Sweet Dreams, Lulu

John, and Jesse James Carroll walking the burial site

We buried Lulu early this morning, not long after sun-up.

Jesse begins digging the hole that will be Lulu's grave

 
When you bury a beloved family pet in the back yard, perhaps you have a simple ceremony, wrapping the pet in a favorite blanket, and leaving a favorite toy with him in a small grave you've dug yourself. You whisper your good-byes amid tears of love and sorrow, and perhaps you leave a small marker, or plant a flowering bush as a reminder. I've done it many times myself.

Hard, dense clay soil. Difficult even for the bobcat

On a farm, however, when you're burying an animal much larger than a family pet, especially in hot weather, you need a bigger area and a deeper hole, something larger than a shovel to dig with, and speed, in order to get ahead of the decay.

Yesterday, John was able to find a man who agreed to bring his bobcat over and bury Lulu for us. Jesse James Carroll, quite a character we found out, came over yesterday afternoon and looked over the area where he would dig the hole. He is a very nice man, and he quoted us a very reasonable price for the job. He was also quite sympathetic to our loss. That was a nice bonus for us, we thought.

The last scoop being removed

From start to finish, the whole process took about 45 minutes. The "hole" was not really a hole, but a scooped out area deep on one end and shallow on the other. When it was ready, John dragged the container (an old water trough) with Lulu in it, down into the hole and, very unceremoniously, dumped Lulu into the deep end.

Although I took lots of pictures of the entire process, including pictures of Lulu in her grave, I have chosen not to post many of them here, desiring to be sensitive to readers who might find such pictures too difficult to view. However, I did include one picture that shows Lulu already partially covered with soil. I thought it was important to the goals of this blog to show the full reality of farm life, and how we must deal with some things in a very pragmatic way, even when they affect us emotionally.

I said my good-byes to Lulu yesterday, but spoke another quiet good-bye this morning as the first scoop of dirt fell over her. John too, I found out later, said his good-byes during the burial process. Neither of us cried. It's difficult to muster tears when there's a stranger digging a huge hole in your back yard with giant machinery. We were both too busy watching the bobcat jerk back and forth and around to think about how we were feeling about losing Lulu. It was rather nerve-wracking, actually, and we were both relieved when it was over.


John and I had to leave rather quickly after Lulu was buried this morning. We had been scheduled for more than a month to attend a gun safety class at the Sheriff's Department, and we were already going to be late. So we had no time for a ceremony for Lulu's passing. We're okay with that. It doesn't mean we loved Lulu any less than we did the other pets we've lost and cried over, and buried with ceremony. It just means that even on a farm the business of life keeps us moving forward, preventing us from standing still in any one moment for too long.

Time Keeps on Slippin', Slippin', Slippin'

Collards and Broccoli bolting

Oh yeah, and weeds! Plenty of weeds!

While we were pushing ourselves at a murderous pace through the last three very busy weeks, distracted by doctor appointments for John and Dad (two to three a week), a reception for my niece and her husband, a grandchild's birthday party, bees getting ready to swarm, and a couple of pressing projects ~~ like turning our storage room into a guest room (with company almost on the doorstep at the time), changing things around in my father's room (because he was ready for a little change), and emptying out my father's house so others could move in ASAP! (Why is everything always asap?), as well as finding someplace to put all the stuff we had to move! (Can you say Yard Sale?)  ...

The winter garden moved on without us!

Mother Nature doesn't move at the preferred pace of men. She doesn't slow down and wait for us to catch up, and she certainly isn't in a hurry to get to the finish line of any particular project like a vegetable garden, no matter how much we beg her! (Are we there yet?)

Perfect and beautiful heads of Cabbage ready to pull ... and weeds

Mother Nature moves in perfect harmony with Time. They are an inseparable couple.

Flowering Broccoli ... and weeds

If you turn your back on Mother, she doesn't get offended, and she doesn't storm off in a huff. She very simply just keeps going ~ in the same direction, toward the same goal, at the same pace, hand in hand with Time.


When we turn around again and look, we are shocked to see that we have missed out on something, that Mother dared to carry on something (like a vegetable garden) without us! We might feel hurt. We might feel offended. But Mother doesn't notice.

She's already moving on. This project is over, others are in the works, and new ones must be started, whether we are ready or not.

Early tomorrow morning, I will harvest the cabbages and the collards, and see if there is any broccoli worth saving. At least I got a great first harvest of broccoli about a month ago. It's the side shoots that have bolted. I'll wash, chop, blanch and freeze the collards for summer eating. I'll cook lots of fresh cabbage this week, give some of them away, and see if I can find a local shop to buy a few of them (there are about a dozen heads).

I can't help it that we've been so busy of late. Things have to be prioritized, and I think we've done a good job of balancing our responsibilities. The Winter garden was well established and nearing it's end. We knew that. Our constant attention wasn't needed, although more than a passing glance and a nod to the fact that we needed to get in there and do something would have been good.

As Mother Nature always does, she let us slip by this time, but not without a mild chastisement, a small penance to pay to keep us in remembrance of her authority, of her timeline. Oh yes, she has given us perfectly beautiful, edible fresh vegetables, but she also gave us weeds.

As John and I move ahead now to clear the garden bed and prepare it for the summer crops, as we're bending over our hoes hacking at the weeds, Mother's lesson will teach us that it is a good thing to visit the garden daily, no matter what, to pull a few weeds, daily, a few at a time, when we see them, so they won't gather in such number at the end of the season, laughing at us as we bend our aching backs over our hoes, hacking away at their laughing little green faces.

Mother sure can be a ...

The real eternal struggle of Man!

Oh, wait! As I sit here planning to harvest veggies early tomorrow morning, and spend the day processing them, I suddenly realize I have church in the morning! Ah, well, looks like it's going to be a busier day than I thought!

When Time Has Wings

Do you ever hit a point where you stop and realize ... it isn't Monday, it's Friday ... It isn't January, it's almost March ... you aren't 35, you're 55!

Yeah, well, I have those moments often, and I had a big one today when I realized how long it has been since I last posted to my blog. I've been trying to post something every day, hopefully something interesting, but something. So I was surprised to see that it has been 7 days since I posted. All I can think is, Time has wings!

From Thanksgiving through New Year's, most of us don't notice how fast time is flying. Our time is full of activities that preoccupy us from the concept of time.

So once the holidays are over, you'd think Time would slow down a bit, take it easy, catch it's breath. But for some reason it doesn't, not for adults anyway. I know children see time as being very slow. I remember that from my childhood, waiting for the summer break from school, waiting for Christmas, waiting for graduation! I remember it felt like Time was taking forever to get me to those special times I was anxiously waiting for.

Wouldn't it be interesting to think that, as adults, we cross over, unknowingly, into a different perception of time, one that speeds up, but runs parallel to the slower perception of time that children live in? Doesn't it seem like that really is what we're doing anyway? We live side by side with small beings who think Time is dragging it's legs, while we think Time is trying to get away from us.

If this is true, then we have to consider the idea that Time doesn't like old people! I know what you're thinking, but think about it. The older we get, the easier it is for Time to get away from us. And it does get away from us!

As we get older, Time plays tricks on us. Sometimes, mean tricks! Old memories mix with newer ones, we write the wrong date on a check, we miss an appointment because we got our days mixed up.

So it would seem logical to think that Time eludes us as we grow older!

But maybe this whole theory is wrong!

Maybe Time isn't getting faster. Maybe we're just getting slower!