Waiting ...

Fern's calf is due tomorrow. I check her several times a day: have her teats filled out? Maybe they're a little longer. I feel the tendons around her tail, testing whether I'll be able to actually tell when birth is imminent. Is her tail standing out a bit from a sore backside?

So far, no real signs of birth. Or at least, no real change from the signs already present. I've had good visions and bad dreams about the delivery, and will feel much relieved when the baby comes. (For the record: my gut says boy, and the other five members of the family say girl. Well, I'm not sure what 2-year-old Joe thinks, actually, but he would probably side with his brothers.)

The hot, dry weather continues. I planted two flats of greens today, the first workday that's a biodynamic "leaf" day in quite some time, and by evening, many of the plants had entirely wilted. Phil suggested I could have watered the actual bed, rather than running the dripline all over the section. That would have been a better idea. As it is, I'm a bit demoralized. No fun to pour effort into a sieve.

Phil went to pick up the tractor on Saturday, after a long week without it. We were amused to find that the tractor actually wasn't broken in any way. Rather, one of the boys had moved a lever that made the hydraulics not work. (Butch had never noticed that, and the owner's manual said nothing on that score, either, so it wasn't just ignorance on our part.) The repair guys spent an hour or so checking the tractor, and broke the starter all the way (Phil had a method involving both hands to start the tractor, so the starter was clearly on its way out) and repaired it, so it wasn't a free trip, but it was not anywhere close to what we had braced ourselves to pay.

And the turkey episode ended up being mostly covered by insurance, so we are blessed financially this week.

On Saturday, Phil and I spent a few hours preparing the next paddock for the cows to graze, and then we spent a few more hours today. We are hopeful that from now on, grazing cells will be much faster and easier to construct: their basic runway to the creek is established, and they are moving up into simple rectangular pastureland, rather than the intricate shapes, involving steep slopes and forests that Phil has been wrestling with.

The boys continue to bloom. Jadon and Isaiah work with me through American history. They both dictated amusing stories about the gold rush, with a gold nugget as the protagonist. I was amazed that, after hearing the assignment, they each came up with a brief story in about 30 seconds. What creativity!

Abraham, at five, is enthusiastic about reading for the first time. He has been so resistant, but I wondered recently, when he had a random fever, if that was the precursor to a leap in his cognitive abilities. (This idea isn't unique to me, but I don't think I've heard that idea in conventional medicine.)

And I keep listening to lectures on nutrition and health while I ferment my vegetables and do the dishes. Today was the lecture on "The Heart Is Not a Pump". From a fluids standpoint, I think Dr. Cowan is correct. The heart is not a pump.

That's outside the mainstream!