Continue reading Published Elsewhere →

Dear Beloved Reader,
Continue reading An Exercise for the Reader →

There are a couple bits of housekeeping I need to take care of here.

First off, if you or a friend has had any trouble logging in to junden.com or with anything on the site, please let me know. Everyone who has created an account should be approved; I haven’t intentionally tried to keep anyone out (except for some spammers). But the software is a little squirrelly and I recently found that people had been locked out and shouldn’t have been.

If you have friends who you think might like to read, feel free to invite them to create an account. Just tell them to put that they are a friend of so-and-so, so I know. Mainly I’m trying to keep bureaucratic agencies out of here. *smile*

Finally, I have been thinking of gathering up things I wrote while at the goat ranch and see if I can work them into a collection of essays. I would love to know if there was anything from that time that spoke to you or made an impression. You can let me know by whatever way is convenient.

Thanks for reading! I could write this stuff without sharing it, but it would a lot different. Thank you for making the experience that much richer!

Love,
t

In some ways, it feels like ten weeks has flown by. In others, it seems like we will never be done with training and get to move to our sites where we think we will be “free”. Continue reading Mother Africa →

A strange world, to be writing this in the air, flying back to California.
Continue reading Muddled Goodbyes →

Sometimes someone else has said it so much better, there isn’t any point in trying. Continue reading The Waking →

I’ve never been good with sitting with uncertainty. Most of the time, I make decisions quickly, and start action towards a resolution. Sitting in the middle of the unknown is not comfortable territory.
Continue reading Sitting in Uncertainty →

I didn’t get contact lenses until college. Up until then, with my thick glasses, everyone thought I was older than I was. When I started working at Larry’s, I was only 21 or 22…old enough, but they were suprised to find I was so young.

Continue reading Time Has Come Today (Hey) →

We were going to give Don Juan his annual pre-breeding treatment this morning and then turn him loose in the pasture with his ladies. But it turned out there were other things to do, namely hoof and vaccinate the goats in the lower field. Those are the eight ladies that, for whatever reason, are not on the milk line currently. So that’s what we did.

Poor Juany…he’s been pacing the fence, threatening to climb over. And we really don’t want him getting into the next pasture, with our baby girls…they’re old enough to get pregnant, but if they do, they won’t be good milkers and may have complicated pregnancies. It was a big problem last year because of Leroy Brown, an accomplished escape artist.

I went into Don Juan’s pasture today and had a little chat with him.

Juany, I’ve got some bad news. I know we promised today. But it’s looking more like Monday. You know how these things go.

I know you’re disappointed. I’m very sorry. Please don’t head-butt me.

Rozena Quail? Why yes, I do know her very well. OH! Yes, I’ll be sure to tell her. I know she’s looking forward to it, too.

Thanks for the kiss, Juany. I know that kissing me is not what you were hoping for, but we’ll do our best on Monday.

Trust me, Don Juan. I am very sympathetic to your plight.