ten pasture, where the children didn't come to visit her as often. So, she solved that problem by jumping over the fence to come play with them. Not a good thing. She ate my plants and stepped on the children's feet. It's a miracle nobody got broken toes. Or worse!

After she ate the salad garden and started in on the lilacs, we added a fourth wire on the barbed-wire fence, but she jumped that, too. Her back hooves didn't even touch the top wire as she sailed over it. She trotted up and down the driveway, she nibbled my rose bushes down to a nub, and one day, while exploring the back thirty acres, she caught wind of the cattle at a neighboring ranch and went a-visiting. This changed Victoria's life. No longer did she think she was just another child of the family; she knew she was a cow, and she wanted to be where she could hobnob with her own kind. She had stumbled upon her niche and was a happy cow.

We didn't know where she was, though, and were worried that she might be holding up traffic somewhere, so we sent out the search parties. Eventually we found her, apologized to our neighbor, and drove over with the truck and trailer to haul her back.

But, now that she knew where the real action was, she was a determined woman ( I mean heifer), and she wasted no time. She jumped the fence again. We hauled her back again. We gave her a stern warning, too, but that same afternoon, she jumped over again, snorting over her shoulder at us as she hightailed it east once more. We had too many small children at that time to electrify the fence and we'd already topped our fenceposts. Short of tethering her, there was nothing else we could do. We knew we were beat -- so we sold her to our neighbor. It was for the best. You have to imagine there was no way her original purpose in our life (namely to stock our freezer) was going to be accomplished, anyway. You can't eat steak that used to be named Victoria.

86. Absolutely nothing takes the place of a good farm dog. What they do can't be taught or trained, it's an instinct that's honed with time and experience. Seriously, I believe they're a gift from God, born to watch over a farmer and his interests.

A good one:

* knows the difference between the meter man and an intruder; he might bark to announce the first, but will corner the second before he gets into the barnyard.
* chases the rabbits out of the gardens but doesn't eat the chickens.
* lets the children hang all over him, but knows the difference between a real threat to the children and an uncle just tousling with them.
* does his duty (iykwim) well outside of daily foot traffic.
* fetches a ball or a stick for everyone's entertainment.
* waits at the top of the driveway for the family to come home from outings and walks the car up to the house to greet everyone.
* doesn't dig holes or chew hoses or wander off-property because he's too busy taking care of his farm.
* loves and obeys unquestioningly.

(This describes Anthony, the dear farm dog that Bella is replacing. Bella is about half way to living up to his high standards. But she's only a year old. We know she'll be awesome as time goes on.)

87. Farm cats are essential, too, but you can't get too attached to them. They disappear and noone ever knows what happens to them. We do name our barn cats, and are sad when they vanish, but it doesn't devastate us. We accept that they've either adopted a new farm to work for or have contributed to the nutrition of a neighborhood fox or coyote. It's the natural cycle of life. I know there are animal lovers out there who would blanche at the mortality rate of these cats, and would think country folks are cruel and heartless in our acceptance of it. But, there it is. Farm cats are here to keep the mice and snakes down and they do a wonderful job of it. We make sure they are fed, watered, and cared for, but they're not pets; they're independent contractors who work a risky job with good benefits but no insurance.

88. Almost anything on a farm can be fixed with wire and bolt cutters. Or duct tape.

89. Unless you are very firm, if you live on more than five acres, you'll find yourself storing the extra boats, RVs, cars, cats, and dogs of half the people you know.

90. Farming is all about dirt. Dirt and mud. Dirt and mud and thousands of little bits of hay. Make that millions of bits of hay. This is how it has always been and how it will always be. (You didn't just hear that sigh, did you?)