Busy day not over yet

No... I'm home from office hours and it's 8:10 pm but Dante needs grain and he needs his feet soaked in hot salt water for 20 minutes.

Those 20 minutes are good, usually. I carry the steaming, salty water in a bucket from the house and I always stop to look up at the sky. We may not have a lot of sky here at Chiron's Grove, but what we do have is very pure and lively. I have seen so many shooting stars since moving here that I have begun to make categories for them in my mind: the quick and fleeting, the large and slow-burning, the vertical, and the arcing ones that go from end to end of the sky... like mushroom hunters, I look for the star-watcher's delicacy, a long, arcing, slow burning, ball of a shooting star that goes from one end of our enclave to the next. Every shooting star is a blessing on our place; one like that would be a magnetic wish-catcher, in my mind proof that my children will be showered with happiness all their lives.

Then I pick up the steaming bucket and trudge to the barn where almost certainly a light is burning, left by yours truly in the early morning hours because I hate to leave Dante in a dark stall. I set down my bucket and plunge my hand in to test the heat. If I can hold my hand in it, then Dante will leave his feet in it. Lately our new furnace makes slightly less hot water so usually by the time I get to the barn the water is the perfect temperature. I hear Dante's slow munch munch munch on the hay. He doesn't stick his head out of the stall because he is happy with his hay. If he were not happy, he would put his head out and turn it sideways and stretch it as far outward as he could and yawn over and over to express his frustration with the fact that he, Dante, has not had his grain yet. If I scratch his ears instead of giving him his grain he will press his forehead against my front (and his forehead is as wide as I am), pretend to enjoy the scratch, then nudge me right off my feet and halfway across the aisle. I try to convince these horses that I am as big as they are, and usually I succeed, but occasionally they remember themselves and take advantage of certain... inequalities of stature.

But he is quietly munching at foot-soaking time. I open the stall door and lug the big bucket in with two smaller buckets. I say "Hey, baby," like we are both caught in the 70s, scratch his withers and then lean against him to shift his weight, lean over, and ask for a foot.

If he feels okay, he will adjust his footing to compensate for having only three to bear his weight and then lift the foot. If his other front foot is very sore, he will offer me the sore one first. Then I go around to the sore side, accept the offering and put it in the bucket, setting foot and bucket carefully on the ground. I walk back around him, lug the steaming hot water bucket around his rear legs (he would only kick me if he was delirious), and pour the water carefully around his sore hoof, waiting to see if he finds the water okay. Usually he does.

Then it is the waiting time. I sit on his hay pile (he tolerates this with the equanimity befitting the well born, and sometimes nudges me wholesale off a particularly delectable wisp of hay). I have taken care to dress warmly enough that I will not fidget, and I settle down in company with all the other times I have waited by animals, sitting on their hay piles, from the earliest days at our farm when I was a child and snuck by the sheep into the hay rack to the times when, an older child, I sat and watched the sheep and ponies to learn about them, to the times when, as a young adult, I found peace and comfort in the munch munch munch--to now, sitting by Secretariat's great-grandson's wise, well meaning, enormous brown head and looking at his peaceful, trusting eyes.

And that is the best time of all, sitting there with no reason to move, thinking about... nothing. Really. I watch and I absorb, and I cease to think. The great animal's consciousness absorbs me in a peaceful, all-knowing state of harmony with all about, so that any slight thrum of change jars me from this state of completeness and comfort.

Some nights no such jarring events occur. Even if they do, from within our sense of comfort with the universe, anything jarring just bestirs me (us) a bit and we expand our consciousness to enfold the change--usually a child's voice--and let it pull us on to our next new awareness.

But now, of course, it is time to go out and do it.

Another busy day...

Sometimes I wish it would all s l o w d o w n. What would it be like if the world decided that each second and minute were double the length that they now are? Do you think we would all feel as rushed?

Anyway--up this morning early, helped the kids get ready, then off to take Danny to school and to watch his Halloween parade. He was very handsome in his Obi-wan outfit. I got some good pics to post (soon). He walked around talking to people and smiling. He is having a really good time this year. Unimaginable relief!!!!!! Danny is finding a good groove at school!!!!!!!!!! I think it is this new teacher and the fact that they have finally laid off the hand-writing obsession and let him learn without having to funnel his responses through handwriting. He has lots of support from the adults in his world, too. Plus he's now officially in the middle school.

Okay, then off to the barn to get a load of hay with Michaela and Acoy (bless them both for helping). On the way home talk to Danny's dr. to report the good news of how his year is going. Then back to the farm to talk to the furnace guy and to unload the hay, then half an hour to check email and update this blog, then back out the door in 10 minutes to go to Mikey's school to help with handwork. He will be finishing his lion today! I can't wait to get a picture of it here on the blog.

Many funny animal stories to tell. Matt has a rooster in the chicken coop that we can hear crowing in miniature--I mean the crow is very high pitched and sounds like it's coming from a 6-inch high rooster. Yet whenever I open the door, all I see are this massive meat birds staring up at me waiting for food. They won't crow while I'm standing there, but my guess is that Matt really does have a 6-inch high rooster that scoots under one of the bigger birds whenever I open the door. Then they all gaze up at me, like, "What....?" in the same tone as that wolf in the bed in the first Shrek movie.

Anyway after handwork I have to go do a bunch of errands for court tomorrow (ugh), then up to UVM for my office hours (note to self: take the laptop) from 4 to 7. I will try to work rather than socialize (ha). After that I come home and ... and ... no, not rest. Keep getting ready for tomorrow (ugh). Then read myself into oblivion in the bathtub with my glass of wine and then rest.

The boys are trick-or-treating tonight in Marc's neighborhood. Mikey is a red ninja. They're both very happy that today is finally Halloween. I just hope that the candy stays at Marc's house. It's the first time in quite a few years that Marc has had them for Halloween. At first they were disappointed to be doing it differently and that I would miss their full costumes, but I think they've accepted it and will find a way to have a good time anyway.

Last night Jeffrey and Daniel were here for dinner. Daniel had babysat while I went after a few equines that were out (Harry the donkey and Coco the Tall). I rode little Katie (the Black and Happy) to bring them home while Daniel hung out with the boys. You know, I do wish that the horses never got out, but quite honestly it is about as good as life gets to be on a horse riding out to bring other horses home, and then to be a part of the herd as it gallops towards the horizon to get home. Those moments are so full of happiness that the glow shines all over my life for days.

...and now it is time to go. Hope I don't smell too much like hay... Note to self: check the mirror before leaving the house.

Our location

This is the view from our window. You can see our goat--"Goat",--and our dog, Lucy. The view is from our living room window on a rainy day. The paddock behind those two animals often has a horse or two in it, and often Harry the donkey as well.



Here is another view of Goat. He wants to come in.