hello again

I'm back!

It was a gorgeous vacation, and then a bunch of working after (and jet lag). Soon, back for another intense stretch of working.

My work is intense (often in the sweetest ways, but also sometimes just scary.) Being away for that many days is intense. Leaving is the hardest. Lately I find myself just wanting to slip out, not make a big deal. I appreciate that Joey notices my heavy sighs those days, and heaves some of his own.

My favorite co-workers are also breathing heavy sighs lately. There is a feeling of powerlessness to effect positive change, a lack of regard from our managers, a focus on the bottom line that's hard to accept.

I'm thinking of making a change, and ruminating about how that might look. I think because the calendar year is ending, and our year here is half done.... I wish for another year like this one, with the children around, and time to be with them.

Yesterday the girls and I let all the goats out to forage. The sound of their chewing was deafening. The kids frolicked up and down the paved drive. We collected what we observed to be their favorite weed-- clover, and tossed it over the fence into their pasture feed wagon. Sophie thinks we could save money on purchased hay and is determined to do it. The milk was more this morning, and we imagined, better quality too, frothy and abundant.

We've made good progress in finding the goat children and mothers homes in families with loving human children. They will start to move out after the holidays, and we'll miss them. We'll post photos of them soon so you can see them bigger, and with horns sprouting.

I planted some raspberry canes I'd dug up at Hillview in our fenced "orchard". They wanted more sun. I gave Joey the promise of a raspberry patch for his birthday, so this is our start. For myself, I will plant some bare root wine grapes (for eating.) The children will plant strawberries. I've also planted some Jerusalem artichoke bulbs. I plan to plant giant pumpkins and all our melons and cucumbers up there as well.

An e-mail from my cousin Barclay reminded me that I miss home-home some. I went off on a fantasy about a year living as an adult in the South. Mainly the fantasy was about food, seafood and BBQ and boiled peanuts in particular. But also involving the Grand Ole Opry and Dollywood. I told the girls "Dolly Parton is my Taylor Swift." We decided to fry some stuff-- green tomatoes and hush puppies. They were tasty.