back again

I had started out wanting to share my past in a journey to discover and share who I really am, but that just isn’t working. The adventure is charging onward demanding all my attention, looking back too often makes it harder to clear all the hurdles ahead.

My baby sister has come to live with us for a while. I am hoping she can be happy here with us because we want her to stay. Although having another person in our little universe has rippled the waters, I believe it will settle to allow all of us to be happier, more peaceful and joyful.  One thing is certain it will not be boring!  

We have a ‘Baby Monster’ sow, she weighs in at a guess-timite  700 lbs at least. When she says her deep rumbling good morning, it sounds thrilling and terrifying in the way you feel when you look back and see someone is chasing you. She is due to have babies on Sept. 3, I am excited.  We also have two piglets 5 month’ old, DD named them Bacon and Porkchop. We have 16 chickens and an annoying 6-8 roosters. Two Border Collies; Bodecca the mother and her daughter Mooky. Our only indoor animal is Garlic the dainty black cat who has taken it upon herself to create a black cat coven for us, there are 4 completely black ‘teen-aged” kittens and she has just added 6 new ones also all black, and Ickeres the black and white barn cat with her 4 kittens. Everyone takes their turn in the “circus ring”. To speed things up, a jersey cow in full milk will arrive on Saturday.

In March I was waiting for our cow Hunny to have her calf, when May arrived with still no calf it was very obvious she was not going to have a calf. This is the 4 year she has not calved, so I knew I would have to get rid of her. I was crushed. I would have to call the butcher. I kept stalling. One day driving home from work, I said a little prayer “I wish someone would come along and say here, some money for that cow and take her”.  A few days later DD said some guy had stopped and wanted to buy the cow. I phoned him that evening. I was honest and told him she had not calved, he offered me 350$. I TOOK it! It was the perfect solution, but not having her left a huge space somewhere in me. I just could not get used to it. I kept looking for another cow. Nothing seemed to work out. DD was against us getting another one. She fears it will be too much work. I have a deep ‘gut feeling” we will need a cow. The disagreement last all summer.  A few weeks ago we had a painful argument about it that left us both deeply hurt. I had to find a way to let it go. So I prayed and prayed for an answer: I finally just said ‘if we are meant to have a cow, it will be delivered to our yard free’. A couple of days ago our friend phoned, the farm where they had kept their cow has been sold, they need a good place for her, and want to know if we could ‘cow sit’ indefinitely. She is in full milk, which is about 4 gal. a day. All three of us will have to get used to milking.  I hope to keep a log of our adventures here.

I am also advertizing workshops, but there has not been an over whelming interest once people realize it is not free. I will keep doing it though, I do those things anyhow, would be nice to share.