Still Annoying

Our Halloween donkey, Boo, turns four today.  That means we've had him for exactly 3 years and 10 months.  That's 3 years and 10 months of slobbery donkey licks, sneaky bites, and over-sized velvet ears.  Happy Birthday Boo!!  You remain just as annoying but hilarious as ever.  May your day be filled with dust baths and apples. 

Hunter's Moon

3:18 am: Jer sat up in bed, "Do you hear that?"  My stomach sunk with a heavy thud in an instant.  I heard nothing, but it's never words to wake to out here in the dark, dark countryside under a full moon.  We both cocked our heads to the window and the outlines of sound started to trickle through until suddenly it's all I could hear.  The guard pups were barking at the furthest corner of the goat pasture.  It was a frantic, angry sound.  I've never heard them like that before.  I'd never heard them so far from the barn at this hour of night.

Without thinking I threw on a robe and ran towards the mudroom, skidded around a corner, grabbed a flashlight as I fumbled my feet into flip flips.  Then I ran out into the 42 degree morning.  The pups growled and barked ferociously.  Jer was on the back porch, "They're back in the corner - what's going on?"  I sent the flashlight beam towards the barn where the goats always, always tuck in at night.  No creature was there.  I called six names as I ran to the barn.  All that answered was the howl and yip of a pack of coyote from the spot where my dogs barked.  The pups sounded panicked.  The coyotes were hunting.  We've heard that sound before.  We've heard how it ends.

"WILLY!  PEARL!  JOLENE!  BOSS!  BRUUUUCCEEEEE!  BETTTYYYYYY!!"  I was screaming now.  Where were the goats, where were the goats - the blood pounded in my ears.  Finally - above eery howls and yips, tinkling out between panicked growls and barks - I heard Willy.  Such a faint and distant bleating I was sure he was injured or worse.  In seconds the forest started to part under the hooves and paws of six beasts making their way home through bushes and trees.  They pounded back to the barn, and I quickly counted bodies.  1, 2, 3, 4, 5.  ?  5?  Then finally the 6th - Jolene inky as the night - I missed her in the crowd.

It's cold outside at 3:20 on an October morning.  It's dirty there on the floor of the barn where the animals putter about and curl up to sleep.  But there in my nightgown, wearing flip flops, I went through the gate and sat down amidst the dirty hay and goat berries and gathered them all together.

In the middle of the night, coyotes are nightmares come prowling out of dreams.  They're always awake when we're sleeping, and they're always hunting.  So far - my dogs have earned their keep tenfold. 

                                      

When I Blinked

Since Friday morning, it's been legit cold down in these parts.  I'm not sure of the science behind it, but without fail, a few hours of cold weather causes livestock fur to fluff out and puff up adorably.  Thursday was 90 degrees and everyone was wearing slick and shiny July coats.   But by Friday morning when the front slammed into the farm, all the animals kicked and spun around their respective pastures suddenly bundled in thick, fuzzy, fur.  Has anyone witnessed this phenomena?  Am I hallucinating?  Can I get an amen?

Whether real or imagined, the animals appear cozy and bundled as they race in between trees.  There has been more tail-wagging and snorting than ever before.  Even the chickens seem fluffed up and more energetic as they stomp around the place, mostly eating the winter rye seeds Jer spent hours spreading.  It's gotten so cold, in fact, Jeremy made a serious pronouncement: "It is wood stove weather," and he has been busy between the stove and the woodpile ever since.  Occasionally I catch him walk through the living room before doing a double take and then stopping in a trance to watch the flames.  His annual love affair is, literally, rekindled.

Having her fired up again has unexpectedly brought forth a rush of memories from the house build and the early months here as we crammed too much activity into too little time.  It was as if we feared it would all suddenly go away so we tried frantically to do everything at once.  The stove reminded me of the months spent without a proper kitchen and cooking meals on the wood stove that we later ate on the sheepskin rug.  It reminds me how we'd turn off the lights just to look at the stars out of the living room windows.  We don't do that kind of stuff anymore.

I always suspected that, eventually, we'd take it all for granted.  At first glance, one might classify this as one of the greatest flaws of human nature - to take things for granted.  And, no doubt, it is a great big glaring flaw that each of us is guilty of to a certain extent on a daily basis.  But then, in those moments where something here happens that is so beautiful, so sad, so wonderful that I'm knocked down to my knees - then I realize: I'm not taking this for granted - I'm just getting accustomed to my reality.  Thank goodness I'm not constantly breathless like I was at the beginning.  At some point, I needed to stop drooling over the sunrise in order to start the day (full disclosure: I spent one hour this morning sitting on a log in the forest just to photograph leaves).  The balance to strike between awe, gratitude, and acceptance (but never indifference) - it's tricky.  Over the course of late summer and fall, for the first time in a year, my job overtook some of the goals I'd set here.  While it was appropriate to focus on work in that way, it meant I momentarily lost my balance.  For three solid months I've been teetering between things and have had to physically remind myself why I am here.  
Jeremy lit the first fire on Friday night and in the evening when we walked outside to lock up the chickens, the smell of woodsmoke wafted down from the stovepipe, curled through the trees, and wavered above the driveway where I was walking.  It met me square in the face and smacked both my cheeks repeatedly as if shouting, "Snap out of it!"  The smell, I swear, the smell it reminded me of last winter's teeth gritting, pain-inducing work.  I suddenly remembered how damn good it felt to work hard finishing something we'd started.  Or starting something we wanted to finish?  If that's the case then, well, we're not really finished yet, are we? 

I've spent lots of time perusing old posts from the winter into spring time when the goat babies came home, when I was exhausted from bottle feeding and worrying and cleaning goat bottoms and puppy fur (casualties of goat bottoms).  It seemed that they would never grow.  Back when we pulled the big red barn onto the property and Jer started building the shelters against it and it seemed he would never finish.  Now I have a huge animal shelter and goats in a pasture, almost completely independent of me (sniff).  This week, as the goats followed me to the chicken house for chores, the puppies ran to the large pasture fence whining and pawing frantically at the gate.  There in the brush, a coyote gazed steady back at them.  I opened the gate and they chased it away in earnest.  Suddenly I realized the puppies are working dogs, grown up right under my nose - poof!  I peeked back even further during the year(ss) that we considered twisted variations of methods for finally living here.  And if you think we didn't discuss tent living, then you'd be dead wrong.

Now, today, we're here.  I'm sitting in the big chair in front of the woodstove - the only part of this house that was installed correctly (!!! true story !!!) and which kept us warm and motivated through cold, damp nights when we were wrist-deep in frigid mortar.  I'm full from a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs; a meal based almost entirely from our own ingredients (eggs, herbs, tomatoes, beef).  And it occurs to me now - the meal that took me one hour to prepare this evening was four years in the making.  The saying about blinking and missing things - it's true - you know?  Sometimes I long for that steel-bellied focus we both maintained from last September through this summer, and I miss mixing up goat milk formula, cleaning bottles, and watching the new babies learn how to jump.  Those phases seem to streeeettccchh out into forever but in an instant, they are mere detours on the road map.  They become anecdotes shared over dinner with friends.  In retrospect, I wish I had known to inhale all that chaos, just sink right in a little longer.  It's good to claw at dreams every once in a while.

An impossible suggestion, but what the heck: try hard to wrap your arms around (and find the beauty in) the present.  It slips by real, real quick. 

Weekend

Going

Today we had a small gathering of people here - some old friends and some new friends.  Some had been here many times and some for the first time.  It's always the same story when folks drive up for the first time, especially those who weren't privy to our beginnings of this land, the house, this life.  First there are the questions about the house and choice of building structure, then the curiosity over the building materials inside.  Somehow we always end up out on a porch looking at whichever livestock happens to be grazing out front, rolling in weeds, or scurrying across the driveway.  People wonder - how did we choose this plot of land?  They ask - what are your plans with this place and for the animals?  They look us up and down, then they look the property up and down.  I always wonder what the conversations are like when first-time visitors are driving home (probably through the sad little town we live near).  It's better not to know and not to care, and it doesn't matter either way.

I don't have answers to lots of questions we get asked, particularly about the animals, and that's because our plans are squishy.  They are smashed between spaces in our life where they fit best.  They change all the time.  As a perpetual planner, there's been a significant amount of giving control away to whatever bigger forces will take it.  There's no other way around it.  I don't know what will happen with my grant-funded job in the next 9 months.  I don't know if the rancher behind me will decide to sell a parcel of his land.  I don't know how my (quite possibly pregnant) does will handle birthing.  I don't know if I will ever learn to efficiently milk a cow.  Or how to efficiently juggle things like cow milking and a full time job.  Or how to finish an unfinished house on unfinished land.  I just know that everything will forever be a work in progress.  I'm getting better at loosening my grasp on the control I hold tight in a fist but want to learn how to open my palm and let it blow away into the next strong breeze, like seeds scattering.  Wherever it goes, there it is.

There is only one thing for absolute certain that I know and that I can plan.  No matter what the circumstance, I will always have animals.  When people arrive to peek in at this life, they're seeing more than trees and grass and donkeys and goats.  The little hooves that gallop through the woods, the paws that pound down onto the black soil, they are the insides of my head and my heart displayed haphazardly across these 15 crooked acres.  I can't explain it better than that, and I can't accurately plan for what they will be beyond today.  I just know what they represent - have always, really - represented in my life.  

Kimberly of Star Creek Country recently went through a painful experience with her own buck.  Reading her story of the excruciating decisions we must make as caregivers and homesteaders, it knocked me square in the gut.  For many, attachments to any animal beyond a dog or cat seem foreign and strange.  Livestock are livestock, with ear tags and a distinct purpose in life.  It's difficult to fathom that our love for them could mimic anything that one might feel for a pet or loved one.  But for us, these creatures are the central characters in our own stories.  Her loss is a jolt for me.  Another reminder that I don't control everything anymore.  Her recent story could be mine just as easily, and so I take it out onto the porch where the breeze blows - this fear of the loss and pain and the unknown - I take it out into the wind and open my palm.  I have to let it go.  The truth is that owning land and animals you love so deeply - it opens your heart in the best and worst ways.  Most of us who live off our animals and live with our animals, pieces of us sit outside and are exposed along with them.  The truth is that it's easier to stay, and stay, and stay, and keep my fist grasped tight around everything that can be controlled and planned.  But in the end - no matter what it could mean - I'd rather go out into the wind, wherever it takes me.   

Walk in the Woods

Stick a fork in it

Starting house projects again (new floors, finishing bathrooms and kitchen - oh my!) has really put my already heightened stress level into overdrive.  I find myself in a constant verge-of-tears state.  You know the kind, where brushing your teeth causes a "Why me???!!!" kind of reaction.  It's the most ridiculous feeling of being overwhelmed, under-resourced, disorganized and well...this too shall pass.  I know it.

Doesn't matter though.  Every single time - these periods of anxiety drive me back to those two old faithfuls for comfort and compassion - the two earthly objects that I cannot, must not, will not do without:  a butcher block and sharp knife.  Give me a pile of crunchy vegetables over a Xanax any day.  I'd rather chop the heck out of a root vegetable then pop a pill.  Little else elicits the sort of pure, liquid satisfaction as the pressure of a tight skin and the popping sound it makes as it gives beneath a heavy blade in quick succession.  It doesn't matter what I'm making so long as it's comprised of something crisp that needs to be broken down to little bits.  Recently we talked about how to alleviate some of the stress I'm juggling lately.  "Stop making dinners!!" Jer always suggests as a seemingly easy remedy - something to take off my plate, as it were.  This man, with all of his glorious qualities, could happily live off Ritz crackers and cheese whiz - a gaping flaw that I choose to overlook.  When it comes to these desperate suggestions I end up looking at him, mouth agape, "No cooking?!  Seriously?!  Why do you hate me??"

On any given day, cooking is the most imprecise thing I will do.  The ambiguous science of it all, the mystery of a little heat, a little garlic, a dash of something grabbed from the cupboard stirred with something tugged from the ground - it's the cheapest way to soothe me.  Don't get between me and my butcher block, is what I'm saying.  Fair warning a person is only given once.

On these days, when I find myself facing the (literal) uphill battle of rescuing chicks from hawks, small dogs from a passle of kicking donkeys, goat legs from fire ant piles, and my own leg from the stray spray of urine the buck decides to casually spew in a 180 degree arc - these days - I need 2 burners and a whole clove of garlic.  A bottle of olive oil and small glass jar filled with red jewels of pepper flakes.  I need the salt grinder in close reach and a pile of herbs pulled haphazardly from the herb garden out front that still limps through a goat-attack recovery.  I need an open bottle of red wine - some for the pot - but mostly for my glass. Whatever's bubbling in there and whatever is half chopped on the counter behind me: does it matter the result?  I loosely interpret a recipe but mostly work off smell, hoping for the best and knowing that the end result will fill a belly well enough to lull us to sleep.  Above all else and beyond anything:  I need to cook.  On a tough day, almost everything else is secondary. 

Also, a video of a donkey stampede helps.  It is just as (un)exciting as one might imagine (Fun trivia:  Who was standing behind me for the duration spraying pee on my leg???  Admit it.  You want my life).