February 21, 2022
Crouching, I used my bare hands to sweep away the brown leaf
remains of autumn. Peering closely at
the dirt with my face inches away from the ground, the smell of the rich dampness
entered my nostrils. A smile crept across my face as I found that for which I
was looking, the very tips of the Hosta plant just barely peeking through the
soil. I savored the expected miracle for a moment before carefully brushing the
leaves back over the emerging plant. The changing of seasons is magical.
February 22, 2022
And just like that, the browns and grays of winter are
disturbed by a tinge of green. I look
again to make sure that I am not imagining it.
The forsythia is forming tiny buds.
As I walk each day, I notice some of the hardwoods are budding as well. Not all of them. Some are still slumbering, not ready to
awaken just yet. The wild turkeys gather
in groups in the meadow across from the house.
The Toms are strutting to attract the females. The ritual fascinates me and
distracts me from what I should be doing.
Later, while taking an afternoon walk, I notice the
neighbor’s longhorn cattle have started calving. Two small babies are now running with the
herd. No wait! There are four!
And are those bluebirds or indigo buntings I am beginning
to count by the dozens as they flit from fence post to fence post? The male robins have returned as well, and I
see the Kingfisher hunting from the telephone line just outside our front
window. Perhaps the Kingfisher was there
all along but with our being tucked in for winter and curtains drawn to keep
out the cold, I simply didn’t notice. It
even seems that the various birds at the feeder are more energetic and vocal
with a touch of spring in the air.
I heard the spring
peepers begin their courting songs. The
sound of these frogs is perhaps my favorite summer song. As soon as the nights are warm enough, I open
the windows and allow their chorus to sing me to sleep. The orchestra of voices
begins slowly in the spring. I hear a
single call and wonder if I am imagining it.
Then, more voices join and each night the choir gets larger until the
sound is unmistakable and cannot be ignored.
The earth stirs, stretches, throws back the blanket,
tentatively sticks one foot out of the slumbering bed of winter testing the
seasons to see if it is time to fully awaken to the possibilities of
spring.
March 6, 2022
Each day, spring continues to march forward, and I can’t
help but be torn between the delight of its newness and despair over the fact
that it’s too early to completely trust its warmth. The trees and flowers
tricked into early bloom may very well suffer when winter cold sneaks in again
to wage the war of the seasons. The
battle between winter and spring seems more pronounced to me than any other
changing of the seasons. The afternoons are comfortable for taking long walks
with the dog, and it’s nice to see our two new calves not having to endure
inclement weather for the first few days of their life.
We didn’t have due
dates for either of the cows that calved and just had to watch for impending
signs of their development. Neither of
them is in the milking herd. Stormy is
eleven years old and has a smidgen of beef in her genetics. She has mostly been bred to an Angus or
Hereford bull, lived in our beef herd while in Staunton, and raised a nice beef
calf for us each year. This year, of
course, not having a true beef herd here at Maple Lawn Farm, she was bred to
our Miniature Jersey bull. I noticed when
she cycled last fall that the difference in height between her and the bull was
causing some issue with the breeding process, but they usually get it figured
out. However, when she did not calve with
the other cows who calved in the fall, I assumed our once easy to breed cow
either had gotten enough age on her that she was not longer going to breed
back, or that the bull just hadn’t been able to manage the height
difference. She doesn’t’ give off the
typical clues that cows give when they are getting close to calving. Her udder development is slight, and she
doesn’t get the distinct V in her hips when her pins have dropped. One is never quite sure if her tailhead is
loose. She pretty much looks the same
before she calves as she does any other day of her life. We know this and have never been able to
accurately determine that she is close to calving. But a week ago Monday there she was with her
new baby on the ground, a bull calf with the cutest, little turned up pink nose
and short legs. She was quite proud of
her light colored, pink tinged baby and ready to take on the world (including
the farmers) to protect him. After a
couple of days (and settled hormones) she calmed down but is still very
attentive to perceived threats. It’s no
wonder, as I have seen large piles of coyote scat with hair in the feces from
small mammals the wild canines consume in early spring. The scat has been just
outside the fence where Stormy and her baby calf, Graham, are kept. She is right to be concerned.
The day before Stormy calved, a younger cow, but one that
has had birthing issues, also had her baby.
Mary Anne, watched closely by Mike for weeks, was close to calving. Mike faithfully went out to check on her
every few hours. She was uncomfortable
and with her history, we always have to make a decision on whether to pull the
calf or let her try on her own. She didn’t
seem distressed, and Mike decided to wait.
He accidentally fell asleep and didn’t get back out to check on her for
about three hours; when he did, she had a beautiful, petite heifer calf she was
licking to stimulate and clean. We helped the calf nurse to make sure she got
colostrum and continued to help her to the teat for several days. Perhaps she was getting some milk on her own
but she didn’t seem too aggressive about finding the teat and we wanted to make
sure she was getting adequate nourishment.
However, her disposition and saucy attitude convinced me that she was
just sneaking her meals when we were not there to see it. I named her Sassy because she is a spunky,
little girl.
The cows whose calves we have weaned are coming into the
milking parlor each morning in a regular routine and dairy products are flowing
from the kitchen. My small cheese cave
is practically full of aged cheeses like Colby, Cheddar, Chihuahua, Monterey
Jack and Parmesan. Each week I make
fresh cheese as well such as cottage cheese, mozzarella, yogurt, and fresh
curds along with as much butter as I can from any cream I can spare. Everyone wants to know what we do with all
the cheese but that’s the beauty of the aged cheeses. They can be kept pretty much indefinitely
under the right conditions. When I dry
off my cows or allow the older calves to keep them nursed out and we don’t have
fresh milk, I have plenty to get us through the lean time. I have not bought cheese or butter now in
years.
I love this life. I
feel so blessed. Ever since I was young,
this is the life I’ve wanted, and I cling to it fiercely. Everything comes to
an end and one day, this dream of mine will also end, due to age, ill health,
death or all three. My whole life I have
been aware of the brevity of the time we have here on this earth. When one loses a parent at such a young age, I
think it’s impossible to simply assume that one has all the time in the
world. And so, I feel like I have always
been looking forward, afraid that I wouldn’t be able to experience all the
things I wanted to experience. Now I
have this urgency to slow things down and immerse myself in all that we have
accomplished. I realize more than ever
that time is short. Even if we have
another fifty years (which we won’t), time is short. I must make choices because I can’t do it all
anymore. My choices are my family (blood
and chosen), life on the farm, and writing.
March 7, 2022
I attended a couple
of different Zoom classes in the past week hosted by published authors. One of the classes, led by Linda Holmes who is
a pop culture correspondent and podcaster for NPR, was more of a motivational speech
for writers. Linda originally went to college to attend music conservatory and
found out that she just wasn’t “good enough” (her own words). She was encouraged by one of her professors of
an undergraduate class to pursue a law degree which she did. She had a propensity for producing written
arguments. Working as an attorney for several years, she discovered it wasn’t
being an attorney that she enjoyed, but rather the composition of the written arguments
so important to the profession. She walked
away from law without looking back and pursued writing full time. Linda reiterated several times in her presentation
that it really didn’t matter what she was writing, it only mattered that she
was writing. That struck me deeply as I
began to look back over all the years and all the ways I have expressed myself
through writing, starting as a young child making up stories and constructing handcrafted
books.
I remember always
being drawn to my grandmother’s old, manual typewriter, which she allowed me to
explore and use. One finger at a time I
would find words, put them together to make sentences, then paragraphs and “create”
stories. When my baby brother who is
fourteen years my junior came along, I created elaborate, oral stories with
sequels to keep him entertained, especially at night when I was trying to get
him to go to sleep. Creative writing in
elementary school was something in which I eagerly participated. I journaled from a young age convinced that
someday my words would mean something to someone. In junior high, high school
and college I looked forward to writing the essays and reports that so many
others dreaded. I often finished my own
work and edited the work of several others.
I made extra money in this manner, and I loved every minute of the
process. As far back as I can remember, I
wrote long letters to friends and family with very much the same type of
information that we now share on social media.
When computers became available to individuals and email became the
method of communication, I would write long, journal type emails and send them
out regularly to friends and family. As
things progressed online, I found forums and entered into long discussions about
particular books that I had read. I
spent hours putting together tutorials explaining to others about how to care
for their cows or make dairy products and shared the information freely on
forums. Blogging and Facebook drew me in
as well. The freedom to express my
thoughts and feelings through the written word has always brought me a sense of
satisfaction. Even when the words came
with difficulty and I was not sure what I was doing, the thrill was still there
for me.
For a short while I worked for Therma, Inc. in San Jose,
California. I hadn’t a clue what I was doing
as assistant to the project managers at this well-established and respected business
offering Contracting services and Construction in the Bay area. I thrived in the work environment there where the
trickle down from the top to the bottom was the belief that each of the
employees had a gift that could be cultivated and encouraged within that work
environment. It didn’t take long for the
project managers to become aware of my love of the written word. One of the projects in which they had me
participate was to help with the editing of their technical manuals. A quiet,
young man about my age, perhaps a little younger was constructing the manuals one
word at a time and it was job to take what he had written and help it to make
sense to the average person. I was
thrilled and terrified at the same time.
I had never done anything like that, but someone believe that I could
and I did.
Twice, in my adult life I have had published articles in
magazines. That was back when it didn’t’
seem so complicated to get an article published. I just wrote on subjects about which I was
passionate and submitted the stories and the magazines accepted them. Looking back on those articles, I admit they
were not that great, but the thrill of seeing something in print that I had
written was a joy.
My point is that I identified so closely with NPR’s Linda
Holmes when she professed that it was the writing that has
brought joy and sense of accomplishment. I believe that is why I have found a way to
incorporate writing into every part of my life, at least to a small extent.
And now, knowing that time is shorter than it has ever been
because I already have almost 55 years behind me, I want to devote more time to
the things that bring me joy and the things that one day may be taken from
me. Today, I can write and while I am
still able to do so, things like keeping a perfectly clean house or worrying
about what anyone else thinks of the time I spend writing means very little to
me. We have one opportunity, one
lifetime to do the things we love, to explore our interests, and to hone our
talents no matter how small and insignificant they may seem. It is up to us to make the choices about what
we do with our precious time.