Greenstorm's Journal

I haven't been entirely pleased with the way the last year has gone.

I have felt pulled in too many directions, I've felt like my focus is lost, I haven't been paying attention to the things I love, I haven't felt a goal or sense of progress. Those are all valuable to me. I haven't felt like I'm contributing properly to my communities, or like I'm properly in contact with them. I have felt poorly towards the folks I normally feel well-disposed towards and my sense of empathy has suffered.

I've been overwhelmed, alienated, and dissociative.

Not only have I not felt present in my body, or when present in my body I have felt uncomfortable; I have also not felt present in my own mind. Everything I touch has broken, including the tools I need to live and to play.

But.

I've had over a week off work now, more-or-less. I've driven geese to the abattoir and gone back with Tucker to pick them up. My freezers are full of things I've raised or grown; my laundry room still has a couple buckets of potatoes in it, and my pickles and other canned things are lined up beautifully on my shelves. The house is warm right now, I may have sorted a temporary solution for the wood stove, and I'll in all likelihood have wood left over at the end of the year to go into next. I'm nine months in to documenting the property's progress with at-least-weekly videos.

Yesterday Tucker spent all day here. We gave the pigs lots of expired milk given by the grocery store and a couple cheesecakes; they were super happy. Baby, the boar, always rolls in cake when I give them some. The birds all have layer pellets now in addition to their grain. Depression has rolled back, but this weekend anxiety also feels like it left me freer: free to enjoy sex and snuggling and eating delicious things, free to inhabit my own mind and for my body to feel a little less rigid from inside of it.

Dinner last night was a goose breast, fat side scored and seared until 2/3 cup (!) of fat rendered out of it and it was lovely and crispy, brown-fried all over in the fat, and cooked to the rare side of medium rare. That was sliced thin over my purple potatoes mashed with goose fat and a little milk -- the potatoes miraculously held their purple instead of turning grey -- and a bunch of turnip pickles on the side. Everything was grown here, raised here, except for salt, pepper, and a little milk. It was delicious and it also meant a lot to me to be able to do that, and a lot to be able to share it with someone I love. I haven't been feeling proud of myself much lately but I am proud of that.

It was also a relief to assure myself that I like that goose processor, and that I love goose breast cooked that way. The wild goose I've had hasn't been as good; really this was as satisfying as a good steak, with the skin crunch that made it truly amazing. I'd be very sad if I didn't enjoy eating geese; it would mean I'd have to raise fewer of them.

The rest of the goose (breasts removed) is currently confit-ing. The edible part of the goose seems to be about 60% meat and 40% fat; I'm looking forward to exploring what else to do with the fat. Someone suggested making cookies out of them! Apparently her family used to do it that way.

My growing/creating 75% of my own calories project is really fulfilling.

It's also been lovely working with Tucker, sharing the projects of cooking and driving. We're even talking about the relationship well, which is something I always appreciate. I like the sense of always moving forward, of deepening trust and communication and caring ability. It's also really enjoyable to have enough familiarity with someone to work as a team. I like familiarity and domesticity, really.

I've been missing the rabbits a bunch - June and Mella both. I've also missed bathtub goose, the little gosling I rescued who imprinted on me and who didn't make it through the spring. And I've been missing, I don't know, someone to talk about farm setup with, someone with similar drives to me.

So it isn't all bad.

I have a pretty good sense of what I need to do going forward: slow down more, make time to wander around outside and be with the animals (easier as the light returns), reach out and connect with people more directly sometimes and lock my proverbial door sometimes too so I'm not ambiently drenched in the worst parts of humanity by hanging out on the internet generally.

I also need to find a way to start volunteering or donating, maybe both. That was part of my life for so long and it's wrong for it to be missing.

In 2013 I think? 2012? I was volunteering at Urban Digs farm near Vancouver. They were a little peri-urban place that did mixed ag: field crops and meat. I was living in New West. I was going to forestry tech school in the evenings, working & volunteering during the day -- or was this after I finished that first round of school?

Anyhow, the person who ran the farm brought home some rabbits from auction and one of them was too friendly to eat (she had a bunch of meat rabbits). That rabbit was Taoshi, who seemed a lot like an English Spot. I was offered the rabbit, she came home with me, and I needed to get her a friend. Urban Digs offered me my choice of any of their litters.

The litter I selected from was a Flemish Giant x New Zealand, maybe not a pure 50-50 cross but that's what went into it. Before the babies opened their eyes there was one that was just the right one: the right colour, the right one. I remember what she looked like nestled in her mom's fur, still mostly pink, a perfect sunshine caramel rather than a white rabbit or a darker agouti.

When she was old enough I took her home to Taoshi and they... didn't really get along. Taoshi annoyed Mella for being too active, Mella annoyed Taoshi for being too territorial and boring. They fought a bunch. Mella turned out to very much take after Flemish Giants in size and bone structure. She was a big bony girl with very particular ideas.

They lived together in a puppy pen in my livingroom for the most part: they could see everything that was going on and take part if they wanted. They came out for free time. Mella didn't want me to touch her at first so Taoshi got most of the physical attention, though I talked to both of them. Mel was the smart one; when I fed them in the morning she realized that if she woke me up earlier she'd get fed earlier and she'd alarm-stomp a little earlier each day. I eventually switched to feeding them in the evening.

She would allow me to pet her nose, though, and in time when she realized I was no longer trying to pick her up she'd start coming up to me, facing me and touching her chin to the floor to indicate that it was time to pet her.

When I was in my car accident Taoshi ran away and Mella stayed. She came to the hospital with me, then home to the room I was renting as I got through university. At this point her pen was in my bedroom, but I left it open often. I had my mattress on the floor at that time and she'd come snuggle with me in bed. It was a dark, hard time and she absolutely got me through it. I think she was having a hard time too, honestly. Anyhow, we made it through together. She got spayed around this time and got a little easier to handle but she definitely had her preferences and made no bones about her boundaries.

I suppose that was when we really started to bond.

After the accident I knew she needed a rabbit friend so I took her speed-dating. Rabbits are particular about their friends and rabbit speed dating is a thing that really exists! The person at the rabbit rescue suggested she'd be better off as an only rabbit after she ignored/lunged at something like fifteen potential friends in a row.

The rescue was a failure but by chance there was a litter of bunnies at the local spca. I think there were 10 babies in the litter? Anyhow, I brought her in and she ignored all the babies except one: Juniper cuddled with her a little or licked her ears. So, Juniper came home (Juniper's brother Odin came home too, to keep the young one company in case Mella didn't want to play but the baby did). Odin had - maybe neurological issues? and only lived a couple years. Juniper got along so well with Mella, and they snuggled and groomed each other and slept together and were always in carriers together until yesterday. June would always lick Mella's enormous sail ears when she asked.

She had always had a bit of a splay leg in the front. Her energy level definitely wound down over time and she was pretty mellow to begin with. A couple months ago her back end stopped functioning as well and she was having trouble getting into and out of the litter box. A couple times she got caught over the edge and I helped her in or out. Last week she couldn't get in or out anymore and was just lying by the water; I put her in the soft hay-lined litterbox. She didn't seem to have control of her front paws either and I brought her little bowls of water several times a day and put food right in front of her. She ate and drank fine and her bowls were working but she couldn't move away from the pile of poop, or from the urine that soaked her back. I bathed her a couple times but rabbit fur doesn't dry that quickly and I was worried.

It was clear after a few days that she wasn't regaining any movement. She was still always happy to see me (by this time in our relationship she was happy to see me, had been really ever since the accident). She drank and ate and got treats. But it was time.

Yesterday I put Mella and June into the carrier together for the last time. Tucker drove me to the vet, since I didn't trust myself to drive. She stayed in the carrier, getting petted and being with June, until the first sedative kicked in. I was petting her so much that she licked me in reciprocal grooming which she seldom did to humans. Then she got brought up to the table and lay in the curve of my arm on a blanket. Sleepy as she was she still resisted the butterfly needle being put into the vein in her ear and she took a whole lot of sedative. Very slowly she relaxed. Even with all that in her she resisted another needleful going into her ear several minutes later. She kept breathing for a long time. I petted her and thanked her.

She had given me her whole life.

You can never repay or be worthy of a thing like that.

Eventually her heart stopped beating. There was blood from her ear on my hand. I kissed her forehead where she liked being petted and put my head down in rabbit language for "please pet me" but of course she didn't move.

I keep remembering her as a little baby in her mother's nest.

She had been with me her whole life.

She never did compromise for me. All my animals that I have now, they pretty much adore me and will do things to seek my attention and praise. Mella just went on being herself the whole time.

I wish I could have known what she thought about things better.

I love her very much.

Goodbye, Mella.

Every day brings something. I guess that's how you know you're alive?

I suppose I'm alive again.

I learned of a fossil pit 3-4 hours up north into the bush. I can drive there, go exploring, camp, sift through the gravel and look into the past. I'll need to wait till the snow is off the ground. Maybe I'll find someone excited to come with me.

When I called the vet to make an appointment to put Mella down I called both vets. One had an opening; the other I had a chat with about "establishing a farm relationship". That's how we do it here now: there's no buying antibiotics or wormers at the co-op, instead a vet who has an established relationship prescribes. They said they could teach me to castrate, too. None of this will be cheap but I've been on this land long enough to need a good deworming program and I haven't met anyone locally who can teach me.

And Mella is going in tomorrow. Juniper will be on her own then, until I find her a rabbit friend. I no longer have a workplace I can bring animals to or I'd bring her in to work with me. She'll be sad. I'll be sad. This whole thing is hard.

I was supposed to be in the bush today but turns out I'm not. Instead the sun is streaming across the lake and in my window at work - the window with no plants yet. Water is melting and overflowing the frozen gutters and running off the roofs onto ice slicks from the freezing rain in the last few days. I want to sit outside by sleeping trees and remember that life still waits and comes again even when it doesn't look like it will. I want to strengthen my eyes to see those signs; I want to know that spring comes to these dark feelings as surely as I can tell by looking at an apple twig that the branch is healthy and sleeping and not shrivelled and dead.

Maybe tomorrow.