Tag: relationships

Love like lilacs…on Grandma Alyce and a life well-lived

Published on by almostfarmgirl2 Comments

Everyone and everything I love is holy…

I pause as the sentence pops to mind. It does occasionally, even though it came to me completely by accident at first, the consequence of a mistype and autocorrect.

<<<>>>

A few years ago, a friend and I were chatting about therapy. She was gearing up to go back, but was dreading the work. I was thinking that I probably needed to get back on antidepressants first, because as my depression sat, I didn’t think I would actually get anywhere.

“It would be a fairly nihilistic therapy session,” I began.
“Therapist: so what brings you in today
Me: everyone and everything I love is “

And here’s where I started to write “going to die” and autocorrect changed “going” to “holy.”

I think sometimes the universe interjects itself into our lives, and in this case, I think it was letting me know that I was missing the point.

<<<>>>

Everyone and everything I love is going to die…

My 92 year old grandmother, Alyce, passed away on June 28, leaving behind 9 children, 21 grandchildren, and 26 great grandchildren. Less than a week before, John and I drove up to visit her in the nursing home to which she had recently been moved. We met my cousin Erin there, and the four of us passed the afternoon.

Me, Grandma, Erin, and John

It wouldn’t turn out to be my last visit with her, but the possibility clung to me, a thought I worked to push back. I wanted to enjoy my time with her, and I did. We talked and laughed. Hugged. I turned pages for her while she looked at our wedding album. She told us about the singer who had come to the nursing home the week before. The song she requested. I wish I could remember the name…

Grandma was moved to hospice the next day; it was her choice, and we knew it was coming. She chose to transfer when it became apparent that her congestive heart failure was getting the better of her; she was tired of the doctor visits. Of struggling to breathe.

Maybe, in some ways, she was just tired.

A few days later, I went back to see her again. This time at hospice. She couldn’t speak much, could barely stay awake. The nurses (god bless hospice nurses) kept her comfortable and answered our questions.

Family rotated through. My cousins sat with me. I called my dad and told him to come. I watched several of her sons say their goodbyes. My father audibly. My uncle with a hug.

Her heart was giving out, but her mind was still sharp. She worked to say “I love you” to each of us.

Strange, there was so much sadness in that room, but what struck me over and over was the way love spilled out from every corner. The way it permeated the air.

We stood with her on the edge of death, and it was holy.

<<<>>>

We sat vigil with grandma, no one leaving until the next person had come in. She was never alone.

We talked about her life as we held space for her. Memories each of us had. It’s strange how the people you love, the people who love you, hold different pieces of you. Strange how you can come together and add pieces, one after another, until you paint a vibrant picture.

It’s remarkable how you can come to the end of a 92 year life and leave everyone you know wishing it was longer. I think every single one of us will miss her. And I think the ones who didn’t know her, like my cousins’ children whose memory is still too young, will hear stories that will make them proud of her.

<<<>>>

On July 3, we attended her Celebration of Life.

It’s funny. Knowing her my whole life didn’t quite prepare me for her eulogy. For learning about all of the living she did in the space before me, before my aunts and uncles, before even my grandfather was part of her story.

She had told me about her childhood here and there. I knew that her parents had divorced, in a time when almost no one divorced, and that she had been in the custody of her mother as a young child because her father was willing to take his sons but “didn’t want the girl.” Then she was handed around between caregivers. Her mother. Random relatives. The upstairs neighbor. Her grandparents.

She had a traumatic childhood, one that gave her every excuse in the world to perpetuate the trauma she experienced, but she broke the cycle during a time when people weren’t talking about breaking trauma cycles and mental health resources were far less available. She raised loved and loving children. She was known for welcoming everyone who came through her door (and usually feeding them, even though she actually hated to cook).

I found out that she was a writer, too, in high school. Creative writing. Press club. Even the editor of her high school newspaper. How had that never come up?

I listened to stories about the jobs she held: preschool teacher, Headstart teacher, Meals-on-Wheels deliverer. All jobs that lifted others up. Cared for them.

Hearing new stories from her life felt a little bit magic: a reminder of the depth and breath of nearly a century on this planet. A reminder that we were celebrating a life that had been well lived.

<<<>>>

I asked her what her favorite flower was once. She told me about how her children would bring her lilacs in the spring, and she told me about how she would have liked to have purple roses for her wedding to my grandfather, but that they were poor, so she made her wedding flowers out of tissue. I like that she answered the question with stories.

We had daisies and lily of the valley at her funeral, because I guess those were her favorites, too.

But I think about the tissue roses, and how she made something beautiful with so little. And I think about the lilacs, and how the answer to what she loved wasn’t about the aesthetics. It was about the way her children showed their love. It was about the story.

<<<>>>

Have you ever walked into a grove of blooming lilacs in the evening when the air is heavy? Or walked into a midwestern farmhouse where the cut flowers are sitting in a vase on the table? The scent always registers before the source. It permeates the air.

I think about her final days in hospice, and it occurs to me that grandma spent her final days surrounded by a love like lilacs. A love you felt hanging in the air before you could pin down a source.

<<<>>>

Everyone and everything we love is going to die; everyone and everything we love is holy.

I miss her.

I didn’t see Grandma all that often, but I feel her absence. The planet was better with her on it.

But, also, the planet is better for her having been on it. That, I think, is the most we can wish for anyone in the end.

Well, that, and a holy love.

Like lilacs

Grandma and Grandpa

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

Published on 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.

A Day in the Life

Published on 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.

<<<>>>

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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.

img_4214

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. 

img_4158

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.

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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.

 

 

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

Published on by almostfarmgirl4 Comments

“Oooph…Her teeth are a mess.”

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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.

 

Another Trip Around the Sun

Published on 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…)

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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.img_0031

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 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.

On Shearing and Doing Hard Things

Published on by almostfarmgirl12 Comments

This is me.

img_0922

This is me on an almost 90 degree day, after shearing nine of my llamas over the course of about two hours.

This is me sweaty and exhausted.  Covered in tiny bits of wool.  Thoroughly uncomfortable

And thrilled that my animals were cool again. Continue reading “On Shearing and Doing Hard Things” →

Befores and Afters

Published on by almostfarmgirl13 Comments

I read a book once that pointed out that life tends to divide itself into befores and afters.

It’s true, when you think about it.  Some are obvious milestones: Before high school.  After high school.  Before college.  After college.  Before and after your first job.  Births.  Deaths.  We, all of us, all our lives, are just a mess of befores and afters and how they changed us from one version of ourselves to the next.  We have ceremonies to celebrate or mourn the changes.  Matriculation.  Funerals.  Christenings.

Marriages.

Divorces.

Sometimes, even though one day you’re a person of before and the next day a person of after, it feels like little has changed.  Some befores and afters fade into one another like the colors of the sunset meld from one to the next, and suddenly the sky has gone from blue to orange to purple without you noticing.  The easy changes are like that.  You don’t realize things are changing until they have, and then, before you know it, you’ve made your way from a before to an after.

Other changes fall like a sledgehammer.  No matter the slope into it, no matter the warning or preparation, the change will always be abrupt.

Like death.

Hopefully followed by rebirth. Continue reading “Befores and Afters” →

I get by with a little help from my friends.

Published on 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.” →

Just because things aren’t the same doesn’t mean they can’t be good.

Published on by almostfarmgirl10 Comments

I pulled the red and white notice off the door of my Heights house with a sigh.  We would be fined within days if the lawn continued un-mowed, if the landscaping wasn’t trimmed back.  The Ex and I (mostly the Ex) had been in a slow war with the code enforcement officer in the Heights most of the time that we lived there.  Our fence was the first infraction–built on a corner lot and requiring signatures of all the neighbors and a hearing at city hall to build–but from then on the inspector took every opportunity to cite us, and the Ex took every opportunity to provoke him.  We learned after the fence incident that bribes were the usual way of dealing with his red and white citations, and it seemed that forcing the issue with the city had been something of an embarrassment to him when all the council members immediately approved our “beautiful fence.”

But this time?  Honestly, I could see his point. Continue reading “Just because things aren’t the same doesn’t mean they can’t be good.” →