Never say Never

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