dreaming a little dream

I'm a little bit in love with this place.
Today I got to dreaming about our future together.
Joey had brought home a truckload of dusty black soil.
The garden we planted in the foundation of the old house is mostly clay. It needs a lot of work.
So we're working on it. But it's too hot for shoveling long... so I wandered over to the pasture to visit the animals.

I checked Frida for signs of impending birth. Her udder looks to have been inflated with a bike pump, unevenly. She swings her legs round the sides to avoid jostling it. But right now she is just laying in the shade chewing her cud.
If one of Opal's babes comes by, she bites its ear. Hard. It's hot, she's pregnant, and over being any kind of friendly.

Most of the kitten-sized babes are in a pile behind a board leaned against the chicken coop. Panting.

Magic has a swollen right foot, and puts it down tenderly. I can't see any thorns or cuts when I inspect it. I give her a rub, which she appreciates. The goats have been adjusting their social order since the kids arrived, and Opal has been mean to everyone. Magic has been making some upset sounds I haven't heard before. I guess being the matriarch can be stressful. But she seems to love the babies. She is more attentive and affectionate than their mother, who seems overwhelmed by the constant suckling demands. Sometimes she does a fancy cloven hooved jig to avoid her babes' approach.

Inside the coop, one of the hens is complaining loudly. Her favorite (of the 9) nest boxes is occupied, and she prefers not to wait. The ducks, drifting in their kiddie pool, join in the din.

The ducks started laying this last week. They share a nest in the dog crate and take turns laying eggs, and supervising the clutch. We leave a few, but eat the rest.

A few of the plans I have been hatching for this place:
Improved soil fertility and soil structure in both garden areas
extending the upper garden into the surrounding orchard
a handbuilt cobb bread/ pizza oven in the garden
a planting of bare root raspberries, grapes, mulberries, blueberries, and strawberries this winter. And roses.
a series of spring fed pools (stock tanks?) for cooling off in the Summer's heat
a sleeping platform adjacent to/ over the creek
a greenhouse...

It pleases me to imagine a long term relationship with this place. It pleases me to imagine being old here. Making a Thanksgiving dinner with our own harvest. Taking jars of things off the shelf we'd grown and preserved.
I've just read the book The Dirty Life by Kristen Kimball, and it delighted me to imagine making a radical change, as she did.
She met someone she loved, left her city home, and became a farmer.
And the real losses and tragedy of their first year resonated too. That is part of it too, I guess. I'm learning it is. But I've been sleeping better lately, after a period of not.
Dreaming sweeter little dreams. Of this place, and these people I love.