Shine ON

What is it with family?  What makes a family? Is it that first moment when you hold a living being in your hands.....feel the warmth.....feel the heartbeat.....smell the smell that belongs somehow to you and all the ancestors before you?

I've got family I've given birth to, family I've married, family I've married into, family I've just adopted as my own though no blood is shared between  us.  Family is first....family is what leads us home whether that home is our place of infancy or our exit from the family of origin.

My family is my husband, my son, my wee son, my little daughter, my darling behemoth dog, my two pathetically spoiled cats and my over indulged trip of goats. All of us live....contentedly so it would seem......within just under four acres in a wee spot of paradise on Vancouver Island. 

I think of the family I came from and the words and emotion only arrive now.....in the wee hours of a Saturday night merging into a Sunday morning......after I've had a few cocktails and watched 'Skyfall' on PPV and my mind is finally at some type of ease.  What a pity that peace of mind is met at 2:35 am.  What a pity it takes such a lead up to find myself settling into.....ME. 

Babies mean family.  Surely they do.  My babies have made me part of a family starting with my first when I was 26 and on my own.....no daddy to-be rubbing my belly at pre-natal classes....no excited Grandma knitting booties and shopping for strollers.  My first baby completed my family of two.....a 'just-me-and- you' kinda gig.  My parents didn't really groove on the no husband thing.....and rightfully so who the hell could blame them for their worry......and so I felt truly alone.  Alone with my belly, my pregnancy books, my lower back ache, my sore feet, my cravings for bananas. 

My friends surrounded me. My friends that formed what would become my new family enveloped me then......reached out their hands.....opened their arms......welcomed me into their respective folds.  And my baby son was born and I was overwhelmed at how I felt....how the world all of a sudden made sense where before it just....had not.

Critters show up on this property we call home for our herd, our family, our trip, our gaggle, our flock.  The deer come right up to the deer fence and nibble politely and delicately on the tips of my forsythia.  They look at me intently after our eyes meet on a May afternoon.  A doe looks at me, pausing from her grazing of my back four, her huge mousy ears pricked forward, every muscle on her fawn-coloured body holding still......staring at me as though daring me to question why I'm even here at all.

My three goats 'maaa-aaaaa' to this doe and her buck that follows silently behind and the dynamic between domesticated and wild hooved mammal is tested and tried.  The wild buck curls his top lip back in the universal language of hooved-folk dominance. 

My deer are dear to me.  They are my family.  Family.  Family made from scratch.

Just around the bend shines a light.....the light around the corner waiting for me.  Waiting for me and mine to warm our faces in the warmth.  The light of a family garden, a family gathering, a family Christmas tree.....the light of more than one generation gathering together to raise one another, to carry one another, to support one another, through the dark spots on the track.....the old guiding the young to the light. 

We are the old....my husband and I.....we are the old guiding the young.  Forsaking our families of origin....his through death and mine through estrangement......yet forging ahead anyway to ensure our children carry on and around that corner to stand in the light.....and SHINE. 

Shine it all around my children......xo

Pals together

Pals Together.......

The billy goat on the right is either Daniel or Henrik....or how they're  known from their winter digs, Cheech or Chong.....but I have to look them straight on face to face to really be sure. I think this is Henrik/Cheech...but probably not.  They ARE twins so I guess that's the point.

Perfectly reasonable that three goats - three brothers goat - would enjoy a storybook read to them by a two year old. The really great thing is the two year old considers it a fine idea. That's the magic....the absurdity of it alone makes it magical.  I mean....maybe a toddler knows something we don't know. Maybe goats can read.

 

And then what happened? 

Anyway....Willie is on the left - known to his peeps as Willie No-Willie because he's  what's called a whether and well.....guess the rest.  He's the largest of this triplet trip and without the presence of a female anymore falls into the drag queen title of Herd Queen. Lucky Willie.

  A trip.....what's that you say?

Didn't y'all know that's what we're called?

 Trip Out.....

One of author Elizabeth Pepper's books references a five hundred year old volume of books listing names of designated groups of animals. A bevy of swans. A shrewdness of apes. An unkindness of ravens. a clowder of cats and....a trip of goats.

It's a sweet list. Great at parties.....kids and adults alike.

My little girl is reading a storybook to a trip of goats and they're fighting over who gets the best seat.When they begin head buttin' each other - and that's what goats do it's a herd thing don't sweat it - my wee lass tells 'em "Stop it you two...."  which they eventually do.

They gather round her.....to be honest probably hoping for a nibble of that cardboard book she's holding.....and she reads a story to them all.  About shapes and squares and triangles and after they stop bangin' heads and settle down they actually seemed to enjoy themselves.

 Maybe just the sound of a storyteller's voice is all it takes to keep the trip settled and calm. 

Wait a minute are we a brood or a troop of chickens?
....anyone?.....anyone?  

Playing Quietly

Stockings have been emptied. Torn wrapping paper and ribbon stuffed into boxes and bags now spirited away  into the shop to await  2013 bonfire's flame.  Christmas Day 2012 now moves into the realm of the Ghost of Christmas Past and my shoulders relax a little.

Lego kits have been assembled, new dollys cuddle with new owners, mud and goat pen fodder now speckle the bottoms of the new Bogs boots in the boot tray.  Me and mine remain together -  slightly fractured and emotionally askew of course -  the Yours, Mine and Ours scenario pin-balling distastefully against long estranged non-relationships among my own family of origin and my husband'stoo.  Lurking in the shadow of our Christmas tree still sittin' pretty in our parlour are  memories.  Watching and waiting to be gathered together, sorted and stored into a bank bursting from the drama that is family.

When everything on the post-holiday  list is checked off, the special dinner plates returned to Grandma Val's sideboard,  the leavings of Christmas cleared and packed away, the Santa cookies-n-milk tray washed and carefully tucked away. Only then can the  promise of a new year and a clean slate be felt within my grasp.

Bring it on.....

Cookies are a big part of my Christmas.  Baking in general actually is at an all-time buzz at this time of year.  Cookie exchanges - 8 dozen this year- cut-out cookies to decorate and share with friends, cakes and tarts to to fill the bellies of all who come to share some jolly with me and mine make me happy.  The creaming of the butter and the sugar, the adding of the eggs and vanilla, the thick cloud from the cocoa powder keep my senses comforted.  The smell of cinnamon, ginger and Julia's famous Chocolate Mousse easing the blues that too often come to call along with Santa and his elves.

Snow arrived the week before Christmas, covering the property with all that white and crunchy goodness.  Blanketing the potholes on the long driveway in dire need of filling. Prettily covering forgotten toys and outside chores.  Painting a picture of a little house in the big woods untouched by dust or darkness.  With the Solstice comes the dark but always the reminder of its dependence on the light for its very existence.  Just around the corner is every possibility.

My decorations are much beloved.  Each one a page from the story of me and mine.  The story of my family.  Our story begins with a child born to his mother on a February afternoon nineteen years ago.  The family that lives here in my heart and at the end of the long driveway began with my oldest and carries on down to my youngest who turns 3 in March.  My family is defined by who gathers together at this place.  We crowd around the old oak table - all three leaves added to accommodate us all - and although the holes are there we raise our glasses and toast to all that we have become.  Those not present - through death, desertion, or the scourge that is estrangement - are kept at bay so as not to spoil our joy.  Mentioned in whispers and in secret, after the coffee and after little pitchers with big ears have been tucked in and away out of earshot.

Hockey helps. Always has and always will despite the NHL lockout.  Christmas means the World Junior Hockey Championships.  It means Boxing Day games and our much-loved Team Canada leaving the ice following a 9-3 victory over Team Germany.  It means cheering the lads on while recovering from the food and merriment hangover that always follows all that is Christmas Day.....here in the <3 of Dashwood.  In the heart of all that is.....my family.

Happy New Year.....Peace, Love and Clarity

A Touch of Frost.......

Frost on the picnic table greeted me that morning as I raised the blinds on the tall kitchen window  looking out into the back garden. The sun was just starting to move up and around after rising from the front porch-facing side of the house where its rays melt the icy steps leading to the top of the long driveway out to the road. Through the branches of the maple tree the sunshine hitting the picnic table top gleamed prettily.

The sun's December warmth touched the ground, treetops and whatever else lay in its shining path, turning the chilly frost to sparkling twinkles before eventually melting away to plain ol' moisture.  The days are shorter now and with only days toward Christmas a rise in daily temperature means sunshine, if the sun decides to appear at all through these coastal winter clouds, will shine on down only briefly. Never long enough to melt and evaporate the moisture completely before the sun sets through the trees to the west turning all the Island damp to ice and chill once again.

An hour later the news of the shooting at an elementary school breaks the spell of the sunny and crisp morning. A chill creeps into my chest and across my shoulders as I hear the numbers. 28 people shot by a young man who had just come from shooting his own mother in the face in her kitchen.....20 of the victims little children.  My own son is, as I am listening to this news, in the late morning of his Grade 1 day.  Calculating the timeline I realize that as I was settling him into his desk, watching him print words from the word board and choosing a book for reading at his desk,  twenty little children more than likely doing exactly the same thing were experiencing hell.  At the moment his teacher was putting a hand to his shoulder,  saying what a fantastic job he did printing then reading aloud his words from the word board,  eight other teachers were facing down a young man gone mad.

The frost on the picnic table moment seems a premonition now, not the beauty it first revealed itself as in the sunlit morning, but now a jagged and evil chill through my heart.  A million miles away from  the sugar plum visions and North Pole magic conjured to my mind when I first looked out upon in that morning.

Morning Chill

The twinkling frost in the photo was long gone as more and more details came chattering out of the tiny speaker from our vintage transistor radio resting on the windowsill above the kitchen sink. The pretty, twinkling light from the sunlight touching frost a long lost memory now, the picnic table-top looked only sodden and dark, forgotten, a fleeting moment of beauty within the chill saved only in the stillness of a camera shot.

The sun shone that Thursday  morning but the image captured  is more than a picture of  a picnic table in my backyard. It is a memory now of this day. Always this shot will bring me back to a Thursday morning in December when evil crept into Connecticut. The brightness and warmth of those 28 souls, the innocence and joy of 20 little lives can't extinguish the chill, can't melt the frost that settles in deep.  Deep in the twisted, tortured mind of a young man whose emotional, spiritual and right-mind spool irrevocably unwound  the chill will never pass.  

As I did following September 11th I wanted to run at the news. Run to my car, race to the school, and remove my children from the building. Take them away, far away to a safe place only I could find for them.  Run, run, run as I imagine everyone at Sandy Hook Elementary was told to do when everyone realized what was really happening  around them.  Run, run, run.....run to Mom, run to Dad, run to those that removed scary monsters from under the bed and soothe away the boogie man from bad dreams.

My words are lost in my head, swirling in my heart, ravaging my sense of safety for my children. Desecrating my sense of season and place.  Eleven days to Christmas, one day after our annual visit to Gogo's Tree Farm where we had picked the perfect tree.  Death sours  the pine smell of our shop where the tree now rests before being set in its stand then decorated with twinkly lights and candy canes. Raining survivors' guilt on all of us whose wee babes - whether teens, tweens or toddlers - are present and accounted for at the Christmas dinner table.  Enraging and polarizing us all with comment threads screaming of gun laws, mental illness and armed guards posted in schools.

Hand Over

Down the line, under our feet, hiding only slightly out of earshot are our kids. Cowering beneath all the news reports, Facebook pages and conversations among 'experts' suggesting the best way to discuss something like this with our children.  Limit their screen time, don't let them watch the news, be mindful of what we say in front of them, and do our best to convince them they are safe.

I have no words of comfort, I know of no poem that will ease the pain, and feel a pounding in my head thinking about one lone older brother who now must try to move on after his mother and murdering younger brother lay dead along with so many others. The frost has settled in and it ain't pretty.  Not anymore....not right now......not yet.

"This too shall pass...."   has not yet come to pass.

Peace, love and prayers to Newtown, Connecticut and to you all........... <3

My Blog: There and Back Again

I started a blog to get myself writing more.  Determined to get busy writing something, a thought, an introduction, a paragraph...an idea or wonderment at my world around me. I imagined my blog as the perfect tool to keep me ramblin' on.  Discipline was what I needed.  I would post pictures and graphics, quirky little anecdotes, lists of my favourite stuff, take fifteen minutes out of my day to just put down a few hundred words and keep my writing muscles flexing. No problem...I could fit that into my day.  

Unfortunately my blog got away from me......actually it was my life that picked up speed with another baby, family drama on both my husband's side and my own, health issues, the fodder that is raising a family......and so my blog was left behind as of my last post in September of 2010. I like a few of my first few posts....too long now I'm thinkin'....but still worth continuing on with.  I just couldn't keep up, couldn't get motivated, the thought of attracting a huge audience like the really serious blogs out there seeming impossibly daunting, scrolling, commenting and 'liking' on Facebook easier and less stressful than choosing my own topic and cranking out my own ideas about it. 

So here I am again....making a promise to my 3 official followers and whoever else accidentally landed here that I will visit here often.  I will not leave it so long between check-ins.  I would love to say fiercly that I will blog every single day but I know myself, I know my life, and so I won't do that to  myself.  It's what happened the first time round and has led me to here. Twice a week is more doable, more realistic so I'm going with that. 

So....what to write about?  What's the blog about really?  What does  From the Hip Mama have to talk about?  And who cares anyway? 

I've decided to always start with food.  I love food and my tooth of weakness is a sweet one so more than likely you will see a lot of pictures of cookies, cakes and ooey gooey. It will be my own photos....these are all my own photos on my blog.  After attempting to organize the My Pictures file on my computer recently it was obvious I have a habit of taking pictures of food be it out of my kitchen or growing from our trees out on our 4 acres of home.  I have a lot of shots of Thanksgiving turkeys covered in bacon strips and a buttery-kissed skin.  It's a beautiful thing......so I'm going with it.

These are Mexican Hot Chocolate cookies (thank you Martha Stewart) alongside my Banana Bread and a lone Nanaimo Bar from the Coombs Country Market.....place with the goats on the roof.....and when I posted this picture on my Facebook page I wondered what people might say....or  not say.  Found out most people like cookies.  "Delivery or pick-up?" commented one friend, "Wish I lived closer!" said another to which another friend 'liked'.  And my favourite comment of "Mmmmmmmm......"  finally sealed the deal for me.  Decided there and then that food was coming to my blog.  Because a blog should start out at least coming from a personal place don't y'all think?  Otherwise it's just trying to be 'liked' , trying for the sideways smiley-face or heart-shaped icon, it's looking for approval and feeding your pride, and it just ends up sounding forced and feeling unnatural.  And I'm not cool with forcing my words out. 

My Banana Bread is good.  Many people have told me so.  I've won a few blue ribbons at fall fairs with it so people with clipboards think so too so I suppose that proves it.  The proof for me is when my 20 year old stepson shows up with bags of frozen black bananas from his freezer and asks me nicely to please use them to make banana bread for him.  It's when my friend's twin boys gobble up my banana chocolate chip muffins and come back for more because ''They're just so GOOD!". It's when I hear from people that their banana bread just never comes out like mine.  It's my own.  And that's good.  We all need something of our own that no one else can duplicate or figure out.  My banana bread won't save the world but it's saved the day a few times at my house, started a conversation where there wasn't one before, has kept my kids in the kitchen beside me instead of plugged in somewhere, fills my house with the smell of comfort and home.

Hard to argue in a kitchen that smells great.  But that's just me........ 

Customize your own recipe page

Trip of Life

People think dogs and cats when they think of pets and for most humans our four-legged companions either 'bark' or 'meow'.  At our house the same can be said with our two dogs and two cats but living in the country with some extra space has allowed us to take pet ownership one step further.
We have goats.....up until early this morning we had four.  Mama Goat, our old-aged African Pygmy and herd queen, died in her sleep.  It wasn't a shock nor was it a surprise.  She was up there for a goat....we figure she was about twelve years old and according to our vet that's quite impressive for her kind....and this past fall when the weather began to change I noticed the age of her more clearly. 
I would catch her from our living room window as she sauntered from her stall to the hay trough and often her step would falter, her forelegs buckling ever so slightly, her backlegs just barely keeping her from a fall.  She had stopped disciplining the young twin billys, Cheech and Chong, and would give over her space at the greens bucket without her usual fight to Willie, the resident whether (think mule....there's a reason we call him 'Willie-no-willie...get it?) without her usual head-butting discipline. 
I could see his confusion at this. We brought him home three summers ago and it was Mama Goat he had quickly recognized as the herd queen, at that time Mama Goat reigned supreme over the spacious and lush space we have fenced off for our goats between the north end of our house and the train tracks.  Lucy, her daughter, was still with us then....still two seasons away from that Thanksgiving weekend when a black bear would take her from us forever.  I remember the violence of her death, the twisted fence with her silver tipped black fur mixed with the bear's thick black fur still clinging, the look of disbelief on the rest of the herd as they skittered around the pen.  A neighbour and farmer more experienced than us had patted me on the shoulder and said "This is what owning animals is about...you lose them...and then you carry on" . 
Mama Goat's death was quieter, less dramatic, like her I suppose.  A cold snap hit the Island two weeks ago along with an early dumping of wet, cold coastal snow.  Feeding the goats that last morning before the temperature would dip to minus 10 Mama Goat collapsed at my feet, just dropped like a stone without a sound.  I helped her up and she continued to eat out of the bucket, munching away on potato peels and celery ends, and as I gave her a quick once-over I knew.  Her eyes were not quite as glossy and clear as they used to be, her beatiful coat looking ever so ragged and rough.....enough of a change to let me know her end was near. 
Two mornings later I went out to feed them and only three came running to greet me at the gate.  My steps in the snow and muck toward the stall seemed in slow motion and squished with foreboding.  Mama Goat lay nestled in her stall, her legs curled under her like a cat, her head up but shaking slightly.  She tried hard to get up but even with my help she just couldn't do it. 
I hand fed her grain and water, packed her in tight with fresh hay and an old wool blanket my mother in law once kept in her car, the tartan faded and holey now and covered in cat hair...but it smelled of us and I thought that might give Mama Goat some comfort. 
The vet came, gave her an anti-inflammatory shot, checked her vitals which were suprisingly good, noted her accelerated arthritis and slight weight loss and gave us his words of wisdom. 
"If she doesn't get up by Monday then call me," he said kindly as he stroked her massive head.  "We can do bloodwork if you like...but you might just have to ready to make a decision."
Mama Goat never got up again.  We tried everything, a heat lamp, raised her up onto a pallet lined with even more hay, continued to give her water and grain to keep her nourished and comfortable.  Last night I checked on her once more before turning in.  She 'maaaaed' at me...low and tired-like and raised her head to me for what would be the last time.  She took some water, a few fatigued slurps from the bowl I placed under her mouth, then looked up at me before laying her head down in the hay.
This  much I know as a goat-owner......once their head goes down and their necks curl in, once they begin breathing with an open-mouth, once they no longer gobble up grain from your palm....it's all over.
I patted her on the head, stroked her beautifully-curled horns, scratched her lovely ears and spoke of Lucy and of summer days she had loved so much, of the black bears that would no longer torment her, the rain she sought cover from before a drop even landed on her gorgeous coat.  I told her she was a good old girl, she gave our family joy, and that if she was tired then she should just go.
Which is what she did some time during the night.  I stepped into the goat shed this morning and the stillness of the air, the look on my other goats' faces told me what another two steps and a look into the stall would confirm. 
Mama Goat was gone.  Curled into herself, almost under the blanket and the hay I had surrounded her with.  Back to the earth, back to beginning of the circle.....
My dogs sat back from me on their haunches, the big dog's face looking at me as though questioning. 
"She's gone Sadie..." I said to the dog that fought so hard to keep them all safe. Sadie looked after the herd...or trip as I've read a group of goats referred as....the best she could.  She had the bear that took Lucy up a cedar tree at three o'clock in the morning for about three hours, barking incessantly at the nerve of the brute to come into HER territory and take one of her own. 
And that's really all that pets become, whether clawed, feathered, furred or cloven-hoofed....they become one of our own.  My goats are my pets right alongside my dogs and my cats and although they have never curled up alongside my feet in front of the woodstove, or snuggled in tight behind my legs on the sofa, I have always kept them as safe, fed and warm as I possibly can.  In return they teach me and mine about the circle of life, the wonder of the seasons and the amazing dynamic of how a herd operates. 
Willie is in charge now...it's obvious to me looking out the window at the three remaining goats.  He looks confused, bewildered yet the instincts bred into his kind radiate from his place in line.  He's next...he's the heir although Mama Goat never bore him.  The twin billys will follow his lead until the circle comes round again.

Rest easy Mama Goat.....thanks for the memories.