red bourbon poults are here!

I canceled all my plans in town for the night. I mowed just a section of the lawn, cleaned up just one room, scrubbed just the shower instead of the whole bathroom. I am doing less and letting myself breath more. I decided to stay here tonight and focus on my writing and let the coming storm roll in. When the wordcount is where I want it, I'll take a cool shower and change into comfortable clothes and watch a movie with the dogs. I'm taking it easy. I'm letting myself accept what I can't do. I'm feeling a little better. Thank you so much for your comments, which helped me so very much. Knowing people are listening helps very much when you're down. I'm grateful.

Ironically, the turkeys I ordered in April arrived on the day I exclaimed I could take no more. But four turkeys barely make a dent in my farm day. I'm glad there here, and already have sold two. They are in the laundry room now beeping how poults beep. I'm cooking dinner. The sun is getting heavy. The day's nearly over. Like I said, I'm feeling a little better.

banjo + porch + fireflies + storm + birds safe in coop + sleeping dogs = happy farm girl.

photo by tim bronson

i need some encouragement

I think what had me so wretched over the holiday weekend was Salmonella. All the symptoms match to a T, and I went to the hospital this morning to hand in my test kit to see if my predictions were correct. It's been almost a week since I first fell ill and my stomach still gnaws with internal pain and cramps and other colorful intestinal problems. It's given me quite the lesson, but it's also made me gun shy about the farm. I worry CAF gave me food poisoning. And now I'm skittish around her, worried that rushing to do too much Thursday left my poultry processing in the kitchen get sloppy. I must have got distracted from the chicken I was dressing, and had to take out the puppy or answer the phone or something and forgot to wash my hands.

The bout of illness has made me weak. I am so tired. Three flights of stairs is a mountain, a watering can a 50-pound weight. I no longer look forward to feeding the sheep or chickens but do so with a heavy head and heart. It feels wrong to not look forward to the farm when I pull into the driveway after work. I hope it's just the poison. This feels like a real low point.

The sick weekend let the place get dirty. The grass needs to be mowed. The house cleaned. The dog poo in the yard pitched into the woods. But the energy to do these things is gone right now and just looking at all that is ahead of me is exhausting. I am on maintenance mode: keeping everyone fed, sheltered, watered, and kept but extra chores are being saved till I feel better.

The fox has taken my ducks, more of my chickens, and seems to have my work schedule down because he now comes in broad daylight when I am at work. So I need to build them a pen or keep them locked up in the coop at all times. It's too hot for the latter. I'm too tired for the former. I feel beat. In so many ways, I feel beat.

So what I need is some encouragement. I rarely ask for it, never really, but tonight I need it. I really do.

I don't feel like myself. I don't like it.

i'll take a bucket of chicken

back on my feet

I'm feeling better, but not back to 100%. There is still some residual yuckiness going on in the pipes. Remarkably, I was out last night moving fences, rabbit cages, and hauling water like I was never bent over with the flu. It amazes me how the body can take hits like that and right itself again.

I am in the final countdown of a seriously stressful writing deadline that's been hovering for months. (A wonderful thing to have hovering, but none the less stressful.) Soon as I hand that in I will be updating this blog like a crazy person. Updating with things like this special report: in a few weekends I will be driving Gibson and I to Esperance NY to pick out his future flock of Scottish Blackface! More son!

sick as a dog

When a farm depends on you and you have the flu, your paradise turns into a prison. Simple things like changing out water fonts, pouring grains, moving hay bales, and feeding rabbits turn into labor instead of acts of love. When all you want to do, need to do, is sleep: the idea of walking out in the dark to secure the hen house seems plain awful. But you do it because you have to. Because there's a fox and raccoons and animals depend on me.

Chores that usually take an hour have to be spread throughout the whole day. I did things slowly, achingly slowly, between naps. Sleep two hours and water the garden, a cold shower and then bring the sheep hay. I did this while shaking, chills, and harboring an upset stomach that can't keep anything down... it makes walking two buckets of water up a short hill an epic journey of panting and cold sweat. I spent most of the past 48 hours in bed, either shaking under the covers or drenching the bed in sweat. I love this farm. I wouldn't trade in my life for anyone's but sometimes being alone is horrid.

When I was sick as a little girl my mother would wrap me up in blankets and take me out on her veranda outside her bedroom. I have such wonderful memories of feeling so weak, but so loved and safe. Last night I went out onto the rocking chair on the porch around 3AM and covered myself in blankets. I missed my mother so much it hurt. I'm 27 and miss my mom.

I am feeling slightly better. Yellow Gatorade, ice water, lots of sleep. I hope to be more of myself tomorrow. I did take off half a day for the long weekend so I hope that I can sleep in and take my time going into work. If I still feel like this I'll stay home. No point in getting coworkers sick.

i. am. so. sick....

three weeks from harvest