On the Farm

sweet green spring and starry wings

Crazy clouds from our doorstep this morning.

It is my intention that these monthly “on the farm” posts bring you a little slice of real life on our farm. A glimpse behind the scenes. The day-to-day, seasonal going-ons. What we’re all up to, us and the goats and the sheep and all the other life forms we share this little patch of the West Cork hills with, and maybe some of how we do things and why. Not so much a story or an essay, more of a sweeping round-up of seasonal happenings on a little sufficiency farmstead in the wild, southwestern hills of Ireland. I hope you find them enjoyable, maybe a little bit interesting, or even just a few moments of escape from whatever you’ve got going on in your own life to imagine something different. A few of you have left notes and comments to tell me that reading this blog is a slice of life you like to imagine, or that it brings you joy and inspiration or a soul soothing tonic away from the troubles of the world. That makes it all sound idyllic when the truth is a lot of mess and stress, mud, blood and heartache, and insanely long hours of hard labour, but it truly makes my heart smile to know that these stories might bring someone a little soul soothing tonic in these troubled times.

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Kidding kicked off with a tiny boy out of Princess, all ears and gangly legs and long, black eyelashes. A little heartbreaker, like all the boys are. Then a surprise set of triplets that had been scanned as twins, all boys this time, from our herd matriarch, Fawn the Goat. A teeny runt with cramped up legs and a stumpy tail hidden behind his two big brothers. We gave his still, wet little body back to the land. I carried him out to the woods while his mother fed his brothers her sweet elixir of life and laid him at the feet of the mother oak. A gift of life, a gift of death. For the vixen who prowls around our yard at night, hungry to feed her cubs. For the wild. For the land.