New Life Old Farmers

Our driveway has been, shall we say ‘uneven’?  So with the damp of Autumn and some rain, we’ve had puddles in it akin to small swimming pools.  It has been a muddy mess and there has been no way to drive through it ‘cleanly’.  The Teen and I were talking about it the other day and as she channeled her inner race car driver, she got a gleam in her eye and said, “That’s my favorite…splashing through the mud!”

Well, I had bad news for her today, we got a load of gravel to repair the mud pit.  As the large dump truck did it’s dumping, I couldn’t help but feel like my little boys (who are now men) should be here for this moment as it seemed sort of a waste to not have little boys to share it with.  A real dump truck, big and large, dumping right in our driveway…what can I say once a Mom of boys, always a Mom of boys.

It was then up to Jubal and I to spread the gravel around evenly and not muck it up even more.  I was a bit apprehensive about getting it all around evenly.  Spreading gravel is like frosting a cake, except all the frosting has been put on top of the cake and you’ve got to go over it again and again to smooth it out to the sides.  Oh, and you’re using a tractor to move the frosting not a spatula, and it takes longer, otherwise it is just like frosting a cake…and there’s no yummy frosting to lick off your fingers, but other than that, it is the same.

Farm Prozac is working on Jubal.  I love working on our tractor.  I know we got off to a rough start what with my breaking her and the day I accidently did a wheely on her, but since then Jubal and I are a team.  We frosted our driveway and I must say it is looking pretty darn good.  My Loving Spouse was so pleased with it, he wants Our Friend the Farmer to come see it.  Some men brag about their wife’s cooking, but mine about his city wife’s tractor skills.  Me, I’m glowing, praise is praise.  Jubal and I are a team.

I think I began imagining how pretty lights would be on this house at Christmas about a nano-second after we found out it would be our new home.  Actually getting the lights on the house I knew was going to be a bit of a challenge.  Luckily, My Loving Spouse and I were on the same wave-length for this one.

What color lights do you want?  

WHITE! – agreed!

How many should we get?

Enough! – How much is that?  

I have no idea, but I’m sure whatever we buy won’t be it.  

We even agreed to put them up the ‘hard’ way, screwing in cup hooks to the eaves of the roof, thereby making it the ‘easy’ way next year.  The only argument we had, was who was going up the really, really, really tall ladder.  I thought I should, because My Loving Spouse was still feeling under the weather.  He thought he should because he’s good at it, as if that should make a difference.  Actually, it turns out that, it was a pretty good reason, as after he did the hard part (balancing around the electrical wires) he let me have a go at it and I froze at about 14 feet up with another 5 feet to go.  The ladder worked great, but it was wiggly   Wiggly and up high, sort of did me in.  I came back down the ladder feeling badly about my ladder climbing skills.  My Loving Spouse reminded me I am really good at laundry, and he is right.  I do ace laundry.  I did redeem myself toward the end and got on top of the roof to screw in the last of the cup hooks.

The only other hard part was returning the borrowed ladder to the church.  The problem with driving a really big truck in our town is that everybody drives really big trucks, so ‘everybody’ is under the misguided notion that I can actually drive our really big truck around town and they of course would be wrong.  Our truck is a long bed and has a front seat and a back seat so it is a verrrrrrry long truck.  Add a ladder that sticks out the back a few feet and I felt like I was driving a school bus.  I took the route that would have me making the least amount of turns and was grateful that on some of these streets the speed limit was 20 mph.  I did manage to return the ladder and get our truck home without mishap.

The lights look great!  We know, because The Teen loves them.  In fact, The Teen actually drives home the long way so she can see the house lit up across the neighboring field.  Not only did we buy ‘enough’, but it turns out that we bought two times ‘enough’ (trust me having the store be far away is a powerful motivator to get ‘enough’ of everything no matter what we are doing).  So, since we have more than ‘enough’…. the lighting of Glory Farm, I have a feeling is not yet finished.

Our sweet church volunteered to man all the Salvation Army kettles in town for this Saturday.  My Loving Spouse and I signed up for a shift, which was a first for me.  Our assignment was 11:00 – 1:00pm at the grocery store nearest the college.  Noon on a Saturday = early morning for the college crowd.  Most of the college kids that came by did in fact look as if they’d just rolled out of bed, primarily boys, kind of large and hairy picking up large gallons of milk and toilet paper.

The weather was gorgeous, but even so our bell ringing spot was the foyer of the store with the shopping carts, left over Halloween candy and a Christmas knickknacks display.  Unfortunately, our shift was kind of quiet, so I tidied up the displace case behind me and will confess that we played with the musical Santa hat more than a few times.  My Loving Spouse was not feeling well, so he was taking a break when I found that the store’s camera was right on us.  It was then that I’d wished some of my crazy fun-loving friends were with me (yes, you know who you are) as making kissing faces at the camera is not as much fun when you’re alone.

Our bell was a perfect symbol of the Salvation Army, a bit worn, the clapper replaced with a paperclip and a nut, but it rang well all the same.

We may not have had the busiest spot, but we did have the opportunity to greet many people with a smile and a sincere welcome.  By 12:45 I was praying for my replacement.  “Bless them Lord, keep them healthy, help them to show up.”

There was an older classy lady who upon leaving turned and said, “Thank you for doing this”.  There was the small immigrant family with three tiny girls,and the mother carefully gave each child coins to put in the kettle, and my favorite of all was the college boy with a donut in one hand who was racing out the door to make the free shuttle bus and called out, “That was my last 50 cents”.

A good reminder to me that in giving like all things, we cannot or should not judge the book by its cover.

I have lots and lots still to learn about country life, lots!  I have learned just a little bit.  I guess you could say, that I am starting from the ground up, because the little bit I’ve learned is mostly about poop.

When I lived in the suburbia we had dog-doo and cat liter.  We had a great pooper-scooper for the dog doo, which somehow is one of the few items that got lost on the move.  Go figure, now that I’m up to it in poop, I’ve lost my scoop.

It is not that hard to tell the difference between horse poop and cow poop, dog poop and chicken poop.  The cats score on this one, as they do bury their poop, thereby making them the best poopers on the farm.

Today I saw some new poop and it didn’t belong to our animals.  No big deal, but I knew it!  Not only did I know it, but My Loving Spouse and I discussed it, described it and declared it, coyote.  Yep, we know our poop and there are no pictures today… on purpose.

I’m going to run with the ‘half full’ mentality this advent.  I need it.

The problem is that I am a sucker for those magazines that show homes decorated for the holidays with a warm, cozy and clean (clean is a must) style.  Where every room has red ribbon, Christmas quilts, pine boughs, festive pillows, candles, cheery fire light, well wrapped gifts and where even the white fabric is ‘white’.  I love those rooms, except I do wonder who dusts them.  We’re not there yet, we may be some day in about 10 years or perhaps never.

Today, I’m not even sure where all the Christmas boxes are, what we threw out before we moved, where it all goes or how we get the lights on the house.  I sure don’t know how to decorate a barn… but I’d love to.  Our home might be half restored and half remodeled, but our “glass” is certainly ‘half full‘ not half empty.  I’m going to embrace the advent season with whatever little I can do and do my best to stay in the ‘half full’ mentality.  In my attitude, I’m ready advent, I’m ready snow.  In my yard… time to remove pumpkins.

Re-doing almost everything seems to be the key to learning how to do things ‘right’.  It’d be nice to do things ‘right’ the first time, if we in fact knew what the ‘right’ thing is and of course, we don’t.  So, today I re-stacked a stack of wood.  “Re-stack” isn’t even a word, except in my vocabulary, so let me explain that I moved a tall (emphasis on tall) and tidy stack of wood from one spot in the wood shed to another.  Why?  Well, not for the exercise.  In our lack of wisdom we’d managed to stack the seasoned wood behind the ‘wet’ wood and now that we needed it, we couldn’t get to it.  Hence, the re-stacking.

I also did some ‘re-splitting’.  More vocabulary, re-splitting is splitting wood that was already split, but apparently not split small enough.  Since the key to staying warm in our home is wood that burns well and burns hot, I was very motivated to re-do it all.

Luckily, I can be taught and trust me, we have a system now, one of stacking, splitting and intense organization of what wood goes where and when, ’cause it is getting cold.

The day after Thanksgiving is my favorite day of the year!  I kind of hate that there is so much emphasis on buying, buying, buying, go to the mall and shop, shop, shop.  Of course there is no mall here, which is fine with me, so Black Friday is a bit different.  We do have a ‘plaid’ Friday in Ellensburg, if you wear plaid you can get a discount on your shopping downtown.  Of course none of us went downtown either, plaid or not.  We did what we do best.  Chain saws anyone?

Our pasture is an eyesore and it has been on the list.  A row of about a dozen willow trees edge the pasture and are all in a state of dying.  Multiple downed branches littered the pasture and many more large branches were on their way down.  It was a huge mess and the weather was just right to make a new slash pile and burn it, hauling sticks, branches and logs to the towering inferno.  Sounds easy, but really it ended up as my very own Black & Blue Friday.  I managed to whack a branch into my leg, drop a log on my foot and walk into a low-lying branch.  I guess it is true, no pain, no gain.

Luckily, we had plenty of young people here and they love learning to drive tractors and work with fire.  We all worked hard, and the pasture is finally becoming transformed.  As for myself, well, all I can say is that, Advil is my friend.

I’ve never had a camp fire, where every boy and man around didn’t poke the fire continually.  Poke it, move it, adjust it with ‘the’ stick.  I’ve learned, go ahead ladies, nod your head, this is just what ‘they’ do.  It probably goes back to the cave man days of conquering fire and I’m really okay with it, it seems I’ve even gotten use to it.  In fact, I’ve gotten so use to it, that this is what I’ve been thinking My Loving Spouse has been doing for the last month with our wood stove.  He’s been poking it a lot and he does have ‘the’ stick (official iron stove poker) right there to help him.

It turns out he has actually, just been trying to keep us warm.  (Wood stove=heat)  I know, because he’s been gone on business for two days and it has come down to me to keep The Teen and I from becoming two tall ice cubes.  I am really not very good at being the proactive fire poker person.  I’d have to say my style so far has been completely reactive.  “Hmmm”, I say, “why am I cold?  Oh, (bad British word) the darn fire again.”  Where I jump up grab ‘the’ stick and start to poke it, add wood and stir.  I am sure I will get better at this, but so far it is a bit of work.

One of my biggest ‘city’ moments was when I found out we didn’t have gas, natural gas all piped in and ready for my enjoyment.  It was actually after we’d bought the house, when I found out.  The impressively educated dialog went something like this,

“What do you mean we don’t have gas?”

“Well, it doesn’t come out that far.”

“Do you mean, that we don’t have gas?”

“No, we don’t have gas.”

“So, does this mean we don’t have any gas?”

There are few ‘set it and forget it’ life situations out here and we or rather me/I am learning to do things differently, but I do miss gas.  So, I am learning to poke the fire and clean up the lite bits of ash dust that seem to travel everywhere, as well as the bits of wood and dirt that fall off the fuel on their way to the stove.  A note to all visitors, come and enjoy the warmth of our home, but leave the white glove behind.

All in all, I am grateful…

grateful that men and especially My Loving Spouse have been hard-wired to poke the fire which keeps us warm

grateful that we didn’t move the woodshed farther away from the house

grateful for this farm

grateful for you and I hope that your home fires will be kept burning.

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving.

We had our first cattle drive here at the farm and it wasn’t pretty.  Okay, we only have one cow so it was more of a ‘cow drive’ and to be honest, it looked a bit more like a cow ‘pull’, as My Loving Spouse had to put a rope around her hind quarters to ‘encourage’ her to move.  Our cow, Elsie Gump, did not want to be moved, as I’m sure she did not know we were moving her to a new field with even more green grass.  As she only moves on three legs, she used that to her advantage to not be ‘driven’ and I couldn’t help but wonder what we were going to do when she is 1000 pounds.  All in all, she acted like a stubborn toddler, moving very quickly when faced in the wrong direction, stopping to pee and poop and then cleaning her nose with… her tongue.  Yes, it was gross.  Farm life, it’s not all pretty.

I’ve been stretched in so many new ways in the last 6 months, it boggles my mind sometimes.  I expected to learn about tractors, animals (poop) and growing ‘stuff’.  I might even have imagined the opportunity for new creative endeavors, but I would not have expected to put them ‘out’ there for the world to see and critique.  Managing to just navigate the computer learning curve to open our Glory Farm Shop was enough to cause hours of exasperation, complete with plenty of huffing & puffing.  With a long history of being criticized, putting myself in a new field is scary.  Pat (yes, his real name) is my encourager, supporter and the one who puts the rope around my ‘hind’ quarters to help me move to a new field.  Resting in his belief in me is truly a greener field and why I call him My Loving Spouse.

Over the last 6 months, I have been watching our sweet new church wrestle with a big decision, one that affected everyone.  As we did not have a ‘history’ yet with the congregation, we purposely stayed out of the process and the conversation.  It was not our place to tell them where to ‘go’, but we knew we’d go with them, whatever the outcome.  I watched this weekend as the final decision was made and have been bowled over, not by the decision itself, but the manner in how it was reached.  There was no ranting, no raving and certainly no one was drug by the hind quarters.  It was an experience of a difficult process handled gently, in a manner without criticism, yet with respect to all.  This new field had me awed.  It is one of grace.  Truly, to God be the Glory.