false alarms and uterine torsions

Ok, so it turns out Pokie was not in labor, but instead had a uterine torsion. After a day of watching her suffer and not go into stage 2 of labor (water breaks, vaginal dilation, pushing, baby coming out), I called the vet. My hunky vet came out and after a very quick exam, said she had a uterine torsion. This means that her uterus was twisted 180degrees.

Here's a nice description that I found online:

If you think about your arms as the two horns and place them in front of you in the shape of a "Y" you

would be a normal (alpaca) uterus. In a clockwise uterine torsion your left arm would go over

top of your right. In a counter-clockwise torsion your right arm would go over top of

your left. The torsion can be anywhere from 90 degrees to 360 degrees and

beyond. The place where it twists is normally near the cervix. This prevents the

cervix from dilating and will prevent birth if it is not corrected.

So the way we fixed it: my vet gave her a shot of anesthesia and after she got sleepy, we helped her lay down. While he held the baby still by applying pressure on her belly, we rolled her over in the direction of the twist (counter-clockwise). She was out cold for 45minutes, but the procedure lasted only about 2. I stayed with her and kept the other alpacas away from her and held her head until she woke up. The whole herd was worried about her, especially her daughter, Samsara. They kept coming over and trying to get her to move.

Once she woke up and started eating, she seemed like a whole different animal...back to normal Pokie behavior! What a relief. Now we're on baby watch again. Apparantly her cervix is slightly dilated, and since this "procedure" was done, she could deliver tonight or tomorrow or in a few more days.

Thanks for all your thoughts and well-wishes :) I'll let you all know how things turn out.

wating on a delivery

I am at home this morning, waiting to see if Pokie will deliver. She was sure acting like it earlier this morning, but now I'm not sure. She was showing a lot of "classic signs" at 7am...straining, staring off into space, being separate from the herd. She has had a few nibbles of food, but she hasn't really eaten (a very un-Pokie like behavior). So I'm sitting around watching and waiting.

I think that my presence outside was distracting to her, so I came in to spy on her from the window. Strange, I know, but I'm not sure what else to do. at least this way I can check email and do some work-related stuff (and cook my bean soup for dinner!)

I'll keep ya'll posted.

bunny is a rooster

Bunny, our gender-nebulous chicken, is now confirmed to have rooster traits. Yesterday morning while eating breakfast, I heard a rooster crow...and the sound clearly came from our hen house! I went outside and there she was, flapping her wings and crowing a rooster crow. So I suppose I need to stop using female pronouns when I refer to Bunny. Sigh. We'll have to figure out what to do with her/him.

And this morning I found out one of my friends has cancer.

13 eggs yesterday (we had forgotten to collect them on Thursday). 4 more pumpkins harvested today and a few more cups of raspberries.

first frost

Saturday we had the first frost of the season. It has nearly killed the pumpkin vine! So this weekend I spent lots and lots of time in the garden harvesting...I'm excited about the haul:

-nearly 4 cups of raspberries from the raspberry vines in the front

-4 large pumpkins

-12 mini pumpkins

-a bunch of green beans (enough for 2 people for dinner some night)

-10 cups of tomatoes (and my tomatoes are the size of large peas, so this was a LOT of hours of picking)

There's lots more of everything ripening on their vines!

8 eggs yesterday, 8 eggs today

As I spent time in the garden this weekend harvesting, I had a moment where I had a flash of recognition and connection to all the people in the world who grow their own food as a way of survival, not as a form of entertainment and supplement. I thought about all the people around the world who would spend not a day, but many days on their hands and knees or standing with bent backs, getting scratched and poked and bitten by insects as they worked to gather as much as they could while the weather held and and even when it didn't. I had the luxury of running inside when the wind and rain got too be too uncomfortable, to make myself some tea to warm up. I think about the people all over the world who don't have such a luxury. I think about the ancestors all over this globe who didn't have the luxury of a weather forecast and would keep on picking not knowing that the weather would be better the next day. As I looked upon my green-brown dirty hands I thought about all the people whose hands were permanently altered by the toil of working the land. And I thought of how grateful I am for my life and my privilege and my garden.

I guess this is growing up

What a strange phenomenon growing up is. I feel particularly aged the last few days...

my childhood friend Bob and his wife had a baby a few days ago. I got some photos by email earlier this evening. Seeing my friend acting goofy while holding a teeny tiny baby, and knowing that it is HIS baby is a pretty strange feeling. A bit of pride, a bit of jealousy, and a bit of disbelief.

another childhood friend had major surgery yesterday. She had a very large tumor removed and will know by the end of the week whether or not she has cancer.

my friends L & B have picked a date for their wedding.

maybe this is why people freak out when they turn 30...new phases of life are springing up all over.

I'm not as young and springy as I used to be...and in fact am pretty exhausted today. Maybe this is growing up.

5 eggs today.

reprieve

why do boys have to smell so darn good? still working hard to find out how to be a girl in a girl body

and the lyrics to my current favorite from ani...

Reprieve

manhattan is an island

like the women who are

surrounded by children in a car

surrounded by cars

or manhattan was a project

that projected the worst of mankind

first one and then the other

has made its mark on my mind

it's sixty years later

near the hypo-center of the a-bomb

i'm in the middle of hiroshima

watching a twisted old eucalyptus tree wave

one of the very few lives that survived and lives on

remembering the day it was suddenly

thousands of degrees in the shade

and what all of nature gave birth to

terror took in a blinding rey

with the kind of pain

it would take cancer so many years just to say

oh to grow up gagged and blindfolded

a man's world in your little girl's head

the voice of the great mother drowned out

in the constant honking

haunting the car crash up ahead

oh to grow up hypnotized

and then try to shake yourself awake

cuz you can sense what has been lost

cuz you can sense what is at stake

yeah, so

it took me a few years to catch on

that those days i catch everyone's eye

correspond with those nights of the month

when the moon gleams like an egg in the sky

and men are using a sense they don't even know they have

just to watch me walk by

and me, i'm supposed to be sensible

leave my animal outside to cry

but when all of nature conspires

to make me her glorious whore

it's cuz in my body i hold the secret recipe

of precisely what life is for

and the patriarchy that looks to shame me for it

is the same one making war

and i've said too much already

but i'll tell you something more

to split yourself in two

is just the most radical thing you can do

so girl if that shit ain't up to you

then you simply are not free

cuz from the sunlight on my hair

to which eggs i grow to term

to the expression that i wear

all i really own is me

yes to split yourself in two

is just the most radical thing you can do

goddess forbid that little atom

should grow so jealous of eve

and in the face of the great farce

of the nuclear age

feminism ain't about equality

it's about reprieve

Currently listening :

Reprieve

By Ani Difranco

Release date: By 08 August, 2006

reclaiming girly

Every once in a while I get pretty bent out of shape over the blatant misogyny, and oppression and repression of women that permeates our culture. Today is one of those days.

Saturday morning children's programming is one of the ways misogyny and repression of women is perpetuated in our culture…I turned on morning TV at breakfast today just in time for a tween/teen show in which one of the (male) characters was so excitedly showing off his first car, only to be taunted by his friend and his father for having a "girly" car. WTF? I remembered why I don't watch as much TV as I used to and started my brain up…

What does "girly" mean anyway? You never hear "girly" used in a way that is empowering or uplifting. And why is "manly" the opposite of "girly"? There is no "boy" equivalent that I can think of (ok, boyish, but that is something else entirely). "Womanly" is used, but so rarely I'm not going to include it here.

"Girly" is defined in the online Miriam-Webster Dictionary as "featuring scantily clothed women" examples are girlie magazines and girlie show"

"Manly" is defined in the same dictionary:

1 : having qualities generally associated with a man : STRONG, VIRILE

2 : appropriate in character to a man

In common culture, I rarely hear "girly" used to talk about scantily clad women. Since "manly" is strong and virile, "girly" must be weak and impotent (lacking in power, strength, or vigor). Girly is a derogatory term, particularly when applied to things that are considered be "male" (e.g., "Girly man" is not a compliment).

So this is all rather academic, I know. I'm working hard here to not use an excessive amount of F-words…I'm over compensating. Today I am angry. I am angry that I've spent the last year and a half trying to forgive myself for self-oppression, for my own misogyny.

I was a confidant, smart, strong girl and then woman until I was 21. Before I was 21, I was an honors student and loved science and wore make up and kissed boys and liked my body and found physics to be beautiful and never thought of myself as either a tomboy or as girly.

Before I was 21, I never personally encountered prejudice because of my gender. And then I became an engineering graduate student, and all that changed. I was sometimes the only woman in the room, sometimes there were 2 or 3 of us…but the rest of the students were men. And the classes usually had 20-30 students. So suddenly, I stuck out. I was struggling academically for the first time in my life…and I started to question why. None of the men in my class seemed to indicate any signs of struggle or weakness...and I started to buy into the shit that is perpetuated in our misogynistic culture. I slowly started eradicating all the things that made me feminine… my clothes got a bit baggier and I entered the "frumpy" phase…the better to hide my breasts and hips. No more earrings or fingernail polish or perfume…"girly" is weakness, right? Shit, I somehow talked myself into believing that I had to blend in and become a boy in order to be taken seriously. Instead of being proud of my accomplishments and successes, I instead saw anything less than perfect as a failure to my gender. So I stopped being a girl, because the disappointment was too great a burden to carry.

Well my days of being a boy ended a year and a half ago when I was meditating in a room that was so red, I was pierced through to my core, and my inner girl was reborn. I still struggle with my self-image…I'm fighting hard to remember what I was like before I was 21…to remember that in my mind girly and womanly were synonymous with "strong". So here's the deal…I'm reclaiming girly just like Eve Ensler has started reclaiming cunt. Girly and womanly are not pejorative terms in my vocabulary anymore.

Labor Day: a perspective from the AFL-CIO

In grad school I was a union activist: I told my story to literally hundreds of other workers, I lead a strike, and I was on the bargaining team where I helped negotiate the first ever contract between Academic Student Employees and the University of California. To me, Labor Day is more than just a day for a BBQ...it is a day to honor those who struggled and continue to struggle for fair wages, safe working conditions, and equitable treatment.

The below is from the AFL-CIO blog:

Labor Day is more than just a Monday holiday marking the end of summer.

At least it should be. For many of us in the union movement, its a time to hold Labor Day picnics and rallies and often, as this election year, move full-speed ahead in political action on the way to the November elections. Its also a time to reflect on the sacrifices of those U.S. workers who came before usespecially those who lost their lives in the fight for justice at the workplace.

While the radical origins of May Day are not contested, as labor historian David Montgomery notes:

Labor Day is more a complicated affair.

Only the United States celebrates Labor Day in September. Elsewhere around the globe, nations honor workers on May 1May Day.

And that historical quirk is no accident.

Ironically, May Day was founded by U.S. workersand taken away from them as a day to celebrate by a federal government fearful of the wave of large demonstrations for the eight-hour day and massive strikes for justice on the railroads, in the mines and factories that had begun in 1877.

Such an action may seem quaint now. But the symbolism of May Dayworking people challenging corporate powerstill causes fear among the top elite.

Just ask George W. Bush and the Republican extremists in Congress.

In 2003, Bush proclaimed May 1 as Loyalty Day when U.S. citizens should

express allegiance to our nation and its founding ideals, we resolve to ensure that the blessings of liberty endure and extend for generations to come.

That same year, Congress, designated May 1 of each year as Loyalty Day.

Proclaimed Bush:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2003, as Loyalty Day. I call upon all the people of the United States to join in support of this national observance. I also call upon government officials to display the flag of the United States on all government buildings on Loyalty Day.

And while hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers and their supporters took to the streets for justice May 1, 2006as did their symbolic forbearers in the 18th centuryBush again proclaimed May 1 Loyalty Day.

Just when you think historical events are just thatthey come back stronger than ever.

May Day was officially founded in 1886, during a Chicago strike for the eight-hour workday. In 1889, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) delegate to the International Labor Congress in Paris proposed May 1 as international Labor Day. Workers were to march for an eight-hour day, democracy and the right of workers to organize. Delegates approved the request and chose May 1, 1890, as a day of demonstrations in favor of the eight-hour day.

On a separate track, U.S. labor leaders had agitated for creation of a labor holiday years before the Chicago rally. Among them, Peter J. McGuire, a carpenter and labor union leader, had proposed his idea for a holiday honoring Americas workers at a New York labor meeting in early 1882. (Others say the founder of Labor Day was Matthew Maguire, a machinist who served as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York.)

Either way, New Yorks Central Labor Union began planning labor day events for the second Tuesday in September. McGuire (one of them) had suggested a September date to provide a break during the long stretch between Independence Day and Thanksgiving.

Today, the union movement marks Sept. 5, 1882, as the first Labor Day, when 20,000 working people marched in New York City to demand an eight-hour workday and other labor law reforms. In the parade up Broadway, they carried banners reading, Labor Creates All Wealth. About a quarter million New Yorkers turned out to watch.

In 1887, Oregon became the first state to establish Labor Day as a holiday, which it put on the first Saturday in June. Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York observed Labor Day on the first Monday in September that year.

The remainder of that decade and the early 1890s saw massive strikes, often put down with brutal violence by government troops. In the 1894 Pullman strike, led by the American Railway Union leader Eugene Debs, workers demanded lower rents (Pullman was a company town) and higher pay after massive wage cuts and layoffs. Railroad workers across the nation boycotted trains carrying Pullman cars. President Grover Cleveland declared the strike a federal crime and deployed 12,000 troops to break the strike. Two men were killed when U.S. deputy marshals fired on protesters in Kensington, Ill., and the strike was crushed.

But 1894 was an election year. As workers protested Clevelands harsh methods, legislation was rushed unanimously through both houses of Congress to create a holiday for workers. Yet the symbolism of May Day was too strong for U.S. politicians. In creating an annual Labor Day holiday in September, Congress at the same time declared May 1 to be Law Daypaving the way for the Bush administrations Loyalty Day.

Cleveland signed the bill creating Labor Day six days after his troops had broken the Pullman strike.

Writing of this years May Day protests by immigrant workers, historian Nelson Lichtenstein says:

these May Day demonstrations and boycotts return the American protest tradition to its turn-of-the-20th-century ethnic proletarian originsa time when, in the United States as well as in much of Europe, the quest for citizenship and equal rights was inherent in the fight for higher wages, stronger unions, and more political power for the working class.

Meanwhile, Montgomery points out that the day created in September to honor Americas workers was established precisely because of workers demands.

First state governments and then the federal government adopted the day in response to workers demands. The government did not create the holiday.

Some call May Day the real Labor Day. But workers in this nation shed their blood for a day of honor. And no matter what the date, they deserve our memory.

by Tula Connell

bonfire gone awry

Yesterday we had our 3rd annual Labor Day BBQ. We had some neighbors and some friends and a lot of food. We ended the evening with a bonfire...it was a much bigger bonfire than Michael has ever built, and I was a bit nervous about the whole thing (nothing unusual for me). This morning, Michael slept in, and I went out to feed the animals a bit later than usual, since I was having a lazy sunday morning. When I let the girls out, I noticed smoke, and thought it strange, so I followed the smoke and found that the bales of woodpulp that were stacked near the haybarn were on fire! I got the hose, started water on the pile, ran to the house, yelled "Michael I need you outside NOW" and ran back outside. We were able to put out the fire without too much trouble, but it was really scary. The wood pulp bales belong to some people that rent out some of our land to store their hydroseeder and ancillary equipment. I made Michael call them to tell them we burned up their bales.

We are very, very lucky. I'm not so certain I'm going to permit bonfires anymore.

8 eggs today (and 7 yesterday and 7 the day before)