Ugh, it is a whole slew of drama that I don’t want to bore you with. Basically sitting by and watching him make his choices and watching him struggle is killing me. As outsiders to the situation we can see what his next step should be and we have given him advice but he sees things differently than we do, he is doing what he feels is best. He is scared and overwhelmed, all we can do is support him and hope it all works out.

This quote reminded me of him:

We want facts to fit the preconceptions. When they don’t it is easier to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions. – Jessamyn West

He believes that he has no chance of gaining parental rights to his daughter despite the fact that he IS the stable parent. He believes that mothers have more rights than fathers regardless of the situation, we cannot seem to convince him otherwise.

Okay, enough of the family drama and stress talk. Lets spend some time in my garden!

Here is a wildflower growing in my yard that I like and managed to transplant into some pots. maiden53, this is the flower you were asking me about that I’ll have at the yard sale.

I have no idea what this flower is called but it is pretty and I like it! got any ideas what it is?

My lilies are in bloom! I believe these are tiger lilies, they don’t have a fragrance like my white stargazer lilies but they are so pretty!

Got any fun garden photos of plants growing in your neck of the woods?

The post Thoughts on struggle and peaceful garden photos appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Researching your genealogy can be expensive, time consuming and frustrating for those who have an interest in knowing where they came from. Also, just because you have no interest in your heritage doesn’t mean your children or their children wont!

Everyone should make up a family tree, it’s entertaining and it will help your relatives, besides there is nothing worse than feeling like you don’t know anything about your family!

I found a very good/ free family tree building program called Family Tree Builder that I downloaded and put all my bits of information into. When I was finished I exported my family tree file and then uploaded it to a pretty cool site called myheritage.com that allows you to upload your partial family tree to the database, search the already uploaded data, connect with other users and much more. I was drawn to this site over more popular sites like ancestry.com and others because it was easier and free to use.

Myheritage.com is free as long as you don’t have:

• more than 1000 entries on your family tree
• more than 15 people you want to invite to the site
• more than 250 MB of data to store.

Another genealogy option is GenCircles. This site is a little less user friendly but it is 100% free and only will return search info based on user submitted data (so you wont be baited with search results that you need to pay for). I like GenCircles also because it’s accessible to everyone on the web so long lost family members (who have some sort of info on our family already) will be able to fill in the blanks if they want to.

With GenCircles you will need to download the above mentioned free family tree software, plug in what info you have, save it and then upload it to the GenCircles site. Don’t worry your personal data is safe, using the recommended privacy option will keep all living relatives info hidden! Only birth dates and death dates are shown for deceased relatives!

If you don’t have a family tree you need to get started on one! If you already have one keep up with it and consider uploading it to one of the mentioned websites! Happy researching!

The post Where is your family tree? appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

For us family has been who ever was present at the time. On my mom’s side I have an aunt, grandmother, grandfather and two uncles that are discussed and who make an appearance every now and then. On my real fathers side I knew of a grandmother, grandfather and two uncles but haven’t seen or heard from them since I was very young.

I think that knowing about your family is important. Different situations and circumstances may not allow you to be close to all of them and that is okay but it is important to know of them and be open to possible relationships with them, they are after all family right?

Family is important to me because they are often all you have to rely on. My mother, brothers and I are close. We have been through lots together and the experiences have allowed us to get to know each other in many ways.

I remember as a child I was doing a family tree for a homework assignment. This was after my real father was out of the picture and when I asked my mother about my relatives I remember she didn’t have much to share with me about the entirety of my heritage. I never really felt like I needed to learn much about my extended family till recently.

Last night, Myspace.com made it possible for my long lost aunt from my father’s side to find me. She is only a few years older than me but she remembers me and thought she would look me up.

I think it is crazy that she was my fathers sister (half sister if I am correct) and I never really knew about her. I guess I met her when I was very young because she remembers me but how crazy is that? It kind of makes me irritated that for the last 17 years I had relatives out there that may have had an interest in knowing me and my brother and we never knew about it.

I have a half brother that I couldn’t imagine loosing contact with, if I had kids they would know him or at least know of him. How do you just cut yourself off from family like that? So, now I am wondering what happened in my father’s childhood that caused his mother and father to split up, how did the remarrying come about? How were things with his half siblings and him? I haven’t heard from him in 17 years so I can’t ask him myself.

So many questions and so much I really don’t know. I can’t even remember my grandmothers name on my dad side of the family! It’s crazy how little you know sometimes… So maybe I’ll start researching my lineage so my kids will have the info if the every wonder the same things, just don’t know where to start!

The post How close are you to your family? appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.