The Life – Almost Farmgirl

It’s been a while: Writing, Updates, and the Rule of Three

Published on June 11, 2022June 11, 2022 by almostfarmgirl9 Comments

Hello, lovelies.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Nearly a year since I wrote a blog post from start to finish, more time than I would like to admit. Event after event, thought after thought passed. I made mental notes, sometimes physical notes, drafting out what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t quite get in all down: the right words in the right order to say the right thing. Putting sentences together so that they are good (and not bad), so that they fall almost like a conversation between us sitting at my dining room table.

I had posts I wanted to write about dear creatures I lost, but sometimes it feels like I speak too much of the loss that gets wrapped up in this kind of life and not enough about the beauty, even though so often they feel like one and the same. I wanted to write about some of the goodbyes.

I wanted, too, to write about some of the hellos. The new fur friends out here, who came to us either by chance or breeding. About the joy of watching baby llamas prance in the front pastures. About my infatuation with the trio of potbelly pigs I named after Shakespearean characters. About the foster dogs who have come and gone on their way to their forevers. About the one I kept.

I wanted to tell you that I got engaged. That I got married. That the boyfriend I mentioned from time to time has upgraded to husband.

Engagement photo. With a horse. And a bike.

Every time I sat down to write something new, it felt like I wouldn’t be able to catch you all up. That too much had happened. That I had been too lax in reporting this almost farm life.

Maybe I was right. Maybe I let it go too long. Or, maybe, I need to extend some grace to myself for not doing everything, all the time, during one of the busier seasons of my life. Maybe I need to thank you for the grace you are offering by coming back, by reading, by sitting down for one of these one-sided conversations after all this time.

I’ve missed this. I’ve missed you.

I suppose, now that I’m sitting here again behind this computer, I will have to settle for catching you up in bits and pieces. Fits and spurts. And I’ll start here.

<<<>>>

John and I got engaged and planned our wedding over the course of about 5(ish) months. Engaged in July. Married in December.

Wedding. In San Diego.
Because if you get married in December it’s best not to do it in Central Illinois.

We did it all quickly to squeeze the wedding it in between his last two semesters of college, allowing him, as my spouse, to use some of the free credits I had earned in my years as an adjunct professor at same college. John had planned to propose to me after graduation, but it made sense to move everything forward to put us on slightly better financial footing as we started our lives together.

So I planned a wedding in five months.

In the meantime, I decided to finally take the leap into yoga teacher training, which has been calling me for years.

I guess that’s how I found myself living in one of the busiest times of my life. Farm and work. Wedding planning and yoga teacher training. And while I was living that, John worked through engineering college and held an engineering position as well.

I’m (finally) feeling things slow down.

<<<>>>

A few weeks ago, a dear friend and mentor reached out to me to suggest that I attend a writing workshop she is hosting in the fall. I told her I was interested. That I would need to think on it. Talk to John. Research flights.

She told me, in the most loving way, that she “got this feeling you [I] need to keep writing.”

I sent in a deposit.

I have this theory–I’m not sure I’ve shared with you–that when the same message comes at you from three different directions, it’s a message from the universe. (I’ve had it happen several times, perhaps the most notable when three people asked me, in as many days, if I had considered the possibility that my ex husband was cheating on me. The day after the third repetition of the question, I found his texts to his mistress.)

This time, however, it was a reminder to write, coming from three unconnected people within a week or two.

“Have you been writing?”

“When are you going to finish that book?”

“I’ve got this feeling that you need to keep writing.”

The truth is, I’ve had the same feeling. Not because this blog is wildly popular (it’s not) or because I think what I have to say is a necessity for anyone else (I don’t), but because I feel more “right” in my own skin when writing is part of my routine. It helps me make sense of the stuff in my head, the words I write helping me untangle my thoughts the way you might untangle yarn knotted up by a playful kitten: slowly, methodically, and without judgment.

Plus, the universe told me to do it, so there’s that…

<<<>>>

It’s interesting. All in all, things in my life are good and steady in a way that they weren’t for a long time. I’m grateful.

This is a truth.

Also, it’s easy to let the things we love just…slide.

That is also a truth.

Life gets in the way. Things get busy. God knows the laundry doesn’t stop.

I rationalize: This can wait. That can wait.

Then, suddenly, I realize that it’s been months since I’ve written in anything other than a journal. My riding boots have gotten dusty, sitting unused, while I worried about cleaning stalls. I spent so much time stressing about doing things “right” that I fail to do them at all.

Even in all the good, there is still this search for equilibrium. For balance. For a set of scales that allows me to love and be loved and love myself in equal measure.

Life is tricky that way.

All of this to say, I’m writing again. I’m going to try to keep at it because it is something that I love.

And, I hope, as you read this, you find yourself pulled towards grace and loving yourself…and maybe to that thing that you haven’t picked up in a while.

Maybe the universe is reminding you, too.

Either way, I’m rooting for you.

Grandpa, Grieving, and Learning to Carry Love

Published on June 15, 2020June 15, 2020 by almostfarmgirl3 Comments

I think the season might have changed from spring to summer while I wasn’t looking. A quiet breath of change that happened maybe while I was grading. Or shearing. Or mourning.

Collectively, a lot of us are mourning right now. Lives lost to COVID. Lives lost to violence. Lost experiences. Lost sense of normalcy. The world, I think, is undergoing some changes, and it can be hard to keep up or know quite where you fit.

I’m feeling all of that.

I set out at the beginning of quarantine with grand intentions to write more, but I’ve struggled with it. The more you don’t write, the harder it is to get back in the habit; it’s a skill that must be practiced as much (maybe more) than it is a talent. Early on, it was the chaos of online teaching that made me feel stuck. I only had so much brain space, and it didn’t seem I could fit much else in beyond my classroom. Then it was loss and depression and anxiety. Personal and collective.

We’re all going through a collective experience of trauma right now. Several of them really. Some people are handling it better than others, I think. Some people are really struggling. Some people don’t quite know what to feel.

Suddenly, and collectively, we’ve come to the ever present but often ignored conclusion that our lives are very often out of our control.

Beyond our collective grief and mourning, my family has experienced personal loss. My grandpa passed away this spring, an illness or injury that it seemed like the doctors couldn’t quite pin down took him from us. Thanks to the virus, most of us didn’t really get to say goodbye. We texted and called. We posted memories and remembrances on social media. We even had a collective ice cream social on Zoom. (If you knew my grandpa, you know that he loved ice cream.)

Grandpa with the signature smile. He’s wearing that smile in nearly all my memories of him.

We didn’t get to hug him or each other, though. We didn’t get to have a wake or a funeral.

I’m sure I’m not the only member of the family who felt depression hang over me like a shadow as he faded from us. The virus creates loss without context. An emptiness that just seems to appear in front of you like a fall into Wonderland through a rabbit hole.

(Hmmm…I think grandpa would like that analogy; he was a nationally known rabbit breeder, and it seems very likely to me that he would have been pretty comfortable with his gateway to the afterlife taking the shape of a rabbit hole or maybe a path through a rabbit coop full of his favorite Flemish Giants.)

My depression had been waiting in the wings since the start of the virus, and it poured onto center stage following on the heels of our loss. It does that. Comes and goes, but never really goes. It was my companion for a few weeks, a welling up inside me that occasionally rose to prominence and took over. I was thankful for my support system. For my friends who called or texted to check in. For family, who knew my loss by feel because it had spread across their skin and hearts as well. For my guy, who didn’t have the words (because, believe me, no one ever does) but who wrapped me up in his arms and told me he would be right there as long as I needed him, who let me cry on his shoulder and brought me pizza when food had lost a lot of its appeal.

A photo from Grandma’s 90th birthday this year. John, Grandpa, Grandma, and Me. I love this photo.

I’ve read that grief is love that has no where to go, that that’s why we should let people have their grief, to ride through the rough terrain of loss rather than try to smooth it over for them with platitudes. You have to learn to ride through the rough road carrying the love with you; no one can navigate the holy pain of loss in your stead.

One of my aunts wrote a touching tribute to grandpa a few days before his death, when we all knew it was coming and felt ourselves waiting for the hand of the creator to deliver him from his intense pain. She wrote about all the things she would miss. All the ways she would miss him.

I somehow didn’t see her reflection until a few days after he passed. I had spent the in between thinking about all the things I would miss as well.

One line she wrote, “I will miss the way you measured time by season and weather, the way any farmer does,” bounced around in my chest, filling space in an empty spot that I hadn’t known was there.

I do that too…

My grandfather left an obvious legacy. He and my grandmother raised nine children on a farm along the rock river. Those children, in turn, raised their children in their own way–some on farms of their own; some, like mine, in town in a small house with a white picket fence–but all of us have a little plow dirt in our blood I think, some more obviously than others. Most of us have a dose of Midwestern common sense. Many of us know the magic of being rooted, connected to the growth of things in a very visceral way. He quietly taught us that, I think.

Not long after he passed, the month of May surprised Central Illinois with a late frost. Dad came over and helped me cover my garden. We spread plastic sheets over green beans and put buckets upside down over tomatillos and tomatoes. I used actual blankets to tuck in my broccoli and slung Max’s first coat over my lettuce to protect it, as I had with him, from the cold. I thought about Grandpa a lot that night, wondering how many times he worked to protect the crops from a late frost, thought about the way he taught dad how to drive a tractor and plant corn in rows and the way Dad taught me.

The frost claimed no casualties in my garden, despite rolling over the ridge line low and fierce; it was protected by the knowledge that a family passes from one to the next.

It strikes me sometimes that he isn’t here anymore; that I won’t see him on Christmas Eve. That we won’t talk about my horses again; I won’t see him nod approvingly and tell me “that’s a fine looking horse” with the knowledge of a seasoned horseman when I pull out a photo of my latest project. I won’t hear him comment on the price of milk or this year’s corn crop or the weather. He won’t wrap me up in a bear hug that smells just a little like a barn. (His hugs would lift us off the ground until he was well into his 70s.)

I will miss him.

But I will think of him when I see the sun set over corn fields. When I start up a tractor. When I breathe in the scent of freshly plowed garden dirt. When I eat ice cream, like he did, with a fork.

I suspect that I will measure “time by season and weather” for the rest of my days, the same way he did through all of his.

I think it’s true that grief is love with no where to go. I’ve learned that the process of grieving teaches you where to put that love, how to share it, how to pull it out when you need to remember the ways it made you who you are.

Mom, Grandma, Grandpa, Dad, my sister, and me. (I’m the little one.)

I hope your grieving, however it looks now, teaches you more about love and reminds you how to be full.

On Depression, Being Kind (to yourself), and Doing Hard Things.

Published on January 8, 2020January 8, 2020 by almostfarmgirl6 Comments

I was cleaning my third to last stall of the night, the one where my mamas and babies live, when a text came through. I paused to read it and took a moment to pause in my barn work as well.

Huh…Dementors…that’s about right.

My friend and I don’t always talk much. She’s busy. I’m busy. We have three hours of backroads and interstate between us, but we have horses and mental illness in common, plus a long history together, so we do our best to show up. Whatever that happens to mean on any given day.

Today, it meant talking about the dementors.

I checked my watch, glanced around the barn, and tried to guess how much longer chores would take me.

Cleaning stalls gives me a chance to think, and tonight was no exception. While I worked through the last three, I thought about my friend and her dementors. Then I thought about me and my dementors. (For those of you who don’t know, dementors are monsters from Harry Potter who get inside your head and suck all the joy and happiness out of your world. If that isn’t a metaphor for depression, I don’t know what is.)

Maybe it’s something in the air…or maybe depression cycles and our minds are prejudiced towards patterns (think the Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon), so I see a connection where there is merely coincidence.

Either way…

2020, so far, has been difficult for me. Making myself go to the barn this evening took some real effort. Getting up in the morning has been taking real effort, probably because my “early” sign of depression is almost always an effed up sleep cycle. (Monday night it took me five hours to fall asleep, even though I went to bed early, completely exhausted.) I’ve had a harder time focusing lately, been more easily irritated, and am reacting more strongly to things outside of my control. (Also, my god, I’ve been trying to limit my access to the news, because what in the actual hell?)

These symptoms are my early warning system. They tell me to start intervening in my own life. For me, that means yoga, dietary changes, more time outside, more intentionality about my sleep schedule, and, if necessary, therapy and medication. I guess, in short, it means self-care, of the hard work variety. After the last week of working to be more intentional about all of that, I started feeling better today, but, as usual, it’s a climb.

<<<>>>

I gave my friend a call once I was back in from the barn.

We chatted.

She started off by telling me that nothing was wrong, persay—and depression can come on without an obvious trigger to be sure–but the longer we talked, the more I realized that she had a lot going on, everything from family issues to work issues to exhaustion, and that she wasn’t cutting herself any slack at all.

I told her about my own depression, and then chugged into my “it’s no big deal, but…” list. You know, the one that almost always contains one or more items that are actually a big deal? (Like, in my case, losing one of my very favorite llamas to a choke about a week ago…)

Looking back, I’ve had probably a half a dozen of these conversations in the last month or two, where someone talks to me about feeling overwhelmed or depressed “for no reason.” Then, with a bit a time and talking, it usually turns out that there are a lot of reasons; we just don’t give everyday life enough credit for being hard.

Let me just put it out there: Life is hard. Adulthood is hard. (Also, so is childhood and adolescence and all of the other things, but I digress…)

It’s also good. But sometimes it feels like the “good” dosing is all off, and we don’t get enough of the good when we need it, or we don’t see it consistently, or we get it in our head that we’re supposed to be happier, or more productive, or less tired, or whatever, and our brains spiral, and we feel off and don’t quite know why.

*Deep breath in…*

I don’t think these depressive episodes happen because something is wrong with my friend or with me. (Though I do think both of us are prone to this and are deeply sensitive individuals.)

I think they happen because we forget that life, by it’s very nature, is hard.

Instead, we believe the lie that if it’s hard, we must be doing something wrong. That there are things we aren’t taking “good enough” care of. That there is fault to find, and it’s with us.

Culture tends to tell us that we should never feel this sort of discomfort, and that, if we do, we need to respond to our discomfort with something or other that can be purchased or consumed. We spend instead of reaching out. We suplant connection with consumerism. We buy a new essential oil or pillow, or we numb with tv, or addiction, or whatever, when in reality we just need to make peace with the fact that things are hard because that’s how life is.

Just in case you need to hear it: Life is hard, not because something is wrong with you, but because life is hard.

Take a beat if you need it.

Reach out, whether you’re sure you need to or not.

Be kind to yourself.

You’re not overreacting.

You’re not alone.

As I reminded my friend tonight, and as she reminded me: Life is hard, but we can do hard things.

Connection, Moonlight, and Blurry Pictures: I did not want to go to the barn this evening.

Published on December 11, 2019December 11, 2019 by almostfarmgirl4 Comments

I didn’t want to go to the barn this evening.

Not even a little bit.

Not even at all.

<<<>>>

It’s below freezing out here on the ranch. I woke up to snowflakes meandering to the ground in that slow, spiraling, iconic, movie-snow kind of way. The sort that wafted through the air, as though exploring a relationship with gravity rather than falling for it outright.

Chores this morning reflected the cold. I snapped two of my llamas into jackets, despite their protests. I bundled myself more than usual and still felt the sting of the cold, damp air through my jeans. When I went to fill the horse trough, I found that the hose had been not-quite-correctly drained and had frozen overnight. I found this out when I turned on the spigot, and the water that couldn’t make it to the trough sprayed out all over my jeans. I was reminded of this for the next 45 minutes as the water that had saturated my jeans chilled to almost freezing while I cleaned the stalls.

All of this was followed by something of a hectic day at work, the sort where I find myself correcting my own mistakes with no one to blame but me.

By the time I got home, I didn’t even want to think about the barn. I wanted to be one of those normal people with a condo and a television, maybe a dog to walk, but, like, a smallish dog, or just one cat who didn’t need to be walked at all. I wanted to veg out. Eat my own dinner. Worry only about my own comfort. Go to bed without having to venture back into the cold. Without having to deal with a hopefully unfrozen hose and a 100 gallon trough.

Not to sound ungrateful, because I am well aware that I am literally living my childhood dream, but sometimes, I just want my life to be a little more normal.

<<<>>>

I did not want to go to the barn this evening, so when I did it was begrudgedly. I pulled an hoodie over my hoodie and a down jacket over that. I pulled on boots over the nicer pair of pants I had worn to the office, and I grabbed the good gloves.

I marched up the lane mentally calculating the best way to get everything done as quickly as possible. Feed the ponies. Feed Sky. Mix grain for tomorrow. Close in the moms and babies…and CeCe…and make sure the babies aren’t cold. Close in and feed the cats. Check the haynets. And, of course, deal with the damn hose and trough.

The ponies nickered when I walked in. I tossed hay for them over the stall. They were preoccupied with it as I walked out, a heavy rubber hose slung over my shoulder and dragging on the ground behind me. I stopped to throw an extra flake to the littlest one who was standing outside looking sad while his friends chomped away at the hay I had thrown into the stall minutes before. I walked down the lane, connected the hose, and hoped that I would be done with everything else and back to disconnect it before the trough overflowed.

I bustled through the list, completing tasks by rote that I had committed to memory years ago. Animals were fed. Doors shut. Grain mixed. Check. Check. Check.

Nothing new. Nothing different. The same set of chores I do every night. All the while, I wished I was done. Wished it were going faster. Wished I didn’t have to do this tonight.

<<<>>>

The trough had filled slowly. For a moment, I was afraid that it hadn’t been filling at all, that, like this morning, it had simply sat in the trough with back pressure in the line while I had been working, but small ripples in the water assured me that the water level was indeed rising.

I stood watching the water for a moment before realizing that you could hear the ripples as well, that the night was so quiet I could hear the water moving through water. Maybe that’s when I first looked up.

The full moon shone through a break in the treeline in front of me, as though it had been placed there for the express purpose of illuminating the lane.

All of my outdoor lighting seemed dim against it’s shining. The ground, dusted with those lazy, almost lyrical, snowflakes from this morning shone out in chorus, pinpricks of light radiating up in response to it’s great glow against the night sky. The sky itself seemed to transition across it’s own expanse, showing off and shifting in color from azure to velvet black.

My breath caught in my throat for a moment, and I had to remind myself to exhale.

My trough still filling, I decided to walk out into the dark.

Except that the dark wasn’t all that dark.

I wandered down the lane, stopping every few moments to take in another slice of the world around me. The otherworldly glow from the snow where no tracks had been made. The silhouette of the pine trees against the sky. One of my horses, Phoenix, followed me along the other side of the fence, reminding me in his own way that he considers me to be part of his herd. His gray dappled coat glowed in the moonlight; I could make out his every feature.

I felt utterly and completely connected to the world around me.

I wondered, briefly, how long I could stay out there. How long would it take for the snow to soak through my jeans if I just sat down in it and watched the night be night? How long before the cold overcame the peace and silence and exchanged it for discomfort? I wasn’t sure, but right then, in the barn lane, in the snow, I wish I could stay in the moment of connection and peace. In the herd.

I can’t do justice to these moments of connection out here. The moments when time seems to stop for a while and nature reminds me that I am part of a much bigger whole.

My camera can’t capture the light of the moon, and 1000 words won’t quite paint this picture.

<<<>>>

It was the water trough that pulled me back. It would be full soon. Water would spill over and make a slushy mess of things.

I walked back, turned off the spigot, and drained the hose. It seemed like far less of a chore than it had an hour ago when I had to talk myself into heading outside.

I turned around for a moment after that and watched the snow sparkle the light of the moon back up to it, illuminating a path through the woods that is usually invisible during the night.

I didn’t want to go to the barn this evening.

But I went, because it was what I had to do.

Sometimes, doing what you have to do turns out to be exactly what you need.

A Day in the Life

Published on July 30, 2019July 30, 2019 by almostfarmgirl7 Comments

8:15:

Coffee

It’s after 8:00; I’m still in bed, under covers, and I’ve only REALLY been awake for about 15 minutes. Over and over, I have to explain this. I don’t do early mornings unless I have to, and on weekends, I don’t have to.

People who hear about the ranch always assume that I’m up before dawn. They expect, I suppose, that I am out by the sunrise, scattering chicken feed from the pockets of an apron that I would assumedly be wearing while singing “The Hills are Alive” from The Sound of Music.

No.

My sweet spot is between 7:00 and 8:00. Which is why I’m still not quite out of bed when John comes back in with coffee.

John is almost always awake first. His job, as a process engineer for a company about an hour and a half from here, requires that his ass be at his desk by 7 am. His internal clock is set differently than mine.

He makes coffee for us on the weekends.

Really good coffee.

I’m keeping him.

He offers me my coffee cup. I stretch. Sit up. Take the cup.

“Good morning, gorgeous.”

This is my wake-up every morning that we wake up in the same space. It’s less often than we’d like since he still lives and works over 100 miles away. The distance, which both of us coming off of bad break-ups had initially found so comforting, is starting to get old.

I take a sip of the coffee. It’s hot and delicious. Fresh ground. Just a hint of cream. No sugar.

The day, we both know, will be long, so coffee is slow.

<<<>>>

9:30:

It’s already hot outside when we finally make it to the barn. Truthfully, wiser ranchers and farmers start chores earlier than me to beat the heat. I trade in 5 to 10 degrees of comfort for an extra hour or two in bed. We all make choices.

I start cleaning stalls while John fills hay nets. These are the daily chores, along with collecting eggs and feeding chickens, letting the cats out of their room, and making sure the horses have food (either hay or pasture). Weekends are usually full of stuff that doesn’t make the day-to-day and this one is no exception.

<<<>>>

10:30:

Cinco is so easy to catch. Basically, you want up to him and ask politely. He stands still while you slip a halter on and walks with you maintaining respectable distance. I bring him into the center of the barn and hand him to John, and head into my feed room to grab my hoof trimming tools.

That’s a thing I do now. I never budgeted hoof care into the equation when I brought all of these guys home. That may seem shortsighted, except that I was married to a farrier (a horse shoer/trimmer) at the time, and I hadn’t planned for the marriage to spectacularly fail. After it did, I was left with the choice of learning how to trim my own horses or getting rid of them, because there was definitely not room in the budget for a good farrier, and the idea of having my ex out to the ranch every six weeks made me feel ill for quite a while..

That brings me here, with Cinco and John. (On a related note, I’m pretty sure John never saw himself holding horses for trimming either…Life does not always take us where we expect.)

Trimming hooves can be a little bit like performing surgery. The hoof is complicated, a live piece of their body, and it’s important to understand the anatomy before cutting into it. Fortunately, I was already fairly well-versed in that before I ever picked up a nipper. (It’s a side effect of travelling with and listening to a farrier for hundreds and hundreds of hours.)

The actual work though? All the book knowledge in the world didn’t make it easier to cut into a hoof for the first time. I knew enough to know just how much I could fuck things up (though my other horsey friends pointed out that one mildly bad trim wasn’t going to do too much damage).

My first trim was of my friend Lauren’s horse with her husband’s supervision. Then my horses with Lauren’s help and supervision. Now it’s my horses with my supervision (and an occasional Facetime session with Lauren and her husband).

Since those first few experiences, there have been a lot of “good enough” trims. Not perfect. Not exactly what I was looking for, but functional, especially for my herd of horses who are rarely ridden and who are never worked particularly hard. But this one? By the time I came to the end of the trim, even I thought it looked pretty damn good.

Of course, there was blood. Not Cinco’s. Mine. I rarely remember gloves when I first start a trim, and I have a nasty habit of hitting my knuckles with the rasp. A blood sacrifice to the equine gods, I suppose.

<<<>>>

Noonish: (Trims take me a while)

I wiped the drips of blood off my hands, and lead Cinco down the lane to the backyard. Typically it’s where I keep the dogs, but the grass is high, and I don’t much feel like mowing. I watch Cinco as we walk down the drive, and I’m pleased with how he’s moving. The trim will serve.

He is nervous at first until we catch and bring the other horses down to join him. Any nervousness at being in a new field is overshadowed by the security of being with the whole herd and the joy of being in a fresh field with more grass than they can eat.

I have work to do in the garden. (Occasionally, while I pull the weeds that I never have quite been able to keep up with, it occurs to me that I can buy groceries…)

I have errands to run. (There’s a gardening tool at Lowe’s that I feel I must have but that it turns out I will barely use after tomorrow.)

I need to deworm the cat. The baby llama needs a shot. The hay nets are empty and need to be refilled.

When was the last time I watered the flowers on the porch?

Before the day is over, I take two showers, sweating through my barn clothes twice. (My mom wonders sometimes why I have to do so much laundry…this is it.) We settle down after evening chores just in time to see some friends pull up the driveway. They meet the new baby llama.

They pet the critters who come up to greet them.

We settle in for conversation and wine and some fresh popcorn.

There’s one more day in the weekend. One more slow morning with delicious coffee. On Monday, mornings speed up. John will leave just before 5am. I will do the chores that must be done before heading to work myself.

The rest will wait until the weekend comes around again.

For Nana – On Loss and Light

Published on April 24, 2019April 22, 2022 by almostfarmgirl12 Comments

me and nana

“Don’t let it be too long before you call again, honey.”

“I won’t. Love you, Nana. Have a good night.”

“Love you too, darlin.'”

We hadn’t talked very long. She was tired. She had been tired a lot lately. The past few years had seen her in and out of the hospital with more regularity. Last fall, she had given my sister and I each one of her gold rings.

“Just in case something happened,” she told us. “I just want you to have it.”

It’s tucked in my jewelry box now; I forgot to wear it to the funeral. And I waited too long to call.

<<<>>>

In the past six weeks, I have been at one deathbed. Two funerals.

Dressed in black and disconnected from what was in front of me.

Watching my aunt receive condolences on the death of her husband. Giving condolences that don’t feel deep or wide enough to communicate my sympathies.

Watching my sister collapse in tears on the side of my Nana’s casket. Fighting the urge to do the same.

One week earlier I had stood with my sister beside Nana’s bed. They were “keeping her comfortable” then, and I knew it was only a matter of time, but there was a little part of me hoping. She had rallied before, hadn’t she? Maybe, just maybe, she would rally again. Maybe, like before, I would hear her again, talking about how “that was a close one, honey.”

<<<>>>

Nana wasn’t my biological grandmother. She had been one of my mother’s closest friends, despite being old enough to be her mother. When my mom got married and had kids (my older sister and then myself), Nana moved in to help raise us. She lived with us until I was eleven.

Nana helped us with our homework. She cooked our birthday dinners. She was there for doctor appointments, school plays, t-ball games, holidays, vacations, chicken pox, every bout of the flu, riding lessons…everything. I cannot untangle my childhood from Nana.

I wouldn’t want to.

When I was about seven, she started using the family YMCA membership to walk the track in the early morning. I got it in my head that I would go with her. We would wake up at six am and walk the raised track. Me, seven years old with white-blonde, pony-tailed hair, wearing my swishy 90s track suit, power-walking with Nana and the other gray-haired retirees.

We usually went out for a donut afterwords.

Nana always included us if we wanted to be included. My sister and I would travel with her to visit her mother in Indianapolis whenever she went there. She showed me how to dead head petunias when I wanted to help in the garden. She let me help make egg noodles in the kitchen…until I stole too many, earned a slap on the wrist and a “Now, you just get out of here and let me finish!”

Once, she came along with me to see a new X-Men film…She was well into her 70s at the time with zero interest in superheros or comics, but she ate popcorn and sat beside me just because I wanted to go.

She taught me from the very beginning that family didn’t need to share blood.

<<<>>>

My sister and I stood on either side of her bed. It was a Saturday. She wasn’t conscious, but they told us she could hear us. So, we talked.

We said thank you. We sang “Bushel and a Peck” the way we used to when we were little.

I don’t think I actually said goodbye. I didn’t want to. I just said thank you, and I love you. And then I thought it–thank you, I love you–when the words stopped coming.

<<<>>>

This winter, I visited her in the hospital with John. She hadn’t met him before, but she knew his name when he came in with me. I was surprised; I hadn’t been hearing good things about her memory.

She sat in her hospital chair, connected to wires and drips and oxygen, and she looked him up and down with an eagle eye.

“You’re a good looking man,” she proclaimed.

“Well, thank you, Nana.” he replied.

We sat with her and visited for a few hours. She never lost track of who I was, or who John was, but she kept losing her place, asking when her daughter would be home, wondering where the dog was.

When John left to go to the bathroom, she informed me that she would “kick his ass” if he ever hurt me. Then she asked if we were going to get married. Then she told me that she would kick my ex-husband’s ass if she could just get a hold of him.

<<<>>>

My sister called me on Monday morning. Nana was gone.

My dad had stopped my house that morning, and I collapsed against him, sobbing. He stayed until I steadied. I walked into the house, sat on my kitchen floor, and listened to Doris Day sing “A Bushel and A Peck” on repeat.

What do you do when part of your world disappears? When the sun has the audacity to keep shining as though a great light hadn’t gone out? How dare the universe keep expanding, the earth keep spinning, wind keep blowing? How is it that the flowers outside my window had bloomed that morning?

<<<>>>

Tuesday night, the flu hit me like a semi-truck, proof that viruses don’t give one single fuck what you’re going through emotionally.

Fever. Chills. Coughing. Sore throat. Headache.

My dad started watching the animals. I couldn’t get out of bed.

An old friend from high school reached out to me, asking me how I was. I told her that I was having a hard time processing, that I couldn’t quite make it past the physical fever to reach the emotional pain.

She understood. When her grandmother had died, she’d come down with a wretched case of shingles, lending her to that same feeling.

“It doesn’t really feel like she’s gone,” I told her.

“I know what you mean,” she replied. “Sometimes it feels like they took a trip and just can’t get a phone signal.”

<<<>>>

The morning of Nana’s funeral, I got a call from my nearest neighbor.

“Hi, Cherity. It’s Connie, from next door? I just…I think one of your llamas is dead. I mean, I know it’s dead. We can see it from the house. The vultures are after it. I wasn’t sure if you knew. I thought you’d want to know.”

Of course. Of course there’s a dead animal in my pasture. …This is how animal sanctuaries wind up getting animal control called on them.

I pulled on sweats and walked out to the back pasture along my neighbor’s property. It was the most I had moved in almost a week. Sure enough, a dead alpaca was laid out in the middle of the field. I got close enough to see the vultures. To realize that they had opened her up past her rib cage. I have a soft spot for vultures, and I didn’t blame them or harbor ill will. They were doing their job.

From where she was and what I know of llamas and alpacas, I’m guessing she went down quickly, probably a heart attack. From what I know of vultures, I’m guessing she had been there a day or two.

My dad and boyfriend both do a great job of taking care of everyone out here, but neither of them know the animals well enough to notice if one of them hasn’t been in. Between losing Nana and coming down with the flu, I had missed her absence.

<<<>>>

I went to the funeral, convinced I was getting better. Pastors stood at a pulpit and talked about a generic version of a woman who I loved deeply. It didn’t seem right.

I wanted to stand up and talk about the stories that made her laugh. I wanted to talk about the fried green tomatoes I still can’t quite make like she did. About the time she went up in a helicopter with me over the Badlands on vacation when I was little because I wouldn’t go up with anyone else. Stories and memories bubbled up within while they talked about how much she enjoyed Bible study and going to church. How she played baseball in high school. It seemed like they missed her to me, but maybe that was just to me.

<<<>>>

The next day, my abating flu was back with a vengeance. Six days later, I was diagnosed with pneumonia.

It’s getting better now. I’m moving slow, but recovering. Working in small doses. Taking it one day at a time.

I’m taking a lot of things one day at a time.

<<<>>>

I drank the last of my Greek Ouzo the night of the funeral, toasting to Nana. John and I watched Pixar’s “Coco.” I thought a lot about the memories we keep of the people and animals we love. I thought about the way they come with us as the world continues to turn. The way we wear their love in our bodies. Love is never wasted; it is handed off like a baton from one person to the next as we walk through our lives, not diminishing in the passing, but burning brighter as it moves from one to the next. The sun has the audacity to keep shining because, even though it might feel like it, the light we feel like we’re missing isn’t actually lost. It’s just been passed along.

Nana handed me a lot of love. It’s my job to make sure it burns bright.

Ice and Bluebells

Published on February 26, 2019April 2, 2019 by almostfarmgirl4 Comments

It’s been one of “those” days.

You know the ones…

It’s the sort of day that feels a bit like three. Nothing goes catastrophically wrong, but things don’t go quite right either. Minor inconveniences twang at the edges of your nerves like a curious toddler smacking the strings of a slightly out of tune banjo with their open hand. There is nothing intentional or melodic about it, but there is a lot of noise.

It’s the sort of day I tend to have out here at the tail-end of winter, when it is just too fucking cold for roughly the millionth day in a row, and all I want to do is shut myself in the house for three or four days with cozy blankets, a warm hot chocolate, a roaring fire, and a great memoir, but I’ve given up sugar (so no hot cocoa), I can’t get a fire to catch without a starter log that I forgot to buy, the horses need round bales put out and the ponies are hungry, so I have to brave the frozen tundra just long enough for my fingers and toes to go numb through my gloves and boots instead.

It’s been that kind of day.

<<<>>>

It’s been a difficult winter.

Cold, snow, and ice have been tracks playing on repeat this season, a symphony Elsa herself would be proud of. Outside of the polar vortex with it’s -55 wild chills–as though that wasn’t enough all on it’s own–we’ve also had record breaking snowfalls, winter storms gracing the forecast with alarming regularity, and ice. Lots of ice.

The Midwest is a place that NEEDS its seasons. The summer is too summery to last forever. I couldn’t handle the horse flies or poison ivy or 100 degree days with staggering humidity all year long, even in exchange for the fireflies, wildflowers, and warm summer nights. By August, I’m looking forward to the drop in temperature, bonfires, and pumpkin everything that are coming around the corner. Likewise, I start getting stir crazy at the end of winter. (For the love of all that is good and holy, give me just one day that I don’t wind up feeling cold!) Right now, I am aching for 45 degrees, chores without a bulky winter coat, and a slow slide into spring.

There are bluebells and daffodils tucked under the frozen dirt somewhere; I just know it. Gardens to clean up. Chicks to raise. Native bee houses, bat houses, and bird houses to put up. Seeds to sow in ground that needs tilling. Raised beds I was given for Christmas that are just waiting for me to find them homes. There are bikes to ride. Horses to groom. Ponies to begin socializing. There are a thousand plans swirling around in my head, more than one summer can possibly contain, but I feel like that’s half the fun.

In the meantime though, my clay rich dirt is as hard as rock. My full bale hay nets are frozen to the ground and completely unusable. The chicken coop is desperate for a good cleaning, but I won’t be able to do a thing with it until the thaw. Until winter begins to release it’s freezing grip, the only thing I can do is continue.

<<<>>>

I was cranky when I met my hay supplier at my horse pasture around 5:15. I think maybe he was too. Not at each other, mind you, at the cold weather and the setting sun.

“How are you holding up out here?”

I tried not to look at the hundreds of dollars of hay waste on the ground. Without my nets to slow them down, the horses have been going through hay like a trust fund baby going through cash on their first trip to Vegas. This winter is costing more than emotional energy.

“Hanging in,” I replied. “Sick and tired of the cold.”

Larry looked up, searching the skies for just a moment before replying.

“I saw the geese flying north earlier.”

That’s the sort of thing we look for out here, the same way that we pay attention to the number of woolly worms in the fall to give us a clue about the coming winter. The geese, I can assure you, know something that Larry and I do not, and the geese are on their way back home.

<<<>>>

The wild things are stirring. Last night, as I filled the horse trough, hands going slightly numb through my gloves, I heard the barn owls call to one another. One was behind me in the woods on the creek side. The other was across the horse pasture in the woods towards the neighbor’s corn fields. They cut through the silence with their call and reply, a sound I’ve gotten used to in my time out here on the ridge line. I only occasionally see them, but they’ve been my neighbor’s for years.

I’ve started hearing the chorus of just a few plucky songbirds in the morning when I walk the lane to start my chores. Most of them are relatively quiet through the winter. By mid-summer they will make up an orchestra.

For now, I’m only hearing solitary notes, but the song is coming. The song and the bluebells are on their way.

The Polar Vortex and a Lesson in Control

Published on February 9, 2019April 22, 2022 by almostfarmgirl13 Comments

“Ok,” I said, “tell me why this wouldn’t work.”

John, God bless the man, was standing in my chicken coop with an ice breaker, chipping away at the mass of chicken shit and ice that was preventing the coop door from closing.

He looked over before replying.

“Tell you why what wouldn’t work…?”

“What if, instead of creating a horse stall in the center aisle, we bed it down, close the aisle off on one end, and let all the llamas in there. Then we could give the llama stall to four of the horses.”

The Polar Vortex was approaching with anticipated -55 degree wind chills (thank God for 10 day forecasts), and I had been racking my brain for the best way to shut all of the animals inside the main barn and out of the elements. This was my third or fourth proposal and the one that I believed had the most potential.

“What about the hay you stored at the end of the aisle?” he asked.

“Let them eat hay!” I replied.

<<<>>>

I spent three days getting myself and the barn (and my house, and the guesthouse) ready for the onslaught of cold. Last Monday evening, I moved the llamas, shut in the ponies, battened down the chicken coop, bribed the cats to stay in the tack room, and brought in only partially willing horses. (You know what isn’t much fun? Trying to catch an off-the-track thoroughbred race horse in the dark, through a foot and a half of snow, who has no interest in being caught.)

I fed extra hay. I triple checked stall locks. I prepped, and prepped, and prepped, but as I turned off the barn lights that first night, and the weather closed in, I still wondered how the next few days would play out.

Those who know me in real life know that I have some issues with control. I plan. I research. I try to micromanage my life and create something that I can exert my will upon. I want there to be reasons for things, and I want to know all of those reasons. (And, frankly, I want to be able to argue with those reasons if I disagree with them.)

I struggle with both anxiety and depression (the uppers and downers of mental health). Neither condition is debilitating for me; I have relatively mild doses of each, and it’s uncommon for the depression to get so bad that I don’t want to get out of bed or for the anxiety to get so bad that it feels like my skin is crawling and that I want to scream, but they still exist as realities in my life. (Side note, did you know that “The Scream” by Edvard Munch likely depicted the artist’s panic attack? I used to not get the painting, but now, I FEEL it.) Sometimes I think they combine and create an unnatural need to control my environment under the false belief that if I control things enough I can keep bad things from happening.

Maybe.

…It’s a thought.

I could hear the wind howling as I laid in bed Monday night. It cuts off of the river in the winter, straight up the hills and across the ranch, bringing a stinging, icy chill. I laid in bed, trying to reassure myself that I had done everything I could, that the weather would come regardless, and that what happened from here was beyond my control.

My anxiety whispered in my ear that night as I tried to sleep, creating a parade of imaginary problems that marched in front of me one by one.

“What if all the water lines freeze?”
“What if one of the animals freeze?”
“What if one of the animals gets sick?”
“What if one of the gates get unlocked?”
“What if one of the critters die?”
“WHAT IF ALL THE CRITTERS DIE???”
“WHAT IF I SLIP ON THE ICE ON THE WAY TO THE BARN, AND I HIT MY HEAD, AND I FREEZE AND DIE???”

*Pause*
*Deep breath*

“What if absolutely everything I’m worried about right now is beyond my control? What if I can’t do a damn thing about it? What if I try to get some sleep?”

<<<>>>

The next morning, with straight temps hovering around -20, I made my way back out to the barn. The llamas had obviously had a party in their center stall, and enjoyed the access that living in the center of the barn gave them to my goings on. They constantly pushed the not-quite-shut feed-room door open to check on me while I was in there.

About half of my autowaterers had frozen up, and I spent half the morning hanging and filling water buckets to replace them. But everyone was mostly ok. We spent the next few days doing mostly ok. Mostly ok, but bored. Mostly ok, but stir crazy. Mostly ok, but chilled. Mostly ok with deathly cold just on the other side of the barn door didn’t seem so bad.

<<<>>>

Last week, I reopened the barn to the combined rejoicing of everyone who had been shut inside. Two days ago, I found one of my chickens dead in the coop. My vet supposed her to be a victim of the cold. A delayed victim, but a victim nonetheless.

“Her body probably couldn’t recover from the shock,” she told me when I mentioned my one casualty.

I cradled the hen’s dead body in one arm and hiked out into the woods a ways. That’s what I do with them; it’s become a weird ritual for me. I laid her behind a tree, far enough away from my barn that she won’t draw attention to my living birds, and I said a quick thank you; my hens do a job for me that I like to acknowledge.

Something–a raccoon or bobcat or coyote–will take her body and eat it. Nothing will be wasted.

<<<>>>

Livestock teach you to take 100% responsibility, while acknowledging your complete lack of control. It’s a hard lesson, this realization that all the planning in the world can’t guarantee an outcome, the realization that the world spins on in its own way regardless of our intentions for it.

It’s also lovely, because sometimes acknowledging your smallness reminds you to settle into it and let go of your illusion of control.

When the cold comes, you do the best you can and let go of the rest. Settle in, and know that warmer air is on its way.

Another Trip Around the Sun

Published on January 5, 2019April 2, 2019 by almostfarmgirl3 Comments

2018 rolled into 2019 without fanfare. I watched the time change from 11:59 to 12:00 on my wristwatch, and John and I wished each other a quiet “Happy New Year.” That came after chores. After tucking in for the night to watch “The West Wing” on Netflix. After remembering that the horses needed a bale of hay that I had forgotten to give to them. John went back outside in pajamas to take care of it. Two hours later, we rang in the new year with sleepy eyes.

…

At this point in my life, I’m not much for “dramatic change” resolutions at the turning of the year. I know myself better than to think that I will manage to give up sugar, wake up three hours earlier everyday, and hit the gym for an hour before chores. If I set my sights on that, I will burn out, give up any strides I make due to perceived failure, and end up back where I started.

It’s not a useful cycle.

Instead, I like to take the new year as an opportunity to reflect on the ways I’ve changed over the course of the last 365 days. I like to contemplate the ways life has unexpectedly twisted or turned, what I’ve lost, what I’ve gained, and what I would like to do a little differently on this next trip around the sun.

For me, 2018 was a normalizing year. After roughly three years of trauma and unhappiness, the events of this year provided some stability and happiness; a few years ago, normalizing was more than I could have possibly hoped for, but, last year, I found my footing again on what had been unstable ground for a very long time.

I found myself in a relationship with someone who treats me well. (Guys, that’s totally a thing. In some relationships, you are consistently treated really well, as though the other person really, genuinely likes you. I had no idea…)

I traveled. Domestically and abroad. Alone and with friends.

I made it to California with John.

I made it to New Jersey to spend time with one of my besties, Lauren, and attend Julie Maloney’s book launch for A Matter of Chance. (If you’re looking for a great mystery to read in 2019, you should pick up a copy; it’s a great read.)

I spent time in Greece with my darling ladies in Women Reading Aloud. I wrote at the edge of the Aegean, swam in the salt water, and walked ancient streets in Athens. I watched the sun set in an unfamiliar sky and hiked paths of unfamiliar dirt.

I rounded out the Fall with one of my dearests in Paris and London. I rode horses through French forests, and we rode bicycles across the grounds of Versailles. We drank wine and ate way too much cheese.

The Louvre

Horseback Riding in Maison Laffitte

Montmartre

Notre Dame

(I’m still not quite sure how I managed all of that in one year, except that my soul needed it, and the universe opened the door. )

Acquaintances became friends.

And my people reminded me over and over again how lucky I am to have them.

All the while, I dealt with and mostly managed depression. I chose to get off antidepressants. I spent more time in therapy. I continued to recover from the trauma of my divorce. Every single smile in these photos was genuine, and the year was good, but that doesn’t mean every moment was suddenly easy.

Five of my deeply beloved creatures passed on, and I felt their lives and the loss of them fold into me like flour folding into dough. More than ever, I am convinced that they never really leave us. Love is never, ever wasted.

One of my dearest friends was diagnosed with cancer. She’s undergoing chemo now; the woman is a fucking beast, and I can’t wait for all of you to read her blog once it launches. (Seriously, stay tuned. She’s hilarious. I’ve seen the drafts.)

Even the good years remind us that life is brutal. And life is beautiful. And this year in particular taught me that no matter how impossible things seem to get, the good stuff comes back around again eventually. (And then the hard stuff, and then the good stuff. An object at rest may remain at rest, but our lives are never objects at rest; continually they are moved.)

In my teens and twenties, I was more prone to hard resolutions. I liked resolutions with numbers. Number of pounds to lose. Number of books to read. Number of miles to run. A number on a paycheck.

I’m more interested in the soft resolutions now. The sort that move beyond success or failure and simply recognize progress. The sort that allow me to see that goals are just part of journey. Treat my body better. Make more time for the creatures in my care. Be kinder. Wander in familiar and unfamiliar places whenever I am given the chance. Write more. Read more. Love more.

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that most of our greatest achievements are the result of playing the hand we are dealt in the best way we know how, and, God knows, you can’t pick your own cards. Over the last four years, life has been teaching me that sometimes the only thing we can do is stay in the game. Play through. Let the cards change. They always change, even when it feels like the same shitty cards are permanently glued to your hands.

2019 is picking up steam. The semester starts again in a few weeks, and I go back to teaching. The plans I make are being done and undone, and I’m working on the soft resolutions. I’m working on the writing and reading and wandering.

The days are getting longer. They always do.

Winter, Christmas Trees, and a Little Bit of Unexpected Magic

Published on November 30, 2018March 28, 2019 by almostfarmgirl2 Comments

There needs to be a setting on my Fitbit for “walking through the snow in coveralls.” Regular steps seem wholly inadequate for the trudge that takes me between the house and the barns each morning and evening. Something between walking and swimming would do nicely I think…

The ranch has been blanketed with snow for the better part of a week. Everything takes a little extra effort. Waterers require heaters. Three of my llamas are wearing coats. One is being supplemented with grain. The chickens are being fed black oil sunflower seeds for extra calories in addition to their regular food. Stalls are getting messier, faster. And, of course, there’s the two pair of socks and coverall wearing trudge.

This is the time of year that always makes farmers, ranchers, critter enthusiastic hobbyists, and almost farmgirls question our own sanity.

It’s too cold for humans, we proclaim, tucked safely under our covers, dreading the moment that our feet hit the floor and our day begins in earnest.

It’s too cold for critters, we decide, putting a coat on an animal who, in the wild, definitely wouldn’t be wearing a coat.

It’s too cold for water, we somewhat insanely argue, as we pull a puck-like chunk of ice off the waterer whose heater isn’t keeping up.

Why do I do this? The question rattles around in the empty spaces created by all of the cold.

Things break. Animals shiver. Our faces get chapped by the frigid air, and our toes go just a little numb in our boots when we forget to put on two pairs of socks.

The ancients used to bring evergreens into their homes in the winter as an act of sympathetic magic. (It’s where we get our Christmas trees, actually.) It was a reminder that spring and summer would come again. The greenery provided comfort against their stark, harsh world of cold and dark and white. It was reminder of the renewal that was waiting for them just under the surface of the snow.

I get it.

Last weekend, my boyfriend and I decorated my tree. We chose a little beauty from my hay supplier’s tree lot. It is on the smaller side, a cute little Fraser fir, but it is full, and well-branched, and lovely. Everything I look for in a Christmas tree. My hay guy gave it to me for free, insisting that I paid enough for hay throughout the year to merit a free Christmas tree, and it is standing in my sunroom smelling a little bit like heaven.

sympathetic magic

John strung the lights, and I pulled out my collection of ornaments while we waited on the most recent blizzard. He built a fire in the fireplace. We opened a bottle of wine, and I took my yearly walk down memory lane, choosing ornaments from my collection that seemed especially meaningful. I added a few this year. I put a few in a donation box whose meaning no longer felt dear to me (several of them commemorating milestones with my ex husband).

Home is Where the Horse Is

Llamas, and Chickens, and Cowbells

New this year from my Paris Trip

Completed

Tree

Better with Wine

We sipped wine and cuddled up with the cats for the rest of the evening, enjoying our little bit of magic with it’s glittering ornaments and fairy lights. I ventured out in my pajamas and coveralls with a flashlight in hand as the sleet turned to snow to bring the horses in from the field.

As the ice stung my face, I briefly wondered why I feel so pulled to this place and this work. Then the horses made their way into the barn, bits of snow clinging to their long eyelashes and against their manes and tails. The ponies nickered from their stall, wondering if perhaps it wasn’t time for second dinner. The llamas hummed softly from across the aisle, munching hay from the nets I had refilled earlier that day.

I made my way back to the house, back to my boyfriend, back to the dogs and cats I share my home with, back to the warm fire, and the tree that awaited me with it’s sympathetic magic, and I realized that the barn was full of magic of its own. The creatures there reminding me, in their own way, that we are all in this together. That we are connected to one another and to the seasons as they come and go. That the snow and the cold and the chill are both temporary and beautiful.

I settled into the couch next to John and sipped my glass of red wine.

It was quiet. The lights on the tree glittered through and shone against the ornaments. The fire crackled. Renewal waits on the other side of this season, on the other side of the snow, and the cold will pass. For now though, I will steel myself against the cold, enjoy the quiet moments, and try to pay attention to the magic.