They say health is something you don’t notice until you lose it. In my case, it’s something I wouldn’t recognise if I fell over it.
I recently started seeing an exercise physiologist. He asked me what my exercise tolerance was like. I responded with a perplexed ‘by what metric are we measuring?’ because after a lifetime with a heart condition how can I possibly know what ‘normal’ exercise tolerance is?
I have taken up describing going to the dentist as the only thing I am more afraid of than heart surgery. I have devoted years of time and effort to avoiding both. And convincing myself that I don’t require either.
Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. My plans for the coming year included dipping my toe back into paid work, making and selling more pots and playing with ponies. I even got handed what could be an actual suitable-for-me saddle pony. And then yesterday everything changed.
My cardiologist is referring me to a surgeon. My leaky tricuspid valve (which is only leaky due to a badly placed pacemaker wire) is deteriorating and I have developed a condition called right heart hypertrophy, where the right side of my heart has become enlarged. This is not a sustainable condition. Left untreated it will lead to worsening heart failure, fluid retention, difficulty breathing, and you know the rest. At the moment apart from being a bit tired and not having great exercise tolerance I am doing ok.
But deep down I know I’m on a downhill slide. My emphatic ‘good!’ when the cardiologist asked how I had been feeling did no more to fool me than it did to fool him. The measurements on the echocardiogram don’t lie. Whether it was my bout of Covid in April, or just the inevitable result of time on a leaky valve, my heart is no longer ‘hanging in there’ like it did for the previous 15 or so years. My meticulous management of my hydration, nutrition and sleep is about at its limit. And shit is about to get real.
I have to go to the dentist.
In order to have heart surgery, you need a mouth free of cavities. This is to prevent bacteria from getting into your bloodstream. I haven’t been to a dentist in about 15 years. I know I’ve got a couple of little holes that need patching. I am told that dentistry has changed a lot in the last 15 years. I’m still dreading finding out.
The other thing is that in the time it takes to get a referral, make an appointment and create a treatment plan, I need to stay calm. Which is not going to be easy. My heart rate, respiration and stress levels have been steady for the almost 12 months since I got my Garmin health tracker. But my stress levels yesterday and today have been high, and my energy levels low. I’ve still got to live my life until action can be taken. Got to keep fit and take care of everyone and get my work done.
But the thing is, I am tired and I am scared. What if there is no good surgical option for me and all I can do is get by on medication until I am too sick to do anything? What if the best surgical option is an incredibly risky open heart surgery? How do I face this without freaking out?
Best case scenario there is a new minimally invasive procedure, but I don’t know if that is available in Australia at the present time. And maybe that will not be appropriate for the particulars of my condition. But there is a chance that I can come out of this better than I am now. Maybe better than I have been in years. Maybe even able to come off some of the medications that I have been on for the past few years. Maybe even the beta blocker, leaving me freeballing my anxiety for all the world to see. What if I could run for more than 30 seconds without just about keeling over. What if I could get proper, ‘normal person’ fit? Live for another 30-odd years with no more surgeries and no worries. Can you even imagine?!
The reality is probably somewhere between the two. And the wheels move slowly. Already I am building a narrative. I’ll get a low-maintenace haircut before the surgery. I’ll have to arrange for someone to bring me food in hospital, because there is no way I could eat like gen pop with my crabby digestion. No ice cream and jelly, wheat-based breakfast cereal, mystery vegetable soup and mixed sandwiches for me! I wonder if they still give you a condiment pack with just pepper and a napkin in the cardiac ward because you’re not allowed salt or butter?
The more I write about this, the more I am settling into a story I can get behind. I’ll need to prepare for the possibility that I won’t make it and leave nothing unsaid. The goats are already on their way out the gate, and the ponies have a home for life if anything happens to me. I’ll have a funeral plan, a heartfelt death message to post on Facebook, but I’ll also make sure to publish proof of life if I do make it.
For the next couple of months I will enjoy life, relish it. And when the time comes for action I’ll keep you all posted.
I used to watch a lot of Futurama. Between that and basically being raised by The Simpsons I developed a liking for a story that starts in one place and ends up in another. Even better if I can shoehorn in an obscure pop culture reference. If you’ve read a few of my posts over the years you may have picked up on that.
Everyone has had a tough time over the past couple of years. At the end of last year I recognised that I was in fairly dire need of mental health support, and I was having a heck of a time accessing it. Every clinic I was referred to had a recorded message stating that they were not taking new clients.
Proving that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, a friend put me on to a new clinic that was opening up and I started seeing, via Zoom, a young provisional psychologist who proved to be the saviour of my bacon. And because I was operating outside of the Medicare system (read – paying full price) I didn’t have a limit to how many visits I could have. So far I have had 19. My 20th, with a bit of luck, will be my last.
By working at my own pace, we’ve dealt with heaps of things. And one thing I’d been stashing away, unable to work through, was the loss of my favourite pony Rusty, just over nine years ago.
I say ‘favourite pony’ and not ‘best pony’ because he was not the most talented or most athletic or best performed, but he was the one who was there for me when I needed him. We took care of each other. He was one of those weird animals who is more than just an animal, in different way to how our other animals are more than just an animal. We had a lot in common and we were a team. I still miss him. I still cry when I hear the song I wanted us to do a dressage freestyle to.
I gave up riding after Rusty. I sold my float, replaced my tow vehicle and sold most of my gear. But I couldn’t part with Rusty’s saddle and bridle. I sold cheaply or gave away the other ponies I had. I was broken. My whole life I had been a Horse Person, but I didn’t want to be that any more. I turned my back on my horsy community. I kept my old Thoroughbred, but that was all. I figured I would never ride again, which was probably just as well because my physical health is a bit iffy and I’ve been on anticoagulants for years and will be on them for life.
But every now and then I would dream about riding. I would dream about the horses and ponies I had when I was younger. Bessie and Pat and Whiskers and Bear the Standardbred. In these dreams my old friends were still in the paddock at my Mum’s place and I just had to go down there are get one and I could ride again. Sometimes I dreamed that I was on a new horse. But always I was safe, the horse was looking after me. It was never bucking or bolting or rearing.
I told my psychologist about all of this and she asked what was stopping me from riding. I told her it was fear. This is a conversation I have also had with with my friend who for 20 years has liked to supply me with ponies. My friend’s theory is that the fear that stops me from riding is not a fear of riding itself, but has been transferred from elsewhere in my life. And if I deal with those other things it will release me from my fear of riding.
And so I worked through a lot of that stuff. Imagine a montage of me doing things like walking on the treadmill, crying in my psychologist’s office, cuddling a pony in the paddock while staring thoughtfully into the distance, all to the tune of Eye Of The Tiger. As the music fades out I am booking a riding lesson via a web page and the last thing you see is me hitting ‘submit’.
When push comes to shove
You gotta do what you love
Even if it’s not a good idea…
My doctors pull faces when I mention riding horses. They did it when I was in my 20s and I am sure they would do it now, if I mentioned it to them. My favourite was when I told them about how my pacemaker misbehaved the first time I did a showjumping competition post-insertion. I punctuated that story with ‘but I still won the championship’. They would rather I didn’t, but they are not going to tell me not to. But I figure I still need to be careful. My worst stacks have been off breakers and very green horses, so I should probably avoid those.
You may have noticed the change in tone. You’re no longer wondering IF I am going to ride again, you want to know how the first ride went. Well, I had a lesson on a schoolmaster and it went fine. I felt safe and comfortable, at least mentally. I even trotted over poles. But I ran out of puff very quickly. At this stage I can pretty much maintain a rising trot for about as long as I can hold my breath, and I feel the same after about 90 seconds of either – light-headed and gasping. But driving home after I was excited. I thought, I can do this! I can ride again and I can build up my fitness and maybe one day even do a dressage test. The horse world is my oyster!
I woke up the next day feeling like I had been hit by a truck. The comedown was harsh. I wondered who the hell I thought I was, with my big ideas way better suited to a younger, healthier person. I decided to sit with those feelings for the day and see what came up. I remembered that I felt just as fatigued after the first few times I tried throwing on the pottery wheel, and thought about how far I had come with that. I thought about that time when I was going to the gym twice a week with a group of healthy people and I was pretty much able to keep up with them after a little while. I figured I just have to take things slowly and gradually see how much I am capable of.
So over the next little while I will gradually get to riding the 20yo New Forest Pony gelding I got on lease for my nieces to ride. Matt is having a riding lesson as well this month. We’re talking about getting a new car that can tow a float if we need it to. My two New Forest mares are off at stud, and I am very excited about the prospect of foals next year. I’ve been ogling small quiet TBs and big quiet Standardbreds on various Facebook pages, just getting an idea of what’s out there.
I have commissioned a needle-felted replica of Rusty from an artist in the UK. It will include hair from his mane that I have held onto all this time.
If you are keen to understand the obscure pop culture references in this post, check out this scene from the Futurama episode called ‘Hermes Requisitions His Groove Back’. It only goes for a minute and a half.
Remember when I said I didn’t want another big dog because they cost too much to feed?
That must have been a while ago, because my number one big dog is now six years old. And now I have two big dogs.
2022 has very much been a dog year for me. We started out with two mature little dogs around the house and a Maremma in the farmyard. Plenty of dogs. Leo Skinnydog the oversized Italian Greyhound was 10yo and had a clean bill of health. Biggie the hairy little Kelpie/Maltese-Shihtzu was also looking good at 8yo, and being a Perfectly Good Mongrel we thought he would be with us forever.
And then my friend’s dog had pups.
Actually, a few goat breeders I knew had litters at the same time, and I mentioned this to Matt one evening. I told him ‘Sharyn has Golden Retrievers, and Alex has Jack Russels. Oh, and Kate has big hairy skinnydogs’. And he said ‘we should get one’.
So a few days later we first set eyes on Roisin. She was one of the bigger pups in the litter. I wanted a brindle female and there were a few to choose from. She was about the size of a guinea pig. I knew her mother, a lovely big yellow hairydog named Aoife. Dad was a great tall Staghound.
The last pup I had around the house was Leo, ten years earlier. He would scream all night if I didn’t let him sleep in my bed, treated the modular couch as a zoomie velodrome and we never managed to toilet train him. He eventually became an outside dog with a series of kennels, beds and blankets as well as two big farm dogs to keep him warm.
I figured a new pup would learn our way of life by hanging out with our established older dogs, the way Leo had learned. And I thought we would have Leo and Biggie for at least another couple of years. Kate’s big hairy lurcher pups seemed to fit a lot of our criteria. Crossbred for vigour, but still bred thoughtfully from parents with good temperaments. I wanted a big dog for the nights when I am home alone. And I have always been a fan of Irish Wolfhounds. So at eight weeks of age Roisin came home and instantly fell in love with Leo.
Get a puppy, they said, it will be fun, they said.
She was all of four kilograms, the size of a cat. She gained about 1kg per week for the next six months. She grew so quickly that if you didn’t see her for a few days she was noticeably bigger. Her number one goal was to exist in the same space as people, and she tripped me up constantly. She could appear out of nowhere and suddenly be between you and the ground. She spent her nights snuggled up with Leo and her days hassling him endlessly. And it was in these early days with Roisin that we noticed that Biggie was unwell.
At first the vet thought he had eaten rat bait, as his gums were pale and he had fluid in his abdomen. I maintained that there was no way he could have got hold of any, but followed the treatment plan for a couple of weeks. On a follow-up visit with more extensive diagnostic work he was diagnosed with heart failure.
Now on the right medication, he improved quite a bit and was back to his cheerful self. Life revolved around Biggie’s medication schedule, which required tablets an hour before and then just after eating, morning and night. As winter wore on the little pack settled into life together, alternately hanging out on the front porch or the back deck or in the studio depending on where the people were. Occasionally Roisin would destroy a cushion. She also had a taste for plant pots. Oh, and she likes to dig.
Dogs in bed, with Biggie in full fur.
We lost Leo quite suddenly. In the space of a few hours he went from tottering around on his long legs to being unable to walk. The vet found a mass on his spine. We took him home and gave him chips for dinner, and the next morning took him back for his last vet visit. Normally we bury our dogs, but I couldn’t bear the thought of Leo being out in the cold, so we had him cremated. I’ll make him a custom urn over summer.
Biggie quickly let Roisin know that he wasn’t going to be her replacement bed-warmer, but they got along okay. She would follow Biggie around the yard on his patrols and if she got too silly he would remind her that she was still the baby and he was still in charge. Biggie’s health remained stable and we started to think that he might last another year or so.
For years we’ve had Biggie clipped every November to protect him from grass seed injuries. We knew the stress of grooming would be hard on him, but had to balance that with the risk of having to have a grass seed removed when he was too sick for anaesthetic. Our wonderful local dog groomer took great care of him, but the exercise took a lot out of poor Biggie. It also made us realise how thin he had got. He had his six-month follow-up with the vet and a slight change was made to his medication.
Biggie in better times, before he got sick but shortly after a haircut.
A couple of weeks later he went off his food and we took him back to the vet. He had gained nearly 2kg, all fluid that his body was unable to clear. There was nothing else we could do for him, and he was euthanised that day.
Biggie was an outside dog, who loved storms and wombling through the long grass. We managed to find a dry place in one of the big raised garden beds and buried him there, supervised by Rufus the cat, who has since moved into Biggie’s kennel.
Apparently Biggie left his house to Rufus.
Everyone was a bit shell-shocked at losing both the small dogs within three months. Roisin became a bit clingy, so we acted probably a bit quickly in adopting a failed sheepdog from the local shelter. Banjo was a bit intense, and the dynamic between him, Roisin and myself quickly became a problem, so we took him back to the shelter within the three-day cooling off period and were advised to take at least a month for everyone to get back to normal before considering getting another dog.
Fortunately Roisin has finally learned to sit quietly in the house. She is almost nine months old and weighs in at 32kg. She has the skinnydog lean, where she will lay against your legs while standing, and the Wolfhound trait of standing on your foot while leaning on you. She loves everyone and is slowly learning not to jump up. She continues to steal my pottery sponges if I don’t put them up high enough, and likes to bury her bones in my vegie gardens.
Having a big dog is quite an adjustment, especially when you don’t have a very big house. But she has become part of the furniture and made her place here. My little dogs did a good job of raising her while they could. Leo stayed close to her while she was tiny, and Biggie taught her to be independent when she got bigger. She has visits with Boo the Maremma in the farmyard in the evenings, and he teaches her to respect the other animals. It takes a village, after all.
Roisin and Boo, my big dogs.
At this stage we probably won’t get another dog until Roisin is mature. One mad pup at a time is plenty.
Home alone again and in the mood to crank another forgotten 90s masterpiece. I’ve been exploring the topic of shame this week, after realising that many of my anxiety and depression triggers are rooted in shame. And if you want a classic 90s album that shines a light on shame, Weezer’s Pinkerton hits the nail right on the head.
It was an album that tapped into the untempered sexual frustrations of youth, from the pen and voice of Rivers Cuomo, a man who you were never quite sure was awkward/cool or just awkward. The title was inspired by Puccini’s Madam Butterfly, and named for the character of US naval officer Pinkerton, who Cuomo describes as being an ‘asshole American sailor similar to a touring rock star’. According to Cuomo, ‘the album kind of tells the story of my struggle with my inner Pinkerton’. In Puccini’s opera, Pinkerton is ultimately responsible for the ruin of a 15yo Japanese girl, who he marries out of convenience with the intention of later finding himself a ‘proper’ American wife. He gets young Cio-Cio-San (aka Butterfly) pregnant, pisses off back to the army and eventually returns to Japan with his new American wife. They all live happily ever after except for Butterfly, who quietly wanders off and commits suicide.
Cuomo presents a lot of concepts throughout Pinkerton. Some of which, it has to be said, he possibly now regrets saying out loud. He ponders the pros and cons of being in a relationship versus casual sex and DIY. He laments the fact that he has fallen for a lesbian. And he shares the uncomfortable tale of his fantasies about a young Japanese girl who sent him fan mail. The final track, Butterfly, is an apology with no responsibility taken for the damage he has done. The whole thing is a bit of a train wreck.
Rolling Stone readers voted it the third worst album of 1996. The negative response was of such a magnitude that it put Rivers Cuomo off writing darker songs with personal themes and sent him instead on a search for the perfect pop song.
Those of us who loved Pinkerton back in the day assumed that most people just didn’t understand. It wasn’t until I listened to a podcast about the Weezer song Say It Aint So from the Blue Album that I realised just how much cringe factor Pinkerton had been harbouring all these years. I’m not sure whether finding out that Cuomo went on to marry a Japanese woman makes it better or worse.
The thing about shame is that when combined with trauma it becomes a weapon against yourself. The same mechanism that guides us to behave appropriately around others can also be used to punish us, creating a sort of emotional ulcer where trauma has made us susceptible. I’ve had my character criticised by people I trusted and taken this on board as gospel. I believed for many years that having interests outside of raising children and keeping house meant I was in fact not a ‘proper woman’. I’ve been told directly by more than one person that displaying any signs of stress or hurt was unacceptable, causing me to attempt to lock down my emotions and berate myself for being overwhelmed.
Over time, I came to feel that any show of emotion was unreasonable, an overreaction, and that I should be able to choose to keep myself under control. And any time I couldn’t keep my emotions invisible I would double down mercilessly on the negative criticism. I am weak, I am a terrible person, I am not suitable to be around others, I should be able to control my reactions. If I feel bad it’s my own fault and I should have prevented it. The final betrayal was being criticised again for my attempts to prevent my shame from being anyone else’s problem.
When you feel like everything you do, everything you think and feel is wrong, it is hard to do anything. But uh oh, not doing enough is failure too. Now you are useless and lazy as well.
Sometimes you can push through and get on with it. Sometimes you can even feel like a vaguely functional human being again. But the merest hint of rejection or criticism will take your feet from under you, leaving you cruelly chastising yourself for being so fragile.
It’s shame. Do a search and read some articles. It’s another symptom of trauma. It’s not a character flaw. It’s not something you choose but it is something you can disarm with a bit of awareness. For me, just realising that what I was feeling was not actually proof of my insufficiency and unworthiness, but someone else’s projection that I am under no obligation to carry has been enough to start me toward shirking my shame rather than nurturing it.
Trying to be everything you assume everyone wants is exhausting, heck even just trying to figure out what everyone wants is hard enough. But it’s not your responsibility. I know it’s a defense mechanism, a way of trying to avoid harm, but you don’t have to live this way. You don’t have to punish yourself for not pre-empting everyone’s expectations of you. You can just… live.
They say tradition is peer pressure from dead people, well shame is peer pressure from people you don’t even know. It’s pattern seeking and conflict avoidance on steroids, but it will drive you crazy and the benefits don’t come anywhere near outweighing the costs.
And yeah, it can feel a lot easier just to get ahead of the narrative, agree that you are a piece of crap, and make your next move one that you think will be approved of. But that is not going to make your shame go away.
You know you are a decent human being. If you weren’t you wouldn’t care so much about what other people thought. The thing about assholes is that they have no idea they are assholes. Don’t let people with no understanding of your motivations steal your joy. Some people are so invested in their own narrative that they will cheerfully hijack yours to embellish their own perception of reality. You can’t defeat that with honesty, you can only walk away.
If Rivers Cuomo had owned his bizarre creation, rather than trying to make amends for it, we might never have had Island In The Sun playing on every summer-themed television ad for decades. But we might have got another glimpse of the real person, dealing with the legacy of an unconventional upbringing and the real challenges of Gen X life. He might have gone on to be the voice of a generation, rather than a low-key sell out, hiding in the safety of modest popularity.
I remember being on a train when I learned that Radiohead’s second Melbourne show, which I was on my way to see, had been cancelled.
Front man Thom Yorke was unable to sing, due to a respiratory bug and the fact that he had gone on stage the night before despite being unwell.
I don’t remember what I did that night instead. From memory my sister was living in Melbourne at the time and we were going to the concert together, so we probably met in the city as planned, got some dinner and then went back to her place.
Full disclosure, the only Radiohead CD I own is the EP My Iron Lung, which I picked up for $10 in an obscure record store in New Zealand.
Anyone who came of age in the 90s will be well acquainted with Radiohead’s breakout single, the self-loathing anthem Creep. Creep was on oddity on Pablo Honey, and arguably the only serious moment on the entire album. The album title was a joke, derived from a Jerky Boys prank call skit. Without such a powerful single, Pablo Honey would most likely have never gained traction.
Then along came The Bends, which put Radiohead firmly on the Alt Rock map. With unique mix of guitar-driven melody, electronic chaos and the reaches of Yorke’s vocal range, Radiohead filled a void in the musical landscape of the early 90s. Everyone was impressed, and Radiohead were flying.
But when the time came for them to release their third album, fans and critics alike were pessimistic. How could this band, seemingly at the top of their game, possibly come out with something that would satisfy all the anticipation and expectation that their previous successes had created?
Which gets us to the heart of today’s post. The weight of expectation, the ‘Radiohead Effect’, and how to find direction in your art when everyone else’s opinion of it seems more important than your own.
It would have been easy for Radiohead to try to recreate Creep, or put out another iteration of The Bends, but if you know anything about Thom Yorke you will know he is not that type of guy. So what we got for a third album from everyone’s new favourite band was OK Computer, with the lead single Paranoid Android. It was a move that warmed the hearts of music-loving sci-fi nerds the world over, and left the cool kids a little confused.
I read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy for the first time when I was seven years old. Seven. This feat seems more and more remarkable to me with every year I age and every seven-year-old I meet. I went back and read the series several times over the years. As a frustrated smart kid I really related to Marvin the paranoid android. Brain the size of a planet, but given only menial tasks. When I was seven I was sure I was destined for great things, just as soon as I got hold of the controls to my own life.
After the initial shock of Paranoid Android wore off and the cool kids took to tracks like High and Dry and Karma Police, those who had wanted more of Radiohead’s old stuff began to appreciate what Thom Yorke had done with the new album. Amid the pressure of previous success he had chosen his own artistic path. And as time would come to tell, he nailed it. Since it’s release, OK Computer has sold over 7 million copies.
In this day and age, it’s easy to feel pressure to tailor what you do and who you are in the pursuit of likes and follows. It’s human nature to seek acclaim. What’s hard is to keep turning up every day and putting your real self into your endeavours. I know I find myself struggling to detach what I want to make from what I think will sell or what I feel like I should make. A social media presence is almost unavoidable if you want to be seen, but keeping the content organic is tricky. It’s a game that there are two ways to win, and the from a cost/benefit analysis point of view, the best option is to play it your own way.
If you don’t keep challenging yourself and pushing your limits, what is the point? Since the release of OK Computer many other bands and artists have tried their hand at genre-bending and departures from the work that made them famous. And it usually works out better for them than trying to emulate their old stuff on an eternal loop. There are plenty of stories of bands who never got over their one popular song, still playing it as part of mixed bills and festivals even though they have grown to hate it. Nothing keeps you motivated like the excitement of new ideas.
I still can’t figure out what you people want. I know that there is little correlation between what I think is good and what gets lots of views or what sells. But if I want to keep showing up, to the studio or to the keyboard, I have to honour my own muse.
(die on a hilltop.. eyeing the crows. waiting for your lids to close… but you want to watch as they peck your flesh.. Ironic that they go for the eyes first…)
So begins the journey through the liner notes of Pearl Jam’s third album, Vitalogy. Released in 1994 (on my birthday, as I discovered today while reading the Wikipedia page), it was somewhat of a departure from the angry, thrashy, quintessentially grungey Pearl Jam albums that had gone before it. After the dizzying success of their second album Vs., front man Eddie Vedder set about creating a concept album exploring themes of life, death and understanding of the self.
Kids these days don’t understand the experience of buying an album and listening to every track, in order, over and over, until it becomes a part of you. Not just the singles, but the album tracks, the deep cuts and obscure gems. If you grew up a Pearl Jam fan in the 90s, you will know that some of their best work was never played on the radio. The Vitalogy song book took this one step further, with excerpts from the book Vitalogy – An Encyclopedia of Health and Home, by EH Ruddock, MD., as well as various scribblings by Vedder himself. The booklet was more than just lyrics, giving deeper insights into each song as well as the album as a whole.
As someone who has spent way too much time pondering the paradox of self-awareness, Vitalogy struck me at my core. My constant awareness of my own mortality, combined with Vitalogy‘s eclectic exploration of emotion, storytelling, mantra, Vedder’s soaring baritone and lots of visceral bass lines and wailing guitar, cemented the album as my all-time favourite.
I have spent a large part of the past decade trying to find a way to live with intense anxiety and get my figurative feet under me so that I can actually enjoy my existence and feel like I have some kind of influence over where my life goes. I still feel, always, like death is stalking me and any moment could be my last. Apparently this is not normal. Lots of other people live as though reaching the age of 70 is a given, 80 and even 90 a definite possibility. For the most part, people in my family live into their 80s, even with serious health conditions. I can’t bring myself to look that far ahead.
But… if you could guarantee me another 30 years, with the trade-off being the certainty that there was nothing beyond that, I wouldn’t take it. That minuscule chance that there might be something else, something more, a trapdoor in the sun that leads to a kind of immortality… I just can’t let go of it.
As I start to organise the many parts of my trauma and realise that they all boil down to one source, a new calm is entering my life. It feels foreign, almost otherworldly, and it’s hard to trust it. Fear has been my normal state for as long as I can remember, and moments without it were at first unsettling. I had come to believe that my fear was the only thing standing in the way of death. I’m finally starting to sit with the calm and let it grow roots. It feels like an ending, as well as a beginning.
Recent discoveries suggest that time is not linear. I have always felt that time is less like a platform game and more like a puff of dust, at the whims of chaos and entropy. A moment and an eternity are basically the same thing. Neither exists until we think about them.
Vitalogy‘s penultimate track is called Immortality, and it’s meaning has been hotly debated by fans for decades, with possible links to Kurt Cobain, the genocide of Native Americans, even the Holocaust. To me it speaks of the infinite number of ways that we humans live and die every day, as tiny parts of ourselves, as individuals, as communities, as a species. On the same page of the song book as the lyrics to Immortality is a short poem, the author uncredited, presumably written by Vedder.
I waited all day.
you waited all day..
but you left before sunset..
and I just wanted to tell you
the moment was beautiful.
Just wanted to dance to bad music
drive bad cars..
watch bad TV..
should have stayed for the sunset…
if not for me.
For no matter what life is, what time is, what death is, without each other in those moments where we feel those unexplainable feelings, we have nothing.
I’m going to sound like a broken record, but it hasn’t been a good day.
It hasn’t been that great a week, really, and there are some who would go as far as to say it hasn’t been a particularly flash couple of years, but since I seem to have blocked a large portion of the time since March 13th 2019 from my memory, I’ll have to take your word for it.
But look at this shit – I’m writing again. I can feel my throat chakra blowing dust off itself. Is that my voice I hear?
I want to talk about a lot of things, and I am half toying with starting a new blog and retiring this one, but this has always been where I told my truth from my real face so I guess I’ll just see where it leads. This might well be the last thing I write for another two years.
I’m four sessions in to my fifth round of therapy in 20 years, after eight months of fighting to obtain access to a psychologist, who despite being young enough to be my own child has turned out to be somewhat of a miracle worker. Although I can’t help thinking she has to go and debrief with her supervisor after spending an hour listening to me ramble and watching me bawl my eyes out over Zoom.
Anyway, after a particularly difficult session today where she managed to get me to talk about five or six of the ten most traumatic aspects of my life to date, I’m on the hunt for something to soothe my frayed nerves. And I’m home alone.
I’ve got half a bottle of rose in the fridge, but my new NutriBullet has the power to obliterate ice cubes, so I made myself a big glass of iced chocolate goat milk and searched Spotify for the Live album Throwing Copper, which I have had kicking around on my desk for a while in CD form.
Throwing Copper was one of the most influential albums of the 90s. Everyone my age had it, either a bootleg cassette version from a friend (thanks Kath) or the actual CD from Brashs or JB HiFi. There were entire cover bands dedicated to it. Yet for some reason it didn’t provoke the level of nostalgia that the likes of Nirvana’s Nevermind or Pearl Jam’s Vs did on their 25th anniversaries. Which is odd, because it has probably aged better than either of those albums.
It was an album that spoke of discovering the double edged sword of newly-found adulthood, searching for something to believe in among a proliferation of false prophets and finding your calling in the shadow of a capitalist world that just wants your for your labour. Of what happens when our teachers leave us there by ourselves, chained to fate. Of course, I didn’t pick up on all that until well after I needed it
Warm bodies are not machines that can only make money. It hits very differently now, at 44yo, than what it did when I was 19. But the imagery and the poetry are still strikingly moving.
The cycle of birth and death that always made Lightning Crashes bring a tear to my eye is now a lot more personal. Finding your purpose, finding your place, finding something to connect to, never really got any easier. Realising that the system will exploit you if you don’t fight it is a moment you can’t go back from. But the microcosm that Throwing Copper created at a time when I was already discovering that living in my world wasn’t going to be a walk in the park seemed like a reachable goal. Get a grip on your own backyard before attempting to take on the world. And if that backyard doesn’t work for you, find another one. If the things you were taught to believe in as a child no longer ring true, keep searching until you find something that does.
So we get out of Shit Towne, and search for our Stage, or our Pillar of Davidson. Who are we going to be? What are we going to do? How many times are we going to have to let go of everything we’ve built and start again? And what damage is going to be done along the way? Who will walk with us, who will disappear from view, and how do we spot Hitler in a robe of truth?
It’s all so overwhelming. Trying to do right by a world that barely registers our existence. There is passion, there is pain, triumph, desolation, inevitability. Words for a feeling in all I’ve discovered. Everybody’s good enough for some change. Just don’t call the waitress a bitch.
The familiarity is comforting, and knowing that your struggles are pretty much universal and someone else already articulated them better than you ever could, in a key you can sing along to, is itself oddly soothing.
But like all journeys, it has a beginning, a middle and an end. And a lesson. It’s not enough to be a passenger on this emotional rollercoaster. Even when it feels futile, we have to lock horns with the stallion. We have to act, to do what we can. Otherwise, when final sunset rolls behind the Earth, and the clock is finally dead, I’ll look at you, you’ll look at me, we’ll cry a lot, and this will be what we said…
Just a little back story for those who don’t know me very well, or those who have known me for a long time and are wondering what has led to me suddenly taking up pottery.
I’m going to tell this like we are all strangers, no assumptions, so that I don’t leave anything out.
Over the years I have worked for high-profile businessmen, family companies, government entities and multinational conglomerates, and every single job ended with me unwell, injured or with my mental health in tatters. My last job was in an accounts based role. I looked after international accounts for an emerging local company. I worked in seven different currencies, did tax in four countries and managed inventory for warehouses on the other side of the world. I also did domestic bank reconciliations, payroll, edited the marketing content and produced the intra-company newsletter. And I did it all in 26 hours a week, while running a farm and a household. My life involved a high level of time management and consisted of deadline after deadline. For a little while I nailed it, and I felt like a superhero.
As the business continued to grow, my workload increased. The hours in the day did not. Something had to give and that something was me. My stress levels spiraled out of control. It was exacerbated by the stress of my goats getting sick and the impossible decisions and devastating loss that came from that. A perfect storm that led to me having a breakdown and quitting my job. And then came my back injury.
I had the plan of studying horticulture and starting a small nursery, as well as doing garden planning and maintenance with a Permaculture angle. A few months into my studies I had to accept that I was never going to capable of the physical work required to do these things. I needed another plan.
I completed Cert 3 in Horticulture, and it has been great with regard to managing the large garden here. I have been able to get the native vegetation under some control and I am working at reducing the amount of work required to maintain the enormous garden beds. I’ve propagated loads of native plants and I am working on building the understorey of planted areas to outcompete invasive species and reduce the amount of weeding required. I can prune like a red hot champion. It was definitely time well spent.
I decided to make 2020 the year that I dedicated to growing my goat milk soap and herbal body products business. We all know how that turned out. But the support shown by my friends and customers meant that I was able to make a little bit of money with this in spite of the pandemic, and it continues to be profitable in a small way. My product range has evolved, lots of things have been developed and discarded, and markets are mostly back bringing new customers and new opportunities. I stuck with Beaufort Town Market, who have been wonderful, and got offered a place at the well-known Talbot Farmers Market, where I am starting to gain a following.
But I kind of hit my limit with soap. How much I can make, how much I can store, how much I can sell. I was looking for a way to expand. I had some money saved and I was waiting for the right thing to invest in. Our house is not very big, and trying to manufacture and store product in here was getting a bit ridiculous. I looked at buying a kit-form shed to turn into a workshop and sales area. In the end I spent several days cleaning out the workshop area of the garage and set up my soap making area in there. A lot of the equipment, especially the table and chairs, was second hand or donated, but I bought a new fridge and a few other appliances, and installed a wood heater.
I had been dabbling in candles and had a bit of interest from people wanting to buy candles from me, but pouring melted wax into bought containers never felt ‘hand made’ enough for me. I sold a few over Christmas, but wanted to find a way to make these products better value.
Pottery has always been something I enjoyed. I studied ceramics in high school and it was my favourite subject. I took classes over the years as an adult, but it’s an expensive hobby so my participation was intermittent. I tried the wheel and was terrible at it. It wasn’t until I did a ‘Pottery for Gardeners’ course that I started to get an idea that I could use making ceramic products to expand my business.
The decision to put time and effort into establishing my own business, rather than re-entering the workforce, came from many factors. My health being one of them. Even two and a half years on from my back injury, which was precipitated in the first place by an earlier injury from working in retail, I am unable to sit at a desk for more than about an hour. Standing for long periods is also incredibly painful. A desk job, even with a standing desk, is not really a possibility. Similarly, I can’t do heavy physical work for long without aggravating my back, and I can’t do anything strenuous for more than a few minutes because I live with heart failure. My options for work are very limited from a physical perspective.
Then there is the mental side of things. A system that takes and takes from workers in return for the means to survive might suit some people, but makes me feel used and exploited. When you realise that no matter how hard you work, the only person actually profiting from your efforts is of the opinion that you are not worth what they pay you, it changes you. My breakdown at work came with the realisation that I was turning myself inside out to do my best for a system that was never going to reward me, in a culture that saw me as worthless in spite of my considerable capability.
I have an IQ of 140. I was always told as a child that I could be anything I wanted to be. But that was never really the case. As a girl from a poor family, from a long line of young mothers, I grew up understanding that my only path to financial security was through finding a man to support me and having babies. Nobody tells you how much following this path takes from you. Having children with my heart condition nearly killed me, and has left my body permanently damaged. Depression and anxiety and underlying PTSD have plagued me for most of my adult life. Finally being medicated for anxiety a couple of years ago helped a lot. Pain, illness, fear, abuse, all reduce what we are capable of. It took me until my 40s to realise that if I want to succeed, I have to play by my own rules.
So what I needed was a way that I could be productive while moving through several different tasks each day. Some time on my feet, some time in the garden, some time seated, and able to switch whenever something became uncomfortable. To be able to work as I was able, set reachable goals, and rest when I need to without worrying about someone else getting upset with me over it. To spend my time doing the thing, rather than worry about what other people think of the way I do the thing.
I took a term of wheelthrowing lessons, and sucked very badly at it. People see my early pieces and ask what they are meant to be. I tell them they are meant to be round – most are not. But I needed to know if I could get good at something I had no underlying skill at through sheer force of will. I bought my own wheel and set about getting the hang of it. I threw four or five days a week, and trashed most of the pieces. But bit by bit, I got there. I formulated the plan of making my own candle vessels, planters, soap dishes, and came up with a few other ideas along the way. But the defining moment was buying the kiln. That is where the majority of my savings went. And that is where the decision was made – this was what I was going to do.
Everything I do is about prolonging my life. Reducing stress, taking care of my body. I started out behind the eight-ball and I have been trying to catch up ever since. I am also plagued by the urge to prove that I am useful. Money as the universal measure of value has a lot to answer for. That socially enforced idea that your value comes from what someone is willing to pay you for your labour. I’ve abandoned a lot of social conventions, but that one is hard to kick. Capitalism is a hell of a drug.
The thing about money is that it is so easy to measure. The trick is in knowing how much is enough and how to balance it against your quality of life. For me, success is not making as much money as possible and spending all my time in that pursuit. It is about making enough to get by and having time to do the things I enjoy.
As my children reach an age where they are becoming more independent, I also need something to fill in that void. To take up the time previously spent cooking and driving and waiting for sports training sessions to end.
Little by little, the vision takes shape. Opportunities arise. What you might see as me going from zero to somewhat competent potter in a short time is a very deliberate acquisition of skill. Even when I am not in the workshop, I am studying, learning, planning. How far can I go on my own? What can a chronically ill middle aged woman with a bad back and battery-powered heart achieve under her own steam when she doesn’t have to put half her energy into appearing ‘normal’? There is only one way to find out.
I named my studio The Ace of Cups. After the Tarot card. From the Animal Totem Tarot: ‘The Ace of Cups is the overflowing chalice of possibility. This outpouring of creative potential offers you a place to dream, heal and create. Let the waters from the chalice flow to you, around you, and through you. In the life-giving water of the Ace of Cups, anything and everything is possible. One of the cup’s lessons is that there is an unlimited supply and you can come back time and time again to refill, heal and clear out your emotions.’
My aim, which has been somewhat stifled by COVID, is to open the studio to others through short courses and learning sessions. I feel that it really needs to be shared in order to make the most of it. Because I know there are others who have had to find a way through life’s handicaps in order to get by, and that takes its toll. My wish is for some of those people to be able to take a break from that effort for a few hours and spend time in a space where who they are is enough and nobody expects anything else.
I’ve been making candles for about three years now, and since getting into pottery the combination of the two mediums has become a regular topic of discussion.
I decided to make my own candle vessels because pouring melted wax into pre-made containers didn’t really feel ‘hand made’ enough for my brand. I joke that I don’t consider something to be ‘hand made enough’ unless I bred both it’s parents and chose its name. Making the candle vessels certainly seemed like a step in the right direction, and designing cute vessels was the icing on the cake. Hence the birth of the Candle Cauldron, a stylised ceramic cauldron designed to be sold as a candle, that can then be used as a planter or trinket dish or refilled and used again as a candle.
It seems like every second person is starting their own candle business these days, and the internet certainly makes it look like a simple undertaking. But if you care about the quality of your product and don’t want to be responsible for burning anyone’s house down, you really need to take a breath, do lots of research and most of all do lots and lots of testing.
This blog is mainly for those wanting to put soy candles in hand made ceramic vessels. Mass-produced candle vessels are readily available and come with a long history of other people testing them, so a little search will tell you which supplies best suit which vessels. But for unique hand made vessels things are a little trickier.
Is my vessel safe?
Most pre-made candle vessels are made of glass, which is universally accepted as a safe medium for candles. Ceramic of the same thickness is stronger than glass and better able to withstand high temperatures. So if your ceramic vessel is stable and fired to the required temperature to vitrify your clay, it should be at least as strong as the glass equivalent.
Most glass vessels are cylindrical, but when making your own vessels there are a few things to consider. A tall thin vessel will use a smaller wick and the candle will last longer than in a broad shallow vessel, but may not put out as much fragrance due to the smaller melt pool. I aim for broad and fairly deep vessels with straight sides. My cauldrons are roughly spherical with large openings.
Preparing for re-use
Remove the wick tab and as much of the wax as you can with a metal spatula or blunt knife. I pour boiling water into the vessel and let the wax melt before tipping it out and wiping with paper towel. You could also wash in a sink of hot soapy water, or even put them in the dishwasher. Make sure your vessel is completely dry before refilling.
Why soy wax? The truth about working with soy wax
The main candle waxes available are paraffin, soy, palm, beeswax or coconut. Most cheap candles found in department stores use paraffin, which is derived from crude oil, or palm wax, which comes with a host of environmental considerations. If you are someone who avoids palm oil, you will probably want to avoid palm wax. Soy wax is made from soy plants, and most of it is grown in the USA, meaning no rainforests are cleared to grow it and no poor communities are exploited to obtain it.
The thing about soy wax, as a natural product, is that it can be a little temperamental. For best results, you need to work at fairly specific melt, mix and pour temperatures to get a good-looking candle. It is very inclined to frost (discolour) if you add colour to it, it is also quite prone to pulling away from the edges of your vessel (mainly evident in clear vessels) and it can be a bit ugly on top when it re-sets after burning. These issues are the price of admission for using pure soy, but fortunately most customers don’t even notice.
Choosing your wick
When you buy vessels from a candlemaking supplier, you get all the useful information like how much wax the vessel holds and which wick is recommended. You still need to test these to make sure your combination of wick, wax and fragrance gives you a good burn, but when you get it right you’re set. When you make your own unique vessels you have to figure this out yourself, and because no two vessels are exactly the same you really only get one go at it.
I use CDN wicks, which are made in the USA and are widely available. There are plenty of wick size charts online, and when you find a good one you can print it out and post it over your candle making station or store it with your notes. I prefer to choose a smaller wick than suggested in most cases. This will stop your vessel from getting too hot. Over time, as the candle burns down and warms the vessel, any wax left stuck to the clay near the top should melt. If you choose a wick that is too small you risk the candle ‘tunneling’ or the wick drowning in the wax, which you also want to avoid.
Vessels over 10cm diameter should be double-wicked. This reduces the depth of the melt pool and increases the burn time. When double or triple wicking you want the total burn pool of the wicks to equal the diameter of the vessel. I haven’t gone beyond three wicks in a 12cm diameter vessel, but if you are making much bigger vessels you can search for multiple wick suggestions.
Perfect wick selection – the wax is all melted and the vessel is still cool enough on the outside to hold. Triple wicked candle just lit.Triple wicked candle at four hours – almost melted to the edges.
Finding the volume
To find the volume of your vessel, put it on a scale, zero the scale, and pour in water until it gets to the desired wax level. Record the weight of water. This is the volume of your vessel.
Converting to wax weight
To convert the volume to the weight of wax required, multiply by 0.9. Wax is lighter than water, so you need less weight of wax to fill the vessel.
Fragrance ratios, and a bit about fragrance oils
Doing the math to find out how to convert your wax weight to a ratio of wax and fragrance is confusing. Fortunately there are apps to help you. I use an app called Candle Maker which allows you to enter the wax weight for your vessel, and the fragrance ratio. It then tells you how much wax and how much fragrance, by weight, you need to fill the vessel.
Safe fragrance levels in soy wax are up to 10%. Beyond this you risk the candle catching fire or the fragrance preventing the candle from burning properly. Many fragrance oils are quite strong at 8%, some at 6%. Test your fragrances at different strengths to get to know them and how they perform. Some fragrances are strong as soon as the candle is set, others require a cure time of two weeks. Some aren’t ever going to be strong enough for your liking. Most candlemaking suppliers sell fragrances in small enough volumes to make a test candle, so you can try out several before buying in larger amounts.
Measuring, weighing, calculating, choosing fragrances and wicks – you want all this done before you melt your wax.
Why not essential oils?
Many essential oils are toxic when burned, others are flammable, others are too volatile to use in candles as they evaporate at fairly low temperatures. If you are really keen to use essential oils because they are ‘natural’ be sure to do plenty of research to find out which ones are safe for candle making and at what rate. I use loads of essential oils in my soapmaking, but stick to specialised fragrance oils for my candles.
My oil fridge – contains essential oils and some base oils for soapmaking, as well as my fragrance oils for candles. Smells very strongly of Vanilla Caramel.
Melting your wax, melt mix and pour temps
Each wax comes with a recommended melt, mix and pour temperature. These can usually be found on the website where you buy your wax. Sometimes there is a range of suitable temperatures, and you will need to refine your process with testing over time.
To melt your wax you can use a double boiler or a wax melter. I use a small rice cooker which can melt up to 1kg of wax at a time. You can use this time while your wax is melting to attach your wicks to the bottom of your vessel using either a glue gun, a little bit of BluTak, or a wick sticker dot. Make sure to centre your wicks using a centering tool or a skewer across the top of the vessel that you can twist your wick around to hold it straight. Wicks will flop when the hot wax is poured in, so you can’t rely on them just to stand up straight.
Keep track of the temperature of the wax, and when it gets to the desired temperature, weigh the melted wax into a mixing jug. Once the wax cools to the mixing temperature, add your pre-weighed fragrance oil and mix until the wax appears clear again. Monitor the temperature and once it reaches the recommended pour temperature, pour it into your prepared vessel.
If you get your temperatures right your candles should have a smooth top with no sinkholes. You can re-set tops with a heat gun if they are uneven, but you’ll get the best result if you can get it right the first time.
A few different methods of securing wicks
Hot throw/cold throw
Candle fragrance is described as ‘throw’ and different fragrances have different strengths of throw while burning and while just sitting around cold between burns. You might like a candle that smells strong before you light it, or one that really fills a room with scent once lit. I’ve probably tested 50 different fragrances, and of those there are about 8 that I use regularly. I choose fragrances with good hot throw that don’t need much cure time.
Curing
Some wax and fragrance combinations give a better throw if the candle is allowed to cure for a couple of weeks before burning. I have found candles made months earlier that had weak fragrances to begin with but have become much stronger over time. Generally, a fragrance that is strong straight away will perform better than one that is weak to begin with but improves after curing.
Some fragrances will discolour over time, especially those with high levels of vanilla in the mix. If you are giving away or selling these you want them to be as fresh as possible when they arrive at their new home, so a long cure time might not be practical.
Burning the candle including melt pool and wick maintenance
All candles should be sold with a warning label and preferably a candle care card outlining the safety issues and how to get the most from a candle. Burn on a heat-proof surface, away from flammable items. Do not leave the candle unattended while burning, keep it out of reach of small children and pets.
The first burn of a large candle should be for about four hours, long enough to almost melt the entire top of the candle. This is called a full melt pool. After the initial burn always try to allow the candle to achieve a full melt pool before extinguishing it. Wicks should be trimmed to 5mm between burns. CDN wicks in soy wax are prone to ‘mushrooming’ if the wick is allowed to get too long, which causes a bigger flame and faster burn. Burnt wick ends will snap off in your fingers to the right length, but if you don’t want to get soot on your fingers a wick trimmer is a handy tool.
In multi-wicked candles always light all the wicks every time you burn the candle.
Just-extinguished candle showing an ideal melt pool almost to the edge. The candle will melt all the way to the edge on subsequent burns. This wick shows ‘mushrooming’ and will need to be trimmed to 5mm before being burned again.A selection of unique candle vessels, and my wick trimmers.
Can I put flowers in it?
I never put anything other than wax, fragrance and wick in my candles. Things like petals, leaves, bits of bark and crystals pose a fire hazard or if you are lucky they will just drown your wick. Plenty of people do it and get away with it, but I don’t, and I recommend against it.
So that information should see you safely making candles in your ceramic vessels, or refilling vessels you already have. There are various Facebook groups you can turn to for info, and a lot of the suppliers also have tips and tutorials on their websites.
It seems like years since the day we put 17 goats in the ground, but it has only been 16 months. And it looks like it may have been worth all the heartache.
All the goats from the infected group are now gone. From the two young does I kept, we got one kid, a sweet little mottled doe who we called Lucy. The other doe, a quad herself from a long line of big families, did not get in kid despite running with the buck for four months.
Newborn Lucy, the beginning and end of #kidsnatch2019
We submitted a milk sample from Lucy’s mother for testing, but came up with nothing. I attempted to make a cheese from her milk, but the curd did not set up properly, the same problem I had been having with the sick goats before. With the milk problems and fertility problems I had to assume that those last two does were infected, even though they had no coughing or lameness. So they were the last two to be buried. With them gone it is likely we will never know what the cause of the illness was.
After losing one of my young bucks to an injury, I was anxious to get some does in kid to the other buck, Angus, and decided he could run with two of my young does for three weeks only. Both does got in kid straight away, and a couple of months later, despite my attempts to keep them separate, he bred my third doe, Merida, who is his half sister by the same buck. After that there was nothing to do but wait.
On October 24th Georgia gave birth to triplet does at 145 days gestation. The first one was tiny, delivered into my hands under a tree in the paddock, with her head bent back and entirely dead. I dragged the poor doe into the shed and helped deliver the next two kids, who were well on the way and only needed a little bit of guidance. Georgia was an amazing mother from the beginning, and the bigger kid Daphne was quite precocious, but little Lily needed a few days of help to get up and feed before she could fend for herself.
Tiny Lily, getting the hang of it.
Under Boo’s supervision, Georgia and her kids adjusted to life in the big paddock.
Being small and a bit early, Georgia’s girls stayed in the shed for over a week and didn’t move out into the paddock until they were nearly two weeks old. I had just enough time to clean out the pen and prepare it for Peanut’s impending kidding. Things were very different this time around, with Peanut labouring all night before I helped her deliver an enormous single buck kid. Little Wally Walnut took a little while to get the hang of his great long legs, but he was out in the paddock hooning around on day 3, already bigger than Georgia’s girls despite being a fortnight younger.
And then along came Wally Walnut.
The group settled into a routine, with Merida and the two wethers keeping to themselves while the does with kids dealt with their rowdy children. Lucy and her adopted brother Eric, a snatched kid from the nearby commercial dairy, spent fine days out with the others, retreating to their private pen at night since the big goats wouldn’t let them sleep in their house.
Lily, Daphne and Wally go exploring.
Merida kidded on December 14th, and my apprehension at the possible ramifications of her offspring’s limited pedigree proved unfounded. Her two doe kids tried to come out at the same time, one head first with a front leg back, the other backwards. There’s always a moment when you encounter three feet in the birth canal where none of the previously invented swear words quite seem appropriate, so you come up with some new ones. I decided there was room to get the first kid out without bringing the second leg forward, and I was right. After that both kids were out so quick I didn’t even have time to unfold the towels.
Merida with her newborn kids.
Merida wasn’t quite sure what to do with her kids, and had quite a ticklish udder. It was day 5 before she finally decided to let them feed, which meant five days of three-hourly visits from me to help the kids feed. The smaller kid, Marigold, was a bit slow for a day or two, but soon figured out that me turning up meant mum would be held still and she would get a chance to feed. Long-legged Magnolia, with black face and ears and lots of spots over her body, was a bit more steady on her feet and able to chase the doe around.
It seems kind of fitting that now I am no longer showing, I have does with the best udders I have ever owned. All perfectly even, well attached, and with decent volume for such young does. Merida has the greatest capacity, easily feeding her two doe kids and still sometimes needs a milk out in the morning in cooler weather. Georgia’s teats and fore attachment are even better than Merida’s, and while it looks like her volume is not as great, she is feeding two doe kids who are doing very well. Although I do suspect that Lily sneaks a feed from Peanut when she gets a chance. If the size of Peanut’s kid is anything to go by, she is also making plenty of milk. She has high, wide attachment and soft texture like her grandmother Rianna, and teats the perfect size for hand milking.
Merida’s udder
Georgia’s udder
Angus the buck and the three big wethers have been moved into the old buck paddock, where they have plenty to eat and live a quiet existence. The three milkers and seven kids reside with Boo the Maremma in the big paddock. Everyone is healthy. I have made a few successful batches of yogurt from the early milk, although I haven’t been able to put aside enough to try a cheese yet.
The boys in the buck paddock.
Yogurt success!
Seeing my little herd, happy and healthy, kids with their mothers, is really a sight for sore eyes. This is what all the sacrifice was for. The war appears to have been won. Once these dam-raised kids start to pass 12 weeks of age with no symptoms of illness I will consider the whole process a success. Then once they are old enough to wean I can commence daily milking, get back into cheesemaking, and do what I set out to do – breed Anglo Nubians who milk, and make food for my family.
The Elcarim Farm Blog 