For Every Thing There Is A Season

[Previous Rural Farmgirl, April 2009 – May 2010]
It was billed as a “step back in time,” and it didn’t disappoint. You could sense it even in the air around you. You could literally breathe it in, the subtlest hint that somehow time had been stopped and rolled back for the briefest of moments. I first wrote about this event in my post “Summoned by the Queen,” but even I could not have envisioned what a sweet weekend we were in for. Maybe I wasn’t even fully aware of what we had been invited to participate in.

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Child's play

Plato says, “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” I believe that to be true. If anyone ever asked me to name something that I counted as one of the top blessings in my life, the answer would come easily. It would be that I have friends who are willing to play with me.

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The Snake Dance

It seems that time has not been sitting around waiting for me to catch up with it this spring. Never has it been more evident that time is not respectful of people; it tends to just keep on pushing through, regardless of whether we are mindful of it.

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To read or not to read.... that is the question

I was reminded this week of how much I really enjoy the public library. As I was preparing a little presentation for the Rathdrum, Idaho Library, I couldn’t help but to think back to all the times my kids and I spent in our community library when they were little.

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Welcome Spring

Spring has sprung in our valley. It has been here for a couple of weeks, yet I have been feeling much like I did as a young mom, when my boys would wake and hit the floor running while I was left rubbing my eyes and clumsily reaching for a cup of coffee, not quite ready to greet the tasks at hand.

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Random Acts of Kindness & Dreaming BIG

Have you ever had those moments when you just get so emotionally exhausted trying to figure out the next step? You know, times when you find yourself praying—begging really—that a plane would fly past pulling a banner with the answer clearly written on it? Boy, I have. I find myself standing at the crossroads of change and I feel frozen as I debate the “right” path. I would imagine that no matter what one does for a living, we all take pause to evaluate life from time to time. Yet now that I’m finally doing what I always dreamed of doing, it is easy to be convinced that dreaming of more is somehow selfish.

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Rodents, Vermin, and Silver Stars oh my!

One of my favorite pastimes is to visit other farmgirls’ blogs. It is just one more way that I gather evidence of all the brilliance in the world.
However, I must now say good-bye to that part of my life…Okay, I’m just kidding, but after last week I will be more cautious as I enter through those virtual gates.

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Finding Balance

I love the wildness of springtime in Prosser; it resonates with my own spirit somehow. I love when flowers pop up out of seemingly nowhere. Well, all but the tulips that keep cropping up in my Shasta beds. They irritate me, although I have to give them their due. Every year I am convinced that I have killed every last one of them…and every spring they seem to come back with a vengeance. Although they are my least favorite flower (if they were yellow, white, or purple ones I would be fine, but these are red and orange), and I dislike them with a passion, I have become fond of their tenacity.

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Summoned by the Queen

Sometimes something as simple as answering the phone can change your ho-hum day into the most perfect one. It is in those moments that a beam of sun is somehow interjected into the drabness of a winter’s afternoon.

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And so it begins........

Okay, first things first. Some of you asked me to post my goal board, so I wanted to make sure that I did that. It has been fun going back over the pictures and taking stock. I can’t believe where I am compared to where I was two years ago as far as meeting my dreams and goals.

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New Year, New Possibilities

I have yet to decide how I feel about New Year’s resolutions. Yes, I think we should be decisive about how we want our lives to go, and it seems that the first of each year is the perfect time to do so. Yet, I have given up on making plans to do things I know that I probably won’t really do…resolutions I’ll feel guilty about when I’ve already let them go within a week.

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An Old-fashioned Christmas for an Old-Fashioned Girl

I am just an old-fashioned girl that is for sure, especially around the holidays. I love sloshing through the snow to find the perfect tree, taking sleigh rides, driving around viewing all the lighted homes, and sitting around the fireplace drinking hot chocolate.

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Pull up a bench and sit a spell

Maybe it is the time of year, or maybe it is just me needing a rest, but I have been noticing chairs and benches lately, each of them coaxing me to come on over and sit a spell. I cannot even say that I am thinking while enjoy their respite; at least I cannot recall anything that I was thinking about while there. It is rather magical to be able to plant yourself in the middle of a scene and contemplate, well, nothing.
 

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Libbie Zenger in fields of iris

Libbie Zenger,
Our Current Rural Farmgirl,
is a small town Farmgirl who lives in the high-desert Sevier Valley of Central Utah with her husband and two darling (“if I do say so myself...”) little farmboys — as well as 30 ewes, 60 new little lambs, a handful of rams, a lovely milk cow, Evelynn, an old horse, Doc, two dogs, a bunch o’ chickens and two new little kittens. She lives on a 140-year-old farm, in a farmhouse built by her great-great-grandfather, and tries to channel her grandmothers, HD Thoreau and Auntie Mame (and not necessarily in that order!).

“When I found MaryJanesFarm, I found a new sort of sisterhood — one in which hard work, ‘heart’ work and handwork are truly valued, appreciated and shared... not to mention all the great times that farmgirls have!”

Column contents copyright © 2010 Libbie Zenger. All rights reserved.

Little Farmer Girl

Farmgirl
is a condition
of the heart.

Portrait of René Groom

René Groom
Previous Rural Farmgirl,
April 2009 – May 2010
René lives in Washington state’s wine country. She grew up in the dry-land wheat fields of E. Washington, where learning to drive the family truck and tractors, and “snipe hunting,” were rites of passage. She has dirt under her nails and in her veins. In true farmgirl fashion, there is no place on Earth she would rather be than on the farm.