No Beastie Boy

Matt is gone teaching in Albany this week. It feels refreshingly liberating not to have a snarly, moody male to wait on. I ate ice cream, melon and beets for dinner, in that order. I have to get up earlier to put out bales, which he usually does for me, but that's okay. It's beautiful out there in the morning. When I'm alone here I lapse into an zen state where I'm much closer to my animals. I play with the dogs and cats much more and spend more time with the sheep. They are so beautiful, with those big pools for eyes. I found some of the luscious but few second cut bales in the hay mow and fed some to the bunnies. A few sheep came running in - they must have smelled it. Second cut has all the nutrition in it and the sheep love it. I lingered with them while they munched on it. When I'm with my sheep I am completely satisfied and happy. I experience a sense of well-being no pill could give me. They are so uncomplicated, unlike humans who I have a terrible time understanding and relating to. The Rambos and Merinos are very thin. They are not as hardy as my BFL's and require better hay and some grain in their diet. Dr. Rachel tells me I should be worming more aggressively because of the increased parasite load the rainy summer caused. I am trying to work that out with Beastie Boy, who is increasingly interested in other things. I went to visit Farmer Spooner down the road and caught him coming into the barn yard on his tractor. He says he will not be coming to do a second cut on Jan's field, as he has too much corn to get in for his cows. All that grass and this beautiful weather, and it won't be cut and baled. So depressing...and this was going to be the catch-up year when buying hay wouldn't put me under. I'm not going to nag Jan about it anymore. I pleaded with her the other day and I don't think she gets it. I turned my truck around and went down the road to Farmer Simmonds. We shook hands on a deal for two thousand bales of second cut and alfafa mix. When I told Matt on the phone in Albany he pitched a fit. He wants to put the sheep on the truck to nowhere. He doesn't get it either. How could I tell Frodo and Bilbo, Patrick and Lilly, Minerva and Baby Thunder, Blue Tag and Ole Crip, Aragon and Malcolm, Lincoln and Monkey, and all the others, that they are going to a very scary place where all will fade to black? I don't think so. I need my sheep.