I’ve been thinking about time. Part of those thoughts are how long it’s been since I’ve posted on this blog and I mean to remedy that. One of the reasons for that is that there are so many things to take up one’s time, such as goats. Two of our goats gave birth this summer. One of our goats, Moon Pie, gave birth to two baby boys (bucklings) right around the Fourth of July. I remember we were worried that the goats might go into early labor because of the frightening nature of the fireworks, but that didn’t happen. Keeping in line with our tradition of naming our goats after superheroes, the two boys were named Starlord and Drax. About four days after that, our other goat, Colleen, gave birth to another pair of bucklings, which we named Apollo and Midnighter.
Four young bucklings are enough to distract anyone, and I certainly have been no exception. They are playful, rambunctious and irresistibly easy to pick up and hold in your arms. And, like many of the best things in life, were only around for a limited time, because we do not have the room for 7 goats. We knew we would have to sell them off, so we had work to do. Their horns needed to be disbudded, they needed shots and, given that they weren’t really breeding stock, they needed to be castrated. We also spent a fair amount of time crafting an ad to put on Craig’s List, because we didn’t want them going to just anyone. We had to emphasize that they were NOT meat goats, that they couldn’t be sold individually, unless as a companion for an already existing goat and, preferably, each pair of brothers would be kept together. Happily, that’s exactly what happened, each pair of brothers going to lovely new homes. One of those homes with llamas, which should be interesting.
I also got to perform a wedding. The second one I’ve ever done. It’s a habit of mine to prepare myself to death and this was no exception. I had to walk a fine line, because one side of the family is ultra-religious and they basically wanted a full on Catholic ceremony, whereas the other side of the family cares not for religion. I met with the couple twice, took notes, watched YouTube videos and studied up on wedding ceremonies in general. Getting ready for that ceremony took hours and hours, but an event like that you want to be just perfect and I think my hard work paid off.
And then there’s the garden, which got me thinking about how glorious it is for something to be ephemeral. Our bumper crop has been tomatoes and we’ve been struggling to keep up with them. My wife canned a ton of them up, which is fantastic, but there’s just nothing like fresh tomatoes from the garden. They’re so good that I don’t really eat any other tomatoes. I don’t care how good a restaurant or grocery store is, if they aren’t in season, it’s just not worth it to me to eat them. And that makes them all the better. The same with berries, the same with apples, the same with corn. Portland has such a bounty of great produce that we are blessed and it makes one realize how good fresh produce is and makes anything out of season taste like crap. If it’s even available at all.
I just watched the Netflix show, Glitch, and one of the characters says, “The beauty of life is that it ends.” This is the glory of time. That’s there’s simply not enough of it. Knowing that there’s an end makes it all that much better.