ranch 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.

New Normals, Old Normals and the Best Laid Plans of Mice and Me in the Age of Covid

Published on September 23, 2020April 22, 2022 by almostfarmgirlLeave a comment

The leaves on the sugar maple in my front pasture are turning crimson. For years, I’ve watched this process, noticing that this particular tree changes its leaves directly from green to red somehow, with no shades of gold or orange in the in-between. When a chill builds in the air, crimson builds from the crown of the tree down until all of it is bathed in red like roses. For most of the year, I barely notice her, but in the autumn, she rivals any summer flower.

There’s a chill in the mornings, the sort that has me in a sweatshirt or flannel until the afternoon sun warms us to almost, but not quite summer temperatures. The crickets are ramping up their songs. Some of the birds have already flown south, our barn swallows and, I think, our hummingbirds among them.

Autumn is settling in like the dusk.

<<<>>>

Summer on the ranch has passed by in something of a blur. Two of my dearest people moved in: one of my best friends, Lauren, moving into my guest house in July, and my boyfriend of almost three years, John, moving in with me in August. And, just like that, my stint living mostly or completely alone out here, one that began well within the confines of my marriage, ended.

Just like that, the burden of this place was spread across several shoulders more than my own.

<<<>>>

Last Saturday, the three of us spent our evening setting up winter hay in the hayloft: 100 bales, putting our total set up for the winter at around 350. Last year, I set up over 500, but I found myself with an abundance of hay at the end of the Spring, enough that I am still working through the last of it.

It’s tricky, figuring out what you need before you need it. If hay hadn’t already proven that to me, 2020 would have with its pandemic, quarantines, social justice, and raging climate issues.

It’s strange. We are suddenly so very aware that nothing is certain. I read somewhere that the exhaustion so many of us are feeling comes from the realization of that reality. It has always been true, but now we are forced to acknowledge it.

It’s been six months since the onset of Covid19. A friend of mine calls anything before that “the before times” and something about that phrase very much resonates.

Remember when we thought it would only last a few weeks? When we thought we could use the downtime to be super productive and accomplish ALL OF THE THINGS? Remember when everyone was baking all of the time?

I’ve gone from quarantine baking to quarantine Weight Watchers. From unemployment (due to the slowdown) to working at home. I’ve struggled with feelings of guilt and inadequacy–so not that different from usual–stemming from the fact that I still can’t quite accomplish everything on my to-do list, even with all of the extra time I sort of have as a result of no commute and, for a while, my decreasing work load.

Does anyone else feel like both everything and nothing have changed?

In some ways, life continues as usual out here. It’s still Autumn, with all of the truths and chores that suggests. We are still setting up hay, still harvesting the last of the garden. Still trying to predict the future, at least enough to figure out how much hay to set up for winter. But, in some ways, it’s all different. No autumn parties or bonfires. No plans to visit the nearby orchard. A hard pass on all but the smallest of gatherings. To me, all of this feels a lot like flying a holding pattern above an airport while you wait to be cleared to land.

<<<>>>

I’m not exactly sure what my point is here. Why I’m writing this…except maybe to break through my writer’s block a little and to remind all of you that our new normal is so far from normal that normalcy should not be expected. In other words, give yourselves a little grace. Maybe even more than a little, if you can manage it.

Now is the time for grace, not only for ourselves, but for each other. Grace for those in pain. Grace for those feeling loss. Grace for everyone we come in contact with. (Sometimes grace for everyone else looks like wearing a mask to protect them. Full stop.)

This too shall pass. Like the summer. Like the autumn. Like all of the best laid plans of mice and me.

Waiting to See the Other Side of the Wall: Thoughts on Quarantine

Published on March 31, 2020 by almostfarmgirl4 Comments

I have thirteen open tabs in Chrome.

One is a YouTube video on body language that I want my students to watch before they start job interviews upon graduation. We talk a lot about body language (or nonverbal communication) in the business communication course I teach at the local four year university. But this isn’t about how your body language affects how others see you; it’s about how your own body language influences how you see yourself. (It’s here if you’re interested.)

My class site is up, as are emails, and, of course, this page.

The other tabs are mostly tutorials. I’m trying to learn a new video classroom interface before teaching again on Thursday. The one I used today was glitchy and silenced some of my students. That is the cardinal sin of teaching in my opinion, and I don’t want it to happen again.

<<<>>>

A month ago, if you had told me that by the end of March I would be teaching from home wearing a nice shirt and flannel pajama bottoms, that I would be officially laid off from my sales job until some uncertainty clarifies, that all of my social activities would be replaced by video conferencing, and that my relationship would suddenly be subject to travel restrictions and social distancing…well, I’m not quite sure what I would have thought.

Even writing it now, I’m not quite sure what to think.

<<<>>>

John and I were in San Diego when everything with COVID-19 went a little off the rails. We were in California when they shut down the restaurants. We were at the San Diego Zoo just a few days before it closed its doors for the first time in decades. We walked through Balboa Park listening as every conversation we passed was about the virus. I listened as a homeless woman tried to calm a homeless man who understood that he couldn’t get away from it, that they both would likely be exposed.

We moved up our flight back home, and even so were rerouted in the air from Midway to St. Louis, Midway having been shut down to traffic after an air traffic controller was diagnosed with COVID-19, and they were forced to clear out the control room.

John and I quarantined for two weeks due to possible exposure. We thought we might be able to ride out the storm together; his job can be done on a remote desktop, but he was just called back into the office on Monday. His company, for better or for worse (but probably for worse), has a pretty firm “ass at the desk” policy.

Pandemic be damned.

This means that he will be following Illinois’ Shelter in Place requirement in Champaign, while I shelter in place here at the ranch with my critters. We’re figuring it will be at least 6 weeks, probably longer, until he gets to come back.

<<<>>>

~~I’ve been running full-blast, trying to improve myself and the farm now that I have nearly all the time in the world to do so.~~

My head has been telling me to write and exercise and eat healthy, but yesterday I ate an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s before going to bed. I didn’t get the stalls cleaned, and that needs to be done, but I didn’t do them today either. I didn’t work on cleaning out the feed room or the mudroom. I didn’t work with the animals.

I didn’t hustle.

Right now, I’m seeing so much content, in everything from my Facebook feed to my email inbox, that is encouraging the hustle. “Learn Insert Exciting Skill Here“! Perfect Insert Necessary Experience There”!

Influencers (what does that even really mean) seem to be encouraging this as a period of self-growth. They are promoting classes and tutorials and kits and all of the things. We’re hearing accomplishment stories about all of the accomplishments that accomplishers accomplished during past quarantines. (Did you know God once created an entire universe during a quarantine? True story…)

Part of me thinks maybe I should learn Greek and pull out some watercolor paints and figure out how to play stairway to heaven on the guitar. Probably all at the same time.

Some of you think you’re failing if you aren’t accomplishing something right now.

I get it. Trust me, I get it.

Our culture determines value based on achievement. And some of us, especially those of us who maybe understood our self worth based on report cards or sports stats or extracurriculars as children, struggle when we aren’t achieving.

But our culture isn’t good at factoring in our humanity. It’s actually super shitty at it.

The truth is, this is hard. Staying home when you want to go out and see your people takes a toll. Physically distancing, even inside deeply meaningful relationships, takes a toll. Uncertainty takes a toll. Worrying that loved ones might get the virus…worrying that you might, it’s all hard.

If no one has given you permission to just settle in and weather this storm without finding the time to learn to speak fluent French, I hereby bestow it. (Also, you don’t need my permission, or anyone’s permission, but I know what it feels like to feel like you do.)

<<<>>>

Here’s my advice, if you want it.

Take some time to just be still. Take some time to let yourself know.

I’ve been working really hard to let myself feel through all of this. For me, that starts with the heartbeat. I make a concerted effort to sit (or stand) still, sink into my chest, and hear and feel my heartbeat. I’m getting pretty good at it. It only takes me a moment or two now to sink and notice, as I catch that rhythm deep inside me, that I’m here, right now, living in this body. I do this in my bed or on my couch or when I’m checking on my horses. Just pause and sink. Notice my heart. It’s our hearts that will get us through this.

I’ve been trying to take walks whenever possible. It’s easier for me than for a lot of you, I know, with all the wild around me, but if you can, go outside. Breathe air that isn’t stale. Listen to the wind. Deepen your breath. Relax your shoulders. Unclench your jaw.

Just let yourself be.

<<<>>>

I felt myself needing a reset the other day, so I wandered out in the field to my favorite pasture to watch the llamas and sit for a spell. I knew I wanted to stay a while, so I tried to find a quiet place. I settled in against a gorgeous, old pine tree.

(How is it that I’ve spent more than half of my life in this place and only just noticed that my back fits perfectly against this curve in this tree?)

I listened to the wind as it blew through the pines, moving through the top branches and turning them into dancers that perfumed the air like Christmas.

And I wondered how many of these moments I had lost to the hustle.

I sat longer, and eventually the llamas took notice. I watched them as they watched me. Then I sat as they investigated.

They are so good at being present. I have a lot to learn from them.

<<<>>>

If we do “work on ourselves” maybe we can work to stretch ourselves, just a little. Sink into ourselves just a little. Gently and without pressure. Maybe that will make it easier to stand up on our tiptoes, so that we’re able to see over the wall of this thing, this virus, this time, and see that there’s something on the other side. Or, maybe, if we can’t look over the wall, we can sit against it and breathe because we’ve been taking the time to do that, and because we know that a wall has never been created that doesn’t have something on the other side.

There are so many things I would like to get done right now, and maybe I will accomplish some of them, but I’m not going to confabulate work with worth. And I hope you don’t either.

Winter, Christmas, and All of the Lists

Published on November 12, 2019November 12, 2019 by almostfarmgirl5 Comments

I sat down last weekend and made my Christmas lists. Christmas shopping. Christmas goals. Taking some inspiration from a blogger I follow–Karen at The Art of Doing Stuff–I decided that this year, I want to have my holiday obligations (the shopping, the wrapping, the decorating, etc) out of the way by the end of November, leaving December wide open for less-stress celebrations and evenings enjoying the season in front of a nice fire.

This year, I will be organized and intentional, and I WILL NOT be wrapping the last of my gifts on Christmas day before we load the car…again. I refuse.

Maybe it was the early first snow that kicked my butt into gear. Maybe it was Karen’s email about her Christmas pledge. Maybe it was the fact that my furnace chose the evening of our first snow to take a shit, reminding me very clearly and viscerally of what cold and winter feel like.

Maybe it was a combination of the three.

Either way, Winter, I’m here with you. To-do lists in hand. Continue reading “Winter, Christmas, and All of the Lists” →

Plans, Accidents, and a perfect “K”

Published on June 19, 2019June 19, 2019 by almostfarmgirl2 Comments

Kniggett stood perfectly for shearing.

He always had; every shearing since his first, Kniggett stood rooted more than tied. He seemed to enjoy having his hot wool stripped off row by row, exposing the skin underneath to the cool breeze. He made the job easy, which maybe why I chose to shear him in my first group.

He seemed happy with his new haircut when I finished, wandering off to enjoy the pasture with the other llamas immediately afterwords. I watched him walk away and shook my head. He had gotten skinny over the winter. Really skinny. I knew that he had lost weight, but the depth and breadth of it hadn’t been entirely clear until I removed his wool.

<<<>>>

Kniggett had been a surprise. His sire decided to jump a fence between himself and the girls, and Kniggett showed up 11 months later with red wool like his mom and an impish face like his dad. He was named “Kiley’s Kniggett” after his mom, Kiley, and as an homage to Monty Python’s “Silly English Kniggetts” (Knights) from “The Search for the Holy Grail.” He was one of the sweetest llamas ever born out here: a perpetual favorite, always asking for neck skritches from his people and saying hello to newcomers.

You love them all, of course. When you do what I do, have creatures like I do, you love them all. But some, a few, dig their way just a little bit deeper into your heart. Theirs are the faces you look for in the morning. The hellos you always say. The ones you unintentionally spoil just a little bit extra.

Wednesday, when I drove to work, he was in the dust bath in the front pasture, enjoying a good roll.

Wednesday, when I got home from work, he was still there, but now laying at an odd angle, completely unmoving. I got out of the car as fast as I could and ran into the pasture. I called for him, even though I could tell that he was already gone.

Sometimes, when those animals who have dug their way just a little bit deeper into your heart leave you, it’s as though they’ve taken a piece of you with them.

<<<>>>

I don’t cry over all of them at this point. Maybe it’s just the sheer volume of loss I have felt out here. Maybe it’s a deeper appreciation that it’s what I do for them while they’re living that matters and that death is just the next part of a life. Maybe I’m getting hard.

But I don’t cry over all of them.

I cried over Kniggett.

I cried a lot over Kniggett.

<<<>>>

I gave myself a little bit of space the next morning. My first chore had come at 7AM when I had to meet the companion cremation guy at my barn and load Kniggett into his truck with my skid steer, and it didn’t entirely sit well with me. I didn’t need the reminder that he was gone before sitting down for coffee. I went back to the house after that; I needed a minute.

When I went back to the barn later to do my usual morning chores, I was feeling a little worn. All of my llamas were inside, a definite reminder of the one that was not.

Except…

I was cleaning up my main herd’s stall when I realized that I was missing someone. Not Kniggett, though I missed him terribly, but Reva.

When I first took over the ranch, I was given Reva and her sister, Baby, by some clients of my ex who didn’t want them anymore. As of Thursday morning, she was still unshorn, and when I realized she was out alone while the entire herd was inside–not normal behavior for most llamas–I panicked.

“No, no, no” I thought, putting down my barn tools and heading out towards the back pastures in search of her.

Visions of her stretched out with heat stress, unable to move and laboring to breathe flashed through me. I didn’t pause to consider the fact that she was only a medium wooled animal, and that it wasn’t actually that hot out…

I saw her once I walked past the pine trees, she was to my left, munching on some grass and standing in the shade.

I breathed a sigh of relief before doing a double take.

It wasn’t just her.

It took me a moment to realize that she wasn’t alone, that a baby was next to her, alert and watching me back.

<<<>>>

After making sure that they were both ok, I walked back to the barn to get a halter for Reva so I could bring the pair in. As best as I could tell, the little one had been born the afternoon before or very early that morning, coming into the world on the heels of Kniggett leaving it.

His surprise entrace reminded me of Kniggett’s. He wasn’t unplanned, since I did intentional expose Reva and Baby to our stud last year, but I hadn’t thought Reva caught, and, even to the small degree that I considered it, I had the dates all wrong.

I made them a stall. I gave Reva a bucket full of grain and corn. I spent my day assuring myself that the baby, a little boy, was healthy, nursing, and strong. The pair of them joined back in with the herd that evening, and it became clear that this little guy had an attitude.

What he didn’t have was a name.

Nothing was fitting. I wanted to play on Sky, his sire’s name, which gave me a number of directions to try out, but nothing clicked.

<<<>>>

Two days later, John and I were texting names back and forth, rapid fire. He eventually commented that the names I came up with sounded like something off of Game of Thrones and responded in kind.

But then the next one.

“Skye’s Starry Knight…”

It was just one more in the list, but it literally stopped me in my tracks.

Of course he’s a Knight. Like Kniggett. Of course he is.

Once I saw it, it was just so obvious.

“That one,” I replied.

“With or without the K?”

The “K” had been a typo, one that stopped me cold and brought tears to my eyes. A reminder that this little life had been ushered in on the tail end of another. A Starry Knight and a silly English Kniggett.

John was surprised by how well the name landed; he’s still riding the “I named the baby llama” high.

<<<>>>

I find myself believing more and more that life is just a series of lessons. That the job of living is to learn and become better. And this place? This life I’ve chosen that is so wrapped up in this home I’m living it in? It seems to be a lesson in planning and unplanning and accidents.

I’ve said before that I’m a planner. Maybe a little bit of a control freak. And I chose a life that, maybe even more than others, cannot be controlled.

This life teaches me that plans are fine and so is throwing them out the window. Accidents, like Kniggett, like the K in Starry Knight, are sometimes the very best parts of life.

Or, maybe, accidents, like Kniggett, like the K in Starry Knight, aren’t really accidents at all, just more of the lesson.

Herd Health and the To-Do Lists that Will Never End

Published on March 22, 2019March 28, 2019 by almostfarmgirl4 Comments

“Oooph…Her teeth are a mess.”

Doc shone her headlight into Violetta’s jaw and gestured for me to take a look. Pronounced under-bite aside, she had jagged edges, uneven wear, and several sharp points that painted a pretty clear picture of why she dropped weight this winter.

Tuesday was herd health day; all ten of my horses (six full size and four minis) had their yearly shots and dental work done. Of the ten, only two were complicated. Violetta was one. Cinco, my old man horse whose teeth have mostly stopped growing, was the other.

Many non-horsey people don’t realize that a horse’s teeth continually grow as they age. Yearly floating (grinding down of the teeth) is in order to level out the rough edges that form as the teeth wear against each other. In some horses, like Violetta, the wear pattern isn’t consistent, and sharp, painful points can form inside the mouth. She will need a follow up in six months to try and level out her lower front teeth that are being worn down by the upper fronts in a undesirable fashion due to the underbite, but, for now, we sorted the issue as much as it can be sorted.

<<<>>>

Last year, yearly shots and teeth floating got away from me. I just didn’t manage to make the appointment. To be honest, plenty of horse owners don’t have teeth done every year, and lots of people don’t vaccinate animals who never leave home, but on Tuesday, when I learned that Violet was having issues due to my forgetfulness, I felt the guilt pour in. (Guys, I should probably add “feeling guilty” to the special skills section of my resume. I am SO good at it.)

My to-do lists out here are miles long; it can be a little too easy to miss something, even something important. I have lists for both houses, both barns, the pastures, the woods, the gardens, the driveway, and for all of the animals. I have lists restricted by time, lists restricted by money, and lists restricted by motivation or skill. I have lists of long-term goals. Lists for the spring. Lists for the summer. A list for today. Some of the lists are yearly. Some are seasonal. Some are weekly or monthly. A few are pie-in-the-sky wish lists that I may or may not ever find time or money for. Despite the fact that I, my boyfriend, and my dad regularly work to tackle items on the lists, they never seem to get much shorter.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by it, to look at this place through the lens of everything that needs to be done and feel only heaviness. That’s how my ex saw the ranch at the end, and on my bad days, when I’m dealing with my anxiety, or depression, or when I’m reckoning with something I left undone for a little too long, it’s hard to see it any other way.

<<<>>>

I think this tendency to only see what is undone is natural programming. It’s natural to be concerned with our next meal, to concern ourselves with the next season. Humans have learned to survive by anticipating future needs rather than just immediate ones.

I also think that this normal, natural behavior can run amok and cause us to live in a state of striving, never being satisfied with where we are right now, with what we’ve accomplished, with the items on the to-do list that we manage to check off.

We so seldom give ourselves credit for what we actually do.

The other day, I was complaining to my boyfriend about the fact that I couldn’t muster any extra energy to work on any of the big lists that day. I was racked with exhaustion and also guilty about feeling exhausted. I couldn’t relax completely because I felt guilty about needing to do nothing for a while.

“Yeah,” he replied, “I think you completely underestimate the amount of energy it takes to accomplish the day to day out here. You do a lot. Everyday. Feeling tired after all the regular stuff is done is completely understandable.”

I don’t know why his response struck such a deep chord, but it did. Maybe it was that his response rang of “you are enough” when it used to be that I only got choruses of “you need to do more,” but I think I could have cried with relief. I was content, for a little while, to rest.

<<<>>>

Most of us don’t give ourselves enough credit. We forget to count the things we accomplish, the hard work of simply living, and focus unendingly on the to-do list.

I have a friend who works full-time as a teacher, runs a horse ranch full of mostly rescued critters, and is currently renovating a property. As often as not, when we chat, she laments the laundry that she hasn’t gotten to.

One of my dearest friends, who works full-time almost an hour from her home and is in the middle of raising two wonderful little boys, tends to mention the floors she hasn’t quite gotten around to cleaning this week.

My close friend who is currently working full-time THROUGH CHEMOTHERAPY (CAN WE REPEAT THAT ONE FOR THE FOLKS IN THE BACK???) mentioned to me the last time that I saw her that she wishes she ordered less take-out and managed to cook more.

I could go on and on, listing all the people I know who accomplish way more than they give themselves credit for, but then this post would damn near go on forever, and I think you get the idea. Life, as it turns out, takes a lot of effort, and you’re probably doing more than you think.

<<<>>>

After John’s comment, I took a moment to catalog everything that I had already done that day, and, later, I took a moment to appreciate just how far the ranch has come since changing hands. The list is growing, always, but it’s also changing. It’s not stagnant. Slowly but surely, the things that need to be done are getting done. Slowly but surely, I’m getting better at prioritizing and better at recognizing that things are moving in the right direction.

My herd health day moved off the list. A recheck for Violet and Cinco in September got penciled in in its place. So did booster shots for Cody and Gem in a month. So did a new course of treatment for my two horses with heaves.

The list is actually longer now with herd health done–funny how that happens–but life is more than a series of to-do lists.

The ranch is more than a series of to-do lists.

I am more than a series of to-do lists.

And so are you.

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.

The one about the duckling I hid in my cleavage.

Published on August 23, 2018April 22, 2022 by almostfarmgirl

You know that moment?

The one that comes when you are trying desperately to be professional?

To pass for a calm, cool, collected businessperson? Perhaps while you’re at a bank, finishing a nearing six-figure aircraft deal, providing closing instructions to a banker on behalf of your client?

And then the wild duckling that you have hidden in your cleavage starts peeping?

Don’t you just hate that? Continue reading “The one about the duckling I hid in my cleavage.” →

Why I Paid an Artist to Cut My Wedding Dress into Pieces.

Published on August 7, 2018April 2, 2019 by almostfarmgirl10 Comments

I spent part of this evening cleaning up around the house.

As usual, I couldn’t really stay on task. I wandered. Washing sheets from one room. Picking up in another. I clean like an ADHD squirrel, bouncing from room to room, lacking cohesion and getting distracted by each new corner. I once set out to dust my bedroom and wound up reorganizing the entire contents of my walk-in hallway closet instead. The bedroom went undusted. The closet turned out wonderfully, and I’m still not sure how that happened.

All of this to say, I didn’t set out to throw away wedding memorabilia today, but somewhere in the process of cleaning up my guest room, I stumbled upon my one-time treasures and decided that it was time that they stop taking up space…in my home and in my life. Unity candles are a lovely metaphor, and you never expect to see the day come that you toss them aside, but their meaning is lessened once the pair they unified sever all the ties the flame represented. I took out the ceremonial objects and unceremoniously dumped them into my trash outside next to the dirty cat litter. Continue reading “Why I Paid an Artist to Cut My Wedding Dress into Pieces.” →