Spring is Springing Every Day

I wonder what in the world I did to deserve living here in North Carolina. I just finished a study on David. If you remember your Bible history, you know David took King Saul's place after the Israelites wanted a king like other tribes, and Saul's heart was hardened. For all his sinning, and he did a LOT mind you, God still likened David as a man after His own heart. Wow, what an example of unconditional love. There is a verse when God blesses him, that he says to God, "Who am I, O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family that you have brought me this far?" 2 Samuel 7:18. That sums up how I feel about living here.

The Beav has, for the present, left my trees alone and stopped eating my azaleas; the fish are jumping once again, the turtles are turtling, and I saw two HUGE female deer tearing across our backyard a few days ago as I stood on the balcony. Mollie, our dog, never even saw them they flew so fast, but she knew something was up because their feet pounding on the ground was close to thunderous. It was so neat. The beautiful blue heron, who lives with her two teenagers at the edge of the pond, was out enjoying the sights two days ago and I just about wanted to cry.

Big news...Randy had no sooner put up a new birdhouse yesterday, when one of our little neighborhood birds flew in and declared squatter's rights. I love it. All the other houses have activity except the bluebird house and that's my most favorite to watch of all. I hope it's not too late for them to start nesting there. We have had to chicken wire stuff every single opening into this house for vents, etc., because the birds are plentiful here and will choose any safe place to make a home. I heard birds fluttering over my head all last spring and into summer, until Randy and Larry finally cleaned out all of our vents. Hence the houses.

I'll be putting up our porch baskets filled with geraniums next week...there just isn't a basket selection here yet, so I will patiently wait. So far I have geraniums from last year that wintered in the garage, and impatiens. I've already pre-planted squash, cucumbers, zinnias, snapdragons, beans and cilantro, which is the hardest stuff in the world to grow. Will keep you posted on that one.

Leah's finally home from Singapore and I am happy. Thank you all for your prayers and kind words of encouragement while she was gone those quick four months. I hope you have the most wonderful Easter and take time to thank God for all you have and are.

Boy, am I getting old

Today is Leah's 26th birthday. It seems like yesterday that I was watching "Magnum PI," and the missing Lamaze instructions miraculously appeared on the floor as I stayed home from a San Diego indoor soccer tournament that I insisted Randy and our friend Bruce attend, because I was tired of them hovering over me. I had 11 days to go and assured them that I wasn't about to have our baby that early, especially after eating the huge plate of chili spaghetti I had consumed at dinner time before they left me for the game. I don't know if it was the excitement of Magnum PI or that huge plate of chili, and I guess we'll never know, because I had just enough time to read those breathing instructions at the end of the show and the next thing I knew, I was going into labor. I called my friend Jan, the nurse from across the street, and off we started back across the street to her car, when I remembered we were to notify our next door neighbors; so we threw rocks at their upstairs window as I had promised, and that's the picture Randy and Bruce saw as they slowly drove up the street. Randy rolled down the window and asked what was going on. To this day, I wonder what in the world he thought I was doing with a suitcase in my hand and a boom box, (so I could play classical music during labor) and talking to the neighbors as they hung out the upstairs windows. In fact, I just remembered him saying, "Aren't you taking this a little too far?" [See, I've always been this way.]

The boys were in shock, so Jan drove me to the hospital and they joined me after they pulled themselves together. Three hours later, we had our precious Leah Donae McCann, born the day before St. Patrick's Day. With my maiden name being Murphy, we figured her birthdate sufficed for the Irish connection, so we gave her the Americanized version of the French word "to give" for her middle name. Now here she is in Singapore, and here is her blog for today, taken from all different philosophies and adopted as her own:

TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2010

26 things I've learned in 26 years

Promptness shows respect.

You can’t avoid offending people from time to time. When you don’t mean it, apologize. When you do mean it, accept the consequences.

The most valuable thing to have is a good reputation, and it’s neither hard nor expensive to acquire one: Be fair. Be honest. Be trustworthy. Be generous. Respect others.

In everyday life, most “talent” is simply hard work in disguise.

Most folk remedies are a joke.

Laundry day is much easier when all your socks are the same and you don’t have to sort them.

Goals that you keep to yourself are just dreams. If you’re determined to achieve something, tell people about it and ask them to help you stick with it.

All the stuff you have lying around that you’ll never want, need, wear or look at again? It just makes it harder to find what you do want, need or intend to wear. File it, donate it, or throw it.

Nobody is perfect. They all have their skeletons in the closet.

You control your attitude or it controls you.

High quality is worth any quantity, in possessions, friends and experiences.

Worrying solves nothing.

It is a hundred times more difficult to burn calories than to refrain from consuming them in the first place.

A good outfit can change your attitude in seconds.

Yelling always makes things worse.

Getting truly organized can vastly improve anyone’s life.

Everyone likes somebody who gets to the point quickly.

Everybody always thinks they are right.

An education is merely self-discipline.

It is a lot easier to react than it is to think about it first.

Children are remarkably honest creatures until we teach them not to be.

Credentials on the wall do not make you a decent human being.

Learning to forgive takes practice.

We don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.

I'm a McCann. I like Ice Cream.

Maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you've learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.

Hope you all have a happy her birthday!
Love,
Debbie

I hate being wishy washy, but...

I'm back to having two books. (I've come a long way from having three in the works.) I'm out of the BBF one and putting all that information into the "Meditations from Brookberry Farm" book. I can write from the flow in my head with that book because it is truly life as I see it on the farm. So, I will just stick to the facts and hopefully be able to augment them with beautiful pictures.

I am currently writing the "Christmas at Brookberry Farm" chapter. I hope I can adequately evoke the sights, sounds, tastes, smells and activities of this house full of rambunctious boys as they carry on their Christmas traditions, which always started with Christmas pictures being taken at Roaring Gap on Labor Day weekend. All the cousins (Gordon Gray's boys were included as well.) were dressed in their Sunday best and instructed to take their places seated on the stairs. Each step indicated an age range with the youngest being on the lower step, and obvious age-progression with each new step toward the upper landing. I look at their faces and see nothing but innocence, but I know from the stories that it's just temporary. :)

Well, just wanted to let you know the BBF book is back to coffee-table format. It's almost time for my friend and artist, Susan Steele, to paint the entrance on our side of the farm where there's a gate that separates us from the actual estate. (The place where I determined that I would have to write this book or be forever regretful.) We're waiting for what looks to be a weeping cherry to burst into bloom. I've never seen anything so tranquil in my life as this winding road with a stream to boot, pasture fences and, and a beautiful frame of trees that lead up to the gate with the "No Trespassing" sign. I LOVE IT!

Hope you all have a safe and FUN weekend. Hope it's not raining in your neck of the woods, but if it is...just curl up with a book you've been putting off reading and escape to a happy place.

Eureka, I've Got It!

Yes indeed, this book dilemma has hounded me since I started making and taking notes about a year ago. I know I have mentioned that I have interviewed a few members of the Bowman Gray, Jr. family, along with two of the women who worked at the estate all those years ago. The big question was, how am I going to mesh the fun part in the present with the historical information of the farm? By "fun part" I mean MY PART. I think how this whole thing has unfolded is just so interesting. I've told countless family members and close friends..."It just feels like 3 books...one about the farm; one about the present and how amazingly this has all played out; and all the experiences I have had here that are separate from the book...reflections, if you will.

Our friend and Randy's co-worker, Lonnie, was here this weekend from Virginia, so I mused out loud how I could possibly combine the two. Finally, it hit me as Randy and I walked Mollie yesterday...put my observations and thoughts at the beginning of each chapter of the person interviewed, then devote the rest of the chapter to the actual interview. By golly, I think it will work. Will keep you posted. I've got to go and write!

It's Cold EVERYWHERE!

My my there has been a lot going on with the weather. It seems like it's cold everywhere but Singapore! It's cold in Ft. Lauderdale, and right up through the state. My sister, Linda, just called and it's snowing in Alabama and will follow them right up into the Atlanta area and home. It appears to be missing us here in Winston Salem, but we have remnants of the last snow all over the place. My friend Brenda just sent me pictures of their house in PA...40 inches! AND they're expecting more on Monday!

Needless to say, all this snow is not good for the businesses in these areas, and I think the kids are even getting sick and tired of snow days. (Just think, when they make them up, there will most likely be beautiful weather outside.) So, I hope you are staying warm and doing something you've put off doing for a long while...something you enjoy. You snowbirds in FL...this just serves to make you happy that at least it's NOT SNOWING; you Floridians...turtlenecks and sweaters cover up a lot of body flaws; everyone else above the Florida line...keep your pajamas on all day if you want, until you decide to go out and play in the snow, and keep that hot chocolate coming.

A Picture Paints A Thousand Words

Look what I've learned to do! It's so exciting. I've been picture-adding all morning. Leah just told me how to do it, so watch-out! You now have visuals and words! Don't think for one minute that now that I have pics that it will cut down on the number and content of my words...but it will today, because I am officially writing THE BOOK. I turned the proverbial corner yesterday and am now on my way.

It's very interesting how a family can start out on the right foot from the very beginning and it continues, for the most part, into today. The Gray family valued education as far back as I can see, along with participating in and giving back to the community. The early ancestors were shop keepers, politically minded, and involved in starting hospitals, growing churches, and helping colleges to prosper. (Look at their Duke involvement.) Not unlike today.

Enjoy the pics. I've got to go and write.

Oh, What a Night

Our beautiful winter wonderland is turning to mush, ever so slowly, due to the rain. It still looks beautiful outside, but the streets are finally melting and school will hopefully be back in session after tomorrow. I say, hopefully, because the moms and kids must be going stir-crazy now that it's raining.

Randy said the front part of the neighborhood is still the hardest to maneuver, and there were three accidents before 10 AM up at the corner of Robinhood and Meadowlark, with one on Country Club, which is en route to work for him. Needless to say, I didn't venture out at all, other than to take Mollie out twice in the middle of the night, hence the title of this blog today.

She rarely makes a peep once I close the bathroom door...except for last night. She awakened me at 2 AM on the dot. I know, because you may remember, Matthew left us his clock that shines the time in blue on the ceiling at night. I thought she'd stop squeaking, and go back to sleep, but she didn't, so I got up, turned off the alarm and took her out. (By "took her out," I mean I stand at the door in my pajamas and bare feet and shut the door and turn on the light to watch and make sure no coyotes or foxes get her. ) She went and came running back in. I reset the alarm, took her back to bed and thought all was well. I thought wrong. Twenty minutes later, she was doing it again. I knew Randy was going to work that morning, so I got up again, happy to let him sleep. (It kind of reminded me for a moment of when I'd get up with the kids when they were little.)

This outing was different...instead of her just going potty in the spot Randy had cleared for her in the snow, she decided she needed to explore new territory, so she goes trotting up to the front yard at a clip. I tear through the house in my bare feet, in the dark, and get to the front door just in time to watch her start up the road in front of the house. I know there are no bedrooms close by, so I step outside onto the cold slate porch and yell in my loudest whisper, "MOLLIE! GET BACK HERE!" (FYI, I watch a lot of the "Dog Whisperer" after hours, and I learned a long time ago, I'm not the Alpha Dog in this house. Randy is.)

Maybe my whisper (Who knows maybe a whisper is sufficient for a dog's keen sense of hearing.) had picked up momentum in the quiet of the night. For whatever reason, she turned around and came back...without doing any doggie business that I could see. So, I reset the alarm, because my sister had just sent me a supposed-to-be-funny note from a burglar, which was in reality supposed to hit home to homeowners to keep everything locked up no matter what...even during inclement weather, which I felt any self-respecting robber would respect.

It wasn't 10 minutes before the whining progressed into a bark. I need to digress a moment...in the course of all of this, the smoke detector battery is beeping upstairs about every 10 seconds. (I'm assuming that is what awakened her to begin with.) I finally yelled at her to get back in her bed, because Randy was awake by then. Her barking went on for about 3 more minutes, so I suggested since he was awake, that Randy go and take her out this time. He was so appreciative that I had taken her out the previous two times, that he gladly obliged. I reminded him to unset the alarm, and check out the battery noise while he was at it. It took him about 20 minutes to do all I had requested and he got back into our warm snugly bed. Mollie was really barking and whining within about 2 minutes. I could not for the life of me imagine what her problem was. Then, I remembered dogs also have a keen sense of smell, so I suggested Randy go upstairs and check for small electrical fires, as I had just pulled a portable electric piano...excuse me...keyboard, out of the attic that day, and I had left it plugged in after years of disuse. I said, "Maybe she smells smoke that we can't smell." So off he trotted back upstairs to check for tell-tale signs of smoke. He's fully awake by now, and realizes he may as well unplug the battery from the smoke detector while he's up, so he goes down the 32 stairs to the basement to get the small ladder, then goes back up and unplugs the little bugger. (The ladder's still there. I guess enough was enough.)

By then we're both cold and irritated and 2 1/2 hours have gone by. Mollie starts up again, and Alpha Dog only has to say one time, "Mollie, go night-night," and we don't hear another peep until the break of day and Skype ringing in on the computer upstairs above our heads. We made it through the night after all.