What's In Your House?

     I look forward to my Christmas vacation, just like school kids, a cherished time at home with family and friends. It's also a time for me to do a lot of cooking and cleaning, and this year I've spent a lot of time at the barn with goats kidding while the family was still in school.

I'm not a great photographer, but the kids were playing and would not stand still for their photo shoot.



I caught this photo just as this little one was turning to join in the play.

     While cleaning house one day I realized how strange some people might react to what is commonly found in our home. Does everyone have a goat kid stomach tube and syringe in their bathroom ready to get colostrum into a weak newborn? Probably not, but fellow goat producers understand.
     As I was vacuuming the kitchen floor and pulled out a chair from the table I found a cattle comb laying in the chair, earlier removed from a hip pocket and forgotten after a meal or snack. Yes, even though it's school vacation, it's also a time to be working daily with the show cattle and our son has been busy washing and clipping cattle and taking care of the daily chores of  feeding and watering the livestock.
     While I do enjoy Southern Living  magazine you will not find stacks of women's magazines and clothing catalogs in our home. You will find agriculture industry magazines, breed association journals, youth livestock show publications,  beef cattle sale catalogs, and farm and show supply catalogs in various locations in the house. Many arrive with much anticipation and my husband has been known to keep one hidden a day or so before he lets us know it has arrived.
     Depending on the time of year and weather outside, you may find 5 or more pairs of cowboy boots or muck boots in our entryway, even though we have a basement entry made for such items. Laying next to them will be a variety of caps, gloves, jackets and hoodies.
     There is also a bag of ear tags, a tagging gun, a marker, and a notebook, all ready for newborn calves when they arrive. Doesn't everyone have this in their den?
     I moved one of the tables in our den to vacuum behind it and I found a few dried flower petals from an arrangement at our daughter's October wedding. A wonderful weekend filled with cherished memories and shared with family and friends.
     In my son's room, his aluminum clipper box sits beside the door, holding the tools used to get his animals and now other livestock exhibitors' animals ready for the show ring. His hat rack is filled with caps from farms and friends across the country, not sports teams.
     The laundry room gets really interesting as there is a basket with nails, syringes, and knives, just a few of the items found in the pockets of jeans. We have a stack of towels from the barn, used to dry those newborn goats, and then the dreaded stack of barn clothes which seems to multiply daily.
     This may be similar to many of your homes, and it's all items that are part of our daily lives.
     As we begin a new year I wish for all that 2014 be filled with God's blessings of health and happiness and a prayer for fellow farmers to have a productive year of crops and livestock.