that'll do pig, that'll do.

Sunday night I said goodbye to our pigs.  I cried my eyes out and stood watching them as they buried their heads into feed buckets, snorting and grunting with no awareness that this was their last night on the farm. Andrew repeated the phrase that he has told me over and over again, stolen from Joel Salatin, "they have a happy life and have one bad day."

This was hard.  We knew it would be hard.  We are animals lovers to the core.  Even the ones that we like to eat.  We stepped into livestock farming because we have a deep feeling that it is the right thing to do.  All you have to do is google how animals are treated in large facilities and you know that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way that we treat these animals.  They deserve more from us.  They nourish our bodies and provide us energy and fuel, and in repayment they are treated incredibly cruel.  And we vote for this type of treatment every time we pick up meat from the grocery store.  We vote, blindly, yes, I don't care how these animals are treated as long as I don't have to see it.

So this is our first step in the journey.  We loved this little pigs.  We spoiled them.  We scratched them with sticks and fed them all of our scrap food.  We moved them to fresh lots every few weeks.  We let them root around in the dirt until their hearts were content.  

Yes.  It was a sad day but we know that this is the right step.  One of our farm dreams is to be able to offer meat that has been loved, cared, and respected for to our local community.  

Thank you, little pigs for your sacrifice. 

just thinking.....

May 1.

 I've been married for almost 5 months, stayed at the same job for 2 years, lived in Mt. Sidney for almost 2.5 years, Kingdom of Traiylor for 1.8 years, stopped chewing my fingers for 3 months and have never completed Jillian Michael's 30 day shred.  

I wonder when the newness of this all will fade away?  I feel like I have been constantly turning over some new leaf in my life since college--here for a year or two, somewhere new for the next two years.  

And here I am now, in the place that I will more than likely die in, unless I get into some freak accident and die while I am zip lining in South America.  For me, this is a new experience.  To know that I am here, on this farm, until I die, is both incredibly comforting and also a little weird.  

Will I ever get used to the smell of turkey shit when they spread it in the fields beside us?  I hope to God no because I want to know if I am breathing in that stank so I can hold my breath.  Will talking about hay, and all the different forms of hay that there can be in this world (omgsomany), ever get old?  I can already answer this one:  yes, it does.  Will Andrew ever fix the front door?  The odds are not in my favor.   

I do know that as much as I hate the smell of turkey shit and drivers that go 20 mph on a one lane road, I cannot imagine myself anywhere else.  

There once was a time in my life where I was almost 99% sure that I would be living in New York City.  I had a boyfriend there, dreams of going after dreams, and a thirst for "life".  I used to take the China Town bus from Richmond to the city and imagine myself living in a tiny apartment, in the buzz of it all, right there.  

As quickly as I pieced together what my life would look like in NYC, I was dumped and pathetically got back on the China Town bus to Richmond, crying the entire way home.  Can I paint you a more depressing picture?  Oh wait, I can.  The air conditioning on the bus went out on the way home.  In the rain.  On a bus packed full of people that didn't take too kindly to bathing.  OH, and this little nugget just came back into my brain:  they played one of those horrendous Madea movies the entire way back.  

It took me a very long time to get over the experience--not the bus ride, although that was icing on the broken-hearted cake, but the build up of imagining your life with someone, somewhere, and watching it unravel in front of your eyes.  

Some of the students at school connect with me and quite often seek my advice.  I'd like to tell myself it is because of my infinite wisdom, but I think it is because I look like their older sister rather than someone on staff.  And they know I won't nark on them.  And I like to listen, or at least practice the act of listening.  I hear myself tell them that things all work out in the end--there is always a plan behind it all.  They look back at me, usually rolling their eyes, as I spout out the one thing that teenagers HATE to hear:  "Everything happens for a reason."  (God, didn't you fricken' hate it when adults said that to you)

And look at me now.  Could I even imagine living in New York City?  Hell no.  If I could imagine my worst nightmare it would probably be living in any city. 

 I am here.  Where I am supposed to be, and I feel that deep down in my soul, turkey shit and all.  

white skirts, dogs & horses

This was my early morning view this week. 

I am going to miss my little view of the mountains so much when the leaves come on the tress---but I am also looking forward to feeling like I am in my own little forest.  :) 

 Our grass was getting really tall in the front yard.  Time for a mow!  Andrew set up electric fencing and, *bing* we had our very own GREEN TEAM MOWING MACHINES!  

I had Andrew snap a picture of me before I was off to work in front of my new neighbors.  (they weren't really interested in talking to me that morning--and ps.  the rest of our yard is catching up on the growing process....bare with me.  Get it?  Bare?!  hahahahah)

And then Hunter wanted to come and get in the picture.  Problem is he also wanted to give mom some kisses.  White skirt + golden retriever who rolls in EVERYTHING = problem child.  

He just couldn't understand that this photo shoot was not about him.

(and this is where I pretend that my animals talk to me in photographs)

 "please mom.  just pet me, puhleaseeeeeeeeeeee"

 "oh, you say you don't want to get your white skirt dirty before work?  Hrm...??  Is that why you aren't showing me any attention?  I'll keep on trying."

"It's time to get my best friend Lily involved in all this"

"I won."

 HAPPY EASTER FOLKS!