Little by little we’re getting rid of the goats. It’s a little heartbreaking—they’ve been such a big part of our lives for the last decade (or more). They’re just not a good fit for us now, though, and we’re so lucky to be finding good homes for them.
The coolest thing happened today: I got a surprise gift in the mail. It is a wonderful book that I’ve had wishlisted at Amazon. I did a little research and discovered this post on cryptogon. What a lovely, lovely thing! I feel such a sense of delight, maybe out of proportion to the gift itself.
Thanks so much!
Fanny has grown a bit, as you can see from this picture. And no, she does not still live in the house!
The girls have been bringing home pails of wild strawberries, and Bernard makes the most wonderful ice cream with them, using heavy cream, the berries, and just a little bit of sugar. Makes a great supper!
To be of use
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
— Marge Piercy
No pictures yet of the garden—we had a serious storm night before last, and my beds got a little beat up. I felt bad about it until I went out yesterday afternoon and saw whole driveways washed out into the road—suddenly my little bit of garden bed damage seemed pretty insignificant! The good news is that our half of the county is now out of drought according to the U.S. Drought Monitor—-time for a party!
We’re off to the market this morning. I’m not sure how long I’m going to keep doing the market—I’m not really making enough to justify the time, especially now, at such a busy time of the year.
Yesterday my three helpers and I got a lot done in the garden—I’ll try to get some pictures today after I get the beds all put together in the wake of the tiller.
A funny thing happened in the evening: my helpers had asked me to meet them at my friend SJ’s house, since they were on bikes and there are a bunch of pretty scary bear dogs between his house and mine, so I picked them up in the car, and at the end of the day I drove them back down to SJ’s. SJ was in his barn when we got there, and he had some folks in there with him and they were all looking at his goats, so being kind of nosy, I wandered in to see what was going on. The people were there to buy goats, and I sort of joined in the conversation. At some point SJ said something using my name, and one of the women looked at me kind of intensely and said,”Rosemoon?”, to which I politely replied, thinking she was just responding to my unusual name, but she sort of leaned forward and said,”Rosemoon and [insert DH's name here]? We’re W and T!”
Years ago DH and I did a bit of traveling, and we made good friends on the road. We’ve known our friends D and J for twenty years—they’ve since settled in central Tennessee, and we’ve sort of drifted apart, mostly from my own lousy ability to stay in touch, but over the years we’ve spent a lot of time together, at our place(s) or theirs. There was another family that they were very close to, and also spent a lot of time with, but whom we were always just missing. We would get to D and J’s house and they’d say, “Aw! You just missed W and T!” We were constantly missing each other by days or hours, and after a while it seemed bizarre that we had never met! My brother knows and loves them, and I became friends with T on facebook, but still, twenty years later, we’d never met. Until last night in SJ’s goat barn in the middle of nowhere. Where W and T had come from south Georgia in response to a craigslist ad for goats. They had no idea we were in the area—they thought we were somewhere in South Carolina!
Isn’t it a funny world?
I found this wonderful poem here: Hollin Farms
GOD SPEED THE PLOUGH
Let the wealthy and great
Roll in splendour and state.
I envy them not, I declare it.
I eat my own lamb,
My own chickens and ham;
I shear my own fleece
and I wear it.
I have lawns; I have bowers.
I have fruits; I have flowers.
The lark is my morning alarmer
So jolly boys now,
Here’s God speed the plough.
Long life and success to the
farmer.
