Can We Still Wish You a Merry Christmas?

Below is a copy of our very belated holiday newsletter. (Right after I wrote it and printed all the copies out, I had to put my beloved cat, Beaker, to sleep. The family Christmas photo above was the last picture taken of him. I'll be writing more about him soon...)

Happy New Year!

We hope all of you had a holly jolly holiday and are geared up for the challenges and promises of a new year. For us here at Walnut Grove Farm, Christmas with a two-year old added a whole new meaning to the term, “holiday hustle and bustle.” Preparing presents, decorating the house, and cooking a meal require quite a dose of intestinal fortitude when also caring for a toddler whose reason for the season is to figure out new ways to wrap himself up in Scotch tape. (Mommy: “Stop that, Thomas! You’re making a mess and being wasteful!” Thomas: “WEEEEEE!”) Though he hasn’t quite grasped the concepts of neatness or frugality, little Thomas Jefferson has come quite far in the last year. In January 2011, he was still army crawling, breast-feeding, and goo-goo ga-ga-ing. Now, he is completely bi-pedal (except when he crawls “for show”), eating with utensils (and throwing them), and speaking in complete sentences with real words (“toodle-la, toodle-la, toodle-la” is in the dictionary, isn’t it?). He’s also learning his colors in Spanish thanks to Daddy and “Oso Pardo, Oso Pardo” (“Brown Bear, Brown Bear”) and “composing” songs like “Mamaw’ll Be Coming down the Driveway When She Comes” thanks to Mommy and the piano. Mamaw is still his best pal, but he also enjoys riding the tractor with Poppy, going to the park with Papaw, and charming the socks off of his aunts and uncles—and he considers it a special treat to take road trips to visit out-of-town cousins and grandparents (especially when the road trips involve eating snacks!) He is also getting practice at making new friends at Kindermusik and the Child Study Center where he goes twice a week.

In parental news, Lance and Heather have taken up the role as super hero duo “Surf and Turf.” Earlier this year, Lance joined the Navy as a reserve physician, and he begins officer training later this month, from which he will emerge a genuine lieutenant commander (“Lew-ten-unt Lay-unce”). He will be in the active reserves for three years and will drill monthly with the local Marines and work at a Naval hospital for two-weeks out of the year. And because he now works at the VA, he can take “military leave” time rather than vacation. When not doctoring, he enjoys teaching Thomas Spanish and construction skills (aka playing with Daddy’s BIG Tinker Toys)”

In her role as “Turf,” Heather performs KP and Diaper (stall, coop, etc) Duty for the hungry beasts and beast-lings on the farm, seeks the magic cure for tomato blight, plays violin in the local symphony, and volunteers in the community. She recently received a grant for Exchange Place Historic Site to develop a series of Heritage Day Camps, and along with three other ladies, she founded an open-hearth cooking guild and has been enjoying trying her hand at such forgotten culinary delights as Carolina Snowballs and Green Frog Soup (neither snow nor frogs required).

The animals are all doing well, though some of them like Billy (goat) and Beaker (cat) don’t have quite the same spunk they used to. In poultry news, we have a new pet chicken—Goldie—who came with 25 other chicks from the hatchery, and a new rooster—Goldo the Third— who was hatched out by our broody hen Peach. (Peach also raised a clutch of guineas after Heather “rescued” the eggs from the mama guinea’s nest in the honeysuckle. It may sound like robbery to you, but a guinea hen sitting on a nest in the wild might as well hold up a sign that says, “Free Meal for Coyote.”)

And alas, we cannot forget to mention the “gift that keeps giving” (us bills to pay): our old house. The Eternal Restoration officially ended last April with the departure of our contractor, Mike; but like Audrey, the carnivorous plant in Little Shop of Horrors, our house continues to shout: “FEED ME! More caulk! More paint! More bug spray!” For all of our extracted pounds of flesh, though, we did receive a regional award for Excellence in Preservation. And after spending last Christmas with the jingle bells of fire alarms going off, we have finally gotten the large cooking fireplace in the cabin to draw (by drilling a fresh air vent)—and Heather at last got to roast a turkey in her reflector oven for Christmas. So, from our (fully functioning) hearth to yours, here’s hoping you got the large piece of the wishbone and all your wishes for the new year come true!