March...

I started writing this post two weeks ago. It's been open on my laptop and I have tried to come back to it a couple of times without success. It's been a rough couple of weeks again. I've been really struggling as this goes on, but I'm trying very hard to just take one day at a time. I tried to go out with Kevin to run some errands a week ago after days stuck in bed in misery, and I ended up in the ER.

All we can really do now is take things one day at a time and one step at a time. Appointments take time. Treatment options (which I hope become more available) take time. So it's useless to try and rush through. I am going into a little gentler time of month in the next few days, so hopefully I'll have a few good days before I'm at the start of this cycle again. Kevin has also taken ill, so it has been a time of focusing on keeping our farm and household running the best we can, and trying to take care of ourselves at the same time.

The weather has been... nuts. It's been warm and melting, freezing again, raining, snowing, sleeting. You name it. The sap has run maybe twice and both times were very short runs giving us less than half a bucket of sap, not nearly enough to even bother boiling. It's been an unusual spring here compared to the past several years. It has been a very strange winter here, one like I've never seen. We have not seen a single deer since New Years, and we always have deer into April with us. We haven't found a single deer track. The winter was cold, and harsh. And here we are at the end of March, and we haven't even been able to boil one pan of sap because it hasn't run.

Today it's raining, which I'm grateful for. I am keeping the wood stove going, and after chores was able to get some Hot Cross bun dough made, so that is rising by the fire. We have been waiting on a delivery of feed all morning, they have to leave the feed a mile from our house because they cannot drive our lane, so I have been anxious worrying that it would get wet and ruined, but it arrived safely and Jim picked it up for us and brought it home.

All of the animals are well, thankfully. Everyone is anxiously awaiting an improvement in the weather. They are inside today, where they are warm and dry. All of the babies are doing great and growing like weeds, they have all doubled, maybe tripled in size!

My last pregnant doe, Beatrice is due next week. She's getting very close. It will be a lot nicer for this little kid coming into the world now, at our usual time of year, than it was for the surprise kids that came so early in the cold.

I have a bunch of pictures to share but I'm so not organized right now. All of these pictures are from the last two weeks all on different days so please bare me with, you'll see mud, snow, ice, and a mixture of everything in them :)

I am excited about the changing weather, and I am finding a new level of patience I didn't know I had. Yesterday I had twenty minutes where I had zero pain - none. I have not had zero pain since one partial day in August and I was still taking meds from my surgery then. It was a miracle, I felt like I had been transported to a different body. I hope it was a message that good things will come in time and with the right path forward. It didn't last very long, but it was a huge blessing.

Here are a few pictures from our March...






















Little Miss Sunshine, AKA Puffin was sure enjoying sunning herself...



And trying to look taller than she is...



more snow, after a bunch of it melted...



Kevin had to come and plow the barnyard a bit so everyone wouldn't be standing in snow... they appreciated it...



Especially the short ones...



The sugar shack asleep in the forest...



Lavender has been spending more time in the barn - during the day, so she can play with the other babies. When it's too cold for them to be outside, they get the run of the place inside and love climbing on the hay.



And then the rest of the time, she relaxes in the rocking hair.



I have really been enjoying having fresh milk again... there really isn't anything better...



except fresh cream... it's like gold to me...



And the boys, they are staying warm by the fire, waiting for it to warm up so they can get back outside for another expedition.

I apologize for falling behind on blogging, and also a lot of your blogs. It's not on purpose and I don't plan on making it long term either. It's been a slow month, focused on rest, going through the motions... survival.

But the time of renewal is coming.