Working alone on the Farmy is Never Lonely

As you know I get up very early so that I can post today’s page around dawn every morning. The night before I will have embedded the best of that days shots into a post, jotted down a few rough ideas and after visiting as many of you as I can, I do the late night rounds and then I sleep. In the morning, early, I sit at my desk in my summer office, with my lamp on and write the words. The house is empty but for you and I.  You, the reader, collectively and individually have become my focus as the dawn light slowly lifts around us.

After I have posted, my mind full of you all, I begin my day.  Taking you outside with me. You see the people in my life are mostly physically absent.  I live here in the United States. Yet my oldest and bestest friends and family do not.  This is a completely different way for my life for me. In the first half of my life I lived in houses teeming with people.  Family life meant my guest rooms were never empty.  Each bed had a mattress underneath it to be pulled out for extras. My table sat twelve and usually did. I would sit down for coffee in the morning with people I had been drinking coffee with for years. The phone rang all the time. There was always a dialogue of some kind going on. The calender was full of invites and reminders. My classrooms and weekends were heaving with busy-ness.

Then, like many of us  (many bloggers), I arrived  in a new country later in life, in my forties actually, with my two suitcases and a box of notebooks and  books.  I came to live with a new husband.   And so a great quiet descended. I am no longer there with my family and friends for all those special occassions. I don’t even know where my calender is. This house is not full and rowdy. And I have to keep the terrible sadness that is the loss of my people firmly in its box.  Because for all that, I have found my home.

But I am at an age where solitariness is no longer terrifying. Working by myself all day without talking to any person at all is not a failure. Friday night at home is preferable.   There are very few actual people in my  life here and that seems fine. I know people here of course.  But only two of them know how I take my coffee.

Anyway, I guess I am trying to explain why being alone on the farm all day means that the camera and the pen become infused with people. They become my bridges to a community of my own. My circle of friends are right here. And how strange is that. But it is a good strange. I take you all with me. My pictures and my writing is where my grown children in their many different countries and my oldest friends and my own father and all of you, come to visit.  This is our gathering place. Our virtual verandah at sunrise.  It is as though you and I have coffee together every morning before going out to work on the farm.

After I have posted, I put on my farm clothes, which are delightfully tattered,  skirt and top, never shorts I hate shorts,  load the camera with its recalcitrant battery, slide the battered  card into place, tuck my small leather bound notebook into my pocket, the pencil twisted into my hair to hold it up off my shoulders, step into my gumboots and off into the morning farmy we go. And you come with me.

I take you along for the day.   My dialogue is with you and the animals all day. And that is not as crazy as it sounds.  We all have an inner dialogue. Some of us even have an inner soundtrack to accompany that dialogue.  And this is why i often write We when I am describing the day.  Because though I am the only one here all week – working alone does not feel lonely.

The beginnings of our day out on the farm are possibly the noisiest. The cats are always fed first. Simply because they make the most noise. From top left, going clock wise, we have Thing Two, Mary’s Cat, Thing One and White Cat. They all live outside except when they sneak inside!  Then they live inside. But not for long. Cat hair makes me sneeze. 

Then Minty will arrive. Though she sleeps in the corridor paddock (safe from wild dogs) with her mother and flock,  when she hears my voice she is off at a gallop and will get through any hole in the fence, across the drive and around the corner to my work bench on the covered East side of the garage. I have all my feed and containers, tools, and essential bits and pieces here on this bench.  It is my central work station.  It is my dry spot. 

Standing at this bench in the morning sun I look to my right and there is Minty. Minty  expects a bottle but because she is being weaned down to two bottles she has to eat her dry food first.  So she is led back to her siblings so that they can all eat together. Keeping her engaged with her flock is a constant job. Then with my small containers of treats and bribes, the cats, TonTon, Big Dog and I walk across the quad and we begin our rounds. 

Daisy waits. She is due June 6th. Though that means very little to a heifer. So she is now under a frequent watch and has access to a nice dry pen in the barn. 

We have to be careful walking into the barn first thing in the morning if Kupa is not out of bed yet. He flies down from his roost, up in the rafters, in some kind of death defying free fall straight out though the big doors and into the quad. If you happen to be walking in the doors at exactly that moment, you are liable to get a face full of screeching peacock. He is literally screeching Watch OUT!  Be ready to duck.

Once we have greeted and inspected the sheep and cows out into the back fields they all go. 

And we move onto the chickens, chooks and pigs. Somewhere along the line I always lose my camera. 

But after walking the fences with the dogs and checking the fields, the camera always turns back up. Usually on top of a fence post. Then out comes the hose and we start the watering and gardening. Breakfast is about 11 lately. Time just puddles on by.

Good morning. We have a cloudy dawn this morning.  There is a possibility of rain.  But  don’t hold your breath. It is Saturday and Our John is not working today so there will be more fencing done on the Dairy Mistress Paddock, I hope.  And we still need to create a small barn door into the milking parlour from the central corridor in the barn, where the milking paraphenalia will be.

I can hear Kupa calling, I think it is safe for us to begin!! Have a lovely lovely day.

celi

PS The Old Codger says hullo and is walking on his own two feet with a walker. They are discussing when he can come home! What a relief for him.