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today i ran out of steam

came back from Work Away,  took a nap,  went to Farmer's Market and the grocery to see if they had actually ordered the Sweet Thai Chili Sauce that they have been out of for 3 weeks now,  they hadn't.  Bummer and came home to find self just out of Energy.  

i imagine it's just a natural response to finally having Emrie born,  finally seeing that she is Fine,  that all systems are GO.  i imagine.

and thinking….if i would go out now,  or even an hour or so ago,  i am surrounded by Goat Yards and even tho i gave them their Grass Hay,  as usual,  they know that there is all that Kochia and they know that if they cry loud enough i will begin pulling it and give them some.  Tonight,  i didn't Have It In me.  

That's one of the things i am so so looking forward to about the Hill.  There is so much natural forage there.  Here,  they are completely dependent on me to bring food.   There,  the area that has been designated Goat Forest is brimming with browse.   They will continue to enjoy being given feed,  whether it's Grass Hay or Alfalfa,  not sure yet,  but probably Grass Hay,  ….in between those feedings,  they will be able to self feed.  So much more independent.  Ground cover,  twigs,  fallen tree branches….a whole world of stuff to eat.

and hopefully,  it will be self sustaining.  We'll see.  17 Goats can do a lot of browsing.

ADDENDUM:

it's very close to Dark.  The thing we call SKY is there…i stand and look and how many times have i shown You a pic of it…

it's like that again,  so infinite and Grand and well….

and i went out to pull the tarp down on the Alfalfa block and was greeted by Toads.  Cicaida have begun….that one single noted song and i realized too that it is now August…the difficult month for me…since childhood.  and here it is again.

 

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32 responses to “today i ran out of steam”

  1. joanne Avatar
    joanne

    Grace, I am new to your blog–only a few months. what do you do with the goats?
    To you milk them and make cheese–I haven’t ever read that you do it but perhaps?
    I know that people in Maine (where I live) raise goats for meat, milk and cheese. But I don’t know of anyone who just has goats and spends so much time caring for them and feeding them as you do. I hope this isn’t an uncomfortable question to ask.

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  2. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    (((Grace))) how many acres on The Hill will be available for goat browsing?

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  3. grace Avatar
    grace

    no…, Joanne, not an uncomfortable question to ask and really a PERFECT
    question to ask on a perfect day for asking. August 1.
    it actually makes me cry.
    What do i do with the Goats?
    The Goats began with my daughter 6 or 7 years ago when things for her were
    very different, when she was living here in N Mex, began with her buying a place where she brought 2, SnowBunny and Daffodil, she thought to clear the weeds, she thought, but then it all went from there. Her marriage was falling apart and she sought solace with the Goats and somehow began creating a herd ….they are very deliberately bred Nigerian Dwart Dairy Goats, and found Joy in that.
    ok. perfect. i have to slow down now. ok.
    she educated herself and worked to create an exemplary herd which she did. I was a sometime part of that, living 70 miles from her but still, going often enough to be a part of it. Through her i learned. and then things fell apart. She hauled them to California where her daughter Alyssia was, to create distance from the marriage, the person. There was a family intervention for that. Big. Got Done. But the job there didn’t come through and it fell apart again. I drove there and we brought the Goats
    HERE, temporarily…what has turned out to be 5 years. The first spring they were here, after an unplanned buck insurrection, when all the does that could be bred were, that first spring in had them, there were 17
    kids born. (o…eeee 17…!) i got through that. keeping a very few
    “for the herd”….that are still here, and finding places for the rest, which i found self ill-suited for. No less than adopting out human children. I worked to be better at it and the second year they were here, deliberately bred two does and sold and gave away some of the kids…this being no less easy the second time around. And i milked. i made cheese. it was Grand and GREAT cheese but at the same time, the person who i was committed to doing home care for began to going down hill.
    There’s hours of stuff to write about all this, but reality was i couldn’t do it all. During that time i fell in love with making Cloth….through Spirit Cloth…Jude Hill…..and i couldn’t make Everything work. it was too much. So i have not bred them since then. Some, have never been bred. It might be too late. But what i DID do is KEEP them. as in Holding. as in Holding the dream of my daughter that i would have NEVER IMAGINED she would have. Everyone said she would never come back for them. That it made no sense. but i kept saying she would.
    but really, it DIDN”T make sense.
    but i have kept US.
    Kept us.
    and when it became possible, they Did buy that land in California, that Hill. My Daughter and my Granddaughter Alyssia who has just had our 4th
    generation, Emrie.
    and
    and
    somehow. Somehow….because of the Goat Dream, we will all be there. It is a mandala. At the center is the Goats. streaming out are women and children. it’s small and it’s HUGE…..Deep…and goes way way IN to something that i can’t even know….for sure…
    Once we get there, we will breed Nogal and Sunny Ray to specific does and we will go forward. We have now, an incredible herd of dairy goats…we will go forward. Jenny, my daughter is so much more capable of being practical about it all. We will make cheese. Emrie will drink their milk
    after her mother’s milk.
    pause. think….
    the Goats. the Goats are the CENTER of the Mandala. How did this happen? i don’t know. But the Goats are what have woven me and my daughter and her daughter and her daughter into something that has Meaning in this world that is in such disarray and they give us our center point for going forward into a future that is unsure. But GOATS….how they are, teach.
    Goats are primal and also perfect. I have learned beyond learning by living with them, i feel so much gratitude.
    i spent so much time caring for them because for me, they were what my daughter chose to love and love endlessly. i spent so much time caring for them because it was amazing that she chose Goats…who would have guessed? Goats could become our common denominator ….me her…who would have ever guessed?????but we found it and it will be what makes us SOLID as we go forward with these beings that are New Born, entering a
    world that is so full of Question. Trying to understand how to live, how to live with small beings who are just beginning here.
    so…this much and i will continue to love your question and it will continue to be answered…so GREAT and really beauty FULL that you asked and i am thankfull to you for it and for showing up here in this first day of August, 2017
    MUCH, MUCH love to you

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  4. Michelle in NYC Avatar
    Michelle in NYC

    My Grace–it was so good to read it all condensed and complete again in that comment to Joanne!
    Perhaps no one told you that it is traditional, a Planetary Holiday, to celebrate nothing on the very first day of each month:–>

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  5. Hazel Avatar
    Hazel

    Reading your reply to Joanne. Remembering when it all was beginning. Remembering you on that ladder weaving the daughter cloth. ALL of This, is a weaving of your love, and believing, and care-taking of your/her goats, of her, of the you of all of you. It’s just the Grandest thing. I love remembering it, have loved witnessing it from afar. Love to the holding of all of you.

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  6. yvette Avatar
    yvette

    wonders of goatbeings, generations with you in the midst, keeping things together through the goats, with the goats, Tay, toads and togetherness of us al who circle around Jude….ragmates
    dagdag

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  7. jude Avatar
    jude

    steam ran short here for a few days. cicadas here too and squirrels are gathering. it seems a season of many seasons.

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  8. Carolyn Petersen Avatar
    Carolyn Petersen

    Grace…………….. wow, Just wow.

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  9. joanne Avatar
    joanne

    Thank you Grace. Now I understand and can share in the love you are “keeping” and “holding”. There are things from my beloved grandmother that my daughter asked to keep. So I know how that goes. How it makes one feel to know those things are kept and passed along–with love.

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  10. Linda Avatar
    Linda

    In Southern Illinois we called cicadas dry flies. My dad said when you first hear them, there will be frost in 30 days.
    I was just in Provence where cicadas make so much racket all summer. They have little things that tourists buy that sound like them.
    We don’t have them here in Washington that I remember … maybe… so I liked them in France.
    I also liked the recap of the last few years. We have all read and watched and learned about goats too.
    Life continues on..

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  11. Peggy McG Avatar
    Peggy McG

    Love how your story resonates within your cloths. And soon energies will be merging on the hill.

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  12. Tina Avatar
    Tina

    I never get tired of hearing your story …. always filled with the love you have for your family .. your goats. Always filled with the love you have for all of us that look forward always to our daily visits … it is a love that keeps growing and never stops giving.

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  13. annalisa sorensen Avatar
    annalisa sorensen

    I saw this today and thought of you!
    http://rentagoat.com/

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  14. ali Avatar
    ali

    Love the story of how the goats came to be with you, and became the centre of everything, and how all that is going forward and will change to become something else,but part of the whole. Love to you Grace

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  15. Deb Avatar
    Deb

    Cicadas serenaded me while I drifted in the pool yesterday. Each time I told myself it was time to get out, they said, “Staaaaaaaay” fading off to a whisper. August is my magical month. Fires are always high. I am a self separate from the other eleven moons. Things happen.
    Here and there I read about people renting out herds of goats to clear property. The shepherd brings them and stays until the job is done.
    “While the cicadas are chewing the air
    with their threats,
    and the sweat rolls sweet,
    I think “All that’s not given is lost”
    and wished you could have seen
    how the flecks of gold
    stuck to my skin
    when the sand gave up
    and fell away.”

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  16. grace Avatar
    grace

    i read these words and turn my head from them, tilted up, to
    “hear” them, then i return and read them again and again
    there are so many reasons i love you, this will be added…
    “All that’s not given is lost”
    “All that’s not given is lost”
    again, and repeat

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  17. grace Avatar
    grace

    not sure the initial space, but it’s dense. and this is where their shelters will be. Once we are there, we can walk with
    them. The total space is almost 6 acres of trees and brush, a
    small amount down by the road where Alyssia’s house will be that’s native grass. So say 5 1/2 total for them to move through. We will continue with giving feed.

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  18. grace Avatar
    grace

    “perhaps no one told you”….i SMILE…NO!, no one has Ever
    told me…..
    this most joyous Planetary Holiday….to celebrate
    NOTHNG
    i love this so so much
    this will be one of the first things i Share as the Old Nana
    and her sister, Michelle in NYC

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  19. grace Avatar
    grace

    It was really, thinking again and more, it was really care taking of her and me. It wasn’t all easy, her and me. There were long spaces of Not Easy, but the Goats held us and hold us now and Will Hold Us
    Love to you, Hazel

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  20. grace Avatar
    grace

    yes…our nest….Jude….Spirit Cloth
    and we Go, holding each other, We GO

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  21. grace Avatar
    grace

    the cicadas…phonetically, che char trilledRas
    how they sing into our bodies

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  22. grace Avatar
    grace

    Carolyn…who was so at the center of Julian’s life before his own birth…and now, he, who has been so skeptical of sharing his
    mother…today he related that he’s sure of it. Sure, that
    Emrie likes him the most.

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  23. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    keeping is a huge thing, full, keeping

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  24. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    the Goats have so much to tell

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  25. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    soon…soon….the cicadas sing, SOON

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  26. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Tina…the reason you feel all this WhatEver as love is because
    of your Own Heart…

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  27. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    yes. Goats. they FIX the world

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  28. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    love back, Ali

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  29. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    that’s a good amount of land to look after, when I lived on the farm we had three electric fenced paddocks of app 1 acre each that were rotated every 6 months for the milking cow, creating a fire break for the house and giving the land a rest from the impact of browsing.

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  30. Dakotah Avatar
    Dakotah

    It is such a pleasure and gift to follow your life through this blog.

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  31. saskia Avatar
    saskia

    this is just so beautiful Deb, thank you for this

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  32. saskia Avatar
    saskia

    wonderful recap

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