I don’t know how to describe some of the insanity current staff situations at work other than to say that it is reminiscent of my middle and high school years. And, lucky me, I get to be the grownup in the matter. This has to be preparing me for parenthood in some ways, but I also wonder if I would be better equipped to deal with these issues if I were already a parent.
But there is an escape hatch! We will be taking care of the goats this weekend. Managing the breeding cycles of a goat herd must be easier than dealing with staff members. Right?
Do something like this?
True, it all started over eight years ago when we adopted our dog from an animal shelter. She had been a stray and was picked up by animal control and brought to the shelter. Judging by her condition at that time, it was estimated that she had been on her own for several months. She was a mess–long matted hair covering a skin and bones little body. She is a fantastic dog, except for one thing. In order to survive on her own, she had to hunt and gather every bit of garbage possible and fight off any other creatures who wanted to take it from her. I should have known better, but I tried to take something away from her in her best interest.
What was I trying to take from her? That’s an odd story. My DP and I generally take the dog together on her last walk of the day; we usually walk the same route in the evening. On this route, we pass a house with a front bay window and four Yorkies. Why is it that they usually come in packs? This house has often put bread in their front yard. I imagine that their reasoning is the the bread and squirrels attracted by the bread will amuse and delight the pack of Yorkies. They have dogs–don’t they understand that dogs will also want to eat the bread? But no, the item in question wasn’t bread.
I can only place a guess at what they were thinking this time. They must have had some dog food that the pack didn’t like or had gone rancid. You can’t just throw the dog food away, you should use it to mulch the trees in your front yard. Yes, you did read that correctly. A month ago when it first appeared I thought that it was some sort of pelletized mulch, then the dog started eating it like there was no other source of food available (certainly not her high-quality nutritionally balanced kibble waiting at home). Another neighbor was worried that they were trying to poison the neghborhood dogs. We would shorten her leash when we approached the Yorkie house–most of the time. Some nights we would be talking and not notice until the dog was jerking toward a tree and filling her gullet as quickly as possible. We would just pull her back to the sidewalk and continue on, bewildered why anyone in their right mind uses dog food as a mulch.
With the raining and drying cycles in the last few weeks, the dog food turned to mush and then dried in a solid mass. The dog would now try to break of a piece of the rancid dog food mulch when we weren’t watching. That is what happened last night. I should have known better. I should have remembered other times that I have tried to remove horrible things from her mouth. But no, I didn’t want her to get sick. The wilderbeastie finally dropped the prized piece of rancid dog food mulch and decided that my flesh, the flesh of the hand that feeds her and rubs her ears, would make a nice substitute.
Filed under: The waiting game
So today is the first day of NaBloPoMo. I haven’t signed up, I don’t intend to. I doubt that I could follow through by posting every day for a month. Baby steps. I should commit to posting once a month or once a week first. But I should put in some fraction of the effort that real NaBloPoMo bloggers are exerting this month.
What I have for today:
I ovulated yesterday.
We changed donors this cycle to one with better motility counts and reported pregnancies.
I had IUI #1 yesterday afternoon and IUI #2 this morning.
We are feeling hopeful.
Filed under: Wide open spaces
No, the title has nothing at all to do with our little *ahem* project. I just wanted to respond to Shirky’s request for some livestock tales.
So the wannabe farmers had an adventure recently.
We had taken care of a friend’s farm last winter for two weeks, surviving two snow storms, a snow plow that couldn’t go more than two feet without getting stuck on the sheet of ice, power outages, and the hour-plus drive to and from work each day. We loved it–and said that we were willing to do it again. I guess when you say that you are opening yourself up to being asked again.
Our friend has been dreaming of a trip to Scotland for several years. Now with a budding rekindled romance and two capable farmhands, this was looking like a wonderful possibility. Certainly wanting to facilitate love and acquire more farming experience, we agreed to care for the farm and the goats for three weeks. No B&B guests were scheduled and no snowstorms were predicted for Labor Day weekend. What could go wrong?
We took a few things into consideration:
- Through the wonders of reproduction, there were twice as many goats on the farm in late summer as there were in late winter.
- Kids are more likely to get into mischief than older goats.
- The goats would need to be moved twice a day in the Management Intensive Grazing system.
- Mowing the lawn with a riding mower is much, much easier that dealing with the aforementioned snowplow on a pickup with accelerator issues.
So the first week was a smooth and predictable. It was exhausting to get up (at a farmer’s hour!), do chores, get ready for work, drive into the city, work a regular day, drive back to the farm, do chores, have a late dinner, and go to bed. Repeat again the next day, and again, and again. We very quickly realized something we had overlooked: the last time that we had farmsat, we weren’t on our own. There was another friend who would come and take care of the morning chores most weekday mornings–except when there was a conflict with one of her three jobs. No, we weren’t exactly on our own this time. We had the combined efforts of Team Goat working with us. The other team members would occasionally stop by the farm and let the goats out to pasture at about 11:00 on weekdays and were available if anything went wrong (the Hay Boy story can wait for another post), but otherwise were in charge of the whole lot.
Refer back to #2 and you probably have a sense of where I am going with this.
The Friday before Labor Day we arrived back at the farm at a little after 6:00. As soon as we got out of the car, we knew that something was wrong: there was the horrible sound of a screaming goat coming from the barn. We ran to the front porch, threw on our barn shoes, put the dog on the tie-out, and ran across the barnyard. Since we couldn’t decipher exactly where the sound was coming from, I headed for the front door and my DP went around to the pens in the back.
We had to pause at first when we found the source of the noise: one of the kids was in a space created by the back wall of the barn, three 5ft. cattle panels, and the automatic waterer. He had apparently jumped or climbed the panel, gotten scared, and stuck his head through the panel grid, hoping to escape. This wouldn’t have been too much of a problem, but he had not been dehorned and had a set of 3in. horns. Being a new owner of horns, he wasn’t familiar with their location, use, and management. He had put his head through a small lower grid and his horns prevented him from pulling back out.
The uninitiated might think that the other goats (especially his mother) would gather around to offer him comfort in his distress. Nope. The other goats had gathered around him, but were essentially mocking him and occasionally butting his immovable head.
My DP knelt to check out the tight fit in the grid panel and just how we might remove the kid’s head. Seeing an opportunity for more fun, the other kids started jumping on her back. Much yelling and wild swinging of arms was necessary to chase off the kids, but left the stuck kid unattended and there was more head butting.
I grabbed the ladder and climbed into the small space with the kid. I held the kids body, DP turned his head, and I pulled the ears through one at a time. Much more goat screaming resulted. I pulled his body and DP pushed his head and, pop!, he was free. He ran in a small circle for a minute, still screaming. I thought that I would just pick him up and pass him over the cattle panel to DP. No. He quickly wedged his 30lb. body in the 4in. space between the automatic waterer and a cattle panel. I believe that we paused for a moment here to question the mental capacities of this kid.
After shaking my head, I tried to pull the kid in reverse with my hands clasped around his neck while DP came around from pen to the walkway that the kid was now facing. I took a few more pulls and loosened enough space for him to rear up, throw his head back, and catch me with a horn. Yikes! It felt like he had gored my eye! I bent over, covering my eye with my hands, cursing the goat. DP was just coming down the walkway and hadn’t seen exactly what had happened, but knew it was bad. When I looked at my hand there was a mixture of tears and blood, but no eye. DP said it didn’t look good, but that everything was intact–the horn had caught me about 1/4 of an inch below my left eye. She thought that we should take a break for some medical care. I was now angry and in pain and wanted to finish with this.
After rearing back, the kid had been freed. My yelling had frightened the goat, who ran around in circles before wedging himself in the 5in. space on the other side of the waterer. Not wanting to repeat the goring, we knew that we needed another tactic. DP got bolt cutters and clipped the connectors on the short panel in front of the kid. She pulled back one side of the panel and I pushed and he was freed.
But wait.
He ran down the walkway and turned to the gate that led into the north pen. The gate was closed. He stuck his head through the wire grid and couldn’t get it out. The goat screaming started again.
DP followed the walkway back down to the gate and I climbed up the cattle panel and down the ladder and went around from the south pen to the north side. There is a drop between the walkway and the gate, a space that is exactly the length of a 30lb. kid’s body. The kid was stuck even worse this time. We repeated the earlier maneuver, with me on the head side and DP lifting and pulling his body. There was less gentleness this time.
When he was free, I opened the gate and let him into the pen. He ran for his mother, but she shooed him away, attempting to dissociate from him.
I went back up to the house tend to my eye and DP finished the chores. I was laying in the hammock with a bag of frozen peas on my face when our friend R arrived. We were planning to attend the small town high school football game that night. She took one look at me and asked “What happened?” I told her the story while we walked out to the barn. R is the key member of Team Goat and has a wealth of farming knowledge. She checked out the kid, by now named Stupid Goat or Idiot Boy, and pronounced his neck swollen but fine.
So I went to the football game with my black eye and a cut underneath. They won. They never win.
We were doing chores the next morning when R stopped by after her dairy milking job to bring DP some bacon from her farm (she really loves bacon) and check on me and Stupid Goat. My eye still hurt to blink, but I was fine. Wouldn’t you know it, Stupid Goat got his head stuck again five minutes after R arrived.
A week later, we were walking down to the barn to do the morning chores and heard some distressed bleating. By now we were experienced farmhands and didn’t get too excited. Yes, of course it was the Idiot Goat. His mother must have been eating at the hay feeder the evening before, and, because he is greedy and stupid, he stuck his head into the same grid space as her. Both of them were stuck until the next morning when we freed them.
So, even though this is a meat goat farm and the boys do not get names unless they are to become breeding stock, this one has several names–but please, don’t let this one breed.
Filed under: Uncategorized
It came up in conversation a few days ago that I have a blog. Well, I sort of write a blog….I have written posts on a blog….I once had a blog that wasn’t read so often….my life got really busy. Can I still claim to have a blog if I don’t visit so often?
So here, on my visit to this barren land, is a quick update of the last (nearly) two months since I last posted here:
- I interviewed for a job that I really wanted on September 11th. On the same day my partner and I met with an expectant woman at our adoption agency who was considering an adoption plan.
- I had a second interview for the job a month later. I was offered the position and accepted.
- I resigned from the job at the dysfunctionally managed nonprofit where I have spent more than five years doing good work with an incredible group of volunteers. The news was not received well; I felt punished by the executive director for leaving.
- My last day at the old place was the same day as the due date of the woman we met with. She decided to parent and I think it was a good decision. (I will write more about this at another time)
- I took a week off for some transition time before starting the new job. My partner took off most of the week as well and we played ‘local tourists’, going to all of the theaters, museums, and restaurants that we have intended to visit but never got around to.
- The new job is challenging (!). (I will also write more about this in another post)
Also to come in future posts: My mother’s recent trip to Israel-Palestine with an evangelical Christian tour group, my ‘perfectly stable’ life–as described by a friend at dinner on Friday night, and considering biological parenthood while continuing to wait in the adoption process.
Filed under: Green green grass of home, She's crafty, The waiting game, Walkabout, Wide open spaces
It just sort of happened.
Sometimes I really hate WordPress. I have written posts in the past few weeks, really I have. I save them so that I can return when my mind is fresh and continue to craft them into something that I would want to read. But then I open the saved post and find…….most of it has disappeared. Oh certainly this can be attributed to my naivete as a new blogger, but that makes it no less aggravating. I just wrote a few paragraphs summarizing the year-long building renovation project of the organization I work for, the work I had done to completely revamp the programs I manage, and my process deciding that this work was most likely the pinnacle of my efforts here and the time has come to find a new challenge. I saved the post. I opened the post. The post was now one sentence in length. Aargh.
But moving on…..I knew when I started this blog that itwould most likely not be like the blogs that I frequent–insightful, funny, well-written posts that appear once a day. No, my blog would be lucky to have 2-3 posts a week. So here I am, posting for the first time in nearly two months.
My darling partner and I made our every-other-year sojourn to visit my uncle’s farm for the wheat and barley harvest. The harvest was expected to be late when we bought our tickets, then a hot summer and a drought moved the season ahead. Two days after we arrived, harvest was finished. What shall we do with our time? Take a trip to the hot springs in Canada? Spend a few days at Coeur d’Alene? No, of course not. We painted the 5-bedroom 1890 farmhouse. It was a good time with the family, working on a common project and doing something that my uncle could never have done on his own.
We also went to see the grandstand show of the annual convention for the PGI with a few in-laws and a friend from seminary and her partner, some of the coolest people imaginable. A great time was had by all. Just imagine the light, sound, and pure energy of over 10 million firecrackers joined in a “Super String”
A week before we went to the farm we received a phone call from a social worker at our adoption agency. Yes, one of those voice messages that makes your heart stop. An expectant woman had selected five families from the profile book, ours was among the five. She asked the social worker to call each of the families and ask if they would be willing to work with her in her particular situation. Our answer was a very easy YES! The next message from the social worker was that the woman had not decided between parenting and adoption and wanted to wait until closer to the due date to meet any families.
Then a week and a half ago, the same social worker called me at work to say that they expectant woman had narrowed it down to us, just us, and that while she hadn’t made a decision between parenting and adoption, she thought it might be a better informed decision if she met us. So we set a time.
We met in the parking lot of the agency, having arrived at the same time. She brought her mother with her. Her mother pulled out a list she had made of everything she liked about us. She talked about the dreams she has for her child. She talked about her decision process. We talked about openness. Everything she said was so genuine. We exchanged contact information and agreed that she would contact us when and if she wanted to move forward.
The hopefulness is back. We started picking out a name, which is just so much work. I’ve been sewing little things like a maniac. We’ve been trying to remind ourselves that she hasn’t made her decision, but we are still racing ahead. We keep marvelling that this is so very different than our experience last year.
If she decides to parent, that will be a well thought out decision and it will be a good decision. If she decides to place with us, this could be the open adoption relationship that we have dreamed about.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Thanks to Femiknit Mafia for the meme
Life’s to do list – Completed items are bolded
01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula (no need to complete this one!)
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said ‘I love you’ and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris (France yes, Paris no)
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables (and I hope to do much more of this in years to come)
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb (see parentheses on #17)
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day (I might have been a strange child)
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 10 provinces or 50 states (I’m working on it, less than 10 states to go)
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe (I’m more of a bed and breakfast traveler than a backpacker)
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing (and I have the scars to prove it)
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland (couldn’t fit it in the last two trips, maybe the year to come)
52. Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow (and goats and sheep and ……)
56. Alphabetized your cds
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Posed nude in front of strangers
61. Gone scuba diving (alas, only snorkeling)
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business (see 17 & 32)
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played any game for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Had a one-night stand
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently (it is on the short “to do” list)
95. Performed in aisles at Rocky Horror
96. Raised children (working on it)
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Created and named your own constellation of stars
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an illness that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds (thank goodness this is more than I need to lose)
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Petted a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show (I have attempted this one)
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse (and been thrown from a horse)
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the
Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Petted a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad – and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream (working on it)
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair (someday)
146: Dyed your hair
147: Been a DJ
148: Shaved your head
149: Caused a car accident
150: Saved someone’s life (if you count being a blood and platelet donor for 15 years)
Filed under: Uncategorized
Again? So soon?
The 12-hour workdays are definitely bringing me down. I am taking a five minute break to write this post while I wait for the almighty contract tech to arrive to connect our office server so that I might move on to get ready for tomorrow. It is a short list this week, indicative of my mood:
1. My darling partner and I were somehow able to get away and go camping this weekend, even in the midst of craziness. Even with severe thunderstorms and a flat tire, it was exactly what we needed, some time away with just the two of us. The temperature was 15-20 degrees lower than at home, making our decision to get out of town exactly the right thing to do.
2. This construction/renovation/program change project at work may actually have an end. We go live tomorrow morning.
3. I have completed my first knitted wool diaper soaker.
