Thursday, August 14, 2008

Finding Amber.


I found someone today who's memory like her namesake has maintained a warm glow in my heart. I found Amber.


I was browsing different records in an attempt to discover any news about her or her family when I decided to use the People search on My Space just on the chance that she may have an account. BINGO! There she was!


Amber is a young lady who became very near and dear to our hearts. She and her two little sisters and second oldest brother were members of our family for nearly two years and their pictures still hang from our stairway wall as family members. I am absolutely ecstatic!


I had recently cancelled my My Space account because it seemed to be a dead spot nobody I knew used often and a waste of time. I had to sign up for a new account again so I could send her a message advising that I had found her profile and asked for a reply.


This is great! I hope she responds.

Setting boundaries.


Summer is speedily passing by and it seems one can hear the howl of winter storms in the distance already. We are amazed daily at marked differences time makes when noticing that the new little ducklings are no longer all yellow, the corn that was just weeks ago was no taller than waist high is now too tall to see over and the evenings are progressively becoming cooler and cooler.
My time outside of our foster-parenting responsibilities has been focused on dividing up part of our pasture so as to give our Llamas and Emu (the gentler species) an area of their own and get them separated from our horses. I've been concerned more than once that one of the Emu or Llama will end up injured during feeding time because the horses will immediately kick out at anyone around (except me) so as to protect their portion of the feed.
I have also been planning the addition of horse stalls off the back of my little barn utilizing replaced telephone polls provided by a friend of my brother.
In the last two days that I have had the opportunity to work at it I have dug by hand seven fence post holes and installed posts made from telephone poles anchored with cement. In the last week I have planted at least ten post in the same way.
At 53 I have to learn that the body just doesn't recover as it did in the past but I've now gotten to the point that the last couple of poles were placed and I didn't die at the end of the day. In fact I was capable of a shower and then sharpening 48 number two pencils for the children who started school today.
I feel it strange sometimes that right in the middle of a task so physically demanding as setting fence posts that a philosophical thought will make itself known as if I had been considering it for hours. In this instance I found my self considering the parallels of setting physical boundaries (fence posts) with emotional boundaries (defining emotional limits). It became suddenly clear that emotional boundaries where akin to the physical boundary of the a fence line I was installing, extremely hard to install but once set and strung lasts for a very long time with periodic maintenance while effortlessly keeping those inside safe and those outside separate. For the life of me I can't figure why in the middle of sweat and strain such a thought passed through my brain.
Saturday is the last swap-meet of the season up in Cromwell and I have set my mind to attend money or no. It is always a fun time and good place to get ideas for around the farm.
The children started school today and I think the wife is looking forward to the time it will allow for not just catching up on the cleaning but also catching up on the latest plot twists of All My Children.
I hope the weather holds and as time passes I improve in setting my boundaries.