as it goes.  Monica did NOT call today.  she will,  most likely, but didn't today.  BUT, Jacob did.  he was the one who wanted a wether to round out his pack goat family.  he has 2 pack goats.  but three seems to be the good number.  he doesn't need this one to Pack, just to round out the herd.   i had tried to get in touch with him all last week or so.  nope.  his Cell not accepting messages.  ok.  gave up.  but today, he calls and there are long pauses.  i say that Monica has claimed them.  he is silent.  to make a long conversation shorter,  he arrives with his young boys and they look.  HOW he looks, i can tell….he really likes Goats.  he notices things.  small things, details about them.  he like both the wethers but i tell him i think the bigger one will fit better in his Pack Herd.  he kinda likes the little Red one.  yes, well, but…he's small.  will always be small.  so ok.  and  they go.  Him carrying the bleating boy,  Maaaaaaa!!!!!!!  and Caroline who is so DONE with mothering calls back.  Loud.   So…this evening, here we are now.  one less:

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to the far right is Nogal.  a good view of his intact testicles.  Enough Jiz in there to populate North America with Nigerian Dwarf Goats.  one buck can do the job.  HE will be the new 4th buck here.  

and to be honest, this is really painful.  letting them go.  to whom.  Why.  and this is what's nice about having Snotty Goat Herds that are all registered and with milking stars for the does and with ribbons at various competitions.  in THAT case,  all of these kids would have had reserve deposits for them.  All of these kids would have sold for 2 to $300 each.  they are VERY FINE.  they are purebread.  they are extremely healthy and well…just the best.  BUT/AND  they are not registered and their mothers do not have their milking stars.  and so…i give them away.  

and UNLESS my daughter, Jenny, takes them back before November, i will need to come to terms with it all.  

IF i want to milk and learn Cheese,  it requires some does, 2 minimum, bred and kidding every year.    if it all goes very well in the next months, there would be the urge to breed more than 2.  More doe Goats giving milk, more cheese.  BUT/AND  more doe Goats kidding,  more kids to send out in to the world.  Reality IS…..i am NOT into the competition of showing Goats.  i am not into the dragging Goats here and there for Milking Stars.  so…what that means is that i find homes for them.  Where they will be cared for.  Safe.  Treated kindly and have good lives.  Like the one who went today.  being a part of a Pack Goat herd…going up into the mountains to hunt.  no tether. Free.  Just Going with his "Family".  

How often does that come up tho?  

So…i am looking at it all.  i am UNCOMFORTABLE with it.  i want some kind of Fairy Tale for them.  all loved, all living to old age.  Not Eaten.   WHAT IF that can't be the reality?  WHAT IF like in so many other parts of this Planet that is such a LUXURY.  ?????????????????  HOW do i deal with it?  Can I?  

Can i not need everything to have a fairy tale ending?  Can i learn to let things go how they ARE?

Can i at the very least, understand that at this time of year, August,  there will be the PAIN of how it is?????? and just GO anyway????????

 

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Nogal.  Who alone, could populate North America.

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Celia.  Who has interesting coloring.  much of her Black is turning deep oxblood red.  Her face is so striated.  NONE of these qualities will necessarily appear in subsequent kiddings.  but…color.  design.  i am helpless in the face of it.

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and the cloth on the Flag of the Raft has gotten tangled with the overgrowth of the Mallow.

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31 responses to “178 Truth: it’s painful”

  1. jude Avatar

    it is like children really.
    and cloth.
    can get all tangled up.

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  2. grace Forrest Avatar

    all tangled up.
    and maybe this is just How It Is. All Tangled Up.
    and to want it different, to want it EASY…it won’t.
    because it Can’t.
    i love those Goats. just like i love my own kids. but
    i don’t need to eat them. i don’t need to keep making them
    to have food.
    or do i?
    Food is Food.
    back to Vegetarian Myth Lierre Keith
    and it’s also back to the American Way. how we so are in denial about Food.
    2/3ds maybe 3/4ths of the Planet sees food as so different.
    We are fucked up here. about food.

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  3. Julie Avatar
    Julie

    This is such a hard time for you. Maybe there is just some exhalation with the knowing of that?
    It also makes sense that you are feeling so unsure because you are starting to apply some thought, some of the New/Old Self from your latest cloth, to what essentially just was happening to you when Jenny slipped out of the room.

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  4. grace Avatar
    grace

    No. there is not some exhalation with the knowing.
    No.
    i am feeling “unsure” because it is contray to the way i would innately feel… and that inate because of having it so Easy.
    and yes. the Cloth. yes. looking for something with the Cloth. and i love those words …. “when Jenny slipped out of the room.”
    She could do these things. OR
    could. in her circumstance. but then her circumstance
    CHANGED. and she couldn’t either.
    so
    here We are.
    and i guess really, maybe, maybe, what i am looking at is
    your first sentence…”This is such a hard time for you.”
    and what i am looking at is WHY do i feel so entitled to never having to experience “hard”? isn’t “hard” just
    Part Of It All?????? if so, then how do i work it?
    maybe just say…AUGUST is going to be Hard. Know it.
    be Ready. Know that September won’t be Hard anymore? or
    i won’t know if it is? (as in how it’s going for those little given away Goats?) ACK.

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  5. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    Yes…hard…and maybe some softening around it eventually. Necessity will find the way, but, really Grace, the animal bond is powerful. I do not think I’d have the guts for this reality, raising them, culling the herd, hopeful for kind usage, but the fact of meat weighing heavy on my heart. We ARE VERY MESSED up about food…we city and town dwellers who shop where the process is hidden. Pure vegetarians have solved one part of the conflict with themselves. I was once ‘pure’ but slid back. I see the wizened eyes of the goat cheese vendors at the farm market, and now I know why August matters there. Such FINE goats, but without a partner to work it with you…just very hard on you. Back too that Ack!

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  6. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    That tangled cloth is very beautiful

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  7. Nance Avatar
    Nance

    Happy endings really got me thinking. I also have this belief that there is a happy ending. Maybe it’s a fantasy and now at 65 I am finally questioning whether its true. I know i spin things to see the good in the ending, what ever it is. I keep thinking there is that silver lining in all outcomes. I am wondering about that lately. I have a tenacious situation that doesn’t seem to be resolving and wondering if I am just living in a fantasy world and have been much of my life. I wonder now if the belief in a happy ending or silver lining makes it any easier to make it through the difficulty. Am I just failing to see the silver lining and that is why it’s so difficult? Or is it true that life sucks and then you die… Like some might say. Oh grace… What’s the answer??? What’s it all about alfie?

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  8. Mo Crow Avatar

    a poem for us all today
    The Good Life
    You stand at the window.
    There is a glass cloud in the shape of a heart.
    The wind’s sighs are like caves in your speech.
    You are the ghost in the tree outside.
    The street is quiet.
    The weather, like tomorrow, like your life,
    is partially here, partially up in the air.
    There is nothing you can do.
    The good life gives no warning.
    It weathers the climates of despair
    and appears, on foot, unrecognized, offering nothing,
    and you are there.
    – Mark Strand
    via Whisky River
    http://whiskeyriver.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/the-life-you-stand-at-window.html

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  9. patricia Avatar

    beautiful, Mo. perspective-full.

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  10. patricia Avatar

    dear Grace. dear dear Grace. yes. i do remember all of this so well. the goats looking back at us as they drove away with some one else. it was so much–too much. and reading this clarification of yours that is taking place now, i wonder. what if. what if you just stopped breeding?

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  11. grace Avatar
    grace

    well…that’s what i’m working on. i have till November.
    and that would simplify the ANGST. but that would also
    mean no milk. no cheese in the following year. talk
    about pairing…everything is paired with something.
    Front/Back. as the Lama said…everything has a front and a back. the bigger the front, the bigger the back.
    so…i’m trying to just see the Big Picture and where my
    sensitivity to it all works in or does not. i think the
    key for me in this moment is that i really am still too
    attached to Easy. and this is not Easy. it is All that
    it is.
    oh…i am just Missing something in my understanding. Looking for it…it’s there….

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  12. grace Forrest Avatar

    it’s the resistance to Surrender. Same old Same old
    difficulty in being Attached. Attachment. if i can
    UNDERSTAND THAT i can just GO, as best i can in this
    human body with this little wad of a human mind.
    and again….i am watching self CREATE feelings from thoughts which i am creating from habit. there’s a different way to
    do it. am looking for that.
    for sure, i know that life DOESN’T SUCK. and there’s a
    different way to move within it all. that neither insists
    on a constant silver lining OR constant Ease. looking.
    Maybe it’s nothing Else than to accept that sometimes things are painful. sometimes things are HARD.
    and what’s so hard about That??????, like really, grace,
    duh.

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  13. grace Forrest Avatar

    maybe just accepting that the edges are there.
    and not to go off on THAT tangent, the vegetarians solve
    the conflict FOR themselves. and that’s great. for them.
    and i have been one of them off and on. but the fact
    is that living requires consumption of Life forms. animal, vegetable….
    and really…my point about all that is summed up so well
    by Lierre. and it’s not about just my own little life, it’s
    about a Planet which REQUIRES animals.
    and yes…a “partner” would be nice…because then it could be put on THEM to do the hard stuff and i could look the other way. but i knew i would be doing this alone and i know that i will be doing it alone. so, these are my little blue beads. they are falling on my head right now.

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  14. grace Forrest Avatar

    isn’t it? the more i look at it the more beautiful it gets

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  15. jude Avatar

    maybe age is also part of it?

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  16. grace Forrest Avatar

    …..and you are there. yup.

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  17. grace Forrest Avatar

    well…yes. in terms of really wanting to Understand
    things…or at least understand them within the best
    of one’s ability?…with all that you have learned so far?
    And isn’t that what a human life is good for? it’s the Work.

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  18. grace Forrest Avatar

    or not. it’s what you choose to Take On. for me…for
    whatever reason, it was the Goats.
    if you find yourself moving somewhere where you will have
    sheep….for wool….you would faced with the same dilemma.
    OR….not…i guess you could get so many sheep and just
    have those. not make more of them. sheep would just keep
    giving wool. no breeding necessary on your part. but then
    someone Else would have bred them.

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  19. kathy dorfer Avatar
    kathy dorfer

    for me it seems to be all about choices .not easy but necessary .
    art is my most important choice right now so it means a simplified
    life is what i strive for … somehow that is really hard to achieve .
    all of my mantra’s from the 60’s & 70’s keep coming into my head . right now its Be Here Now , kathy !
    love the post and all the input grace .

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  20. grace Avatar
    grace

    it takes a lifetime, doesn’t it. for me anyway.
    yes…the Be Here Now….and it’s so
    simple,
    really,
    and yet….
    keep me posted about how it goes with you…other’s
    experiences always helps, yes?
    Love….

    Like

  21. Valerianna Avatar

    Big somethings to ponder… BIG. And, letting go of how we would want the world to be, such good and challenging practice, daily. Love the cloth and the mallow, yes, it all gets to be a big tangle.

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  22. patricia Avatar

    you’re raising some really provocative issues that not surprisingly seem to be paralleling my own current stream. the statement about surrender and thoughts creating feelings and all of it flowing from old habits. and then the one–the one about understanding attachment. and i’m asking myself, can i really ever understand attachments?
    and i don’t know. but i’d guess no–for me–because the understanding would involve more mental activity. which sometimes i trust and sometimes i don’t.
    so i’m employing a visual image. i see my attachments–to old thought patterns–and although i wonder why anyone would be attached to such sometimes debilitating thoughts, i’m looking at them. and they are clearly a chain–a heavy chain–and i’m whipping out the old acetylene torch that i left in WV and i’m melting right through them. and murmuring “out out damn spots” as i do so. because i’ve just about had enough! and i think i’m going to be doing this for quite a while.

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  23. dee Avatar
    dee

    maybe it’s enough, here, now, to say, I feel for your attachment… how could you not be? Attached? I have an intractable situation in my life that I recently decided to chant for acceptance of, rather than for it to be transformed. such a different thing to be asking for… hope you find some peace around this.

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  24. grace Forrest Avatar

    once again, i think it’s just asking the Questions off
    and on….and it’s ok to not receive some solid answer,
    the questioning helps me to go forward. a little more
    each time and that’s good enough.

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  25. grace Forrest Avatar

    yes…that tangle in the mallow…i go look at it a LOT
    these days and summer is winding down

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  26. grace Forrest Avatar

    yes. i hope so too.

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  27. saskia Avatar

    you say: ‘truth:it’s painful’, why?

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  28. grace Forrest Avatar

    not truth in general, but also i guess sometimes that’s
    painful too….but
    what i ment was….”to tell the truth, it’s painful”.
    it’s harder than i want it to be. harder than i think it
    is for a lot of people who live lives with livestock.
    raise livestock. all the things that are painful for me,
    as in cause me angst, are just Givens, really. when you
    breed, the product of that breeding needs to find it’s
    way in the world. i am too attached with wanting to find
    as perfect as possible places for these baby Goats. Goats
    are ify creatures. they seem like such a great and fun
    idea to people and they are, but they also require a Lot
    of Keeping over time. they require certain kinds of space. and i think the huge illusion that prevails, that
    they can eat anything, well, prevails. and it isn’t true.
    and when a goat has just a few unsavory weeds to eat, they
    start looking for ways to feed themselves other things and
    ….trouble……
    so, i think i end up talking as many people OUT of taking
    them as i do wanting them to…??????? which means so
    far, only one is gone and i have 2 that NEED to go…
    am still working out thoughts about this post.

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  29. mimmin Avatar
    mimmin

    they are such beautiful creatures. i learn so much coming here but there are no easy answers. i don’t know the book you refer to but i think the way many animals are raised for food is a huge part of the problem for me. intensive farming is cruel and strips our planet of dignity and resources. you could feed so many more people if we were all vegetarian. a recent study from your part of the world highlighted the huge impact on our planet of beef production in particular. this article refers to it:
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-up-beef-reduce-carbon-footprint-more-than-cars

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  30. grace Avatar

    i might be stuck here, on this day for a little while. I realize
    that i am no further ahead than i was last year. Just now, this
    baby Nogal who is ONE now, had a confrontation with Sunny Ray.
    There was a shrill noise, then again and i went running…like maybe
    20 minutes ago, and thinking someone had really gotten hurt, i
    see “little” Nogal and 2 year old Sunny Ray just standing there,
    Facing. Nogal is beginning to challenge. All this is not easy
    for me. But you either don’t have Goats or you find a way to live
    with it. As i said, i will be here, on this day, for a while.

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  31. mimmin Avatar
    mimmin

    oh dear, goat nonsense, poor you
    i just have four-cat nonsense instead. they are all from the same litter but you wouldn’t believe the carry on!

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