Yes, I am a deadbeat
blogger. Who knew this would be
such a time-consuming effort! In
the meantime, here is a note from my sister that explains some of what has been
going on around here. I promise to
get back on posting this week – Lizzie has sent us a stack of cards and I’ve
got some catching up to do…
So, it’s been a while…
And, Lizzie is still on the move…
And, the kids still love hearing from the world’s most
chatty cat…they can’t believe how fantastic his writing is getting. Just yesterday, my daughter commented
on how “pretty” Lizzie’s handwriting is looking. “Man he can write Mom… I hope my writing will look like that
soon.” What a crack up! I have even tried to interject the idea
that Lizzie is pretty cunning and getting people along the way to help him write
these cards, but, it never takes.
The kids are convinced that all of the postcards that arrive are written
in his own “paw”… so you see; Lizzie is only becoming more incredible all the
time.
Where have we been you might ask? Well, we have busy with this thing called farming… like way
busy. The warm winter brought with
it a super early spring with some damaging freezes and advanced perennial
crops. We just wrapped the 2012
cherry season last Saturday (normally it would just be starting), and we are
still picking a few lingering strawberries. Who would have thought that we could pick strawberries and
the first peaches at the same time (not me!) but 2012 has been full of
surprises and I am sure it isn’t over yet. The guys gave the first squash patch a run through last week…
we figured they would pull a couple hundred pounds and instead the emerged with
over 1,000 lbs! So, squash season
has officially started – hey grocery stores we are on our way! Every August we say that we, “ have the
tiger by the tail,” and we are just trying to hang on. Well this year the tiger has been
trying to bite us since March… and we are tired of being dragged around. Come on 2012… cut us some slack!
Shortly after the last post we had a tragedy here on the farm. Truthfully, we weren’t really ready to
tell you, or the kids, about it for a while. We lost our beloved Bob… a captain in the “orange cat army”
as Auntie Anne likes to say. He was
dumped off at the barn about eight years ago with his sister. We had them fixed, and lost his sibling
to a rare clotting disorder post surgery.
We worried that his recovery would be hindered by her passing… little
did we know that a great love affair was about to begin. Bob soon decided that he wasn’t
actually a cat, but in fact a miniature chocolate lab. Oh he was quirky… but he was hilarious…
and we cried crocodile tears when we realized that the road out front had taken
him from us. At first, my husband
wanted to tell the kids that he had left to meet Lizzie but we knew we couldn’t
do that. So we worked up to
it. And, about a week after his
passing, once we were settled down a wee bit, we told the kids that he wasn’t
coming home. They cried. We did too. And then wanted to know where we had buried him at the farm. And then they wanted to dig him
up. Hopefully we are past all of
that now. And they realize that
all we have are our memories and whatever lovely plants may choose to grow over
his grave.
 |
| Bob - Catnapping in the Spring Sunshine |
 |
| Best Buddies |
A side note: I insisted that Cocoa, our lab, see Bob
before we buried him. My husband
thought that I was being ridiculous but he obliged. Even he was incredibly moved by what happened. She sniffed over the basket and then
her tail dropped. She stood
perfectly still, and then sat down right next to him. She stayed like that for about ten minutes, staring out over
the fields. And then, she stood
up, turned and walked slowly away.
A final vigil for a friend… and it makes me tear up to even think about
it.
Exhausted after a long day of Guard-Dogging
We’ve got a stack of postcards here waiting to be posted. Hopefully we will be back at it
soon. (I will harass Auntie Anne
into posting ASAP.) Lizzie will
amaze you with what he has been up to.
All the way to Canada, Alaska, and an inordinate amount of stops at
South of the Border. Until the
next time…
Mary
