The Story Appropriations Committee

At Huck's very nice house in Idaho

I don't know how I managed to get such a dorky passion.  But that's me; I am a storyteller and extraordinarily dorky to boot. This passion has all the sexiness of geriatric story time at the old folks home. I tried to change myself to please a few jerks, but as we all know, that never works. Hell, if I can support gay and lesbian friends and family as they accept who they are, whether society likes it or not, I can probably accept myself for who I am.  If you have a problem with stories, it's YOU not me. There are 7 Billion people here, I'm sure you can find people who communicate in the utterly boring way you need them too. I'm just being who I was born to be: a storyteller.  And you know, I love your stories too.  I can also be a fabulous story listener as well.

This passion is not sexy. It's been confusing to figure out how to execute this passion. It all began, in earnest, at the Wenatchee UU Fellowship, thanks to Rita and Rocci who opened up the Children's Story for All Ages to anyone who wanted to be trained.  And that's how I found out there was at least one place for me.  I brought the concept to Spokane and gathered and trained storytellers and then scheduled myself in there too. But I wanted to expand a little. And I finally applied to the Spokane Folk Festival, with my one video of The Girl and The Chenoo (see link at lower right).  I was very embarrassed to ask someone to record that for me and worried people would think I was egotistical.  I know so many many men who do not have those hang ups, including the one who introduced himself to me at the Folk Festival as "an incredibly powerful public speaker."

I'd already gotten notice of my slot so I didn't open the PDF of the festival schedule.  I also didn't open it because my computer doesn't like PDF's which, in my brain, stands for something I'm sure Adobe never intended. So I missed some crucial information that I discovered when I finally received the official, final paper version in the mail two weeks ago.  There I was, performing in Conference Room 126, at 5:00 pm, Sarajoy Van Boven, "Retells Native American Folk Tales."

6th grade basketball

What the PDF !!!?!?  I am 100% certain that I did not apply with that program.  I was thinking "American Folk Tales."  I could see doing one or two Native American stories as part of a slate of Americana.  But a whole program?  Anyone with any cultural sensitivity would obviously note the problem here: I am NOT, nor have I EVER been, nor will I ever be: Native American!  I am Dutch. I am all Dutch. 100%.  Horrifically, after 75 years in America, my family was still producing 100% Dutch babies in 1975. Of course, I radically mixed that up with my post-globalization kids who are 1/2 Dutch, 1/4 Norwegian and 1/4 German.

So what right could I possibly have had to tell these stories? NONE.  True, I grew up in Marietta, Land of the Lummi.  True, I've had many good friends of Native American heritage (who hasn't?).  But none of that gives me claim to their culture.  Shit, man, I'm already living on their homeland, I'm going to hijack their cultural heritage too?  And now, here I was, displayed for all to see, commandeering Native American culture for my own purposes, whether I wanted to or not.  Whether I chose to or not, I will forever be written down as having done this.  At least I wasn't getting paid.

The other problem was that I was hoping to get more recordings to audition for other performances from this presentation, but I realized that if I took any more recordings of Native American folk tales, I would be forever branded (if that hasn't already happened) as That Native American Folk Tale Lady, and/or the Moron Who Tried to Make a Go at Being an Aryan Native American Folk Tale Lady.  This borrowing of Native American tales is very very bad form indeed, especially in storyteller circles, such as they are.

A glass class Blue and I took for a school report.

What were my options?  I could ask my Native friends for permission?  Perhaps Sarah (White Earth Ojibwe) could give permission on behalf of the Pima? the Passamaquady?  There's Lily, maybe I could look her up again and she could give the go ahead for my Tlingkit tales?  But what right would she have to speak on behalf of all Tlingkits? I mean, it's the same damn issue since 1492: Native Americans aren't a monolithic group and don't speak for each other.

And why me?  American Indians have a flourishing storytelling culture still in existence today with festivals all over North America.  There's no reason a Dutch girl would even need to do this.  These people haven't died out. They're here. Alive. They're the remarkable descendants of those who survived several waves of genocide, broken treaties, lies, and abuse and continue to be either ignored or discriminated against to this day.  THEY can still tell their own damn stories.  They don't need me to speak on their behalf.  But as I considered the rest of the schedule, I could see that no performers were Native American.  And if I didn't tell their stories, however wrong it was, they wouldn't be represented by a single performance.

The Spokane Folk Festival is a bunch of seasonal volunteers who put on an amazing program.  They simply accept applications; they don't recruit.  One assumes they did not have any Native applicants, for whatever reason. The ENTIRE festival is basically white people doing other culture's stuff. That's the nature of the region, white. And Native American. There's the white African dance troupe.  The white Bollywood-ers.  The only people doing the right color thing are the Reel dancers and jig pluckers.

Since it was my first ever festival, I didn't feel entitled to do what need to be done, which was to thumb my nose at the schedule and do my own thing.  So, I prepared a few more Native American stories and got working on them.  And the closer I came to the deadline, the worse I felt. Until Wednesday and Thursday where my cultural appropriation angst reached a crescendo. I could not have bunch my panties any tighter.


This is what I saw: angry Native Americans picketing my performance.  Throwing rotten tomatoes.  Or better yet, ROCKS!  And all I could do was crumble to the ground and say, "I know. I agree. You are SO VERY right."  And throw rocks at me too.

But then I realized that the museum was having their annual Native American days celebration (which might account for the lack of representation across town) and so they'd be there. That wouldn't make it right, but I might avoid an unpleasant confrontation. But then (my god! the horror!) word would spread of this nutty lady trying to steal the last vestiges of their cultural heritage and they would all carpool across town in rental vans, sit in Conference Room 126, fold their arms and seethe hate hate hate at me. And rightfully so. Except that I'm a human, am I not? And should be treated humanely even though I cannot, apparently, find it within myself to treat other cultures with a shred of dignity. 

Not a meth lab. It's mining waste treatment experiments

So, obviously, I'd gone off the rails and Huck wasn't there to help me back.  I righted myself by reminding myself that most Native Americans, although reasonably protective of their culture, are also normal humans with a normal sense of how to treat others.  And they would not humiliate or stone me intentionally. 

And it was too late to put together a whole new program.  And I came up with a plan. I built into the program not one, but two opportunities for me to address the living-ness of Native Storytelling culture and my humble borrowings of it for one day only. And if anyone said anything more, I'd respond with this well rehearsed phrase: "You are absolutely right." 

But I think its worse than rocks.  Most people are too polite to say anything so I'll never get an opportunity to explain myself.  Unless they stumble upon this here blog.  Which is very unlikely.  Only the elite few of discriminating taste can find this gem.

In the end, I got my first festival performance. Spellbound-ness happened. I loved it. I can't wait to do it again. Only NOT Native American stories. It would be tempting to do, however.  They are so so good.   

Bonus joke:
Coyote: "Blue, ask me a 'yes or no' question."
Blue: "Okay. Which do you prefer, 'yes' or 'no'?"

Middle school or Middle age?

Now capable of taking risks

Last week was Blue's first basket ball practice where the other kids showed up.  And there were these moms all hanging out in a circle, a shape without an opening. And after a while of standing around feeling increasingly odd and out, I left.  Yes, I was indeed in a middle school gymnasium and I wondered if it wasn't these buildings that cause this sort of thing. After decades of cliques, the walls had gotten infected somehow and were oozing this sort of clannish anti-newcomer virus.  So I left and sat in the car and chatted with my mommy.  But when I returned, one woman broke away from the group and approached me.  Obviously an introvert, she was shaking as she began a conversation.  It was stunning. Someone had learned something in the intervening years. Of course, I made it as easy as I could in my awkward, never-ending fourteen year old way.  And soon we realized that we'd met before and she'd worked with Huck.  And then another woman overheard Huck's name and it turns out that her husband and mine had been in a band together that practiced at her house.  So, I didn't know anyone, but this group of ladies knew my husband - and I felt like I then slid easily into the B-ball moms.

World's Best Cat

Last night was Blue's first game. And another reminder that even my best is sometimes, frankly "is often", not good enough.  I began formulating my plan of attack the night before to get everyone where they need to be.  I might as well tell you now (I usually don't tell for security reasons) that Huck is working out of town for a while.  And by that, I mean that his company got him a house in Idaho. And so things will get tricky schedule wise (and in a lot of other -wises too!). And we arrived early, fed, homework done, etc. etc.  And it turns out that's not where the game was. As all my relatives know, this sort of thing is my undoing.  I have no idea why I over-react to things like this, like missing the ferry to bring my mother to an important funeral, missing my flight out of India, missing all of our flights out of New Orleans once and being stuck there for days and days more. Every so often, even my surpreme paperwork, planning, i dotting, t crossing skills fail and fail spectacularly when they do. And my reaction is usually equally spectacular! 

Eventually we made it to the other side of town, half way through the third quarter of my daughter's first game. First game, in that the refs had to give constant mini-briefings on things like where to stand during free throws, what the lines mean, etc. etc.   Obviously, no one was upset we were late.  No one even cared, except they'd all been there before. And one mom says, "We have to fail like that some times, to give them something real to complain about."

Hard Cider begins

I was concerned that Blue would feel embarassed or discouraged with so many corrections and redirections.  I felt that way.  I started basketball when I was in 6th grade as well.  I actually played for McDonald's through the Salvation Army. And boy, were there some spectacular fails then!  My favorite was when I grabbed the ball and was instantly surrounded on all sides by my opponents, all grabbing into my space for the ball.  I'd seen girls in this position before, so I was pretty sure I knew what to do.  I twisted violently, left and right to get their hands off my ball.  And as I spun a large, thick, wet rope of snot flew out my nose and slapped each girl across the face and then suddenly disappeared back into my nose when they'd all been hit, never to be seen again.  It was like the Angel of Snot, smiting mine enemies. The girls ran away, squealing and screaming. And I got the foul!

But the real trouble came in eighth grade, when my backwards parochial school finally got sports.  First we got a new principal who no longer believed that sports were an abomination to god, a waste of time better spent in worship and devotions, 'cuz that's what we were all doing instead, right?  So we first came up with a mascot, the terrifically frightening "CRUSADERS".  No shit.  We named our team after historical fanatics who killed anyone who didn't believe exactly as they did, including a ton of Muslims, obviously.  Not that they didn't retaliate.  But still.  It was our fantasy that our fledgling sports teams imitate these studly pillars of the faith and slay our opponents mercilessly.  Under this banner of Christ's love, I played volleyball, basketball and baseball. I loved basketball the most.  I was a goddess at guarding, unsurpassed at passing, and a queen at dribbling.  What I was not good at was 1) knowing the rules and following them and 2) making baskets. I wasn't good at making baskets because I never shot and I needed glasses, but we didn't know that yet. I mean, I really never ever shot.  Until the very last game, we were 84 - 2 and my coach insisted that everyone had to pass me the ball until I made a basket.  I nearly passed out from trying to keep from crying.  On the one hand, no pressure.  We're 82 points ahead; we ARE the crusaders.  I couldn't possibly loose the game even if I tried.  On the other hand, the entire fourth quarter was focused on me and my refusal to even try for a basket.  I don't know if I ever did try.  I don't know if I made one or not.  But I have certainly retained a very intense memory and thought it over many times.  My conclusion is that I was afraid to take a risk in front of everyone.  I think it's the same reason I hate to shop in stores with big windows.  I don't know, just that shooting baskets is a very private thing for me, I guess.  Like pooping.  I just need the doors shut and the fan on, is all.  What do you think? What psychosis underlies my inability to take a shot in front of people?

Pirate, Poirot, Death and Ood

Later, I'd play pick up games with Orcas boys, who managed to put me on the "skins" team.  Of course, I managed to get in with the "shirts" instead.  I at least knew enough to play a decent game.  And to take shots eventually, no matter how far afield they go.

I just quested for my McDonalds/Salvation Army team photos to show you how classy I looked in sixth grade with my perm and my goldenrod and red polyester uniform.  I swear I've seen these photos recently.  I think my mother handed them over because she figured I was finally responsible enough, with a cavernous enough house to take in my own memorabilia.  Sorry, mom, you were wrong, apparently.  Instead I found a suitcase full of 14-15 year old Sarajoy.  And it messed with my head. I discovered that I have forgotten what sound like very sweet and lovely memories. Who was Laura, and why were we in her hallway? I also haven't changed enough.  I wrote really messed up letters to people. I wrote excellent poetry, and some really bad stuff too. I wrote about my own death a lot.  I was obsessed with death. I was seriously depressed and lonely and lost. And I feel all mixed up now, especially after watching 6th grade basketball last night.  Am I 11? 14? 37?  

Fingers? Nah, they're people!  With rights!

And so instead of preparing for Saturday's Folk Fest performance, I ran out of the house crying, you know, to prove I'm a big girl now. And I went for a hike. And I found my favorite tree. (I'm telling you, I'm really worried I haven't changed at all!) And I tried to take a photo of it, but my camera was dead.  So I cried, because I'm 37, damn it. And then I climbed to the top of the tree and curled up in a branch crotch and watched the swans. Until I felt like I might actually be 37 again.  And then I climbed down, which was scary because I was 37 again, and decided to further procrastinate memorizing a 45 minute monologue by writing in my blog.  And now I have to go pick up the kids.

 Anyway, I watched Blue and knew she was going to respond to all of this very differently than I did.  But just in case, we plotted our places on the learning curve, to show ourselves that there is more to learn and that we aren't expected to know it all right now.  But soon, we will know so much more than we do, right? right? I'll know where her games are and she'll know where to stand during a free throw.

Feng Sh**

Hot Pink Chocolate Birthday Queen

I love Feng Shui.  It's added some challenge, spiritual significance, brain-food and fun to my FAVORITE chore of all time: housekeeping. I like to try to figure out logical explanations for chi and the rules. Like, it makes sense to me that if the corner of the room you first see upon entering is clutter free, it will make the sensation of walking in to that room lighter. Keep mirrors away from your bed; I sometimes awake in the middle of the night to see an unknown figure standing near me, imagine if that was doubled by a mirror! I would scream twice as loud! And if your stairways, hallways, and entryways are cluttered and difficult to enter, it's going to make it hard to move around your house and you'll get lethargic and overwhelmed. And if the photos of people in your house are always turned towards each other, I can see how subconsciously that might give you a sense of co-operation.

Ione, WA Train Ride

As a woowoo-leaning Libra who has noticed she is deeply affected by her surroundings (as Libra's are wont to be), it was only a matter of time before Feng Shui and I met and started dating. It was destiny. And being in the analytical triad of Libra, I like to suss out what causes these feelings. Take good luck charms. Are they really full of magic? Or are they as full of magic as we imbue them by believing it so. And, as the psychological "sciences" point out, the luckier you think you are, the luckier you actually are because you are open to finding and receiving positive experiences. If you aren't convinced that nothing good ever happens to you, you'll be able to see the ocean of cool experiences we're actually swimming in.  And if you want a charm to convince you of it, then take it, and believe in it whole heartedly and it will be truer than not.

So in my weekly thrill through the library, I picked up another book on Feng Shui, to inspire more decluttering and to find out what else I could do to feel awesome in my home and to create awesomeness for everyone who enters it, to allow the flow of awesome to come and go and radiate from my little Shinto shrine of awesomenity. And there were some good new ideas in the book.  If you feel ugly, clean out your wardrobe.  Certainly, clothes that don't fit and yet you feel obligated to wear because they are perfectly good isn't a way to waltz into the world with your head held high.  And torn unders can't do much for you either.  I purged chipped dishes (that could still be used for small snacks!) and noticed my purse was old and stained (the toll of time creeps in on these daily implements) and gleefully upgraded to shiny and new and 50% off.

Then.  Enter the woowoo-ness.  The "put an amythist under your bed to protect your marriage" part of the book.  I'm paraphrasing here because I flung the thing back to the library, but apparently there's this Five Fingers of Yellow Death that rotates clockwise around your house, taking up 30 degrees for a whole year and if you touch anything in that area, you subject your home, your wealth (such at it is today), your health and that of everyone you come in contact with to grave danger (ooo-ooo-oooo).  And then there's the Sergeant of Deadly Arrows who occupies a full 1/2 of your house every year.  No remodeling there.  The author admits it's a pain in the rear, but she doesn't mess with it.  In fact, in order to avoid the Five Ochre Fingers, she removes ALL objects from the 30 active degrees of Jaundiced Death Digits for the entire year and closes it entirely off.  Well, I'm sorry, but at that point we'd officially crossed a line from curious brain-food in to total horse-sh**.

Moving on, I decided to shine up our entry, touch up the paint, refresh the front door, etc.  In non-woowoo terms, this is so that when we come home, we do not feel we are entering a depressing pit of dilapidation where entropy is out of control.  But in order to do that, I would have to sort through a daunting basement closet where the previous owners left veritable pyramids of paint cans. So there, I'd identified a place of clutter that was gumming up the works.  So I cleared it out, toted a load of cans to the dump. Unfortunately, I accidentally took the empty can of dining room paint,  throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and now I have no idea what that color is. In order to do "touch up" I'll now just have to buy a whole new color and paint the whole damn thing. And that, my friends, is where F*** Shui began.

homestead grave yard- ooooh-oooh

I swept out the closet, put in a shelf, reorganized and now I have an easy to access, easy to understand home repair center.  And within minutes a most promising cow buyer fell through.  I broke about 5 dishes in one extraordinarily clutzy evening.  I charred dinner.  I failed to take care of several key paper-work type things. I got a bill for my duck egg fiasco which included two doctor visit charges (one of which my insurance rejected as absurd; that's what they told me) because, the office said, I had to be held for observation for so long and they said I should just be thankful I'm alive because it was clear I was close to not being so and a funeral OR ER visit would have been 5x as much, never mind I was the ONLY patient they had and my occupation of the room did not constitute any extra expense or lost revenue opportunity. This and that and then Huck came home and that's when he tore his calf muscle, with it's attendant ER bill (yet to be recieved), plus his inability to lift all the heavy things (chicken coops that need to go into the barn now) or that might have been acquired, like free ovens.  The Sh*ticane Feng had made land fall on our farm.

Curious about what Feng Shui might say about it, I discovered that the closet I cleaned out was the ONLY space in our house that was in the Five Fingers of Mustard Morbidity this year.  According to this book, it was the only place in the house I should not have decluttered, not this year anyhoo. Had the page about these fingers somehow influenced my subconscious?  And yet how could my subconscious tear Huck's calf muscle and double charge me for a doctor's visit? Especially since I hadn't really read the whole page or done the math to figure out what segment of my house was under siege?  Or was this woowoo-iest version of Feng Shui the real one?  Was there really a Colonel of Destruction residing, even now, in chi-form in half my house?  Could these Six Fingers really take down our whole family?  Could the power of positive thinking, could the LAW OF ATTRACTION counter Feng Shui?  Do the five fingers play paper-scissors-rock with Learned Optimism and Abraham and the Hicks? What trumps what? 

Popeye and kids

I found that my only possible Feng Shui prayer would be a Hail-Mary bowl of dirt.  And since my subconscious had already read that, I figured that if I put a bowl of dirt in the closet, my subconscious could rest easy and stop harassing my life.  But if I used positive thinking to combat fear of Five Fingers by say, denying Five Fingers exists or that it has power, by insisting the Five Fingers are a peasant-Chinese, non-scientific grab for explanation, ie: superstition, then if Five Fingers really exist, will I totally piss it off and a nuclear bomb will drop on Lucky Farm's East by SE corner? Note: we haven't specified what kind of luck this farm has! Or will the Force of the Fingers diminish it's imaginary power that resides solely in my head?

You know that discussion about "If I didn't know about Jesus, would I still go to hell?" And the missionary, compassionate and kind, says, "No."  And the proverbial Eskimo says, "They why did you tell me?"  So that's why I brought the book back.My thoughts are powerful. My imagination more so. And my subconscious supremely so. I need a sign above my door: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here," perhaps?  Nah. How about something like "Don't Feed Inhabitants Superstition?"

Gun safety lessons (plus can shooting) with Opa

But things are improving.  Huck's leg is slowly healing as healing is the natural state of life, until it isn't. And I forgot we have this new, posh health care debit card, so the bills will get taken care of before the next millennium.  The front door is refreshed. The rotten board in the front porch is replaced (no thanks to me! Demo looks so fun when Huck and his dad do it; how hard can it be? A crow bar and some elbow grease, I'm loaded with that! And then I destroyed every board around the board I was trying to remove. Huck was able to fix most of my damage and replace the correct board, LAYING down!), and stained. The bills are all paid.  The pantry is full.  My birthday was an awesome cabin-stay in Ione with a train ride, thanks to my adventure-planning mother.  My vote for most magical human invention?  Trains...in autumn.  The kids are great.I mean, listen to this, my daughter gets to go to a school where the term "Geeky" is synonymous with ye ol' "Rad" and "Da Bomb." The marriage is currently cozy and affectionate. The house, sturdy.  My health, superb.  My creative endeavors rockin' on.  All the animals are well-fed and fine. And the sunrises are sublime, as always. And I think the crystals in the Southeast corner are finally working!

 

 

Non-Consensual Farming

Little Chocolatey Claire

Did I tell you our oven went kaput.  Well, not kaput; it went out in a blaze of glory.  A ball of fire proceeded along the element, leaving a molten puddle of metal as it traversed, shooting lighting to the sides. A new oven wasn't in the budget, so we've been without.  What's the big deal? It was summer and who turns on an oven in the summer time?  I'd just use the dutch oven if necessary, like camping.

Then, in the early hours, early in September a frozen finger of death descended upon our garden and took out 20 pepper plants, 10 tomato plants, 3 watermelon vines, 5 cucumber vines, a row of beans and 7 summer squash bushes. There were reports throughout the region of a few select households, like ours, hit by random acts of Jack Frost. For a light frost, it would have been early, for a hard freeze it was a full month ahead.  And what was the likelihood of this happening again? Zero. Zero, I tell you. Feeling slightly ill about a year's worth of loss (I'd also lost my carrots, most of my potatoes and ALL of my garlic to ravenous gophers. I did get a haul on onions, peas, kale, favas, and corn, however), I fell in to a fitful sleep that night. I awoke at 4am, sure the frost had returned. At six, I finally ventured out and witnesses all of my winter squash frost damaged.  ALL of it.

This would not have been a problem in other years.  Annoying, yes.  But I would have pulled them all in and spent a day or two cooking them up to freeze.  But alas, no oven. I would sell my cow and we would buy an oven.

Hendrika, the big red cow (with cute tiny Yoda!)

My big Hendrika girl was possibly the worst cow known to human kind.  She was ornery with a bottomless appetite. I hadn't milked her since her latest calving, another bull we named Yoda.  I have some things to say about cows: the first is that they're a hell of a lot of work.  99.9% of the population knows this, but I needed actual experience to realize that, yes, as soon as able, humanity ditched the family milk cow and her accompanying winters chipping shit-ice and filling troughs with frozen hoses.

The second thing I noticed was that cow-husbandry involves quite a bit of heart ache.  There was the shooting debacle, of course.  But every year I had to sell a cow, a cute one, a nice one.  And I had to decide who to sell and when to sell it. And it broke my heart annually.

Third: expense. Like most hobbies, it's more expensive than not doing the hobby.  Take knitting: you could buy a sweater on clearance from Target for $15, or you could buy $100 in yarn and spend a couple months making it yourself. Or para-sailing: you could jump off the high dive at your local pool.  But the stress  expense of amassing the chunk of change for a winter's worth of delivered hay was feeling tiresome.

I felt a little guilt.  Bonds had been made and they felt like commitments.  But cows aren't pets.  And I didn't marry Hendrika and I didn't give birth to her.  I have struggled with the boredom inherent in providing a stable home for children and in maintaining a monotonous marriage.  But I realized that I this level of commitment is not required of absolutely every endeavor.  In fact, in order to maintain the commitments I have, I will need to make sure the rest of my life is constantly fresh and moving and flowing with new things coming in.  That's not flaky, that's taking responsibility for my needs for adventure and novelty before it explodes in my face.

It took a few weeks to sell Hendrika. We had a vacation in there and one buyer had his truck break down. But eventually she (and her bull calf) went to a beef farm as a nurse maid.  I was somewhat relieved no one was going to try to work with her by hand. But the look she gave me as the trailer pulled out shriveled my soul: betrayal, disgust, fear, shock.

a neighbor's beet, organic?

And all I had left was the hard-to-find miniature Jersey, Chocolatey Claire, lover of onions and valuable because miniatures (old world size, the size they were when they arrived here from the isle of Jersey) eat so little yet can produce so much milk. This was the cow I'd wanted from the beginning when the closest one was Montana for $2000, ha!  So I figured I'd breed her from what I could get.  And then, once I had her, I felt done with the cattle adventure. Ironic. And now five deals have fallen through. This last one even PayPal'd me a down payment.  Saturday morning they texted me with their plan to ship her to Montana: the vet inspection would be Wednesday, the branding inspection, Thursday.  They'd buy my winters worth of hay (because she was hungry and I was starting to wonder, so with Hendrika's money, I bought hay for her instead of an oven.  Then about five minutes after the delivery left the hay ranch for my place, I'd gotten a call from this latest buyer, but it was too late to back out of the hay deal.so I have hay now and because of a math glitch -- despite the fact that I took several years of college math, not because I enjoyed it, but because I was good at it and there was this really hot math professor -- I miscalculated how much hay I would need and I now have 1 1/2 years worth) and I'd have my new oven.  And then an hour later, they called to say that the rules for getting her into Montana had added up to over $500 worth of inspections, plus vaccine issues.  It would actually be easier to bring a motor home full of cats with rabies into Montana that a little hobby-cow.

Images of that stainless steel glass top oven vanished.  And now I have a cow I don't particularly want and I am done with this selling roller coaster. Perhaps I will try in the spring, but by then we'll have bonded. My friend says, "Seems like the universe really wants you to keep that cow."  "Well it seems a little non-consensual of the universe," I pouted. Ah, but Sarajoy, darling, that IS life.  The whole thing's been fairly non-consensual from the get go.  No one here asked to be born, not even the cows.

While trying to sell her, I figured I'd try again to get her bred because anyone would want that in a heifer, plus we need her to shut up. The neighbors were commenting about her noise, and when I explained she was in heat, the lady said, "Oh I get that! I understand where she's coming from now!" So the breeder came out on Friday, in the middle of the daily morning mayhem. And we head out to the barn only to find the stanchion destroyed, strewn all over the field. I have no idea how petite and demure Claire pulled that off.  But after discussing our options, the main one being roping Claire and having me use my body to pin her against the barn wall while he inseminated her with his arm, I decided to pass this time.

I asked him if I was asking too much for her.  My price had started at $2500, because the closest available cow of this rare sort was now Virginia, for the same price, same level of "purity" of breed.  After the buyers at that price dropped off.  I lowered it, got a buyer, she lost her job, lowered it, lowered it, got a buyer who emailed me daily for a week with silly questions then dropped off, got this latest buyer and here I am at $800.  It makes me sick. And the breeder said I could get more than that if I just had the slaughter house pick her up! Being a miniature, she's cheaper to keep than cats, and now that I think of it, cheaper than getting the field mowed. And if I do ever get her bred, once she calves, she'll more than pay for herself milk-wise. But then there I'll be with another calf to hurt my heart as I sell it.

As Artificial Insemination Fred left, I collected the pieces of the stanchion from the field.  As I collected them, I noticed that it would only need a few screws and ten minutes to put back together.  As I noticed this, the AI guy I found on Craigslist disappeared around the corner.  And the whole hobby farming fiasco reached shitti-cane status and I got the giggles.

Chase of butternuts

In the meantime, I started looking on Craigslist for a cheaper oven.  I need to deal with this room full of winter squash before it all goes bad where the frost permeated the skin.  And suddenly, there are all these ovens up there, for free!  And they work and they're newer and nicer than mine.  Brushed nickel? no.  But white and newer and cleaner (I spent all last Sunday scrubbing that thing. I even used toxic cleaner and gloves and finally, a brillo pad and still, there's these black archipelagos across the stove) for free.  But, alas, Huck's calf muscle is torn and my Hercules, or should we say Achilles, is laid up for now.  He won't be lifting ovens any time soon.  So we "opted" to repair and spruce up the one we have, uber-eco re-users that we are. Huck ordered an element for our 40 year old oven. I bought new spill dishes. And in the process of cleaning it, wiped all the numbers off the dials, so I bought new dials. Unfortunately the new dials have a totally different number system, so where once a 5 was medium, it's now high.  And every dinner has been burned since. Lucky me, the element arrived and we found we need more parts to install it.  Still waiting for those.

Let's recap: this year I grew a garden and got little for my efforts.
I have a cow I don't want and
an oven I hate that still doesn't work.

But what am I, some conditional lover of life? If it's conditional, it isn't love. If I have the right conditions, I'll "love" it? So if anything isn't precisely as I ordered, I'm sending it back to the kitchen?  Ah, no.  I'll call this all an (mis)adventure, and I'll say I'm happy on this bull-ride o'life.  Who the hell knows what's coming down the pike?  Today, unplanned cow-husbandry and a garden robbed by weather.  And tomorrow?  Get ready, could be your wildest dream, hard times, frustration, thrills, spills.  It's wild out here in unpredictable life.  And maybe that's all I want really, maybe that's what keeps me happy and rocking along, all this unpredictability even in the midst of what seems like boring old stability.