Victoria and the farm, garden plans

January is picking up steam as we roll through the second week. At the end of this week it too will be half over. In my current job I am looking forward to June and July for some pretty significant events that being are planned within the company – not to mention the family plans we are gearing up for. It will be here very soon and I already feel unprepared.


Today is Victoria’s birthday. She will be turning in some applications and submitting some resumes at various places in Bowie. I do not think she is as excited about moving to the farm as when she was when she was sitting in Amarillo dreaming about it. Somehow, reality is far less exciting than fantasy. Yesterday was a case in point. It rained almost all day. It was cold and windy to boot. Mama, Victoria, Grandma and Grandpa sat around most of the day. It was too wet and too cold to work on the farm – other than the required feeding – and no one had any money to go out and shop; until I got home. When I called to see how things were going, Mama told me they were watching Dodger lick his butt. That’s really sad.

There is no internet and no TV so by the time I got there everyone was trying to not grow tired of everyone else’s company. I suppose that is what happens to Cori when the weather is similar, only her youngsters do not yet have the grace to bite their tongues when they are bored and irritated; a fault of age, not upbringing.

Today is more of the same. It is predicted to rain all day and the temperature will stay in the low 40’s. The big difference is that today Mama has $20 in her pocket. Somehow that makes a huge difference. It is all the cash I have to give her and I do not expect to see any residual later this evening. I do hope they get out and put in the resumes we have been talking about.

Last night Grandpa and Mama sat on the couch and looked at each packet of seeds we had recently bought. The idea was to get a plan together to plant them in the seed starter cups we had also bought so we can get an early start on the garden. As they worked through the packets it turned out that the end of January and beginning of February are going to be very busy getting the plants going. Mama now has a very detailed list of what else I have to buy in the seed line. It should be fun to really have garden after so many years without.

We grew some things in New Jersey but we never planted a garden. Up there the rabbits were so overpopulated that they ate almost anything we set in the ground. It was very frustrating. So, our years in the Garden State never did live up to that name. Now we may have a chance. We even have a cellar to store our vegetables.

We have lost all our guineas now. The last one was attacked and partially eaten by what Grandma is convinced was a mink. I do not think we have them here but whatever it was, between it and the hawks, our guineas have not had a good survival rate. We are hoping the pups will soon be able to guard the stock. If there was ever a question in our minds about their ability to fight it was dispelled yesterday when Sasha had a piece of rawhide that Samson wanted. He attacked her with such fury that it made Mama scream. Now, if they channel that against predators, we will be in great shape.

Cori was telling me that on a recent Sunday morning one of Mykenzie’s friends was asking her what she had gotten for Christmas and she opened her purse to show him the new Bible she had gotten. A few moments later his mother was asking the same question when her son quickly volunteered, “She got a new Bible. I saw it when I was peering into her purse.” Cori and his mother about fell over.

Someone is spending too much time around grownups.