Nothing & Everything

We could use a little action around here.  Just typing that sentence makes me think I’ll jinx the situation, but the fact is things are a little too easy at the moment.  Shearing Day (Oh Joy!) is two months off, lambing won’t get going until mid-April, and when I said to Todd this morning, let’s go load up some hay, he said, “we’ve got plenty in the shed.”  Really? Sheesh. We have about five inches of old, crusty snow on the ground that is so windswept it is now white concrete.  I’m up for a giant, whiteout snow storm and major dumping, but the local paper continues to feature cold temperatures, sun and a few clouds.  Give me a break.  Three guys from Green Mountain Power came by yesterday to confirm we have a stray voltage problem, couldn’t find the source, gave me a business card, and suggested our electrician give them a call. Another dollop of Nothing.  

I’ve hung out with the sheep, looking for trouble, and they’ve got nothing.  They all look healthy, their fleece seems to be growing quite nicely, and aside from some hay getting a little matted on the backs of some, we should have another terrific crop of fiber in all kinds of natural colors.  I can tell the two triplet lambs, Yuhu and Christy, are bored because each time I come in to the barnyard they spring up and trot right over first to see if I’ve come with grain and then together they stand there looking like they expect me to start dancing or singing.  Jewel, soon to be two years old and hopefully a mom, comes by next looking for love.  With her nose high and her gorgeous eyes scanning my face, she waits for me to lean down close, rub her jowls, her neck, her rock hard bare skull all the while she sniffs my face. She makes me happy. And I think I do the same for her.

There really are no outdoor chores to tackle because everything is frozen solid. The wooden salt box in the east field should come in and get cleaned off, but the base is submerged in a frozen ice flow.  There’s plenty of sheep dung to remove, but that too is one with the frozen ground.  The tractor sits idle.

And so I have begun a new habit. For seven days in a row, I have walked, seriously walked and around here that means plenty of down and plenty of up. I’m now averaging five miles which for me is insane.  I’d inwardly groan if I had to go to the end of the driveway for the paper, but today I’ll stretch the rubber and metal Snow Traxs  over my sneakers, put on my wireless ear buds, open the Audible app on my phone, hit “play” and head out the door with the goal of covering six miles. I’ll pass old faded barns with collapsed roofs, the well preserved one room school house, the fabulous 1912, three story Jericho Brook Farm barn, freshly painted. The road will begin to slope down and the views of fields, bare trees, smoke threading up from a chimney, and ridge after ridge of hills will all keep me company. And despite the paper’s predictions, a very light snow will fall, gradually getting steady enough to coat my world.

By the time I’m back the sheep will have finished their morning chow down and will be standing around the long feeders, chewing their cud.  They’ll look straight at me, but not budge because really, there’s nothing going on.

Peggy