Happy New Year's!

    

When I originally sat down to write this New Year's post all I could think about was the negative that 2020 brought, and I originally wasn't going to make resolutions (Gasp!), but that's not me, and a lot of great things did happen this year, and while I'm looking forward to the new beginnings and hope that a fresh year brings, I will miss 2020 a little bit.

    2020 taught me what was important to and made me realize how much I had to loose. It demanded I slow down and pause, something I'm not very good at, and it also brought with it the chance for re-evaluating my life, who I am, and where I want to be. 

    2020 outlined just how important "my tribe" was to me, and it showed me who was real and who was hiding behind a mask. It gave me a chance at closure, and it took away the sting of what was once a painful "goodbye". 

    I was able to wrap up the first draft of my first lesbian fiction piece, and get a pretty good handle on my next book, a memoir on emotional abuse. Without the stillness of a pandemic I would have never had the time to write to the capacity I did, and boy did I write: 1,138,112 words! (Santa brought me new journal inserts so I can go into the new year with my pencils flying....)

    As we enter this new year, let's do so with a reckless abandonment, in awe of the possibilities before us, and let's listen to our heart's desire, for the heart knows what we are made of and all of our potential. 

    

    

    

Death Threats, Diet Pepsi, and Post Election Crazy...

     

    This last week has been a trying week. I have wanted Donald Trump out of office before he was even in office because of the vile person he is. I have seen the man behind the curtain for decades, and I knew he would make a mockery of our county with his antics and he did not let me down. What has let me down though are some of his followers.

    I am struggling with the folks who I assumed were my friends, and were people I respected, as I watch them lash out and spew things about racism, homosexuality and thump their chest while spouting off false rhetoric. It makes my soul hurt. 

    I don't care who you voted for: Trump, Biden, or Kanye West. It really doesn't matter to me. What does matter is decency, equality, and respect, and that has been missing over the last 4 years due to the fact it has been perfectly acceptable (and even encouraged) for deplorable people to act stupid according to our President. 

    Today they have been out in full force, and I had to unfriend someone who I considered a friend as he, yet again, derailed on my Facebook and I received a death threat from another friend. (Classy!) I guess this might be the new norm for awhile. 

    The question I have struggled with today is, what do I do about the friends who I'm seeing in a different light now? Ignoring their behavior doesn't seem like the thing to do, because if I ignore it, then I'm saying their behavior is acceptable. And where voting for whoever you want is okay, being an asshole to other people is not. If I confront it, then I'm in for a fight and I'm tired to my very core. 

    The one thing that made my day today was my friend Tim. 

    

    Tim is a Republican and he wanted Trump to win the election just as bad as I wanted Biden to win the election. Last week, Tim and I placed a friendly wager on the election where the loser would buy the winner a soda. Well, Tim came through, and he made my day! I have laughed and laughed at his arts and crafts skills. Timmy didn't just come through with the soda, he had that thing blinged out with Trump paraphernalia! This is going on my desk and I will save it for forever, for 2 reasons.

    1) It makes me laugh and brings joy to my life.

    2) I wish all of my friendships could be like my friendship with Tim. We banter back and forth, but respect each other for the opposing views we have. Those are the types of people I want in my life. 

Prayers for Extinguishment Soon!

     I have been in an absolute creative funk as of late. I need to write, I want to write, but the words just won't come. I know this is due to the impending election. 

    If the word was flat, and I could put 3 people in a canoe and send them over the edge, I would pick in this order: 

    1) Donald Trump

    2) Martha Stewart

    3) Sarah Palin

    I knew our country was going to be one giant dumpster fire under the direction of Trump, and I kept my mouth quiet about it 4 years ago. Actually, I thought it was such a joke that people would vote for him that I wasn't worried about him winning. (And I guess technically he didn't, he only won because of our country's archaic electoral college voting system...)  However, our country is so far gone, I refuse to keep quiet this time and am praying for extinguishment soon. (And before you all blow up my blog, and start sending nasty-grams, just know I refuse to fight politics with anyone. You have your opinion and I have mine. We will agree to disagree...) 

    I am waiting on pins and needles for this election to be over, and with any luck Trump will ride on out of 2020 and it will be the best thing to happen to me this year. I've done everything I can do on my part including donating to Biden's campaign, volunteering with the HRC, MoveOn, Working Americans, Planned Parenthood, MeidasTouch, and Educators for Ohio. I have encouraged other people to vote, and will once again be offering rides to the polls on election day. The only thing I have left is to pray with everything I've got that there is a wave of blue next week, that our country will return to some normalcy, and that my creativity will return with gusto. 

    

Lost and Found.....

    

        Wednesday evening I went to tuck my chickens in for the night and when I performed my chicken count and I only had 15 hens. There should have been 16. 

    I counted my flock several more times, and my heart was in my stomach, because as a "chicken tender" you put a lot of effort into your flock, and it takes a bit of time and effort to raise them from day old babies through the egg layer stage of life. We all acknowledge the realization that something could, and usually does, happen to your flock, but it's never easy when it happens and perhaps because this was a project I started during Covid and in the wake of losing a much loved friend, but I have put a lot of emotion into these birds.

    The Nurse and I searched and searched Wednesday night, but still came up empty handed. When the hen wasn't there Thursday morning, I knew she was gone for good. Thursday morning we did notice the top of the ceramic bird bath was overturned, therefore we assumed it was a raccoon or fox who had stolen our girl.

    I just left the birdbath where is was, honestly because I was a little pissed off. How dare a woodland creature come by for a drink to wash down the chicken he stole from me! 

    I thought this was over.....

   Saturday morning, I was talking to my mom on the phone via Facetime, and was showing her the chickens when I noticed a cicada walking across the top of the still overturned birdbath. I decided to flip the top over, and to my complete and utter shock, out came Thirteen, stumbling like a drunk who had been on an all night binge. I screamed to my mom, "Oh, my God! I found her!" Then chaos ensued.

    Immediately the other chickens started chasing her as she ran towards the coop, trying to attack her. I was screaming at them to let go of her. She was confused and visibly not well, but wanted to be in her coop. She was covered in feces and blood. She was dragging her left wing and her left foot, but she was still very much alive. I caught up with her finally, separated her from the flock, who had clearly forgotten her in the 60 hours she was missing, and by some stroke of miraculism she started eating, drinking and protesting that she wanted to be with her flock again. 

    I gave her a bath, left her in a dog crate for the rest of the day, and by that evening you really couldn't tell anything was ever wrong with her. I have no idea how that little bird could have knocked that birdbath over on herself, perfectly, to cover up her body completely, but what is even more bizarre is that that she survived being under that ceramic birdbath top for 60 hours in the blazing heat and direct sunlight. 

    We have now saved this bird's life twice in the last 14 weeks, and I have decided that she is like a cat but with thirteen lives instead of nine. Well, 11..... She's down to 11 now, and lets hope she stays there. I can't handle the stress of saving her again or being without her.

Reflect, Redirect and Reset... Coming Out of Covid

In these past few months of Covid-19 I have lived a whole other life, like any other life, parts of it have been amazing, parts of it have been painful, and most of it I pray I will never experience again.


When this all started a dear friend of mine said "Use this time to workout, to keep on a schedule, and to come back a better version of yourself." I wanted to say I was going to be one of those people coming out of the Covid-19 debacle an enlightened person, one who was changed for the better, but that's just not how it was for me. I am coming out of it alive, but wounded, occasionally hyperventilating, and clinging to shreds of a life I once knew, much like Rose and Jack desperately clung to that door in the final scenes of The Titanic. (Which we all know could have held them both, but that's for a different conversation....)

Covid brought with it an uncertainty and an unknown that I have never experienced before, and it found me at a time when I was already questioning my life's direction anyway.

Then suddenly I found myself washing my hands 57 times a day, wearing a mask, standing 6-17' feet away from everyone, learning how to attend Zoom meetings, and side-eyeing anyone who sneezed or coughed within a 1 mile radius of me.

During this period I was furloughed from my job, and I spent 12 weeks-ish wondering and praying to any deity who would listen, to please let me have my job back. I spent countless hours worrying about my finances, and what I was going to do if I didn't get back to the job I loved, and for the most part, I did this silently because I didn't want to burden anyone else or look weak.

Then in order to forget my career concerns, I buried myself in another life, one that kept me busy, allowed me to resolve some things from my past, and where I will forever be grateful I was able to resolve that in my soul, I am absolutely jubilant to have permanently nailed that door shut after taking out the trash.

During this pandemic I have tested my relationships with friends and family, and where they were mostly supportive of my "come-apart" I know I have hurt people as I have unapologetically walked my walk.

Things have since gotten back to a semi-normal rhythm, but I still felt completely drained and emotionally beat to hell, and I know myself well enough to know I needed a reset. I needed to sit, to be quiet, and simply think. Even though not all the changes that resulted from Covid-19 were bad, and some of them were long overdue, any change, even for the better, can be difficult when the rest of the world/your life is changing so rapidly around it.  Therefore, two weeks ago I booked a self-isolating trip to Maine. I needed to visit Maine in order to research my current book, and I could think of no better way to quarantine than by staying in a rustic cabin in the woods away from everything and everybody. It would give me plenty of time and space to reflect, redirect, and reset.

I can tell you a "reset" is exactly what I needed. I needed to be away from the world, to sleep outside, and to get lost in nature. I needed to walk barefoot so I could feel the earth, to swim in a lake, and to hike the mountain. I needed to get lost in order to be found again. I guess that is enlightenment.....

Next Best Thing to Heaven

At the end of my life, I don't want to look back on things and say: "I wish I would have done that."
I don't want to look back and realize I missed out on the simple things in life.
I have always wanted to sleep outside, but not in a tent.
The practical part of my brain always dissuades the part of my brain that's still 10 years old from trying this because Ohio is full of mosquitoes, and both parts of my brain agree they hate those blood suckers, therefore it's never happened.
Until tonight.....

It's currently 58 degrees tonight in Maine, and there are virtually no bugs out right now.
This paired with the fact we have access to a screened in porch?

The perfect sleeping weather, and outside!
Not in a tent.

To hear the sound of the waves gently lapping against the shore line, while the trees dance in unison above our heads. The fragrant smell of pine trees and smoke from the fire drifting about us.

Maine has to be the next best thing to Heaven....
My guess is I will sleep better tonight than I have in years!

Thirteen

I have not had chicks for over 4 years here On the Urban Farm, but if you know me, you know I absolutely adore chickens! One of the things I missed the most about being at Pony Girl’s farm was the chickens her daughter and I had together. So yesterday, I ordered chickens to have at my house. 

I was supposed to pick them up from the hatchery at the end of September, and I was super excited for the fall to get here, so I could be back in the business of owning chickens again, and then The Nurse and I went to the local farm store today to pick up vegetable plants for our garden tonight , and I was surprised by all the chicks they had available for purchase.

Upon looking closer at the chickens, most of the pens had no water in them, there were chickens that had been trampled to death by the overcrowding, and a lot of the babies had Pasty Butt from the stress and standing in wet bedding. 

The Nurse and I decided to just buy our 12 chickens here, and be done with it. After waiting for over 20 minutes, with no store associate to assist us, even though we had asked 3 different people to help us, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I was loading my babies into boxes when some young girl came up and said: " Seriously, no one has touched these chickens since I left at 2 pm!" She and I went on to discuss the fact she was a store employee and the fact that no water, and dying birds was common practice for this store, and she explained she was appalled. By this time I had already loaded my 12 chicks and was getting ready to make my escape to the cash register, when I looked down and in the last pen was 2 very big chicks and 1 insanely small chick. I explained to the employee that the smaller chick had Pasty Butt, and if they didn't treat it, the poor bird would be dead by tomorrow morning.

The young employee in a hurried, hushed tone, said, "Just take that one with you. If it dies, we don't get paid anyways." So, I snuck the small bird into the box with the others and decided to take her home with me. We have her all cleaned up, but she is SO small. She is trying to eat and drink, however we've had to resort to grinding up her food because she just can't handle the normal sizes of chicken crumble. 

I know chickens are a farm animal.

I know she may not live through the night.

However, I'm a firm believer that sometimes, all we need is the chance.

Meet Thirteen.

Hopefully given the chance, she will be okay.

I will keep you posted on her progress.....