Catch a breath
… while I gather my words. 
Isn’t it interesting how we are always having to re-configure our lives. Life is like a tide, it is always on the move either going in or coming back out but always on the move. We have to move with it too or we drown. God, what an exhausting thought. 
Some people learn to float, some learn to swim. I prefer a little of both. Today I am going to purposely float (at speed) through my day gathering my wits and thoughts about me as I adjust back to being without my own family again.
All is well on the farm. Molly still has eleven babies. She is much better and Tahiti is still waiting but is due in the next day or two I should say. The cows are milking nicely and the dogs are lying under trees unless otherwise instructed. Sheila is still beautiful though all of the Hereford pigs lost most of their hair in that last bout of hot weather. Sheila looks like an enormous bleached seal.
If I do get the day I have ordered I will have time to sit with the piglets again and get more baby photos for you.
I hope you have a lovely day.
Love celi
43 Comments on “Catch a breath”
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Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could send you for a massage after taking the pics of the little puddings.
Have a wonderful day C.
🙂 Mandy xo
Poor Sheila! Though I suppose she’s happy to be cooler 🙂
I can see a balloon over Sheila’s head “why is everybody running?” Wishing you a good week. Laura
So happy all of Molly’s piglets are doing well! Eleven is quite a large litter for a first time Mama! A tide is a wonderful analogy for life! Hoping you settle back in, relishing the wonderful time spent with your family. xo
just reading about your daily life is exhausting…but how I would love to be there….not much help in the physical work…useless in the kitchen… but i could give the animals lots of love…Have a good day Miss C take care of you….lots of love
HUGS!!!!!!! I know the first few days post family is lonesome until you find your rhythm once again. Each of you will have some adjusting.
This weekend I thought about your sons post – and how he wonders if the baby will hold any of the visit in her memory. I started thinking about sounds and scents. How did we learn very early the sound of ‘good’ vs ‘bad’….. I know the sound of clatter and rumble – like pots falling to the floor – or cars crashing – as a bad sound. I must not see to know it is bad. I know the sound of a bell gently swaying – i.e the bell on a milk cow – is a good sound. I know without seeing.
Then scent – the smell of food cooking – over cooking – bad – simmering or baking – good. (unless it’s boiled cabbage, yuck) Smell of rain or fresh cut grass…. good. I think these are the things we bring with us from our infant stage. The soft sound you make when calling to the animals – that will be a sound that the babe will carry. The grunts of Molly to her babies or the sound of a happy dog chasing a thrown stick – all very happy sounds.
OH – the baby will have memory of her time on the farm – just not in the sense we take with us as adults or older children.
Have a lovely day…….
Beautiful Pat 🙂
I agree wholeheartedly!
Isn’t that funny. Though I barely have time to ponder these busy summer days- I was just thinking of how much I miss my own mother. Makes my eyes sting with longing.
Always a little bit of mourning and readjustment when family leaves. In a way I enjoy that period of readjustment, it usually feels a little more purposeful and I am more aware of every detail of the rhythm of the day. Here’s to hoping the hot weather abates some and the piggies can grow their hair back.
a gentle hug to you as you move through your day, holding sadness at bay.
Oh how I know how you feel! I have come to a cross roads in my own life – and believe it is time to move back home to the UK. I miss my family and living here alone (although I have great friends) is wearing a little thin now. However wanting and doing are two huge different things, and not just a case of packing a bag and going home. Animals to consider, cottage to sell, property to get other end amongst a hell of a lot more details to try and come to terms with. As you say our lives are forever on the move in one way or another!
Big Hugs
I hope you can find somewhere just as nice but closer to home – that is the thing really isn’t it.. You understand with me that when they go back WE are the ones left behind. Because it is OUR home they are returning to. I applaud your choice, even though the logistics of such a move are mammoth, When it is time to go home – it is time. One step at a time – don’t forget to breathe. And you can still visit here no matter where are live – so we will still be here as one of your supports. c
Yes…..we will all be supporting you. Best of luck with all you have ahead of you!
Thank you – this is something that will not happen over night, and is going to take a lot of planning, but my gut tells me it is time.
I hope your speed-floating is not too exhausting, and that you have time to sit and think about the hectic visit you’ve just enjoyed hugely, and digest it, and relive some of the best bits. Miss Sheila is a phenomenon! She’s heeeuge, but streamlined and light footed-looking at the same time, like some vast ocean-going yacht, with sleek lines. She’s not fat at all, is she? Just very, very large. She reminds me of a former headmistress at school, who was another large lady. She entered rooms at speed, like a galleon under full sail, but once she was sitting, she was disinclined to move….
I can just pitcture her!
Great day! Please get some more piggy pictures. Peace
In order to “purposely float (at speed)” through the day, one would have to learn how to live with contradictions, like being a cultured, world-traveling, educator/dramatist/mother who runs a farm and a farm school by herself, in addition to being a writer-philosopher with thousands of friends. For such a person to be found in flat Illinois is rather amazing. If not for the delightful and often inspiring photographs, I might think I were in a magical land.. . But then we are, in our way, aren’t we. I am very pleased to be able to visit here. And I know what you mean about floating at speed through the gap left behind when dear family members go back to their own far-away homes.
Yes, and the sad thing is they are going back to my home – I am the one who is away. c
And hopefully your John and all who depend on you here realize the adjustments you’ve made to be here and all you’ve given up. It seems no matter how much progress women make they are still the ones who adjust and finagle to keep their lives and the lives of those they love on an even keel. I am no militant suffragette, I know I’m worth as much as (and sometimes more than – ha) any man, I don’t have to march around waving a placard to prove it but I am still surprised that the ‘managing’ of life is usually left to us.
Yes – you are right there – sorrowful
I like your analogy of life as tide, and your image of floating at speed. Well put! I don’t know how you do it but I’m so glad you do~thank you for these posts. I carry them with me in my mind as I go about my day and they inspire me.
Uff – life can definitely sweep us off our feet. We are currently cycling through changes as well. We will most likely be moving about three states north, to be closer to family and friends – a lot of emotion and reflection comes with this. It will be good to be closer to family and old friends, but parting with new friends and the whole state of Texas is hard for me. There’s definitely a balance between floating, and swimming (especially whether you’re with, or against, the tide).
Best of luck –
Husband and I at a crossroads too, I’m afraid. “Should We Stay or Should We Go” keeps running through my head like an ear worm. Age in place or move to a “facility”. We, however, aren’t even remotely floating anywhere.
That song made a huge impact on me at one of those crossroads you mention. It is a big decision but you are right – it is one best made when you are young enough to handle the logistics of it. It would be fun to shop around a bit – just for the hell of it – let us know how that goes -c
These days I do a lot of floating… it’s such a gentle lovely reflection. I used to swim all the time and forgot about the benefits of floating. However, now that I don’t have much choice in the matter I am rather enjoying the floating part. Just so long as you do keep moving, however, because once you stop you die!
I simply love the photo of you, your two adoring dogs and your big fat glorious pig. Well, truth is, I love all your photos but that one really strikes a chord of how I visualize Ms. C., the lady farmer. Enjoy a few days of floating… I expect that will come to a stop when your next woofers arrive — in a week or so, is it?
Hope you have a lovely day too! ~ Mame 🙂
Yes, soon I think but for the life of me I cannot find my diary – and I NEVER lose it so it must be here under the rubble somewhere… c
I, too love that photo, it reminds me of myself at feeding time. Kind of like the pied piper with the goats and the pig and the chickens and the ducks all toddling along behind.
Breath Miss C, It will help make the floating easier. I am at that strange place of belonging and not. My brother and partner were home in Ireland for three weeks from Australia, and I spent most of that time down there in the real Ireland… to be close to them. Alas I developed an upper respiratory infection and struggled on a little too long until they left and I came home. This week has been rather hell but I am taking it easy. Just floating and letting sleep take over.
PS: When you are looking for your safe place, see if you come across mine, I put some paperwork there and for the life of me, I cannot find it. Looking forward to floating pics of the piggies tomorrow.
From your first words, I could feel the bitter sweet sadness at the end of a visit from faraway favorite loved-ones. I like to think of it as trying to be like water.
“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.” Lao Tsu
And so you are my friend…
Methinks the tidal flow is what makes life interesting and worthwhile. I am a lifelong swimmer in every stroke, but have learned when to float and thoroughly enjoy . . . like you am my own hardest taskmaster 🙂 ! But unless one bends one may break!!
Off topic: Have just has my breakfast in bed watching the Olympic final of Women’s Rugby-7 – Down Under can be proud: Aussies v the Kiwis: sorry, Celi but we got the gold and the New Zealanders, many of Maori extraction, the silver. Absolutely thrilling tho’ I fail to understand why any woman would play such a rough game of continuous tackles and scrums and lying 4-5 atop one another struggling for the ruddy ball!! A great sight in Rio anyways . . .
And bronze for Canada! All 3 teams going into the Olympic history books – so exciting! But I’m with you Eha, I have no idea why anyone (male or female) would want to play such a rough game. Not my cup of tea, except from the sidelines.
Chris S in Canada
*smile* Sorry to have left your bronze ‘off’ my record: you had the prettiest gals anyways!! With but 23 million of us in a country so vast, I guess every success counts and it was nice to have the Aussies and Kiwis ‘fight’ it out! . Am a bit ‘mad’ at the moment: have just watched our swimmers have not such a good night and learned that swimming in Rio BEGINS at 10 pm and goes well past midnight to fit in with the US TV schedules !! Remembering that results often depend on hundreds of a SECOND a little unfair methinks for those who normally finish their sessions at that time . . . . ‘money makes the world go round’ . . ??
I hope you have some rest time in there.
Not today as Tahiti is running straight into labour now – but maybe in a few days?
Your gift Celi is that you can say the words theat are in our hearts but we can’t get them into our brain until you say them.
I was going to write “Yes, catch a breath.” but I see Tahiti is in labor. Good luck tonight. May the delivery be as smooth and uncomplicated as possible. Maybe then you’ll be able to catch that elusive break.
And I hope you have a lovely day too .. Always hard to see the family go
I missed this one yesterday and after reading today’s, it was quite an eye opener. You were catching your breath for the onslaught of today. It’s so hard to be away from family. Fall is coming early here. Maybe you will get a break soon…
I’m so glad you mentioned your pigs losing hair in the heat. My big gilt looks like she’s nearly naked and I was concerned something was wrong. They do look a bit like seals in that condition for sure! LOL
Yes! Manu has begun to lose his in clumps – I feel I should offer him a scarf!
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