Fine, fine, fine.

It’s snowing again. That’s fine. It’s only the middle of April and I had only gotten a tiny bit ecstatic to see a mud patch in the driveway. So the two feet of brand new snow is fine. It’s fine. It’s totally fine. I’m fine. Everything is not terrible. It’s been winter for seven months. That’s fine. Seven months is only a little more than half a year. My friends are enjoying spring in my old home. That’s fine. I’m just wading through snow. 

The other day I trudged through the snow and mud (which is gone now, replaced with new snow) and went to give my critters some oats and love. Well, I went to give Brisket some love, he’s the only one that accepts my scratches. I gave the others bribes to love me but, once again, it did not work. As I was giving Bridget oats and Brisket pets Bridget decided to also bestow me with an offering of her own. 

A beautiful line of bruises along my knuckles. She’s so generous. She still doesn’t like me petting her baby. 

The one nice thing about winter being endless is that it’s left me with a glorious feeling of not giving a single shit. Which has left me no longer afraid of the yaks. I slapped a yak that charged me, and since then she quit charging. Now she runs away or comes up nicely for oats whichever she’s in the mood for. I recognize that a slap was an insane reaction to a thousand pound bovine, considering I had a stick in the other hand, but it seems to have worked. So that’s progress. 

We’re still waiting on lambs and calves, we expect JoJo to calve any day now. I’ve been watching calving videos on YouTube daily and trying not to read about all of the things that can go wrong. Just joking. That would be a reasonable thing to do. I’ve read every single available article on the difficulties of calving which has me both prepared for emergency and petrified. Cher have mercy on my soul.

I expect we’re a few weeks away from lambs, so the search for a shearer has begun. I’m doing my best to not have a repeat of last years trauma. This time I’m hoping to find someone experienced with Jacobs. Not an entirely easy task. Poor old Walske was very warm this winter with two years of wool growth, but he does need desperately to be sheared before summer. If summer ever comes. At this rate summer will just be a couple weeks of snow melting and mud and then we’ll be back to winter. I have found no endless joy in the endless winter.