windthread

i wanted to say more, show more.  but i am depleted in the moment.  except to put this here:

this is one of the last "dolls" i made.  in a certain way, she was Half Hearted.  but when i went up the mountain today to my friend's home,  where this doll resides, and saw her there on the wall, in this very quiet beautiful home,  i was flooded with …..flooded with a very very quiet joy.  Look.  another flag.  another being with a Flag.  just as the being on the Luring of Crows is.  with a Flag.  to be honest,  i'd forgotten.  i'd forgotten this doll.  i'd forgotten that i had given her to my friend.

How could i have forgotten?

but i do.  what is past often times is just Gone to me.  is that a fault?  or a good sign?  i don't know.  but i will put more here tomorrow and for now just let it all go into the night.

 

ok.

the weather couldn't have been better.  highs around 60, lows in the 20's.  Sun shine.  and the first part of the week i figured out how to deal with the Goat feed issue.  Arranged to buy good grass hay (for a dollar more! than the alfalfa was) and researched to see if the addition of goat pellet feed (and how much) and free choice minerals (and how much) would work.  i think we are going to be ok.  what they Will miss is the crunchiness of the alfalfa stems.  Remember, goats are browsers…like deer.  they need crunch.  twigs,  crispy things.  So to compensate for that,  i will need to scrounge downed cottonwood branches in the bosque…along the river.  There.  ok then.  But, this is even More of a commitment.  so i thought it is time to really take a long look at it all.  So i went back to an old "practice" i used to use a lot, but haven't for years.  I sit, as long as it takes, as many "sessions" as it takes and "open" to visualizing my life as a Story.  a novel.  with a central character who is someone a lot like me.  and i watch the story play out….beginning always at the beginning and going through all the stages, the chapters so far.  And the trickiest part is when i reach the present.  How do i see "her" going forward?  What is next for "her"?  and i realized that this novel of mine probably could be said to be in Three Parts.  Birth to young adulthood.  Young adulthood through say maybe mid 40's to the ……………present.  and now, here i am at Part III.   it would be a blank page in the book, with only the black type:  Part III.  So…what's next? 

and what i kept coming back to, of all the possibilities,  was:  keeping goats.  Learning goats.  Learning to make food by keeping goats.   And  growing food.  storing food that is grown, which i've done a lot of in the past but not for the last 2 or 3 years.  And,   ~Cloth~.  

These three things. 

so for 2 days,  i practiced a Perfect Day that included these three things.  and the days Were, yes,  Perfect.   so…i have decided.  done deal.  this of course takes into account the occurance of the Unforseen…."you never know", as the main character in Arundhati Roy's beautiful book, The God of Small Things says.  "You never know.  it's best to be prepared".  and i think for me, the way to be prepared is to always remember that "you never know".

i spent a lot of hours working with the composting of the raised beds:

from just outside the doe fencing

it's already decomposing

the looooong compost bed.  nothing will be planted here.  it's just for making compost.   6×30 ft.

a small space, for climbing beans  8×3 ft

just to the right of the one before, the corner that begins the strip along the house.  shaded, wetter.

more along the house.  again, shaded, wetter by nature.

raised bed.  20×6 ft  right now filled with a few mouldy bales of alfalfa in addition to the manure.

new experimental cold frame

raised bed along the West house yard fence  12 x 4ft

the long strip along the outside of the house yard  3×40 ft.  something there that the goats wouldn't be interested in…maybe onions?  used to be tomatoes.  tomatoe plants are toxic for goats.

and on the floor…a scrap smaller than the size of a dime, but the Perfect scrap for a clump of grass for she who lures crows.

and then…the Unforseen:

so…typepad didn't want to let me reduce size of these pics tonight.  and so it goes.

 

 

 

 

it changes.  Luring Crows

it's dark.  it's quiet out there for the first time in hours and hours.  how they have settled things i don't know.  and there is an urge to go look,  take the flashlight and look.  but there's no point.  there would be nothing i could do.  it's cold.  these days till Tuesday, according to accuweather are the coldest, then we begin the upswing.  Till Tuesday.  Cold.  And just before i came in, i see that Just Going has a bloody head.  this would be from being butted by Arctica, Buckwheat's sister.  the only doe with horns.  but it had congealed.  ok.  and  did the does agree that all could sleep inside on the straw, out of the wind?  i don't know.  and Buckwheat,  is he ok alone?  and Just Going again…Lucky Star is her mother.  she still nurses.  how will this go?  and the daughter.  what is She thinking tonight?  how does this world look inside her head right now?  and then…there's me.  who thinks too much.  who wants everyone and everything to be ok and once again, oh once again, learning the lesson of just going.  learning the lesson of not knowing anything at all, really, unless the choice would be to repeat each day in replication of the one before.  and i've never been able to do that. 

and yesterday, Kenny, the alfalfa grower who i get my feed from told me that it's "over".  He has sold all his alfalfa to 2 cattle ranchers from Texas.  semi trucks full.  that today he would load the final bales.  i buy 6 bales a week.  that means 100 bales till first cut in May.  he said he would count, and if he could, save me those 100 bales.  he would let me know.  no word yet.

i am restless.  needed to add this…..

Mo's hope.

 

this is a Journal Page.

i was going to just write.  no pics.  but then…here.  Buckwheat in June.

here he is.  still innocent.  still clean.  still fluffy.  the ensueing 6 months have changed him.   he is now rough looking.  thicker, yellower from perfuming himself with his own urine for 6 months.  he is a bully.  but then, someone always is in buck world. 

and today was a Great day for him because Lucky Star was HOT.  she was in the back doe pen,  that is directly across from the buck pen, moaning, calling, begging.  there was tension in the buck pen  with displays galore and at one point,  old Gideon fell flat on his side from his efforts.  and not being able to stop, i worried about Buckwheat's horns.  Sunny Ray challenges him more and more.  Sometimes it's just a whirl out there of buck dance and already,  Tenzen had a bloody face.

also…last week the incommunicado (over 2 months) daughter showed up.  talking Some of things.  she was here a few hours for that talking and then left, as deftly as she had arrived leaving many questions floating.  and i woke in the middle of the night to the oh so crystal clear realization that she had been wearing her "good" jacket and the one the butterfly pin is on.  Not…a goat coat.  oh.  that was a clue right there but it took over a week for me to "see" it.  anyway, at least there was a little goat Talk.  me saying this is the LAST month to breed and asking who to who…her answer was Buckwheat to anyone i might want to milk and then, when we have "used" him, sell him.  He is beautiful and  from a very deliberate breeding.  He will be a fine "only" buck for someone because of his horns.  he was born right within days of her arriving in California and she could find no one, in time, to disbud him. 

Everything is so heavily weighed by ….timing.

So, Lucky Star in heat.  Buckwheat needing to go, a danger to three others.  ok.  and here i am.  how to do this.  to do things with 2 individual goats,  and a buck and a doe in heat, is tricky at best.  the entire herd views these things as a free for all, a communal act with everyone whirring around and enjoying themselves.  but no.  So many small steps.  close the door to the inside of that pen's access to the big doe shed.  close off that far doe pen's access to the corridor that runs behind the shed to the first pen and this involves dragging the truck panel in there and figuring out how to secure it which involved a LOT.  that done,  connect some of the heavy fencing to the outside of the buck pen and pull it across and secure it in the other side.  not easy.  done.  in to the first doe pen and block off the access to the corridor…hard, all 12 of the does wanting to squeeze back and forth.  done.  Lucky is in the back pen now, alone.  waiting, moaning.  Lure Buckwheat out of the buck pen while keeping the other 3 in.  not easy.  Buckwheat is wary but Lucky Star's soft voice works in my behalf.  OUT!…  Open the door to back doe pen, let Lucky stick her head out till he understands he can go In there.  IN!  tie gate.  tie fake gate.  DONE!!  sorta.  So….Lucky does all the things a doe should do and after about an hour of Buckwheat preening and muttering buckly things i give up watching and go split wood, roll baling wire,  just listening.  and by 4 oclock its getting cold and dim and all the rest are miserable at being left out and hungry.  so, it's done.   find the collar and lead, undo the fake fence, go in that pen and bring Lucky out.  tie that pen shut, being sure top and bottom all the while hanging on to Lucky Star who wants to go home. 

and now it's almost dark.  Buckwheat is alone in his honeymoon pen.  the other 3 bucks are lonely for him.  the does all are chasing eachother around being mean because of the tension of the day and especially to Lucky Star because she smells.

So, i don't know.

I really don't know.  but something got done that needed to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

so, i cleaned my own house today.   finally looking UP,  i was surprised by the cob webs.   surprised by how i don't notice them at all,  for months, i guess.

just inside the door is this.  it's a Tshirt cut and put in the frame.  some of you might recognize the image.   i used to threaten my son that i would do the same to him.  then some years later he bought me this Tshirt when we were at the Flea Market in Albuquerque.  i wore all of it out except for this much and at that point, framed it.   today i vacuumed it.  dusted the frame.

BEAUTY has arrived in the Pomegranate Pot

and then,  Julie,  from Jude's Spirit Diaries was determined.  She thought i needed this, from her trip to Dead Horse Bay in Brooklyn

i said i thought just a print of it from her printer would be good.  but she said no…. and yesterday, She arrived. 

i pinned Her on the West Window Just Looking Curtain…where things can be in all manner of light.  and Lo and Behold….what do i see here?  a Moth.

and following Jude's changes,  i take this, at the end of this day,  this once spartan space.  but i smile.

this is why i so much don't like leaving for work…i am on a roll here.  i had the feeling that making these "small cloths" would have important things to teach me and it seems to be so….

we'll jump to the chase:

you can see where i have cut the base cloth and wanted to WEAVE in the strips.  well, i did that and it was NOT right.  I WANTED to weave in the strips but it was ….interrupted.   so.  pulled them OUT.   Now What?

What i am needing to make here is a cloth called  "Luring Crows".  that's the only thing for sure.  a cloth called   "Luring Crows".   but i can't do it so far.

so in a day that really was a very good day because the buck pen got  work done on it so if there is snow and freezing rain, they have an option…..whether they in their own thinking Choose to take advantage of that option or not???????   It IS there.  and i can know i have done the best I can.  They were very polite and accomodating during the rennovation today.  i think it was because there was Bill, who i work for, but who is somehow karmically related, him…..a male person?  and also the whirring of electrical tools.  a sawzall and electric drill.   Whatever, they maintained their distance and didn't snort and spit and push and mouth my hazmat outfit as they do when i am alone with them.  i spent small moments now and then just petting Sunny Ray who responded with  Love and tenderness.  Gideon was manly as was Tenzen.  Buckwheat kept great distance from all the Unfamiliar.  but in the end,  if it rains freezing drops,  if it snows sleet,  they have a place that will be dry and has bedding straw, large enough for all of them if Their own Rules allow it.  i have done my best.

and then,  i plopped the skins from a pomegranate in the copper pot.  i gave the second one to my neighbor asking that she give me the skin.

that's it for now about this.

Nothing is pretty in this moment.  Everything feels very Ify and Unknown and partly because it's January and partly because it IS ify and unknown.

I am dreaming more vividly than usual.  and usual is bad enough.  i dreamed 2 nights ago about the old house on Spring St.  in Ann Arbor Michigan…that old stone basement there and the repetitive dream back yard that i don't know but is often attached to the Spring St house in the dreams.  and there were people and they had dogs and i won't go into those details but it ended with realizing that their dogs had somehow gotten in and were chasing the goats and running down next to me was one of the goats and i saw her eye..left eye and she was terrified and had that "look" that goats get  and i felt her head and it was wet and warm and i thought it was blood, but it actually wasn't, it was just dog spit and mud…she was ok…but i saw her eye and i saw her mouth, how they pant, and what has stuck with me about this dream is that i know that i would do ANYTHING.  ANYTHING for these goats.