I love my mother, and I love being a mother, with all my heart, but I'm ambivalent about Mother's Day. It's very nice to be queen for the day--but very hard for people who aren't as fortunate as me, and who are mourning their mothers, or mourning the relationship they have with their mothers, or grieving over the fact that they aren't mothers. Making a great big fuss over an act of biology beyond anyone's control seems wrong to me. I've said it before, and I said it again yesterday: I HATE standing up in church for the special "mothers" blessing. I've told our priest he should knock it off, and he completely refused to understand, which is as good an argument as any for female and married priests.
So. I'm not going to blog about Mother's Day, except to say that this year I had an unusually specific list of gift suggestions: three tomato plants planted in the garden, a new pitchfork (to replace the one with the wonky handle, and also because I hate the ergonomic one my boarder generously bought), and a new barn broom (to replace the one my son wrecked playing Quidditch). My son came out and fixed the broom, soaking the bristles and shaping them back into place. Then my family bought and planted five tomato plants and gave me two pitchforks, one for the barn and one to replace the one in the trailer, which has missing tines. And we got to go to breakfast at Cracker Barrel. So you can see I'm wildly blessed. But not everybody is, and if you can't imagine why some of your friends are estranged from their mothers, just believe that they might have very good reasons. Believe that it causes them sorrow, but that they might be making the best possible choice from a list of choices that all pretty much suck. Be grateful you don't understand.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, my lovely daughter and I cleaned out the barn tack room, not cursorily, but by taking every last item out of it, every single one, assessing, tossing, sorting, cleaning. We have not done this before, not since the barn was built 13 years ago, and it was a colossal job way overdue.
Among the things we found:
--all the hoofpicks. All the hoofpicks from everywhere.
--a gallon bottle of sheep dewormer that expired in 2003
--the rust-colored yarn I used to braid to mane of my chestnut mare, who I sold in 1995.
--a lovely engraved Jefferson cup, in a box, that was supposed to be given to a pony club member who left before my time. I have no idea, none, how this ended up in my tack room.
--a dozen broken grazing muzzles
--a pink flowered helmet cover, pink pony-sized saddle pads, and purple leg wraps, from my daughter's pink-and-purple small pony days
--miscellaneous pieces of tack that once fit horses who are now retired or dead. "Here's Pal's martingale," my daughter said. "This breastplate was Gully's. Was this Trapper's?" Probably.
--our old sheep guard dog. Her ashes, anyhow. "Ohh," I said, picking up the box. "It's Xena!"
"Do not put her back on a shelf," my daughter said sternly. "You need to bury that dog."
"I will," I said, putting the box on a shelf. "Eventually."
What can I say? That dog always loved the tack room.
So. I'm not going to blog about Mother's Day, except to say that this year I had an unusually specific list of gift suggestions: three tomato plants planted in the garden, a new pitchfork (to replace the one with the wonky handle, and also because I hate the ergonomic one my boarder generously bought), and a new barn broom (to replace the one my son wrecked playing Quidditch). My son came out and fixed the broom, soaking the bristles and shaping them back into place. Then my family bought and planted five tomato plants and gave me two pitchforks, one for the barn and one to replace the one in the trailer, which has missing tines. And we got to go to breakfast at Cracker Barrel. So you can see I'm wildly blessed. But not everybody is, and if you can't imagine why some of your friends are estranged from their mothers, just believe that they might have very good reasons. Believe that it causes them sorrow, but that they might be making the best possible choice from a list of choices that all pretty much suck. Be grateful you don't understand.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, my lovely daughter and I cleaned out the barn tack room, not cursorily, but by taking every last item out of it, every single one, assessing, tossing, sorting, cleaning. We have not done this before, not since the barn was built 13 years ago, and it was a colossal job way overdue.
Among the things we found:
--all the hoofpicks. All the hoofpicks from everywhere.
--a gallon bottle of sheep dewormer that expired in 2003
--the rust-colored yarn I used to braid to mane of my chestnut mare, who I sold in 1995.
--a lovely engraved Jefferson cup, in a box, that was supposed to be given to a pony club member who left before my time. I have no idea, none, how this ended up in my tack room.
--a dozen broken grazing muzzles
--a pink flowered helmet cover, pink pony-sized saddle pads, and purple leg wraps, from my daughter's pink-and-purple small pony days
--miscellaneous pieces of tack that once fit horses who are now retired or dead. "Here's Pal's martingale," my daughter said. "This breastplate was Gully's. Was this Trapper's?" Probably.
--our old sheep guard dog. Her ashes, anyhow. "Ohh," I said, picking up the box. "It's Xena!"
"Do not put her back on a shelf," my daughter said sternly. "You need to bury that dog."
"I will," I said, putting the box on a shelf. "Eventually."
What can I say? That dog always loved the tack room.
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