Into Spring We Go With Light Visible at the End of The Tunnel
I woke up yesterday morning in our bedroom here on the farm, with only the gentle chatter of our ceiling fan and the first early-morning birdsong permeating my consciousness. As I made my way to the kitchen for coffee — two hungry kitties bounding ahead of me as always in eager anticipation of their breakfast — it dawned on me that in almost every other year in recent memory, that that particular Wednesday in April had instead always commenced not here with the Zen of a spring morning on the farm – but rather on the road in Erie, PA. That is because the CCNF show team/caravan (shouts out to our long-time partner in crime, Dave Serino) would normally be making its way slowly back home to Vermont from the Futurity Show, not quite 48 hours removed from the end of that yearly event in Kansas City, MO which always finishes up on a Monday afternoon. The contrast to 2021 was not lost on me. I will confess that much as we regret that the state of the world has kept us from feeling like we could safely participate in the spring show circuit and other industry-related events for the 2nd year in a row, it has not been without its benefits, at least where our mental health and general state of calm has been concerned.
Walking up to the Main Barn from the house in recent weeks, whether just to help out with daily meds, take fleece or body shots of the 2020 weaners, work on herd health, or just to pester my better half in her office it has repeatedly jumped out at me that our lives and our daily and weekly calendars were not being dictated to us by the deadlines of halter and show training 50ish alpacas, the packing (and unpacking) of trailers, and ultimately the transport, care, and feeding of a show team that inevitably includes at least 5 humans and 40+ animals some 20 hours due west (and back). It has been, well, a nice change. Also, did I mention that hotel beds generally suck? In a 12 month period where we have spent much of it huddled together here on the farm at various points with both of our sons and their respective girlfriends (An unexpected silver lining to ’20/’21: time with them all we wouldn’t have otherwise had. Sammy dubbed the group text which carries on to this day, “Chateau Quarantine,”), to now experience these early spring months alone in our house and on the farm for the first time in years, without the crazy additional demands of a show season, has been rather cathartic after what came before. Breathe out, kids.
As the state of Vermont quickly approaches the milestone of having 50% of our population with at least one vaccine dose in their arms, there is for the first time, a sense of real hope that there are better things ahead for us all, at least locally and regionally. There is a reasonable expectation here that by late May some time, our entire farm staff (including yours truly and my lovely bride) will be fully vaccinated as well. We shall see. It’s comforting to imagine a world on a more normal footing, realizing that even that may be more of a gradual process, as opposed to the flick of a switch. We will happily begin with just getting together with family and friends again though, without the additional angst of a (hopefully) once in a century viral pandemic hanging over the proceedings. We have now seen our 1st born child and his beloved Lexi — the two of them nowadays live only 25 minutes due north of us — a grand total of one time indoors and without masks since the month of October. As Prince allegedly said while hanging at his place with Eddie Murphy’s crew: this bores me. We aim to change that in short order though, once the appropriate amount of time has passed post-vaccine.
Amidst the state of hopefulness that exists around the vaccination campaign though, the one drumbeat on the farm which we can never escape — pandemic be damned — is the need to shear the members of our herd, now less than 2 weeks away at the end of April. The barns here were stripped of all of their bedding several weeks back and the fans that are ubiquitous whenever you walk into any of those buildings throughout the warmer months of the year, have all been deployed. All in an effort to encourage as much fleece cleanliness as possible ahead of that 4-day-long event. Just over the visible horizon, a month out now in mid-May, also lies the beginning of the birthing season, though that will be another whole post when the time arrives. For now, we hope everyone out there stays safe and healthy in the weeks to come and I’ll be back again in this space soon. Take care.
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