A Long Haul

I thought that by bull-heading my way through Monday I could manage a graceful week, but no, Tuesday is reminding me that what you need sometimes is just rest. So, I'm puttering and doing domestic things, as I am pretty sure that the next 2 weeks are going to be hectic as hell (in a good way) with Maya coming and all the things I want to get done...

Why am I so tired today? Oh, right.
This weekend there was a concert at my yoga studio, with a Californian (dave stringer) doing kirtan chants which we followed in call and response. The chants are Sanskrit songs created to teach little lessons, and it was pretty cool. Each one went on for about 15, 20, maybe more minutes, and by the end, what had started out as so slow and soothing was a stomping, dancing, clapping, singing mess of sweaty yoga-nerds. It went on for about 3 hours, whew! So nice!

Then I went to Barbara's going-away party, where she had made me gluten-free berliners (jelly-filled donuts) and we all danced and sang for the rest of the night. Daniel was there in east-Germany regalia, full 80's suit and tie, and we all drank a good amount of champagne and wine. Which why, perhaps, Daniel succumbed when I bargained for him to stay the night in Basel; "I'll help you tomorrow with the cows, don't worry about it..." (He was watching the farm for his parents that weekend).

This is how, after not NEARLY enough sleep, I went to Oensingen with Daniel at 5:30 AM to milk and feed the cows, hung over and half-frozen from the bike ride to the car. I took over feeding the cows the milk that daniel milked from the others. the littlest ones are easy, you just give them the bucket and make sure they don't knock it over. Then Daniel grinned and motioned ot the final group, the biggest 'young' cows, outside in a little fenced off area by the barn. I figured that the best way to feed them was all at once, so they wouldn't compete too much, and I climbed in to the muddy field with them, proferring buckets of lapping, warm milk. It seemed impractially difficult, and just as I thought I should probably figure out a better technique, the little bull who had been hassling me and the other cows ran straight under my legs from behind, launched me like a wilted corn husk and dropped me with a graceful "schlooop" in the mud-and manure.

Still, it was a great morning, bumping reggae in the barn and dancing around the cows slopping milk, with little feral barn-kittens mewling in the hay.

The fun of playing in the mud wore off about an hour later as the real hang-over and exhaustion set in. We cooked a slow, garden-picked feast, giggled at ridiculous Bavarian pop on TV, and went to sleep for hours. When we woke up, the Sunday feeling had officially taken over, and I was pissy and bored. The village suddenly felt cloying and stagnant, stuck all over me like a still, sticky mess. It was like a triathalon of running, train-changing, and stair-climbing to make it home, and when I did, I was thoroughly ready for a coma. Which is what I fell into as soon as my head found something horizontal.