It's officially spring break in my neck of the woods. Of course, that thought made me *snortle out loud just now, as anyone who lives on a farm, ranch or homestead knows that spring equals the equivalent of two thousand tractor buckets of work.
The thing is though, that I rejoice in the prospect of all that glorious outside work the arrival of spring heralds, so yesterday was more than a bit of fun for me, even if my knee feels a bit dodgy today.
After a delightful cup of coffee, I bounced outside and collected my push broom and a shovel. Attached to our house is a lovely 28X32 carport, an addition that I am most fond of. Apparently my people are enamored with the structure too, because over the winter it becomes a catchall of sorts, so much so that I christened my carport Beautiful Katamari because of all the detritus that has stuck in there. Grrr...
So for the first chunk of my day I put away and cleaned out the carport. An apple grinder, cider press, buckets of tools, boxes, six hundred errant basketballs, broken target clays, a shotgun thrower, it really was a mish mash of life dander beauty, but I got er done.
Then there was the mud removal. Mud season leaves a milk chocolate patina on the surface of everything, so after a bit of shoveling and push broom wielding, my carport looked right fancy.
Then I moved on to wood cutting explosion cleanup. Being a bit on the lazy side, or at least the laid back side (3/4 of my family is Hawaiian after all) we drag trees into our yard and buck up our winter's firewood right next to the wood shed. It's not a bad way to put in wood other than the leftovers After putting in about 6 cord, there's at least 15 giant wheelbarrow loads of sawdust, bark, and small limbs to burn. I just started a fire in the driveway and got at it.
In between adding wheelbarrow loads of tree offal to the smoldering morass, I went around and trimmed my gajillion hyssop bushes. I should have trimmed them last fall but guess what, I don't always get things done that I want to. It's a shocker, I know.
Part of the hyssop trimming interlude of my day also included taking a shovel to the grass that perpetually tries to install itself in my concrete walkway seams. After grass removal and before I could sweep up and remove the debris, this heathen inserted himself into my workflow.
Speaking of animals, they always seem to know how to enliven your flow, don't they? Later in the afternoon as I sat down in a camp chair to sip some iced tea out of a mason jar like a proper, refined redneck, my cowboy corgi Crazy Cora entertained me by tossing a small stick above her head, catching it, and gnawing on it like it was a piece of pine on the cob. She also glared at me as I snapped pictures of her cuteness. Win win right there.
Having children, I can never just work unimpeded on anything without interruption, and at 2:40 after hastily constructing a massive homemade sausage pizza to nosh on, I hopped into the car with my daughter (she has her permit) and let her drive me to her 4-H cooking meeting about ten miles away from the farm. That was when yesterday's most humorous moment occurred.
I had grabbed a new mason jar of tea from the fridge. Upon walking out the door I noted that it was full to the brim and I decided I better not open it until I was up on the pavement instead of our driveway. After my child pulled onto the county road from our driveway, I went to open my tea, and discovered that the lid was slightly sealed on there good. Like most almost sentient idiots I paused and briefly thought about how it probably was going to go all wrong for me.
It did.
The lid popped off and a good cup of ice cold ice tea splashed right onto the old child bearing section of my carcass. I will say though, my daughter handled almost being humorously massacred by her goofy and theatrical mother quite well. I am quite confident that she can handle whatever driving throws at her, so much so that I forgive her for laughing at the freezing of my crotch.
Anyway, after I got back, I added more wood cutting stuff to the fire and plopped down for a bit of a rest (And to dry out my still damp pants), for I knew my brother would be rolling over at any second. He and our illustrious neighbor went on a 30 mile dirt bike ride yesterday, and when I had said hi to them earlier my bro let me know that he'd be over later for some refreshments. That's bro speak for day drinking.
Sure enough, he rambled in, blasting some Cyprus Hill at such a volume that it realigned my spine and put a smile on my face. We sat in my camp chairs for a spell, stoking the fire, he sipping some sort of vodka mixer and Jagermeister and me sipping on my mason jar of iced tea. I still had to go pick up the girl from cooking.
By then I had walked over 13000 steps for the day, yet still felt pretty vigorous. I think my brother brings it out of me, for as we drove to collect the girl, we also rolled down the windows and serenaded our town's inhabitants with a beautiful medley of What's New Pussycat, My Way, and Heart and Soul. The girls outside the VFW seemed most appreciative, as did my daughter, who guffawed like a raven on nitrous oxide from the back seat.
Upon arriving back to the farm, we set about our last task. This winter I bottle fed my future milk cow, a Limousine/Holstein who I lovingly named Morticia. Morty is a bit timid for a bottle calf, most bottle-fed animals are all over you like an offended wokester on Twitter, but not Morty. Anyway, yesterday was her initial halter training lesson.
The plan was for my daughter to get out her show steer, Frankie, a gentle, massive chonk of a bovine and I would lead Morty behind him. My brother, clad in his dirt biking gear came along for the fun.
My daughter and I hopped into the baby bovine's pen, a lovely little abode that Morty shares with her brother Rick, a Holstein steer. I pinned Morty against the wall while my daughter slipped a rope halter over her head, and off we went.
Well, first Morty stubbornly refused to move, then she moved which was great except she reared and tried to head butt me, which ended up with her getting head butted by me and chided greatly. I mean, I mooed harshly at her. My brother thought this was immensely humorous and was bellowing with the same cadence as my larger steer S&P does. I just laughed and handed Morty's lead line to him and told him to walk. He was wearing red and I thought it would be motivating to my stubborn little heifer, I also wanted to walk beside her and twist up her tail for a bit of gentle forward motivation.
The entire session worked surprisingly well. Morty strolled a few feet at a time before humping up, but we just applied pressure, went a few steps, gave head scratchies, and repeated. Frankie, who is a pro at leading, seemed amoosed. Morty made it back to the barn faster than she left it and much more willingly, and was rewarded with some tasty grain.
After we put the moos away and fed everyone, it was back to the fireside for a bit. Bro and I told many a tale as the day faded away. After he had left and I dragged my sorta sore carcass to the bathtub, I marveled at what a wonderful and full day I had just engaged it. Life is good, and manure really does wash off rather easily.
A snortle is a snort chortle and it something I do in amusement at least once a day.
Okay ... this city slicker is worried. What is a shotgun thrower?
And I will inform you that drinking out of mason jars is now considered POSH. You need to make it a pickle jar with some label remains still on it but not enough so you read the label.
You are probably younger than me, Kat. But I would let you adopt me.
Super MOM
One day we will have to sip some Chardonnay out of those mason jars:)
LOL! Probably should have put the word target in between those two wordS lol lol lol. It chucks clay pigeons for shotgun practice. We have our own shooting range, the hubs is a certified shooting sports coach and both our kids are competitive shooters in multiple disciplines. Me, I’m the most useless in firearms land, although I do wield a sharp and rather witty tongue I suppose:D
I’ll be sure to run a couple pickle jars through the dish washer for us to use, I have a few gallons of Chardonnay-like rhubarb wine that we made last fall for the sipping.
I’d totally adopt you, having a most excellent poet and storyteller would be spectacular on fire pit nights, not to mention all the time! :)
Rhubarb like chardonnay. Did you age it in oak? That would be awesome. Love to try it:)
Life would be dull without the assistance of the cats and dogs. I still haven't done any raking in my yard, but it's just as well I didn't start before Sunday's crazy wind, which left a fresh crop of twigs all over. At least the power stayed on, and very few trees came down in the area.