Lazy Weekends?
Posted: Saturday, 08 March 2008 |
10 comments |
Remember the days (of yore, of course) when weekends were a kind of lazing time, when the weeks work was done, and you either went out and had fun or just relaxed, doing nothing much?
Yup, I remember those too..so where did they go? *blank stare...*
A rather hectic week has just been and gone...and I thought, great, can relax this weekend, maybe do a bit more bellydance practice, watch a few old and favourite movies, y`know the kinda thing....
but nope..just lately I have been an electrical jinx...managed to destroy, simply by being in the vicinity, two vacuums, two kettles and a laptop, and now, a washing machine.....
and to cap it all, my lovely billygoat kept falling down in his stall and not being able to get up. First, I thought it was illness..he is getting on a bit, a touch of arthritis in his hind legs, or I thought it was maybe liver fluke which is an awful thing for beasts to get...
Well, he does have the arthritis and the liver fluke, well, will keep an eye on him for that..but the main culprit was the young and strong castrated billy I put in with him for company.....
found out he was butting the hell outta the old billy, knocking him flat and not letting him get up again....
so myself and the son went into the barn, seperated them and tried to lift the billy, now a substantial weight and with a fine, sharp spread of horns, and between the pair of us and a broom to lever his backside up with, we managed to get him, shoogly and shivering, onto his feet.
Fearing the worst, we had no choice but to leave him propped up til we could sort out straw bales to kind of encase him in, then lie him down, hind legs tucked under him, with food and water within reach.
In the meantime, the younger billy we had seperated him from battered down the dividing door and started bullying the other goats and sheep, just to keep the food to himself.
He is going into the freezer soon.
The old billy is now recovering, still shaky but heaps better than he was, and I think it had a lot to do with being bullied by the younger one.
There`s a pagan myth about the demise of the old stag when the young stag is grown...and it is nature`s way, the young grow, take on the old in many ways, and supplant them in life.
Thus, in the bleak cruelty of nature, pragmatic though it is, the old are unvalued.
I have a feeling, looking around, that it`s often like that with humans too....
Survival of the fittest is well and good and ensures the thriving of any group. It`s blunt and to the point, and the most efficient way of making progress with any species.
But y`know, people are hardly endangered..quite the opposite in fact...
so maybe it should occur to younger folks now that there IS, and always has been, value in their elders. Older folks shouldn`t automatically earn respect...I hate that attitude some of them get where they think that age grants them the right to be obnoxious and have no manners or courtesy....
but to disregard anyone past thirty as worth nothing in todays world, as seems to be the case, is just tremendously sad.............
The world is, now, for the young, and they never cease to let us know it. The media pays only lip service to age and experience, either dwelling on the infirmities of age or making figures of fun of the old.
And youth and beauty are praised far and above experience and wisdom and good down to earth values.
What a screwed up world we live in.....
The billy, today, is much happier, still a little shaky but getting back on his feet again. I look at him, on his bed of fresh straw, munching quietly on hay, looking lazily out the slats of his stall at his harem, content now, and feel a strange kind of sadness for the speck of time that each individual exists in life. Because it always seems too short.
I have a growing list of `to-do`s` for outdoors, to try and fit it all in between Orkney gales and the continuous rain which has turned my place into the worlds biggest mud bath. The seasons wheel is turning again and there will soon be no time for maudlin thoughts of age and mortality as the growing things pick up and the garden cries out for planting and the ducks and hens and hopefully this year, the geese, go broody and look to hatch young, always a little later here than elsewhere though....
If all else fails I will hire performers and if the rain doesn`t stop, will set up mud wrestling matches.
But for now I`m trying to fit some laziness into my weekend, and resisting the urge to be `out and doing` ......
not sure I`ll make it though.....
Posted on Hermit Life at 11:34
Comments
Mud Wrestling? I'm on my way, who are you gonna be wrestling HL? There are so many thoughts going through my mind, none of them printable though, but count me in...........
Tws from The Croft Lewis
Hear hear HL! I value my two old folk and their wisdom above rubies. (OWMEEAOW!!! That was a compliment!)
Flying Cat from so that's HL's contribution to the fank...
Hi Missus Hermit. You're pensive this weekend! Is the younger billy goin in the freezer for bad behaviour (buttin the old billy), or was that always the plan? Agree with you 100% about the tyranny of youth BTW....
Hope Later from still no there yet
So Electro Girl, have the super powers kicked in yet :) ?
Yes you're right, the old pass and the young take over and that is natures way, but it's not our way - at least not so coldly. Kind hearted folk care for the old, like you and your Billy, as in time your son & daughters will care for you. It is our way to sacrifice our time for those we love. Nature can't afford to do that, but we can. Just because nature is cold and ruthless it doesn't mean we have to be.
I don鈥檛 blame the 鈥測outh鈥 for not being age aware, it鈥檚 the loud part of our society (TV & other media) that focus on being young and beautiful. It鈥檚 difficult - even for parents who care - to counter balance the effect of advertisements that are basically training our children to be selfish pleasure seekers.
We mind our own, and keep them with us as long as it's right to do so. Some day the billy won't get back up, but that day isn鈥檛 today, and I'd bet there鈥檚 a large part of him glad you helped him, and wanted to keep him around a bit longer. Here鈥檚 to Billy, and to Electro Girl, his valiant belly dancing protector :)
(Nice blog Hermit)
Salty from Dublin
glad to know you're still an electrical jinx :) I couldn;t agree more with you about valuing age - yes, the youth have their value and their strength but humanity has always survived by learning, and using our brains. We're not the fastest, or the strongest, we survive because we're the more cunning. And noone is as cunning as an Auld Wan!
GerCelt from Dublin, Ireland
Hermit, i've just opened a bottle of my rhubarb wine--WOW!!! thanks for the recipexxxx
carol from over here
What have you started HL?
Tws from The Croft Lewis
It might explain why they're all on the bed...
Flying Cat from just back from mizwhitty
it explains why i'm still in bed!!!
carol from over here
Grand blog HL, but to read that you count yourself amongst the older members of the global village makes me laugh a good belly-dancing laugh. Good try, come back in a 100 years!
Barney from Swithiod behind the times
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