Spring Equinox
I wasn't able to attend the gathering of my tribe at the Equinox, but I know that I am frequently asked what is happening on the farm. In prep for this I sent the below to Rowan to share with the group should SHE be asked 'what is happening on the farm'?
Well let’s see… what is happening on the farm?
I live with the seasons and with the elements and walk the wheel of the year in an up-close and intimate-weather manner.
Monday: Here it is raining. Not ‘just’ raining, but RAINING! Yesterday it rained. Today it pours. Just 10 miles down river from us the river is at flood stage. Here, the water gushes so fast that walking between house and barn my jacket is soaked. I only have a couple of barn jackets and they never get quite dry before I need the other. And the rest of the week? It’s supposed to either rain, sleet or snow. Lucky us, it’s done all three in the past 24 hours. Apparently there is no warm and sunny to be had.
The barn is JUMPING! The rain is coming down so steadily that the ewes don’t want to take their lambs outside to the hay stack, so they wait for them to nap and then try to sneak out. But the babies wake, look for mom, can’t find her, and start that screaming MAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! MMMMMAAAAAAAAA! That generally wakes the rest of the lambs who take up the chorus.
There is no quiet country where I live.
Tuesday: My guard-llama-in-training doesn’t want to leave the barn because his fluffy fiber would fill with water and hang heavily on his body. He’d prefer to spend his time napping in the barn. He gets comfy, the lambs wake up. MMMMAAAAAAAAAAA! He jumps up, tries so hard not to step on anyone, and ends up tripping. It might seem funny, but he is so earnestly trying to keep from hurting any living thing.
Lambs you ask? Yes, we have lambs. A barn full. More than a barn full. They sleep, they wake, they play, they visit, they jump upon the backs of any sleeping ewe and use her as a launch pad. Apparently Romper-Room Barn is in full swing at my house.
This morning also we castrated 16 bull calves. They did not give their permission. I’ve seldom seen myself so black and blue. I’ve been tromped, trampled, stomped and horned. This has not been a stellar day.
Wednesday: It’s raining so hard the dogs don’t want to go outside to take care of business. Apparently they find using the kitchen floor or just going on the front porch enough. Might I mention that there is a strong negative feeling on my part concerning this?
This morning I had the pleasure of watching a swan swimming just beyond my deck. He must be migrating north. I seldom see them so close and it was a lovely sight until I realized he was gliding over a patch of Joe-Pye-Weed. He’s swimming in my garden! This is just wrong.
Water rushes across fields, carrying rich loam with it and leaving huge craters where the earth has been washed away. I’m not quite certain how we will get the large bales of hay to the cattle tomorrow. Our usual paths are either under water or gone. However those 1000# bales WILL be delivered, all animals will be fed before we can stop and feed ourselves, dry off, and SLEEP.
The grass is greening. Unfortunately there is a skin of water atop the green grass so whenever a hungry cow or sheep reaches for something fresh and green she gets a snort of water up her nose. A spring nasal douche. Yippee Skippee.
Thursday: I have several sheep down with pneumonia. I ran out of medicine this morning so called my local Tractor Supply Store to make sure they had it in stock. Yes. So at 7:15 AM I drove there to stock up. Living in a farming community it was not necessary for me to change out of my dirty barn clothes before shopping. I wore my barn boots into the store. I had swished them off in a puddle before getting in my car, but still…barn boots are often fairly nasty. The folks at TS take it in stride. They are there when I need them, and carry what I need to keep that barn going strong and healthy.
Yesterday I moved a new mom and twins into a lambing jug. During regular chores I’d watched her lamb and everything went smoothly. Her lambs were still covered with birth fluids when I moved them, so I put both lambs in a large towel (because they are slippery when wet) and walked backward with mom following me. Once in the lamb jug I put them down in fresh hay and left them alone. At different times during the day I’d checked on them, all seemed fine.
Today I had a chance to watch again and saw one lamb walking under mom to nurse, the other one was moving differently. She was up on her hind legs, but was walking-scootching on her front knees. I wasn’t sure whether this was because the hay was deep or there was another issue so I picked her up to check. Both her front legs curled inward, and when I tried to gently straighten them she cried in pain. Then I checked her back legs which initially looked fine, but her tiny hooves are not normal. This lamb will not make it, she will not be able to keep up with mom once they leave the small confines of the jug. Tonight when mom and sister leave I will need to put this lamb down. In the midst of life, we find death walks also.
Enchanted Spring you say? The stuff of myth, magic and fairly tales? Yes please. Can you send some ASAP?
Addendum:
This morning walking to the barn in the brisk darkness before dawn an owl called to her mate from the woodlot. He answered from a tree across the river. It will very soon be mating season for this pair. The wheel she turns.
Entering the sheep area of the barn I saw a couple of lambs sound asleep in the geriatric unit, a special pen put aside for my 3 very old sheep. I love that the lambs can co-mingle with the grandparents, can visit, sleep, and be safe. Watching them this morning I was struck by the similarities between them, the fragility.
In this season of very fleeting ‘balance’ it is humbling to know that generations have come and gone under my eye. I know I won’t be doing this so much longer. I am one of the aged, more frail than before. It makes me think about the beauty of life, the tenderness of the young, the far-sightedness of the old. I think about birth and death and the cycles that connect them.
Perhaps these thoughts are really what ‘balance’ is all about.
Well let’s see… what is happening on the farm?
I live with the seasons and with the elements and walk the wheel of the year in an up-close and intimate-weather manner.
Monday: Here it is raining. Not ‘just’ raining, but RAINING! Yesterday it rained. Today it pours. Just 10 miles down river from us the river is at flood stage. Here, the water gushes so fast that walking between house and barn my jacket is soaked. I only have a couple of barn jackets and they never get quite dry before I need the other. And the rest of the week? It’s supposed to either rain, sleet or snow. Lucky us, it’s done all three in the past 24 hours. Apparently there is no warm and sunny to be had.
The barn is JUMPING! The rain is coming down so steadily that the ewes don’t want to take their lambs outside to the hay stack, so they wait for them to nap and then try to sneak out. But the babies wake, look for mom, can’t find her, and start that screaming MAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! MMMMMAAAAAAAAA! That generally wakes the rest of the lambs who take up the chorus.
There is no quiet country where I live.
Tuesday: My guard-llama-in-training doesn’t want to leave the barn because his fluffy fiber would fill with water and hang heavily on his body. He’d prefer to spend his time napping in the barn. He gets comfy, the lambs wake up. MMMMAAAAAAAAAAA! He jumps up, tries so hard not to step on anyone, and ends up tripping. It might seem funny, but he is so earnestly trying to keep from hurting any living thing.
Lambs you ask? Yes, we have lambs. A barn full. More than a barn full. They sleep, they wake, they play, they visit, they jump upon the backs of any sleeping ewe and use her as a launch pad. Apparently Romper-Room Barn is in full swing at my house.
This morning also we castrated 16 bull calves. They did not give their permission. I’ve seldom seen myself so black and blue. I’ve been tromped, trampled, stomped and horned. This has not been a stellar day.
Wednesday: It’s raining so hard the dogs don’t want to go outside to take care of business. Apparently they find using the kitchen floor or just going on the front porch enough. Might I mention that there is a strong negative feeling on my part concerning this?
This morning I had the pleasure of watching a swan swimming just beyond my deck. He must be migrating north. I seldom see them so close and it was a lovely sight until I realized he was gliding over a patch of Joe-Pye-Weed. He’s swimming in my garden! This is just wrong.
Water rushes across fields, carrying rich loam with it and leaving huge craters where the earth has been washed away. I’m not quite certain how we will get the large bales of hay to the cattle tomorrow. Our usual paths are either under water or gone. However those 1000# bales WILL be delivered, all animals will be fed before we can stop and feed ourselves, dry off, and SLEEP.
The grass is greening. Unfortunately there is a skin of water atop the green grass so whenever a hungry cow or sheep reaches for something fresh and green she gets a snort of water up her nose. A spring nasal douche. Yippee Skippee.
Thursday: I have several sheep down with pneumonia. I ran out of medicine this morning so called my local Tractor Supply Store to make sure they had it in stock. Yes. So at 7:15 AM I drove there to stock up. Living in a farming community it was not necessary for me to change out of my dirty barn clothes before shopping. I wore my barn boots into the store. I had swished them off in a puddle before getting in my car, but still…barn boots are often fairly nasty. The folks at TS take it in stride. They are there when I need them, and carry what I need to keep that barn going strong and healthy.
Yesterday I moved a new mom and twins into a lambing jug. During regular chores I’d watched her lamb and everything went smoothly. Her lambs were still covered with birth fluids when I moved them, so I put both lambs in a large towel (because they are slippery when wet) and walked backward with mom following me. Once in the lamb jug I put them down in fresh hay and left them alone. At different times during the day I’d checked on them, all seemed fine.
Today I had a chance to watch again and saw one lamb walking under mom to nurse, the other one was moving differently. She was up on her hind legs, but was walking-scootching on her front knees. I wasn’t sure whether this was because the hay was deep or there was another issue so I picked her up to check. Both her front legs curled inward, and when I tried to gently straighten them she cried in pain. Then I checked her back legs which initially looked fine, but her tiny hooves are not normal. This lamb will not make it, she will not be able to keep up with mom once they leave the small confines of the jug. Tonight when mom and sister leave I will need to put this lamb down. In the midst of life, we find death walks also.
Enchanted Spring you say? The stuff of myth, magic and fairly tales? Yes please. Can you send some ASAP?
Addendum:
This morning walking to the barn in the brisk darkness before dawn an owl called to her mate from the woodlot. He answered from a tree across the river. It will very soon be mating season for this pair. The wheel she turns.
Entering the sheep area of the barn I saw a couple of lambs sound asleep in the geriatric unit, a special pen put aside for my 3 very old sheep. I love that the lambs can co-mingle with the grandparents, can visit, sleep, and be safe. Watching them this morning I was struck by the similarities between them, the fragility.
In this season of very fleeting ‘balance’ it is humbling to know that generations have come and gone under my eye. I know I won’t be doing this so much longer. I am one of the aged, more frail than before. It makes me think about the beauty of life, the tenderness of the young, the far-sightedness of the old. I think about birth and death and the cycles that connect them.
Perhaps these thoughts are really what ‘balance’ is all about.