Where Things Stand!

Life is... full at the moment. It's not particularly what I would call busy, but it is full.

I have an incubator full of eggs waiting to hatch- 5 button quail, 2 silver pheasants, around 14 chicken, 2 goose, and the rest I think are ringneck pheasants. They all have different hatching times and I have to find a way to get them back to the west side of the state the weekend they are done hatching (which will be in about 4 weeks). The old batch of 12 blue andalusian chicks went to Andrea's and the 4 that hatched as junk test eggs shortly after have gone home with Moon after her visit this past weekend.

Speaking of Moon, we just had the first bird swap of the year, at which I acquired a female muscovy duck for Ping and three more peafowl. I finally, finally got my grubby little paws on a pied female (I've been to dozens of swaps now and I've only seen a pied female once, the first year I went... the rest have all been males), and I struck great luck with a guy who just wanted to get out of the rain and wasn't allowed to go home with any of the birds he took to the swap. He gifted me a blackshoulder male and an India blue female that had just about beat her own head in trying to jump out of the cramped wire cage he had stashed them in for transport. The male had ripped a claw and was bleeding all over the place, but they both survived to the Farm and are doing well in with Osiris and Blu and Octavian. The females will need names, as soon as I have had some time to sit and think carefully. I am going to be keeping the blackshoulder, but he will be Moon's in spirit so I told her she could name him.

I am still slowly feeding the free mice I seem to have acquired to my snake now that he is FINALLY eating again. He is getting old and I think he's got a lump under his skin that probably means an illness I'm not going to treat. He's almost a decade old (he might even be older... I stopped trying to figure it out, but I think he's 10 now), which is mid to late life for him. For the time being, he's enjoying basking in the heat lamp's rays and hamming it up when I take him out for visits.

I am still on the hunt for a house, but I think today I decided that I will sit back and allow myself to just save money. I'm 2-3 paychecks from paying off my credit card completely and then I can start tucking away a good chunk of change. I don't know if I'll be able to sort myself before the summer is out and I don't want to jump into housing mid winter. I'm tossing about the idea of asking for help from a man I spoke to today, and seeing what he can offer to me.

Things are also going well with Milyardo. We spend a lot of our time together during the week, and it seems there is always something to do. Visiting the farm, driving out west for visits, attending weight watchers every wednesday (followed by our typical inventing-something wednesday dinners... last week was a creamy-tomato sauce tossed with bowties and italian-spiced chopped chicken.... omg delicious), Friday night dinners with the guys, and a weekend of sneaking lounging opportunities when the rest of it isn't keeping us on our toes. It is thoroughly enjoyable, and I'm very glad to have found such peace.

Amongst the adventures above, I have also decided to attempt to finish Malik's story, to see it published. I don't expect I will find anyone else willing to publish it, so I intend to find a way to self-publish it. I have a good enough grasp on the storyline at this point that I think I can finish out the story with enough determination. It helps to have someone holding my hand through the ropes.

As if I even have time for anything else, I'm sure there are other things I'll be caught doing in the next few months. Summer is exciting and I already have some plans made. The beginning of May will be full of time off of work and a mini-vacation spent babysitting the Farm while Liz and Becky are on a cruise. This will mean quality time with my 'kids' and a chance to get a feel for farm life a little better than a single weekend provides. The end of May will launch my birthday and I will be attending a wedding amongst Milyardo's relatives with any luck. The beginning of June brings with it a trip to Mackinac Island during the Lilac Festival. The isle has had every single species of lilac in the world transplanted to it and they all bloom at the same time during a two week span in June. I have always wanted to visit during that time, if only to smell the amazing aroma of so many lilacs in bloom at once in the same place. The end of June brings about Chris and Carla's wedding party, a celebration of the wedding they had in Mexico this past December. Maybe I can get my sand from them then.

Well, I think that's about as much updating on life as I'm feeling up to doing at the moment. I should try to post more regularly or something, but let's face it. I have issues with my memory and I forget this thing exists some days.

~Ked

I just want to say that today, I crossed a turning point. There have been other turning points. Some smaller than others. All of them Important in ways I can't explain to someone that hasn't faced it.

The best way to describe this one is how I described it today. Imagine standing at the edge of a cliff, and knowing what is at the bottom is what you want. Imagine that you KNOW the ground is a long way down- a looooong way down. But what is at the bottom, it's what you want, what you need, and you know you have to jump to get there, no matter how scary it is. No matter how far down. The turning point is that moment, the one where you are standing on the edge and you go from being terrified of the fall to deciding to do it because you either do it or you walk away from it, but either way you can't keep standing there being afraid of it.

I decided I'm done standing there being afraid of it, and it's time to jump.