What you might need to know

Some background

My mom noted she did not like the name of the blog.  Of course she has misunderstood where the name came from [my horses name is Yousolong] and that it speaks to my not getting my first house until I was over 40... it took SO LONG.  Oh and our builder flaked, in more ways than one, so it took SO LONG to build, and it will take SO LONG to finish.  The name has nothing to do with saying goodbye or loss, it's just a play on words/names, a way to memorialize my horse.

I meant to write a New Years blog nearer to the actual New Years eve/day.... but the 'Outlaw', as I call her, was here and between feeling like a bad hostess for working on my hutch much of the time she was here and not really being prepared for guests [they never did tell me when they were coming, who was staying here or how long they were staying until the day they came, so I adopted the 'Poor planning on your part will not constitute an emergency on mine' motto and just let D handle most of it- which meant ordering out pizza and beds not being made and did the things I intended to do, wanted to do]...  Anyway I felt badly enough with all that that I never did sit down and write my New Years blog that I had started in my head.

What you might need to know
Basically my intention this year for SoLongFarm Blog [SLF] is for SLF to be more about 'the farm' and to include my actual life, thoughts, etc.

In that vein I also want the blog to be more 'authentic' which has become such a cliche word to use, but I can not think of another, so there it is.  That is not to say it has not been honest, but there are times I screw up things with my Late Bloomers Furniture [LBF] and bite my tongue about it.  I think now though that my mistakes and blog are better used in their entirety- that is to say we can all learn from my mistakes.  Why would I withhold that from you all?

Yes, in many ways I feel that revealing that I am not the paint whiz some are or not the decorating diva others are could hurt my desire for SLF to help LBF to gain interest and thus sales... but in the end I am what I am as Popeye says and feel out of touch with the 'Martha Stewart, I can do it all while dying of the flu' types.  I hope no one takes that the wrong way, cause it certainly is not meant as a 'slam', other than maybe at myself.  The thing is I envy those people, I would love to be like them, but the reality is I am not, and it is not in me to pretend either.

So hang with me because it might get messy, it might not always be pretty and I may have days I blog about how incredibly hard it is to be the mother of 1, wife, animal welfare advocate, entrepreneur, owner of a retired older horse,  and daughter/advocate for a man who has prostate cancer that is most likely progressing or spreading [or both], and dementia and who is my father... but kinda' isn't.  Did I mention that in addition to some days being messy, it might get downright confusing?  Hey, I've lived it and some days I forget who's on first!

To get back to the SLF being about more 'reality', the final 'What you need to know' tidbit:

We [sister, brother, and I] put our 80 year old father in a home last spring.  In cleaning out his barn I found a treasure I was sure had gone up in flames 38 years ago, my grandmothers diary.  It is from 1937, Grandma Cecile Azuba was 34, living on a dairy farm in upstate NY with Grandfather Harry John, my father Harry James, and Aunt Joyce Evron.  She cooked, well into 1970's, on a wood fired stove and was a multi-tasker before the phrase was born.

Also in the barn I found a cache of photos, like these:

See the girl wrapped in the blanket with the young man?  That is my Aunt Joyce and her soon to be husband Ralph.

This is my Great Grandfather Devolson, and 2 horses dad identified, but I have lost the copy with their names on it... one I think was Jip.

I am going to add her diary entries to the blog for you all to enjoy, and for my family to easily access.  Hitting several birds with one stone, you see?  So without further ado, playing catch up, here are Grandma Ceciles entries from Jan 1-4th, 1937:

On the Personal Memoranda page it states:
Cecile A Cardner
born Nov., 13th 1903
weight 100
height 5'2"
shoe size 4 1/2
[Grandma was tiny like me.... or I am tiny like her]


Friday January 1
Nice day no snow at all.  Harry found twin calves in the barn both died.  Rena, Bertina, Ethel, Jimmy, Joyce, and I went skating over on the pond.  Bertina is staying all night with us.  Ethel went home with Rena to stay all night.  Harry plowed today.  Percy's were over to Roberts.


Saturday January 2
Harry and Marcellus went to Ithaca and Binghamton.  It stormed quite hard the ground was white.  Rena, Bertina, Franklyn, Joyce, James, Ethel, and I went skating, fell down a few times.  We all went over to Roberts in the after noon.


Sunday January 3
The snow is nearly gone this morning.  Went over to Roberts in after noon. Aunt Ella feeling better.  Aunt Pearl, Frederick, and Beverly came after Ethel in evening they stayed a little while.


Monday January 4
Eva, Momma, and I went to Cortland.  Eva and I attended the clothing meeting at the Home Bureau office and made pressing pads.  Did some shopping and so on.  Momma visited Aunt Etta Jones.  I changed my slippers.  Bertie Bean is better so he is home.  It was real cold.  School began this morning after Christmas vacation.


What you might need to know
My Grandmother was a real farmers wife who did all her own needle work, including sewing, needlepoint, hand hooked rugs, knitting and crocheting and apparently teaching these skills at the Grange and Home Bureau.  She kept her own house, helped in the barn, and was very involved with her family and town happenings.  Robert is her brother who lived just down the road past her mothers house, also just down the road and hill.  Rena was her cousin and shared her interest in sewing.  Cortland is about 30+ miles away, as the crow flies, from the farm [which still stands to this day] and Ithaca is further.  The travel they did, in 1937, and the dead of winter is just incredible to me.  To think I have central air, set at above 60*, and a modern car, and tend to not venture out in this weather instead huddling with my hands wrapped around a steaming mug.... I'm ashamed.

Skating is something my father taught my sister and I, taking us both on his snowmobile onto the same pond my Grandmother writes about them skating on in 1937.  My first memory of skating is probably from when I was 4, so I have now been skating 40 years and am enjoying teaching my son on the pond in the woods near our house.

Finally, moving back to Late Bloomers business... here is the hutch I worked on over the Christmas week:

Before and during

Now

It is painted in what I thought was Beluga, that I painted the chairs with, that turns out to be called 'Deep Space'.   My new favorite dark color.

Left to do:

- Finish out the upper doors, minus that lovely [COUGH] yellow glass... I am considering using that radiator metal I've wanted to use on something for so long.... or maybe a stenciled panel... not sure

- I plan to wallpaper the bottom like I did the China Cabinet, then add back on those doors, minus the center one.  I think I'll try leaving the center one off and using baskets or something else there.

- I am making a small 'lift' for the hutch top, not because the coffee maker does not fit under there [IT DOES!!!!], but because I need to be able to pass those power cords [plural because the toaster is moving here too] through the back.  Moving these two appliances here will move traffic out of my kitchen, AND free up some counter space I grudgingly allowed them to occupy for now.  I am so excited to get that done!

So, belatedly,....  Happy New Years my friends!