My head is full of a flibbertigibbet . TKG Sunday

How are meant to only think of one thing at a time. Especially now. Take a walk with me. It is the best way to quieten your flibbertigibbet.

So much going on. So much to write. My brain, My lifestyle. Everything. Even my writing today. Infused with the flibbertigibbet; one of those words a person loves to say out loud!

Flibbertigibbet: Flibbertigibbet is one of many incarnations of the Middle English word flepergebet, meaning "gossip" or "chatterer" (others include flybbergybe, flibber de' Jibb, and flipperty-gibbet). It is a word of onomatopoeic origin, created from sounds that were intended to represent meaningless chatter.

My dog is sleeping on his dog bed. At my feet. Almost under the desk but not missing by much. He occasionally whines and tosses. The dog bed is round so he is curled into it like a circular fossil. It is cool in here. My study with a vaulted ceiling- the loft gathering cobwebs I don’t care about. The rain has come. The tall windows reflect the pale grey of set-in rain. The clouds lowering. The weather makes a person think of chilli but really I need brocolli salad to use up the last of this years broccoli. As a farmer I am happy to see rain. The dog, Boo is his name raises his head to look at the windows. Air escaping into the room through a crack in a window, whines like another dog. But my head resounds with chatter and cackles and plans and remembering and words and half baked sentences. A flibbertigibbet.

Boo farts and I can smell it. My sense of smell is returning now like big barn doors opening. I wrote about retraining my nose. (see below) I have orange oil right here by the keyboard. Every once in a while I take off the lid and smell it. Orange oil I say to myself and you know what? It is working.

Rediscovering Scents: The Journey to Retrain My Nose

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I jot down notes all week for this newsletter. This week’s notes look like the ramblings of a deranged autocorrect. I blame daylight saving.

Then, of course, it was Halloween (and all the dead people poking their noses into my business) and that WTF election—of which I will not speak.

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I've lost my glasses.

This morning, I spent hours rifling through every drop it depository, every basket and box in the house. Nothing. I don’t have much stuff so it is hard to lose stuff. (It might be hard but I always find a way). They are nowhere. The glasses. I rarely wear them. But not knowing where they are has been gnawing at me.

As I searched for my glasses, I repacked my travel bag. Because I’m a multitasker. My carry-on is always half-packed because you never know when I’ll be called away. Some people are attached to spaces I am attached to souls. And when they call - I move. Fast. So, as I flipped and folded and tucked, my bag was packed before I knew it.

My farm clothes live here on the farm. My farm gumboots. What bacteria lives on the property stays on the property. And much of my travel is international.

Studies say the outside of shoes can carry an average of 421,000 bacteria units, with fecal bacteria on 96% of them. Hence my care with shoes when traveling or even coming inside. It is in our culture in NZ to take shoes off at the door.

I have a special pair of slides for my feet that I wear on planes. They live in a plastic bag in my carry-on, and I toss them in the wash after travel. They are those plastic nike slides that can be scrubbed totally clean. They are never worn on the farm. Never worn outside in any other country. But they do go into plane toilets and we all know how nasty those are!

So now my travelling bag is ready, even though I’m not going anywhere yet. Not yet. Next month, to Australia. But not for a whole month yet. And no glasses.

Then, a memory. A little rattan box, sliding into my mind. Muscle memory took me to where it had been stashed. And there it was. A box full of old glasses (because you just never know). I pulled out the least wonky pair, washed off about ten years of dust, and popped them on. With a little black marker to cover where the coating’s worn off, they’re good as new. Not stylish in the slightest, and the world’s a bit hazy—but I can see the screen just fine. Saved myself a trip to the optometrist. Whew!

My mother used to wear my father’s, fathers glasses. She found them in her mother-in-laws sewing box in the house I grew up in. The house my father grew up in. I guess my paternal grandmother Dorothy, who I never met because she died three months before I was born, kept her husbands glasses. Maybe even wore them herself for ‘close work’.

I feel better now that I know where my glasses are.

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Tima and her Chickens

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I was a terrible questioner of everything as a child. What’s this what’s that why, why, why. When I was four my mother coined a new law of the house. No-one was allowed to answer my one word why. I had to ask a complete sentence. Condense what I actually wanted to know. “Why?” I would say. “Complete sentence,” my mother would murmur back. She never answered us with a “because” and never “because I said so”. Her answers were never age appropriate. And cruelly true. She would have made a wonderful grandmother if she had lived long enough. But a no nonsense one.

The internet has been down most of the weekend and it makes me wonder whether I am actually writing if no-one can read it. A little like the tree and the forest.

By the way this is what I am listening to today. (In between the internet cutting out). I have this most wonderful friend and reader (who I have never met and who is no less of a friend because of our geography) who sends me music. She is a sound engineer and eclectic in her tastes because it is the way the sounds are made that she loves the most which gives me an entirely new way to look at music. This is this week’s theme song. I will not name my friend because - you know - personal security- but I thank her.

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I am suffering from quiet farm syndrome. All the summer animals are gone and there is just not much to do for cows - they just wander the fields in a cowish manner. The pet pigs are grazing on the last of the grass or off on walks and the chickens are haughty. The Guinea Hogs make up for it by literally screaming for attention.

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The thing with niches and brands is that when you leave a niche or a brand who are you anymore. This is when being a flibbertigibbet comes in handy.

The Farm WalkAbout:

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The wind has pushed our sound around a bit in this WalkAbout but thats how it is. Out here on the farm. Itis lovely and quiet once we get in the barn.

I thought I would back out across some other Novembers to see what I could find from four years ago.

Steak and Butternut Pie from my kitchen in November 2020.

The Farmy Round Up:

Cows

Did you know that cows have one stomach that is divided into four compartments: the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum.

This allows them to efficiently digest tough plant materials through rumination, where they regurgitate and re-chew their food. I often say they have four stomachs but it’s more accurate to say they have a single stomach with these distinct functional areas.

Layers

Chickens typically require 14 to 16 hours of light per day to maintain optimal egg production.

Which they do not have at the moment. It is a modern construct to have eggs available all year round.

Winter solstice - the longest night) in the USA for 2024 will occur on Saturday, December 21, 2024, with a waning gibbous moon. After that the days get longer and light creeps up by 12 seconds a day immediately after winter solstice and up to 3 minutes a day by February. Within a few weeks the layers will be laying more eggs again.

PopPops

I think because this breed remains small for a longer period of time they are proving harder to resist.

The little pig on screen-left! That look! There is always one. And who is wearing a chicken like a hat?

Every time I am in there to clean up their barn bedroom they try to trip me up by lying down in my way. They know I just cannot resist scratching those bellies.

Jude and FreeBee

Jude is still a bit limpy sometimes badly sometimes not at all. I am throwing over willow branches for him to chew on which helps a little.

Willow bark can be used as a natural pain relief option for animals, particularly horses and dogs. It contains salicin, which is converted into salicylic acid in the body, providing anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects similar to aspirin but with fewer gastrointestinal side effects. Aspirin is pretty hard on the stomach lining.

I was told years ago by an old sheep farmer that willows, he planted them in the fields, also help with eliminating gut worm. But I can’t find a study to prove that.

Tima and WaiWai

These two are on limited visits to the field. And no other feed

They are foraging. And finding plenty out there in the harvested corn fields.

That is it from me! Have a gorgeous morning, afternoon, evening.

Take care and talk soon!

Celi

PS I am a gardener, a farmer, and a writer, dedicated to helping households maximise minimalism to create resilient, sustainably managed spaces - urban or rural - that are gentle on the planet and nourish us and our neighbours while we are here. Join me by subscribing. However you wish to subscribe I am grateful!

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The gift of quiet farmy and garden contemplation. No matter where I am in the world I will be writing and videoing for you. Promise.

PS (again) Substacks I have enjoyed reading this week.

Our very own Misky is now on SubStack:

Well, Maybe Not a Thousand …

Nature really is essential to a happy life:

Are You Nature Deficient? (Hint: your body holds clues)

And this just in:

How to Find Positivity in Everyday Life: From Laundry to Love to Skipping in the Sea

And for the scientists in the room:

Elephant Riding