About that road not taken...

Happy Saturday friends!

On Tuesday morning ManChild and I were talking on the way to school and he was complaining about his English class and all the poetry they were having to learn about. His description of how the poetry sounded made me laugh, his confusion about it was obvious, and the whole thing made me think of the way I always felt in any math class beyond Algebra 1:

We parked and I thought I'd introduce him to Mom's favorite poem, which I read aloud:

The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I haven’t read it for years but remember Mom reading it to me so of course, my reading it to him made me cry.

It’s got to be hard to be a teenage boy and have an emotional mother LOL. I don’t mind my emotions. Yes, I wear my heart on my sleeve and that’s okay with me. Yes, sometimes others are uncomfortable around me because I’m crying but I mostly stopped being so worried about that.

Back to the poem! I was thinking about how many times in life we stand at that crossroads and look down the two roads, make a decision, and step forward. The one that popped into my mind first was the road that led to ManChild in the first place.

That road has made all the difference.

Or way back in the 1990s in my depressing, abusive first marriage, hoping and praying for something to change. Standing on the dock of Crabtree Lake at my husband’s company party, watching one of his coworkers stuff himself into an itty bitty whitewater kayak and paddle around, practice rolling and just being fascinated. When he asked if I wanted to try it out, what if I had said no? Where would I be now? I took the chance of trying something new, so far out of my comfort zone and with a stranger to boot, wow.

Within a year I had found extraordinary physical strength which led to mental and emotional strength as well, and new friendships that supported me through leaving that first husband. And! I met Brad whitewater kayaking!

That road has made all the difference.

The list goes on:

•buying Rayn
•believing what she was teaching me
•joining the Equine Gestalt Coaching program
•buying a farm at 47 years old
and on and on...

Were there roads I wish I hadn’t taken? I used to think yes but looking back, I see where I am now and see how even the “bad” roads have led to good, eventually.

What is your favorite poem?

•••

My favorite photo of the week (ManChild took it), zoom in and you can find me in the middle of all that love:

WEEKLY ILLUSTRATIONS

This one made me very happy:

This was the day that I was sitting out in the pasture with the horses and donkeys. They spent a long time hanging out with me and then once they wandered off, I could try sketching them. I don't sketch in the wild usually but it was so much fun I will do it more often. I chose pen so I couldn't try for perfection (always hard for me to not try for perfect.) Once I remembered using shapes to start, things got a little easier:

My right wrist is still bugging me but I've been to my physical therapist and she thinks with her stretches, exercises, and ice, I'll be better soon. Still fun to play with drawing and writing with my left hand:

B-Rad has been feeding lines through ceilings so we will have actual working smoke detectors before we move back:

The cleaning and pack out of the contents of our house continues. The fire was 2 months ago tomorrow. There are 4 pods on the property and they are bringing one or two more. They say they will be done by the end of next week. Then the cleaning of the interior, construction of ManChild's room, painting of the whole interior, and redoing the wood floors. It's getting nerve wracking, the lead time on those spendy custom windows for ManChild's room is 8-10 weeks and insurance is dragging their feet at okaying the estimate. At this rate, they will be done with everything before the windows ever arrive!

THE RANCH

Last weekend I was doing some spring cleaning in the girl goat barn and something was inside this wall:

I have no idea what it was! It was making...chewing sounds? Skittering sounds? I don't know. These two old tobacco barns are 120 years old, who knows what has taken up residence in those logs...

The Pollening is starting, ugh. These haven't popped yet but soon:

Sweetness says he'd like me to draw him please:

The girls were total maniacs with the warm weather this week! Running and playing and butting heads:

Rosemary (on her back legs) is healing slowly but surely! She had her recheck this week and they found that she had some bacteria in some of her booboos so she's on antibiotics now too, along with continuing prednisone, washing and lotioning her booboos every day. What a process. Another recheck in 2 weeks. At least she is feeling so much better and is back to playing with her twin Parsley:

My mom's (and her mom's before her) African Violet lost about a quarter of it's width after the fire but is back to looking normal thank God. Those two African Violet babies in front were growing on the stem of the big one. I cut them off with a sharp knife and put them in moist African Violet soil and put them in ziplock bags to keep them humid. They started growing roots and put out new baby leaves in the center quickly! I'm thrilled!!!

MEMES

I don't see how this can be true:

It's true, I looked it up, read about it here.

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