Every Day Like a Birthday

Every day is like a birthday on the Farm. I have kitties, doggies, bunnies, llamas, sheep, lambies, goaties, chickies, and, let's see - what else? Oh, yes, my own personal companion/farm hand Mattie! What else could a girl want? It may have taken too long to get here, and the road was a rocky one, but I'm finally settling in. I loved birthdays when I was little. The woman in this picture was my mother's best friend on Staten Island, Ann Kinderman. We lived on the sixth floor of an apartment building, one in a huge project on the Staten Island Expressway. It was filled with returning veterans and my mother had company all the time. One day my father came home and told her he bought a house on the wild frontier of New Jersey. It must have been tough for her to leave her friends. My mother still held birthday parties for us, but things started to change in the country. I remember coming home from school and my bed would be made with a new bedspread and covered with presents. I never got over not having that attention on my birthday and still wait for my bed to be covered with presents! I'm on another frontier, far away from any family, and my mother has passed on to a place where life is easier for her, I hope. Mia called to get Matt straight on what day my birthday is. She had her first day of real RN BSN nursing yesterday, and loved it...another birthday present for me - a professional daughter who considers her mother an inspiration! I hope she goes shopping with that first pay check and buys herself something special - God knows she deserves it! The weather is balmy today and will be all week, although the weather people say we could have snow any time. We need to get wood in - tough to find seasoned wood around here. It sells so fast the lumber jacks can't cut enough. If I can manage to get my tractor up here from Pa. I can cut wood from my own land, it's just getting it back to the barn that's the problem. Challenges and new frontiers...that's life on the Farm.