windthread

a shift

unknown.  but perceived.   quiet.   a watching.  sensing.   the need to not know and just wait.

fear

last night i woke around midnight.  Motion of the trees Startling,  Wind Sound rising over pounding Rain,  coming out of sleep, into awareness and laying there,  listening,  some seconds,  and realizing i was asking Self if i was Afraid.  Am i afraid?

so i lay there,  listening.  Wondering.  I go back to N. Mex,  the old house.    It would be shaking,  the walls.  That Fence.   What was fear like there?    The concern for the Goats, the same,  Here/There.  I think of Talkie.  Where IS she?  and Puppie?  This small house here doesn't shake.  Is still,   amidst the Rushing.  Solid.    I think...What should I be prepared to DO?  I don't know.

I decided to think about the WATER seeping in.  Seeping deep into the Earth here.  To imagine that.  Visualize that.  the Seeping and i fell asleep to wake again a few times for just seconds and finally Early,  before dawn when it all was quiet.  Today,  Rain intermittent.   Goats run.   Talkie trips along in her way,  Puppie climbs on the roof, making her presence known...FEED ME she says,  like she does.  FEED me.  ok.   

Two sky rivers

the new terminology...atmospheric river.   The California Weather blog i read referred to what's happening this week as Dual Atmospheric River Phenomena.   and Wind.  as in,  WIND.  so.   There is no break in it.  It doesn't rain for a while and pause then rain more,    it just Rains.  DOWNPOUR , non stop.   Heavy,  weighing things down.  Like tarp houses.  Like chickens that are just trying to walk around.  Like Everything.  It;s  the hardest part of California for me.   When it's days in a row.  Like it's been.  Fortunately, for her own reasons,  Alyssia has come and for the worst two days,  has fed.  She wears the good rain gear that we share.  Hood up.   Pants with suspenders.   Mid afternoon the Doe Goats lost it.  Made a run for it...out of their shelter and through and Up and disappeared for some time then came running back,  calling out all their distressed sounds,  back to the shelter,  only to repeat a few more times.  Frantic and Loud.  Stressed.  I am here with Emrie.  Can't leave her in here alone.  Or,  i guess i could,  but i won't.  So i wondered for a few hours if their shelter place that has wooden walls,  but a tarp roof   had caved in..if they had   no Shelter From the Storm?  I message her.  Check first upon return.  

it was ok.  just wet  from water run off.  As was Sunny Ray's and Jack's tent.  She went off to get bedding straw.   Got it in place and we have tomorrow of Repeat.  Then somewhat of a reprieve back to normal rain the rest of the week.  February.

the pic here is of Mercy.  On a regular day.  Picture this Goat  under what they experience as Totally Dire Circumstance.  The intensity is Intense.  Bless all our hearts.  It'll all be memory soon.

 

with a loaner.

we had wondered what we could plant along the fence.   Now,  in profusion,  this Vetch.  Only on this section i assume because it's where there are 3 grapevines that we had watered all summer up till fall.

the grapevines need pruning but need to be found first...are hidden.  Vetch...bees love.  a legume.  nitrogen fixer.

Laptop comatose

This pic is sideways.  Trying to post with phone, not working so .....we'll see

Love

Foothill or Grey Pine

next to the driveway road.   This one is easy to see and easy to see how one of its branches has splayed out,  arching over.  Sparce, multibranched crowns.  Many even more so than this one and the branches at all angles.  These are old trees.  The 3 that fell so far with Wind this winter.  Last winter none fell.  I walked up to the most recent and sat.  Feeling my initial dismay at how it is so huge,  almost 4 ft in diameter, the trunk, and  to be very conservative,  at least 80 ft tall.  Tree has been here a very long time.    I sat near where it blocks the most Beauty Full Goat path that we all used.  I tried to get clear and understand some of what this really is.  Didn't make much headway,  i will keep trying.

in the Laws Field Guide To The Sierra Nevada...John Muir Laws ..."large heavy cones with savage spines"

Alyssia pointed out today that the Minnie Mouse slippers are coming apart.  Things have lifetimes.  They are Emrie's favorite footwear.  She can put them off and on herself.  But aside from that,  she just loves them.  Things we love have lifetimes.

Sunny Ray's fine sunny day

 

best friend,  Jumpin Jack Flash.   Who can be a best friend because of being a wether...neutered as a buckling.  He is from Ten Zen and one of Jan's does in New Mexico,  Joey.    As we consider breeding,  we think to keep a couple wethers.  They are really the most fun Goats....maintain their silliness and are relieved from all the angst of hormones.

 

Ray looks more and more like his sire Gideon as he ages.  I sat there and 

remembered.  Gideon.

pulled all the energy i could to bring his Spirit here.  I will always miss him.  

today

 

Jenny got this last fall from the Sale Table at Tractor Supply.  It was ify.  But it made it and also bloomed,  all the fall months.  It says not so much for deer and we thought maybe too,  Goats,  but i couldn't bear to put it out side the fence to find out.  But then i did and it sat for a while,  as is.   They went back and forth, past it.  These are the ones we are looking for.  There are a few,  uninteresting to Goats.   It's at B now.  Today,   when there with the kids,  working on the space for the experimental compost,  i saw that it has gone through the Change months and is now setting new tiny blossoms.  I feel honored to learn things.  Honored to learn how to best live here.  To learn what Gives.  What Gives to the Whole of what this is.  

it was a very FINE day.  We muddled around,  i tried to focus on the digging of the flat for the compost.  Julian  talked pretty constantly,  free associating 9 year old stuff.   Emrie ,  now able to be loose because of the fence that keeps Goats OUT also keeps her IN,  Emrie wandered in spaciousness.

i had watched,  during the night,  at 3 am give or take a Satsang in live time in India.  At 3 am as i watched,  i understood it all and knew what was being offered.   I understood that it was being offered freely and that i understood what was being offered,  but i stood here today and also knew that in this lifetime,  these are the things that i need to finish.   Next life.  This is now.

Language. Speaking. Telling. Showing heart with sound, heard with ears or otherwise.

it's dusk.  Talkie is speaking her one end of the day sound.  Emrie,  when here late,  into darkness last night,  stopped everything and was alert, ears pricked,  to that sound,  the single sound that Talkie speaks at dusk.  Emrie repeated it.  Perfectly.  Listened.  Repeated.  Listened.  Repeated.  Her eyes were wide with the exchange that had to do with heart.  Hers,  a chicken's.  Language.

I fill two plastic pitchers with beet pulp.  Dry shredded beets.  Winter supliment for Goats.  Fill them when the doe Goats aren't around and at different times of day,  put them in 2 feeding tubs.  Then call them.  Loud.  Yelling....GOATS!  COME COME.  they hear,  from wherever they are on 6 acres and come flying fast.  The language shared between us is just two words...Come Come.  

Emrie isn't much of one to repeat words you want her to.  She just won't.  A lot of her language is "Uh" and pointing and eyebrows raised, or  brows squenched, or big smile,  hands extended with fingers wiggling.  She recently has added Yeah.  for affirmative.  No is still a shaken head.  We try to get her to say milk.  she won't.  Juice.  Juice is anything in the bottle.  I can say...do you want your milk till i'm blue in the face and she will cheerfully nod and say Juice!   I am Mom.  Alyssia is Mom Mom.  Her brother Julian is Jshzuju.  I refer to Tay as Dog.  a few days ago she began calling Tay ,  Tay.  Clearly.  Tay.  I say, Tay Dog,  she says...Tay.  She understands very complex sentences.  like...you need to put the lantern lights back now because i told you to be careful and you are not being careful.  She frowns but puts them back.

yesterday when we were at B,  working on the Compost and then coming back up,  she pointed to the hammock and said Uh...

i sat and pulled her up next to me.  She hasn't liked the hammock all summer.  She sat yesterday,  her eyebrows up,  rocking and said rocky baby.  She leaned back down into the spread of the hammock and looked up,  let out a gasp....a gasp...and began singing.  Singing as she looked up into the tree branches and the sky.  She sang.  Sounds.  Sounds.

Sounds. with a lilting tune.

What is language?    Language of tree branches, sky,  Earth with all it's relations...looking for language 

 

 

 

 

in the blood?

 

Alyssia  had an appointment at the VA in Sacramento.  At 3pm.  an awkward hour.   So Emrie came around 12:30, 1 give or take.   Julian decided to go with her,  school is out,  he thought it was going to be interesting (it wasn't)  so it was me and Emrie.  We were off to campsite B and the new experimental compost pile.  No hesitation.  It seems it might be true,   that some things run in the blood.

Marti linked me to blog of SusanTweitt who i remember from my old days of StoryCircle Network when i still thought i might become a Writer.    Susan Tweitt is giving herself to the concept of Climate Garden....as in Victory Garden days.  I am reading there.