When the grasses die off, all the creatures depend more on bucket-feeding. Everything comes and goes in cycles. In keeping with that rhythm, this past November, we went from around two hundred animals down to around one hundred.

We’ll stay at that number until the baby season comes.

I thought it might be fun to give you a tour of what our farm looks like during my favorite time of the year: spring and summer.

Broody hens guard their eggs with an inspiring ferocity. Yet we don gloves, brave the snipping beaks, and tuck the extras in the incubator …

Three or four weeks later …

Drying until they’re fluffy …

 

Each morning, there’s a new surprise to see. It’s hide and seek for the whole family …

… and impossible to remain unhappy with a velvet-eared lamb …

or goat kid in your lap.

 

 

 

 

Some days, it’s more like a game of duck …

 

Duck…

 

Goose.

A perfect time of hope and renewal.

 

Bio:

Bokerah Brumley is a speculative fiction writer making stuff up on a trampoline in West Texas. When she’s not playing with the quirky characters in her head, she’s addicted to Twitter pitch events, writing contests, and social media in general. She lives on ten permaculture acres with five home-educated children and one husband. In her imaginary spare time, she also serves as the blue-haired President of the Cisco Writers Club. In 2016, she was awarded first place in the FenCon Short Story Contest, third place in the Southern Writers Magazine Short Story Contest, fifth place in the Children’s/Young Adult category for the 85th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition, and selected as a 2016 Pitch Slam! finalist. More recently, she accepted novel contracts with Clean Reads Press and Liberty Island Media. She also moonlights as an acquisitions editor for The Crossover Alliance.