STAY GROUNDED AND FLY

I guess it is time to make a new blog entry in case there are some out there who are getting dizzy looking upside down.  But before I leave the subject, John and I went on a picnic at one of our favorite spots, Goshen pass, where a river cuts through the mountains, and I tried it there.  I looked upside down between my legs and saw some people -- tiny, attached to the earth by their feet leaning into space.  STAY GROUNDED AND FLY, that is my new moto.

It is funny, I don't like big planes but I would love to fly myself -- maybe holding on to the tip of an eagles wing.  Several years ago, I went to a Holodynamic conference and we sat in small circles and intuited the strengths, one by one, of the four or five in our group, a very short time after first meeting.  It kind of "blew me away".  I still have the little scrap of paper with the attributes the others saw in me and I read it from time to time.  The last thing on the list was the word flying.

I have often wondered, how can I fly? what does it mean?  But I think she was right and her (a girl in my circle) saying that word about me has empowered me, I think.  Courage, was not on that list, and I have never really thought about hang gliding or parasailing.  So if I want to fly I may have to do it with my feet on the ground.

One of the chickens who lives here, can't fly.  She paces when the others go over the fence.  Most of the time, she knows where to be when, so she can get in or out.  I wonder what she thinks about not being able to fly, at least physically.  And what about the sheep?  Do they ever watch a bird overhead and wonder what it would be like to fly?

A good friend of mine has dreams about flying, frequently.  I have always envied her that.  I guess for me, it has to be thinking about what it would feel like and finding other ways to experience those feelings.  At least for now.

Looking at Life from a Different Perspective

Friday, my young friend and I went down to clean the barn.  I decided I could do more, so, with my wheelchair towed behind the golf cart we arrived at the barn.  We did a good job cleaning up and emptying and cleaning buckets etc., but 30 minutes later I embarked on cleaning the wheelchair, my sandal, and orthopedic boot.  That took as long as cleaning the barn.  What a mess.   I want to do more but everything takes so long to do and sometimes things seem a ridiculous effort.  Part of the problem, I am sure, has been the heat this week.  But alas, we just had a storm arrive so it will be cool again.  Will that make a difference?

For some reason, it seems like I can not focus very long on anything.  Yesterday, I did finish two small felting projects but still  it seems like my mind goes from one thing to the next and not a lot gets accomplished.

 Funny, I thought not being able to put weight on my right foot for 8 weeks would allow me to focus on a few projects  and get some things done.  First the pain got in the way.  Then it was having to have my foot elevated so much, now I am not sure.

I am afraid I am going to get to the end of the 8 weeks and think "no! I am not ready to go back to regular life- I haven't gotten the things done that I wanted to".

Maybe, the attitude of getting things "done" is what should be looked at.  Why do things have to get done?  Why can't we just continually EXPLORE whatever comes to mind.  It seems, eventually, we will get finished exploring some things and go on to others.

Although I haven't achieved much to look at, I have taken time to look at things from a different perspective.  In all the journey work I have done, this "suggestion" to look at things from a different perspective, is a subject that comes up over and over.  Maybe, this is what this broken ankle experience is about.

An opportunity to further explore "looking at things from a different perspective".

"CELEBRATE THE SNAKE" and Gold one and Gold 2

I knew I liked Betty, my small business advisor, the first time I met her, but today I really know why.

We are getting ready to offer the cabin for overnight stays soon and discussing marketing and the last few days Blake, the black snake has been hanging out inside.  The other day I went to the cabin to use the bathroom and there was Blake behind the toilet.  I had to wait for him to go back down his hole. When a friend came over Sunday to hangout at the cabin and focus on some paperwork, she met Blake on the landing.  I had told her she might see him so she was not totally freaked out.  Yesterday, I googled "snake in the cabin" and had some hilarious reading.

So this morning at our meeting, I told Betty about my dilemma. When Betty said, "celebrate the snake", I was quite relieved.  She gave me some great ideas about how to incorporate Blake into the whole package; educating the visitors about the importance of Black Snakes in a country setting.  Then, she started to get really silly.  She suggested that we have a prize for anyone who had a snake siting and could get a picture of Blake.  The reward she suggested was to have them come up to the house and show us the picture and have a glass of Black Snake Mead.  Then we could go down and put Blake out.  There is a place, about an hour south of us called The Black Snake Meadery.  http://www.blacksnakemead.com/index.php?pr=Home_Page  Sounds like a great place to visit and I would not have heard of it if Blake hadn't be calling at the cabin.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and had thousands of ideas running through my brain.  Amongst them was a recollection that snakes avoid rough surfaces so my idea was to go around to all the tiny holes and put sandpaper around them.  Easier than patching them all.  I guess more research is necessary but we all agreed that snakes are better than mice.

In other animal news, we have two new animals on the farm (more than that but two that we brought to the farm).  Gold one and Gold 2.  They are two comet fish that live in the new water trough.  There was a frog in there the other day but I think it has moved on.  Anyway, the water surface seems clean and nice but the water is a little green.  I will put some barley in it to clear it up.

This morning on my way to the barn, I walked by the peach tree as usual and checked to see if they were ripe.  What I noticed first was that most were missing.  I picked the last 8 peaches but found at least three times that many pits under the tree.  All in one night.  I am not pointing any fingers but I was quite disappointed.  What can one do.  We have an abundance of wild life these days and a  skink (blue tailed lizard) hanging out in the fiber shed.  At least I haven't seen Blake in the fiber shed lately.

The Shortest Distance is Not Always the Best Route

The last time the sheep rotated pastures, I didn't close the previous one because the lower pasture that is the current grazing pasture is not available at night or in the early hours of the day.  This is because I still don't feel like it is a real secure pasture.

The last few days, I have been reconfiguring the interior pastures.  I am making the two upper pastures in to four.  When I go out in the morning and the sheep are in the lower upper pasture, I like to open the gate so that they can go down to the lower pasture to graze.  The problem is the opening in the electric fence between the barnyard and the lower upper pasture is up the fence a bit, not down in the bottom corner, because of a ditch and uneven terrain.  Sometimes, I have to get the sheep to go uphill to go downhill.  It works if all are coming to the barnyard to meet me but if a few linger grazing and I take the others down to the gate, the stragglers want to go down to the corner where there is not an opening. They want to go in a straight line which is the shortest distance but alas there is fence when they get to the bottom.

I remember when I first put the fence up and I went down to the barnyard after dark. I called the sheep without thinking (or thinking as a human).  Mira came running and ran right through the electric fence, tearing it down.  It was the shortest route to my voice.

I wish I could find any route, except the shortest, to fixing the Cabin Spring Farm website.  The shortest  would be to have my nephew totally fix it, but that would make me dependent on him again.  He has a life and is not local so that is no longer a good option.

A friend reminds me, that even when you do get things working on the computer, things change and there is more to learn.  That is true, but I really feel, if I want to promote Cabin Spring Farm and have people find us, I do need to rely on the internet (not everyone reads flyers on bulletin boards any more).

I think next week I will find an answer to my "website woes" and I will be able to get back to fences and gates; somethings that you can see where they are and where they are going (as long as you are not a sheep).

Caught in the Act

I used to think it was deer that ate the peaches off the tree, then someone told me that deer eat them off the ground and it is squirrels that nock them off the tree.  I felt so bad that I was blaming the wrong animals.  Well, a couple of days ago I found the real culprit.  Click on the photo above to see who it is.

The rabbits have been so good about eating the grass and not bothering the veggies here and there or the roses but I didn't know they were eating the peaches.  At least he didn't go from one to another- he filled up on the same one.  I have been waiting for weeks for the peaches to get ripe.  They get bigger and bigger but just don't seem to get soft.  And now, they are getting so heavy that the limbs are hanging low.

I think this rabbit has been hanging out with Gretta, our ballerina.  It has the same keen balance on its hind legs.  Gretta, goes for locus limbs and sometimes holds them down for the other sheep to eat.

 It has been raining again!  It was SO dry and hot for way too long.  When that happened everyone got into a schedule of what to do for themselves and the animals to survive and  I  finally feel like I am somehow in sync with the universe and get ideas of what to do, when.

Yesterday, I took advantage of the rains softening the sheep's hooves and my great nephew-in-law being here, and the two of us trimmed hooves on two sheep that were missed the last time around.  He was a natural and now he can go back to Utah and tell his friends he knows how to wrestle a sheep and trim hooves.  My great niece has the pictures to prove it.

This morning I sowed chicory seed in one of the pastures for extended fall forage.  Our forecast is for 10 days of scattered showers.  Better that Mother Nature water the seed in than me.  What a relief to have rain again.  Now if it would cool off a little more.

Speaking of Getting Caught in the Act, if anyone has gone to the Cabin Spring Farm website lately, they have seen that I blew up the website and have not yet figured out how to put it back together.  Since Cal put it up in the first place, I called him and he retrieved the content and is letting me try to rebuild it.  Not my strength for sure but I need to figure this out.  I wouldn't mind a little help from my friends,  along the way, though.  Even just a little encouragement would be appreciated.

Independence Day

First thing this morning, I Freed the sheep and let them go down to the lower pasture.   They loved it for an hour or so but then decided to go back to the barn.  I am going to start closing the gate and leaving them in the lower pasture for longer periods of the day now that I have a hydrant down there and more secure fence.  But not today, because we won't be here all day and it is too hot.

The heat wave continues and still much of the county has no power.  I am glad we do so I don't have to haul water from the spring, but I could if I had to.

I was over to Naomi's this morning and it looks like a tornado went through her farm.  We were talking about how sheep are critters of habit and how hers had to find new shade.  They are up by her house and look pretty content.  She too has a spring and she had to move all her sheep into that pasture because all the troughs need power to get the water to them.  I asked her about the rams and she said she hoped it was too hot for them to get any ideas.

Talk about independence, Naomi is very independent and doesn't ask for much help even though her husband died last winter.  A neighbor came down and sawed through a large Tulip Poplar blocking her driveway, but just wide enough for her pickup to get through.  John and Charlie are going over to cut up some of the rest of the trees when the heat breaks.  Naomi also has not had phone service and a lady from Tennessee was suppose to come tomorrow to pick up some sheep with a trailer which would not make it down the driveway.  She said her cell phone kept calling wrong numbers so we got through to the lady on mine.

I think it takes a good storm to see how independent people can be.  Town and county services are doing all they can, I guess, but it isn't enough.  It always takes neighbors helping neighbors and friends helping friends.  People are putting things in other's freezers and showering where they can.  One of the  hardships I didn't think of was people being cut off from their computers and cell phones.  Some people are charging their phones in strange places.  I told a lady in the library that I was going to email all my friends to see if they needed a place to stay and she said if they did they wouldn't get the email.  Good thing my friends are independent.