home alone

So I had a home alone weekend, and after the farm drama Thursday afternoon, things got much, much better. I went out to dinner Friday with my friend Dolly and her bf and another friend, and then met up with Paul and Raj and went salsa dancing...those boys are fun to dance with. :) yay for my guy friends :) Hung out at Paul's house watching Robot Chicken into the wee hours of the morning, and got myself home around 2am. 3 eggs on Friday

I got to sleep in on Saturday...until 10am! I can't remember the last time I slept in so late. Usually sleeping in is 7 or 7:30, so 10 is just luxurious. I had a mellow day around the house, a little cleaning up, a little mellow lounging. Got to talk to some peeps I haven't talked to in a while and then stayed up way into the night talking to D. I haven't talked on the phone for hours like that in a really long time. Fun to do, but my sleep schedule is all messed up now. 3 eggs again on Saturday.

Today I woke up at 8 and went to another alpaca ranch nearby to check out their stud. He's a good looking boy, but I'm not sure he's really what we're looking for. They had also picked up the fleeces that didn't sell at Estes Park, and there were only 7 left (we had taken 16 fleeces and 8 bags of rovings). I was pretty happy to see that so much had sold. The big adventure today was being part of an Adopt-a-Highway clean-up crew for Adventure Rabbi. Raj was leading this trip, and Paul and I went together. We ended up meeting a few really great people...and we just kept hanging out after. It was a great way to do some community service and meet people and have fun. I didn't want to disturb the hens, so no egg count for today.

So that is all dear readers, my exciting home alone weekend!

dead kitty

The farm drama of the day...a kitten somehow climbed up into the stock tank in the girls' corral and drowned. I discovered this about 2 hours ago when I was giving everyone their evening feed early so I could go down to Boulder to meet up with friends and not worry about being out late. best laid plans...

So I took care of burying the poor little one and then got to work on getting fresh, clean water to the girls. I ended up wimping out and after I emptied out the water in the tank (around 100gallons) I moved a 70-gallon stock tank from the big pasture into the girls corral and filled that up. It takes quite a while to fill up a tank like that. I was able to carry/drag the 70 gallon tank, but the bigger one I had to push out of the corral and into the yard.

I'm hoping the sun will kill off a lot of the weird green sludge and germs and dry the thing out before I disinfect it. I've got to make sure that bleach won't corrode the galvanized metal before I scrub it...anyone know?

So now I'm debating whether or not to drive in to Boulder for Happy Hour. I'm not feeling too happy and social, but maybe some good nosh and friends will be a good thing.

I find it interesting that big drama seems to happen on the farm when Michael is not around. I also find it interesting that the next book in my queue is Dante's Inferno. Every summer I read the Inferno and plan to read Purgatorio and Paradisio...I've only read Inferno (though this will be my 8th or 9th time)...and I checked out Purgatorio from the library. But more on Dante in a later blog, I think.

shifting

a weird day. I went to the gym (for the 4th time this week!) and really got into watching the US vs. Ghana game (world cup soccer for those not in the know). Met up with Dolly at the gym and had a nice sweaty chat. Then I got to work and discovered that I had no phone, email, or internet access...it was all down...so I re-arranged my office. It is now totally different, and I think I like it a lot in the new rejuvenated arrangement. The only down side is that I have piles and piles of paperwork from this past school year still to sift through and sort and file. Since I was at the office today almost totally alone (my one co-worker is part-time for now) without contact with the outside world, I was in a pretty weird disconnected space today. Then Michael and his brother left tonight after dinner for Missouri. I'll be home alone for the next 4 days. I'm feeling like I could either turn into party girl or go into solo retreat mode...I'll let you know what happens.

And, since Bryan posted such an interesting comment the other day, an update on the alpaca sex life... Maya and Brinca arrived safely in California. Maya bred for 36 minutes yesterday with her boyfriend, Broc...he's such a stud. We weighed Amcharo this morning...he's up to 27.7 pounds! And only 1 egg today.

summer solstice

The summer solstice is here...the day with the longest number of hours of daylight...so from here until the winter solstice (around Dec 21), the days will only get shorter. Of course, with thermal lag, the days will continue to get hotter for a month or two more before it starts cooling down. I'm not sure why, but the whole thing makes be a bit melancholy.

Michael is down in the dumps today, too, and I had a weird day at work...the phones were out all day, and an instructor I was hoping to teach said no, and toward the end of the workday it hailed.

But I got to touch in with my LL today...I've been in the farmer mode for the last week or so, and haven't really seen many of my friends in what feels like a long, long time.

reconnect

Today has been a day of the beginning of the reconnecting...coming out of my farmer hole and getting phone calls and a farm visit from a bunch of friends I haven't talked to in ages and ages. Yay! It was great to get all these folks randomly calling just because...and it isn't even my birthday. Keep calling me :)

It is a good thing I got lots of love through the phone, because I have a fierce heartache from seeing off Maya and Brinca (mama and baby alpaca). They are off to California so mama can get knocked up. As my friend B put it, "that's a long way for a piece of tail". I feel like there is a chance I may never see them again...you never know, someone might fork over the $50k to buy them both while they are out there.

I'm also working with taking risks and using the "love" word more and more with people that I genuinely have love for.

4 eggs today.

resonance

do you ever read something and say "yes!" someone else has put into words what my heart has been feeling and I have been inadequate at saying. well, that just happened to me. so I'm going to steal from someone else and put it down here.

"I'm aware though that this is the last hurrah before I really do go do adult things....people will be relying on me. It's awful, really, to be relied on. Responsibility. All that. ... But part of me is really craving grandiosity and foolishness. Secretly: I'm not well-trained for foolishness--for listening to my absurd hopes and desires and taking them seriously enough to creatively figure out how they could be realized. This has been haunting me lately. Foolishness is very important. I forget that I am young. That perhaps it's more important (than) the suburban, midwestern middle-class practicality of longterm investment and planning-for-comfort that I was raised on." (thanks, nb!)

Wow...this yearning to be foolish has been driving me for months now. I became awake last spring in a red, red room with a deep fire in me to be foolish...to say, wait, I'm not 80! I am still young, and I still have a body that can dance, and I have passion and creativity and fun and silliness. For so much of my life I've played the role of the responsible one, and it is so hard for me to let go. People are always surprised to find out my true age...they always think I'm older because of how I act, because of my ability to be practical and responsible and in charge and in control. In college, when I still thought I was going to be a medical doctor, I pushed away someone very dear to me because being around them I was playful and silly and acted my age...that was too threatening to my practical self, so I told them they were too immature for me, and stopped responding to their emails.

For the last year, I've been on a pendulum swing back and forth between wanting to act with total foolishness and reckless abandon and wanting to maintain my 80-year-old, stodgy, practical self. Most days I am able to find the balance, the middle path, but occasionally I want to just chuck it all and start over with my life or push away all the playful, silly stuff (and people). Finding the middle path is not always easy. Maybe it is all just my saturn return.

the brother-in-law cometh

Michael's younger brother is coming to visit. He was originally scheduled to arrive today, but missed his flight and will be arriving tomorrow instead. It should be interesting to have him around for a week and a half.

I crashed pretty hard after my long, long farmer Jennie week. I fell asleep on the couch last night around 8pm, moved to the bed at 9pm, and woke up at 7am. I can't remember the last time I slept 11 hours!

We have finally chosen a name for the baby, "Amcharo". The word "amchara" came jumping out at me from a page in "the barn at the end of the world". "Amchara" is a Gaelic word for the beloved soul-comrade celebrated in ancient Celtic culture; the reflection of ones truest spirit. since it seemed feminine, we changed the "a" at the end to an "o". The "ch" is prounounced like a "k" so pronounced Am-KARO

Tonight we are going to have a silly, mellow night of eating a frozen pizza and popcorn and watching "March of the Penguins".