spreading Christmas joy to all.....

The most wonderful time of the year.....yes, for most of us it a wonderful, joyous, love-filled celebration. The kids are coming into town today !!! I am so excited to see them. I was up early and  placing the gifts around the tree. I know the brightly wrapped boxes are not the real meaning of Christmas but it is a " real" pleasure to think of little things to bring smiles to my family. I love trying to find or make a unique gift  that has some significance to their lives. We are all " the three kings" bearing gifts to our cherish ones.   Perhaps it is my way of honoring the holy spirit to gather family under one roof for a couple of days and tell them how special they are to me with a thoughtful expression of my love. Yes, the real meaning of Christmas is the gathering and exchange of love. The Spirit that binds family together and makes us cherish this time of year is hopefully carried through to all parts of our lives. We can make it real by the change dropped into the Salvation Army pots, by the smiles to strangers and the patience given to hassled store clerks. By the extra pats to the dogs and horses in my life. It is the softening that lets me bring the barn cat into the basement because he is lonely outside. It is the chicken scraps I give to the foxes I feed behind the woods ( or raccoons!). It is the stockings filled and given to adult children who secretly still love them!! It is the donations given to charities, the thanks and silent prayers sent overseas to troops who miss their families. The Spirit of Christmas Love is everywhere and it is what makes this such a special time of year. Let us remember the less fortunate and do what we can to make all it special for everyone. Happy Holidays to all my friends and family.

there will be a brighter star in the heavens....

We may never see the likes of Nelson Mandela again in our lifetimes. This morning I heard a quote from him which was " Difficult times can break some men and make others." His whole life was an example of how to face adversity and stay true to yourself, without hatred or condemnation.  What I remember most about Mandela, other than all the  history we know, is his smile. He beams in his pictures and his joy for life is evident. He was the master of his soul! At this Christmas time I urge everyone to honor Mandela's memory by doing something wonderful for someone else. You remember the bumper sticker of past that said, "Random Acts of Beauty and Forgiveness", well, in his memory I want to make someone else smile today and hope they try to pass it on. We can all "play it forward" this season and keep his joy and kindness alive.  May we all
find peace and joy.

favorite memories....

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Annie and Will who came up from Charlotte and we all loved doing Sam and Stephanie's first Thanksgiving dinner in their home. Sarah and Kevin were with in Santa Barbara with a new nephew and the rest of the Milner family. Lots to be thankful for and enjoy. Missed hunting on Thanksgiving Day but it definitely was a little more relaxed. We all ate too much and stayed home to avoid crazy shoppers on Black Friday. Put on my orange vest and rode in the woods, hoping the hunters were still eating. Mike and I decided that the beavers have definitely gotten the upper hand, the woods are turning into a 12 acre pond, so we thought,  better to join them than to fight them. We spent two hours clearing brambles, brush and small trees from the wood line below the house, so that, now we have a view of the engineering marvel! The deer and beavers are probably saying WTF but we can now watch the water level rise. I do wonder how deep it will get, the beaver lodges are the size of a small igloo. However the water jumps are definitely a plus for horse training, even Bob cleared it with ease.

I came across this photo recently and it is about 18 years ago. Lestat, the horse, is still here and is 30 and is still the same size. The kids however are all much bigger!! And Will is no longer blond! The cats are gone ( the kitty in Will's hands is probably saying" watch the hand, buddy!"). We have a new cat that is not a very good barn cat- keeps wanting to come in at night. I remember posing for this photo and was so proud of Sarah for jumping up on Lestat.

day before Thanksgiving....

I have spent the day planning the next day!!!  Polished the silver, pulled out the casserole dishes, figured out which serving pieces to use. Found the butter dish, put in new candles, set the table with the gold chargers at the place settings and set out the best crystal. Planned the menu, prepared the sweet potato casserole, figured out the timing and now I am sitting here all alone waiting for Thanksgiving!!! Some of the kids are here, Will and Annie are in Annapolis and we are going to Sam and Stephanie's new home for his turkey dinner tonight. Sarah called from the grocery store in Los Angeles last night, trying to remember the ingredients for the sweet potato casserole and laughing, I told her "evaporated milk- not sweetened condensed"!  She laughed and said " No wonder everyone said it tasted like dessert last year!" She and Kevin will be in Santa Barbara with his family.  I miss her.
So, I am looking out the window at a cold, rainy day and being thankful for my family, my friends, my horses - the babies are still running around on the wet fields and the older ones are patiently staring out from the run-in sheds. I am thankful for my health and the good health of those dear to me. Thank you to all the military folk who are away and missing their families in order to serve their country. I appreciate your sacrifice. I am blessed and I am grateful for this moment.

eight random things.....

Recently, friends have been posting "eight random things you did not know about me" on FB. It has been fascinating to learn obscure little facts about friends that would never normally come up in regular conversation. Last night at a casual dinner get-together we were laughing about some of these posts and one friend said both he and his sister had had polio as youngsters, in fact his sister had been in an iron lung. He remembered it being in the living room, breathing for her! The same friend had been on a bridge in Tampa, Florida, when a barge hit the bridge, sending dozens of cars into the river below. He was other the other span and saw this. I remember reading about that barge incident. He does not like crossing bridges to this day. Another friend posted that he had been on the Amtrak when it derailed many years ago. It was a serious incident, with fatalities, and I remembered reading about that also. He and his wife had randomly been in the bar car and were OK. Just odd to later meet and know people who had actually been in these accidents you hear about. And to learn the impact it had on them. Because I realized when I did my own eight random facts that they were moments that have stayed in the forefront of my memory for some reason. Perhaps because of people we met or the fear it instilled, as in the aversion to bridges. This is going out on a limb, but it also made me wonder about past lives and deep, deep memories. I am not the most trusting person and am a little cautious when meeting people at first. There have been many dreams over the years about clandestine adventures and rather dark encounters. I swear I was a French spy and I have a weird "memory" of dying from a shot or lance or arrow through the upper back. I can see the hood around my face and the ground rushing up as I fell. As I said very weird. But to get back to the random facts, I wish all my friends would do it as I have really enjoyed reading these little nuggets of information, like little snapshots into their lives. I was told that if you post on someone's "facts" then you have to do it for yourself. And for all the non-Facebook sharing friends, their random facts will be the subject of dinner parties!

Tough Mudder 2013

The morning was misty and cool and thousands of people in all manners of dress were gathering for the 2013 Tough Mudder. A grueling 11 mile obstacle course run several times a year in different areas of the country, as well as all over the world, my youngest son Will, and two friends had signed up to challenge themselves. Will had never run a marathon or even a half-marathon, a little cross-country running in high school was the extent of his experience. His friends were D1 soccer players so I hoped he was fit enough. We decided to go for the weekend to see Will and Annie and lend some support.
It was a great experience. The course was fantastic and the people involved do a first - class job with set-up, organization, safety etc. I was impressed. It is also a fundraiser for Wounded Warriors and I believe they raise a substantial sum with this event!
Every 15 minutes, from 8am to 3pm, a group of perhaps 200 runners start. The obstacles range from muddy "miles" under barbed wire, up and over deep drains and ditches, thru drainage pipes into water under wire cages.  They have to run and crawl thru electric shock obstacles. This had Will worried until I reminded him that he has straddled my electric fence on several occasions, cursing but surviving, so he said OK. Afterwards he said the obstacle was much worse, like being punched hard the whole time through! There were very high, slippery slopes to scale as well as "Berlin Walls" to pull oneself over. Here, the volunteers do an excellent job of encouragement, strangers help one another, the old, the fat, the disabled, all seem to find the strength and help to get over. It was very inspirational.  A disabled young man, whom we had seen start in a
wheelchair/stroller being pulled by a
friend dressed in a kilt, was lifted up and over this wall at the same time as Will. Apparently he was being lifted or carried through all the obstacles! We saw old people, heavy-set folks, lots of knee braces. I think my husband was envious and plans to get his whole "masters" lacrosse team to do a future event. I think I could do it, not fast but it would be very satisfying to complete.
Impressively, Will and his friends run and jogged the course to finish in an unbelievable 2 1/2 hours. The usual completion time is 3- 4 hours.  You cross the finish line and are handed a Dos Equis beer! And there are showers because the mud is, well, you are just covered in mud. Everyone donates their running shoes at the end, though I am not sure who would want them! It was the best day!
We went to a favorite restaurant that night after wandering around Charlotte's very high-end mall. From the muddy cow fields to a Hermes store in one day - my kinda trip! I loved seeing and playing with Will and Annie, two of my favorite people.

Fall beauty

Fall has a beautiful rhythm on the farm. I get to ride or foxhunt depending on the day and watch Mother Nature at her finest. The "inside" of the forest reappears as the leaves fall and once again I can see thru the trees to the beaver pond or the deer paths. I can imagine new trails that go over fallen logs and access new areas. I sometimes see the fox slip by, hunting mice. As soon as he sees me he races off but it is so wonderful to quietly watch as he hunts, nose down, his full brush with its white tip held high. The current catchy tune is "What Does the Fox Say", and I will tell you he says "Shuush, quiet", as he pads along. The beaver pond has brought the ducks and herons and if I am really stealthy as I approach, I can hear the slap of a beaver's tail as he ducks below the surface. As they drop new trees I have new jumps, so I am starting to enjoy their tree felling endeavors instead of lamenting the mess. Before I would ask the husband to go and move the these obstacles across my trails, now I wait a day and marvel at how quickly the beaver strip the branches, gnaw the trunk into manageable sections and drag them to the beaver dam. If they are too big they stay and I enjoy the new jumps! The rafter of turkeys has grown up and I do not see them race across the fields anymore. I do catch them flying awkwardly into the trees when I ride up on them. I keep my eyes out for the coyote I think has moved in somewhere. I see large prints and scat but I never see it.  I suspect it sees me and watches as I feed and pass by on the Gator which kinda gives me the creeps.
The weanlings are fun to watch as they race each other to the feed buckets, the broodmares are lazy and  the hunters now have the blankets on, so sport some color in the fields. They look like players on different teams, a blue team, a green Rambo team etc.