Goat Ranch: Day 1

Hi all! I have made it safely to the goat ranch and I have some down time before the work begins so I figured I'd better write this now. It was a nice, scenic drive up here, not too far from Sacramento.  I'm in a place called Mount Aukum, which is close to Plymouth.  I'm excited because this is the first official trip of my new life!! I'm a little nervous because I am out of shape so I hope I can keep up with the work.  I got to go play with the goats a little bit this afternoon.  They are really sweet; well, let me clarify. The females and the babies are sweet.  I was told to stay away from the big males because they are aggressive.  But they didn't seem all that interested in getting too close so hopefully we can maintain our mutual agreement; I'll leave you alone and you leave me alone.  But the females and the young'uns came right up to me and starting rubbing their heads all over my shoulders and arms.  The man I am working with had a baby goat in his arms and he flipped it over on its back and held it like an infant.  It was pretty cute.  There are two bull calves and two horses here as well.  I went to say hi to the horses.  The big blond one seems to be the diva, she kept nudging me to pet her.  I thought she was an attention hog but the other one didn't seem all that interested so I guess they have a system.  Beautiful.  So those are my initial thoughts, having been here all of two hours.  I'm sure I'm going to learn a ton here.  Until next time!

First Destination Booked!

So you all have been asking me where I am going to go first and I didn’t have an answer… until now.  Until the condo sells I don’t want to go too far, so I looked into WWOOF farms close to home, and there are a lot of them!  So I have booked two weeks at the Bell Ranch in Mount Aukum, CA, where I will learn all about the care and feeding of goats.  

A little background: I have always loved animals.  I cannot remember a time when I didn’t have at least some form of animal companions in my life.  When I was a kid I would tear out the animal pictures from National Geographic and tape them up on my wall.  I was raised by my grandparents in a semi-country setting where we always had dogs and cats and around the neighborhood there were chickens, geese, horses, to name a few.  We also lived on the edge of Ancil Hoffman Park so we had turkeys, deer, and even the occasional coyote wander through our yard.  When I was 12 I spent the summer at a friend’s horse ranch and when I was in highschool I volunteered at the Effie Yeaw Nature Center cleaning out all the cages from the turtles to the finches to the hawk, and I even got to take the owl for a walk once.  So, my fascination with animals goes back a long way.  As much as I have enjoyed city living these past eight years, I have felt the draw more and more to return to nature, which is part of why I am making this life change.  

According to the website, I will be helping with all aspects of goat care from cleaning and feeding to more hands on care.  They also mention a class on how to make various food products from goat milk, which I am very interested in learning.  Part of my reason for doing this, aside from the fact I think it will be fun, is that if I do end up landing somewhere and living partially or fully off grid, goats are something I am considering keeping.  So I want to learn about them to see if my perceptions are accurate or not.  

I will be leaving on Sunday the 28th which is next week!  I can’t wait!

*Right after I booked this trip, someone from BodyTribe brought a goat to the gym.  What are the odds of that?  This picture is one of our students, Teagan, playing the the goat.  It was pretty cute.

Permission to Rest

BEFORE STAGING

AFTER STAGING

HI all, I hope you had a fabulous week!  I finally got all the updates done and got the condo listed.  It looks amazing!  I wanted to experience professional staging and let me tell you, it was worth every penny. So now I wait.  (This is a lot like the video I did earlier on the space between). How do we mark time when we are waiting for something, in this case, to find out who will buy my condo and how fast it will sell?  Because for all my plans, I’m not going anywhere until that condo sells and I can wrap up all the paperwork.  That’s partially why I haven’t made a final decision on where I’m going to go first. I am optimistic that it will sell quickly but I’m also not counting my chickens before they hatch.  It’s definitely something I have to be mindful of, not just making use of this time wisely, but enjoying it, even though I am in suspense about the sale.  I am trusting in the universe and not worrying about it.  Saturday I did some running around and was thinking that I should visit my storage unit on Sunday and make some more progress in cleaning it out.  But as I thought that, my body responded by feeling exhausted.  So I thought about it and realized that I haven’t taken a whole day off since I started this thing.  I’ve been packing every day, making arrangements, seeing clients, running my business, moving, etc etc.  So I decided Sunday I wasn’t going to leave the house, I was going to sleep in and relax.  Not just part of the day.  ALL day.  And it felt really good!  Now, for those of you who know me, you know that I am always busy, always doing something.  I can sit still for about 30 seconds before I have to do something.  So when I contemplated going to the storage unit and felt so exhausted, it scared me.  I thought, what if I never feel like working again?  What if I never get my energy back again?  I know that’s silly and that I just need to rest, but nevertheless I still felt that way.  Do you ever get that way?  Do you push yourself through exhaustion because you fear losing momentum?  Do you feel like if you take a break it means you are lazy?  Can you give yourself permission to do nothing, accomplish nothing, and just rest?  It’s not easy, but I think it’s very important.