Wednesday

A quick, journal-like, recap of the day:

Starling and I went to the Insta-Care by Smith's to have her stitches removed. 

(Stitches were placed six days earlier when, 30 seconds into her swimming lesson, she managed to smack her chin on the side of the pool in just such a way as to split it open. The dear girl was a picture of stalwart bravery. Only once did a small quiver in her voice slightly betray her anxiety: "Mom, what do stitches do?")

(When we returned home, Goldie had prepared her this happy spot to rest in.)

(And, as you can see, we were incredibly careful throughout the week to make sure we kept the area completely clean.)

(Her stitches are there, believe it or not. Just on the very underside of her chin. A very close inspection of the above photo reveals a few hints of blue thread protruding.)

But! Back to today's journaling:

Stitches were removed. A bit of discomfort. (At first she didn't need me to hold her hand. And then it seemed she did.)

Then we returned home and gathered everyone (Penny, Anders and the four youngest. Jesse being at FSY with a friend from our Pleasant View ward) to go feed at the farm.

(Pause. It still feels very foreign to me--how much of my life revolves around the care and feeding of animals. Daily I hear myself saying things like, "I'm just going to check on the goats and the calf", or "Somebody check the goats' water bucket", or "Save those watermelon rinds for Pig", and wonder who on earth I'm pretending to be.)

Our animals, I should note before going on with the day, are spread hither and yon.

The fair goats are here. (Here being the rental.)

But we took our pygmy's back to the farm. (So they won't eat the fair goats' expensive feed. Why expensive feed, you ask? To bulk them up for the fair of course. One mustn't have a spindly goat when judging is afoot. [Another sentence that I am shocked to hear myself saying. Or see myself typing rather.])

(Hans at the farm with those ordinary non-show-worthy goats. :))

Pig is at the farm. (Yes, that's her name. And oh Pig. I do not even remotely feel comfortable feeding her. The whole business makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I will undoubtedly expound more at some point.)

Chickens are at the farm. (Unfairly relegated full time to their pen since our neighbor's dogs eat them.)

Our two steers are here. (Since they defied all fencing at the farm. They've defied fencing here as well of course. Sigh.) 

And recently, a new calf has joined them here. (Only last night did we take her from her small pen to see how she'd do with the steers. They tolerate her well enough and now she seems to follow wherever they lead.) It's great that we have steers to eventually butcher. (Have you seen the price of beef??? But, we still did pay for those steers. And thus, their meat. This new cow--a heffer--we will eventually breed so we are producing our very own beef. [Who on earth am I?])

Rod's cows are also back at the farm. Eight of them. Renting some of the pasture to him allows us to keep things in green belt status until we are ready to have even more animals. (More?) Rod's cows aren't really animals that I need to care for or feed, but oh you should have heard Mike tell the story of all eight of them getting out while he was over there the other night. Poor man. My short time with steers has taught me great empathy (not to be confused with compassion, oh no) for the recurrent life problem of "cows out". But! I do love looking out from the new house and seeing them. There's something so homey and soothing about cows. (Despite the grief they cause when they leave their fencing!) Have I told you how comforting it is listening to them munch their grain? It's as if it were some reassuring sound from my childhood. It isn't. But it feels like it is. Like the sound of my dad typing.

Now.

Where were we?

Oh yes, In the middle of a "quick" journaling of the day. Ha.

Animals fed, we headed for Costco. (I did not turn on the gas sprinkler while we were at the farm--as I'd watered just yesterday, but I inspected things. The pumpkin patch is lovely. Though I never thinned it [nor can I bear to], so it will likely produce the smallest of pumpkins. The stretch of giant sunflowers I was dreaming of are nowhere near bloomed and not remotely a thick stretch of anything. We will try again next year. But something more serious will likely need to be done first about the enormous and vigorous weeds that somehow mimic both pumpkin and sunflower at once.)

All anyone thinks of as we drive to Costco is the samples. (One time Starling spent a full ten minutes reminiscing fondly to me about all the Costco samples she recalled eating in her short life.) They must have been decent enough (though I don't know how to feel about a pretzel like thing dipped in hardened strawberry cream something or other and rolled in Pop Rocks!) because, along with the soap and paper towels and garbage bags I needed, we purchased some type of chicken strips that we did not need--just because the sample tasted so good. (And even though I know full well they will never taste as good at home--cooked in a regular oven as opposed to those magical, tiny ovens Costco uses.)

Costco done we headed for home where I spent the remainder of the afternoon/evening tying up a host of miscellaneous loose ends for Girls' Camp. (That is not to suggest that they are all tied yet.) And then having a bit of a melt down when, two children spilling about a gallon of water on the living room rug (which I proceeded to roll up and take to the trampoline to spread out and dry), somehow brought fully to my attention the state of mess everywhere in the house. I don't know how a wet rug can suddenly make you realize how many toys are scattered in the girls' room, and how much laundry has not been folded, and so on, but it can. Still, nothing a lot of demanding and unnecessary tenseness didn't bring into order.

And then, dinner (the Costco chicken) still laid out, wonder of all wonders, Mike arrived home! Early! (Early being 7:30, which is not early at all really, but early compared to 9:00--which is when he is most often home.) I kept the kids up late and we all went out back to observe the meeting of new calf and steers and Starling told me, "My favorite times are when it's bedtime but everyone is outside having fun."  (The mosquitos weren't even that bad.) And I tried to explain to Mike that he couldn't possibly know how happy it was to have him home since, when he's not home, well, he's not here to see that it isn't nearly so good without him...self.

(Do you know what Starling is considering in the above picture? Whether or not the blade of grass she is holding would be a good one to hold against the strand of electric fence in front of her. It's a trick I only learned a month or two ago. Very often you find yourself unsure of whether or not an electric fence is on or working. Did the kids leave it unplugged? A cow got out; is it because the fence is grounded somewhere? Etc. One doesn't generally feel inclined to touch the fence to find out. But it turns out you can hold a blade of grass against it and get a small twitch of the current through it if the fence is working. When Starling finally dared try with her little blade, she described it thus: "It felt like a small bubble landed on my finger and then popped." The things I know now.)