looking this morning at the Wall, thinking how much i have loved looking at these four Cloths there, with Small Joys and 7 Crows and 7 Goats so close to ready to Go, i got ready for a Field Trip for Julie of Threading the Dog.
i loaded the transport crate and set out to Dog Trainer Jan's house where TenZen has been for just short of a month. This is where i turn. You can Google Quebradas Backcountry Byway and read the BLM site. This is where it begins on this end. It is extraOrdinary country. Wild, once you get into it. It's where there is a herd of Mustangs still. It's where i have seen pairs of Eagles. Wild. Once into it, there is NO sense at all of human beings. Nothing. It is Pure. She lives on the road that goes Into it.
along the road, the view to the West extends across the Rio Grande. Soon, that bosque will be green with the Cottonwood and River Willow.
to the East and into Quebradas is desert scrub. The only water there is that which falls from the Sky.
this is just inside Jan's gate. It's a Cottonwood and Salt Cedar Forest. She has a lot of land. I forget how much, 20 acres at least maybe 40. This is a place i might have chosen to live, if I'd known I could at the time, but I didn't, and so I don't.
it's a long way In. When she knows you are coming, she goes out to unlock the Pipe Gate at the road and leave the chain on it with a dummy lock. When you get there, you get out and open the gate and close it behind you.
all this will be Green soon. I'll come back when it is and take pics. Everytime i have an exchange with her now, i learn a new "fact". Last time i learned that she came from the City. This time i learned that she has been here 7 years. As a reminder, she is maybe somewhere in her early 40's i'm guessing. This is her solitary world. Sort of.
these are her meat sheep. I should have thought to look at their formal name, but i didn't.
these sheep SHED their wool. Less than Wool Sheep, but wool nonetheless. You can see this happening on the body to the left. As the sheep lamb, they will go into what is called lambing jugs, small spaces so they can bond. Today she said it's the easiest time to comb off the wool and i am welcome to it. She used to spin. She used to make Felt. It was part of her Dream but not now. She makes her living as a paralegal in Albuquerque. Things did not go exactly as she hoped so she has adjusted the hope and is Just Going.
This is Nougat. A Saanen/Nigerian cross
This is Joey her Nigerian. Who is continuing to give milk into the second year after breeding.
These are Joey's junior does. A year old. the brown one is Spice and i don't remember the name of the little light colored doe. Nougat, Joey, and the little does were TenZen's paramours for almost a month. The young ones might not have been "ready". Maybe, but who knows. Nougat is TALL..? Joey was ripe. So now we wait. Watch. Wait.
She had TenZen in one of the lambing jugs when i got there. Had used her youngest dog to accomplish that and said the dog did very well and she is always now quietly suggesting training Tay to work the Goats. Pointing out how a dog is better than another person. I listened.
So, i put the lasso on TenZen and we cajoled him to the truck and the transport crate which he hopped into with no comotion. She followed me home and we came in to the yard, leaving the truck outside, let Tay greet her in her more subdued frenzy and then asked Tay to "Gate". Which means She goes to where the long lead is tied to the Middle Pen, gets attached and Stays while the big gate is opened and the truck can back in. Tay stayed OUT today for all this, to watch. She did very well. In the past i've put her inside the house in her own house inside the house, the dog crate but today i wanted her to Watch. Perfect. Once the truck was in, Jan and i lifted the crate out and then opened it…TenZen still with the lasso and i opened the gate to that buck yard where Nogal was watching from a distance away and after a moment or two, TenZen came out of the crate and into the yard. Lasso off and he was
HOME.
Home after almost a month. Stinking of her doe goats. And maybe potential comotion for Nogal. But NOT. NOT AT ALL. They smelled each other and Tenzen checked all the feed bowls, all his best itching spots and then went into the little shelter and layed down. Nogal, who has been lonely all this time, checked him several times. And went about his own day. It was Soft. It was just so much OK. What might have been difficult between two buck goats as people constantly say, WAS NOT. Tenzen was glad to be Home. Nogal was glad that his Friend was back. Stuff was good.
Stuff was Good.
and not long into this, i got a call from the Best Nurse Cindy from the ReHab place in Albuquerque, and i'd not put this here because it was just TOO MUCH but just a week ago, Best Nurse Cindy had been taken by ambulance from her home in Mountainair to Albuquerque. A massive brain bleed. The EMS people were unsure they could get her there in time. But they did and this afternoon she called me. She called me with a crevise in her skull that they cut to release the bleed and she is in rehab and her speech is a little sloppy but her MIND is functioning as it always is and she is trucking around with a walker and expects to be back HOME in the not too distant future and i
sat.
After it was all said and done. I sat. I sat inside Gladness. That even for just This Single Day, stuff is OK. Everything is OK. Maybe not forever, but this one single day was Elegant and Good and OK. And i was so so gratefull.
windthread 
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