Ode to Mattie

Here we are, snowed in on our first St. Valentine's Day on the farm together. The storm has been raging since bedtime last night. Matt heard our old buck, Black Jack, calling from the boy's pen adjacent to the barn. He pulled all his gear on and went out into the storm to find Black Jack, lying on his side, snow piling up over him. Matt has had a special relationship with this goat ever since he bought him for me at the NY State Sheep and Wool Festival, almost 7 years ago now. Black Jack was Best Baby Buck and was a mass of black ringlets. Matt carried him to the truck and people ooohhhed and aaahhed. He got BJ into the shelter, stood him up, and talked to him a while. Why relate this story...because it is a perfect example of why I am with this man. Matt is like a prickly pear, coarse and rough on the outside, sweet and juicy on the inside. We don't have two nickels to rub together...buying the farm and moving up here took just about all the money we had. All the money we make now is spent on the farm and the livestock. But Matt doesn't complain, and shows no bitterness over leaving the business he built up over the last five years, and the carpenters he worked side by side with. They were the perfect professional team and Matt enjoyed listening to the rock and roll adventures of Jamie and Brett. Clients called Matt a miracle worker with wood who made dreams come true. He enjoyed a vocational satisfaction most people can only fantastize about. My farming dream became his dream. Matt was willing to move us to the remote frontier of Central New York and start all over again. There is no work for him here yet, but he remains optimistic and keeps looking. We are together with our critters and enjoy a common goal. I often think we could be doing this and that, trips and outings, visiting the grandchildren in Las Vegas, Matt's son in San Francisco. But the flock binds us together and we share something most people couldn't understand and will never have.