Heaven just got a bit grumpier...goodbye, Rosie

"She is gone," I told them.

As I sat with the body I could here the news spreading amongst the animals,

"Rosie is dead,"

"Rosie has died,"

"It's over,"

and on and on until the last creature was informed.

I placed a drop of oil on her body,

"May you not feel any more pain, and may you never be cold, and may you find a good cloud, and may you see Stevie again," I said.

I wrapped her body in her pink blanket, made just for her, embroidered with words so carefully placed,

"The World's Grumpiest But I Am Fine As I Am Pig ~ Rosie"

We placed her in our clam sled, and began the slow march to the front garden, a place we had gathered before over the last couple of years. As the animals stood in front of the freshly dug hole in the Earth, Martyn helped me lower Rosie's body into the ground, her pink blanket covering her to keep her forever warm. I placed a shroud over her eyes, a shroud made from Assumpta's wool. Burial items had come from afar, and I placed each one, thoughtfully, and carefully around her body. I placed feathers with her for flight, a toy llama for safety, a pig for a reminder of what she once was, and on the top, a red rose.

Earnest stood of to the side, he had dressed in his formal cape and bow tie. The goose, who had slept amongst Rosie in the last two weeks, also came. White Dog watched. Pino and Paco both said their goodbyes,

"I remember when you arrived," said Pino. "I remember when you could run."

"I understand you," said Paco. He placed a slip of paper in the grave, with a special, private poem to Rosie.

Earnest said not one word.

We covered the body in ancient soil, perhaps Civil War heros who once lived here had touched it long ago.

When the final dirt was spread, Opie pointed to the sky,

"Look, it's Rosie, she has beautiful polk-a-dots now!"

The animals had paid their final respects, and as they left they all bowed to the nearby grave of The Head Troll. Martyn returned to the house.

I knelt down, and whispered one last time,

"Oh, Rosie!"

As I returned to the house, it was still, and clear, and crisp. I heard a rustling, clouds appeared over head, tree branches snapped, and a distinctive hrumf-grrr-arrrr-hrumpf sound echoed in my hear.

Heaven just got a little grumpier.

"Rosie! Rosie, where are you?!"

I had one of those heart stopping animal moments last night in the outer barn. I had done my nighttime feedings and chores with the sheep and equines and made my way over to Rosie's private suite. I always check on her even though she doesn't get any feed at night.

But there was no Rosie.

No problem, I ventured out to the new barn addition, which Rosie often meanders to for sun naps.

But still, I did not see Rosie.

This pig can not just vanish. While my other pigs could easily break out of this barn, Rosie is a delicate wildflower incapable of such normal pig behavior.

I looked under hay that had been left on the floor. No Rosie.

I turned, and there she was, a Sleeping Beauty like no other. She had ventured to another part of the barn, an area that had recently been filled with hay, but last weekend we created a semi loft to get more hay off the pallets, and better moving room for woman and animal.

It was the sweetest image-I took these photos. She did not even wake up, she slept through my three minutes of bewilderment. I sat with her for a spell, she hardly let out a grumpf.

Oh! Rosie!

The blessing of daily faces

It's a blessing to live amongst such a diversity of souls with faces that express their own peace each day, because they just get to be.

We are melting but we carry on..and the bunny gets her own AC unit

Freddy the Dream, aka Little Lonely, cools off in his mud hole

I won't write a post about how hard a month August is, I think I did that on August first. But it is very hot, and worse, humid. Out West the summers grew hotter, longer, drier and full of fires every one of my fourteen years there.. People's wells were and are drying up in Oregon, it happened to many people I knew. We had a horrible well, and were blessed with water rights from the rivers for our animals, gardens and vegetables/plants, otherwise, we could not have made it. And digging a new well is expensive, and does not always bring results. It is the risk you take buying land anywhere, but especially out west.

I'm glad to be out of that aspect of The West. It was brutal and just felt like the entire coast was burning up...and it is.

So here, the beast is humidity. Eighty five to ninety in dry air is hot, but yesterday and today the humidity is something like 80 or more percent. Kill me now. It is not as horrible as I remember the Minneapolis summers. Here we have the sea right by us, we do not own seaside land, but we see the cove, and the entire area of Mid Coast is on the sea. So when it is humid, it blows off usually by night, and we rarely have a horrible night. But when the humidity does come, it's like a slap of a huge wet blanket on my head. I can't think. My routine is simple, get up, do the chores, and get back in the house where we have one AC unit that keeps us sane in the living area. Fortunately our house is small. I finally broke down last week and bought another AC unit for the studio in the upstairs, I had too. Not only could I not get any work done, I could barely function, and...there is the bunny factor. Poor Isabelle Noir, aka Bunny, is not good in heat, no rabbit is. I was wetting down her ears about four times a day, and finally I had to bring her downstairs at night. Martyn got a kick out of this,

"Leave it to you to wait to get another AC unit for two years for the studio, but you finally did it...for a rabbit."

Yep, and Bunny and I are now very content. And I got work done.

So, we carry on. I have nothing of interest to tell you today because that is what the heat does to me, it flattens me out. Physically, I am also finding that humidity-when it is really hot and high humidity-is giving me a pressure feeling in my front head, just like I felt after the concussion. I suppose the heat makes blood different and vessels different, and from what I understand, my brain is different after that severe concussion. So, another reason to lay low inside with Bunny,

The animals are fine, they are more stoic than we humans in heat. They know to lay low. I feel sorry for my sheep, I hate to see the wool sheep in heat. Out West we had hair sheep, and it was hard on them, but these poor guys carrying around a load of wool. They do pant, since sheep don't sweat, and I will hose off their legs-not their backs or bodies because you can actually heat them up that way due to the wool. Same thing with the llama, don't wet the wool, just the legs [and she loves it].

I am working on my new book, about White Dog. I will share more about that soon.