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<\/a><\/p>\nSince my gardening was stymied by waiting for the seedlings, I spent a day cleaning out the koi pond.\u00a0 This is usually a gruesome task, worsened by bitter children assistants, therefore, it is usually delayed until it can’t be avoided any longer.\u00a0 But with a sump pump borrowed from my dad I managed the task by myself in just a few hours.\u00a0 The children assistants were only responsible for the slippery job of transferring the koi back to the clean pond by hand.\u00a0 The koi cannot be put back by net (which is how I remove them) because the net invariably carries muck and mud back into the clean water.\u00a0 The koi cannot be put back by hand by me<\/em> because that involves an alarming amount of screaming, dropping, and cursing and, possibly, traumatic brain injury to dropped fish.\u00a0 The children considered the fish transfer a fair trade for avoiding hauling buckets of disgusting water out of the pond by hand for an entire afternoon.<\/p>\n Oddly enough, the day after the pond was clean and fresh, the Venus fly trap turned brown and wilted in the kitchen window.\u00a0 We rushed it to its summer location at the edge of the koi pond and those same 80 degree temperatures that were the speed-growing the seedlings in the greenhouse returned the Venus fly trap to it’s lush green existence in just a day.\u00a0 So hand-feeding the Venus fly trap its meal worms is done until next winter.\u00a0 (Let us all give thanks for small mercies.)<\/p>\n This is synchronicity, people.\u00a0 It cannot be forced.\u00a0 It cannot be faked.\u00a0 It just happens.<\/p>\n But it gets better.<\/p>\n We headed off to a flock swap last weekend with one of the baby goats and a pair of Silver Laced Wyandotte chickens.\u00a0 The Wyandotte pair came out of the chicks we ordered in October.\u00a0 One of the “pullets” turned out to be a rooster and had to go.\u00a0 Since no one ever wants to buy a rooster we decided to pair him with one of the Silver Laced Wyandotte hens and sell them together.\u00a0 It was a long shot, but it was the first flock swap hosted by the local Tractor Supply and so we figured anything could happen.\u00a0 We ran into a few good friends at the swap, including one that was….you are not going to believe this….looking for a rooster.<\/em> And not just any rooster.\u00a0 Specifically, a Silver Laced Wyandotte rooster<\/em>.<\/p>\n Yep, my friend got up that Saturday morning and came to the flock swap with the slim hope of finding someone selling a nice, healthy, young Silver Laced Wyandotte rooster.\u00a0 And there was one sitting in a crate next to my van, crowing away.\u00a0 How is that possible?\u00a0 Synchronicity, people.\u00a0 Synchronicity.\u00a0 I sold him the rooster and took my hen right back home.\u00a0 Since I didn’t really want to sell her anyway.<\/p>\n But we didn’t sell the baby goat at the flock swap.\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 Instead we met some people who wanted to buy 2 goats.<\/em> So we all came back to the farm and sold them that baby goat plus the last remaining doeling of the season.\u00a0 And then we dropped off the buckling with his new owner.\u00a0 He already had a home to go to, but was just staying here until the doelings sold.\u00a0 By afternoon all the goat kids from this season were sold and gone.\u00a0 I was glad to see them go and the barn returned to the usual calm and quiet.\u00a0 But I knew it would mean milking twice a day and the farm fridge overstocked with goat milk.<\/p>\n Good thing that we came in the house to find a phone message from a woman selling piglets.\u00a0 We’d been looking for spring piglets for a couple months but last year’s bout of PEV resulted in a lot fewer pigs on the market.\u00a0 This woman had 4 piglets left and those piglets cost exactly the amount of cash I had folded in my pocket from the sale of the goat kids.\u00a0 Exact same amount.<\/em> I figured those piglets would gobble up the extra goat milk so that we wouldn’t have to buy a lot of grain and we’d keep the farm fridge from overflowing.\u00a0 So we went and picked up the piglets.\u00a0 The Other Half was disappointed I didn’t successfully barter down the piglet price.\u00a0 You don’t argue with synchronicity, people.\u00a0 No arguing.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n