liminal_space | while the man is away.... (Reply)

+ the ladies will put their gloves on, cowboy boot up, and handle shit. we'll whine about it, but we'll do it.

i'm just hoping that the rest of the week will have no more nonsense happening. fingers crossed!

things that happened: black chicken shirley hopped into the dog yard acting like she had so much game that nothing could get her. the fuck, chicken? we have weekly safety meetings going over how dangerous the dogs are, reminding them of the fate of their deceased sister that fucked around and found out. so kid and i had to build up the back fence after having already had a busy day.

this morning onslow old dog almost took a header down the stairs, which had it happened would have most likely resulted in a broken something. he's really struggled recently with all the things wrong with him and i know it's going to be his time soon, which makes me so sad — he's the last of our OGs, and there are so many sweet memories surrounding him and his place in our family. he's not in pain (daily meds + 2x a month ketamine shots), his mind is wonderfully puppy-like (today he tried to chase a deer today), his body is just wanting to rest. :(

but for now, we are in a place where he is living his joy for as long as we can.

no ride today — but we did get the arena, the runouts, and the stalls completely mucked. there's still the pasture to do tomorrow, but we'll get it done. that took quite a bit of time and i felt guilty for not spending more quality time with the ponies.

we had another chicken get out and we saw her meet her first deer. it was adorable! they looked at each other with big eyes, took tentative steps toward each other, then the deer spooked, the chicken flapped her wings which caused the deer to bounce off, tail 8 ft in the air.

after all of that fun, i ended up canning a batch of apple butter, because why not? now there are only 30 lbs of apples to go! i'm going to try to find a canning recipe for apple compote so we can have something different.

not that we'll keep too much of the stuff i'm doing — we limit sugary things as much as we can, and one jar of apple butter will go bad before we can finish it. :(

there were periodic calls from mister, bemoaning the rain (he's in the bay area) and telling me how much he missed me, too. ;)

in honor for and of the indigenous people (cousins!), i looked up my great-great grandmother and grandfather's records on the original scanned dawes rolls. then i took more time, reading the names of some of the native children — my father included — that spent time at government boarding schools for indians.

it's sombering.

so here, at the end of the day:

— everyone is alive, safe, fed, and happy

— no tears have been shed, no arguments have happened (except for the misty/me argument about her getting teh eff out of her stall), and love and kindness has been the gas in our tanks.

— the kitchen is clean, the house is tidyish, and i put in so much /work/ today that my fitbit was super impressed.

— time for my hot water bottle (screw electric blankets, HWBs are what the cool kids use) and a goodnight call with the beloved. kid's sleeping with me while mister is gone, and if you think that a YA dot can't still like sleeping in the same bed as her momma, then you can just shush. ;)

have a good night, my beauties. xo