Afternoon chores. Maria visiting with her friends among the sheep.

  Change for its own sake is compulsive, destructive. A life without change can be static, empty.
I believe in change, but am learning how to change more thoughtfully, less impulsively. I think I needed some drama and bedlam around me, and now that I am sharing my life with someone I love, things are turning around. A bit. I still love change, and consider it essential to any creative life.
  Last year, I turned out the goats, steers and cow. Some people were unhappy with me, but it was a good move for me, and as I pointed out to some, if you aren’t paying for the hay, you don’t get to run the farm.
  Now, I have these animals on the farm: four dogs – Lenore, Rose, Izzy and Frieda. Two barn cats, Mother and Minnie. Three hens. Two donkeys, Lulu and Fanny, and sixteen Tunis ewes and wethers.
  I want a simpler, more focused life. I am not writing memoirs now, but novels and children’s books. I have never considered myself a shepherd. So I am considering whether or not the sheep should remain at Bedlam Farm, or go to live with Darryl Kuehne, who loves and raises sheep, and lives nearby in Vermont. He is a farmer, not a writer with a farm, and there is a difference. The biggest issue for me is Rose, who loves her work. So I can keep some sheep, or visit sheep farms, or make sure she gets to do other things that she loves – frisbee, ball-chasing, cow roundups.
  I was certain about the cows and goats. They needed to go. I am not so certain about the sheep. Maria and I both love Lulu and Fanny, and we both feel it’s important for them to be part of the farm.
  Life on any farm – anywhere – is a tapestry of chores, change, evolution. I have undertaken three new and very intense creative directions: photography, fiction and children’s books. I want to focus on them, as well as on my new life. I want to do them well and work hard on them.
  It is not possible to do everything, or to do everything well. I believe in taking responsibility for one’s life, and examining it. And I believe in living your life.
  That means changing, and making some choices. As always, I will share this process, and then make my decisions. And I will share them too.