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this morning. Looking at the wall.
and then...while trying to find something else, came across this piece of felted wool that my most LOVED friend, Marge made when she was in art school, before she died.
the basket with the undercoat of the Goats collected so far
Gifts. for Her.
Sky and Coral Berry trimmings in the copper pot
and it's Finished. anything Else would just be...well, stuff. The story is here. All the story. enough.
a Loving sky. a soft kiss on this land this evening.
*Potholder*
READY.
a heart shaped wasp nest for Jude.
and then, because her son is skiing in Utah, i went a third day this week to Alz B's. Music Thursday, which i miss anyway. but since i was Away today, i thought i would take a look back at the days because i want to just stitch tomorrow and Saturday. so i went to Archives and began, but quickly lost energy for it. So, instead i went to the Picasa pics file and looked at all the pics from 2013 there. These two...i was caught by...
i printed them out so i can put them on the Wall. so i can think about why out of a years pics, these two caught me.
and just moments ago, it was for sure that the angle of Light has Changed. yes. Spring tilt. and this morning Mockingbird was back.
and today, it remains GOOD. that shred that means Faith, caught in the Net. it's good.
it wasn't quite light yet but suddenly i did it.
a couple weeks ago i found this jacket at the Thrift Shop. it's SILK. well...the shell. the inside is that quilted liner common in work shirts. but it's really light weight and warm because of the silk and i can easily wear it under one of the hoodie sweatshirts for morning Goat things. BUT...it had a flaw. Shoulder pads of all things. bugged me. so this morning suddenly i took it off and made a surgical incision and removed the shoulder pads. and there they were. and THEN
looking at them on the table, thinking how dumb they are i had an IDEA. my hot pads in the kitchen are awful. old. greasy. stained. even when freshly washed, creepy. and so i tried the shape on a pan handle, on the handle of the water kettle.....YES. so i got a shirt from the cloth shelf and cut the shape stuffed the pad in and....ta da...tomorrow morning, just before dawn again, when it's not really light enough to sew...i'll finish. Funny....with all this stitching, it never occured to me to make a new hot pad.
Apricot again. in a few days She will be in full bloom. Just in time, most likely, for the March WIND to blow them all away. but in this moment, there is the chance they can Just Go.
treasures from yesterday. the sledgehammer/wedge is from the Old Cowboy. he talked all the time i was cleaning about how he will just begin falling apart now. Need to go live in the little basement room at his nephew Tim's. What would become of all his Stuff???? on and on and on. he kept saying that he wanted me to have whatever of his stuff i wanted, like the big dresser that was his Mother's (i don't want it), the dining room table and 4 chairs (i don't want them), etc. etc. etc. so finally, i went out to the laundry room where he had a bucket with this sledgehammer in it to prop the door open for his dog to go in and out...the dog he put down because she pee'd on the floor, and i brought it in and said THIS. i want THIS. and i do. i have admired it for years. i have the tops of many sledgehammers here...all with broken off handles. this one is one solid piece. it's GRAND.
and next to it is some rope that Owen wondered if i could think of something to use for..... said just leave it there...i don't know. he did.
and today, stitching, i kept wondering about that ..... Net. WHY is it a Net? What would this Net be .... for? how did it/does it relate to Seeing with Wild Eyes?
no answers.
but then, late in the day,
that Talisman, that i finally gave words to on January 19th, 2014, after so many years.... that Talisman of Faith. or, really, the Willingness for Faith. This cloth will not be my cloth. it will belong to someone else and so i can't know much about the Net. it is not my Net. but this, this Willingness for Faith might be anyone's i think. and it's made with a strand of that rope and thread. it's Good. and now, as Sun touches the Rim, it's IN the Net. o k.
where there was two trucks and a car, now space. and it somehow looks so much larger than ever before. Chinche was/is sad with Owen's leaving.
and over at Sprit Cloth, Jude said today:
" A storyteller can keep a good idea alive. Encourage its becoming".
And this is just exactly it. Am still in re-play mode with my VISIT. tomorrow when i can be home all day, it might settle . but it might take longer, too. it was a LOT. But i read Jude's words and thought, Yes. Yes. And i thought..yes. We told eachother stories. Owen, Rory, Zarina and me. We told stories of our lives. that's how we told Who and What we are, by telling stories. it was the form of the Exchange. and by doing this, i am now a part of their stories as they are a part of mine. As we all go On, we will tell this WeavingIn too, how it was.
and the stories are so beautifully what they are. When Owen was packing and repacking his belongings in his truck, which included two large tubs of Stuff he realized he no longer wanted, among it all was a fan. the fan kept making me smile as it went into the truck and out. back in. this morning as he was ready to go out of the gate, i said...so....what's the deal with that fan? and he said he really didn't know. Did i want it? and i said no, but then remembered, and asked if it was an oscillating fan and if that function worked. Yes it was and yes it worked. so i said...ok. mine doesn't oscillate anymore and i miss the sound. So he handed it to me and looked directly in my face and said, " Think of me every time you hear the sound." and i am thinking about that thread of the Story right now, as Sun heads for the Rim. How i will forevermore think of Owen when the fan sings it's movement right to left. It's woven in. It's part of my story now, that Giving. Part of his. How he brought along a fan just because and gave it to an old Goat woman who fed him spagetti.
Nice, huh.
it was a Work Away day. but before i left i looked at this pile of tree trimmings that has been in front of the Way Back double gate for a year. i had thought it was a brilliant idea to ask the tree trimming guy to drop off some of the branches for the Goats. the key word was ....some. He dropped a whole trailer load. and they have for the most part Sat there. first, they might be a fire hazzard. and second there were a LOT. i have asked over the months, various people who come by here in trucks if they or any one they knew might be interested in loading them up and taking them to the landfill. Nope. So they have sat. i realized i would need to do it myself, but it never seemed to rise upward on the Priority List, even tho i have been unable to use that gate all this time. and even tho i am a fire hazzard worrier.
so i though, OK. Owen and i could do it. cool. but somewhere during the night those words from the Permaculture book arose. Hugulkultur. YES! so before i left this morning, i showed Owen what i was thinking. showed him the pile. told him i'd be back y 2:00 at the latest and help. and Lo and Behold.....
when i arrived home, here they were. a WEALTH of Hugulkultur material and out back?...not a single twig. all raked and perfect.
and then we moved some stuff that i have wanted to move forever. and we hauled in and stacked pallets in the Buck Pen. and then we made and ate a spagetti dinner again and talk. Earnestly and with thought about many things.
and then Owen organized his stuff. again. and i did the small things i do in the evening and tomorrow he Sets Out Again. and i will RePlay it all in my head.
Thanks, Julie. Thank You so so much.
the apricot tree is developing blooms
the Net.
more small stitching....that grey and white...Weather...., the Crows are crow enough. and i think, late in the day that the diamond in the center needs to come off. i see that that vertical gauzy center scrap is a Net. i didn't know before. a Net.
it's over. i have watched constantly today, wanting to learn as much as i can. Watched from Out there and from inside, through the window. Just now, going out to take these pics, they all look up like....."yes?" it's done. Onday may be relentless, but she is effective. Today everyone has a place. They are a Herd again.
it's really so touching to watch the two young ones making their way in the Whole. how capable they are, how smart. and interestingly enough, Celia, Lucky Star's current baby is very interested in bonding with Just Going, Lucky's baby from the last kidding. how she pursues her, engages her.
this is Lucky Star. June 16, 2013
This herd really belongs to my daughter. She began with Snowbunny and another doe Daffodil i think in 2009. The herd name is Crazy Wisdom which came from one of the Teachings of Chogyam Trungpa, a great Tibetan Buddhist, meditation master, teacher, and artist, founder of Naropa. She lived and grew the herd some 50 miles from me until somewhere around 2012 when we took her 9 does and 2 bucks to California. this move was a necessity, the result of a failed and toxic marriage. in less than a year her job transfer fell through and we brought them all back Here as there was no other option. 8 of the does were pregnant as a result of a buck insurrection. that first late spring and early summer, 14 kids were born here. 10 of which were bucklings. all healthy, all very fine. Last spring as a result of a deliberate breeding of two does, 6 kids were born. 3 doelings/3 bucklings. The herd i talk about here is the result of all that. i did not breed for this year as i have been unable to come to terms with selling the babies. i don't know if i can.
The still stated intention is that once she finds the right place in California she will come for them. How many is not known. i might opt to keep some that have been born here. i don't know. i will only keep them if i can work through a way to breed and MILK. otherwise, she will take them all.
When she began, we were spending a lot of time and energy thinking about living a self~sustaining lifestyle. I was very involved in Sharon Astyk's teachings...her book at the time..... Depletion and Abundance ... Life on the New Home Front or, One Woman's Solutions to Finding Abundance for Your Family while Coming to Terms with Peak Oil, Climate Change and Hard Times. 2008 New Society Publishers. i was focused on off grid living and Growing food. the Goats worked, as did daughter's gift at Building Homes of alternative materials.
So, it seems that all that was put on hold. The dream is not gone. But the Goats are here for my Safe Keeping until whatever is Next appears.
Nigerian Dwarf Goats were chosen because they are a small breed, come into heat monthly and so some can be bred year round making it easy to stagger kidding, ensuring that the herd always has milking does. Their milk has excellent taste and high butterfat, as high as 10% which is greater than full size dairy goats. Nigerian Dwarves give between 1 and 8 lbs of milk a day. The high butterfat means great cheese.
Building a good dairy herd requires conscious breeding. Many people do not keep bucks, choosing instead to take an in heat doe TO a buck for a "driveway breeding". this tho is hard work, there is only a small window of hours when the doe will conceive and also means exposing your goats to disease which is not common but not uncommon. it's Easier to keep bucks. the choice of buck comes from studying their lines. you choose bucks with great milking dams going back generations. and you choose for conformation also. for instance, daughter had doe's that were tall, leggy. so she bought the buck Tenzen from a breeder in Boston area. he flew here as a baby. but he is from the original line of Nigerians in this country and so closer to the breed's original form. this corrects the height, while still improving the dairy aspects. and the truth is that if you establish a herd with a solid and respected name, if your offspring can be taken to competitions like the State Fair and various shows and win or place well, you will have a waiting list at each breeding. people will WANT them to improve their own herds. if i were to be into showing these Goats, i wouldn't have the angst about breeding, the kids. but, i'm not. She can do it. but at the other end of that, if you don't breed you don't have milk. you can't make cheese.
so....i have kept 6 of the doelings born here and 2 of the bucks. Sunny Ray is the son of old Beautiful Gideon who won't have long left on this planet but is a magnificant buck. and then little Nogal (Walnut, in spanish) who i kept because he was the son of Buckwheat who was a very desired and specific breeding of my daughter's. Buckwheat was born not long after she arrived in California. She could not get him disbudded at the time and his horns were full and glorious and a problem. Hence his move to Las Cruces to be herd sire there. Nogal will carry his genetics for this herd. and is much more gentle natured and tame than Buckwheat.
this is as far as i can get today. i'll add more in time. but this is the basics of why the Goats are here. and a good time to journal it....going into their third April here. enough for now.
8:47 p.m. more.
June 15th, 2013 Nogal. a buck goat. kept. intact.
how long has it been? maybe since November? give or take? that i have needed to reintegrate the seperated does? a long time. but i was afraid. Today it's done. and it was not without some comotion, but everything is just ok. This morning early, i undid the gate that was seperating the two front pens. and it was sudden. Sudden could not be avoided. opening a gate is opening a gate.
so there was a great rushing back and forth through the Corridor behind the Albatros. there was some "shock". the two little ones (who really aren't so little anymore) had finally gotten their wish and were amazed and calling for their mothers. but Goat mothers can't really do a lot for their kids. They can stand with them. but that's about it. it's the kid's work to stay close to the mother. interesting. and the big Surprise of the Day was that it seems that Snowbunny has abdicated her position as Enforcer of the herd. I never guessed. and amazingly, it's not OOna, second in line. She was not a player today at all. It was Onday. who Was 3rd and is now First.
here, taking a break, she looks so innocent. Not. she was rough. she was relentless. while they were all in the Front Pens, she battered Lucky Star. would not let her move from whichever corner Lucky Star ended up in. No Moving. Stand There. and interestingly enough, Magic was her right hand Goat. Who would have ever guessed that. no one. there is mystery in their minds. But also, the good thing to see was that no one was into stressing the two young ones. i'd worried about that. But it's a non issue. Good to Know. Carolyn, the other seperated doe met with very little attention.
Just Lucky Star. Once i'd moved all of them to the Back (an Event) (but not as hard as i'd imagined)
Lucky Star had to stay away. She could not come to the food bowls.
she could drink water. but not come to the food bowls. as we see here, she is not a small Goat. and the only reason for her position in this herd i guess is that she was Brought into it, not Born into it but it has been YEARS. you'd think they'd get over that. Not.
the Enforcer, who looked so innocent in the pic above, Enforced. Period. No food bowl. i fed her by hand.
the little girls love it back in the Way Back. Room to Run. Fast. really really Fast. and they did.
There are a lot of things to record in Each Goat's Ethogram. i'll do that tomorrow as i watch them more.
and amidst it all, the final scrap was added. a setting Moon. just right. just perfect. now for those Crows.
spent a lot of time with this Cloth...looking at the face....what that face means to me
thinking about how i want to leave threads ~loose~ more and more
a lot of invisible baste, a lot of very small stitches. 3 of what will be crows. not yet, but they will be. attending to what exactly says "crow" in a form. so...3 crows.
