A Week Without My Other 3/4
Everything 'they' tell us is true. And we should not take cliches lightly, especially 'you don't know what you have until it's gone'. Fortunately for me, we were only apart for a week. After seven years of no more than two nights away from motherhood and marriage on the ground, we went long distance for the kids' spring break. The intention was for all four of us to join my mother-in-law for a grand exploration of the Outer Banks. Spring snuck up on us and joined forces with a little wintertime negligence. You see, we always trick ourselves into thinking we have more latitude for leaving while we are in the headspace of our more laid-back off season. And if spring didn't come early this year to allow so many of the farm's irons to be in the fire by late March, we might have gotten away with it.
There is a part of me who thinks it was life's design to experience a week this way, for me to tend to the farm and to myself. Not to mention the serendipity of Rich divorcing his thoughts from the farm before we hop into the wild ride of the 2024 season. Our on-farm foreman can hardly compartmentalize his objectives when he's on the property. And so other components of himself can rise to the surface while farmer Rich is put to bed for some much needed rest. He'll wake to a farm lushly green, alluring in its spring energy. It practically begs you to jump in and get soil under your fingernails.
And that's precisely what I've done with my week. Uninterrupted longstanding husbandry in the field, only paused for my other human needs, then back out to pick as much of the first flush of dandelion blossoms as I could before a pretty epic storm rolled in. It was tea for me while I rode the storm out in the farmhouse kitchen making gallons of dandelion jelly in an attempt to capture this phase of spring in a jar. Later in the year I'll spread it on some toast when I want to remember what the first glimpse of the growing season tasted and smelled like. The quietness of being alone allowed me to recognize that the tapping on the tin roof had petered out.
On with my boots and out to pasture to the catharsis of the daily moving of the sheep. Guided into a temporary holding pen of grass untouched for two months, the sweet Katahdin flock is heads-down, distracted by fresh fodder while I go on about my job. One fence post of electronet after another pulled out of the hydrated soil and laid on the ground. Then to be collected one at a time, stacked on its brothers in my hand. I carry them to a fresh plot of grass and forbs where they're lied down anew to be plugged in and pulled taut. The other three stretches of fenceline follow much the same as I connect the corners in a satisfying square of forage and soil which yearn for the synergism that this afternoon brings. Opening the floodgates, I observe the familiar mammalian emotions of thrill and excitement, maybe even elation, in the group of animals. Fully grown ewes flood into the space, they hop with a sideways kick in much the same way their nursing lambs do in response to the new-growth grass. Winter was long and the vibrant greening of the pasture signifies what's happening in those plants...sugars and other nutrients stored in the roots during the cold season rise to the top growth to provide for a feast unlike anything our girls and boys have indulged in for months.
Sheep chores are bittersweet this year as we near the weaning of the lambs when we will sell our flock in entirety. I'm allowing myself the time to BE with them, immersed in the ritual, grateful for what they've added to our lives and to this land. When the kids are around, admittedly I'm squeezing chores in when they fit. For the sheep to have my full attention, well it is the right way to achieve the closure of goodbye. Goodbye to the resilient creatures who helped us transform ravaged corn stubbled land into a mixed species haven for all the life that surrounds us now. We transformed together.
Peg and Roux, our adolescent pups pull me out of my communion with the sheep to remind me it's time to play. Oh yeah. Play! In a way, working on projects around the farm like I did in the 'old days' before kids is as satisfying to the soul as play. I only put down my hoe when I choose to, not when I'm called to. I've triggered some serious endorphin release already just moving my body for long stretches, while the mother in me is relaxed. But I should PLAY play. And so: a couple of breakfasts out with no watching the clock with some of my people, a night taken out on the town by two more, and movie nights with the pups and a few forgotten Easter candies ;). Also, reading some of my book in the middle of the day because I can and getting caught by the UPS man dancing to my loud music while making lunch in the kitchen.
But that music has been turning to blues-y jazz in the evenings. Emotions and Math by Margaret Glaspy this morning. They're coming home to me just as I'm feeling the loneliness of 1/4. It's time for the fraction to become whole. And it's time for kisses and to reconvene under the total eclipse of the sun.
Thank you for reading :).
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