So much has happened in the past week. It’s hard to know where to begin and how much to share without creating an off-putting deluge of information. Last week was intense and full of inspiring, painful and challenging events. I’m not able to stop and blog about it as it happens so you will have to forgive me for giving you all the severely abridged version. Perhaps I’ll feel capable of expounding later, but for now a rundown will have to do. My apologies.
Let’s start with the worst. My father, who I’ve always had a very trying relationship with, is on his death bed. He fighting through his final stages of cancer. I have many feelings about it, but this is not how I’d like to share them. Needless to say, it has created a heaviness around me all week. Relationships with parents can be really complicated…you’d think it’d be simple, but it rarely is.
(Photo by Colleen Walsh)
In farm news, the dogs have been regularly duking it out in order to establish dominance. Whether it be over food or attention, they have been going after one another to varying degrees of intensity. There was a bad fight last week and Stevie ripped Peach up pretty badly. I was there alone in the paddock with them, freaking out as soon as I saw the contrast of red blood against white fur. I miraculously pried them apart, shaking and covered in dog blood. It was not their fault. I tried to take a short cut in training and it was a poor decision. The good news is that both dogs are in perfect health now (only superficial cuts) and we’re going back to training the slow and steady way. In the meantime, we’ve been withholding excessive affection and feeding the girls separately with two people in the run to command “sit” once their bowls are empty. We hope there will be fewer triggers and we can get them feeling comfortable in each others presence once more.
We’ve also been constructing outbuildings, which is something I admittedly have no experience with. In fact there are many moments during the process where I feel downright useless…oftentimes resorting to facilitating lunch and transport to and from the ferry for visitors rather than manning the chop saw and potentially messing something up. I’ve got quite a bit of anxiety over basic carpentry, I really do. I’m ashamed of this shortcoming of mine and hope that I can overcome it over the course of the next couple of weeks. There is still a ton of work left, though we’re hoping to complete much of it this weekend. Anyone want to come lend a hand? Show me the ropes?
There’s plenty of other stuff going on but those things will come in the form of actual blog posts. Thanks for sticking with me, folks! It’s going to be one hell of a ride!
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