Writers have favourite muses.  These change as one passes through various stages of life.  My farm companions have become my muses at this juncture in time.  Brenda, the little duck who thinks she is a chicken has captured my imagination.  Here she is with her “mother” Casperella.  Brenda is much bigger than her mother, but still she tries to crawl under Casperella, as a baby would do.  She topples her mother over and in the end they just snuggle.  It is adorable.

I felt certain her story would make a good children’s...

New lesson learned. I think I now have an inkling of what is is like to adopt a baby or a young child. I have been considering a horse for Twilight ever since Emily passed away. Twilight has been melancholy and been calling me to the barn morning, noon and night. The minute I come out she whinnies and races towards me, and demands we groom one another.

When my old beau sent me the U tube of Frederick the Great, I had Friesian on the brain. I asked Twilight about it and she seemed pretty excited about the idea.

I Googled and found a Friesian for sa...

With a heavy heart I announce the passing of our sweet mare, Emily who came to rest at 4 am Sunday morning, Oct. 25th.

Twilight awoke us yesterday morning with an urgent message of worry. We went out to the field to find Emily crumbled and unwilling to raise herself. Several visits from the vet during the day brought nothing but bad news. The final decision lay to me. I needed for Emily to tell me when it was time to go.

She did, and the vet came and my darling passed away in my arms.

Her passing was filled with dignity and grace as was her life...

 POWER OF PRESENCE

 Loretta Jackson has brought both some of the youth from the Safe house where she works and some of her chickens who had been injured by attacks from hawks and from rowdy roosters.

The youths play with the llamas, groom them, feed them, take them for walks.

One youth, at first very shy and fearful has become a leader for others, teaching them how to work with the llamas.  She has also procured a steady job at the farm, cleaning the stalls and helping with the horses. 

Loretta had a young hen named Blinky, who had her eye pierced by a hawk and w...

When the a world famous athlete televises his struggle with being born a woman trapped in a man’s body, our awareness levels, and hopefully our compassion levels, are acutely elevated.

I didn’t need to watch television to get a close up of this complex and difficult condition.  I had privy to it in my own backyard.

Stanley, our purple rooster took Violet as the hen out of his flock of six his first wife.  She was the only purple hen.  The others were mixed breeds and admittedly not as beautiful as Violet with her silver mauve, gold tipped feat...