Real Life vs Virtual Life: Patience and Ben

I have just noticed (well known it for some time time but chose to ignore!) that I haven't posted for 4 months.  Now, as there aren't thousands out there hanging on my every word, I'm sure the world hasn't stopped turning.  Not blogging, facebooking, tweeting, texting or whatever in the virtual world is not a capital crime, but is of course antisocial in this non face-to-face society we now live in.  So mea culpa, real life has got in the way of the virtual one, and I have been experiencing life instead of just writing about it.  Fortunately, that has been more than interesting enough for Jorg and I and although we like to post about some of our derring-do's it isn't essential in running the farm.

However, publicizing our new arrivals is.  In recent days we have seen the arrival of Mayfield's heifer calf Triskelion's Patience, and Edy's bull calf Triskelion's Benedict seen below. 

Patience and Ben

Ben

Both doing well and were enjoying the sunshine and warm days (at least until the cold snap last night!).  Patience will be going off to her Mum's former owner, and inquiries about Ben will be welcome.

Happy Birthday Alice - Twenty-one

Graduation with Jorg

Wedding with Dad

Alice with Emma

My youngest daughter, Alice, is twenty-one today. Although I had already passed my parental responsibilities on to her husband, Jimmy, two years ago this December, it is still a poignant moment to see one's children pass into formal adulthood. I'm not sure how significant a date it is these days as there is little that Alice has not been able to do before the "key of the door". Married and with her own little responsibility, Emma; taking college courses part-time and working; and making a home with her husband. Great responsibilities at a young age, and with so much of life still to come. My other four children, Alice's half siblings, two boys and two girls are well into adulthood, but I worry for their well being, especially in such troubled times. Of course I find it hard to imagine they can survive without constantly being told what to do, but they all seem to have made their niches in life. Alice, I am sure, will make hers as she, like me, adapts to her country of choice, by bringing to it a British perspective. If I was to give any advice (and I'm not sure I am all that qualified) it is that we pass this particular way only once, so make the most of opportunities, be true to oneself, and treat the world as you would wish to be treated yourself. The following is one of those Hallmark card type of sayings but has always appealed to me:

Dance like there's nobody watching

Love like you'll never get hurt

Sing like there's nobody listening

Live like it's heaven on earth

And speak from the heart to be heard.

Happy Birthday sweetheart, enjoy the day.

Old Dogs/New Tricks

Do you ever think about the meaning of life? Yours, not the Monty Python film. Don't worry, this is not a serious discourse on life, the universe and everything. But here I am, side of face covered in cow poop, screwdriver in one hand, listening to the vacuum pump (I'm sure it's asthmatic!) and contemplating the eight more horse stalls I have to pick, and the eight horse breakfasts to prepare. What on earth am I doing here! During my life I have made many choices, taken many paths. To say I have planned all along to be here and doing what I do, would be hardly fair to whatever great creator is responsible for my life journey. Yet I believe I am here by choice, however those choices were presented. Not only that the things I have learned during that journey have, quite amazingly, prepared me well for my new farming life. When I was a teenager in the UK, I became a "Young Farmer". Now, I was not really a country boy, and my family had no farming experience. Some of my friends joined, so did I. We met once a week or so, and listened to lectures on cows and chickens and the like, and then I forgot most of what I learnt in those two years. As with most teenage boys, girls happened along, and so I moved on to horses, just to impress a local beauty. I learned to ride and stuck with a local riding school for a year or so. Lack of scholastic endeavour led to my enlisting in the Royal Navy at the tender age of 16, and any thoughts of a bucolic life were submerged by engineering and the delights of pubs and tatoo parlours. I ploughed the seas (sorry, bad pun) but not the sod for 12 years, doing my bit in the "Cold War". I did learn a lot about pumps and electrics, and how to repair things with a piece of bent wire and duct tape, but with marriage and children came responsibility, and the inevitable settling down. Not unsurprisingly on the basis of "do what you know" I went into ship design, rather than agriculture. Until then my life choices had been governed more by Naval requirements, than personal choice, and it was a company requirement that put me on to what would prove to be my professional career as an ergonomist. Preparing equipment lists, budgeting tight projects, and dealing with the minutae of complex systems was my life, on and off, for the next 35 years. Coming to the US in pursuit of happiness in the form of my lovely Jorg, I was little aware that the jigsaw puzzle that was my past experience was going to be so beautifully put together at a farm in Southside, Virginia. My experience with animals had always been intermittent. Occasional cats, and the usual array of guinea pigs and rabbits for the kids. My philosphy has always been "don't have them (animals, although the same principle applies to kids!) if you aren't prepared to look after them properly." Suddenly, I was involved intimately with a real animal person, and there were horses, a dog, a parrot, some cats, and koi in the pond to look after and keep healthy. The stepping stones from that re-introduction to horses, via dog rescue transport, to our own horse rescue, and thence to Triskelion Farm and the menagerie we look after here, seem natural if explained sensibly, but that would be way too long for this post. Sufficient to say that the various learning organizations I had encountered throughout my life would be proud if they could see me now - side of face covered in cow poop, screwdriver in one hand, listening to the vacuum pump (I'm sure it's asthmatic!) and contemplating the eight more horse stalls I have to pick, and the eight horse breakfasts to prepare. But with a self-satisfied glow that outshines the golden brown I am turning from the Virginia sunshine.

That's me, on the left!