Normally I take a picture of a beautiful sunrise and I post it but today I just want you to imagine my farm mornings without a picture.

I step outside it’s about 50° and it’s so very quiet and the sun has risen just enough to show itself as a beautiful backdrop to the cornfield in the east. The colors glow with brilliant orange and yellows.

The grass is wet from dew and a rabbit makes a mad dash across the wet grass leaving a trail. In the quiet I hear the low bae from a cow to her calf as he tries to grab some breakfast from mom. I fill the water containers for both the ducks and the chickens and I open the door to the coop and suddenly the air is filled with sound. The ducks are quacking and chickens are flying off their roost trying to get to the water first. I start to make my way back to the house and take one more look at the sun before going in. The sun is completely up now and shining so beautifully. It’s going to be a great day. I talk to God in a silent prayer thanking him for waking me up this morning and for giving me a restful sleep last night. I also ask him for strength and courage to get me through the day and protect those in harms way. This is my prayer every morning. This is my church.

One night as I was in bed random thoughts were racing through my brain but a phrase came to me. “Getting up from being down.” I really liked that phrase I just had to get of bed and write it down so I wouldn’t forget it. As I thought about it it all came bubbling out. Since October 13, 2020 that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. That day I was busy because it was Wednesday and that meant date night. Date night is very important to Bob and I. It’s the one day per week that we do nothing but sit and chat with each other. We have a nice dinner maybe a glass of wine but there are no computers no phones no anything, we just sit and listen to some wonderful music and talk. To just be with each other. I was helping Bob do the chores, he needed to put a bale of hay in for the cows and I was just getting the chickens into the coop for the night but all the sudden with a gust of that wind that we had all day and I’m talking a huge gust it took me and the door flying. Everything changed oh I was going to be OK but the pain was intense.While I was being taken by ambulance to a Watertown SD hospital I was given a hefty dose of pain medication and I never want to have that feeling again.The medication they gave to help with the pain also made me hallucinate. I kept seeing gray boxes. Later I was told that I had a broken shoulder and a broken hip all on the same side my left and that surgery would be the following day for my hip and the day after that would be my shoulder. I just didn’t know how I was going to handle all that, I prayed, I cried and asked for strength. Two other phrases then came to me and they were “be the lesson”and “plant the seed.” I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant but then it became clear that this was a teaching hospital and they had a lot of student nurses coming through and I know that I was one of the patients that they truly did like being around because they were always stopping by my room asking if I needed anything, telling me about their families and telling jokes. Tyler the OT guy even asked me for some words of wisdom on marriage because he had gotten married only 2 weeks before.. I replied “listening to each other, really listening”. Good advice I think even when you’ve been married 20 years, 30 years etc. After both surgeries I started my journey of getting out of that rabbit hole of doom, my journey to healing. I prayed for strength so when PT was asking if I could walk 10 feet I silently said to myself “Lord give me strength”and I would walk then 15ft or more always trying to do a little more. Fast forward nine months I’m still recovering but I’m pretty much doing everything that I did prior to that terrible day. I continue to regain my strength but still it is a challenge with both my leg muscles and my shoulder. When asked how I’m doing my response is usually “doing better every day” which is true I am able to enjoy the early mornings opening up the coop for the chickens and the ducks and listening to the farm wake up. I feel that I AM getting up from being down.

Today is Sunday and I’m at the dining room table in a lazy daze frame of mind. I am watching the birds attack the suet block I have out for them and as one eats one waits for an opportunity to grab some goodies. Evidently not a lot of sharing goes on.

The landscape is covered in snow and because of a lot less wind today the squirrels are back out running from tree to tree. The house is quiet except for some jazz in the background as Bob is busy in the tractor opening up the driveway due to the snow storm that we had over the past couple of days. Coco sleeps on the back of the couch in the sun and I giggle because every so often she rotates. The only thing missing right now is the smell of cookies or something yummy and sweet coming from the oven but I’m a frustrated baker so I don’t bake much. So as I sit and sip my Baileys and cream coffee instead I measure out in my head the size of the garden and plants I’m wanting this year. I decided a bee garden upfront along with herbs and a small veggie garden for tomatoes an other veggie favorites.

A little later I’ll be bundling up and venturing out to the barn to close the doors to the chicken coop, collect eggs and if the ducks are out in the barn corral them to their coop. Since we added ducks to the farm the barn has never been the same. That is one noisy place. It’s like having eight small children laughing all at the same time, all the time. The cows do what ever cows do .They eat the hay, chew the cud, drink the water and make an incredible amount of fertilizer. That’s their winter mode.

So as I end this first real post I just want to add that a friend, a neighbor or a family member might be going through something very difficult right now and can’t in their heart reach out to talk to someone. Maybe this week we could reach in to someone’s life and make their day just a little bit brighter. Let them know that we really care. Have a great week!

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.