A Herd Of Many Sizes

by Zoe Mathias

We have collected another member to join our mismatched family.
Gjynevieve is a three year old Jersey-Guernsey cross, her back comes to about four and a half feet. She is an eastern Washington girl, but I think she can be easily converted to a thick coated, cold weather pioneer.
Little Gjynni as she's been dubbed is due to calve at the beginning of May. This is her second calf, her first being a bull calf.
You can tell Gjynni's peach colored giant hide from the rest of the herd with ease.

There is the highly esteemed Lady Martha Washington. Her dark face and excellent mothering set her high above the stature of Jersey. She is not so pleased with Gjynni for she has taken Lady Martha's place as leader. Although she will a part of the family and a favorite for all time, Martha is leaving sometime this summer to go back to her permanent home.

Next comes Carnation, our red flecked, white, Jersey-British White cross. She is the sweetest cow you ever did meet, but she can be a pain in the butt at times. She and Gjynni seem to be getting along like old chums, despite the foot difference in height.

The resident cow husband is Quincy. The bull calf we acquired last summer is now seven months old, and a rambunctious trouble maker. He devotes his misspent adolescent youth tormenting his youngest wife, Zephyr, drinking as much milk as he can, fighting treacherous straw bales, and last but not least annoying tipping over my full wheel barrels.

Isn't he wonderful?

The above mentioned Zephyr is the all around surprise calf. Born four months before her due date, she's captured all of our hearts. We have finally Sherlock Holmed her probable father out of hiding. We now know, almost positively for sure, that she is a quarter Jersey, a quarter British white, and half Rotokawa, a New Zealand beef breed.

And last but far from least is Sierra, my red mustang. She is even less impressed with Gjynni than Martha. She has been promised another horse for almost a year, and what does she get? Cow after cow. "What kinda deal is that?" she says.
But for all that she wants another horse, she loves Zephyr and Quincy to pieces.
So we'll see who joins our herbivoric herd in May, we're hoping for a Suzanna but a Louie would be just as welcome.

Identity

I have two quotes taped to my computer at work at an accounting firm. Are you surprised that I work at an accounting firm? Me too. It's so different from my "real" life that sometimes I can lose my footing. These words are my reminders.

"Since there is no government of which the concern or the discipline is primarily the health either of households or of the earth, since it is in the nature of any state to be concerned first of all with its own preservation and only second with the cost, the dependable, clear response to man's moral circumstance is not that of law, but that of conscience.

The highest moral behavior is not obedience to law, but obedience to the informed conscience even in spite of law." Wendell Berry

Escape

by D.H. Lawrence

When we get out of the glass bottles of our own ego,

and when we escape like squirrels from turning in the cages of our personality,

and get into the forest again,

we shall shiver with cold and fright

but things will happen to us

so that we don't know ourselves.

Cool, unlying life will rush in,

and passion will make our bodies taut with power,

we shall stamp our feet with new power

and old things will fall down,

we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.

How to build a HeART Kaleidoscope

Materials:

1 Glass Circular Tube
1 Glass Triangular Tube to fit snugly inside circular tube
Pictures of your Self
All the pieces of your Heart

Step One: Make sure you've chosen a triangular tube that fits well inside the circular tube. You want one that will hold solidly in place but not so tightly that it will stress the integrity of the circular tube.

Step Two: Slide the triangular tube into place inside the circular tube. Make sure the ends are flush with each other. Seal one end of the tubes so that the spaces between the triangular tube and and the circular are closed but the triangular tube remains open.

Step Three: Stand tubes upright upon the closed end.

Step Four: Loosely fill the spaces between the circular tube and the triangular tube with the pieces of your Heart: that shiny-bell memory of your very first kiss, the jagged edge black obsidian flake of rejection, the seashells and bright copper pennies and laughter, the dead flowers and clogged pipes and loss. Tip them all right in.

Step Five: Seal the second end as the first, leaving the triangular tube open.

Step Six: A magic trick may be called for here unless you know the science required to lessen the gravity in the sealed segments between the circular and triangular tubes. Your goal is to allow the pieces of your Heart to move freely and without being distinguished as "heavy", "light", or "broken". Just let them be. Let them interact with each other without regard to chronological order, preference or classification.

Step Seven: On the outside of the circular tube, using a soft touch with a clear adhesive, attach the pictures of your Self. Images that reflect how you see Who and What you are. Leave space at the edges, don't crowd one image with another but let there be room for each to stand alone.

Step Eight: Let light flow through the triangular tube. Whether it be flame, bulb, sun or moon, flood the inner tube with light. It will stream through all the pieces of your Heart, catching the colors and shapes, bending and refracting on its way out through the channels and valleys left between the pictures of your Self on the outside of the circular tube.

Step Nine: As often as possible, gather with other HeART Kaleidoscopes and watch the incredible patterns made on blank walls and in dark corners.


More kaleidoscope stuff: Brewster Kaleidoscope Society and here's a link to make your own kaleidoscope

Wishing you wild, colorful dreams, Lisa

OH WONDERFUL DAY!!!

Zephyr Melissa Banana Borage!
by Zoe Mathias

Our Carnation girl had a little baby calfer! Unknown to us, she got bred by an anonymous bull sometime last spring, so she calved four months earlier then expected.

This morning as Dad went to turn on the car to take Mom to work,he saw a small white animal in with the horse and cows. It took a while to realize what it was. He ran in to the house saying 'Carnation had her calf!'. Oh my, so fast did we run to the barn!

When we got out there Zephyr was under Sierra trying to nurse, Sierra was calmly standing protectively over the little white calf. She threw such a fit when we tried to take Zephyr and get her nursing off of Carnation, we ended up putting Sierra in another pen.

Zephyr was pure white and so dry that she had to have been born the night before. Now, this is Carnation's first calf so we thought we might have to help. But she did just fine with her two expert midwives, Sierra and Martha. Who knows what Quincy thought of the whole deal.

So born in to this world January 7th, 2009, Zephyr, for the west wind, Melissa, for our friend's middle name whose birthday is tomorrow, Banana, cause it's so warm, Borage, because her mom and grandma are named after flowers.

Love Zoe, Rae, Jeff, Lisa, Sierra, Martha, Drake, Tiger, Quincy, Carnation, and last but not least Zephyr!
(I won't name all the chickens)