farm life – Page 3 – Almost Farmgirl

Living the Dream

Published on January 8, 2018April 22, 2022 by almostfarmgirl10 Comments

I forgot to step tall over the hot wire.

I felt my rubber muck boot catch the bottom wire of the horse fence. My ankle caught the strand that I had strung there this summer. My knees hit the snow. The five gallon bucket I had been filling at the spigot fell forward out of my hands and spilled into the stark, white snow, soaking my hands through my gloves, emptying in a mockery of the small task I was trying to accomplish.

I was wearing too many layers to injure myself in the fall: my legs were insulated against their snowy landing spot by two pairs of pants and a pair of heavy duty coveralls. Rather, the -15 degree windchill made the possibility of frostbite through my wet gloves my most pressing concern. I stood up slowly–the only possible way to stand in coveralls–and, swearing at the wind or the weather or my own clumsiness, began to refill the bucket. Ponies need water. It is my job to make sure they have it, whether the process for getting it is pleasant or not. Continue reading “Living the Dream” →

Sitting in the Sacred

Published on October 26, 2017April 2, 2019 by almostfarmgirl18 Comments

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh

It’s still warm enough for crickets to chirp their song at the end of the day, but only just. Our fall colors are still flirting with the green of summer. Fall happens slowly here. You almost miss it, sandwiched between our Midwestern summers and winters which compete every year to be fiercer than the other. Fall is quiet. Unlike the famous colors out east, our colors don’t come all at once. We entertain shades of gold and green and red in the same moment. Oranges like pumpkins. Scarlet like the lips of emboldened women. Yellow leaves reminiscent of gold jewelry worn to be noticed and envied. All of this beside the slow trees that cling to their chlorophyll, still green into November. Even lovelier for their slow and steady, almost cautious, pace.

Continue reading “Sitting in the Sacred” →

I get by with a little help from my friends.

Published on August 31, 2017April 2, 2019 by almostfarmgirl13 Comments

My ex didn’t want the farm.

Actually, he did, until he didn’t anymore, but that’s a little beside the point.

That day last summer, the day that he yelled over the phone that the farm would kill me, that it was too much for me to do on my own, he was pretty clear on not wanting the farm.

I stood between my barns, acutely aware of everything that was broken or undone. Everything that required my time and my energy and my money. Everything that needed to be done that I didn’t know how to do. Tears ran down my cheeks, because his words left me with no future. Continue reading “I get by with a little help from my friends.” →

When Phoenix Came to Stay

Published on June 2, 2017April 22, 2022 by almostfarmgirl6 Comments

“So…There’s this horse…”

I was lying on my bed in the middle of the afternoon-a weekend in early May of 2016-feeling extraordinarily lazy, and watching my ceiling fan spin circles above me. I held my phone to my ear and listened as Jeremiah began to explain the plight of a unfortunate four-year-old desert bred Arabian gelding who had been injured in a pasture accident. The injury was deemed “career ending” for the young gelding, once an exceptionally promising and talented performance prospect, and the decision was made to put him down. He was three-legged lame, currently residing in a stall awaiting his appointment for euthanasia after x-rays revealed that he had torn much of the connective tissue in his lower right front leg. He only had a few days before the vet would be back out.

Through an unlikely chain of events (involving the horse’s previous owner, an unexpected shoeing appointment, and a brief conversation with the consulting vet), the gelding, named Phoenix, had made his way onto Jeremiah’s radar. Jeremiah had known Phoenix’s mother and was the farrier for Phoenix’s previous owner. He was just connected enough to the horse to be interested, and he started making phone calls to get to the bottom of the situation. Continue reading “When Phoenix Came to Stay” →

The other side: More on Divorce

Published on May 19, 2017April 2, 2019 by almostfarmgirl26 Comments

“No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don’t.”
~ Stephen King

My divorce, so long in the making, was final at the end of March. My cousin, Erin, came down for a long weekend and stayed to hold my hand in a mostly empty courtroom on a Monday morning while I answered questions from a bored-looking judge for five minutes so that he could declare my marriage dissolved. My ex didn’t come; in Illinois you don’t have to have both parties present to finalize a divorce, and I had decided that the whole thing would probably be easier if I didn’t have to face him.

Divorce is strange. It can be equal parts terrifying and debilitating and liberating. Even world-ending. It’s unexpected for some. It feels inevitable for others. The cutting of a cord. The removing of a limb. A decision that you make, but that feels as though it had been made without you. One that somehow feels equal parts devastating and hopeful.

It’s the end of something you never thought would end, and the beginning of something you never prepared for.

At least, that’s how it was for me.

Divorces seem to be like couples; each one of them is different. Continue reading “The other side: More on Divorce” →

A little bit of kindness and a tiny chicken

Published on March 23, 2017August 28, 2018 by almostfarmgirl9 Comments

Let me be crystal clear: I didn’t NEED any more chickens. Cluckingham Palace is currently home to 11 laying chickens, 1 lavender turkey hen, and, of course, Arthur of Camelot. I currently collect more eggs than I can personally use, and I’ve been pretty open about the fact that eggs cost more to raise than to buy.

I know all of these things, but I have a mild case of chicken math disorder…which is basically a psychological disorder, and every Spring I seem to manage to fill up a brooder. There are some very reasonable arguments for doing so. (Chickens lay fewer eggs as they age. If you free-range, it is understood that you will lose an occasional hen to predators, etc.) But, when you get right down to it, I know that the real reason I keep buying chickens is that I like having chickens hanging around and that itty-bitty chicks are basically the cutest things ever in the history of all time; all of the other reasons are ancillary. Continue reading “A little bit of kindness and a tiny chicken” →

The Adventures of Kahn

Published on March 5, 2017April 2, 2019 by almostfarmgirl7 Comments

Kahn was someone’s house cat once. I’m almost sure of it. Feral cats don’t come to humans to ask for help, which is just what he was doing when he and I first met. It was the coldest, darkest part of winter, more than a year before we took over at the ranch. I was helping to keep an eye on things while the owners were away, doing evening chores and hanging out with a friend, Katie, who had come along to keep me company.

The night was quiet, so we heard the his cries from outside the shut barn door. Katie slid it open to find a battered-looking, black cat standing just out of reach. It was snowy, and he was cold. His inky fur was rough and made him stand in stark contrast to the snow. He held one foot above the cold ground, obviously wounded and infected. His right eye was swollen nearly shut, and despite his size–Kahn is a big cat–he was desperately underweight and looked very small. He continued to cry as we looked on, but skirted us. Nervous and scared but pleading for help. Continue reading “The Adventures of Kahn” →

Trees and Sunsets

Published on February 21, 2017August 28, 2018 by almostfarmgirl17 Comments

I am the sort of person who has favorite trees. I’ve always found trees to be a little bit magical, a piece of the past that roots into the future. When I was a little girl, one of my favorite trees was the willow tree in our backyard (the namesake of our lane). Now, though I have many trees that I love, one of my absolute favorites is my backyard western pine.

Very few types of evergreen trees are actually native to Illinois. If you see them here, it’s usually because they were planted, or perhaps their parent tree was planted. They grow tall and lovely, and can rival the height of the native oaks and maples, but they don’t reach their true potential they way they would if they had rooted in their native soil. Continue reading “Trees and Sunsets” →

Writing the truth: on Divorce.

Published on January 27, 2017April 22, 2022 by almostfarmgirl40 Comments

I have a bottle of wine chilling in my freezer. I will need at least a glass of it to make it through this post.

Some of you have reached out to me since my post on depression, asking why I’m not writing much anymore, why I’ve dropped off of the WordPress radar. I wonder the same thing sometimes. Honestly? I’ve wanted to write. I’ve had words upon words ready. Ready to talk about the two horses I’ve rescued since my 30^th birthday. Ready to tell you about the duckings that were hatched by a turkey hen then raised in the house, culminating in this little one wandering upstairs on her own in search of the bathtub.
duckling duckling2

I’ve wanted to tell you about the creatures I’ve lost. The ones I’ve found. The everyday beauty of life in this little corner of the universe. I’ve considered writing again about the depression that I’ve struggled with on and off for most of my adult life. Sometimes the words have seemed almost ready to spill out.

But then I would start writing.

And I would stop writing. Continue reading “Writing the truth: on Divorce.” →

Depression and Stitching Things Back Together

Published on July 22, 2016April 22, 2022 by almostfarmgirl28 Comments

I spent the other morning holding the lead line of my largest horse, an off the track thoroughbred named Vinny, while our vet quietly sedated him and stitched a gaping dermal laceration on his neck. It was ugly, probably four inches long, and bloody, a surprise when I went out to check the horses. It’s his second emergency vet visit this month; a few weeks ago he tore open his shoulder open just about six inches below his current tear. That, plus another “stitch” visit (for one of my ponies, Slash) has made our vet such a common sight for us this month that I’m beginning to feel like he lives here.

I’m still not entirely sure how he hurt himself. Sometimes with horses it’s like that. You just have to concentrate on fixing the issues even if you don’t understand why there was an issue in the first place.

I watched the vet stretch the broken skin back over the tissue on Vin’s neck. Vin, whose sedation had him happily enjoying the sound of the color orange, barely seemed to notice the curved needle slowly, methodically, putting him back together where he had torn himself apart.

There’s been a lot of stitching around the farm lately: literal and metaphoric. Continue reading “Depression and Stitching Things Back Together” →