Christmas in the Village

It’s Christmas Eve. Tonight, our local community will gather at the town’s church, surrounded by candles, a hundred pricks in the darkness of the days near Winter Solstice. We will sing and contemplate and eat together before each family spends the next day in colorful celebration.

On Saturday, Jeff and I took care of the sheep, trimming hooves and giving shots, and then stopped by the church to deliver six straw bales that would support the nativity scene by the soaring concrete steps leading into the auditorium. He hauled them from the truck bed to the sign posts, and I kicked them into place with my steel-toed Red Wings. Continue reading “Christmas in the Village”

Adventure, Character

Nearing the End of NaNoWriMo

According to the official National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) counter, I’m 17,693 words behind today. If I wanted to write 50,000 words to win NaNoWriMo, I need to write 24,351 words over the next four days, which is 6,088 words per day.

The good news is, my own personal goal for NaNoWriMo is writing 1,000 words per day: 30,000 total. I am about 4,400 words away from that goal. Reachable!

This has been a much different experience than my previous attempt four years ago to participate in NaNoWriMo. That year, I only made it to 1,500 words. I let many other activities get in the way.

This year, I wanted to develop a better writing habit. Continue reading “Nearing the End of NaNoWriMo”

Adventure, Farm

Sheep for My Birthday

Over the weekend, Jeff (the significant otter) and I hooked my great-aunt’s horse trailer to the truck and drove halfway across the state to visit a farm full of Shetland sheep. The farmer was reducing her flock numbers and let us take a look at the ewes and rams for sale.

The sheep were closed into the basement of an old, wooden barn for the morning, and as we entered, they watched warily, fleeing when we stepped into their flight zones. Colors of all sorts decorated their wool: black, brown, spotted, white.

One of the white sheep was nicknamed Cloud.

Her registered name was New Zealand. Continue reading “Sheep for My Birthday”

Adventure, Home, Transitions

November

A soft blanket of snow surrounded the barn yesterday afternoon. The wind blew cold, but stepping inside to straw and … Continue reading November

Adventure, Farm, Home, Transitions

Sheep Make Everything Better

Last week, I ran to my recently established sheep pen to find a little ewe, two hours old.

Jumping up and down a bit, I climbed in and checked if she’d eaten. She was a healthy lamb, friendly and enthusiastic.

Five minutes after taking this photo, I nearly collapsed and relied on great support to make it back to the car and eventually to my bed. I slept for four hours with no dreams, unusual for me.

But after that, I had a little lamb to visit. I named her Dahlia, after the flower. Her mother’s name is Daisy, and the dahlia flower is in the same family as the daisy.

Plastic chairs sit right next to the sheep pen so that I can watch the three amigos live life and browse peacefully through the hay. Continue reading “Sheep Make Everything Better”

Adventure, Farm, Food

Reasons to Build a Chicken Tractor

When thinking about tractors, one usually pictures a metal rectangle and seat on wheels painted green or red or blue. This tractor provides several hundred horsepower units for working out in agricultural fields.

I recently learned about another type of tractor that uses animals rather than metal implements to improve the ground. I was intrigued to hear about its benefits for rotational grazing systems. Continue reading “Reasons to Build a Chicken Tractor”

Adventure, Farm

Kittens

We discovered new kittens up in the hay loft a little more than a month ago.

For a while, they lived in a tunnel in the hay bales, eyes barely open, piled one on top of the other, mewing quietly.

Continue reading “Kittens”

Adventure, Farm, Home, Transitions

The Kiwi Hoosier’s Top 10 Posts of 2018

Christmas wreaths on the Jackson Bridge.

Buried deep in winter, it’s startling to look back at photographs taken in the summer. Deep, green grass feeds cows and calves, and everyone is in short sleeves.

Winter is a good time for reflecting on the past year and planning for the new year. For me, 2018 was the first time in three years I’d experienced all four seasons. I started a chicken enterprise, continued to adjust to driving on the right side of the road, and moved to a new house.

These events and other thoughts have been chronicled in some way on The Kiwi Hoosier. so to reflect on 2018, I present the top 10 blog posts from this year: Continue reading “The Kiwi Hoosier’s Top 10 Posts of 2018”

Adventure, Character, Farm, Home, Transitions

I Moved, Christmas Music, and Philosophical Questions

Blogging, oh blogging. Why have I neglected you for so long?

Actually, I can answer that pretty easily: I moved.

For a little while, I lived in a town north of here, and it took 15 minutes to get to the farm. That doesn’t sound like much for any other job commute, but for the way I like to work, it was a lot of driving. I’d go to chores, go home, eat breakfast, go work on the farm again, go home. Most days, I’d just pack up everything I needed and worked online at my parents’ house. (I stayed disconnected at my old house.)

But then, a house opened up close to my family and the farm, so I moved back down here.

And I got Internet. Continue reading “I Moved, Christmas Music, and Philosophical Questions”

Adventure, Home, Transitions

Transience

Journal Entry: September 28, 2018 I sold chickens tonight and picked up the check. I’m moved to [my hometown]. I … Continue reading Transience