June 19, 2016

Father's Day

Potato chips and

coffee breakfast

Sitting at the table where

you used to sit

Staring at the empty space on the table

where you used to

leave your keys

In the quiet

the kitchen windows

frame the damp monochrome skies

and I can hear the trucks hum

and bump on the uneven pavement

speeding east down route 80

The same song that you

heard while having coffee

and whole grain toast

after you tested your blood sugar levels

I found the potato chips

The bag was half full and rolled up tightly

in the closet

circled with a doubled up rubber band

Exactly how I find them

every time I visit

Outside

the wind is picking up

pulling at every leaf

Each tree bends

to hang on to each one

not wanting to let

any go.

April 17, 2016

There hasn’t been much new to post lately. Things have been blandly and happily routine here. Sometimes nothing new is something new. I take some comfort that it’s been quiet, and we are not battling with anything. Hopefully, the peace will stay.

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One thing that I have always known, but still have had a hard time doing, is to let go of the things that take all too much effort to hang onto. Some of these things are dreams, some are people, and some are times. I am learning that I can’t carry these heavy things with me day after day and I need to put them down to move on and be happier. It’s sometimes better to enjoy the passing light of a sunset, trusting that the stars will come out to lead me to the next sunrise. A better day is one that will not weigh me down. 

*

I took out the apple trees along the driveway which I planted our first year here. I had always wanted apple trees, but unfortunately it didn’t work out. I gave them ten years. I had bought ones that were resistance to blight and other diseases, but they were not tolerant to rust. I don’t know of any apple tree that is. I took my chances but with so many cedar trees – the host plant for rust – they were overwhelmed every summer and always in a weakened state so that they never were healthy and never produced an edible apple. The only way to fight rust is to soak the trees regularly with fungicides and that was never part of my plan. It just didn’t work out.

Now without the apple trees I can open up the area for the goats to graze and I can eliminate a lot of mowing, weed pulling, and trimming. It will be a lot less work for us and the area will be productive again. When one door closes another opens.

*

In a few weeks I will be getting two honey bee “nucs”, which are each five frames of bees with a laying queen. I will transfer the nucs into their own hives and if all goes well – the weather, having enough pollen/ nectar, staying healthy, etc – they will grow into full colonies.

For the first time in years I have no bees. Last October my last surviving colony absconded – left the hive for unknown reasons to find another home. I have no idea if their flight was successful or not. Maybe they found a hollow in a tree and made it through the winter. I hope so. Yesterday there were honey bees on the dandelions in the side yard which means there is a least a colony somewhere in the area, and that colony could be feral or from another beekeeper’s yard. I do wonder if they were once mine.

*

Lastly-

Six weeks ago we bought 7 one day old chicks – six black sex-links and one white anuranca. The first few weeks they lived under a heat lamp in a brooder box in my daughter’s room (her choice). As they got bigger we moved them into a larger “box” and put them in the downstairs bathroom. We planned to take them to the baby chicken pen outside, but the weather turned too cold. Instead, we made a “playpen” in the family room so that they had more room. The weather has finally warmed, so yesterday we moved them outside. In a few weeks they will be big enough to start free ranging, and in maybe a month, they will be able to fend for themselves and be allowed to blend into our main flock. It won’t be too long then that they will be laying eggs.

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Overall, it’s a good spring! All’s wel!

March 17, 2016

Last fall, Louie laid an egg. Well sort of. He passed an enterolith the size of a baseball. An enterolith is basically a stone made of minerals that forms when an indigestible object, such as a nail or piece of baling string, enters the intestines. The horse’s defense is to surround the object with minerals so that it can do no harm, similar to how an oyster creates a pearl around a grain of sand. Usually these are small and pass unnoticed. In other instances, they are not readily passed and the body continues to add layers and it grows larger and larger. If they grow large enough, an enterolith can easily block the intestines and cause colic, which can quickly become fatal.  Lou is lucky. Judging from the size of his enterolith, it probably had been growing in his intestines for many years, and is more than big enough to cause colic.  It would be interesting to have it sawed in half to see what’s inside, yet we are going to keep it intact as a reminder of Lou’s luck, and as conversation piece.

January 16, 2016

Been a tough few weeks. I lost another friend.

This time it was my wife’s aunt Carolyn. And at times, my partner in crime.

Aunt Carolyn was always the one who could tell a joke and laugh at one.

She always “got” my sarcasms and when I was around her I never felt alone, or like I was the only one in left field. She was always in left field with me, or maybe I was in left field with her. We caught a lot of balls together and threw a lot of runners out at third.

She said what she thought, and sometimes she said things to see what others thought. Call it a poke, a jab, or whatever. You had to be on your toes around her.

She made me laugh, some of the things she said. She had timing.

And she was tough. All the Robinsons are tough. And what makes them so tough is that they are always honest. Carolyn was no exception.

She loved life. Something that is not always easy for someone like me. She didn’t love life like a witty quote. She loved it because she enjoyed it. I looked up to that. She always had a gleam in her eye that was a reflection of the world around her.

This spring she won’t be calling me for honey before the bees come out of their hive. She won’t send me $5.00 and I won’t send it back. One year we traded that $5.00 for maybe three times before she gave up…until the next year when she sent a $10.

The last time I saw her she lifted up her head and smiled. She lifted her hand and pointed her finger at me. It had the little red light on it – the one that is wired to the monitor. She shook it at me and said “You…you...it’s you…” That little red light pointing at me like a bouncing flash light. All I could do was smile. For a half hour I sat near her. Both of us in left field, throwing to third.

It would be our last throw.

January 5, 2016

Yesterday the weather turned seasonably cold and the animals, instead of huddling up, were wound up and ready to play. With fully grown winter coats combined with the warm temperatures we’ve had these past weeks, they have been lethargic and uncomfortable, moving slowly, sweating, and generally moping around. On New Years eve, Zip had colic, which we are assuming was the result of the warm weather. We considered shaving them, but felt that the cold would soon come, and from past experience, we know our guys don’t like blankets – Louie had a habit of reaching back and grabbing the blanket with his teeth, pulling it off every time we tried to get it on. Zip and Pat resisted in their own ways too. We always ended up with torn blankets, and at times found them trampled in the mud.

Yesterday it finally was cold enough outside to make them completely comfortable which lifted their spirits, and what fun it was to watch the horses race and the goats play! Pat (despite his DSLD) and Zip took off across the fields while ‘ol Lou pranced and did his trademark sideways dance across the paddock, getting all four of his ‘clompers” off the ground at the same time. Not bad for an old guy.

And the goats played chase the goat with each other, and after a while, Frances decided to get playful rearing up on Mary and Irene. For an hour or so, they were acting like they did when they were “kids” years ago.

Snoops, who doesn’t want anything to do with the other goats, was on her own close by,  excitedly chomping away at all the green grass she could stuff herself with. We always call her a 747 after she eats, as she expands almost to the size of one!

The chickens? Well chickens don’t show much excitement, but it seems they were all running around as if they too were feeling better in this cold.

November 28, 2015

Yesterday was the first I ever went black Friday shopping- Kath and I headed straight to Tractor Supply and picked up bird seed, chicken scratch, goat supplements, paint brushes, stall mats, a metal garbage can, and a bale of pine shavings.  

When we got home we walked out to the stable and began painting the new repairs that our carpenter had made to the sliding doors and stall window last week. Then Kath cleaned out the tack room while I walked back towards the house to the goat pens to rake them out.

It was mid afternoon when Kath tacked up Zip for a quick walk around, and I lazily rode the old man (Lou) around the pastures to keep his creaky bones exercised. Not to leave Pat out, I put him on a lead and took him up the drive where the grass is still green and let him feast for a bit.

Life isn’t too complicated. It might not be easy, but it sure beats the traffic of cars and money.