Three crows

It takes time to get to know a place. I really haven’t had the privilege to stay long enough in one place to say I really knew it. I’ve lived here on this farm for five and a half years now. I know a lot about it, but I keep learning surprising new things. Now I know the farm is always three to four degrees colder than what the weather sites report and I know that plot 1 is prone to frost. This is important information that only comes from observance over several seasons. I know which way the wind blows in the upper and lower fields not at all like plot 1 which is protected by a line of large cedars and also lies flat in a shallow valley which explains the frost.  

East to west pointed greenhouses logically hold up against the north and south winds at least in plot 1 but in plot 2 not so much they might be off a few degrees which means they get beat to shit by the high winds rushing over the pasture. Something I would never had guests upon surveying the best place for three large greenhouses that now require a lot more repairs and sturdiness. The coldest part of the day in the winter is just after sunrise and in the summer the hottest part of the day is 4-6 pm. The persimmon trees leaf out last in the spring and drop their leaves the first in the fall. Every year I worry that they’ve all died then suddenly they burst with life!

Aside from all the intentional critters on the farm like the goats, sheep, llamas, chickens, dogs and cats, I’m beginning to get to know the other animals that we share this land with like the coyote that has learned to bark like a dog, the occasional bobcat, owls, possums, raccoons, ducks, deer, cranes and occasionally geese. Of course there are rabbits and more species of birds than I can count and the three crows. 

There are three crows I see practically every day, at least that’s what I suspect. The truth is I never gave them much thought and it never occurred to me that the three crows this morning were the same three crows last week and even last month. But why not? I don’t really think I have a way to tell but their presence just keeps becoming more familiar and they don’t fly off as fast as they used to when I approach. This morning they waited until I was the closest I had ever been to them and it’s not even like they rushed off. It was more like hop hop hop fly a little further away, like they have a specified distance requirement. Okay I won’t argue with that I just acted like it was no big deal and went on my way. Maybe I look like a different human every day. All us humans probably look the same to them.

 

The three crows I see visiting the chickens. I watch with my binoculars from the kitchen window wondering what they are up to. Then they just fly off and I forget about it. But they are always around. I bet if I went outside right now they would be in the garden poking around in the fresh tilled soil. Linda once read an article on crows and turns out they will “adopt “a flock of chickens they’ve become accustom to seeing. They will even chase hawks away, which I have seen with my very own eyes. I think by the looks of things this morning they may have adopted us too. To a degree that is.

Crows are brilliant little creatures. I hear them holding court and I wonder what they might be talking about. There are more crows on the farm than these three but these ones must have position of ambassadors, the others I hear but rarely see.  They can be loud. So now I’ve met the neighbors. After years of just passing them by with not even a wave of acknowledgement, how shameful. I’ll be paying much better attention from now on.

ROUTINE 1 a : a regular course of procedure

You know what I love more than anything? Routine. I love having a routine. I don’t just like it I love it! I love waking up in the morning, not that I know what’s going to happen, rather just knowing exactly what I’m going to do. Even if something interrupts that process I can handle it, no biggie because I still know what comes next. Now, I understand routine and monotony are obviously not even in the same ball park here right? So, I’m not saying I Loooove to dredge through life making the same movements day after day after bloody day, but…. Hey for some that might be okay I can even think of occasions I would relish such a life, more truthfully a day or at best a week. But that’s just how I tick.

My whole life before farming was made up of a series of methodical routine. Come to work, unlock the door, turn alarm off, turn lights on, turn ovens on, and turn hood on. Check phone messages, receive produce order, study prep list, execute prep list, set up station, open for dinner, cook orders, clean up and then reverse the beginning, lights off, alarm set, door locked.  So on and so on for twenty eight or so years! This is a pretty loose generalization but you get the picture. Then I get myself tossed onto a farm in Oklahoma of all the wonderful places in the world, and it’s like getting hired as the captain of a cruise ship and my only qualification is I know how to swim, but never the less I take all of it as serious as a heart attack, right. Act like I know what I’m doing in spite of getting tossed about. “Where do we keep the steering wheel in this place?” I ask.

No, I love routine! The alarm goes off, the coffee is poured, the social media is checked, the journal is written in, thoughts are attended to, the body is stretched, the lungs are filled and emptied, then light starts to creep in and I pull on my work pants, the ones I don’t mind having chicken shit smeared on, bundle up a bit, slide my feet into my muck boots and I know exactly what to do next. I don’t stand up look in the mirror awe stuck and b’haggled (I made that word up) and ask myself “What should I do first?”  (for the record, I’ve done exactly that for more years than I am able to admit).

So I wonder sometimes is this not okay? Is this a gateway into monotony? Should I do something else like take another path to the chicken house? Or feed the dogs first before the goats or the goats first and then the chickens and then the dogs? Or should I eat breakfast before chores today and after chores tomorrow? And the cats? When should I….    See?! Never does it occur to me that it doesn’t matter. It does matter because now I’m out of my head. I’m not uncomfortable. I’m not trying to make decisions. Shoot, as I’m writing, it has just occurred to me that I’m putting way to much thought into this.

But really, finally finding this routine has its benefits. It helps me focus. When there is always so much to do I have a real problem with getting side tracked. One thing I have tried is to make a little promise to myself that I will finish a project before I start a new one.  When I finish with a job I’ll pack it up and put tools back and clean up after. You can’t believe what a challenge this has been. This is because I get 98.2% done and then something happens somewhere else, a pipe breaks or there’s a blow out in the irrigation, etc. It’s always something. So I say….”I’ll be right back” yup, exactly. This is a very bad habit but I’m giving it the old college try to overcome. 

So having a routine helps me start and finish something completely. 100% it feels good; it feels like an accomplishment even though I kind of feel like it shouldn’t. When you’re just putting your clothes on its not really an accomplishment to be dressed is it? There’s a higher bar I think to what can be called accomplishment.  I know there are the exceptions but at this point in my life I’m not qualified for that exception. In 30 years maybe (if I should be so lucky).

It’s the off season. Now is when the big projects happen. (Like the new dairy barn) Project time begins after morning chores, breakfast and tea and writing time. (I get a lot done before 9am)They can change like the wind and this can get me in trouble sometimes so it takes a lot of work to stay on task even when other projects are seductively winking every time I walk by. “Don’t you just want to work on me for an hour or so?” they ask.  Oh it’s so tempting! But… no! The rule is; finish the job. Put the tools away. Clean up the job site.  Dust off and enjoy the benefits and satisfaction that comes with project completion! 

So, I’m grateful for my routine, grateful for the comfort it offers me in exchange for unfetter freedom that I generally wouldn’t know what to do with anyway. I feel taken care of.  It’s the few hours each day that I feel like I’m standing on solid ground. Not that I expect or have any illusion of said solid ground, it’s just nice not to be looking for the steering wheel. 

Dark meanderings

It’s already seven O’clock in the morning and it’s still too dark to see enough to start my morning animal chores, I’ll wait till just enough light allows me to see the details. The sky is dark and cold with clouds and a light drizzle floats and covers everything, it feels kind of good. Today will be another cloudy dark day. I miss the sun.  

This time of year the pace is different, there is still a lot of work to be done, but things aren’t chasing me any longer. It’s the first winter in five years I haven’t offered a CSA, that’s nice, it’s allowed me to spend time on all the things that usually pile up and frustrate the dickens out of me because I see clearly that things need to get un- piled but don’t have the precious time to do so. So this is pretty sweet. I’m broke but the satisfaction that comes with the precious allowance of time is remarkable. Projects actually have a chance of completion. This half done business is beyond frustrating. 

I’ve noticed something pretty cool as I was kind of checking in with myself this morning, that even through I’m really struggling with the dark layer of clouds (which were also present in New York) I’m doing better then I have in the past. I no doubt have some kind of light deficit disorder although I haven’t really looked into it at any depth or length, I just get weird, not depressed just real dark, melancholy.  The worst time for me is between the hours of 4:30pm and dark after that I’m fine. Maybe because that’s when all the lights go on, I exist in an artificial environment. Heck I don’t know I’ve been living with this for the past twenty years I think. And can you imagine I once lived in Seattle. The difference is between those terrible hours I was in a brightly lit kitchen prepping for the dinner rush. Most of my hours were spent throughout my life in a bright kitchen. But considering all of this I’m not doing too badly.

The animals feel it too, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it’s a mysterious time of year, So much of the visual landscape changes and the colors are quieter and look lonely. It’s a time for dropping leaves, and going dormant. It’s the time for centering on what’s beneath and inside. It’s hard for us heart pounding animals. Even the birds change a little. It’s hard to succumb to the necessary and inevitable, like nap time for a three year old. Once they give up the fight they are out like a light. I need to find my place within this cycle, make my peace with it. 

The old silver barn

The old silver barn, that’s what we call it. Anyone who has visited the farm is immediately accosted by its well…appearance which then tells a story that this aint no storybook farm it’s a real Oklahoma farm! trashy out buildings and all. Maybe to some its punk rock, I dunno know, but if you could see what’s in it you would just move on as quickly as you could. It’s the catch all barn at least it has been. Old drip tape, scrap lumber, scrap everything, a kind of graveyard where stuff doesn’t die it just waits to be used. You get the picture; add that with a bunch of cats makes for an interesting back wood visual.  Free hugs anyone? You know that place way out in the middle of nowhere on a long lonely road to nowhere, where your car just happens to run out of gas? But anyway…….put up the chainsaws that’s about to change!

This old barn is old, I can tell from the layers of scrap tin used to make repairs. One side of the roof caved in a couple of winters ago due to a heavy snow load. This place needs some help and the deal is I have very limited financial resources but a hella a lot of creative will so I’ll be working with much of what I have.  The barn will be the “new” home for our milk goats. We are at a point that some changes needed to be made with our herd management plan and after a lot and I mean a lot of hemming and hawing Linda and I finally broke open to a solution, and what makes this so amazing is that if we play our cards right eventually we could, if we wanted to, become a grade A goat dairy. But we’re taking it slow. We’ve been down this road before. But I believe the universe right this second is conspiring to help us.

So the project has begun, all the junk –in- waiting has made its exit. Which already has created some anxiety “what if I need that… that piece of thing?” I stayed strong and piled everything up and made a nice hall to the landfill which is probably why the stuff was hidden away to begin with. That place is a very upsetting reminder of the accumulation of…. gosh I can’t even find a good word to use. So as I move forward I’ll be think about that landfill and perhaps turning away the next “free shit” I run across.

Free hugs? yea, its pretty ugly. But it has potential, right?

 

Someone did put some creative touches into it with the aliens.

Yes it is a work in progress. I'm pretty excited to see what I can do with this old hunk! I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile back at the blog....

Has it really been eight months?

Over the last several weeks I have felt a strong desire to write. It could be the pace of the farm has slowed which enables me to ponder and think about things in a less hurried way or it could be some things I’ve been macerating on have finally run its course. I’ve neglected the blog for some time, mostly because it’s hard to dissect the things that go on into readable sentences. I become self-conscience and worry that I’m being a narcissist thinking anyone would be interested about reading MY day to day experiences on this farm, or that I will be called out on being a terrible writer, and maybe all of that is true, but the drive to write is too strong to resist right now and if I say “later, I’ll write it down later”.  Well, poof it’s gone.  

                

I have this same relationship to social media, using the Facebook and twitter. It’s helped spread the word about the farm so much so I think I might actually make a real go of it. But I stammer and hide when it comes to posting personal stuff and by that I mean things that I feel really confused by like a death in my farm family of animals or illness, or insecurity, vulnerability, or even happiness and success. I don’t want to sound too happy or too terrified or too tragic but it seems it’s always one or the other.

Lately there has been a lot of happiness, a lot of contentment and peace. I’ve been able to step back and take a look at some farm situations that needed  attention and focus to make changes that would make big improvements to the day to day. Also I’ve just come from a week long vacation, which is a ground breaking feat.  New York City couldn’t be further from the farm and that’s where I was! In the middle of Manhattan.  I can hardly believe it myself.  It was fabulous! that being said, I was incredibly grateful to come back home. I have a pretty amazing life that not for one nano second I take for granted. But it was a nice, much needed break, that for once didn't involve sitting cross legged staring at the wall for 15 hours a day.

So what’s the point of this post ? I have no idea except to be carried by this desire to get it down, get it out and cultivate my meandering spirit again. I’m making no commitments but I am going to make the effort.  There is a lot of conversation in my head going on right now about effort.  Once the conversation starts turning to discipline or commitment the fog starts to come in. Why is this I wonder? Well it’s something I’m ready to explore and push and prod at.  This should be interesting.