Zinnia’s school had an egg hunt yesterday at which the “Easter Bunny” made an appearance. The Producer fled with her bucket, a similar reaction to the one she had at their Christmas party with Santa. I realized that she has an innate sense of facade, a trait kids seem to share. But adults tell them to stifle it, “come on it’s just fun,” and then when we get older we simply turn that into, “what are you, a conspiracy theorist?!” I have also noticed that The Producer has an innate desire to participate and help around the farm. I can see how parents would say, “I’ll just do it myself because kids are messy, awkward, take forever, etc” but once again we have discouraged what could turn into the curiosity of an adult who is engaged in his or her community. Just some thoughts on this Easter weekend. Being a parent continues to teach me so much about why Jesus said, “Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” For those of you celebrating the empty tomb today, hosanna! One of my favorite verses in John is the very last line, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.“
I see women all the time with fancy nails and have recently asked a couple what they pay. It’s usually $75 to $100 every other week! A man once told me I have hands like his - a former hockey player. I don’t think he meant it as a compliment but I worked hard for these hands! Years of horseback riding and now farming, often lugging my own camera gear when working as a reporter in TV news, my dirty nails and knobby knuckles tell the tale of a journey I wouldn’t trade for a lifetime of free acrylics.
This video shows Sassy in winter 2026 and winter 2023. That was the winter I surrendered to nature and we decided to flee back to Florida. We got blizzard after blizzard and Sassy was up to her belly in snow. But she loved it! Did you know that blanketing horses to keep them warm is actually a “hot” topic? (No pun intended.) Those who choose not to blanket often point to the horse’s natural ability to self regulate, and they say blankets interfere with that process (such as hair growth). I put a blanket on Sassy in Western Washington when I lived in Seattle because it was just so wet there all the time, and the blanket helped her stay a little more dry in the cold. On the east side of Washington, I did not blanket her, even though the temperature was much colder, because she was rarely wet, as the precipitation came down as snow and not rain. So I kind of chuckled when I blanketed her here in Florida a couple nights ago.
Operation “Arctic Florida” went well until the second day when the chickens started eating their own coop insulation. Since we are trying to keep our animal feed as natural as possible, polystyrene is not on the menu. So we had to rip down in the insulation. Thankfully, it’s getting back into the 70s right now, though it will be cold later in the week again. Chickens are just gonna have to freeze this time. You picked your poison, birds.
