Last January was rocky, and regularly unpleasant.  The start of 2012, by comparison has been as light and easy as the fluffy sheep who are my temporary charges.

Our family has taken up with the Bourgeois, who own Philosopher’s Wool in beautiful Inverhuron.  We are farm sitting while they take some time to themselves to travel.  We are staying in the Guest House, an incredibly beautiful structure, which has in floor heat (practically heaven) and character pouring out of every beam and nook.  The children have learned how to weave on looms, I am learning to knit again and am working on mastering the art of sock darning.   Life, despite having two houses to mind, is radically simple.

When they have been home, our hosts have been an inspiration, a source of guidance and a huge support.  Ann and Eugene are in Costa Rica at present and my kids (and I) are wondering WHEN, OH WHEN are they going to come back.

We are here until about March, and are taking advantage of this little adventure to purge at the Duncan Farm, and do some light renos.  Seeing as we moved The Essentials into the Guest House, that what remains at the Duncan Farm is largely expendable.  I am hoping to move home to a simplified home, which will be easier for me to tend to.

We learned a big lesson in 2011, in business that bigger is not always better.  I have taken that to heart.  I need to tend the family, friendships, the flock, the farm and the finances in a more focused and specific way.  I need to continue to chase after personal happiness, and not worry about those who are on a different bend.

Seed catalogues have arrived and I am beginning to plan 2012′s garden.  Bob is burning through his grade 1 curriculum and Mags is reading already.  I am lounging on luxurious woolens, keeping an eye on the children and the chicken coop and am being reminded regularly what a hunk of a husband I have.

Right here, right now.

Scott and I are heading out tonight to eat, drink and be merry at a local single malt tasting.  I don’t taste, I sniff, and Scott gets all the spoils.  Our table will be filled with friends, and there is no malaise that cannot be cured by a nice warm plate of haggis, neeps and tatties.  Every time I watch my tartaned husband give the address to the haggis, I fall in love with him just a little bit more.

I plan on wearing this green dress, which last accompanied me to Montreal.

I hope your dinner will be as enjoyed as mine.

We canoed lots, but never enough:

Scott also got to join Tim and the Cut Down Crew on a hunting excursion.  Our shed is stocked with decoys and our house has been a continual honk-a-thon.  I wonder if this will be like bagpipes, if it will sound better with practice?  The children have sure found an effective way to get us out of bed.

Can I be a big weenie for a minute?  I need to talk about hair.  I’ve got an appointment to get my hair done next Friday.  Cut, colour.  I really enjoyed 5 years of being dye free and while there is something endearing about having your honey help cut your hair, I am looking forward to a fresh look for fall.  I am still enjoying my sidecut, even though I lost count of how many women had sidecuts in Montreal.   I am leaning towards ombre highlights, though I am sensing I may be arriving late to that trend too.  It was Yolandi’s hair (the one with the rats) that originally inspired my Amish bowl cut last summer, and while I love that white blonde I know I can’t handle the maintenance.  But a girl can dream…

Which of these pictures should I bring to the hair salon with me?

Delicious dinners at the Harbour Street Brasserie, where we get to play dress up like adults and enjoy perfection on a plate.

Tiring out the children with sunshine.  Happiness induced exhaustion.

Paddling in our Bananas Gorilla Mobile.  (The canoe is bright yellow).  I LOVE Lake Huron.

In other news, my parents are putting their awesome house back on the market.   If I had to live in town, I would live there in a minute.  It’s right on the lake, you could keep some chickens if you wanted, the lot is absolutely private and really big.

We’ve had lots of visitors lately, which has been wonderful.  This spring was really shit terrible in the morale department, having been made quite the fool of repeatedly  by people I thought were friends.   It has been hard to digest how desperate I was for comraderie.  Was I really that lonely?  Naive?  I realized I expect people not to like ME, but to BE like me; if I have a problem I am quick to flush it out.  But assuming makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’ now, doesn’t it.

I have reconnected with old friends and made new friends this summer and it has been a very pleasant and rejuvenating experience.   We have continued to foster some wonderful relationships that I could not be happier about.  Bob and Maggie have been adopted by yet another set of grandparents, the love is multiplying.  Such a beautiful thing.

After nearly 5 years of babies and breastfeeding, I am settling back into my body, gaining independence from the children and rekindling the homestead fires too.   I am a very lucky woman.

[Sweaters courtesy of Philosopher's Wool]

I posted this on my Facebook page already, so this may be redundant for some.  For the rest, the following highlights the low points of my week last week, starting on Monday.  My apologies in advance to those with rural stars in their eyes.

“Bad week to be a chicken on the Duncan Farm.  Cooked 10+ birds alive in the brooder on Monday when the door swung shut.  (This is one of the reasons I basically don’t leave once the babies come until they are in the freezer).  Lost one each day since to predator trying to pull them THROUGH the hardware cloth (it ain’t happening…) or under the big tractor. Had to mercy kill the survivors.  Before having my morning tea, which is plainly unfair.  (One had no wing, the other no leg, it’s not even like the chick hardly notices, but we still kill them). Last night was cold so I guess the chicks had a pile up and I found one flattened one this morning. Cleaning up corpses every single day this week.
During epic lawn mowing (it takes nearly 8 hours to mow our lawn, which is a necessity as most of it is nettle, thistle and other growths with hypodermic foliage) I paused for a minute to notice Alva (the goat) with her head stuck between the fencing gates (she had tiptoed up a swiveling latch inside, which she had kicked down in the process). Dangling from her throat, literally choking to death in front of me. Couldn’t open it any further, had to cram my hand through the fence to lift her up (she’s heavier than you’d think, esp with 1 hand) and over the chain holding the gate shut.

Goats also escaped 2x this week. This is because as animals with hidden thumbs, goats are agents of Satan.  This is because if your fence won’t hold water, it won’t hold a goat.  In conclusion: if you have no trouble, buy a goat.

Dog has had violent runny poo and vomiting all week. Every day this week we have cleaned liquid shit off the floor. She presses her ass against the crate door at night and it unleashes in a 2-3′ span.  This is because the dog has been following the chicken tractor around as they are now out of the brooder.  Instead of eating the shit from the 5 chickens in the layer tractor, she is now cleaning up after 80 birds.  The dog is spraying chicken shit out of her orifices.

Treating Cindy Ray (goat) topically now that the weather is nicer. Had her quarantined in one half of the goat shed for the beginning of the week because I didn’t want her mother licking off the medicine. Let her out last night (her mother has been BAWLING at the door for her) and Suki (her mom) now does not recognize her because she smells different and is beating the shit out of this poor little baby.”

It is now Wednesday, and the weekend and this week have started out just ducky.  Except tonight I noticed for the first time that I have slugs all over my garden and they are very hungry little fuckers.  It is no wonder  because in between the raised beds, the stagnant water goes well up mid calf and the sections of the bed that are unraised grab your heels and suck your footwear off in a single step.  Thankfully Detective Bob has been put to work, seeking out the culprits and crushing them.  It is remarkable how much more help they are this year.  I can’t believe I have planted entire gardens with them as infants strapped to my body in various papooses.  Now they are planting seeds and transplants, helping weed and pick slugs.  Unreal.

On a different note, I’m about to get into bed.  I’m wearing a cloth menstrual pad the size of a throw pillow, a Diva cup and I’ve laid out a black towel, which will be used.  I was just made aware of uterine ablation… is it entirely insane that I am giving thought to this option?  I just can’t imagine doing this monthly for 20 more years.  It’s feels like insult to injury now that we are done having children.  I’ve got no hippy love for my cycle left in my body.

Input welcomed.

2011′s baby chicks are doing great, they just arrived. They have their own dedicated shed this year, which is working beautifully.  I am SO pleased with the set up, as the shed contains enough floor space for them and for feed storage as it is divided in half.

Our Amish neighbours, who do not have the ease of using heat lamps (no electricity) have rigged up a propane heated halved oil drum for their chicks, and so far so good.  Much nicer than having them in the kitchen by the wood stove, as was done before.

Really savouring every second of their fleeting cuteness.  (And I’ve booked them in for processing already, not leaving it to the last minute this year, no sir!)

Thank you, honey.

Come. On. Spring.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Nothing is different.  I’m just one year closer.  Each day feels like one day closer, this is just another mark of time passing.  Nothing spectacular.  Just another year of my life, gone.

If we are ever on a plane together, and it’s “going down”, like in the movies, and there’s this calm passenger just sipping their complimentary water, who clearly has accepted their fate…. well.  That won’t be me.  I’ll be the one you want to flog during descent, the one screaming hysterically “I’m not ready to die!  This is NOT the time!”

Part of me is terrified because how do you really know what is going to happen when you die?  As much as I used to enjoy a good party, I wouldn’t like to hang in hell, and reincarnation is about as appealing as an eternity of perpetual pap smears.  (ie. Let’s just get THIS ONE over with…)

I have participated in many religious and spiritual rituals.  I have bounded around a Maypole, lit my menorah and sat in the United Church listening to the meditative speaking of whoever that guy is who stands upfront.  I believe in something greater than myself because that was a revelation that I did actually have once.  It was when I was “Working the Program”.  I found “God As You Have Come To Know Him” (I think this is like “He Who Shall Not Be Named”) driving up and down the concession roads. I knew I needed to find something that could save me, that could help me save myself.  Something that would always be there, something both infinite and finite.  That something was pasture.  Dirt.  Both a speck of soil and a layer of life underneath all of us.

It worked.  It got me through the program.  I feel it, I’ve got it, I’m living it.  Except in the end, it all just returns to the soil.  The answer to The Big Question for me is “COMPOST”.  Terrific.  Nice going.

I’m also terrified of dying because I want it ALL.  I don’t want to miss anything.  Not only did I break a bad cycle, I bought 50 acres of my own personal salvation.  I have the most wonderful children, a husband I adore.  The idea of being separated from them, of being unable to help them, makes me feel ill.

I know there is plenty of life I cannot help with.  That should be, and is, beyond control.

I now WORRY.  I am often worried.  Not paralyzingly so, but pretty darn fraught.    I have never hated winter driving as much as I do now.  Every drive into town must be shaving years off of my life in stress.  “Let go and let God”, eh?  We’ll see about that.

So, yeah.  My new addiction is love.  And it’s kicking my ass.