Jiggedy jig. Home again. Back to one of my homes, again. Back from the travels. Back from the tour. Family all double checked and double loved and accounted for.
Soon I will go out and find my big fat pigs! But they are sleeping. It is still early.
As well as all the obvious things to miss (I have been travelling for two months if you include Canada) I miss the sounds of the farm. Nowhere else I stayed came even close for bird sounds. Last night. I slept. (Not for long – moving back this way across the hemispheres is hard on sleep cycles). My big, big garden doors were wide open to the dark quiet shuffling night, I was woken at 4.30 am (my usual wake up time) by the cardinal. Loud. He is loud. Then he was joined by the dawn chorus.
It will be on TKG Take Ten tomorrow evening. As we begin the ambient sounds on the farm again. Circling back.
I arrived back on the farm late last night. After over thirty hours of travel. (Reminding myself why I hate to do that whole 10,000 mile trip in one go). But this morning I am raring to go. I have made my coffee and ready to start. It looks like rain.
Corn will be going into the fields this year. The planter has not been in yet, though they have been grooming the field so we have time to document the crop right through to harvest this season.
I just popped out for a quick walk. As usual – a chook got through the net and hatched herself a brood of chicks. Evidently there are fourteen.
Quacker is waiting.
BooBoo will now put me through ‘showing me the arse’ – to punish me for going away. He will sit just out of reach and glare for a few days. Deeply typical.
TonTon is the forgiving sort.
He needs his nails clipped. I can tell he has been doing a lot of lying about.
Life runs in waves and cycles. Reading this blog shows us absolutely that life goes in cycles. Cycles of fertility and retreat. Sometimes we retreat for years. You have watched me do it. Sometimes we consolidate and sort. These are very useful periods in one’s life. Sometimes we rise up and roar with delight into the world. Each of these periods can take months or years, decades. I think we are entering one of the latter phases. The roaring into the world phase. The laughing into the face of fate, phase. Because if you leave that window of opportunity open a crack; fertility will creep back in.
Never say Never.
We’re back!
It is very green here. When I got out of the car last night every inch of the thirty hours of travel resounding in my pulsing head like a pick axe, I was assailed with the fecund prairie scent of green and growth and trees and deep black soil.
It filled me. That scent. Then my face ran into a tree. (We do not have outside lights so the migrating birds and moths don’t get confused and the pigs can sleep in the dark like real animals). I need to prune around the porch – we are surrounded! There are great branches of greenery blocking the pathways. Wild. It is delightful. When I left our trees were still wintry. Sparse. Now the grounds are heaving with growth.
Ok! Enough lying about. I am off to check the weather then go outside. It is 6.10 AM!
Love Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
34 responses to “Never say Never”
welcome home, with all the good, the challenging, and the wonderful
and ain’t it just wonderful- this messy delicious life we have been gifted!
indeed!
Welcome home!
thank you, mad. Did you see Quacker? NOT sitting on eggs! Ah well. Let’s hope we can raise her some duckling friends!
Ha ha poor Quacker – she’d like to be sitting on eggs!
So glad you are home, safe and sound and the farm was there to greet you. Have a super day.
It has been a day!!!
Welcome back, Cecilia! Have a wonderful day settling back into the farm.
I think I’ve shared this poem Joint Custody by Ada Limón here before. Your mention of multiple homes reminded me of it again. Though it’s about a child of divorced parents, going between homes, I see it as being apt for other situations too. As an adult, with my loved ones also divided between places, the last lines are moving and true.
“And so I have
two brains now. Two entirely different brains.
The one that always misses where I’m not,
and the one that is so relieved to finally be home.”
https://onbeing.org/poetry/joint-custody/
Yes! I remember this one and it is totally like that – two entirely different brains and both sad.
Welcome home! I chuckled at your description of breathing in the smells of all the new growth … and then walking onto a branch. Fan of slapstick comedy here! (Get the pun?)
yes! 😂 I see what you did there!! Smiles!
Well you made me cry this morning, with joy to see the farm, to see home! It is lush and beautiful and thriving with so much green that used to be mud. What really caught me is the barn picture and the rocker still at the door, waiting for us to sit and take it all in again. Welcome back C!
yes! I forgot to bring in the rocking chair before I left! It does look inviting’! That shot past the cat and the duck and across the chook and her chicks tongue barn says it all I think.
Welcome back to this side of the world. It must be unsettling for you to be doing all that moving about, so I can understand a little disorientation on arriving somewhere you can settle (sort of) into a routine. The animals must be thrilled, even if some play hard to get. Mucho rain here in SE GA, and lots of biting bugs, but today is sunny. The waning moon comes up late, but is still bright enough to see most outdoor obstacles. I have bumped into trees, too, in the dark.
oh that moon! It was just coming up over the horizon all wonky and orange as we drove in. Beautiful.
Lovely post. Welcome back, c.
Thank you, Misky! There is much to do but it will all be fun!
Good to hear you’re safely back, and 30 hours of travel sounds grueling. I’m sure the dogs are so happy you’re back, and the other animals.
I think the dogs like it when I am away because they can lie around in the house all day!
yes I’m so glad you are home safe. And grateful for the peak at the dogs cats and Quacker.
I was so happy to see Quacker still here!
Welcome home Cecilia. I look forward to more farm pictures! 💚
It is going to be a very visual summer!
Welcome home!.
I had a very brief visit from three of my step-children, the ones from far away. They came for their neice’s high school graduation (I watched on You Tube) and stopped by here for about 45 minutes. Good to see them but would’ve like it to be longer. All doing well and healthy.
We’ve had a good bit of rain while you’ve been gone and things are just growing like mad. Brat doesn’t like it when it rains because we have to close the window (rains in).
I get that same look from Brat when I just go downstairs, let alone else where that you’re getting from Boo. (You left ME!!!). Critters. Sometimes I think they’re more like people than we realize.
how wonderful to have a visit. Even a short one. I can see that you had lots of rain. It is so green here and the fields are looking great!
Welcome back, coming home is balm to the soul. I turned 71 this year and after all those years I am still gobsmacked (I love that word) every single spring on that day when I look around and EVERYTHING has leapt out of the ground by leaps and bounds. A wonder.
I love this word too – gobsmacked – though being smacked in the gob is not nice. But the way the green heaves up on this side of the world feels rushed, important somehow.
Hi Ceci……It does always amaze me how much energy you must have. Traveling to New Zealand and Australia is no easy feat….as I did it years ago and was exhausted for weeks upon returning to my little roost in the US.
Welcome back…and now I know it is time for you to GET BUSY. haha
Jo
and it has been a busy day! Though every now and then I take a wee rest. I do have a lot of energy. That is true!!
That is quite the helping of dog bum and reproachful side-eye… I hope he forgives you soon. I am cross with Higgins, who stole a chunk of my dinner last night. I had made bread, a nice crusty white loaf, and I had a thick buttered slab of it beside my bowl of assorted leftovers. The Husband got home, I got up to see to him and the wicked Higgins made a lightning raid and stole my bread and butter… It’s not as if he’s not lavishly fed. Perhaps I should regard it as a tribute to my breadmaking, but on the whole I wish I’d critiqued it myself. Welcome home. I hope the sweet scents of the garden and the dark blessed night let your travelling soul catch up to your weary body.
Just the bread!! What a dog!!