06/13/2026
Good day folks. We’ve been pretty absent from the socials this past while, so we wanted to pop on here and connect. As many of you already know, the past four months have been difficult for us. My dad died pretty suddenly in February, so I spent about three weeks back in BC tending to all that comes with the death of a loved one. Then a week after returning home to Cape Breton, our oldest and one of my very favourite goats died. Sadie was my cuddle-bug, my dear friend, and one of our very first goats. My heart felt so very heavy.
During the months of April and May we welcomed the birth of five new goat kids to the farm, all of which went smoothly thank goodness as kidding season can bring a lot of anxiety for me and I already felt pretty maxed out by that point. We did have some issues post kidding with two of the moms as well as one kid who somehow injured her knee, but none of it too serious, it just required some extra energy that we had to dig a little deeper than usual to find.
The constant reminder of birth and death on a farm is never more than a hair’s breadth away and living with 63 furry and feathered beings means that we have a very high probability of experiencing death far more often than most. Although that reality can be hard on the heart, it has also been one of the greatest teachers of my life and I believe one of the greatest gifts in helping me navigate the very close to my heart human deaths that I have experienced these past five years with my mom, grandfather, and now dad.
So, it didn’t come as a total surprise when in May, Death came a-knockin’ again. This time, the knock was for our sweet old ginger kitty, Lily. This summer, Will and I will celebrate 18 years together, and Lily was with us for 17 of those 18 years. She was home for us, our constant companion, a most wicked huntress, and the best fu***ng cuddly cat you’ve ever met. Her absence is continually felt and her death, although not surprising, has added to the grief I’ve been carrying. The grief that we’ve both been carrying. Lily taught me resiliency and determination; commitment and mothering. Although she had gone deaf a couple of years ago and then blind last winter, it only took her a short period of adjustment and then she was right back to living a very full and contented life.
During the past winter, we kept praying that Lily would make it to spring so that she could once again enjoy the warmth of the sun and lay out in the garden or on her favourite bag of mulch near the front door. And she did. She made it to spring. She had become quite thin in her old age, even though we would feed her anything that she wanted any time she wanted it, but her lack of muscle tone and body fat didn’t stop her. She would claw at our chairs to get up on our laps for a cuddle. She would climb up onto the bed for some lovin’ and then find her own way down…all while completely blind. Once the weather warmed up, she demanded to be let out to fertilize our bare garden beds (I swear the cats think that we built the beds just for them…gigantic, oversized kitty litter boxes.) Lily loved laying in the garden soaking up the sunshine or safely resting on our laps when we would go out and join her. Using her whiskers, she would feel her way around, both inside and outside. She was amazing.
In late May we had a visit from Chelsea and Clarke, our lovely volunteers from last summer who are now our lovely new neighbours. They both adored Lily, especially Clarke…the two of them had a connection and we were all grateful that they got to see her again, yet both Will and I saw something shift that day with Lily. It was like all of a sudden she looked tired and very, very old. You know how humans have been known to wait for loved ones before dying? Well, cats do the same it seems because that next morning it became very clear that our time with Lily was drawing to a close. We took her out into the garden to lay with her in the sunshine as we wanted to soak up all of our remaining time with her, and shortly after we brought her out, she died. She died in the sunshine with us holding her and loving her as we always had and as we always will. We were heartbroken, yet also so incredibly grateful for our time with her and that she died on her own, here at home, surrounded by those who adored her.
A few days after her death, we received some very exciting news from our youngest daughter and her partner who live in BC. And no, she is not my biological daughter, yet as the line goes from a film that I watched years ago, which really resonated for me - “children come through you, not from you” - so I feel honoured to call her my daughter. Anyways, she is pregnant!! and we will be welcoming a baby boy to our family in October! Birth and Death. Birth and Death. So interwoven. Then, just a few weeks ago, our daughter was hit by an oncoming car while driving, putting her and their unborn baby in a very serious car accident. Thankfully, both she and the baby were alright considering the severity of the accident. There were some seriously committed guardian angels looking out for them that day.
Needless to say, it has felt like a really heavy and intense winter and spring. Life has been full-on lifing lately and it would be cool cool cool for it to just slow the f**k down a little. We are also both currently in the midst of being sick with a cold…something that I was actually quite shocked hadn’t already happened given everything that’s come our way the past few months. And as any of you who have experienced deep grief that shakes your very foundation would know, it isn’t something that you just get over or move beyond. Nope. It’s a new room in your house that you must make space for, yet not dwell in constantly. It’s a different smell in the air that takes time to adjust to. A new ache in your body that cannot be tended by any pill, herb, exercise, or remedy. It’s a never-before-felt presence that requires grace and love. An entirely new way of existing in the world, even though everything on the outside still looks basically the same. But to us, our world is completely different, again, so we are taking some much needed time to adjust, to rest, to heal, and to feel into what’s next.
So we apologize if we’re slow to respond to your emails, your messages, or your phone calls. Getting back into the swing of things has yet to really happen. We are in a period of transition, and although we feel hopeful and excited for what the future will bring, we also just need to slow down a little and hope that life chills out for a bit too.
In the meantime, we ask for your patience and trust to know that we are taking care of ourselves as best we can and we look forward to sharing what’s next with all of you. 💜
