The Farm Wife's Prayer

The Farm Wife’s Prayer

Lord, I am ready to start my day 

And I have just a few  requests.

Please let me get through my daily tasks 

Without a lot of trying tests.

Please let the cows stay in their yards 

Where they know they do belong

I don’t want to see them anywhere 

Around my house or on my lawn!

Keep the machinery running smoothly

So I don’t have to run for parts--

My husband gets almighty cranky 

When planting goes in stops and starts!

I must say it has been a big help 

With images that are digital

To show the parts guy when he scoffs,

And gets a little critical

Because I don’t seem to know for sure 

What I’m after or even why.

The condescending looks I get 

Often make me just want to cry!

It’s not my fault I’m not well versed 

In mechanical terms like these men,

But to hear the way they talk to me

They seem to think I’m less than them.

Please let the vet not roll his eyes 

When it's me and him to check the herd.

I know he thinks I don’t know a thing

But I vow I won’t say a word

About how I can do just fine 

Without my husband by my side.

His attitude will roll off my back 

And I will take it all in stride.

If I have to help pull a tractor 

Out of the mud or goo or slime,

Please don’t let it get so bad 

That I get hollered at this time,

For going too slow or too fast 

Or just not going the right way.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask 

To let me have an easy day.

Please let my children help so nice 

With whatever they might be told.

Don’t let them tell me once again 

They won’t be like me when they’re old!

That heifer calf that has been sick 

And seems to want to lay down and die,

Please give her just a little boost

That makes her more perky and spry.

I know I seem to ask a lot

And I’m sorry if I seem rude

But please keep my washer going 

So we are not all in the nude!

Please keep the markets going strong

With prices that are just and fair

So our profit does not get spent

On nothing but fuel and repairs.

Please help me have the words to say 

To help my husband truly see

That all the troubles that we have 

Aren't limited to him and me.

Help me be the uplifting voice 

He needs to hear from time to time,

When this business gets him so down 

That he’d quit for just one thin dime.

Lord remind me to hold my tongue 

When someone tell me with a sneer

“You're just a farm wife, after all,” 

Like I am less than all my peers.

When I forget that other folks

Can't know what happens in my life,

Let me stand, with head high, to say, 

“I'm proud to be a farmer’s wife!”

But most of all, dear Lord, I ask

Keep me mindful that I am blessed.

With days of sunshine when we work

And starry skies for when we rest 

Remind me that I have my family 

Close at hand and in my heart.

So, whatever You have planned for me, 

Lord, please help me to do my part.

~~Jude Brogan, 2009

Judge Not

Yesterday, for the second year, I was part of the judge’s panel for the Region VII FFA sales contest.  This year, the judges were The Mechanic, The Newspaperman, The Auctioneer, The Lady, The Driver’s Ed Instructor, and The Lender.  

What happens at this contest is each team has a product that they need to sell within the parameters of three different scenarios.  Last year, it was gardening fertilizer and mulch products.  This year, it was fishing line.  The teams know this information several weeks in advance of the contest.

The setup for the teams was that they were employees of Cabelas, and their three scenarios were a dad looking to take his kids fishing, the chair of an ice fishing fundraising contest, and a professional fisherman looking for top of the line equipment.  

While the judges observed and took notes to score them, each team had 20 minutes to plan their presentation and then 10 minutes for their presentation and 10 minutes for Q&A from the judges.  

As we watched the first team plan and strategize, some of the things we need to note is if each team member participated in the planning, if all team members were respectful of their teammates, etc.  

On this first team, there was one girl who just wasn’t fulfilling the potential in my mind, so she lost points on that portion for that.  I felt bad because she seemed like a nice enough girl, but I didn’t see her as a salesperson.

The team then moved on to the 10-minute presentation portion of the contest, and this quiet, unassertive young lady blew me out of the water.  She knew her information, she made good eye contact with each of the judges while she was speaking, and she fielded questions like a pro with appropriate answers.  Contestant - 1.  Brogan - 0.  That’ll teach me to make snap judgments!

Team 1 exited the judging room, and Team 2 entered.  Again we watched the planning phase, making notes and observations.  Wow, there was one young lady on this team who was a strong leader in the planning.  She knew how to delegate, she knew how to ask questions, and she listened to her teammates.  Great potential!

Then, during the presentation, she was visibly uncomfortable speaking--when she spoke at all--and wasn’t able to answer questions from the judges or speak knowledgeably about the product and its various uses.  Once again, my first impression was incorrect because it was made on an incomplete picture.

I’ve been guilty of those snap judgments in my day-to-day life as well, and that shames me.  I don’t want to BE judged, so why do I think it’s okay for me to judge someone else simply on the basis of minimal information?  The old, “I’m human” excuse doesn’t cut it.  Really, there is no excuse.  Only God can truly judge someone, so I’d best leave it to Him from now on.  

I will likely never see these two young ladies again in my life, but I’d like to thank them for giving me a reminder to wait and see before deciding on someone’s potential.

Easter Rambles

I hope you all had a stupdenous Easter with friends and/or family! I'll start this off with an Easter pun. What do you call a bunny in a kilt?

Hopscotch! Sorry, I just had to because it made me giggle when I heard it.

To make up for that bad bit of business, I will share with you a powerful video of Dolly Parton singing "He's Alive." If you've heard it before, please enjoy it again. If you've never heard it, please take the time to listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBJF3_IZwnk

This year for Easter, we got together with my family on Saturday at Big Brother’s house in New Hope.  My mom rode up with us, so we had a nice visit in the car.  We only took one wrong turn on the way there.  For us, that’s a red letter day!

Mama Bear was having a long-overdue girls’ day with some high school friends, so Young Man, Molly, and Cubby all came together.

Baby Brother and his family, including their new puppy, Pippa, were already there.  

Cubby had slept on the way up and, finding herself in completely unfamiliar territory upon awakening, was just a touch on the crabby side.  After some time on Daddy’s lap to make sure there were no invading aliens looking to attack, she decided it was friendly territory and got down to explore.  She found the buttons on the room fan and pushed every button then laughed like a loon when they beeped.  Then she found Pippa and had a good time letting the puppy lick her face.

We had quite the spread of food: ham, cheesy potatoes, scalloped corn, relish tray, and deviled eggs.  Beverages of choice including the two wines I had picked up at Carlos Creek Winery in Alexandria.  Of course, we all just ate way too much!

We took some time to relax and digest food before the Egg Hunt was on.  Big Brother’s back yard is a masterpiece of pebbled paths, bridges, ponds, and plants/trees with a plethora of hiding places for plastic eggs filled with candy and/or pennies.  Oh yeah, and George the Duck who returns every spring to live in their yard with his wife, Mrs. George the Duck.  

This was Cubby’s first Egg Hunt.  It took maybe two eggs before she caught on to the game and there was no stopping her!  Sometimes Daddy had to lift her (termed “Super Baby mode”) so she could reach, but only after she pointed at the egg first.  There are no “gimmes” in Egg Hunt!

Then it was back inside for cookies and ice cream and games for the women and children, while the men had a good time just chatting and catching up.  The game of choice this time was Apples to Apples.  I suck at this game, but I gave it the old college try!

By 6:30, we’d pretty much wrapped it all up and we headed home in a heavy drizzle.  We took a wrong turn again but it turned out okay because it ended up being faster than the original route.  Go us!

We got home by 8, Mom went on her way home, and we collapsed in our chairs.  

Easter Sunday we spent by ourselves due to Brogan Easter being next weekend.  After 7:30 mass in Rochester, we headed on a road trip to Winona.  After breakfast at Perkins, we headed south on Highway 61 to Great River Bluffs state park.  We stayed there about 15 years ago with the kids but wanted to check it out again.  The road to the campground was closed, but we were able to drive to the picnic/hiking area and got a great view of the river valley from the overlook.

Then it was back north on Highway 61 where we, by complete happenstance, saw a tow boat and barge were going south through one of the locks.  Luckily we found a place to turn around and head back so we could get out and watch and get some photos.  That whole lock and dam system is pretty ingenious!  Did you know between Minneapolis/Saint Paul and Saint Louis there are 29 lock and dam locations?  See the things I learn on our explorations and can pass on to you?!

We also learned that each tow boat has 10 crew members who spend seven days one way towing barges between The Cities and Saint Louis.  Just imagine the scenery that they get to see on their trips!  

Back on the road, we headed for Wabasha to maybe catch sight of some eagles.  On the way, we detoured into John Latsch State Park so we could check that off our list.  We’ll have to go back to that one because the hiking trails weren’t inviting yesterday.

In Wabasha, we only saw one eagle soaring around, but we got to see a different tow boat and barge going north.  There was a family with young children also out watching, and the tow boat...driver?  I guess he’d be a captain, right?  So the captain made sure to blow the ship horn good and loud for the kids.

By now it was getting to be mid afternoon, so we headed home via Highway 60 through Zumbro Falls and Mazeppa.  While we were out and about, the Easter Bunny stopped by our house. Apparently he didn't get the memo that our children no longer live here! And I note he did not leave a basket for me...just Captain and the kids. Where's the justice?

We are so excited that it’s getting nice enough out again that we can get out and do our exploring on Sundays.  We never really go far or spend much money, but we learn all kinds of stuff just by making unscheduled stops and taking detours.  I guess Robert Frost was right in promoting the road less traveled, because we always find some new thing on our rambles.

Easter Blessings to you all!

Hens and Roosters

We had a weekend filled with friends, family, and food.  Love it when that happens!

Friday night we decided, being good little Catholics, that we would have tuna melts.  Not usually my favorite, but we had a jar of tuna that Mike’s uncle had caught and canned, so we thought we’d better use that up.

I surfed the Internet for good tuna melt recipes because I have never had good luck with them...the bread is soggy, the tuna isn’t warm all the way through, and the cheese doesn’t really melt.  Can we say disgusting??

So I found a recipe on the All Recipes website that looked like it was worth a try.  I am here to testify it made the best tuna melts I have ever made in my life.  Super easy, too!

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Toast the bread in the over during the preheat cycle.  Meanwhile, mix together your tuna salad.  Personally, we just like tuna, mayo, and sweet dill pickle relish, but you can do whatever you want with yours!  When the oven is preheated and the bread is toasted, take the bread out.  Spread the tuna mixture on one slice and the shredded cheese of your choice on the other slice (for however many sandwiches you are making).  Bake them open-face style for 7 minutes.  When you take them out of the oven, arrange the slices with the cheese face-to-face on the slices with the tuna.  Cut and serve.  Awesome!

Saturday morning I had my friend and her two daughters and her granddaughter over for coffee.  Well, the baby didn’t get coffee, but the rest of us did.  What a nice visit!  Captain made himself scarce because he didn’t want to be around for what he referred to as “the clucker party.”  Yes, I smacked him for that.  

Instead, Captain opted to go to a machinery consignment auction on Saturday, a typical event for him this time of year.  He didn’t come back with any machinery (thank goodness says my checkbook), but he did come back with all kinds of local scoop-and-poop.  

I don’t know why men are always so snide and snarky about women getting together to gab and giggle.  I think men are worse than women when it comes to gossip.

Captain can go to any given auction and not come home with a thing except who is doing what with whom, who has been injured or ill, who has parenting woes, who might be retiring, and who bought what.  That doesn’t sound like a business meeting/event to me; it sounds like a rooster party!

But I digress.

Saturday night, Big Brother and his wife had invited us to meet them for dinner/drinks at our establishment of choice.  Being that they live in the northwest section of the Cities, we opted for a close to halfway point at King’s Place Bar because Captain had heard--probably at an auction--that King’s Place had the best burgers in all of Minnesota, and he wanted to try it.  King’s Place is in Mieseville, a small town of 125 people just north and east of Cannon Falls.  On a side note and in keeping with the poultry theme I’ve got going on today, Mieseville is also home to the Mieseville Mud Hens, a semi-pro college baseball team.  Kind of like the Honkers in Rochester but in a different league.  

I have to say, the burgers were very good, and a mind-boggling selection of, I believe, over 70 different burgers to choose from.  Better than the food, though, was the company.  We got there around 6 p.m. and we shut the place down around 11 p.m.  That was when the waitress brought my soda to me in a to-go cup and wished us a good evening!  Ooops!

Sunday also passed without me having to cook a meal because we had errands to run in Rochester in the morning so we stopped at Godfathers Pizza for their lunch buffet and Mama Bear and Molly brought Hy-Vee take-and-bake pizza for supper when they picked Cubby up.  To top it all off, the host of a meeting I had last night sent home a large slice of the chocolate/custard cake with coconut frosting for Captain to have as a treat.  

Family, friends, and food.  It just doesn’t get any better than that!

Grandkids

I saw a sweatshirt once upon a time that said “If I knew grandchildren were this much fun, I would have had them first.”  I didn’t get it at the time (I was 23 years old), but boy, oh boy, do I get it now!

At the time I saw the shirt, I was seriously getting annoyed with people asking when we were going to have children.  We had been married a couple of years by then, and being good Catholics, it was expected we would start procreating right away.  I always wanted to tell those people if they wanted a baby so bad, they should have their own, but I didn’t.  

We eventually did have a couple of wonderful children and spent the next couple of decades turning them into upstanding contributing members of society.  

When Young Man made a lovely young woman his bride, this was cause for enough joy and happiness that begging for grandkids (out loud, at least) wasn’t an issue.  

Then, about six months after they got married, they came to tell us we were going to be grandparents!  The winner of the Miss America contest had nothing on me for excitement.  Captain was more contained about it, although he did say after they left, “Great, now I have to sleep with Gramma.”  Isn’t he precious?  Apparently he didn’t take into consideration that I was going to have to sleep with Grampa!

Bucking the current trend, Young Man and Mama Bear chose not to find out the gender of the baby.  We were okay with that because wondering if it is a boy or a girl is half of the fun.  If you know what it is…what’s left to be excited about?  

This brought about the whole name conundrum.  Captain and I had our own issues in this regard with our pregnancies, and Young Man and Mama Bear went through it all too.  It was just days to weeks before Baby Day that they finally settled on their choices…which they kept to themselves, darn it!  

Over the months before Baby Brogan arrived, we accumulated various baby items:  a pack and play, exersaucer, table booster seat, and a car seat.  Captain commented that we didn’t have that much stuff when we were having our own kids so why did we need it now?  Again, his preciousness is immeasurable.  

It has been a year and a half now since Cubby arrived in the world, and she has brightened all of our lives beyond measure.  During that time, people have asked me, “How do you like being a grandma?”  My answer, invariably, is “Best gig ever!”  Molly gets her nose out of joint about that, seeing it as a statement that I did not enjoy being a parent.  Not true!

Grand-parenting isn’t better than parenting; just different.  As Grampa and Gramma, we get to have all the fun and none of the headaches.  Someone described it to me as the Wind Them Up And Send Them Home club.  So, if Cubby loads up on sugar while she’s with us and is bouncing off the walls, well, we can just ship her back to her mom and dad.   I can get behind that plan.

No one can truly understand the boundless joy of being a grandparent until they actually experience it.  Just trust me when I say, you will LOVE it as much as we do!

March Madness

I am not a big fan of March.  There just isn’t a lot to get excited about in this month.  The weather is in that transition stage so you never know if it’s going to be summer or winter...or both...on any given day.

It’s ugly...brown and dreary.  Not warm enough for the grass to green up, and all the debris of winter is now painfully visible everywhere in my yard.

And it’s muddy.  The mud is everywhere!  As the ground thaws--and we are thankful for that--the mud gets deeper and deeper, and it coats vehicles and footwear, which ends up on my rugs and floors.  It’s just annoying all the way around.

There are a couple of nice things about March.  Spring training for baseball starts, and that makes me happy.  I’m not a football fan because there are too many rules, and it takes too long.  I can watch basketball, but I don’t understand all those rules, and it goes so fast I miss lots of stuff.  I get baseball.  It’s easy.  Hit the ball and run.  Pretty simple.  So I like March for that.

The other thing that happens in March is the seed catalogs arrive in my mailbox.  All that potential!  I pour over the catalogs and have thousands of ideas pop into my brain.  Then I total up my wish list and realize that once again my ideas far outstrip my budget.  Plus, really, I can get plants and seeds at my local nursery without paying shipping costs.  But the catalogs give me ideas and get me excited that spring is gearing up!

As I put my ideas onto paper the other night, I ended up with a long list, and yes, I will probably find more containers and have more ideas before I actually get to the nursery!  Just ask my children who had to mow around all my stuff when they were growing up.  Young Man especially got annoyed and frequently asked, “Why do you put so much sh** in the yard to mow around?”

I don’t care because this is my thing.  I enjoy walking around the yard each morning and evening and seeing how my containers are popping with color and texture, making our yard something fun to look at.  

One of these years I am going to put in a new flower bed between our house and Captain’s mom’s house.  It will be a full sun, three-season garden.  I found a design and plant list online, and if I’m pricing things right, this will cost a small fortune.  I may have to spread it out over several years as a work in progress or Captain will have apoplexy from the cost!

I don’t even know what all of those plants are or if they are even available in this area.  That’s why I will take the list with me to the nursery and ask an expert about it.  Or I might ask my good friend, Skippy, who is a certified arborist and a gardening whiz what she thinks about it.  At least then I will get an honest opinion and not a sales pitch!  

It’s something to look forward to in this dreary, drab, blah month of March!

Old Love

When I was out and about the other day, I happened to see an elderly couple also out and about.  They were strolling along hand-in-hand as they went about their errands.  

My heart just melted.  

I got to thinking about the difference between young love and old love.

Young love is all about possibilities, hopes, and dreams.  It is about building a foundation for the future.  

Old love is still about hopes and dreams, but more so the accomplishment thereof.  It is about looking at the intricate architecture of a life built on determination and persistence.

Young love is energetic, while old love is graceful.

I know this to be true because I can see it in how couples dance together.  When Captain and I were dating, our activity of choice was to go to various dance halls in the area.  There was a group of 10 or 12 of us who generally ended up in the same place on the same night.

Captain and I are not dancers unless it’s a buckle-shiner.  We’ve got those down pat.  That doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate watching people who can dance.  In our group back in the day, there was a couple who could dance the--I call it the jitterbug, but that may not be right--like nobody’s business.  You know, the dance where the girl twirls underneath the guy’s arm and he spins her backwards?  Anyway, this couple could jitterbug all night long and no one could match them for speed or style.  It was always so much fun to watch them.

A lot of the times, the dances that we were at were wedding dances at a public venue.  There would be the expected contingent of aunts, uncles, grandparents, and great-grandparents.  

As much fun as it was to watch our friends do the jitterbug, it was ten-fold more fun to watch the elder generation do polkas, waltzes, and two-steps.  If you have ever seen a couple who has been dancing together for decades take over the dance floor for a polka, you know exactly what I am talking about.  These couples communicate by eye contact and hand pressure.  Many times, they both have their eyes closed and just dance by feeling.  How freaking amazing is that?!

Whether you are in young love, old love, or--like me and Captain--in middle love, dance like no one is watching, even if it is just a buckle-shiner in your living room all by yourselves.