ALL COOPED UP...

Tonya's adventures in raising chickens

This is excerpted from Tonya's blog   www.tonyalemone.com

Twenty six years ago we moved to Utah to experience the “country life."  Our children were young so having the country experience was something we thought would be good for everyone and living on a half acre seemed like a dream come true.
                                                                       

pictures from... http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/my-mid-life-crisis-coop

The “right of passage” to owning a piece of ground in our area was to buy a goat. All of our neighbors had them, tried them, then got rid of them. We seriously considered a goat so we could fit in with the rest of the city folks who had come to the country but instead we chose chickens.

A month before my birthday my husband stretched a large blue tarp between the two English       
walnut trees in our back yard and gave me very strict orders not to peek.  For weeks I heard hammering, sawing, pounding and an occasional “shoot” come from behind the tarp.

When the masterpiece was unveiled there stood the most incredible chicken coop I have ever seen. Every extra hour of daylight had been spent in creating this new home for the “girls” ... that would be the chickens, not our daughters.

When you purchase baby chicks there is no guarantee you won't be raising roosters. There is also no guarantee that your neighbors are going to enjoy the sound of your rooster before daylight. These are two lessons we learned early on. 

Then Leroy senior came into our life... a beautiful French coco Maren rooster with black and white feathers and a comb that stood up so bright and red it looked artificial. A gift from my brother.

      

Turns out...Leroy senior was not a very willing participant in the egg fertilizing process. It took a year before we finally got 3 fertilized eggs. 

I placed them carefully in the incubator and impatiently waited. Pecking their way out of their shells was a long process and to my great disappointment they were the ugliest creatures I had ever seen. 

Thankfully, days turned to weeks and the new baby chicks feathered out and joined the rest of the flock. As luck would have it, one of the three was a rooster... we named him Leroy II. He strutted an "attitude" that quickly let the rest of the brood know that he was in charge of the coop.

 When I say everyone I don't mean just the “girls” and Leroy senior, he also took control of those that fed him. That would be my husband Lynn 

One afternoon Lynn came home from work with some rather bad news and when he went to feed the chickens he was in no mood to do battle with Leroy. The moment he stepped into the coop Leroy flew and my husband grabbed a pitchfork. 

As pale as a ghost he came running through the back door to report poor Leroy's demise. Shaken and a bit remorseful, Lynn returned to the yard to give him a proper burial and THERE, strutting around as though he had been magically reincarnated and was back to continue his reign, was Leroy, King of the Roost.

Fortunately for Leroy II the tongs of the pitchfork only grazed his neck, not one drop of blood was shed and if you know chickens... they fake dead when they are frightened. 

On that fateful day Leroy II had an extreme attitude adjustment. He never crowed again, a good thing for the neighbors, and he never attacked his keeper, a good thing for my husband. 

We love our “little bit of country”

Chicken coops for sale...

http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/my-mid-life-crisis-coop

LEMON THYME COOKIES

A favorite at Perennial Gardens

1 cup butter softened (don’t cheat)
1 ½ cups sugar
2 ¾ cups flour
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons lemon thyme

Mix butter and sugar together ,add eggs, flour, lemon thyme,(if using dried lemon thyme use 1 tablespoon).Remove leaves from stems and chop fine, add to mixture. Roll in small balls the size of walnuts, and then roll in sugar. Bake 400’ for ten minutes. After cookies are cool you may or may not add a lemon glaze made from fresh lemon juice and powdered sugar.

AN IRISH VERSION OF THE CUP GAME

IT'S TIME TO THINK GREEN

I loved Ireland...the endless GREEN countryside and the miles and miles of rock walls. The music, the dancing, the Irish lace curtains and the gypsies that kept sneaking into our Shelbourne hotel... it was magical.

This version of "The Cup Song" with a young girl singing in Gaelic brought back lots of memories. I taught this game to the sixth grade girls at our school.  They nearly drove their teachers crazy before the year was out.

One day I was sitting in the faculty room during lunch when suddenly we heard clapping and stamping coming through the wall that connected us to the girls bathroom. The teachers were shocked... "what on earth is that noise?"  I quietly got up to leave and smiled ... "Beats me."

Imagine living in a world where everyone knows the rules

and you can count on the person to the left of you 

and to the right, to keep them.

BEST FRIENDS FOREVER ...

Art of Beth Carver used with permission   www.bethcarverart.com

I love these paintings by Beth Carver. They make me want to join them for the afternoon. They are surely, the best of friends. I imagine they've thrown caution to the wind, not giving the fat nor the calories in that ice cream a second thought. What's the saying... "Life's short, eat dessert first."

I grew up in a house with six brothers. My first experience with a real girlfriend was my oldest sister in law. I was only five and she was 20 when she married my brother but I vividly remember that she adored me. She would talk about "girly" things with me and once when I was about seven she gave me a little bracelet with eight tiny lipsticks attached.  They were real... real lipstick. I was beyond mesmerized.

Over the past 60 years she has always been a
soft place to land. What a wonderful woman.
Why does it take some of us so long to figure
it out?
Jeanne and one of her granddaughters                                                                                                                         

        My daughters and daughter in laws

The year I got divorced I made an amazing friend.  She was also going through a divorce and we had an immediate connection.  When a divorce happens it quickly becomes obvious that friends and family get worn out. They just want you to be happy again! I was lucky to have this friend. We talked for hours, for months, for years. We cried, we agonized, we went over and over the details. We got each other through the worst of it. And through all of that we laughed and laughed and went to lunch and the movies and laughed some more. She was the closest thing I have ever had to a sister.
                                                  
Then one day, out of the blue, she did a 180 on me.  She would not explain why, she said she couldn't talk about it. I apologized many times for whatever I had done, but there was no turning back. The friendship was over... she walked.

OUCH... all I could do was just keep moving. It took a while to recover but in that process I learned a couple of things about being a better friend.

First, I allow my friends to move in and out of my life freely. Just because I don't see them everyday doesn't mean we're not still friends. I am not "needy" and I don't cling to any of them. I'm my own BFF. If no one is available I am comfortable going to the movies alone, to lunch, even shopping... its all good. I have lots of friends and family and I enjoy them but I allow them the same freedom that I value.


The second thing I learned was to be a better version of myself. I had to honestly look myself in the mirror and see if I liked what I saw. There were a few rough edges. I am fairly quick witted and I love to laugh but I have worked very hard to make sure that what comes out of my mouth does not hurt someone else. I am definitely more patient and then there is... FORGIVENESS. I have finally, finally come to understand that I should forgive others quickly and freely not just for them but because I can't keep carrying it around... its too heavy.

Am I perfect? Absolutely not... I am a work in progress. I love this quote by George Elliott. It speaks to the kind of friend I would like to become...

"Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away." 

MEET TONYA....  

Master Gardener and owner of Perennial Gardens

I have been blessed, in this life, to know some pretty remarkable women... Tonya is one of them. When I started this series "Women of a Certain Age" she immediately came to mind. We have known each other for more than 20 years but as I visited with her I was shocked at all I didn't know. I can more clearly see, not only, how she became a master gardener but how she has connected with the earth in such a way that everything she touches blooms.

With Tonya's permission I will tell her story...

Tonya's Guest House

At a very, very young age, Tonya's mother abandoned the family. Her father, overwhelmed by his circumstances put her and her two brothers into the foster care system. It fully lived up to its reputation. They remained in that situation until Tonya was four years old. Then one day she and her brothers were whisked away and placed for adoption.

She recalls being shown her room for the very first time. Not only was there a bed just for her, but a beautiful dresser filled with clothes she could call her own. To this day she loves the smell of the wood and cedar in a dresser drawer.

Then... her adopted parents divorced and once again her life turned upside down. She remained with her father but life was extremely difficult and harsh. She recalls wishing for "normal"

Tonya's one soft place to land was her Grandma Irene. This good woman taught her to garden and to love the earth and Tonya found peace and solace digging in the dirt. She even mowed lawns with a push lawnmover for 25 cents just so she could smell the grass. Gardening saved her soul and became her passion.
                                                                                                                    Tonya's Herb Barn

Moving to the country, Tonya has transformed her backyard, quite literally, into a botanical utopia. Around the Guest Cottage, the Herb Barn, and of course her Shop there are masses of blooms. As a master gardener, she knows every flower, herb, tree and weed under her care.

Guests come to dine under the arbor and many a lucky bride and groom have celebrated their special day in her "little piece of heaven"

She teaches gardening and herb classes, raises chickens and has just acquired some darling goats. Well known for her "tussie mussies" and her flavored oils she is "famous" for her Lemon Thyme cookies.

                         

All that Tonya missed as a child she created as a adult. Encouraged by a loving husband and six lucky children she has transformed harshness into tranquility, loneliness into beauty and neglect into a gentle, forgiving nature.

"Standing in her garden feels
like coming home"

Join us Thursday and I will tell you about Tonya's adventures in raising chickens and share her famous recipe for...

Lemon Thyme Cookies

IT'S SATURDAY... LET'S GO SHOPPING!

week one

Denim Polka Dot Dress... Talbots  $129.00

Floral Print Shoes... Boden USA $38.00

Navy Blue Belt... Oasap  $9.00

Coach Handbag... Dillards  $298.00

Denim Jacket... Anywhere

Corsage... Check Boutiques in your area

It's looking like Spring with these floral printed shoes...

ZAPPOS BOGS SECRET GARDEN $78.99

                                                                        PERFECT FOR GRANDDAUGHTERS  $21.00

FLORAL PRINT LACE-UP FLAT $87.00

ALICE HERZ-SOMMER...

 Holocaust survivor, concert pianist and remarkable woman

Alice and her twin Marina were born in Prague in 1903. Her father was a prosperous businessman. Her mother, a well educated woman, moved in the city’s shimmering artistic circles often playing host to Europe's prominent writers, philosophers and musicians. Alice and her siblings were exposed to the "great talents" at a very young age.

Irma, her older sister, taught little Alice to play the piano when she was only five.  At 16 she began serious study at the Prague German Conservatory of Music and by her late teens she was wowing audiences with her concerts.

She married Leopold Sommer in 1931 and together they had a son they called Raphael. Alice filled his life with music and he would later become a renowned cellist.

Aware that the Nazis were headed in their direction most of their family and friends fled to Palestine. Alice and her husband stayed behind to care for her invalid mother.  She said... 

"The lowest point in my life was escorting my mother to the deportation center in Prague." 

It was at this sad time that she began to work on Chopin's Etudes.. a set of 27 solo pieces that are some of the most technically demanding and emotionally impassioned works in piano repertory. This music would quite literally save her life and the life of her son.

Then in 1943 the Nazi's came for her family. The three of them were sent to Terezin, a concentration camp that was promoted by the Nazis as a model institution.  Many of the prisoners there were Czechoslovakia's foremost figures in the performing arts.

“It was propaganda,” she later remarked.

Nonetheless the sustaining power of music was real. She performed in more than 100 concerts for the prisoners and the guards. In her words...

"We had to play because the Red Cross came three times a year. The Germans wanted to show its representatives that the situation of the Jews in Theresienstadt was good. Whenever I knew that I had a concert, I was happy. Music is magic. We performed in the council hall before an audience of 150 old, hopeless, sick and hungry people. They lived for the music. It was like food to them. If they hadn’t come to hear us, they would have died long before, as we would have."

Alice's husband was sent to Auschwitz and died from typhus a short time later.  When a guard approached her and told her not to worry, that because she played so beautifully she and her son would never be taken away, she realized that her music, quite literally, was going to save their lives.

After the war, Alice and Raphael emigrated to Israel to reunite with family. She taught for 40 years at the Jerusalem Academy of Music until her final move to London.  Her son Raphael, an
accomplished cellist died suddenly at the age of 64 from an aneurysm. Once again music sustained her. Friends recall that they knew she was going to be fine when she began to practice again.

For Alice, music was her passion, her life, her love. But it is only a piece of what has been a remarkable life.  She refuses to HATE anyone... only LOVE. She even goes so far as to express gratitude for the experiences she had in the camps... it shaped her life.

One of the most memorable things about Alice is her smile and her laughter. She lifts everyone around her. The people in her London neighborhood and specifically her apt building count themselves lucky that they get to listen to her beautiful music everyday.

 "They know when it is 10:00 AM because that's when I begin to practice."



Throughout her years in Theresienstadt, the loss of her mother and husband, the hunger, the cold and the death... Alice Herz Sommer was sustained by a Polish man who had died long before. His name was Frederic Chopin.  

Known as the oldest Holocaust surviver, Alice passed away peacefully last Sunday at 110 years of age. She leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of talent, passion, love, forgiveness and... laughter. A truly remarkable woman.

This is the trailer from the documentary "The Lady in Number 6"          

follow this link to rent the entire movie

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/5182/75610692

A BLESSED YEAR...

What could be more exciting that the birth of your FIRST grandchild?  Obviously getting two, a boy and a girl! Aren't these babies sweet...  

Grandma made darling "First Christmas" cards for them.

And then there was... THE WEDDING

The Bridal Shower...

Love the black and white with the gorgeous pop of pink! There's an old saying "the devils in the details" and this one's got it covered. 

And those cookies... what darling favors!

THE WEDDING

From Daddy's little girl to beautiful bride!

 

No tiny detail was overlooked and when the publishers from "THE KNOT" saw the pictures they came running.

Congratulations Becky on a wonderful year!

follow this link to see "The Knot" online...

http://www.theknot.com/weddings/album/a-romantic-garden-wedding-in-palm-springs-ca-124788