Wilbur gets his wings and Ollie plays in snow

Sophie was his designated hospice nurse

"Wilbur got his wings!" 
Old Sophie told the goats as she came out of Wilbur's convalescing suite. Sophia had been designated as Wilbur's roommate as he lay in his suite, unable to rise, for the past two weeks.

"Will I get wings too?" asked little Ollie.

"Someday, Ollie, but not now, it is not your time for wings, you have to earn them in your own way," said Sophie.

After two weeks of effort, Wilbur is free of his body.

Wilbur began to show signs of his age this past summer, but nothing alarming. Right around when we learned that Birdie had suffered from the brain worm-something that was new to us- I think it was about this time I noticed Wilbur lay down more, but that in and of itself is nothing to be alarmed by with an older goat. He was not lame, he was not showing any signs of the same worm that crippled Birdie for weeks and damaged her nerves. We fortunately got to Birdie quickly, and learned from our vets the protocol and were able to treat Wilbur for the brain worm too. It could be other things. It could be a tumor or wasting disease/cancer, it could be some other diseases my vet said, or a combination, and it could be old age combined with all those things.

For a good two weeks we have fought together, and his eyes and attitude were with me, he had not given up. Until a couple days ago, I could tell he was just plain tired and uncomfortable. I kept thinking of the story of the llama who was downed for one year, and the couple kept trying, and wouldn't give up, and one day, she rose. But Wilbur could not even put weight on his feet, and they were curved now. Since he was downed, I went in morning noon and night and got him up, cleaned his bedding, sat with him, gave hm water and food. The last two days, his body could not swallow, and when the vet came today, we immediately put him down because he was in clear discomfort. I have found a vet I truly love, and I've been working with her now about a year and have learned so much. There is so much to understand about deworming, not deworming, when to deworm or not to, learning your area, etc-and I've learned this year many things that make me a better caretaker, even after 15+ years you can always learn and grow. I don't think any of it would have saved Wilbur, in fact it probably would have just prolonged his life slightly, if that.

I have spent so much time with him, and I have been putting Sophie with him too at night and during the day. While chores are being done, I let the other Misfits come by and visit, and eat together. The animals already know, except Ollie, what is to come. They say their goodbyes in such a different way. They come and sniff a dying member, and there is no drama, just recognition. It is always beautiful and sad too to be part of these intimate herd moments.

With each passing of one of the Misfits that came to us long ago, and lived out West with us, it is like another string to that floating farm in the sky being cut. I will miss this sweet goat. Once a brilliant acrobat, he could fly through the air with the greatest of ease, and once even had a trapeze-it is said in the barnyard but I never got to see it. To watch an athlete's body disown him, it is hard.

This morning, when I knew the vet was coming, I told him his wings were ready for him, they were right with me for whenever he needed them.

And sometime around ten this morning, he put those wings on and took one last look at me. We all stood together and watched the light of the sky change and the shadows on earth were magnified for seconds.

"Will he come back?" Ollie asked Sophie.

"No," she said.

And Ollie ran outside to play on the snowy compost pile.

Once a day, The Misfits were allowed in to eat and commune with Wilbur

In his younger days-he had the sweetest smile

One of my favorite photos of him in his youth

Wilbur aka The Acrobat Goat...now you know why

Burial shrouds for a pig...preparing to let go

A beautiful item for Rosie's resting spot from Lisa Hofmann

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned on the Apifera social media pages that it was becoming clear to me that I have to face facts about Rosie the pig. Both Martyn and I feel that it is becoming less of a 'good' life for her and I might have to put my big girl pants on and help her to the next realm. Rosie is old, crippled, blind and her hind end is weaker and weaker. The vet said a couple years ago it could even be a spinal issue. She mainly sleeps, and this summer never left the barn. With another cold winter approaching, I worry that she can't properly watch out for herself as she tries to stay warm. She is not as good at making her pig bed [covering herself in huge mounds of straw]. Each night I try to make sure she is fully covered, but that doesn't mean she doesn't get up and move around and get uncovered and not adequately recovered.

We tried a blanket for her, made graciously by a pig lover who likes to make pot bellied pig blankets. But even though I altered it slightly, to help her from tripping up on it, she kept getting stuck in it, due to her weak condition. I felt it was unsafe. She now will trip more, and falls every now and then. She trembles too, all summer, like Katherine Hepburn did.

So, I feel I have to be strong and do what is right for her. I am not sure why I am having such a tough time with this one. Each animal is precious of course, some get us in the heart strings worse than others. Some of you might not know Rosie's story, but I will tell you that she is a very difficult pig. She really doesn't act like all the other pigs I know. She is grumpy and has been grumpy since she landed at Sanctuary One after her elder owner died. Rosie had been living like a royal highness in the house, in a room with her own bed and furniture. When she got to the sanctuary, she was so grumpy no other animals would have anything to do with her-nor she them, except one crippled goat, Stevie, who ended up coming to Apifera with Rosie. That is a whole 'nother story, a good one too.

So she has been a challenge. No vets liked to work on her, nail trims were impossible and I'd spend enormous amounts of time trying different regimes to get basic care done, even giving her beer-it was a fancy micro brew and she didn't like it, Marcella drank it for her. After about a year, she even quit sleeping with Stevie, she really preferred her own suite, and showed me that in no uncertain terms-I think too she felt safer and was afraid of getting knocked around and was most likely already losing her site. When we came to Maine, Rosie was already getting old, and I wondered if I was doing her a disservice by bringing her to a cold climate. But I did, and she seemed to thrive here that first spring and summer, even venturing out to flirt with Earnest in the sunshine through the fence.

But by the next year, we noticed she really was pretty blind, and she couldn't go out and wander near the barn even, because she often tripped and fell. She mainly...sleeps.

So I told people that I was going to make a burial blanket for her. I didn't want to think of her in the earth all cold, even though she will be dead and at peace, I won't be, and I thought making a burial item, a ritual for those of us left behind, would help me begin to let go. I told people they too could sew small items and I could attach them to the burial shroud, or include them. One friend is making a knit cover to place over her eyes, before we place earth on her-I had told her that was my ritual, and she is making it out of Assumpta's wool. I received two quilted stitched pieces from followers, shown here, that just got me! And another came today that is lovely.

Rosie is going to be okay. I know she will. I think the reason I'm having a bit of trouble with letting go is...she still is sort of symbolic of my relationship with my father, and she was my first pig. So many 'firsts' happened out West at the first Apifera. My dad was in hospice when I brought Rosie to the farm, and I would lather her up in sunscreen and oil [she has a skin issue and always has] and it reminded me of my father's dry skin who often was in pain in the last months due to it, but the nurses would put soothing lotions on him. So as I cared for my grumpy pig, my father lay in hospice and I could not travel to him, but I thought of him through Rosie. Her personality is also like my father-a heart of gold covered in layers of grumpy thoughts. But I loved him, and I love her, even though she refuses belly rubs, and just wants to be alone.

So, we have talked about 'when' and 'where' and I won't announce that until the deed is over and she is on her way to a heaven where maybe everyone will be grumpy and she will feel very happy-grumpy. It is complicated too that she is a muse and always has been. But muses must rest. And it would be wrong of me to keep her alive for my own selfish reasons...and I also know that if she began to suffer in the winter I would be upset with myself, and she probably will.

She is a very unusual animal. I saw a photo of her that was taken in her prime, her hair was thick and she was out and about in the sun. Her hair today is very thin, her rear end is weak and she can hardly walk with out stopping or tripping. I know the vet agrees.

The items people are sending are helping me, and honoring her. It will be hard that day, but, a relief for her, and me when she is free of her old body. You can still send things-even little trinkets, buttons, toys-things that will give her help on her next journey. But don't wait too long. Winter is coming.

Rosie the pig
c/o Apifera Farm
315 Waldoboro RD, Bremen ME 04551

A letter that made me cry came with a little quilted piece

Painting for Jason...and Maggie

"Maggie knew he was like a cloud now but sometimes he would be a giant blue magnolia in the sky."

Three weeks ago, I wrote about a friend who died by suicide. It was a great shock to everyone, and to me, and still is. I still have not fully grasped it and probably never will.

People have been grieving and sharing about their loss in many ways-sharing memories, sadness, shock...and also in more uplifting ways...the grief evolves down the winding road to what hopefully will be more peace for the people left behind.

Jason had a therapy dog he brought to his office where he saw his patients. Maggie had a real following and still does. I know she is giving comfort to Tony, Jason's finance, and I know she is cared for and loved. I know in my own life, I have lived with many, many animals, some who have gone through great loss, separation, hard times, or neglect. I've seen that animals do not react to death the way humans do, and why would they? I am not going to say animals do not grieve, I think they sense loss and grief. But I also think they accept it in a much different way than we do. I believe that animals, if given consistent companionship, food, shelter and caring, adjust to loss. I believe they sense our true intent, and they resonate with people that have consistent, pure intent.

I think of Tony a lot, and Jason's mother, and Maggie.

A friend dies of suicide, and I sit with the old donkey

Note: This post was originally written and shared publicly last week after I learned a friend died from suicide. In the past days since his death, his family and friends have begun the process of grieving, sharing and also, teaching, just as Jason would have in this time. I deleted the original post, because I used the term 'committed suicide' and I learned through posts by family, that this is an inappropriate use of words. Criminals 'commit' crimes, suicide is not a crime. So I wanted to edit that. As I said in the post, I have never felt suicide was 'selfish', rather I think it is a courageous act that happens in a hopeless moment. I am still shocked, and so many people are too. I don't have any answers, and am sure I never will. That is the aftermath. But I know he is at peace.

I lost someone I know to suicide this week, someone I never met but had known for about 8 years through blogging and Facebook, and over time, had intimate conversations with. I cared about him and his opinions, and learned from him, and laughed with him too. He stood up for me in a very public way after an extreme group of vegans slandered me and my farm online, really in a vicious way-he turned it into a teaching moment. He was funny, he was vibrant and he could also be biting. He was not perfect, he was damaged like any of us humans are. A friend once said to me, “We are all damaged, some of us just more than others." I only found out about his death the day before I took this photo. When I looked out at the old donkey, Matilda, lying in the paddock near the grave of the elder sheep Assumpta, who died a few weeks ago, I was drawn to go over, even though it was supper time and I was about to return to the house.

I said ‘Hi, Matilda,” and then I sat down on the ground with her. She did not move, she did not even reposition her front leg for comfort. I told her a friend of mine was dead. I closed my eyes and thought of my friend, in light, in calm, out of mental pain. His suicide was shocking to so many. I thought of the place a person has to be in at the moment they do that final act, alone, and how much pain, either emotional or physical or both, they have to be in. Some people like to say that suicide is selfish. I don’t feel that way. I think suicide is a courageous act but it is done within a place of helplessness. For a person like my friend, who was a psychologist who worked with many hurt people, to have reached a place, a moment, where he went over, he must have felt so helpless like it was the only way. He had love in his life, a partner, a career, a family, a dog he adored, he loved to cook and share everything he was thinking and caring about. He was a gay man in a world that isn’t so kind to LGBT people, and he was outspoken and an advocate for them in society. He was outspoken about injustice and racism.

So, I sat with Matilda. It was a beautiful day and night. Autumnal breezes and no bugs, a sunset coming behind us. One by one, the other donkeys left their hay dinner in the barn and returned to our private Donkey-Woman sit down, but they stayed about ten feet from us, as if they recognized-wait, they did recognize-that Matilda was letting me express important things. My friend loved animals and I envisioned him looking down on us, smiling.

“It’s okay, now, Jason,” I said to the sky.

There is a gut wrenching aftermath to suicide. I understand why many people use terms like “selfish’ to explain it. The pain and thoughts that the surviving loved ones are left to deal with, forever, well, it can’t be denied. But it is not about them, or me, or us. It is not to be judged. Nor is this a time to analyze a person’s faults or missteps. It is a time to hold that person in the light.

I thank Matilda for calling me over silently to give me space and time to do that for Jason.
_________________________________________


Links from Jason's family:
http://www.suicide.org/stop-saying-committed-suicide.html

Talking helps. For the many who have asked for help finding support groups:
Friends for survival: 800-646-7333
Heartbeat: 719-596-2575
American suicide foundation: 800-273-4042
American association of suicidology: 202-237-2280

3 days without Martyn...not so sure I would be good at this

I spent the last three days alone, without Martyn. He went to a family outing 4 hours away, and I could not get farm care. That is one of the realities that comes with what I do-the responsibility of care taking never ends. And since we haven't been here that long I have not found farm sitters. I was really glad Martyn got to go, he went fishing at his family's old summer stomping ground, and got to see family too. He needed that. In some ways, I told him, I think maybe I was meant not to go, I would have created a different dynamic, and this way, he could fish all day.

We have not been apart for...I can't even remember the last time, I guess it would have been 2008 when my father died. When he was packing up his truck to leave and I was helping carry stuff to the car, I had this overwhelming sense of...this just doesn't feel good. As I stood by his truck and it was time to say goodbye, my throat started to swell up and I had to hold back my emotions.

Good grief! It wasn't like he was getting on the Titanic.

But it was interesting to be alone again after so many years. Keep in mind before Martyn, I was single until I was 42. I lived alone, except for one year when I hooked up with a moron who happened to be a very good liar, and liars and open-hearted souls often collide, leaving one bruised and battered and leaving the liar to leave, and lie some more. I liked living alone. I really did. I have always been, since a young child, a self entertaining unit. I always had my own room, since it was just me and my brother, and I found multiple ways to amuse and engage myself all day. When I was about ten, I would go to bed really early sometimes, like 8, and my mom wanted to know why I was going to bed so early-it was because I loved lying in bed with the lights out and listening to the stories in my head.

Being alone isn't the same as being lonely, and being lonely can happen even though you are surrounded by people. While I like being alone, I am not lonely. In fact I relish being alone. With Martyn I have found the perfect match, we work well together, but we also work separately-together. We come together at dusk and break bread, share, laugh, yell at the Apple TV, and sleep.

So after he drove away, I went in the house and...I cried, like a little baby. I was sort of caught off guard by that. But they were good tears and then I started on with my day. What was so interesting to me was the energy shift in the house. Everywhere there were marks of Martyn, things he'd built or fixed, his garden, the empty spot out front where his truck should have been, his cap hanging on a chair. That first day, I realized how accustomed living with someone I had become. I knew this, but the physical void was so palpable. By night time I made some pesto and watched a movie and went to bed. When I awoke, I had to remember he was gone. And when I got up to start the day, again, I noticed how the energy was different....it was as if I could feel the energy more.

I thought of my friend, my age, who three months ago lost her way-too-young husband in his fifties, suddenly. He got up to make breakfast, had a seizure which he had experienced his entire life, fell down the stairs, and was dead. She is forging on in her life, not cowering from the pain, but living in it, and she says it is a physical pain right now, it hurts every where. I empathize with her. I often wonder if I could stand this, if Martyn died now. Some people like to shower me with nice comments, based on my good deeds and what they see me doing on the blog, telling me I am 'brave' and 'strong'....hmmm, I am not sure of that. I am not sure I would have the strength to go one, or want to go on without him. I'm not sure I would choose to have the strength..maybe I would just, breathe out, and let go of the earth somehow.

Anyway, it was interesting to be silent for three days and not really have conversation. I sat out in the garden for a cocktail and I do love just sitting...I have always loved just sitting for a spell. But when I got up this morning, I baked a pie for Martyn's homecoming, and some bread so he can have sandwiches for work tomorrow. I'm glad he is coming home. It's the same excitement in my heart as when a new Misfit is arriving!

But I guess it is this decade of the sixties....you do know what you have more clearly, because all around you there is more loss. One can't dwell on 'what if', one must focus on 'the glory of what is here right now'. But then I think of my friend, and what she has right now is a big hole in her life. She doesn't get to have baked pie tonight with her best friend...

Here's to all the brave warriors out there, warriors of love as my friend calls herself, who get up and face the energy shift in the house.

The garden awaits those in need, sometimes I see her on that bench

Being able to have a garden is an immense help in my life, a place to be amongst color, texture, seed, dirt, butterflies and hummers. It's a place we painted together, me and Martyn, a creation we enjoy looking at, talking about, and envisioning what to move around like a working collage.

Lately, I have been missing my parents immensely. I think I know some of the things that triggered this, I don't want to share those things publicly, but it took me awhile to figure out why I would have this feeling of loneliness for them, come so hard at this time. I often think of them when I'm in the garden, they would have loved it here. Two old teak garden benches came from their Minneapolis home, and when they moved at some point, they gave the two benches to me and Martyn. My parents jokingly told me that we had to name one of the benches, "Bob" and the other one, "Kelly". When they come over and visit, we always laughed about that, because we never knew if we were sitting on Bob or Kelly since the benches were similar.

Sometimes when I sit and have coffee by myself now midday, in the garden, I look towards the other empty bench-but I can see my mother sitting on it, in one of her hats. I had so many talks with my mom on those benches, in her garden. A lot of those talks I would cry or share some issue I was having at the time. And often, we just sat enjoying the birds and flowers, or laughing about something. When I lived in Minneapolis, I was single and freelancing as an illustrator, my life was forming itself as I entered my late thirties into forty. I would usually have coffee mid morning with my mom. I remember one person telling me that I needed to quit doing that so much, that that was why I had not met anyone, I was relying on my parents too much emotionally. I am glad I ignored them. I am glad I spent so much time with my mom, and my dad.

My life and what I am doing with it, I believe, show I live my life in the present tense, but I am not ashamed to say I still miss my mother, and father. And some days, I feel really lonely without my mom to talk to, I feel like I will never feel exactly safe again, or understood again. It's a different kind of understanding from her than from my husband or anyone else, even my closest friends. I'm blessed I had a relationship with my mother that left such a void.

The idea one is not living in the present if they miss a dead parent, friend, or pet...is rubbish. Death is part of life. Dead people and creatures don't leave us, but they live us as living bodies. Being sad they are gone...is not throwing away the present, it is not avoiding the reality of death-it is simply living with an open heart. I know people that get stuck, they can't 'move on' after a pet dies, or parent/person. I understand how that can happen. To say that person should 'move on' and live in the present, is unfair and arrogant. Nobody knows the make-up of another's heart, mind or soul. If a person simply can't get another dog after losing their old dog, that has nothing to do with not living in the present. It simply means a new dog might bring more pain than joy. That is their heart work to live with, not anyone else's.

The blind one-eyed wonder must sense the peonies

Big Tony's grave amongst the foxglove

What do you say when a friend's mate dies...with open ears and heart, I say, "It will be okay" {somewhere in time}

I went for a ride this week, placing dandelions in Boone's halter after the ride. It was a beautiful, perfect day. I had no complaints, really. And my husband, my best friend, was alive. Every thought came back to that.

A day earlier I had heard the shocking news that a friend of mine lost her husband, who was only in his mid fifties. He had lived with the consequences of seizures his entire life, and knew the ramifications but always had a wonderful attitude about it. He had a seizure, fell on the open stairway and suffered a brain injury that he could not recover from.

My friend tells of how she awoke that morning and was a bit sore from her long walk the day before, and her time in the garden. Her husband said he'd give her a mother day massage. They had no children, but loved their dogs and they were family. I imagined all the people who have woken up to normalcy, and hours later, they are living in between two realms.

It is normal and human to think of our own worlds when we hear of a sudden death. We are not only shocked and sad for the survivors, but it knocks you between the eyes that life is life, death is death and the two are intertwined every minute–you don't get to choose which one you want, it's not an a la carte menu once you are born. One false step, one fall off a horse, or stairway, and it could be gone, poof. All day after I heard, literally everything I did from making a piece of toast to working in the garden, I thought of my friend. I thought of her lying in bed the first morning after he'd died...the shock must have come back in starkness that first morning. Sleep might have given her a reprieve, but upon waking...

Oh yea, he's gone. What? No!. Yes, he's gone.

Later that day or the next day I forget, I was planting my sunflower seeds. I always plant sunflowers, such joyous, magnificent creatures, I call them Goddesses. My friend's husband loved to garden and be in Nature, and he had a garden he considered his sanctuary. He had been working on it for 14 years or more. It is where the family and friends will gather to celebrate his life, honor his next journey, and sit amongst his energy enmeshed in every living thing he nurtured there. I was on my hands and knees, using my bare hands to till the already prepared bed of dirt. It was quiet, even on the front road. I could smell the salt air of the cove. An occasion animal sound wafted from the barnyard.

My husband is alive...

I thought. And then I saw my friend's husband's face, smiling. He had what I would call a gentle smile, like Martyn's, a smile that had no ego, no slyness to it. His face stayed in my mind like that for some time.

I wrote to my friend later, by email, wondering all day-what words would be best for her right now? I knew she had many details to deal with, I knew her family was with her. I only wanted to tell her her when she was ready if she needed, I was there with open ears and heart, to listen. I told her about her husband appearing to me as I gardened. They were very connected to the Earth and Nature, and were spiritual too, as I am. I knew it would have meaning to her. We are both of the frame of mind that energy does not disappear. His energy is just not in his body anymore, so magnificent is it now that it can zap around all over the place. She wrote back, and liked the story.

It will be okay, is the prayer I send her. It will be okay. He is okay.

It might not be okay as she has known, but it will be okay in a different, at-the-moment-unimaginable-way. For me, this is what I can tell people in grief. I was told this by a friend when I lost my mother, the day or the day after when I was still hardly breathing, when I was not of this realm, I was so ungrounded from her death that first few days. And my friend who had lost her parents called me and immediately said,

"Your mother is okay."

It was simple, and direct. I believed it. And I needed to hear it, and wanted to hear it. It was not a lie, it was not sugarcoating the truth. You can either walk into grief thinking it is not okay, or having a compassionate source that tells you it is going to be okay. I prefer to be that source for someone. It might not be okay today, but it will be, in a different way.

My mother would say, "It will be okay," when I was in dire straights. It was always okay, she was right, but I always needed to hear it. Perhaps I am one of the lucky ones who had that grounding of a mother that instilled that in me, perhaps there are people out there that truly do not believe in bad times, challenging times, that saying "it will be okay" is realistic, or fair.

I disagree.

It will be okay. I will share that again with my friend, after I listen to her, in time, when she is ready.