Ixchel
The baby is named. And after pouring over your amazing suggestions, and LOVING your amazing suggestions, and reading your amazing suggestions out loud while sitting with the baby calf, I named her a name of my own. Ixchel.
Ixchel is probably my favorite name ever. It’s Mayan, pronounced e-SHELL. In Mayan culture, Ixchel is the goddess of midwifery and associated with the moon, which seems appropriate given the circumstances of her birth (she made it SO easy for Fiona, who has had trouble and loss in the past) and the moon patch on her belly.
If you look closely, you can see her white spot here:
If the embed doesn’t work for you, you can see the photo here.
Welcome to the world, Ixchel!
Fav Artist Friday: Hector Frank
If the embed doesn’t work for you, you can see the image here.
Click the image to play the video.
If the embed doesn’t work for you, you can see the video here.
I LOVE HIS WORK!
In other news… names! Oh my goodness, names. I have compiled a short-list and will be reading them to the calf and Fiona and we shall decide this weekend.
Why haven’t I named the calf already? Your name suggestions were too good to make the decision easy and this week was bonkers busy – in less than a fortnight, I will be launching a Kickstarter! I am SO EXCITED. More on that soon – stay tuned…….
Fifi + ??? [name our baby!]
I knew Fiona was going to calve on Wednesday morning. Rather, on Wednesday morning, I knew Fiona was going to calve that day. Not because I’m psychic but because she was showing all the signs – wandering off by herself, licking her sides. I brushed her whole body for a very long time, to relax her. Throughout the day, I’d go outside, walk around till I found where she was hiding, see if anything was happening, and then force myself to go back inside to work, even though I wanted to sit outside and watch her. The early stages can take hours.
When I checked on her at 2PM, she was swishing her tail in a particular way that is hard to describe but is part of cow labor. I decided to check on her more often. When I checked on her at 2:30, using binoculars from the deck, I saw she had hooves sticking out of her. I went down to the little valley meadow where she was and checked the direction of the hooves – if the front of the hoof is facing up, all is well. If the bottom part of the hoof is facing up, the calf is turned or breech. Thankfully, all was well. I didn’t want to disturb Fiona, so I sat down at the edge of the valley clearing. Even with emerging hooves, the actual delivery can still be a while off – cows might walk around with hooves sticking out of them for an hour. As soon as I sat down, Fiona came over and lay down right next to me. Like, right next to me – when she stretched out, her back hoof rested against my foot. She lay still for a moment, then sighed, then pushed, and delivered her baby.
You know a cow trusts you when she’ll have her baby right in your lap.
I’ve talked before about the “mama moo.” I had my phone with me and got video of this – the calf wobbling her way up to standing, Fiona hovering and licking and mama-mooing.
If the embed doesn’t work for you, the video is here.
Once the calf got her footing, she was prancing in circles around Fiona, with Fiona turning in tight circles herself trying to follow her to continue licking her off. The calf found Fifi’s udder, had her first meal, and was bouncing and bucking before she was an hour old! This calf is so freakin’ cute. Her face is fuzzier than any calf I’ve ever seen. She is solid black with a small white patch in the center of her belly. And we need a name! Please leave your name suggestions in the comments – I can only call this baby “Baby” for so long before Baby gets his feelings hurt.
Fav Artist Friday: Yis Goodwin, aka Nosego
This is another print I have and love.
I bought it because, to me, it’s a portrait of Charlie.
See the halo? And the fangy smile? And the pointy ears? Charlie!
He creates great murals, too.
You can find his instagram HERE.
In other news…. this happened:
I’ll post the birth story on Monday!
Four Full Weeks
I did it. Four weeks of daily posting – starting and ending with artists I love, an unplanned coincidence that makes me happy.
I’ll tell you why I gave myself this challenge. I needed (wanted) to get back the rhythm and habit of writing every day. Strict deadlines force my ego to get out of the way – if I’ve committed to sharing something every day, I do not have time to analyze and overanalyze and reanalyze if what I’m putting up is good or who and how it might offend. The only way I could stick to my commitment was to ignore those questions, ignore the ego, and just be quick and dirty and real. This four week exercise got me out of the habit of caring whether what I was doing was good or if it would offend. I desperately needed to break that habit – particularly, in order to move forward with another book. I had to stop caring about the quality of a first draft. A first draft that sucks can be improved; a first draft that never gets completed due to perfection paralysis is just dead.
After surgery, and after getting my meds and supplements regulated to a point where I could do more than blob in bed half the day, I made myself go out on walks in the BLM every day. I didn’t particularly feel like going on those walks because I was still weak and had gotten out of shape. But I made myself go out each day, and I didn’t judge the quality of the walk. I didn’t get down on myself if the walk was really short, or really slow, or if I walked for ten minutes, sat down in the sagebrush for thirty, and then walked home. By doing it every day, no matter how poorly, I got better. The key, for me, was not focusing on how much endurance I had lost, and not caring how drastically my present self paled to my past ability. I started looking forward to going out on those walks, to being out on those walks; they became a highlight of each day, a happy habit. And now they’re filled with hills and sprints and I’m in better shape than I was before surgery.
I wanted to do something similar with writing. To do it, without self-judgement. To get into a happy habit, in service to a new book. And it has worked! I’ll be tapering off a bit, here – still posting regularly but not daily, also in service to the book. Thank you for the notes, comments, and emails. They – you – matter to me, a lot.
keep looking »MY NEW BOOK!
More, Elsewhere
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