TAKIN' A BREAK FROM IT ALL

Yes, I took off  for a few days to get outta here and take a break from it all.  Now one may ask, "WHY would you want to leave some place that most would want to escape to?"  and really, that's the point (and one of my favorite sayings): one must be gone to be missed. 

I left for the Boundary waters and a few days of camping on Sunday morning with my friend Laura.  It was the perfect amount of time to be gone and the perfect time for solitude and reflection.  Sometimes this farm can get the best of me, with all the responsibilities and things that need to be done everyday, twice a day, and things that have to be done, every day, twice a day, and things that should be done, every spring, summer and fall.  So to get away and not have to worry about those things, to sit in silence and reflect on my blessings, it's something that I should be doing every month!

I got 60 beautiful, blessed hours: some hiking time, some quiet time, some fun time, some friendship time, some much needed sleep time and some very needed, utterly quiet, peacefully silent, alone time. 

I sat along the shore of Lake Sawbill and felt the complete silence of the water, the slight stir of the wind in the trees, listened to the call of the loon, the scurrying of the red squirrels, smelled the rich piquant scent of the pine needles, and with all the tranquility of the place, gained several moments of clarity, peace and serenity:

As much as I have, as much as I give, I still forget to be grateful sometimes. I forget the good things in life that I have, and I wonder, why?  Why and how can one walk through life on a daily basis and forget all the things that she is blessed with?  How can one live in a life and not see the beauty in it?  How can one just "go through the paces" and forget that she has so much???  SO many friends, such wonderful kids, such a perfect husband?  I own a perfect, beautiful farm, with perfect, beautiful animals and perfect, beautiful land with perfect beautiful ...... well anyway, I do. I forget.  I forget so often that I have to run away from reality in order to remember.

So I came home with a whole new attitude, and a whole new love for this silly little, burden ridden farm (and 800 emails) and now today I spent the whole morning out there thinking of all the things I could do! All the things that I longed for before but got burdened down by all the things that had to be done first.

For example, I am gonna make some hard cider with all the apples we collected (as soon as I find a juicer - I decided on a juicer instead of a cider press, less mess, cheaper), and I am gonna revamp my entire philosophy about Farmer's Market: I am gonna make Liquid Goat Milk Soap to sell and I am gonna grow some lavender in the garden,  I'm gonna not think of the market as a pain in the ass anymore. Things like that.

Oh, and in my vision quest out there in the big woods, I asked for clarity to life's most fleeting question, "What is my purpose in life?"  I got an answer from the almighty, but it's not repeatable.  It can only be shown.  It can only be seen, experienced and shared.

I know: I'm vague and mysterious, It's just who I am - deal with it.

Let's hope my re-new found love for this crazy place stays in place for a little while.  Maybe I should just keep going up north on a monthly basis. 

Although it's colder then bat shit up there in the winter, yes, colder then it is here.

Well, maybe then just during the warmer months.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

Again, we lost another piece of our life to old age:  our camper died!  yes, my dear, sweet, old camper bit the dust.  Our last trip out was on the fourth of July.  It was a desperate case of wanting to get the heck outta  here and camp!  At that time the state government were fighting like school children, "I know you are but what am I?"  and they closed down for a few weeks.  Now most people would be a little concerned when their husband may be laid off because of a state shutdown, but my main concern was the horse camping trails!  Where was I gonna ride if they closed down the state parks??????

So we went to Wisconsin and drove all the way out to Wildcat Creek state park.  Maybe this was a little too far for my old beast, even though she handled it quite well, there was this downhill on they way there that was so long and scary, all i could think of was, "She'll NEVER make it back up this!"  I asked the ranger for a flatter way back and luckily I did because a few weeks later when i took her out again to go for a day ride to the Bottoms, she stalled.  $130 for a tow and a friend's diagnosis of her failure later: she's dead, a blown piston.

So i moved her old, creaky body to it's final resting place - beside the garage near the pole barn. She is now designated as a guest place. Since everything works in her but the engine, it should be a nice place to stay.

So was this #7 or #8 of things going wrong?

PERCY HAS LOST A FRIEND

If you had seen Percy in the last few months, you saw that she was lonely and decided she would grow a friend on her side that would be with her always, show her unconditional love and listen when Percy needed a shoulder to cry on.  This growth had gotten so extremely big that it was looking like it might actually take over and no one wants your friend to become a barnacle and suck the life out of ya.  So we took Perc to the vet to have this growth removed.

Now this next picture is not for the faint of heart as it is pretty gross.  Gross because Percy returned from the vet looking like Frankenstien's monster. Well, at least with the stitches everywhere she could have been sewn together by the likes of Dr. Frankenstein.  Not that I am calling my vet Frankenstein, ok? Don't go running off to tell her that I think she sucks as a suture-ist. That's not true!

The vet took care of all the growths she had, even though i wasn't worried about most of them: when she has had small growths before I would just lance them myself, drain them and within a few days they were gone (yes, razor blades and iodine are handy on a farm - i've learned a lot around here in these last 8 years).  But not this big one it was huge - it coulda won prizes.

and when you have itchy stitches, you start lickin'.  If your a dog, or maybe if your a human too I don't know, I've never done it.

So that leads to the epitome of all shamefulness for dogs:

THE CONE OF SHAME!

The only problem is Percy is a genius and figured out that if you just tuck your cone under your leg, you can lick it anyway.

Back to the vet for you, Percy!

It did get infected and we took her back for some major anti-biotics and some LickGuard.  She's doin' better now.

Only time will tell if Percy will get another friend.

#5, #6… OR WAS THERE MORE?

I really did loose track.  And if i go back a few months what appears to be #5 and #6 are really #1 and #2 and set off this whole tumultuous cycle of tragic events, but they don't need numbers, let's just all recognize that they sucked, big time.

Prior to the fall out with the well pump, I went out to the garage one day to find that our chest freezer was dead.  Crap!  there wasn't too much in it but enough to make me think , "PARTY!"  So we could share all the food.  No there wasn't that much; some old bread, a few chunks of meat and some ice cream.  And it appeared it hadn't been out too long as things were still cold, just defrosted.

Oh, wait!  i think a few weeks before that the fridge in the garage went out too, but we just put the old dorm-size fridge out there and all was well.  Usually all we use it for is eggs.

But when i checked on that fridge after noticing the freezer was dead, it was dead too.  Ok, so things are not going well.  i plugged them into other outlets thinking that maybe the power-strip had died, but that wasn't the case.

So no fridge or freezer, and when you have a farm and lots of harvested crops - you need these things.  Need is the operative word here, not want but NEED.

So i salvaged what I could and moved it into the Barn Bar's fridge, which makes for less room for beer and really disappoints those who drink such swill.

THENNNNNN…… when they were diggin' up all the ground to put the new water line in, the fridge in the guest house died.  Yes, we were now down to just two fridges and one freezer.  Not good.

So really, did it start with the chest freezer weeks ago?  Does it really happen in 3's and how long does the actual time line of events count? Is it three times in a month?  Three times in a year?  Or is it, in our case, one after the other?  Or do you only count three at a time?  These are very important factors that have to be figured out in order to determine our own fate in this world.  I need to know, I don't want to know, I NEED to know.

And with all this death, decay and turmoil, it leads us to the ultimate pressing question of the day:  DOES IT MEAN THAT SUPER NATURAL FORCES ARE AGAINST US?

I don't know, ask Louie.

HERE'S #4 and #5 and #6 and…...

Sure, it could stop at #3, really for most of the world they say it happens in three's.  Three things go wrong and then your done.  But no, not here. Not on this farm.  Ya know, I really am a 'glass half full' type of gal, while my husband is like Louie and thinks we are all gonna die, but sometimes circumstances can question even my positive outlook on things.  After all that hullaballoo with the (#1) water pump, (#2) water line, then (#3) gas line, what could come next, right?  Well, how 'bout something else uber expensive and annoying?

Electrical failure!

Yes, indeed!  I went out to lunch with a friend only to have Bob call and tell me, "Well, just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, guess what just happened?"  All i really thought was, "Why are you calling me when I am out?"  Then i thought, "Well I really don't want to know - ignorance is bliss at this point."  Then i thought, "Well I better ask what or he's gonna think I am ignoring his question."  So i said, "What, honey?"

"I turned on the lights in the garage and the overhead lights started flickering and I smelled smoke.  So i don't know what's going on but it's not good. (think Louie) We are gonna have to call the electric company and figure this all out."  This was the shortened version. (think Louie)

I sighed, said. "Ok, honey,"  and hung up.

I sighed again.

Then I started thinking doomsday thoughts and wondered if super natural powers were working against us.

Then i finished my lunch and went home to hear 'the rest of the story.'

Turns out, it's a simple little $8 part that needed to be replaced (of course this will take a couple hours at the rate of $200 hour for labor.)  Funny thing, and ya gotta laugh and say funny at this point, this happened a few years back with the big red barn, now that we recall it. It was replaced and all has been well since.

So we replaced that one as had the repair technician repair the one on the guest house too while he was at it, so $X amount of dollars later, we are FIXED!  Yes, should be fixed for a while now.  What else could go wrong?

Well…..unless you count #5 and #6…..

IT ALL HAPPENS IN 3'S, JUST NOT ON THIS FARM

So this is what I mean….

See the end of last month we had the whole disaster with the new water pump blowing up the old water line, right?  well, they came out two days later to dig up a trench to run the new line in.  It rained the day before and the 'locators' were suppose to come out and check for gas lines and anything else under the ground before someone is to dig, it's the law.  But no one showed up to mark the lawn with the big, fat, orange, spray paint X.


So the following day, they showed up with their big, fat, noisy back hoe and started diggin'.

Louie was very upset and started her, "we're all gonna die!" routine.  This is not something one should ignore when a basset states such things, you should be warned and act accordingly, like her, go hide in the bathroom or under the bed.

And pant endlessly, while whining incessantly.  It's the only thing that works, the only thing that will save your life.




And then there was the question about how they were gonna go ahead and start digging without the X marking the spot, they said, "Oh well, we'll dig anyway."  Now, in my lesser knowledge of such things and lack of comprehension of construction matters, I still thought this was not a good idea.  But Bob was desperate for the water to be hooked back up properly and that we no longer had to have a hose running into our house for water. And what do I really know anyway?

So they dug...

and they dug….

and they dug….

and they dug….

and they dug….





















and they hit a gas line!

Yes, a gas line, not the gas line to the main house but to the guest house.

With my limited knowledge again, I am thinking well, this is not cool.  But at least they did it, didn't get permission to dig, so they will be responsible for getting it fixed, right?  Wrong, according to the water line diggers.  "They would have never found that secondary line.  Things like this happen all the time.  You are responsible for fixing it."  Really?

So Bob calls the company that did the work and they would have nothing to do with it, unless we dug a whole new line to the guest house and pay an additional $2k.  Yeah, right.

Now, not only are we playing this game of repairing the water pump, repairing the water line and now we have to repair the gas line.  I don't like games like this, or any games for that matter, Ok, except maybe some board games like Scrabble or Monopoly.

Luckily we have great friends and they helped us out getting it  fixed and working properly for WAY less then $2k.

Now look at this:

Now my yard is a complete mess. We are even more broke and no one is responsible.  Not even the insurance company will help. Louie thinks we are all gonna die and Bob's coming close to loosing his mind, and me too - watching him almost loosing his mind.
But at least it's all over we have experienced the 3's, there will be no more!


But then…. came #4…….

PETER JOHN LARSON - FOUR MONTHS OLD

Yes, they sure do grow up faster then you can ever imagine.  Why just yesterday I gave birth to my daughters, today they are in college!  What a great big boy this fella is turning out to be, a real charmer!