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The Black Sheep

I have always been different.  I was one of those kids who always wanted to know why.  This was not necessarily a good thing in my family.  I was raised in a strict Southern Baptist family, where children were supposed to keep their mouths shut and act like small adults, and women were supposed to be submissive and subservient, and likewise keep their mouths shut.  I had two brothers, one older and one younger.  In a traditional family such as mine, the sun rises and sets on the male children.  The female children were "groomed" to be good little Christian wives who allowed their men to walk all over them, regardless if they were wrong.  I don't know why I was born with an independent personality and an inquiring mind, but it couldn't be changed no matter how much my parents tried.  I always knew that there was something about me that didn't quite fit in the family into which I was born.  I needed to have things explained to me, I needed information.  It wasn't enough for me to be told to do something, I needed to know why.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, it just meant that I had more of a reasoning and analytical way of thinking.  After a very turbulent childhood, I got married right out of high school just to escape the constraints of an upbringing that I felt was meant to break me rather than to nurture me.  The marriage was a mistake; it lasted about two years and ended when I learned he was unfaithful - something I can't abide to this day in any situation.  After that, I joined the Air Force, which was the best decision I have ever made.  I was allowed to learn and grow, question and get answers, develop into the self that I was always meant to be.  I heard my mother say to someone once that she didn't know why I joined the military because I didn't like people telling me what to do.  Isn't that true of any occupation or employment?  I think the Air Force gave me far more latitude than any job I have ever held.  They train you to do your job, and then they leave you alone.  You do your job to the best of your ability, you get rewarded and promoted.  It was as simple as that.  Yes, there were rules and regulations, but that is true for nearly everything in society and in life.  I have never been one to blindly follow, be it a religion, a fad, or whatever.  I have always made my own way, heard the beat of my own drums, and followed my heart.  And though there are probably those people who wish I had become what THEY wanted me to be, in the long run it was up to me.

It's Not Always What You Think

There are so many times in my life that I wish those people closest to me would have taken the time to get to know me.  Sounds weird, I know.  I am a very closed and private person, regardless of the blogs I have chosen to write.  Cyberspace distance makes it comfortable for me to do so.

I grew up feeling like no one really knew me.  They "knew" the person they thought I should be, and I sure heard about it when that didn't work out.  They "knew" the person that they gossiped about, and I was smart enough to figure out what they were doing.  They "knew" the person that they tried to interfere with, but I figured that out too.  Kind of insulting, actually, that they thought I wasn't smart enough or capable enough to lead my own life, even after 21 years in the Air Force, six years in college, raising a child on my own - successfully, I might add.

There are only two people in my life who really know me - my daughter and my husband.  Actually, my husband hasn't figured it all out yet; we've only been married for four years.  My daughter, however, has my heart.

So, a short blog today.  Just sitting here with my coffee, having just come in from checking on my littlest birds.  I am still a very private person, preferring few friends, and have only a few people who are very close to me.  Sad that this late in life there are people who still don't know me, but think they do.  Too little, too late.

Betrayed

I am not a person who needs a lot of friends.  The few friends I have, I cherish more than people know.  I feel that I am a loyal and trustworthy friend, but that is something I had to develop after being betrayed by a so-called friend from my childhood.

I grew up with this friend, we were distant cousins of sorts.  We were the same age, lived close enough to visit and spend the night at each other's houses often.  Our parents were cousins and friends, and we had many opportunities to get together.  I considered her my best friend.  We always seemed to have fun together, and had a lot in common.  Although she lived in a neighboring town, we would see each other once a week or so, and I always looked forward to our time together.

When we were about 16 years old, I learned that she was allowed to invite one person on her school-sponsored ski trip to Mansfield.  I was very excited, thinking she would invite me.  I had always wanted to learn to ski, and the opportunity to do something different was enticing.  She had other plans - she invited my older brother.  It hit me square in the face...all this time she was pretending to be my friend because she had a crush on my brother and that was the only way she could be around him.  I felt betrayed to the very core; I had been sincere and genuine in our friendship, but she had had her own agenda.

Needless to say, it went downhill from there.  I never said a word about it.  I just went my way, and put as much distance between us as I could.  No more sleep-overs or enjoying our family get-togethers.  It just made me sick and sad that someone could be so shallow, so manipulating, and such a user.

We graduated from high school and went our separate ways.  At 21 years of age, I joined the Air Force.  In September of 1980, I received a card from her while I was in basic training.  That's it.  It is now more than 30 years later and I have still heard nothing, other than when I contacted her daughter through Facebook last year.  All I got was, "Mom says hi."  I didn't bother to reply to that.

And so, dear friend, I have traveled the world, seen places that you can only dream about, skied the Alps without you, married, endured the death of my first child, divorced, struggled through illnesses, remarried, finished college, and became very successful and prosperous.  But, you don't know any of this because you didn't care enough about our friendship to keep in touch.  I tried, and gave up.  I guess it's just not worth it after all.

Why I Don't Go To Church

I was raised in a Bible-thumping, hellfire-and-brimstone kind of religion.  I never felt comfortable with it.  Everyone seemed so angry and joyless.  I observed behavior in churches that one only sees on reality television shows these days.  In addition to the screeching and condemning from the pulpit, there were the women whispering behind their hands about the color of lipstick the pastor's wife was wearing, how many kids one family kept producing, the clothes people dared to wear to church, and did you know blah blah blah - pure gossip.

Pastors came and went, each dismissed for unethical reasons; their wives were out of control, he flirted with a patient in the hospital, he wasn't honest in his dealings with the congregation.  Of course, the next pastor hired walked on water and was going to take the congregation to new heights.  And always the disappointment when it didn't work out.

I have never encountered more critical or judgmental people in all of my life.  These so-called Christian people would use racial slurs, tell racial jokes, smoke, drink, curse, run around on their spouses, or worse yet abuse them.  But come Sunday morning, they had on their best suits, clean-shaven reeking of aftershave, collecting the offering, teaching Sunday school, or serving communion.  I actually witnessed one deacon of the church refuse to serve Communion to someone because he didn't know that person, and didn't feel it was deserved.  How pompous and hypocritical.

I have visited many churches of many denominations and, for the most part, they are all the same.  I understand that church is the place for sinners, but it's too bad the sinners don't recognize their need for redemption.  The gossip, the back-biting, the trouble-making...not something I want to associate with.  Someone told me once that no one would get in the way of their worship.  I thought, "Well, good for you.  You are a much better Christian than me to overlook this poisoned environment."  I quit going to church because they are full of hypocrites, and I don't want to add to that number.

Worship comes in many forms, and I worship often throughout the day, every day.  My husband and I are blessed and thankful for God's care, and express that every day.  I worship by giving my eggs to friends that are needy.  I worship when I take bags full of clothes to the second-hand store.  I worship when I give furniture to a young couple just starting out.  I worship while I'm doing my outside chores, thanking God for my health, my properity, and the beautiful elements of nature that He has provided for this earth.  The Bible teaches us to love our neighbors, help the poor, take care of the widows and orphans, and to serve others.  This is our worship, and we don't hesitate to tell people that.

I doubt I will ever go to church regularly again.  My memories of the church of my childhood are not good ones.  I will never forget the smell of damp cinderblocks and stuffy sanctuaries because there was no air-conditioning.  I can't forget the longing for the friends I wanted, but didn't find in the church my parents forced us to attend.  I can't abide the scriptures being crammed down my throat by someone who I feel is totally unqualified to tell me how to live my life.  I leave that up to God in His wisdom.

A Call to the Soul

I was born and raised in northern Ohio, though my roots are in southeast Kentucky.  Well, that's not exactly accurate; most of my ancestors came across the Smoky Mountains from North Carolina, some of them having the mixed blood of the Cherokee Nation.  I spent summers on my grandmother's mountain farm in Harlan county, Kentucky.  To say it was primitive is a serious understatement; Granny didn't have running water (oh yes, we ran and got it from the spring).  I remember her cooking on an old coal stove, helping her stir the blackberry jam she made every summer.  She did have electricity, enough to have lights, a refrigerator, and an electric wringer-type washer.  It wasn't until later years that she finally got a proper cook stove, but we had to run outside on the other end of the house to "throw the switch" to turn the power on to it.

Granny had her issues, as most of us do, but I learned a lot from her.  She truly lived off the land, raising chickens and hogs, and she always had a milk cow.  She could coax an abundant garden out of the poorest of soil, and set to canning everything she could get her hands on.  I remember the root cellar under the house where snakes would crawl to look for mice - I'm talking rattlesnakes, copperheads, black snakes.  A creepy, spidery place.  Her corn crib was full, her chicken coop cackling, her root cellar was packed with jars, and there always meat in the smoke house.

To say that Granny loved flowers does not do her justice.  That is one of the most striking memories I have of her; she could spit a seed into the ground and sprout a rose.  She had a beautiful asparagus bush that was 10 feet tall.  She would put old tires around her "pinies" (peonies) to keep us kids from running them over.  She was an old woman of the mountains.  Fierce, proud, hard-working - those are the most important lessons I learned from her.

So what does this have to do with a call to the soul?  I long for the mountains.  When I visit my family there, I can close my eyes and smell that smell that only comes from the Appalachian Mountains...a mixture of pine, sandy soil, fishing worms, and wild mountain flowers.  That's as close as I can come to describing it.

I love the notion of living off the land.  I love raising my chickens, working in my garden, planting my herbs and flowers, being outside in the sunny breezes.  Where does that come from?  I wasn't raised to it, I inherited it.  My cousin Pat and I agree - it is in our genes, in the very stuff that makes up the fabric of the descendents of the mountains.  The bluegrass music, clogging, telling tall tales, taking a dip in the cold swimming hole, running down a headless chicken to fry it up for supper, fluffy biscuits with gravy for breakfast, wading in the "branch" of the river, chasing salamanders and butterflies.

I lived in Europe for many years, and I heard the call there too.  It came winging down from the heights of the castles and the alps, wafting on the folk music, lingering in the smiles of the old people who were probably distant cousins somehow.  I heard it in the lyrical voices of the different languages, the aroma of the hearty food of the countryside, the echo of the footsteps on the ancient stones of our ancestors.  Many people don't hear the call.  Those of us who want to remember, and carry on the traditions of our ancestors, hold tight to the call and think of our ancestors who gave us so much.

I Love My Chickens

I started raising chickens for eggs about two years ago.  I've had to learn as I go, and have made a few mistakes, but have been fairly successful.  I have only one bird left from my original flock, Big Red.  We've had to experiment with fences to find one that works against predators.  We lost all of the original flock, except for Big Red, to raccoons, coyotes, and the idiot neighbor's dogs.  We finally constructed a fence that has kept out predators for a long time now.

I have only two birds left from the second batch of birds I bought to replace the first flock, Bunny and Buffy, Ameracauna's that lay blue eggs.  I now have 12 birds; one Dominecker rooster name Big Boy, Bunny, Buffy, and Domino (Ameracaunas), seven New Hampshire reds and Rhode Island Reds, and one Buff Orpington named Buttercup.  I bought six new Dominecker pullets to fill out the flock.  As the birds age, they don't lay as well, and it's good to introduce new birds to the flock about once a year.  I lost my favorite Dominecker, Betty, to a coyote.  She was from the first flock, with Big Red.  Domineckers are good layers, gentle and easy to tame.  Betty liked to fly up and sit on my shoulder.

I recently started raising bantams in a different pen.  I've lost several of these as chickies, which often happens.  But, I think I have a healthy flock of Seabrights, Silkies, Splash Rosecombs, and other assorted.  I have 11 bantams, having lost four in the past two weeks to illnesses.  It pains me when I lose a bird.  Some of the chickies hang on for a day or so once they get sick.  The spark of life in animals is amazing.  They struggle to live, and keep on taking one more breath, trying to move one more time, chirp one more time.  They want to live, but nature decides otherwise.  God in His wisdom puts that spark in all of His creatures, even to the smallest in His kingdom.

So goes my adventure with raising chickens.  I get a lot of pleasure and satisfaction from them.  I let them out of their pen every afternoon to graze in the pasture.  Near sunset I can look out my front door and see 12 little chicken heads looking in, waiting for their treat of cornflakes.  When they're done with their snack, I herd them to the safety of their pen for the night.  A calming, peaceful routine - creatures of habit with the spark for life that exists in our little world here on the farm...