swollen lamb

so heres some shots of little sirens state of being...post rattler bite..to the untrained eye maybe not too much to look at. but her whole jaw/throat/nose is like a balloon!

she should look more like lupe here.

i have to say...one bonus is that its nice and quiet since siren can't be yellin' her head off as per usual....ahhhh.
she seems able to breathe...its been about 16 hours since the bite.my main concern is wether or not she's drinking water. I'm not sure wha elset i can do for her. any suggestions?

the owl and the rattlesnake

maybe you all are just plum tired of my owl stories. well, too bad for you then since i've another to tell.

last few nights theres been the orchard owl right outside my bedroom window just hoo-hoo-ing away...so loud i can't sleep.i haven't heard one in months. last night it started up before it was completely dark so i snuck out onto the porch and caught a glimpse of it atop the telephone pole next to my house.

so as the usual protocol i've been extra careful, mindful of everything i'm doing.worrying and wondering about my friends keeping an extra watchful eye on all the many many animals. we've got these neighbor dogs...dogs known to have torn a goat to bits...that have been getting onto the farm through some damn hole in the fence and harassing our visitig goats so just to be safe i've penned the goats in the orchard down below.

anyway

i come out of the studio just before dark and the sheep and dogs are hanging out by the house when i hear that distinct sound of a pissed off rattlesnake. i haven't seen a rattler in years...we didn't have them in the high mountains. but there it was right in front of the house , hugging the edge of this grassy bush. so it rattled and hissed and lashed out at siren, one of my lambs. it was all so fast. she flinched and shook her head, so theres a chance she was bitten.

but right then i had to deal with this snake in my yard. i got the dogs and cats , put them in the house, shooed the sheep far away and had a panicky think. i went in the house and despite the sweltering heat, put on jeans, boots a denim jacket and thick gloves. i had the idea to spray it with water to try and at least get it away from my front door, which worked. watching it slide along the ground...not very hurried...was quite something. it was huge. and fat.no doubt well fed on all the big chunky frogs we've got all over the place.

i got it out to the driveway but realized it wasn't gonna go far. it just wasn't that impressed with me and my water and besides, my hose had reached its full length. so i dropped that and instead grabbed an old tin trash can, went over to the snake which was at this point coiled and pissed and waiting.

i covered it.
and had a another panicky think.
i thought about ways i could try to catch it up into the can and relocate it but it all seemed too risky. i'm alone here, ive no snake bite kit and beside me, theres too many animals that could get nailed. i realized i had to kill it.

i'm not a big fan of killing things. not at all. save for mosquitos, I'll stop and help drowning bees out of a water trough, i'll trap a spider in a jar and get it out of the house...once i relocated a black widow that had decided to nest in a high traffic area outside the house.

but this felt far more serious. so i grabbed my axe from the back of my truck, went over to the can, tipped the edge up slightly and waited. after a few minutes it peeked its head out and i made this gutteral determined sound and i smashed its head...then just kept bashing at it, the same -haaah- sound escaping my lungs with each blow.

then i dropped the axe and cried. i asked the snake to forgive me.

i'm relieved its dead. how horrible is that.

so the owl lets me know about death even when i'm the one that will make it happen.

tomorrow i'm goin to vegas to get a rattle snake bite kit...or 2.

the evolution of an idea

so theres this semi plan in motion to try and create a living space for me in my good friends sizeable back yard in santa fe. this is likely the only way i'd ever be able to live in a city like santa fe.

the family compound concept is a big deal for a buncha reasons.

i'd be investing money into someone else's property. and its a lot of effort and time and processing.
its also the fact that i'd be giving up the full time farmer thing...for now. I'd be mostly in the city, the noise and business and pollution and lack of space.

the obvious postives are that i'd be able to write more, perform more, ride my bike instead of drive, rest my body a while...and possibly have the chest surgery i'm pining for since i'd have a suitable recovery space and time.
and i wouldn't be so damn isolated.


but ofcourse theres also the harder stuff about co-habitation....esp. among crips, which we both are. and esp. among lovers, which we are as well.
steadfastly polyamorous and not primary...but still...its another level.


and the crip stuff, 2 crips sharing space, conflicts in access...you know, damaged goods shackin' up together can be kinda high maintenence. but for me particularly around e.i and class....i'm aware of the fact that on some level i moved myself up to chacon, on a mountain side, all alone in order to find respite from the constant struggle to have community.the struggle to have any kind of close relationship w/ someone who doesn't have e.i. always theres the blatant disparity between us to navigate. the non-ei's ability to form all sorts of friendships,to go to school, work, events, parties... to just be in public vs. my moderately to predominately homebound life.

on the mountain this was my own business. and i could bury that reality beneath the romantic notion of the spinster/shepherd on the mountain top...or i could try anyway.

protected.

But really, before i get too wound up in all the emotional details and logistics...we have to try and ascertain how much the dwelling would cost to create. as usual its economic feasibility first....THEN life decisions.

but i'm finding myself w/ my fingers crossed since it sounds like a potentially challenging, healthy idea....terrifying and who knows if it'll crash n' burn....but right now, it feels worth the leap. its the -fool- card in all its glory.

Dogs and I

just returned from an event filled journey to santa fe...and we're all a little tired.

goats and rainbows

we've some guests here at the farm for a spell while their home digs get renovated. goats are great in a lot of ways, fucking hysterical and really friendly. but man they are a pain in the ass. getting into everything...onto everything....through everything.
really makes me appreciate my sheep.

and this here is the buck. he stinks.he pees on his face. he makes these gurgling snorting sounds and kind of waddles around. he's like some sort of gnome/troll type creature out of a fairy tale......kinda creepy


lots of rainbow action lately w/ all the rain. heres a nice double...


my latest housing plan is to try and get a little place right in town...either vegas or santa fe and kinda float between the farm and town....best of both worlds. hoping to get a place that would accomodate my mom as well....i think the sunshine out here would do her good. ahhh but this is just a plan/scheme in a long line of plan/schemes eh? but having one at least gives me a goal...even for a little while....i don't do well w/out a plan!

peering inward, hands trembling

raining.
rain rain rain rain rain.

My visitor has gone, theres no baling of hay happening due to the rain factor and everything seems soooo vast and quiet, seductive and excruciatingly solitary.

visitors from big cities are always so odd to have around. their lives from their own mouths seem so unreal to me. So cerebral, indulgent, and steeped in human drama. And they observe the farm in passing, storing bits of memory in their travel bag, souvenirs of endless space, animals lives and high desert quiet.

i don't miss the big cities.

but...that said, the quiet now tells me i miss the pitter patter of human activity. i enjoyed the sound of someone doing dishes in the next room. The sight of someone passing by outside the window, knowing someone sleeps in the shop next to the house in the early morning while i write the my desk.

the rain lets up to a drizzle.

the quiet tells me i'm tired of doing this alone. tired of being the only human heart beat.
the only hands.

i want to hold hands while sunflowers bloom and track the days passing. someone to bring in greens and carrots from the garden smelling like earth, singing a low song and planning for winter.

theres a chill now in the morning, the sun rises so much later and theres nothing quite like the warmth of a human body to my frame. the bloods journey beneath smooth skin and that slight give of ones bones to accomodate the embrace.

the warmth.the hands.

ahhh. such a poet....always longing for something.

the rain has stopped.

tid bits....its all i have

hey there all of you.
i've a visitor right now. so seeing as i live in a hallway...things are tight and i don't have too much room left in the ol' brain for blogging.

its been raining like crazy....like build an ark amounts of rain.

my little chickens are not so little anymore! and their voices are changing...they've dropped an octave or so.

somewhere deep inside my brain/heart is a storm brewing, i'm just too preoccupied and/or stubborn and/or scared to look at the enormity of it. the lightening searing through dark space. the pressure bearing down. the sky ready to flood.

and theres a tower ready to fall.


to be continued....

where is erin?

i've been swallowed by the heat.
i wake up at 5am and have a window of about4 or 5 hours to get as much done as possible and then i slip into a heat induced stupor til around 8 pm then make some food and go to bed.
eeee.

i think i handle the cold better than the heat. when its cold i just add another sweater and stay busy...or get into a bed with a hot water bottle beneath a pile of comforters and sleep.

with the heat...what can you do? i can only get so naked...can only lie so still for so long...can only get in a cold bath so many times...
i miss the mountains.

so heres some photos...this way it seems like i'm posting interesting stuff without my brain actually having to work. i swear that thinking too hard just makes me hotter.

check my chiapas corn...its a good 12 ft high or so!!!!! no ears yet though... its putting up a good fight against the grasshoppers but we'll see.theres a lizard on my window...some yarns i've managed to spin despite the fact that wool is the last goddam thing on the too hot planet i want to be touching.and then there is me...sweltering me.