Catch Up & A Chicken Contest

Ahoy! I started a new dose of thyroid meds about ten days ago and am finally feeling RIGHT. It’s so nice. It’s so easy! Every day is no longer a battle, as it has felt for the past six months. I wake up smiling again, like I used to. I am so glad.

I did find out that one of my vocal cords is paralyzed due to nerve trauma during surgery. The nerve is not severed, so it’s possible it will heal and my voice will come back. In the meantime, I am scheduled for a temporary fix: an injection of collagen right into the vocal cord. This plumps it up enough to move the cord to the midline, so the other working vocal cord can meet it and make strong sounds – right now, there is an air gap, which is why my voice is weak and breathy. It’s a simple office procedure and, like a Real Housewife’s face, it’s temporary – the collagen will eventually be absorbed by the body. At that time, I’ll know if the nerve has healed or if I need to repeat the injection or have a permanent procedure done.

One of the boons of my lengthy recuperation has been the chance to devour a giant stack of books. I just finished I Am Malala. INCREDIBLE. So riveting, so profoundly beautiful, so worth your time if you’ve not read it yet. (The audio version is great, too).

The Farmily is excellent, everyone is peaceful and happy and well. Maia has become mother of the year, always doting and protective, and Luna is thriving. And the chicks are nearly grown up! I always wondered how many would be roosters and how many would be hens, and it is almost clear. In about two weeks, I think we will know for sure who is what. In the meantime, let’s bet!

There are six little birds in total – how many will be hens and how many will be roosters? Leave your guess in the comment section. The correct answer will win one of my special Wyoming care packages, filled with treasures made by Mother Nature and me.

If multiple people guess the correct rooster:hen ratio, all names from that group
will be raffled randomly to select the winner – so go with your gut!

Photo taken June 27. They are much bigger now.

Sometimes, the timing means everything.

Ten days ago, I was in California with my grandmother. If you’ve read this blog long enough, you know Svensto. And if you know Svensto, you love her. She left earth this weekend. She was 95. She said Sam, my grandfather, had been waiting long enough and she was ready. It’s still hard.

One little glimmer: she died in the early morning of August 22nd. My grandfather died in the early morning of August 22, seventeen years ago.

Her life was full of adventure and weirdness and art. She traveled through the Panama Canal three times. She boiled fish eyes for me to play with when I was little (they turn opaque, and bounce). She once knit everyone in the family (nearly 20 individuals) slippers that looked like converse high tops.

I’m reposting one of my favorite stories from her blog here. It takes place in NYC 1943 or 1944. My grandfather had just gone off to war.

He said: Send cigarettes.
Next morning I went to the drugstore I used when I lived in NYC before. I asked the druggist for a carton of Chesterfields. He said “where have you been? Don’t you know there is a shortage of cigarettes?” In Texas I guess we never worried about the shortage for S could get all he wanted at the Post PX. He said “I can’t sell you even a package of Chesterfields. But I have some…” and he mentioned a brand I had never heard of. I said thank you, but no thank you.

And so I laid plans on how to get them. There was a radio program called Thanks to the Yanks. I had heard it in Texas. The emcee asked “Do you want an easy, medium or difficult question?” And if you wanted a difficult one you could win 3000 Camels. So I went to the National Broadcasting Studios where some of my old chums worked and asked if they could get me a ticket for that American Broadcasting program and they said, Sure, no problem. Come back Monday afternoon and we will have it for you. I was there, got my ticket, walked over to Madison Ave and took the seat that was available. It was fairly far back in the audience. And I was not selected to try my hand at competing. But I learned something. All the people who were selected from the audience had something outstanding about their person, either the lady with the red hair, or the gentleman with the mustache. So I knew what to do.

I had a navy blue hat as big as an average garbage can lid. And I knew I had to sit in either the second or third row. I went back to NBC and they said Yes they would get a ticket again. I said I would like to pick it up on Sunday so I could get a front row seat. Monday came around again and I was early and I sat in the third row. I was the first person selected. When I got backstage I had a minor problem. “Was my husband in the Army, Navy or the Marines?” I told them Army. “You know you can’t send anything to an army person unless it is requested?” Yes, I knew that. So I will send the cigarettes to W who was still in Texas. And then I will ask him to keep half of them and mail the other half to me and then I will fake a request.

And so the program started. “Do you want an easy, a medium or a difficult question?” I said “Difficult.” Now everyone, remember I looked like a dumb blonde. People applauded when I dared say that. So the question was “There are three plays on Broadway. One is A Touch of Venus, which comes from Greek Mythology, the second is ??????? which comes from Shakespeare and the third is The Voice of the Turtle. Were does that phrase come from?” My answer: The Bible. Thunderous applause. The Emcee was obviously surprised. “How did you know that?”
“My husband read the Gideon Bible to me on our Honeymoon.”
The applause and laughter increased beyond thunderous.

. . .

Click here to visit SVENSTO. I’m so glad so many of her stories, in her own words, are here forever. {I highly suggest reading her blog in chronological order, from first post forward, which you can do via the archive section in her sidebar. Click “2008”, then each month: July, August, etc. and continue moving forward in that manner.}

Wild Sunflowers

So. I’m continuing to feel better daily, which is great, but man, this is a long recuperation. I feel about 85% back to normal, but 85% is pretty weak when you’re used to running at 125%. I just do not yet have the stamina I’m used to, and feel permanently behind on all fronts. I’ve had to prune so much from my life, for the time being, just to keep from going crazy because I can’t keep up. Like taking my shop offline for a while. Like neglecting this space.

And so, it may stay quiet here on the blog for a few more weeks. Please come visit me on Instagram – I’m posting pictures there regularly. I’ve also added an email notification option to the sidebar (look up and to the right) – just enter your email address and you’ll automatically be notified when I post again here. Thanks for your patience with me!

Baby Mama Drama

Yesterday afternoon, I was taking a bit of a siesta when I heard Baby bellowing. When it goes on for more than ten seconds, it usually means there’s another bull around, and each is telling the other how superior he is. We’ve had a neighbor’s bull show up at our fence a couple of times (who we do not want to get in with our cows), so I slipped on my Vans and went outside to see if that bull was back. The other bull was nowhere in sight, but once I was outside, I heard another cow noise, like yelling at the top of one’s lungs, if a cow could yell at the top of her lungs. It was apparent that Sir Baby was responding to this noise, so I turned the corner to see what was happening, and there was Maia, headbutting her newborn baby calf into the dirt. Just pummeling it, over and over, and making this horrible sound.

I raced up the hill to get between Maia and her calf. For comic relief, I will mention that I was completely nude but for my Vans, as I was expecting to just peek out my door for the roving bull and get dressed only after I determined if he was present – otherwise, I was going to hop back in bed to finish my nap. And how could I turn around and go back to the house for clothes when this baby was in mortal danger?! The calf was completely slick and floppy – she had to have been born less than a minute before I got there, all thanks to Sir Baby and his foghorn voice alerting me to the baby mama drama. Maia was going nuts. She bit one of the baby’s legs and kept trying to dodge me in order to headbutt the calf. I had to get it away from her, so I grabbed the calf and ran as fast as I could, half-dragging this 80-pound baby across the pasture and the driveway to the fenced yard where she would be safe from Maia’s violence. Maia chased after me, continuing to ram the baby when she could. When we got to the yard, I set the calf on the ground, jumped the rail fence, and pulled her underneath the railings to the safe side, just as Maia stormed up. And then I flopped on the grass beside the calf, gasping for breath, covered in birth slime and dirt.

Maia continued to pace the fence and moo angrily at us, but she found no way into the yard. I zipped into the house and grabbed a shirt for me and a towel for the calf. We sat in the sun as I dried her off (usually mother cow does this), and made sure she had no wounds from her first traumatic minutes of life. Little Luna (so named when I saw her black hair shimmers with silver) was perfectly fine. Calves are incredibly resilient. Luna spent the next ten minutes wobbling up to standing, and then the next ten nuzzling me, looking for an udder. Mike got home soon after, and he took Maia down to the corrals to the squeeze chute, while I located jeans and drove Luna down to the corrals in the pickup. With Maia in the squeeze chute, Luna could nurse safely and get that essential colostrum. Maia didn’t kick or get impatient while her baby suckled, but afterward, she still seemed full of confusing feelings. When Luna wandered in front of Maia’s head, while Maia was still in the squeeze chute, Maia began licking her (good!), then headbutted her right in the ribs (BAD!!). Oh Maia. Maia had mothering issues last year, though she did end up loving Jupiter after a couple of trying weeks. I hope she connects with Luna much more quickly – with her heart, not her head.