Braveheart Days

The sheep are currently hiding from the rain and muggy bugs in their two comfortable sheep sheds on the hillside. I can't blame them for their lack of verve, it's been a messy few days. With only Sunday afternoon as the exception, the last week has been nothing by rain. Around this farm it's called "Braveheart Days" because any daylight met with wind and rain and general green-weather uncomfortableness seems like weather to watch a that movie in. So look at this picture of the flock, taken on a non-Braveheart Day and just picture the opposite. Picture everyone smelling like wet lanolin and mud up to their shins and not even the gak gak crak of crows to sing to them. In this moist, humid, damp happy there are just the songbirds and robins.

I like Braveheart Days. I like being out in them, doing chores and I like watching them from the vantage point of a warm cup of coffee. It was a busy morning out there today. I did the usual animal and dairy work and then I had to catch three of the Black Copper Maran's I raised from a batch hatched at Common Sense Farm for a friend who needed to replenish his flock. It was me and Gibson out there in the rain and wet leaves of the forest by the farm, but together we have nailed our chicken wrangling to quite the impressive scene. Twice (two of the three birds we trapped!) were caught by Gibson chasing them right into my arms. When it comes to Jenna or the Teeth Machine, most chickens pick Jenna.

I'm working on writing up some new workshops for the late summer and fall and trying to figure out the rest of the month on paper. So far things are coming along, and if all goes as planned I may even make up some late bills today. But besides farm and office work I have no larger goals than a trip to the laundry mat and light jog if the rain stops to a dull roar so I can plod up and down the mountain here. Not a day of big consequence on this mountain, but a day none the less.