The baby goats here are getting bigger, shockingly so. We’re going through hay, fast. We know things grow; it happens all the time around us. Things are born and get bigger, this is the way of things. You could probably get clever and chart your hay usage through the season and track your goat weight and milk production and you could quantify this all and assign dollar amounts to it. That’s all good stuff for the intellect to gnaw on.

Every morning, every night (except Thursdays), I feed and water the mama goats and their babies. I do other chores, too, but this is the core routine of my work here right now. That physical work has been a gift. I’m learning that the body has its own wisdom, and the physical work lets some of that wisdom rise above the din of my head.

While doing feeding the other day, I started by tripping out in my head about the cost of hay, and realized that I tend to think of it as hay we have, hay we feed, and then hay that’s no longer there. But the truth is, the hay is still there. Look at all this energetic goat flesh we’re growing!

And something expanded; the awareness went beyond intellect. The morning sunlight streaming through the goat pens and the rain that had fallen overnight, the soil teaming with life: it is the hay. My effort and the hay and more water is the goats. The goats are more goats and milk, food for the life of the soil or of us. The milk and the cheese are us. We are also the life of the soil, our efforts are life of the goats or of cheese or of hay. The intellect would chart this as the cycle of life, but the intellect would get it wrong. Poor intellect. It does the best it can, but it has so little to work with.

The body knows that the “cycle” is really an infinitely connected miraculous life. That is the body’s wisdom. That is a feminine wisdom (accessible to anyone regardless of sex, but perhaps more available to women^*.

The goats are all about senses and body. Our hands are literally all over them as we do their routine care, though I haven’t popped a finger in one for a labor check yet, the way P can do so nonchalantly! Bonnie asked me yesterday if goats are really intelligent. Of course I think they are, but it’s a different intelligence than humans or even dogs have. Goat senses are exquisitely honed; they can sense things that amaze me. If I’m in a field trying to catch a goat, that goat will know, even if I try very hard not to give any clues. If the goat doesn’t want to be caught, I’ll be able to get close to any goat other than that one.

Being immersed in the body-centered life of the goats has given me a deep sense of connection to something very fundamental; a connection to something that is beyond the intellect to understand. I’m there when they’re born; I’m also there when they die. There are feelings of joy and sadness in these events, but there is something deeper that arises in me: a deep sense of reverence and wonder, for lack of better words. I could say that it’s a reverence and wonder for “Life”, but only if “Life” includes life and death. For nature? Perhaps that’s a better word, but we’ve bastardized that word to mean something outside of ourselves.

And that just won’t work. Because this connection fundamentally extends to me, to my own body, a body I started rejecting as a child, wishing I could live only in my head…an idea that now seems like a horror. As this connection and awareness grows, other changes are happening in me. I’m almost afraid to look at them too directly, worried that they’ll be like a goat who doesn’t want to be caught. Perhaps I need to let the body’s wisdom work in peace for a while, without being chased by the intellect too much.

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* For a good discussion of what I mean by feminine wisdom, and feminine vs. masculine in the psychological sense, see this transcript of a talk by Marion Woodman.

I remember that in kindergarten, I decided on the first or second day that I really liked a boy named Bobby, and that he would be my boyfriend. He didn’t seem to mind; he teeter-tottered with me on the playground in between playing with his other friends. We sat together on the bus, holding hands and me putting my head on his shoulder. The Mrs. Hageman separated us, made us sit in different seats, told us to play with others at recess. I’d go home and sit a the lunch table, yammering quite honestly and on about Bobby and how much I liked him (to the great amusement of my parents). It wasn’t long until Bobby’s family moved into town and I never saw him again. I remember being sad, but I wasn’t devastated either.

I also remember in third grade, trying to make a prioritized list of the boys I liked. I kept adding names to the list; there were so many things to like about each one! I decided that nine was too many; five seemed about right, so I try to weed some out. Ordering them was harder. I had no intention of doing anything with this list…it was really an early manifestation of my need to write things down to really think about them. But I do remember this: I knew it was extremely important that nobody every find that list. I had to hide it or destroy it. If that information leaked out, it could be terrible; and if it got back to the actual boy that I liked, it could be disastrous!

And it’s pretty much been that way ever since.

So my questions are this: what happened between kindergarten and third grade? And is this a common experience, or was there something about the place and time of my childhood that made it an environment where having feelings for someone was a bad thing, a thing to keep secret?

What is a junden, a “pure-hearted field”? I imagine it to be like the wild fields of Sonoma/Marin county, like the pasture right outside the gate, full of life that is encouraged to rise; full of wildflowers and healing plants and critters that jump, slither, crawl, fly. Receptive to the healing rains, the fertile soil, the fiery sun, the energizing wind. A pure-hearted field must express itself honestly and sincerely; it wouldn’t be fearful or coy or caught up in head games. What blooms blooms, what withers is allowed to fall away, to regenerate and transform into new life. A pure-hearted field wouldn’t first appear to be inviting, then trip one up with a tangle of barbed wire hidden in the grass. A pure-hearted field wouldn’t have any fence at all, not keeping anything out. And not keeping anything in, either.

How much I want to be like that. It is damned difficult sometimes.

My on-running joke is that I’m going to start up eco-tours here. Friends have come by and stayed for goat feeding time, filling water buckets and carrying grain. Another split some wood for fun…”I feel so manly!” My brother even helped clean under pens before any of the baby goats even arrived.

Today’s joke was that you’ll be able to get the stylish little L-shaped rips in your clothing that I’ve been collecting on my work clothes. I’ve been trying to mend, but I’m having trouble keeping up. On my favorite black work pants, I’m now mending the patches!

On Tuesday afternoon, I milked Dove (she was a little lopsided, so we hand milk to get the teats even and prevent any of them from shutting down). I half-noticed one of her babies chewing on my hair. I decided to just let him suck; I figured I’d end up with some goat-saliva-drenched hair and that would be that…I was concentrating on my milking technique. When I finished, I reached up and found a tiny dreadlock that the kid had tangled out of my hair. At first I laughed, but then as I was untangling it, it suddenly just fell off into my hand. Oh, maybe I better not let kids chew on my hair!

It’s more than just an issue of aesthetics. Part of the reason my clothing is getting so tattered is because of my poor body awareness. My tendency to live in my head means that I don’t pay good attention to where my body is or what it’s feeling. For every L-shaped tear, I think I have two or three scratches or bruises. When I first moved here, I noticed things that put strain on my knees, and developed an awareness of that. Now I realize that I put much of that strain right onto my forearms and wrists. I’m becoming aware that I can’t just throw this big body around without any care.

For years, I’ve been saying that I wanted to develop a yoga practice or some other practice of body mindfulness beyond sitting meditation, and I have yet to do it. I’m still saying it in my mind. But meanwhile, my work on the ranch is beginning to demand it. I have to slow down, think about how things are feeling. Sometimes stopping to consider the literal next step means the difference between exiting a pen gracefully and landing painfully (and very unladylike!) I also think more about how to help heal my body of the injuries I’ve already given it. I pay over $300 for insurance every month and I’m scared to death of using it because I don’t trust them to not present me with a large unexpected bill. I want to stay out of the doctor’s office! Arnica, calendula, lavender are potent healers, but only if I take the time and care to apply them.

I have an arrangement to take Thursday evenings off, but tonight did a little milking just to make sure that Dove and Cilantro didn’t get too uneven. As I was walking up the driveway, I realized that the only other person here was leaving, and I was alone on this beautiful sunny and hot afternoon. I walked up to the pond with Laika and laughed as she waded into the shallow part and plopped herself down in it.

I stuck a toe in…pretty warm, at least in the shallow end. I looked around to make extra sure no one else was around. Did I have the guts?

Yup, I did. I peeled off the tattered clothes and got into the water, gingerly….it was quite cold under that top sun-heated layer. But it felt great. Laika stood, excited, in the shallow end, but I could not coax her into a full swim, not this time…I will before the next winter is here.

Water and sun, delicious on the skin, and also potent healers. I almost didn’t get into the water, thinking in my head that there were other more important things to do. But those few minutes were one of the best things I’ve done for myself lately. My body has wisdom…can I learn to listen to it?

Spring is coming, spring is coming. Can’t you feel it?!

On Sundays and Thursdays, I go to zen groups where we meditate and then hear a talk by a teacher or guest speaker. In zen, there is a lot of talk about the “self.” I’ve often heard a quote from Dogen, “To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.” Zen discussions can get very abstract, and when they do, I often have trouble understanding.

But I do understand how much trouble we cause ourselves when we start labeling or defining, and especially when we apply those labels or definitions to our own identity. I cringe when I hear talk of “finding yourself”, even though there’s probably a lot of people who would apply that term to me over the past two years. Who is this person I’m supposed to be trying to find? Have I left a striving to be one thing only to put myself into a striving to find something else to be? Why can’t I just be myself?

Why indeed? Because just being myself turns out to be a very very difficult thing to do.

I like to go birding. It can be a lot of fun to go with a group of people, and even to hunt down rarities that have been reported in an area. Birders come in all different levels, and the best groups are those that mix beginners with intermediate and advanced birders.

Sometimes a funny thing happens when you get a good look at a bird, especially if it’s something rare and unique. Some beginners get very focused on learning how to identify the bird. They’ll get out their field guides, flip through the pages, compare plumages. Advanced and intermediate birders often compete to see who can call out the species of the bird first. Advanced birders will often study the bird and remark on its field marks. You might hear something like, “Well, there’s a little more white in the wing than you usually see in a Hairy Chested Nutscratcher, but if you look at the number 3 primary you’ll see that it’s really feather-wear and the birds is probably partially through its first pre-basic molt.” They sound like they know what they’re talking about, don’t they?

Then you’ll notice a few other people, of any level of experience, who are simply quietly looking at the bird. If they notice you, you might exchange wordless smiles as you linger, drinking in the view of one small creature in a very vast universe. You experience the everyday miracle of bird. You feel a oneness with bird.

There are people who work very hard at being good birders, and I enjoy doing that myself. But there’s a danger in placing such a high value in identifying the bird. The danger is that once you’ve named the species of bird, you might be done with it. You label the bird with its identity,. make your notations and check marks, and move on to the next one. You can say what the bird is, but you’ve completely missed bird.

Lately I feel like one of those birders. I keep really busy, I take care of many errands and odds and ends, I’m always doing something or the other, and I’m often engaged in activities related to telling the world what I am. I find myself falling into the trap of trying to build a self, but I’ve completely missed the bird.

I’m still struggling to know what to write here, although I feel like I do want to be posting more. Sometimes it’s hard to overcome the urge to put a positive spin on everything. There’s an inner voice that wants to leap in, “If things aren’t going perfectly, it’s your own damn fault. Don’t admit it publicly!” There’s a less negative side, too, that wants to remain positive.

Already this sounds like something’s terribly wrong, so I’ll just say up front, that’s not the case. But it’s been a generally sad week. One of the most troubling things was that the ranch has to sell the yearlings after all. I’m told it’s a common problem this time of year…cash flow is an issue in the spring, when money is pouring into care of mama and baby animals, but income isn’t coming in. Still, it’s hard to see it in practice. The truck was supposed to come for the yearlings today; after waiting around in the rain for everyone to be ready to round them up into a pen and then starting to do that, we got word that they wouldn’t be coming after all. They’ll be here on Monday.

It’s better than going to auction; they’ll go into another goat herd and be well cared for. But I know they won’t bring a high price, and it will buy only so much hay for the others. It’s not losing the goats that’s so depressing, because we’ll have plenty of those to keep us busy. It’s knowing how much it hurts the owner to be forced into this, and realizing how hard it is for anyone trying to make a go of it as a local food producer. It makes me realize how hard it is to forge a lifestyle that goes against the grain of our culture.

Then, too, when something like this weighs heavily on me, I’m not sure I should even be writing publicly about it. Where does my experience end and the owner’s privacy begin? She told me about troubles with the county last year, and that their files included a photo of the yurt that was online, and I wonder if I should be deleting things from Flickr. Is the urge to write about my life, publicly, going to become a problem here some day?

Sometimes life feels like walking through an alligator pit, and one tiny misstep could lead to disaster in my housing, my livelihood, my health, my finances. Some might accuse me of being to “serious”. Well, this is not a feel-good story or rainbow-filled trip of “finding myself.” This is my life. This is me surviving. This is me trying to stick up for my values. Does it belong on Twitter or Facebook or a Blog? I honestly don’t know.

We’re about half-way through kidding of the two-year old and older goats here…35 of those. And, because the yearlings are also pregnant, we’ve got a couple of those with kids now as well. It’s been intense; there’s a lot of work to do, which is mostly good. I tend to lose track of other things because the days go by so quickly.

Most nights, I sleep like a rock until the alarm goes off at 5am. This morning was different; I started waking throughout the night, with my hands and arms numb and then in waves of pain. It was not unfamiliar; I’ve had bouts of carpal tunnel syndrome before. But this was the worst, and at first I was almost panicked about it. If I can’t work at a computer and work at the ranch, what on earth would I do? Why was this happening now, what had I done?

I think it’s probably from a combination of all the work I have been doing, but mostly from milking. Sometime the babies favor one teat over another, and we have to milk out the unused one or it might go dry. It’s been hard for me to get the hang of milking, and I think my fingers and wrist are protesting. So I have to take it a little easy on that, and build up strength. In the meantime, here’s to ibuprofen and Arniflora gel. I’ll pick up a couple of wrist braces next time I’m in town. This, too, shall pass.

We have eighteen does in individual pens with their babies now. My work day starts at about 7, when I go to feed and water everyone in the pens. I usually sneak down to the pasture first, to pet the expectant mamas and see if any should be brought into the garden. Then I have a system for feeding…grain first, each goat getting a scoop in their own grain bucket. Then I go around with hay, putting it into each goat’s feeder. The hay bays are packed really tight, and can be hard to pull apart. For a while I was getting lots of splinters in my hands but didn’t know why; when I commented on it, J told me that the hay itself gives splinters, and recommended a type of work glove to wear. Happily, that type of work glove was in the big pack of work gloves my brother and sis-in-law gave me for Christmas, so I’ve been well-protected now that I know what was causing it.

After hay comes water…doing it last means that less hay falls into it. And while doing water, I pull the grain buckets out. This is partly to keep them clean, and also partly to keep the goats from banging them around all night, keeping J awake.

After feeding, there is sometimes other care to be done. If a mama hasn’t been eating well, she might get some supplements (mixed into a molasses and flour base and formed into a “medicine ball”). Newer babies are watched to be sure they’re nursing; if they’re not, we might milk the mama and bottle feed to get them started. And sometimes we schedule other tasks.

Today was horning. Everybody dreads horning. The baby goats are brought in one by one, put into a box that holds them securely with only their head sticking out, and a hot iron is applied to their horn nubbins until the nub falls off and there’s only a clean surface. Any attached membrane needs to be burnt completely off, or the goat will develop “scurs” — similar to horns, but misshapen and problematic. The babies scream when the hot iron is applied, of course, and the smell is an awful mix of burnt hair and flesh. But it sounds like the alternative is worse, and goat owners who declare that they’ll let their goats be “natural” usually come around to the practice after dealing with goats stuck in fences, injured by other goats, or with horns that get ripped off by accident and then become a much worse problem.

I carried babies in and out during dehorning; of course they were subdued on the way out, but when reunited with their moms, they were immediately jumping around and nursing as if nothing had happened.

In the afternoon, I do “rounds”, usually starting at about 4pm. P and I meet up and discuss treatments or procedures that need to be done and then do them. We distribute medicine balls, give shots, milk uneven udders, and do other care that can include giving a sullen mama goat a vinegar-and-water douche or scraping the shit off an encrusted behind of a baby. The range of care that I’ve been able to help with here has been amazing; it’s really an excellent learning opportunity, and I like the work tremendously.

After rounds, I do the feeding and watering in the pens again, usually ending by about 6:30.

Today, as it happened, I was here at the ranch alone. P hates to leave during this season, but had several errands to do, and we didn’t have anyone who seemed about to kid. At 4:00, I headed down to start what rounds I could do myself, and noticed a new kid and mom in the yearling pasture. Wow! They seemed to be doing fine, so I got busy getting a pen ready. Some pens have larger holes in the floor than others, and we have to put the youngest babies on the flooring with the smallest holes, so I had to move another mom first. Arriving in the “garden”, which is sort of our maternity ward, I noticed two moms with babies there also. At first I thought that two of the pregnant moms had kidded, but then I saw that Orchid and Lotus had busted out of their adjoining pens. It was quite chaotic! But they were also in no immediate danger, so I set to work moving Tulip and her two kids over to another area. Once that was done, I went to get the new mama and baby. I took a bucket of water, which the mamas always want after kidding, and the young mama took a drink. But she was not letting me get close to her. Fortunately, I’ve been perfecting my dive-in-the-mud-and-grab-a-hind-leg technique, and since she was small, I managed to catch her and get a lead looped around her neck. Then I grabbed the baby in one arm, lead in the other, and got them both to the garden and ensconced safely in a pen. It’s better for the mamas and babes to be in pens together, especially for new moms…it helps them establish good bonding, and minimizes the number of hazards the mom has to be on the lookout for. The moms seem pretty happy in their pens, until it’s feeding time or unless there are disputes over a hay bucket.

While all of this was going on, I noticed that Marjoram was in the area next to the barn, and could actually just walk through the barn and out to freedom if she wanted. Thinking that I had things under control, I went to put her back in the pasture and re-fasten the gate she’d snuck in on. I thought I should look to see if any of the other mamas were getting ready to kid. J and I had noticed two this morning that we thought might be, but we weren’t able to catch them, and weren’t entirely sure we were seeing the right discharge.

So while leisurely communing with the mamas in the field, marveling again at how much of my time is now spent eagerly examining goat pussy, I noticed two goats off by themselves…and both had two kids with them!

Neither goat was going to stand nicely while I put a lead on it, so I punted. I grabbed the kids and put them into a “runway” section of pasture outside the gate. One set had been born in the muck and mud, and were terribly wet, dirty, and cold. That mama went into the runway after her babies right away, but the other was wilder. It took some time of coaxing her into the right direction to go into the shoot with her babies, but finally she did. Then I was able to close them up in the runway, separate from the other goats and much easier to catch.

I needed two more pens, pronto, which meant moving two more pairs of goats. I started working on that, wondering how I was going to get all of the babies up and get those muddy ones clean and warm.

Just then, J and A got home, and they really saved the day. They got the muddy babies and got them cleaned and dried. We’d just gotten both of these mamas and babies into pens of their own when P arrived home, feeling bad and apologetic that she hadn’t been there for all of this. It was now getting dark; the garden was full of pregnant cranky moms, two escaped moms and kids, a demolished pair of pens, and all of the goats were hungry and complaining loudly. It was like the Astrodome after Katrina in there. But J and A soon had the pens fixed up and the escapees put back, and everyone helped with feeding, and we were all finished up at the usual time.

So it was an exciting day, but also not completely a-typical. But now I’d better get to bed to get ready for another one tomorrow…

We’re about half-way through the first wave of goat births; ten mamas have given birth to twenty kids so far. It’s an incredible experience. For the past couple of days I’ve been switching from busy CrowdVine work to baby goat arrivals and back. My brain feels like mush. I’m so fortunate that I work for a company where that kind of context switching is tolerated. Paradoxically, I find that I work harder to keep my focus when I am doing CrowdVine work exactly because it does support the other work I want to be doing.

I’m feeling on a bit of a high from working with the goats. It’s terribly interesting and I love spending time on it. I just love the animals themselves, too. Because I’m new to this, every day brings new edges to push. I’m proud of some of those moments. I’m probably most happy with my growing ability to trust my intuition. One of the things we have to do is observe the mothers-to-be and decide which ones are showing the first signs of going into labor…we bring those into the “garden”, a sort of maternity ward where they actually give birth.

I’m getting good at knowing which ones to bring in; I’m three-for-three on the ones I did all by myself. It’s a task that makes the most of my intuitive skill: my ability to look at an overall situation, and “know” what’s going to happen. Intuition isn’t a magical or psychic thing; it’s a personality trait that all of us have to varying degree. It’s an ability to make a lot of observations and tell a story about what’s happening, often without being able to even articulate what those individual observations are. The signs for a goat about to give birth are discharge, wide pin bones, full milk bag, and going off by herself. I watch for all of those things (and I don’t bring in a goat that’s not showing discharge, but sometimes that’s difficult to tell for sure). To me it often just “feels” like she’s ready, but I know what’s really happening is that I’m seeing the signs and unconsciously bringing them together.

I have the same knack for knowing when to go down to the garden to check on the ones we’ve left there. Probably I’m unconsciously developing a sense for the usual timing of things, and also probably subconsciously hearing the bleats of the mamas (sometimes, of course, I very consciously hear those bleats and know to go check.)

Watching the births has been amazing. Sometimes, when we’re there for it, I feel like we’re all physically willing the kids to take their first breaths, all of us tense and straining, “breathe!!” The baby goats get on their feet impossibly fast.

Today I watched two mamas give birth, having a bit more trouble than some of the others and needing human assistance. Watching one in particular has really stuck with me. I can still see her face, lip curled back in pain, bleating and gasping, eyes wild with pure instinct, pure feeling, a pure engagement of body in life where there really is no difference between life and death, only goat. An incredible thing to witness. I was grateful that she and her three beautiful babies lived.

I came back up the driveway tonight; wet, cold, tired, stinking, exhilarated. Grateful that the fire in my stove was still going, I sat on the floor in front of it, hugged my dog, and started to sob. It wasn’t from feeling bad, nor was it from feeling happy. It was just the enormity of feeling itself. For most of my life, I’ve discounted feeling in favor of thinking. The rational decision was always the right one. The ache in a leg or arm was something to ignore unless it prevents some desire action. The grieving of a heart was something to set aside or hide. Now I’ve done all this work to start unlocking the feeling part of my life, and sometimes, perhaps after a day of nine baby goats being born all at once, I feel like I’m just a puddle in the rain.

A rainy ridge in February in Sonoma county is a good place to be born.

Too tired to write tonight, too many commitments for tomorrow. Except for this: Life is a miracle. It’s nice to be in touch with that for brief moments.

You’ll find more photos of our kidding season rolling into this photo set; newer ones will come in at the bottom.

Last week, word was that the due date for our mama goats was February 14. When that came and went, it was said that the actual date was really February 16. And when that came and went, I heard that maybe it was the 18th after all.

How it works: the buck is put into the pen with the ladies. He begins by rubbing his head on their sides, releasing scent that makes them go into heat, usually three days later. Then he gets busy. Having been penned up for almost a year away from the ladies, he makes up for lost time quickly. The gestation period is about 150 days; usually several mamas give birth on the first day of “kidding” because the buck was so prolific at the beginning of his gig. A doe’s cycle is three weeks, so the buck stays with them for a little over six weeks so everyone gets a couple of chances. After the first day of kidding, things taper off, with babies being born for five or six more weeks.

In my impatience, I went and looked up when the buck was put into the pasture, and that was September 14. Adding 154 days to this gives us February 15. So I’m not sure what’s going on. I’m sure there are a lot of variables and I wish I understood it all better. There is so much to learn!

Usually goats here aren’t bred during their first year. However, because one or more of our bucks got out and into the “baby” pen, all of the young ones are pregnant also. And we’ve had two cases of premature twin goats. I’m tired of digging graves.

“Just wait, Terrie…it will be totally different when we have 60 baby goats here all at once.” I hope that’s true. I hope we’re prepared for it. Failing that, I hope we have better luck going forward.

In the meantime, I’ve made a good friend in the baby pen:

She’s called “Arrow” by most people here, because of a marking on her side that looks like an arrow. I sometimes call her “Blaze” because of the big white blaze on her face that sets her apart from the other goats. She’s one of the more friendly girls; often if I’m standing at the baby pen watching them, she’ll come over for pets and to try to eat my binoculars. I’ve thought about trying to buy her (all of the pregnant “babies” are for sale), but after learning that it would require separate housing and pen, I’ve mostly given up on that idea. It’s not like there aren’t already dozens of goats here available to me at any moment!

And many more to come. Soon, I hope.

I’ve wanted to write more here, but have had a hard time getting started. With this blog, I wanted to start the process of writing publicly about very personal things. But when I start to do that, something holds me back. It’s the usual stuff…afraid of what people might think, afraid it’s all too stupid to post, that it’s trite, or just that it’s wrong. A familiar reluctance to speak my own truth.

Part of the problem with that is that I often don’t know what my truth is. The past six months have been a big identity crisis for me. Literally. I have a vision of me sitting in the middle of cards facing outward, and on each card is something I am showing the world of myself. To the world, what’s on those cards is what I am. Then, some of those cards got knocked away, and then all the rest fell, and there’s just me in the center. And who is that? No idea. Honestly, sometimes I look at my own thoughts and it’s clear that I’m insane (or at least part of me is). Sometimes, thankfully, it’s thoughts I can laugh at it…no, no insane-terrie, I really don’t want to create a fake facebook man to fawn over my posts to make everyone think that I have a plethora of potential mates at my beck and call. Thanks for the suggestion, insane-terrie, maybe you can go back to tweeting for your dog now…try to stay out of trouble…

I have been in a real funk. But, that is part of what I wanted to do here in this yurt during the rainy season…to go into the depths as far as I dared, and to try to bring something back up to the light. The problems of my psyche manifest most clearly in my eating. The most useful author to me in this regard has been Marion Woodman. I’m reading Pregnant Virgin: A Process of Psychological Transformation now and am both fascinated and horrified with how clearly she understands what goes on inside me. But still, in trying to dive deep, I haven’t yet gone deep enough, and sometimes I fear that I won’t accept the sacrifice that I’ll need to make to get there. I sit, doing nothing, unable to get the obsession with food out of my mind, trying to ask it what it really is, what the food symbolizes, and getting nowhere. In my dreams I accept what happens against my will, unable to speak up for what I want. I am served pasta that looks like snakes, and though they tell me that it’s not, some fall to the floor, and wiggle. I stab the snakes with my fork, cringing inwardly but pretending not to notice, because they’ve told me to eat it.

On Saturday, I sat outside, trying to get back to my sit-spot practice. Turkey vultures flew in close. “Go away,” I thought, “Don’t be hanging around here so closely. I don’t like it.” I tried to understand why I was feeling so morose. I have so many things to be grateful for; I have the best friends in the world, an amazing place to live, the wealth of pets and good food and beautiful climate, hyacinths blooming at my doorstep. Where had my optimism and my gratitude gone? Then I remembered. Oh yes.

It’s February.

I don’t know why the poem says that April is the cruelest month. I’m certain that February is the cruelest month. Even here, on a ridge on a sunny day, I’m unable to escape February.

On Sunday morning, I was heading out with Laika for a walk when we were called over to the house. They needed help; a mother goat had been found dead in the field.

So the four of us got the cart and went to bring her in. She was in the mud and muck, and we all grabbed parts of her so we could get her over to the gate and into the cart. I hadn’t thought clearly enough to change into my boots, and the shitty mud rose over the tops of my hiking shoes as I grabbed the goat’s collar and pulled. There is no escaping the thought that this is what they mean by “dead weight”. But we got her into the cart, and wheeled her to the driveway. There, P had us stop so she could rinse her off. I was touched by this kindness and show of respect. I ducked into the barn to check the collar number against the name list; it was Iris. P said that it is not uncommon to lose a mama goat this time of year; sometimes there are stillborn kids that are not ejected and they cause death in the parent.

We took the body to the empty field in the corner of the property, one that the bucks can get into. There, the four of us dug a grave and then worked her into it. P had us position Iris so that she looked somewhat at peace. Don Juan and Emilio came over and watched us, standing at the grave; hard to tell what awareness they had. And then we covered her up. There were a few tears, and it was ok that there were a few tears.

It doesn’t seem right to call the death of a goat a good thing. But I felt a surge of gratitude that I am here, on this piece of property, learning how to care for the goats from P. I like how she does things. I like that we respect the animals, give them names, and also accept that sometimes things aren’t pretty or ideal. It’s hard when animals die. But it is appropriate and good when we take as much care with how we see them out of the world as with how we help bring them into it, and that is one reason I like working with animals in the context of producing food. The great wheel turns.

Today was my day to feed the goats, and I watched them as they ate. Their bellies are getting big, and some of the milk bags seemed huge to me. We’ll have kids within the week, and my excitement is growing. I reported to P about the big milk bags and she smiled and told me that the older mama’s are always like that, and told me some other things to look for, and thanked me for telling her (making me feel not too bad about being such a greenhorn with all of this.)

Although February’s tend to be heavy and morose for me, they have also been times of great change. Much of that change has been positive, usually after dragging through the depths of some inner muck, and surprising me by holding the seed of something new. So I hold that hope. I don’t want much. I’m not looking to jump into another relationship or to push forward in yet another new endeavor. I’d be happy just to feel a creative spark again, enough to actually push me into an action of creating.

Well, that….and baby goats.