Change, like the wind...

Change, like the wind

Like the water, like skin

Change, like the sky

Like the leaves, like a butterfly

Adrienne Lenker

Summer approaches with a menace. We know how hot it will be through July and August, rarely lower than the 90s, often in the 100’s. Temps that drive you inside for the better part of the day, and constrain sanctuary chores to the hours on the fringes of light. We had a heat wave, and then cool, sometimes cloudy weather. It feels like a mercy. We’re being prepped for the inferno to come, but not too rapidly. The atmosphere is thickening our skin and strengthening our resolve…

Aside from the atmospheric shifts, change is pronounced throughout the sanctuary. 

Samwise Gamgee is settling in so nicely, you would think he was always here. His bond with Frodo grows deep. Frodo shows what a saint he truly is, by tolerating seemingly endless head butting, face biting and tail whipping with nary a complaint. He is simply the greatest friend and big brother that Sam could ever have hoped for. Leonard continues to fancy himself a farm dog now, doing his best to keep up to his gigantic pack brothers. He seems happy. 

Freya is on a very, very slow healing arc from the ACL surgery. We have progressed to the point where she can now sleep outside. That really helps. She is designed for this. Being in a house has never suited her, from the time she was 4 months old. At times, we get glimmers of her old joy, even attempting a pyr pirouette (strictly in defiance of doctor’s orders!).  Mainly though, she is more morose than is normal for her. I try to spend un-hurried time next to her at night. She’ll put her giant paw on my leg, and sigh, and there is no greater love on this wild earth. 

We are halfway through completing the fence for the common area, the labor of many hands. We are all so excited for this new chapter: Pigs, goats, dogs, later sheep, wandering freely in a space all their own. I imagine visitors sitting in their midst as they relax, play and head butt. Hopefully, if all goes well, we should be able to find out towards the beginning of June. 

In another landmark event, Rivendell has welcomed our first workaway on-site volunteer.

Alex is from Salt Lake city and helps with feeding the animals, pen maintenance, and various projects around the sanctuary. It is a big help, having another pair of hands here…

In honor of change, of another sort, we are excited for our 2nd meditation retreat on June 8th. The first was very successful, and we look forward to communing with others doing this important inner work. All, while in communion with our hooved, pawed, and feathered family…

Finally, change is afoot throughout the gardens The peach, plum, apricot, apple and fig trees all look ready to explode with fruit. Grape, Tomato, bean, squash, and cucumber, not far behind. It should be quite a bounty, when the time is ripe…

Plant, animal and human, all poised for change.

All reaching for a few more strands 

of golden light…