Old Barns and Old Farms

There is something about those old dilapidated weathered buildings you see on old farmsteads that calls to me. Those graying boards, missing windows, and empty rooms all hint at a simpler life in simpler times. My great-grandmother lived for many, many years on a small farmstead in rural MI, only leaving when her health declined. My grandmother and her two siblings were raised there and my dad, his siblings, and cousins all helped out with chores and fieldwork during their childhood summers. It was a small farm with a few cows, a bull, a very mean rooster (or was it a goose?), some chickens, a few horses (I think) and a tame skunk that came to the door to be fed and once to show off it’s family. The farmhouse was an old log cabin (that porcupines adored eating) with three rooms downstairs and a small upstairs for bedrooms and a homemade weaving loom. The kitchen housed the wood cook stove that took up an entire wall and, if I remember right, provided heat for the small home. I don’t remember much about that house except that the wooden shingle siding had already acquired the grayed, antiqued look long before I was born. I remember the cook stove being a big black, cast iron thing with the perpetually percolating coffee pot keeping warm in a back corner. (My dad claims the grounds were rarely emptied so you ran the risk of getting coffee that ranged from a decent cup’o’joe to high-octane tar.) I remember the bare lonely bulb hanging in the changing room of her sauna and eating raspberries off the bushes as I walked back to the house after washing up. I remember the cracked vinyl on the 70's era floral-print toilet seat cover displayed in proud prominence in the outhouse (even in her later years, my great-grandmother refused to get indoor plumbing). Mostly, though, I remember her barn. It was massive to my little kid mind, rising tall in the twilight hours when the bats would fly out of the rafters to catch the mosquitoes buzzing about. Though long empty of farmyard animals, it was still home to the bats, some birds, and I am sure the occasional wild barn cat. It, like the house, had long ago turned to the faded gray of aged wood and was starting to sag around the edges though it was still used for storage. I always wondered what it was like inside when the animals were still there. I imagined the smell of bedding, cows, and horses. I pretended that light filtering in through the cracked window panes transformed the dusty bare floor into a blanket of golden straw. I could hear the sound of cows chewing their cud, the ‘whoof’ and stomp of the bull as he shifted in his stall, the meow of a hungry barn cat. To open my eyes would be to admit it was just an empty old barn. In my mind, I was transported back 30 years, to a time before I was born, when it was home to those animals. I fell in love with old barns and buildings as a young girl visiting my aging great-grandmother but to this day, I can’t drive past an old farmstead without wondering what stories those old homes and barns could tell. Perhaps that's partly why I ended up out here milking cows for a living...

I know he passed his hearing test but...

Scene: Mom stoking the fire, which wasn't cooperating and sending copious amounts of smoke billowing up to the ceiling. Baby sleeping quietly after a marathon hour-long nursing session.

Mom (whispering fervently to fire): Please start already. Please don't set off the smoke alarm. I just got him to sleep. Pretty Please...Please, Please, Please.

Smoke Alarm: BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Baby: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Mom: Whew!

Scene: Fast forward five minutes. Smoke alarm has been turned off, Fire is lit, and exhausted Mom is climbing back into bed.

Mom: (Pulls back sheets to lay down) *small Sigh of Relief as tired head meets pillow and Mom relaxes*

Baby: WAAAAHH! WAAAAHHH!

Our Little One

Meet Vernon Lanny Salmen, all 6lb 3oz and 18.75in of him. He was born just before 1am on Saturday after putting his mommy through 19 hours of labor and morning chore duty.



Can you tell I've only had about 7.5 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours? And doesn't Lanny look like such a proud papa? I love this picture aside from the fact that I am wearing the oh-so-chic pink hospital nursing gown.



I am still in awe that this little guy is really here! He was a surprise all around since he came nearly three weeks early on the one weekend in January when the in-laws were either out of town or working. Thankfully, we managed to find extra chore help and everything turned out okay. Now, His Majesty is calling for his supper so I am going to go attend to his needs.

The Green-Eyed Monster

My younger sister had a pretty, petite little girl in the early, early AM hours. (FINALLY...My sis has been ready to have her baby for ages!) I have to admit to being a proud auntie for the third time on my side of the family. She's adorable and looks just like me (if I do say so myself) when I was a newborn. ;) I was there visiting this afternoon and I am so jealous because I've still got about three weeks (more like five I'm guessing though) to go but I am getting so ready to have this baby! :P I never thought I would be this anxious but I am. It seems like the weeks can't go by fast enough but at the same time I don't want to be done being pregnant. Does that make sense? I am ready to have my belly back to myself but this baby is so much more managable when it's still in there. No crying babies, poopy diapers, or midnight feedings to worry about yet, but seeing my niece made me yearn to hold my own baby and count those little fingers and toes and babble baby nonsense and all those cute little things you do with newborns. And it would be nice not to wake up in the middle of the night because the baby has the hiccups and keeps nudging nerves in my back.

Also jealous because now my sister can start working on taking off her 'baby weight' (after a waiting period of course.) Had a Dr appointment yesterday and everything still looks good, though my total weight gain jumped to 24 pounds. So I didn't make my 20 pound goal but I am accepting that and proud that I didn't let myself gain this much weight up until this point. It's a disappointment but that's life. I am also disappointed because I haven't had any 'true' contractions yet (although I did have a REALLY ouchy B/H contraction this evening) so my Dr said she wasn't going to check me even though there are strong indications that the baby has dropped and my Braxton/Hicks contractions are getting stronger. (It's really nice to be able to breathe again but not so nice having to pee like every five minutes...) Grr... I was hoping that I would get checked and she would tell me that signs are pointing to me going early. Oh well...I should know better than to get my hopes up. Now I know why they say pregnant women dread the last few weeks...

And the Countdown Starts...

36 weeks. That's what I am at today. *Only* four weeks left to go. (Well, if I stay true to Salmen tradition, I will go over by two weeks and have a hefty baby.) I honestly never thought I would get to this point. It seems so surreal in a way. Even my doctor had to ask at my last appointment, "So, did you expect to make it this far?" Nope. Miscarriage is a very scary, very emotionally draining experience and it has colored everything I've gone through with this pregnancy. I kept expecting it to happen but it never did. And here I am, looking like I swallowed a beach ball, ready to have my baby anytime in the next six weeks. (I'm going with six so that I am not disappointed when the baby doesn't come early.)

It's really hitting me hard these days-in about a month, I am going to be a MOM. How did this happen? (That is a rhetorical question, not a literal one...) I had a dream a while back about losing my baby at someone's house and it got to me. I worry that I am not ready for this responsibility. I wonder what life will be like when it's not just Lanny and me, if I can handle the middle of the night feedings and crying, colicky fits and the teething and everything that goes along with raising kids. I can't keep my own head screwed on straight these days so am I going to do something dumb like leave my baby at home when I go to town? I know these are all questions built upon the typical first-time-mom anxieties, but I still worry. I know I won't forget my baby somewhere and that Lanny and I will somehow manage to raise this child despite the sleep deprivation and stress because other parents have done it before us. I know that I will find the fortitude to navigate the path of motherhood. I just can't get that darn dream out of my head.

The Truth about Chores

Here's a secret...I don't actually mind doing chores. Even at 8 months pregnant, I don't really mind doing chores. Despite the bone-chillingly cold temps we have had recently, I don't mind doing chores. It's crazy but it's true. I am tired of having to pull on three layers of long johns, undershirts, T-shirts, pants, wool socks, sweatshirts, and jackets that no longer close over my belly. I am tired of having to go bathroom before we leave for chores, before I start chores, during chores, before I leave the barn, and when I get home from chores. I am tired of having to crawl out of my nice cozy flannel sheet-covered bed on chilly mornings only to have to put on barn clothes that seem to shrink with each wearing and venture out into sub-zero temps to deal with poopy, temperamental bovines.

But chores, themselves...It's relaxing. There is this almost poetic rhythm that becomes second nature once you've been milking for a while. You move from cow to cow dipping, wiping, putting milkers on, taking them off. There's the soothing click of the pulsators that sound out the steady heartbeat of the milking system, the swish of milk through the hoses, the clunk of the pump turning on, the metallic *clink* of the milkers being hung up. It's music, after a fashion, with harmonies of swatting tails, tip-toeing hooves, and the 'whoof' of a cow coughing up her cud. The beauty of milking is that it's never the same. Different people milking, different cow order, added cow pie cleanups, etc. all add to the musical elements of chores. It's a randomly precise choreography that varies in texture each time yet with the same results in the end-a large increase in the milk level in the bulk tank.

Perhaps I am just crazy, in a sane sleep-deprived way that is, but I really don't mind chore duty. I just wish I could do chores without having to wedge my burgeoning belly into too-tight barn duds and brave the chilly, icy outdoors to get there.

Lanny's New Toy

Lanny bought this last month. He claims it was purchased to make sure that I get to the hospital on time when the baby comes, no matter what the weather is like outside.

Brrr...It's Cold Out There!

We got down to -31 degrees last night. That's cold. I was pretty happy to be able to sleep in this morning as it was -18 (I think) when Lanny left for morning chores. I don't milk if the temp is -20 and I guess he figured it was close enough. Chores this evening will be chilly but they shouldn't be too bad. It's those more extreme negative temps that cause problems. At -15 degrees, everything starts freezing in the parlor. Hoses freeze, hands and feet get chilled, boots get slippery, and anything wet that hits the floor freezes within a short amount of time (not instantaneously but it sometimes seems that way...)It makes for some treacherous walking if one isn't careful about spreading ashes or sawdust on the icy patches. Still the cows prefer to be outdoors rather than in the barn. They come in with frosty 'beards' on their chins, snot-sicles the size of baby carrots, and frozen manure blobs hanging from tails but still they would prefer to be out on the manure pack. I'll stay indoors and leave the frozen noses to the cows.

Only On This Farm...

We were doing morning chores yesterday and Lanny came to interrupt for a few minutes. He had something to show me in the doghouse. The in-laws had two dogs, Rascal and Ruffin. For some reason, the black one (Ruffin) disappeared a few weeks ago. (Interestingly enough, the neighbors have also had a black dog disappear right around the same time.) Anyhoo, Rascal has been awfully lonesome since his buddy disappeared. Since he doesn't have a buddy to play with anymore, he makes do with the animals he can find. Lanny discovered that Rascal was sharing his doghouse with none other than a real live....pigeon. You could peek in and the bird would just look at you, fluff it's feathers and settle back into the straw. Rascal left it alone (amazing to me since Mindy would have devoured it in seconds) and it wouldn't bother him either. Guess he's a bird dog and we didn't even know it!

In other news, the baby is no longer breech according to the doctor. Yay! Had a checkup yesterday and everything looks good. Measuring right on schedule, weight gain around 16 pounds, all my baby clothes are washed and ready to go, and only 5 weeks left!