Squawk on little bird

You deserve to be heard. Go ahead, sing or shout or squawk your truth. Your voice is so valuable, and we are so lucky to have it in our chorus.
- The Guineas, AKA world’s best Greek chorus

Here’s What’s Happening At Good Spirits Farm

• I’m checking on Benni every few hours in anticipation of her new baby (who was technically due yesterday)! We’ve moved her into one of our horse pastures, which is both close to the house and has a safe little shelter in it. I bedded the shelter down with deep straw, so she has a soft, protected place to deliver. I found her totally sacked out on her side enjoying her straw bed—and a final night of good rest before baby arrives—when I went to check her in the middle of the night last night.

• We got another piece of fencing built this week, which means we’ll have even more room for our new baby cows to run around in. I have to remind myself that fencing, while really, really expensive, is an investment that will pay off in the long run. But man, it makes you cringe when you see the bill!

• We merged our teenage chickens—from a batch of eggs I hatched in our incubator this spring—in with the rest of the flock this week. That can actually be a tricky proposition: Guess where the term pecking order comes from? But, now that we’re a few days in, everyone seems to be getting along with minimal feathers flying.

• Please send your extra rain our way. It’s so dry, my pastures are turning brown!

Here’s What I Loved This Week

Hearing the news that Louise Glück won the Nobel Prize in Literature and reading her new poem published in the New York Review of Books. It seems perfect for this moment.