Pig and farm report Vernal Equinox edition

 

I woke to a low distinct moaning I thought was coming from inside the house so I went into the dark with my flashlight to make sure everyone was okay when I was a girl my cat had kittens in the crook of my arm my dreamself deciphered her labor as the ocean swelling and then breaking I was not far wrong this house is so dark in the early morning none of the cats were on alert though beast Hal was awake with his ears flat on his head 

sleep was gone so I made coffee and sat on the blue couch waiting for dawn too dumb to light a match too dumb to decide which is greater Bach's music or God's gardenias or the fabric of exotic cushions or the sky blue of a coveted spring coat or the curve of a cabriole leg or the scrape of my fingernails against my scalp March brings decision and change as I climb into spring's well this is my brother's birth month and Bach's and the composer's one spring afternoon I shaved my legs too quickly before going to his house I shaved deep on my bony left ankle but the bleeding stopped soon enough then I was sitting at his kitchen table eating pieces of frozen mango wearing a white dress like the bride I wanted to be when my ankle started bleeding again profusely a votive flame in a ceramic bowl and the composer ran to his bathroom for bandages and he knelt and put my foot in his lap and he trembled as he touched my smooth leg and plastered me with adhesives and this moment is the one I remember the bright budgie bouncing in its cage and sun careening into the yellow kitchen and I burst out laughing

Spring is the time of blood and low moaning birth and death my father in his untreated pine coffin being lowered into the still frozen Portland earth this morning there was a cold blue sky with pink streaks in the east I walked onto the deck in my plastic flipflops to watch two deer trying to eat my fig tree a bird flew smack into my engine heart yesterday a red tailed hawk flew across my car windshield as I drove into the state park so low and huge that I stopped and made myself breathe there is something weird about March it's not winter even though it is goddamn and I ache for a warm beach for a little bit of shopping for clothes on a rack the delicious zhingzhing sound of hangers sliding for thumping a melon at the grocer for stepping in the Skagit river with my my dress tucked between my legs for choosing ripe corn off the back of a flatbed truck and of course for tomatoes I had my second covid vaccination it gave me a headache for three hours and deep fatigue for three days but no other side effects easy peasy my son was here and he surprised me by buying us dinner to go at my best and only Mexican restaurant here and now he is swapping out the windshield wipers on my sleek black car before he heads back to the orchard to take care of the orchard his land and his father

it is hard not to feel hopeful these days I have been oddly bi polar symptom free for a year no mania no depression all while the world was tumbling into the gray there is no explaining it but I am grateful though occasionally shaky as in this morning trying to type on my pc and hitting the wrong keys forgive me my frozen animal hands my mistyped words I have been practicing Bach for no concert ever I have been practicing Bach for that girl for remembering that girl maybe she was moaning maybe she was bleeding maybe she was giving birth in the crook of my arm in this time of blood

hello