We prepare for winter while relishing fall

It is clearly autumn-cool days and nights, flies are dying, leaves are crisping...it has been beautiful. My favorite season, like many of you I'm sure. The animals can stay unbothered all day by flies and soak up sun without being hot.

Martyn is busy as always shopping large logs and then will split them in coming weeks. I also opted to buy a ton of first cut Canadian hay for the elder horses. They kept their weight so well last year, even old Matilda, who sadly lost her strength in her hind end even though she was doing so great otherwise. The Canadian hay is $13/ a bale...ouch...the local went up to $7.50 delivered and stacked. But It just doesn't have the punch for elders. I'll be doing our fall/winter fundraiser soon. Ive held back on them this summer due to my health stuff but am back in the saddle.

I spent all morning cleaning equine barn. Getting winter coats ready, making sure Earnest the Pig and Hannah both have adequate bedding, organizing tack and bringing in any freezable meds. It's time for the monthly llama shots, not my favorite task, but since switching to shorter needles many eons ago it is not that bad. My only bad day was being ribbed with my elbow when Harry smashed his ribcage into mine-lost my breath for a minute or so.

The old hydrangea continues to evolve in color. Such a beautiful creature. I can't help photograph her over and over. She is over 100 years old, if not 150+, according to Martyn. Imagine...if she could talk, or if I could teacher her human English. The black and white image is almost like looking at our house back in 1760 when it was built.

I hope you are all having a good autumn. Our pumpkin harvest, much to the sadness of little Hannah and Pickles, was muted...thanks to the squash bugs. Oh well, they ate well. We got some, but nothing like normal. They still are so fun, so cheery. I don't carve them anymore, it doesn't feel right, they get to die a natural death and then are fed out to the animals. I suppose that is the same fate but I just feel sad carving into them. And pumpkin tosses that are all the range seem so violent to me.

The animals and I pay tribute to Polly, who has given us snowflakes

 “Mrs. Dunn! Polly sent us the snow flakes!”

It was Pickles the goat, running in joy as I came out for the morning feedings.

I was taken aback. I had just found out myself in a morning email that our loyal volunteer, Polly, had died the night before. She had stage four lung cancer.

I stood silently, the snowflakes falling all around me, as the goats gathered at my feet. I looked at the sky and thought to myself, it is something Polly would do.

“Mrs. Dunn, Polly said she sent the snow so you can put the Christmas bells on the ponies and let them run around in the snow,” Pickles said.

I have been asking for snow, I thought.

Earnest the pig sauntered up to us.

“She was spunky, I liked her,” he said.

“She was kind. She put her arms around me,” said the quiet voice of the very old sheep, Calla.

“Remember when I got to pull her around the barnyard? That was so fun!” said Ollie, the biggest of the goats.

Ollie was referring to a visit here at the farm when some of our elder friends came to be with the animals, and Polly was there to help. I handed her a lead rope, which was attached to Ollie the goat, and told her she was in charge of him. Polly was a petite person, Ollie is about 120 pounds. As I went about helping the elder people, I looked around and there was Ollie pulling Polly around the orchard, showing her every blade of grass and all the apple trees he loved. But Polly had a smile on her face the entire time.

The snow continued to fall.

“Polly is free now,” said Auntie Bea, one of the old goats.

“What does that mean?” said little Hannah the goat.

“She is without a body,” said Auntie Bea, stoically.

“She lost her whole body?!” Hannah cried, and Pickles gasped.

“You don’t need your body forever, Hanna. You just need it here on Earth. But remember how you learned about Here There Everywhere? That is where Polly is and she needs no body for that,” said Earnest the pig.

“Polly is free of pain, Hannah. Her body hurt,” I said.

“Polly doesn’t hurt? This is excellent news then!” said Pickles the goat.

Pickles took Hannah and they ran around in circles in the fluffy dusting on the ground.

I headed to the outer barn to feed the horses and ponies. Harry the llama came over to me, his white fur dusted in flakes. Polly often helped me when we took Harry to visit our elder friends at Cove’s Edge.

“Harry, Polly died last night,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “She told me.”

I watched White Dog roll in the snow. White Dog got his snow, I thought.

I put the Christmas bells on the ponies, and off they ran in the snow, bells jingling. It was pure joy.

“Thank you, Polly,” I said.

 

{A video of the ponies running with their bells will be on Instagram later this evening.}

Beautiful old Calla

She wasn't acting herself last night when I found her alone in the barn, bathed in sunset light. Usually she and her daughter Sylvia Pettini stay together. Her body condition is good and her eyes show good pink color. She might have eaten something, too many apples maybe. But I will watch her, she is eating so maybe she just felt like warming her bones and being alone.

Sometimes I'm afraid...then I get up

I am not sure why, but lately I have been having feelings of fear when I wake up in the morning. Not panic or anxiety, just thoughts come into my head, like,

What if Martyn dies? What would happen if I died today?

I don't know what is underlying these thoughts. I guess it feels like the same way I felt when I took a new job in NYC in my twenties, or went off to school for the first day as a first grader. When I was younger, I didn't have the skills to work through these things as well as I do now.

I have a very good way to deal with these thoughts. I think them, mull them for a few minutes. And then I get up.

I remember when I lived alone in Minneapolis. I lived alone most of my adult life, always preferring to have my own apartment or home. I had two boyfriends in all the years I was a single woman and they were only around for a year...although both of those breakups caused me great pain. I let the first grieving go on way too long, I hung on in so many ways...including trying to maintain a friendship. I know that is how I had to deal with it at the time, but I think seven years went by before I began to really move on. By the time the second person had come into my life, and ended our time together, abruptly, and in a very secretive behind the scenes way, I did grieve it, but I remember waking up and thinking, I'm not letting this grief or this person hold me up for as long. And I didn't. The latter was also not a very honest person, so it was a different kind of feeling during the grief.

I see women my age or older lose their husbands and I wonder if I would get through it. I remember some well know scientist in an interview, forget who, but he lost his wife and best friend after 60+ years of marriage, he was now alone at about 90, and still working. When asked how he was coping, he said he had lots of good things in his life, including his work, but when his wife died

"It kind of took the fun out of everything" he said.

I can understand this. So much of my time with Martyn is spent laughing. He is really funny. We just really enjoy each other. He makes my days brighter. We spend a lot of time together. In winter, from November through March, Martyn is here on the farm working and helping take care of the snow, maintenance and all sorts of things. He is the main chef too and our meals together, breaking bread, talking about the day, our plans, visions, are all wonderful, juicy things of life together. We come up with ideas, and then bring them to life, together, each one with a separate set of skills to see it through.

When I'm with my animals, I feel whole. When I was hurt, confused or lost in my youth, or other times in my life, animals and my relationship with them and Nature, got me through. So did having my parents around, they were best friends too before I met Martyn. But touching and working with the animals keeps me grounded to Earth, the place I am meant to be now, in my evolution.

But I don't know what I would do if Martyn died before me. And I guess it's a 50/50 chance. And I don't like to think of him without me. Don't worry about something until it happens, they say. Sage advice. And I'm not worried. I am simply stating...I'm aware of this thought that pops into my head lately.

I'm not sure, like I said, why this is popping into my head these days, more so than at other times. Maybe it is just the uncertainess [for me and many, that is] of the global world and our chaotic administration. Maybe it is part of the transition into my 60's. Maybe it is because Martyn just ended his winter-at-the-farm-routine and his days are now off the farm working with the landscape crew. I am perfectly content on my own during the day, my life is busy and full. I do not spend my days mired in fear. I'm not seeking advice.

I just am acknowledging the recurrence of these thoughts. I like to think I would go on with gusto [at some point] and that the animals, and the land, farm and my art and writing are what would get me through losing my best friend.

I guess...you just do your best. And you have to determine what the best is you can do each day when you are faced with a big loss. It is your own way, not another's. Nobody has the right to tell a person they aren't getting over something fast enough. Nobody has the right to tell another person they aren't grieving well. The person that gives an opinion to grieving person telling them -even though they have not asked for advice-that they could or should have done something differently while the dead person was still alive...is cruel and narcissistically informed.

This photo was one I took yesterday of me and Calla, one of the elder flock members. I just love the look of her head, so big, almost like it is out of proportion, but it is so like her, to come to me and lean into me and we just can sit that way for many moments. I had no bad thoughts while sitting there with her, no worries...and if I had I'm sure they would have been lifted, even if temporarily.

Fatherly, motherly energies...and The Other

I worry that we are a people in a process of great transition and we are forgetting what we are connected to. We are losing our frame of reference. Pelicans pass by and we hardly know who they are, we don't know their stories. Again, at what price? I think it's leading us to a place of inconsolable loneliness. That's what I mean by "An Unspoken Hunger." It's a hunger that cannot be quelled by material things. It's a hunger that cannot be quelled by the constant denial. I think that the only thing that can bring us into a place of fullness is being out in the land with other. Then we remember where the source of our power lies. 
{From an interview with 
Terry Tempest Williams}

I went for my morning walk today with Muddy, and at some point, I stopped...and just stared at the many trees in the roadside forest. I looked and looked...and realized, I did not know them, yet, any of them. And they are just waiting for me, patiently, to notice them more closely. So I did, I breathed them in, as many as I could, and walked on.

My friend who has lived on both the west and east coasts was explaining how she always thought of the Pacific Ocean as a mothering energy, and the Atlantic ocean as a Fathering energy. It came up because I was trying to verbalize how and why if felt different here, the energy. I liked what she said, it made sense to me. The coastline is rockier and the waves are different. We are a state of granite and ledge stone. There is ice and snow. The culture here harkens back to ancestral ways-patriotic type ways-that are not in the midwest or west. There is a wild renegade quality to the fisherman and many lifers here, just as there is a real renegade climate out west, but it is different, and until my friend mentioned this, I had no words to explain it. A male energy, versus female. Interesting. Just the other day this 20 something called me 'dear'...

It is something I will explore within me as the months go by.

So I am out in the land with Other, as I was in my old home. I have always resonated with her, even as a child in the city, even as a young woman in New York City. Other is my consolation during upheaval, and a sip of hot tea in calm times. I am where I should be , need to be at this time in my life. I just don't know why...such a mystery to let unfold.

Flock of gratitude

If you follow along over the past 14 years you know I put a lot of thought into names, but also, into listening for the right name over time. Some animals come on board and their names just scream out at me, others are quieter but clear. And then some are very guarded, or perhaps not ready to have a more long term relationship with me [or maybe vice versa at times]. I imagine naming a newborn baby must be really hard-you have ideas on what to call him or her, but then you meet them and they just don't fit that name. I was to be named either Mary or Bridget. I am not a Mary. Bridget is actually my other self that lurks in me-she is a tough cookie. But then my father's mother died the day I was born, and I became Katherine.

I'm so grateful I found this breed. I knew nothing about them, or most wool breeds since we raised Katahdins, a hair breed. I loved the Katahdins, but raising wool just makes sense to me here. I'm so excited to share the fiber with you next year. I plan to add to the flock and am unsure if I'll breed, but want to get through a winter first before I make that commitment. This breed is regarded in critical status, so breeding does appeal to me. When we started with Katahdins, they were near critical status, and we happy to be part of bringing back such a great breed even in a small way.

Assumpta and Calla -the elder matriarchs of the flock-came with their names. They are fitting to both of them. Little Sylvia Pettini's name came pretty quickly. But the other three were stuck. Part of it was they do look similar, and I had to get to know them enough so I could tell them apart in the field, and see their personalities emerge, which they have. These are very personable sheep-as was my old flock-but for lambs these girls are really calm and people oriented.

Of course Lillian has the most striking markings. I kept thinking of names of women who had such strong features and none of them did her calm demeanor justice. But Lillian seemed strong and bold. The yearling ewe I named Velma, after a woman I knew in my childhood who lived in North Dakota up by my mother's clan-we would go see her every time we went up there and she lived in what to me was a doll house, out in the country, where cookies and breads were always baking. Louisa has a beautiful face too, and it has been a name I return to over and over-my father's middle name was Lois, my old terrier was Louie...it just has a light and happy sound to me, somewhat harking back to another time when fresh pies were sent along in school lunch baskets.

I'm very happy with my flock. And they are happy here, with Benedetto and Birdie to watch over them. I love being a shepherdess, all of it, from trimming feet to herding to...just sitting around with them as they graze. And wait until we get some of that fiber.