Eggs! Milk! Butter! Cabbages! Beets! Carrots! Peas! Onions! Spinach! My "farm" is suddenly producing. I went to see what was happening out in the garden last night, and came in loaded with a spinach salad- the above-mentioned ingredients. Minus the beets. I planted the beets early this spring with the plan of experimenting with beet smoothies, trying to calm the strong dirt flavor of the beets with other ingredients. I may still, but in other news...

Just as my fridge fills up with all of this wonderful, strong-flavored "real" food, strong raw goat milk, dark yellow eggs, root vegetables tasting of all the nutrients my garden has infused them with, I find myself completely turned off of anything but the most bland flavors. And this is because apparently, in the middle of all my building goat fence, sweating my tail off, doing all of those two man jobs by myself, then going on a mountain biking trip, pedaling up mountains at 10,000 feet, eating raw fish, sitting in the hot tub...turns out this was the month that all the stars lined up right and all the conditions were just so and we managed to conceive again. Even as i stomped my feet and declared myself free of the yolk of pending pregnancy and just decided to live my two week wait as if there was no chance of anything growing in there, since it hadn't decided to grow in there in all of the opportunities we had given it in the six months since the last miscarriage, I was already pregnant.

Now, normally, things would just be taking their course and I would be riding this out, feeling perfectly fine yet and just hoping this one will be the one to stay in there and actually become our baby, but after two fails, upon discovery of that faint blue line, I raced into my doctor's office and am now on supplemental progesterone. Which means that I am doing all of that- riding this out, hoping and praying and fighting with myself, trying to squash any tiny glimmer of hope that forces it's way into my brain, trying to turn loose of this one already so I won't have the rug yanked out from under me quite so viciously when the cramping and bleeding starts and this latest short-lived dream leaves me sad and cold and empty...doing all that, but doing it while on progesterone. Which means I have these waves of tired, achy nausea washing me about, some almost overwhelming, and some just barely there. At five weeks, there is nothing to do but just wait. Maybe this could be the one. Maybe. But really, it is only another test in the process of elimination that is finding a cause for recurrent miscarriage. If I keep it, then low progesterone was my problem. And if I don't, then my problem is something else.

And so we wait. And I do a lot of sleeping and nothing gets done. And my bathroom scale claims I have dropped another couple of pounds this week, due to not having an appetite. The weeds are taking over my garden. But that doesn't mean my vegetables aren't growing. I wish that could be a metaphor for my challenged reproductive system.

Anouk has developed a healthy, shiny, soft coat in the last while, and almost simultaneously, the chicken's egg production dropped to nothing. My suspicions were confirmed the other day when I caught her red-handed, or should I say red-pawed, or should I actually say, with egg on her face. She dropped the egg in her mouth into the hay on the barn floor when she realized she had been caught, and I wiped the slobber off and cooked it over easy for B the next morning. She cleaned up after herself well during her crime spree. She has been eating shell and all to remove evidence, and sneaking out to the barn only when the coast is clear. I only caught her because I sneaked up on her. She is a sneaky one, that puppy. Too smart for me most days.

I am still milking Ebony, the goat. I am trying to decide what to do about that, since I don't want to be a quitter. I mean, I just got her. And my mom and neighbor are enjoying the milk that I go out and get morning and evening. So far, the strong smell of milk has turned my stomach only slightly, since milking takes place early morning and early evening, the two times a day I feel the best. Only the thought of actually drinking it makes me want to throw up in my mouth a bit. I attempted it in cereal this morning, but that was a fail, as well. Andy finished it off, which didn't help his gas issues. And I guess I am going to shelve my raw milk experiment for now and pasteurize if I am going to stick with it, just in case I should happen to accidentally contaminate some of it. I would hate to cause my own miscarriage by way of listeria or something.

I took the dogs on a walk tonight out in the pasture, which Andy took full advantage of by going for a swim in the stock tank. I hate to think what bits of algae he will be leaving on our sheets tonight. Yes, he sleeps with us. We didnt used to let him, but it is late at night when our imaginations run wild and we realize how short our time is with him, how easily doggies get under speeding truck tires or stick their noses in rattlesnake faces. And we realize that it isn't even right how hopelessly in love we are with his soft mug, his cold nose, his silky ears, and his adoring gaze, and before we know it, we have invited him into our bed and both have our arms wrapped tightly around him as he lies with his chin propped across B's chest and sighs contentedly. And we talk to him and pet him and beg him to never do anything so stupid as to cross the road unaccompanied by us. And he sighs again and farts audibly. Because he has a Golden Retriever's notoriously finicky digestive system. And then, in the aftermath, the cuddling stops as the humans take refuge with heads under the covers where the air is fresher. And then Anouk places her front paws on the edge of the bed, which is as close as she can get to jumping in with us, and thumps her tail, and says "mwaaa-waa-woo-woo-raaawww?" which translated loosely means, "don't you love me, too?" and I reach down and scratch her ears, and she tries to bite my fingers because she is teething right now and nothing is safe.

It isn't a good feeling to love something so much when their lifespan is so much shorter than ours. But right now, that is the story of our life. Loving for a little while is better than not at all. So, good folks. It is bedtime. To rephrase that in Anouk's native tongue, aaahr-wooowooo. This is her standard last word of the day as she drops onto her bed. She is one of the more vocal dogs we have known. Her German Shepherd is definitely showing in her constant out-loud commentary. The chicks have been carried into the garage from their run outside, where they have spent the day darting after flies that are stupid enough to land there. The goats are in the barn. The chickens are roosted above the goats on what remains of a stanchion from back when the barn was a dairy. The cats have had their catfood dispensed for them in the hayloft. The weedy garden has been watered. The dogs have been fed. Yep. Bedtime.

(next morning) Well...I was done. Except for the pictures I planned to add this morning. I do love my farm. At the moment, there are 34 animals (this includes all of the chicks) who live here. 34 chances to be amused and entertained. I think that is something to be happy about.

Not pictured is what is left of my sitting hen. Anouk proudly brought her to the front yard this morning, at least the bedraggled lump of feathers and bits of bone that used to be her. My yard reeks of dead now. As do Andy, Anouk, and my parent's dog Princess, who we are dogsitting. And I had to kill a lame chick that suddenly could not stand up the other day and kept flipping over on his back, where he lay and kicked like an upside-down beetle and could not get up. Major trauma for me, having to do that. I really hope it wasn't Mr. Floppyneck. I only know it was the same color as Mr. Floppyneck, since I have since lost track of which one Mr. Floppyneck was. When small animals meet their end around here, they go into the burn barrel, which sometimes has to wait to be burned until a calm day. That is not a pleasant corner of the yard to be in right now. Sorry if that really grosses you out.

 A few weeks ago when it was greener around here, mowing the "lawn", which is sorta what the field in front of our house has become.

 More green, from a few weeks ago, and Penelope, the Bianchi Volpe 'cross bike I have not even once regretted buying, even though I bought it thinking it would be the bike to carry me over sand and lava roads in Maui, not the sand and gyp' roads in Kansas. She took me on some 40 mile rambles through Logan County and helped me survive my sad spring.

 Sky. It's the view here. Always changing, benevolant to menacing and back again in 20 minutes. Always look up. Because if you look down, you may remember where you are. Okay, do look down occasionally, to avoid the hazards of goatheads, sandburrs, prairie dog burrows and rattlesnakes.

 My sweet Ebony. Okay, not mine. But I get to enjoy waking up leaning against her warm little tummy in the mornings, squeezing streams of milk into a jar, while she gurgles and munches her oats.

 Gabby, the old gal. This goat has been around for years, and has provided milk to many families in the community. Now she has been retired. That is, if she can stay away from the Billies. She is a bit of a loose woman, apparently, and has been known to escape and go looking for love. Even now, in her silver years.

 The chicks. They are using their wings now. It is becoming more and more complicated to load them into a plastic tub and carry them to their outside pen every morning and then back to their stock tank in the garage every evening. They tend to fly out as soon as i raise the lid and I end up chasing them around the yard and looking foolish. But they are not yet big enough to have outgrown prey status with the cats, dogs, and resident hawk that perches on the silos and watches for movement.

 The big chickens in their new room in the barn. Also the floor I dug out and replaced. The cats appreciate the new digs almost as much as the hens.