Where the heck have we been?!

Hello! (Guess that's as good a place as any to start ... )

Some of you may have noticed that Moon Ruby Farm (and the person with the requisite electricity) plunged into radio silence several months ago, quietly shuttering all picture windows, closing the notebooks, abandoning any mailboxes and so on. There are several really good reasons for this -- some of the best in the world, honestly -- but I won't bore you with those. Suffice it to say that the humans living on Moon Ruby have been to hell and back, and we know you'd understand because, well, many/most of you have been there too. All the way there from all the way here, and back! Life's not a vacation, after all.

Or is it?

My father would say I seem to think that it is. I do think that it is -- just as soon as I stop thinking too much to really get it, that is. I mean, what is a vacation if not the freedom to retreat from part of the world when needed, maybe even coming back a bit wiser? Life is indeed a vacation if, say, you find yourself counting heads in the wild chorus of birds decorating your backyard (by way of mating, whatever) on any given spring day. After all, you have a backyard! And there is spring! And you can count!

So, then: to hell and back on the vacation that is life, we were. Truth be told, we never really left because of all the other lives that surround us, that flatter us by simply and unwittingly depending on us. (And this is why, when I'm apart from the animals, they're always somehow still right there with me; but thankfully, when they're in my mind's eye rather than my actual field of vision, they can't gather 'round for the millionth rendition of "OMG Lady I'm Starving, Neglected, Maligned" the moment I set one foot out my door; but then again, the silence that arises from the absence of that medley ... well I'm sure you can relate to how deeply startling and unsettling that can be.) Yes, we did have to step away for awhile because we each had a long, long trip to make. It did not feel like a vacation but it was, for all the birds still flew around the backyard jungle the moment there was a break in the rain. I just wasn't able to count at the time, let alone write simple sentences.

It's going to take a bit of time to get back into the swing of things, but more soon. And it won't be as dull as this, because BABY GOATS!