Snow Day

It's a snow day for us. 

School is cancelled. 

The chickens are UN-impressed!

DuckDuck and HuckDuck, 

however,

seem to be quite enjoying themselves. 

They sort of make paddling motions

and stay mostly

on top of the snow.

Wherever you are,

stay warm

and be safe. 

hbk

Made it!

The weekend is here!  No, I didn't manage to get to all of my list yesterday.  We'll get the drake on Monday.  That's okay.

Starting early today.  We have a big day!  We're sending Little Bear off to my sister's place for the weekend.  Ginger Balsam is going too.  We've cleared out our schedule.  My wife and I are doing something FOR US!

I'm excited and proud.  I am open to learning.  I love who we can become together.

hbk

Give it all you got . . .

I feel like I am.  Giving it all I have, that is.  Little Bear has been home from school 2 days of the 5 school days this week.  Wednesday he was home because we all just needed to sleep in.  Today, there's no school.  And yesterday, we had ice covered roads so the school and the busses had a 2 hour delay.  It's a lot having Little Bear home to take care of.  He's kind of a complicated kid.

To add to what I have going on, I have a little orphaned goat to take care of.  She needs to be fed every few hours 'round the clock.  It's a lot of work.

There is a LONG list of things I need to get done today.  I gotta drive to Corvallis and pick up a drake.  I gotta go pick up a bale of alfalfa hay.  I gotta get Little Bear's food for the weekend ready.  I gotta get my food for the weekend ready.  I gotta do enough laundry that we have clean clothes for the weekend.  I'm sure there are plenty of other "must do's"

And today, I woke up with a migraine.  It's a doozy of a migraine.  I'm so nauseated that it's hard not to gag when I move my body at all.  Sound hurts.  Light hurts.  Smells hurt.

But I can't stop.  I have to keep on giving it all I got.

Lord, give me strength.

hbk

Ginger Balsam

Last night we brought home a goat. 

She's a Nigerian Dwarf Dairy goat. 

She was born 5 days prematurely

And was one of 4 babies in the pregnancy.

Her breed is small.

But she is tiny. 

She weighs in at 2 pounds

And fits in the palm of my hand. 

She's 6 days old. 

The night she was born,

it was 20 degrees F below zero.

Because she was premature,

the dame hadn't been brought

into the barn.

When she was born,

her tiny body 

froze to the ground.

When she was found,

she was frozen stiff

and thought to be dead.

Her right eye

was frozen

to a metal pipe.

Because of her

prematurity,

she is having difficulty 

breathing. 

We're doing 

all we can

to keep her comfortable.

Little Bear 

gave her the name

Ginger Balsam.

Our other animals

have been curious

and gentle 

with Ginger.

Belle wasn't sure at first. 

But she soon warmed up. 

Now she won't leave Ginger Balsam's side. 

Even Fizz is gentle

and protective. 

I don't know if Ginger Balsam will

survive. 

If she does, we'll keep her. 

If she doesn't, we'll know we tried. 

She's too premature to

maintain her own

body temperature. 

So she's wearing a diaper

and rides around 

tucked into my shirt

(or Kara's).  

Ginger Balsam

is such a

sweet baby goat. 

hbk

Morning Comes Hard

Some days
after long nights
when it's still dark
morning comes hard.

Wakefulness comes
crushing in
upon my body
weighing down my dreams.

Breathing in,
breathing out,
pulling me
into the day.

Morning comes
beckoning me
to try again
no matter what.

Sun rises
over the Sapphires
coaxing me
into consciousness.

Pain pulses
through my body,
through my head.
Morning comes hard.

Morning comes.
I gather my strength.
I put down my feet.
And I start my day.

hbk

Embody the Sacred

Christians today talk about showing Christ to the world in the way they live.  They probably have good intentions.  And, to me, it seems that they are somewhat constrained or limited by their perception of God or  Christ.

For me, Rilke gets more to the heart of the matter.

He writes

Go to the Limits of Your Longing

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

From The Book of Hours I, 59

He says "go to the limits of your longing", not "live according to the rules somebody wrote down hundreds of years ago that have been translated many times into something we can maybe understand in a way that makes us comfortable."

What is your longing?  Does your longing have limits?  Will you be satisfied before you reach the limits of your longing?

My longing is for love.  For forgiveness, of myself and of others.  For peace.  For acceptance (of myself and others).  For joy.  For comfort.  For rest.  For health.  For justice.

If I journey openly with integrity on the path of my longing, and while I do it, I try to embody the sacred, am I not sharing that of God with those around me?

hbk

***!!!***SNOW***!!!***

It snowed!  It snowed a LOT!  I LOVE snow!  I want more.  It's so much fun!

Kara built Little Bear a snow fort.  

Here he is, inside it, eating snow.  

He's a child after my own heart. 

The door.  It's big enough for coupla people to be inside. 

Chillaxin'.

Crawling out.

Stop for a bite.  Of snow. 

We had so much fun!

I hope you and your family had a fun day too. 

hbk

Jus' Chillin'

Saturday evening after what felt like a REALLY long day.

Sitting in my living room with the woman I love most.

Watching the good ol' tube.

Yup.  Jus' chillin'.  That's how I roll.

hbk

Cold Spell

It's cold.  And by cold, I mean 20 below zero F.  For this part of the state, that's cold.

It's cold for my chickens too.  Too cold for a couple older ones.  I noticed they weren't moving earlier today.  So I scooped them up and brought them in the house.  Put them in a dog crate which is now in our dining room.  They both ate.  That's a good sign.  I'll keep them inside for another day or 2.  Let them thaw and recover.  Poor old birds.

My duck, on the other hand, thought that today would be a great day for a bath!  Yup,  she sat in her water dish and took a 20 minute bath.  Got soaking wet (on the outside at least) and very carefully cleaned every single feather.  When I went out to check on everybody coupla hours later, DuckDuck had hoary frost all over her back and wings.  I wish I had had my camera with me because that would have been a neat picture.

The Wall Between Us

Again, Rilke

Neighbors

You, God, who live next door:
If at times, through the long night, I trouble you
with my urgent knocking -
this is why:  I hear you breathe so seldom.
I know you're all alone in that room.
If you should be thirsty, there's no one
to get you a glass of water.
I wait listening, always.  Just give me a sign!
I'm right here.

As it happens, the wall between us
is very thin.  Why couldn't a cry
from one of us
break it down?  It would crumble
easily,
it would barely make a sound.

From The Book of Hours I, 6


So, God and walls and neighbors.  

This reminds me that there is That of God within each and EVERY person.  That of God is within my neighbors, those that I like and those that annoy me.  The noisy ones, the partiers, the ones who drive too fast down my street.  The ones with well behaved children and dogs on leashes.  The ones who help and the ones who turn away.  There is That of God in all of them.

And the walls. . .  Who builds these walls?  We build them to separate, to protect, to decorate, to designate yours and mine.  Yet, in the grand scheme of all that is, these walls that we build are so thin.  And Rilke is right, they come crumbling down, once heavy brick, reduced to dust in the wind and blown silently across the landscape of our lives.

We build walls around our hearts.  We fence them in.  We guard them.  And when we do, we distance ourselves from the greatest source of love.

hbk

Vast-ness

It's cold.  No, it's REALLY cold.  Below zero cold.  Teens below zero cold.  With wind.  Which makes it feel even colder.

Extreme weather excites me.  It makes me know that I am so, so small.  It shows me that there's a vastness to it all that I will never understand.

So I be in it.  I feel it numb my fingers.  I feel it crackle inside my face.  I feel the tingle of the cold on my thighs.  I feel the ache of it in my feet inside my boots.  I feel it's instant intense compression simultaneous explosion in my lungs.  And I know it is powerful.  And so, so big.  And in it, I am so, so small.

hbk