(no subject)
My first few days in the Pyrenees, working with my parents on their smallholding. The light here is beautiful, pale as yellow milk. The almond trees are in blossom. I get up at seven for an hour of yoga with my mum, then feed the chickens and the goats. Four eggs today, so I took them to our old Catalan neighbours with whom my parents are having a fruitless argument over land boundaries, a little peace offering. My broken French amused them. I had to clip the chicken’s wings to prevent them flying off our land - just the feathers, painless. Chopped feathers floating everywhere, frantic squawking, my father climbing on top of the chicken coop to grab the last reluctant chicken.
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We made a bonfire of brambles and shredded branches. I laid out a bed of straw for the goats and they promptly nibbled at it and sneezed everywhere. I’ve been training the llamas - a slow, methodical, theraputic process. Prey animals are so alien, and handling them is different to anything I’m used to. But now Opal will put her nose in a halter quietly and with no fuss. She’s pregnant and luminous white. It’ll be some time before I will be confident enough to deal with Ulysse, the difficult, spitting male.
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I’ll make a fish pie on Saturday. The goats need shearing soon, and then Mum and I will spin the fleeces into merino yarn. I want to knit something that isn’t a scarf. Maybe a sweatervest, or mittens.
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We made a bonfire of brambles and shredded branches. I laid out a bed of straw for the goats and they promptly nibbled at it and sneezed everywhere. I’ve been training the llamas - a slow, methodical, theraputic process. Prey animals are so alien, and handling them is different to anything I’m used to. But now Opal will put her nose in a halter quietly and with no fuss. She’s pregnant and luminous white. It’ll be some time before I will be confident enough to deal with Ulysse, the difficult, spitting male.
.
I’ll make a fish pie on Saturday. The goats need shearing soon, and then Mum and I will spin the fleeces into merino yarn. I want to knit something that isn’t a scarf. Maybe a sweatervest, or mittens.