Farewell to a friend...

Diplomas...

There's nothing quite like your senior year in high school - I have lots of fond memories of mine. I'll admit, however, it's not quite as much fun from the Mom standpoint (pandemonium rules, not to mention the pain it causes your pocketbook - wOW!) It is hard to believe my daughter will be graduating from high school next Friday (eek!) It has been quite a journey for both of us. If you would like to read more about our mother/daughter adventures, just visit my lens Momography: Parenting A Deaf Child.
Number One Son graduated from college *gulp* last week - his degree took slightly longer than anticipated because he was deployed with the Guard somewhere in the middle of it, but that just means we get to be proud of him in two directions at the same time (Boo-yeah! :o)

Diseases...

Since we're having some folks over after graduation (not to mention the spring cleaning factor) I thought I should probably try to find the flowers in the front garden. You know, the ones that are rapidly disappearing in a sea of weeds? I guess it's a good thing I did, as two of my favorite flora required immediate medical attention. My Carpet Roses and Pink Lady Hawthorne are looking a bit the worse for wear due to:

They are both on heavy medication, and a full recovery is expected (whew! :o)  
Our school's FFA - Future Farmers of America - group boasts the largest student-run greenhouse in the Southeast (isn't that awesome?) so I bought some flowers from them to fill in the empty areas out front.  
Guess who I found when I was watering those plant purchases yesterday? None other than one of our favorite little frequent fly-ers (woo, that was a really bad pun *grin*) peeking at me through the Portulaca. Of course I watered him right along with the flowers, but he didn't seem to mind. Let me go ahead and remind you that I am prone to random acts of silliness (there is an official disclaimer in a previous post somewhere around here). We have lots of frogs living in and around the flowerbeds, so I decided to give them all names: Ced, Ed, Fred, Jed, Ned, Ted and Zed (yeah well, I had a theme going and it was free entertainment, okay? We don't have cable, don'tcha know :o)

...and Deals

I've opted to be a cliche and save the best for last. With any business comes paperwork (and if that business is a kid focused non-profit, you can just go ahead and slap an exponent on said paperwork) and supplies. Aside from the usual correspondence, forms, general information, grant information, etc. we have stickers, postcards, and bookmarks, plus handouts, puzzle sheets, and color sheets, that are tailored to each horse. Then there are the Fan Club packs (a work in progress) containing items donated by various horse related organizations in a number of other boxes - can you say papers, papers, everywhere? The scary part is that this isn't even all of it. Yeesh. Anyway, I was number crunching (and cringing) earlier this week over the price of filing cabinets; and as they say in the South, "They sure are proud of those things." A four drawer lateral file (without a lock), runs $160 - OUCH! Seriously? Methinks (well, methought anyway) I might be stuck with gazillions of boxes all over the house indefinitely, but then we stopped by the Rescue Mission and...HOT DIGGITY DOG!!!

Isn't God great? After running in circles for months chasing paperwork from box to box all over the house, we can finally put it all in the same place - not to mention actually eat at our dining room table - Hooray! Of course now I just have to figure out where on earth to keep a filing cabinet until the office is finished. I think maybe we'll just worry about that later though, don't you? Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

And now in honor of Mother's Day

We have had a busy week!

Here is something that I wish to say...


Dear Mom:

That horse-crazy gene came out of the blue,
I know that it made no sense to you.
You took me for lessons, bought me horse books,
helped me at horseshows; whatever it took.

Though they were never your cup of tea,
you always, always supported me.
The horse who trod carelessly on your big toe,
(bet you'll never forget that show :o)

The Breyers you bought me, and small figurines,
to have a real horse was always my dream.
And now that I am a woman grown,
God has blessed me with ten of my own.

Your horse loving child, now the mom of a teen,
surrounded by horses and on a  new dream.
To share the wonder of horses with many,
as a non profit charity, pinching those pennies.

I know that you are still shaking your head,
wondering how we will keep them all fed.
You don't understand their meaning to me,
yet you still help without needing to see.

Constant support and unwavering love,
these are things my mother's made of.

I love you Mom!

I made my mom a slide show video on DVD using some photos I took a few weeks ago of the flowers from her gardens, which are gorgeous! (the first four photos, however, are from my own much smaller garden). We were so darn happy for spring, it seemed that even the weeds looked pretty. Not only will these virtual posies live longer than the "real" thing (but hey, I suppose we can call them the "reel" thing right? *GROAN* :o) I wanted my mom to be able to take her beautiful gardens with her if and when they ever need to move to a smaller house. Enjoy!

Springtime in the South from Jen on Vimeo.

I'm thinking of doing a post Mother's Day giveaway of this DVD - what do you think? Interested? Have a wonderful and blessed week!

Here you go, have a peek...

Our tiny tractor turned up its little tires and died (actually, it "slung a rod"). Can't say I know exactly what that means, other than the darn thing doesn't work. Since the four-wheeler [and beware relatives bearing bargains] bit the big one several weeks ago, this put me back to walking around with a cart to tidy up around the pasture (and raspberries to that).

I found this marvelous muck cart  for less than half price in the sale barn at Jeffers and was tickled pink (guess it carried over into the bucket I bought to go with it - ha :o) The only hiccup was a couple of missing parts; and don't you hate that? I have to give a big thumbs up to Miller Manufacturing whose friendly customer service rep apologized profusely and quickly mailed them out. Isn't it wonderful when the phrase "customer service" isn't an oxymoron? The back of the red and white truck in the pasture - it's one of Retta's landmarks - was full of the old netting used on the big round bales of hay. 

It was one of those things on the proverbial list of things to do (empty it) before the horses find them. Too late *sigh*. All I can say is it must have been one heck of a party, because there were hay net blobs everywhere (grr). While I marched around picking those up, DH volunteered to drag the pasture (and thank goodness, as it was getting pretty darn poopy out there!) We may not have much in the way of equipment, but a chain link fence and some old tires do the trick quite nicely.The multiple trips to Mayo have really put a chink in our

changepurse (but thankfully, we're done). Since we are past the halfway point on Epic Farms' Phase II, it's time to shift some of our focus to Phase III. With that in mind, I completed and turned in our application to submit a grant proposal to a foundation (basically, this means I asked them if I could ask them for money *grin*). Here's hoping we will make the cut. In reading through their criteria and zones of interest, we are a perfect match. Feel free to send a prayer or two our way; we sure could use 'em! For more information on our Phases and where we're going with all this stuff, please visit Epic Farms' Accountability lens on Squidoo.

Here is the most important thing I learned this week: It is humanly possible to actually consume skim milk provided it is prepared correctly. (Boo-yeah :o)

Oh! One more thing. An update on puppygate: A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about The Girls' cute new neighbors (if you missed it, you can read about it here). I'm happy to report that they have not breached the yard again. However, methinks we're not quite out of the woods yet....what do you think? Thanks so much for stopping by, I hope you have a terrific week!