How I wish I were back at the Farm right now. Just look at the grass starting to green up, the trees yet to push leaves, still waiting for the days to lengthen enough to be safe from sudden frost. Someday soon, I’ll live each day of each season there, noting the subtle changes in every living thing as the planet hurtles back around its yearly orbit, tilting the Northern hemisphere once again toward the burning star that makes all this wonderful stuff happen.
I have 30 days left over here in this East African desert; 44 days to being boots on ground right there (points to photo), in the middle of that very pasture, surrounded by the green grass and budding trees that wait patiently for me. Oh, my farm is my lover, my waiting woman, beckoning me home with graceful arms and bountiful curves, life springing from her soils and grasses and forests and creeks. How I yearn for her presence, her sounds, her smells, her touch.
This trip I will rescue the corral from certain death by weathering. It was assembled perhaps 8 years ago, used only once, and put up too close to the Big Pond. The panels are rusting and in dire need of a new coat of paint; I’ll attend to that then tear the whole thing down and stack ’em in the trees under a tarp, until I’m ready to set it back up again in a better location. We’ll be there 10 days, so I’ll have time to sand and paint 20 8-foot steel panels. I hope.
We’ll see if I can get Derril to take some pictures this time, to help illustrate the project story. Bobby and Alene are thinking of taking a trip to see their kids while we’re there, since our stay is so long; it will be nice to have the Farm to ourselves for a change, and be able to power through the work without keeping a meal schedule or just being dang rude for not coming down off the hill until dark. I’m bad about that.
Thistledog's Farm 
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