The first gift from my husband was a pair of hockey skates. I was so in love at the time, that although a weird gift since I didn’t really skate or play hockey, he thought of me, so that was awesome.

My second gift was a chainsaw, and I was still so in love at the time that I thought, wow, a power tool of my own, weird gift, but awesome.

This continued for some time, years. Just weird random things.

Turns out I did use most of what my husband gifted me, in time.

But I also just started to buy myself what I really wanted, and then my gift would be my husband building it, installing it, fixing it, or whatever skill he had to make what I bought myself work. That turned out to be the best compromise ever.

Five years ago I bought myself a small inexpensive chandelier from a hardware store. I was needing some sparkle in my life, a bit of eclectic whatever, and I found exactly what I wanted. It was a super busy time for us and my husband just didn’t want to rewire the area of the house that I was thinking of hanging my new light fixture, so this box sat in my closet and acted as a shoe rack.

The running joke has been that when we moved I was going to hang a chandelier in every room, the barn, the sheds, everyplace, and maybe even find a pink one. If I couldn’t have one hung in the house, then the new house was going to have a bunch of them.

At our new urban farm I have found a place in every bay of the loafing shed that would be perfect for a chandelier, my new training studio, the hall way, the kitchen, and one of the bedrooms. It is like a ‘light festival of possibilities’. And I am really getting excited about finding a pink chandelier, I have also found a space where that would be perfect!

Last night we were all doing outside chores pretty late, and then I came in to make dinner. My husband was wiring Fort Duckworth so I could have a ‘yard light’ because the evenings are now super dark and I didn’t want trip and fall on my face.

After dinner he told me the lights worked and I should go try them out.

And there she was, all lit up. A pasture light-house, a beacon in the dark, a siren calling to me. After twenty four years, my husband finally nailed it, the perfect gift!

My Ladies of the Quack Shack had their very own yard light and my chandelier. It is literally the most perfect place for this chandelier and well worth the wait.

At night it is stunning.

But this morning, my heart almost melted watching the Ladies do their morning things at Fort Duckworth and looking at everything we have created for them in this beautiful space. Truly this is where this chandelier has belonged all along, the wait is what it needed most.

I am still uncertain if we are going to do what I believe is called ‘forced laying’, meaning providing artificial light to keep egg production up and going, but now, with style and sparkle, I won’t be falling in the dark on my face – Nancy