It's so much warmer here on the Knolltop this morning....I think the thermometer said 20!
I'm trying not to use the furnace for heat, so I'm allowing the corn stove to heat the house...although I keep hearing complaints about how cold it is in the bathroom, I'm not giving in...as my dad would say....put some clothes on!
Jake had his play last night and of course it was standing room only. He did a great job and it was a very nice evening full of little kids singing and dancing and cameras flashing and videos being taken of every last step. I wonder out of the thousands of pictures that were taken last night, how many are actually printed off and then used in some form or another....I bet it's low!
In other news...the last couple of weeks I've been writing about animal welfare and about a speaker that I was privileged to hear at the annual Farm Bureau meeting. Because many of you never read my column, because you live too far away to even know what the Farmers' Advance is, I decided to start posting it here for you to read once a week. For those of you who get the paper, now you will get my column five days earlier than when it's actually in print...and you can amaze your friends by saying, "Hey, I bet Melissa Hart is going to write about animal welfare this week." Won't you look clever?!
And just in time for Christmas I will be putting together a column that will include some holiday memories from the farm. Now that is where you come in...I need your special Christmas on the farm memory...anything counts! Start thinking now and either post it here or email it to me and then I will compile it and put it in my column. So start stirring up those memories about how you had to milk on Christmas morning, or how you couldn't open presents until all the chores were done...or how you always really wondered if the animals really did talk on Christmas night...or how pretty your barn windows looked with lights in each one helping people remember where Jesus was born(mom).
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When our children were in 4-H, we had milk goats and I was the one who milked them. It was a pleasure milking and feeding the goats on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas morning. It seemed more quite and peaceful at those times and as the animals in the barns ate their various foods and chewed them, I would always think about Mary and Joseph in the stable with animals on this night and the generations of my farmer ancestors before me who had milked and taken care of their animals. It was also a time of thankfulness and peace. Milking in the barn by myself was the time I did my best thinking and planning.
My best Christmas memory would have to be when I was a little girl. It was when milk prices were low... and I do mean low. We didn't have much in the way of gifts and there wasn't any money to buy a ham. We ALWAYS would have ham for Christmas dinner. Well it happened that Christmas day was the day the milk got picked up and low and behold but what did our milk hauler leave us... a HAM! It brightened up the whole day for some reason.
I have never forgotten him or his kindness. He knew how hard it was for farmers that year and cared. That is the true meaning of Christmas to me...giving to and thinking of others.
Okay...now I'm crying! Keep those Christmas memories coming...this are great! Is anyone else crying besides me or am I just hormonal?
"Wake up and be quiet-I roused my little sister awake that Christmas eve-"it's time. We sneaked out to the kitchen and put our barn clothes on over our pajamas-a quick peek at the tree- no Santa yet-but it wasn't midnight either..We quietly slipped outside- I remember the moon reflecting on the snow lighting our way to the barn. We opened the door and crept inside "over here" and we snuggled in a pile of straw next to the herd of barn cats...listening to the comforting noises of the cows eating hay and the purring of the orange tom in my sisters arms."When will they talk" she whispered "After midnight"...and we listened and waited and slept and dreamed the dreams of 5 and 7 year olds and in our dreams I like to believe the animals spoke to us...before our knowing parents carried our sleeping selves back to our beds just before Santa Claus came....
Yes Liss, those lights in the barn windows always looked so peaceful to me and they truely were meant to remind folks what the season was all about. However, I also thought that if the animals really did talk to each other on Christmas Eve I wanted to be sure they could have their conversation in that soft light--just a little idea that always found its way into my head. I loved being in our cozy barn with the cows in the winter. One of the Christmases that I remember was the year Tim gave me {his mother} a train set for Christmas!! He remembered me telling about being a little girl and the neighbor boy had a wondrous train set and I wanted so badly to push the buttons ,just once, and he never would let me even touch it so when I opened it there was a card that said I could push the buttons all I wanted to. Then he and his buddy set it up on the dining room table and spent the whole day playing with it!! Hmmm I wonder if there was an ulterior motive there. mom
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