February 27, 2009 – I get a lot of personal questions about my life and the farm, and I don’t answer most of them. The line between being open and having privacy is strange, difficult, and sometimes fluid. I don’t blame anybody for asking, and I do sometimes open myself up to people who have boundary problems, but some questions are fair and appropriate, and I do try and answer them. Some deserve to be answered, even if I don’t like them.
  One reason I am turning to fiction rather than memoirs is that I am putting my life and writing in a different, and less personal, context.
  A lot of people have written asking why I am lambing when I have made a point of reducing (I think the term “downsizing” is creepy, appropriate for GM, and not relevant to my life or the farm) the number of animals on the farm, sending the steers and cow to slaughter and giving the goats away.
 I’ll try and answer. The farm is not a dead space, but a living, organic one. It is a place of life, creative work and encouragement, and interaction between people and animals.
 I love lambing. It is inexpensive, helps replenish the flock (I will give a number of sheep away after the lambs are born) and is both nurturing and nourishing. It involves work with my dogs, especially Rose, and challenges me to learn different, fascinating skills. It does not involve tractors, huge amounts of manure, or giant and expensive shipments of hay.
  It is simple, beautiful, timeless. And having done it several times, I’m good at it, and ready. There are some other personal reasons too, but I want to keep them private for the time being. Most of you are wonderful about the way you correspond with me, but there are some disturbed people out there, the price anyone pays for being open in any way on the Internet.
  I think also I was, like many, in a period of caution, fear sometimes,  and I want to remember why I came to the farm, love it, and what it means to be here. Like sheepherding, or hospice work with Izzy, lambing is a spiritual experience.
  And now it is also an affirmation. The world is not coming to an end. Life goes on. Rebirth is a part of it. Cutting back is not death, or the same thing as shutting down. I want the farm to be a place of simplicity and life, for me, surely, as it always has been, and for others as well. Books are written her, photos are taken, quilts are made, poems are conceived.
   And I can’t wait to take photos and write about the experience of lambing.
  Hope that helps. It does not mean in any way I regret letting the cows and goats go. I would do it again tomorrow. It was inappropriate to spend so much money and have so many animals.
   The farm is a tiring and challenging place. I am loving it again.
    Four or five lambs will enrich it even more.

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 Other notes. The donkeys do have lice, and have been treated, and are fine. The ram comes tomorrow. Some of you have noticed that I haven’t mentioned Annie lately, and that is because she has left the farm and moved on to other things. She did a great job and is missed. Corinna Aldrich, a neighbor, friend and photographer, comes by and helps once in awhile, but without the other animals, the farm is very manageable.