fourth of july

The dew soaked my feet before I even got to the turkey feed this morning. The sun was bright but it was cool enough for a jacket. The ducks filled their bills with all the mash they could fit before running to the creek to wash it all down and take their morning bath. The meat goats were happily laying under the shade of a bark stripped locust tree, lounging around eating their morning grain. I picked the summer squash while the sheep impatiently yelled at me for their morning meal and the pigs weren't even up when I threw their feed in.

It has been a tough week with the loss of the best cat who thought he was a dog and the best sheep who loved people. The pigs were running crazy and getting my grandma yelled at (what kind of jerk yells at a sweet old woman) and the goats were mischevious as ever. The next day, we lost our first fainting goat kid before we even realized it was born. So heartbreaking. In the middle of the week I was completely frustrated and tired and about ready to just move to a giant city and eat food shipped thousands of miles and not think about it.

... but I guess that's when you really just put your head down, one foot in front of the other and tackle each problem one at a time until everything is back in balance.

I moved the pigs behind the chicken house and gave them an electric fence of their own. I tied the alpacas to a tree so that they could graze, put the meat goat in a nice fence Travis built behind my house, checked online to see what could cause a miscarriage in a goat and what we can do about it next time, weed eated the trees that are growing in the cabbage... and slowly before long everything seemed to hit equilibrium again.

This morning was a sigh of relief, a sun bathed scene of beautiful fields with ducks preening themselves, geese flapping their wings for a morning stretch, sheep bounding and jumping at the sight of their breakfast, pigs sleepily waking up and plowing nose first into a giant bucket of slop, and pepper the heeler sitting back to survey her flock and make sure everyone is in line.

After blue berry pancakes and a big pile of eggs, I feel much better. And now, with one eye open to the problems at hand, today I am going to try to sit back and enjoy this independance day, eating straight out of the garden and grilling up some home grown hamburgers.