I don't know how to forgive this. Thoughts?

Jun 10, 2023

Happy Saturday friends!

This week I've been wearing an N95 mask to do chores because the Canadian wildfire smoke arrived all the way down here in the south. Crazy. And for the first time ever, as I was sweating through my mask, I didn't feel homesick for Colorado. In 2020, the year of covid, my mom's cancer diagnosis, and prepping the ranch for selling, we also had a 3 month long fire just northwest of our ranch in Longmont, CO. We spent one night with Brad mowing down the big 6 acre front pasture to just a few inches in case the fire reached us. I will forever see the tractor lights in the dark running up and down, up and down. And while he was mowing, Michael and I were gathering absolute necessities. You can read that blog post here, it's talking about 2020 giving us the gift of distillation.

Our air quality numbers this week have been in the orange and red zones. During the Colorado fires of 2020, Longmont was in the "hazardous" range. It was scary. And there was nowhere to go.

So, while fire sunsets are beautiful, I'm not missing them:

MOM:

What I'm still missing? My mom. Big surprise. Sunday night was a big cry fest. I don't think I've cried that hard since those early days without her. Someone on Nextdoor wrote this:

I found more pics of Mom this week, 2016 or 2017ish:

Mom and my oldest daughter Nichole, 2014:

And I couldn't figure out why this week was such a hard grief week and then I remembered. Her headstone was installed. As if someone said, "Just in case you don't fully recognize the finality of the loss, here, check out this horror."

And the fact that my mom did not want to be buried but wanted to be cremated, and said so her entire life—and yet, here her body lies. I'm not sure I will ever be able to forgive my dad for waiting until the very end when she was weak, exhausted, on so many pain meds, and just absolutely grief stricken about what was happening to her (she wasn't ready) before he effing bullied her into giving up and saying, "Fine. You can just bury me." Because that's not what he wanted.

I just can't you guys. I can't cope with that. It's been almost 7 months and I still can't cope with it. I don't know how to forgive that. And he honestly believes that she was okay with it.

I CAN'T COPE WITH THAT HORROR. I can't cope with the narcissism. If you have ideas on how to heal that part of my heart, respond to this email please. I would appreciate it!

Let's move onto something happier shall we? Goodness. Sometimes you get all the thoughts in my head don't you?!

THE RANCH:

Ahhh, the daylilies are blooming! I will be moving them to a sunnier spot in the fall so they will all bloom and not just a few!

And of course the weeds are blooming around the pond. I don't know what this is but it reminds me of snapdragons:

I planted some pots that I found on the property and I swear to GOD I am REALLY going to get those damn doors painted yellow SOON!

This set of pics made me laugh. I Love Lucy knows to come hang out near the island because good things are given to her. She usually gets a few little bites of meat or cheese. Except Brad was making a salad. She seemed interested in the tomato so:

"Yummies?"

He told her she wouldn't like it but she didn't believe him:

I thought she ate it and put the phone down. Totally missed the pic of her spitting it out so hard that it skittered across the floor lol

No one knows who did this. Was it Wynter reaching over the fence for better grass? Or Rayn and her itchy butt? You can see someone ate the grass over the fence though! Amazingly enough, all three were still in that pasture when I came out for morning chores. If I had been them, I would have carefully stepped over and wandered around grazing. Glad they chose to stay in!

Let's just stop for a moment and soak in the goodness that is I Love Lucy:

And then let's discuss these! I want to create a version of both of them on the ranch, what do you think?!:

I'm thinking Carolina Jasmine would make a beautiful pile of yellow hair!

And I need some rainbow Pride wings for people to take pics in front of!

Speaking of Pride! It's Pride month as you know, so here are my favorite Pride memes this week:

And isn't this fabulous!

THE RANCH:

Our new baby boy goat is coming home next week! YAY! In preparation for that, I present you with the Proper Goat Anatomy:

I asked for good names for the new little guy on Facebook and Nextdoor this week and got a TON! Several who thought Brady because he's the GOAT, a bunch of King Charles options because his white spot looks like a crown, about a million candy themed names (his dad is Charleston Chew and his mom is Buttercup), Chewie/Chewbaca was a common one too. A few of my favorites: George Herman Goat aka Babe, Kokopelli the Native American fertility god, Cinnamon Bun, Sir Stampy, Sir Cashew Vanilla Fudge, Grover who eats clover, Butternut Chuck, Big Mac, Mac Daddy (I love that because of our last name!), Great Goatsby, Herd sire=Lucky!

ManChild said: Goatzilla, Thor Destroyer of Does, Lady Slayer, Goat-tastrophy, The Goat Father 😂

But this is me we're talking about! Sometimes I hear their names in my head. Like last year's Baby Dancer below. I was offering her names and after each one I'd hear, "Dancer." After about 5 different names I realized she was naming herself. You just can't say no to that!

And then there was this boy, Baby Dancer's dad as a buckling. So sweet. B-Rad was driving us home from the farm we bought him from and he squiggled around until he was heart to heart with me. And that became his name, Heart.

So, we shall see when the new little guy arrives next week. Will any of the names fit him? Will he name himself? I will let you know!

And after all that sweet talk about goats, I will leave you with the other reality of goats:

Seriously guys? And a little pile of poo on my steering wheel too?? WTF?

We had a miracle happen on Monday where little Sweetness the mini donkey had his feet trimmed and didn't have to be tied tight to the fence! OMG! Notice the support that Wynter and Rayn are offering him as he tries to be brave. GOOD BOY!

I tried Sweetness out loose in the yard again, but this time with his steady partner Rayn and with a halter and lead on. The halter and lead seemed to remind him that there were still some expectations of him and one of those was that he wasn't allowed to pin his ears and chase the goats while they were loose together! Look how good he's being! He doesn't like dogs or goats in his space and that's ok because they don't share space normally. I had to remind him that these were special circumstances and I expected patience and kindness from all. He agreed :-)

And look who else got to try! Wow! Wynter has never given off trustworthy vibes as far as being loose. He gets himself all worked up about the possibility and that's just not going to work for me. But as he's watched the others get to have turns being out on the grass and also they've been switching pastures every day which gives them something else to do and see—I think he's calming down. I was watching him inside the fence on this day, watching his friends. He must have felt me because his energy got softer and softer. I finally walked over to him and asked, "Do you think you're ready?" and got an immediate yes. I asked him to stay close, just graze close by. And this is what he did—he never moved more than 20 feet:

Also, I put the goats away before I tried this lol. I knew I needed to keep a closer eye on the big boy but he did great! We are looking at possibly fencing in the house side of the pond so I can let them out to graze everyday while I do chores without worry. That would be awesome! I also love this communication time with them and the trust in our relationships that we are building. It feels so good to all of us ❤️

THE MEMES!

Yes, yes, I know there are people out there who are still happily married to their high school sweetheart and that's wonderful! I married my first husband at 20 and it was a nightmare, so, this is funny to ME!

I didn't know this and now I can report to you that all of my "Christmas Cactus" that I inherited from Mom are actually Thanksgiving Cactus. Who knew!