As The Theme from "Jaws" Plays...

Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum....

Another snowstorm is approaching. It should be here tonight. Lots of things to do today. Need to get the leftover limbs cleaned up and stacked, out of the way. Need to finsh the laundry. Need to get the turkey cleaned and ready to roast. Need to get things going. Need to have everything battened down, dry and ready. Bake some banana bread today? Hmmm. Blueberry pancakes for breakfast? Hmm. Let me think. Have to clean out the woodstove today, for the fire tonight and tomorrow. Get those ashes and the two kitchen compost bins dumped into the compost pile.

I thought I heard a racccoon thump onto the verandah last night. "THUMP" and then that chittering sound of a pissed off coon. Couldn't see anything, though. There is still a drift next to the verandah; about 5 feet long and three feet high, swirled on top. I just KNOW they want underneath, in that warm safe place. I check the latticework all of the time, looking for a break. Get in, sneak down next to the dryer vent, and I could have skunks or coons under there. Not a pleasant thought. Like rats - once they get in it is all but impossible to get them out. So I check, and re-check.

Naturally suspicious, me.

Watching the world go by outside my world, via computer. Will Blondie go to ND with the Red Cross? Will Debbie get her new place? Will Rebecca's new job help her at all? The passions play out, and I am the voyeur, watching them all, listening. But none of it affects me. Here there are too many things to do.

Chris is talking about coming out in July or August. I don't believe him. I'm sure he WANTS to but he could never seem to make it 300 miles, much less 1700. Rob and I email back and forth. If TSHTF, he thinks he and his family could make it here. I'm not betting. I invited him - like most - knowing that most will stay as long as they can where they are, thinking and telling each other it will never get that bad - until it is too late. It is useless to tell people anything about themselves. They don't want to hear it, no matter how much they demand to. I proved that once again two weeks ago. Yammer yammer yammer help me help me I am so unhappy tell me the TRUTH - then, of course, dead silence. No one wants the truth. They want THEIR truth. They want what it is convenient for them to believe; what it doesn't hurt them to believe, what makes them feel all better about themselves. Shrug. Not much to do there. Most people will wrap themselves in a familiar pain rather than reach for an unfamiliar and frightening possibility of pleasure.

Tammy wants to bring her new bf Jim to meet us. Still on a wait-and-see with that one, too. I really don't want to get too excited - too many men follow her around because she is smart, funny and beautiful, thinking only what they can get out of her - trying to increase their reputation by being seen with her. Not a whole lot of trust here. She can pick whomever she wants, but time will tell if I like them or not. And I don't want to seem too excited or happy or anxious - because if she has to dump him I don't want my opinion to matter.

The sun is up and the plants are reaching for it as it grazes across the table. Stretch, little babies. The green beans are already six inches high, everything else is expanding. The peas already have 5-10 real leaves apiece! Soon I'll be transplanting the bigger ones into cups. A month to go to put them in the ground and I am soooo impatient.

The chickens I ordered won't be here til May 8 or 9. The incubator is set up and ready to go, though. I could have snatched up some at the feed store the other day; mixed breeds and who cares? I care. Begin as you mean to go on. I may be looking at other options, but I know what I want and why. Blowing money on a spur of the moment purchase was never my style.

Ah, the chickadees are finally up. They discovered my stash of sunflower seeds in the garage; sneaky little devils. I don't mind. Plenty to go around. And the ones in the bag are too hard for them to get into. They flock around the corn after the turkeys leave. Little tiny cheerful survivalists. They are flitting around the pond in front, getting their little sips of morning water. When I cleaned it out last weekend they sat in the lilac bushes and swore at me.

As the sun comes up golden in the east, the grey and brooding western sky seems to just be grumblingly stirring. Today it will be warm - over 50. And clear enough to stack the new wood to weather over for next winter. Stretch and face the new day, knowing that the storms tonight will being in changes... and preparing for them.

What a day!

Well, this morning we got up bright and early as usual, and bustled out of the house by 7 AM. We went to Valentine. At True Value they measured out hose for the sink connection so that I can water the plants in the bay window (some are already over an inch high!). At Baumgarr's Farm Supply I got the equipment for my brooder; the heat lamp, the feeders, the waterers. We got groceries and then went to Pizza Hut for lunch. I took the long way home and Mike slept whle I drove around the Dam. There is no ice now; the waves were battering the shore like always. All along the way we saw pheasants, turkeys, deer, and antelope, bounding out and enjoying the beautiful sunny day.

When we got home I went to the computer and ordered the chicks for the brooder. 10 cocks and 10 pullets. I'll raise the hens and slaughter all but two of the cocks when they are 12-16 weeks old. That way I can have the eggs I want and still have babies! Mike is going to build chicken tractors to put out in the garden to keep down the bugs and weeds, for when the chickens get old enough to be outside.

Then we went out to chop wood. I wanted to fll the woodbox; this next week looks to be pretty bad, with lots of rain and snow and ice. We may even get a Snow Day out of it! So I got the axe and the mallet and the wedge and was splitting logs. Paul came by and offered to help cut down the tree that is uprooting Mike's shop; so they tied a chain around it, girdled it, and yanked it down. I scooted over to Pat's and got some beer for Paul and root beer for us. As they cut up the tree, I loaded it in the wheelbarrow and stacked it neatly next to the garage, to dry out for next year.

Finally at 5:30 we were done. I'm going to go take a shower (pheeewwweeee!!!) and we will have leftover pizza for supper.

MAN what a busy day! And so satisfying - a wood box full of wood, ready to go for a week of snowstorms, chickens that will come in a week or two to fill the brooder in the basement, and green plants growing in the bay window. Life doesn't get any better than this. I'm very tired but, ohhhh, so satisfied!

At Peace

I have been worrying and fussing and thinking and planning and so damned impatient lately.

I was looking online at the Dexter webpage. I want my cows but can't get them yet; reading the info and learning from folks is keeping me in the loop. It's calving season, and they talk about how they don't have to 'pull' the calves; Dexters apparently drop their calves like puppies or kittens! But who is breeding, who will be selling, how can I get a bred cow or three - all important questions. I know I'll probably have to wait til the show in IA in June, but still, it makes me crazy waiting. Looking at their comments keeps me sane.

Then I was looking online this morning at the hatchery where I plan on buying my chicks. I've been looking at it for months now; clicking on the descriptions and pictures, debating on number, type, and size. Since I plan on butchring the cockerels (most of them) early on, I am debating how many chickens I'll have left, how big the coop will have to be, how big the run will have to be. So many things to think about. Will my neighbors fuss about the rooster crowing? Will Dwayne have the chick starter I need? How long will I have to keep the chicks in the brooder in the basement? What will the weather do? How long will I have before I have to build the coop and run?

My neighbor down the street has his own construction company. I'll probably ask him to build the greenhouse; he has a tiny front end loader and is usually pretty busy, but still takes his kids out on the loader on the weekends, teaching them to drive it. To put the greenhouse in the ground for the size I want will take more effort and more equipment than we can do. Which I knew of course.

I am anxious and thinking and plotting and planning, hoping Tammy's potential buyer starts the paperwork today on the house. I was sitting here, aggravating myself with costs and expenditures and worries, when suddenly a voice in my head said simply, "Don't worry so much. I am looking out for you." It was so strange - and suddenly I felt as though, yes, there was Someone looking out for me, watching over me.

Sometimes I forget why I moved here. There were a lot of factors involved, but always, in my rushing around, my aggravation, I knew - knew! - that I was supposed to move, I was supposed to come HERE, that I was directed to this place. When I first saw it, it was like an arrow in my heart, like Brigham Young standing over Salt Lake and saying "This is the place". All of the other places I was going to look at seemed to dissolve away. I have a purpose for being here. I don't know what it is, yet. But there is a reason I was sent here. Just like I was sent to Hardeeville to help Rodney - and I didn't even know it at the time, didn't know him, didn't know the area. But I was sent there as surely as I was sent here. It was only later that I discovered why. And then when it started to fall apart, when Rodney lost his way and fell apart, my father came to me and told me - not in a dream, but as a real person, his usual angry and outspoken self, asking me what the HELL I thought I was doing, that I had done all I could there, that my purpose was fulfilled and I could not help there any more, and I was wasting TIME. That changes were coming and I had to change too. I hated hearing that, but Dad was always right. I know people reading this might think I'm crazy, and maybe I am. But I saw Dad for four hours, as clearly as I see this keyboard and screen, standing on that balcony of my room at the Hilton Head motel, backlit by a raging thunderstorm. I remember crying and arguing with him when he told me there was no more hope there for us or for me; that changes were coming - bad changes - and I needed to get out of there. I packed and went home shaking early the next morning, and told Mike all about it. And it was that night I knew that that was not my purpose anymore, that things had changed - and I would be at peace only when I changed with them.

For some inexplicable reason, this is now my purpose and my life. For some unknown reason, I feel as though I have paid my dues, have done what I was supposed to, have moved on to further my life, my knowledge, my experiences. Everything will work out, as long as I do what I am supposed to, what I feel in my heart is right. Never mind the screaming panic and hysteria that springs up sometimes late at night, the regrets, the tearful sadness of leaving some people I really and truly loved, the "maybe, if I'd done THIS" feelings. All is for naught. I am supposed to be here. And I will be cared for. By Dad, God, or some unknown being, who knows? I am safe.

Mad at Myself

I do not have enough ass.
Dammit.
I do not have enough ass to keep that rototiller in line in the sand!!

I used to be able to wrastle it through the clay with no problem - there was enough resistance on the tines and wheels to keep it steadily going, munching through everything. But in the light sand here, it just takes off, even when I pull the bail down to 1/3 speed.

Now I either have to start hoeing lines - which will take forever - or DH will have to do it. ARGH. He can only do a little at a time; probably a half a row at a time, because of his injuries. I started to get the hoe out and he told me not to... he'll do it. Of course it will take lots longer than it should. Not that I'm ready to plant immediately or anything - but still. It pisses me OFF when I can't do the things I want and need to!

I need a tractor, dammit.

I can still get out there and get the trash and carpet out of the East Garden. THAT will take a hoe - bundles of carpet laid and scattered, willy nilly, folded and twisted and rotted. I'll just back up the truck and pile it all in the bed and take it to the dump. Paul uses it there to keep down weeds.

I did manage to get the woodbox filled again. As beautiful as it is today, the sun shining, 60 degrees outside, warm and springlike, I know that there will be more wood for the fire needed. Even though the maples and the lilacs are budding out already, I still know that snow is a usual thing in April here, sometimes even in May. No seeds will be planted here for at least six weeks, and certainly no plants will be put out - at least, not by me.

Tomorrow I will get out the pump and pump out the melted snow from the pond and get it cleaned out; put the stones around it that Tammy brought me in November.

Grrr. Think I'll go bake something - maybe caramel rolls? - to cheer myself up.

Challenges

The seeds are in the pots in the window.

Drives me nuts. I wanted the greenhouse already! I wanted shelves and shelves of these!

Oh, well, one does what one can. I seem to be a very patient person, but in reality I am eaten alive by wants, wants, wants! I want it all and I want it now!

Sigh. Patience is something I have HAD to learn over years and years. I can't make a ceramic product without pouring the mold. And Waiting. Then popping it out of the mold. And waiting. Then undercoating it. Then firing it. And waiting. Then glazing it and firing it again. And waiting.

I can't make the little green heads of the plants pop out of the soil. Can't force them at all. I can water and sun and warm, but I can't MAKE them grow. Dammit.

Lots more seeds in the basement. Old seeds. Not going to waste pots on maybes - but I AM going to plant them ALL this year, bit by bit.

Do I REALLY have two WHOLE FLATS of green beans and peas, and a whole flat of Zucchini and crookneck? Betchreass. They send me HUNDREDS of these - and only 16 tomato seeds per packet! One Mortgage Lifter tomato packet, and two Opelaikas for paste, and one cherry tomato packet for Mike because he likes picking and eating them right off the vine. Grrrrrr. Good thing I like these things! I'm not planting anything I don't like or won't use.

Last year I carefully saved my basil and marjoram seeds, and dried the herbs. So what do they send me as my free seed? Oh, go on. Guess. Herb seeds aren't hybrid and can be saved year to year, so I do. Sigh. But I did order the sage, chives, and the parsley. We like Parsley.

And the Wave petunias have to be babied, scarified (rubbed with sandpaper) and soaked, and then planted in soilless mix - not covered. Argh again. Another reason I hate hybrids - but the Waves got so much comment last year, spilling over the hanging pots. They really look nice come July. Sigh. The Morning Glories and Coreopsis I can just throw on the ground, but noooooo. Not the Waves. Sigh.

Still to come are the plants - the onions, the potatoes, the blueberries. They won't send those til April - a good thing. I talked one night at the bar to the guy who plants the potato farm near here, and they won't plant til April. So it is a good thing. My Daffs and tulips (TULIPS!! That I don't Have to dig up every summer!) haven't even poked their heads up here yet.

I have to make my spreadsheet, show when I planted what, how long it takes, when I put them in the garden, etc. I want to do this RIGHT so I know and understand my new growing seasons, and what will grow here and what won't, so when I DO start to sell bedding plants I'll have the right ones.

I have to confess here that, as much as I have always NEEDED more room for more plants, dreamed and salivated and desired more space and more more MORE seeds planted and growing, I am a little daunted by the size of these gardens. This is what I've always wanted, dreamed of, and worked towards - but now I have to DO it. I am a little scared.

I think that instead of going to O'Neill for the Irish Festival next weekend I'll stay home and order my chickens. I have x amount of money, and I am going to spend it all - or at least a good amount - on my future here, not on a brief day of frivolity. My friends at work laughed at me - they take days off to go places and do things, and I've told them that the day the chickens come in at the Post Office (Nancy at the PO will call me) is the day I'll take off so I can get them started. You have to take each shipped chicken by hand, dip their little beaks in the water, then turn them loose in the brooder under the carefully adjusted heat lamp. Then you have to scatter the chick starter around so that they can find it. THEN you have to watch them for the first few hours to make sure that the lamp is not too close or too far away, to make sure that they don't smother each other because they pile up when they are cold, etc. Sigh. Everything has to be carefully done because they don't have mamas - and I want them to think of me as their mama. At least until they start breeding on their own in the yard!

So many decisions and so little time. So much space and so few seeds to fill it. So many hopes and dreams about to be realized by my own efforts. I have to ignore that little tremble in my heart and just DO it. Argh.

More thoughts

Barb walked up to the house today. Since she was attacked by the dog last October, she hasn't been walking much. So we walked together for awhile and talked. I really like her and Delbert. We talk about plants and cattle and seed and flowers and horses.

I am sad to see one of my online friends stop her blog. She is selling her homestead in WA. Five years and she has done so much there - but now she has to move to VA for a job. It was Debbie who introduced me to Dexter cattle for homesteading milk and beef production. She will try to buy some property in VA and do the same thing. Her livein boyfriend seems to have grown tired of her and her pursuits, though, and will probably not go with her this time. Turns out he actually had to do real physical labor and he's not keen on doing that again. Typical of some folk - they desperately want to move to the country and live there, but like another friend says, they think it is all picnics on the back forty and not dirty disgusting hard physical work. Like most people, they want the benefits of a lifestyle - any lifestyle, be it Welfare, big-city, high-end, or farming - but want to do none of the work.

I have to say that this irritates me. I've seen it so often. And what really bugs me is the people who trust them, those ones that live off of others, to pull their own weight - and they never do. They have dozens of excuses and reasons, but they want to live a certain way and see no reason to put an effort into it. They drag their partners right down with them, too - they won't work so they make their partners' work double.

I've watched so many friends get destroyed by their choices in partners and friends. They totally believe that this is the best choice possible, that someone else is willing to put in 50% of the labor and love and effort - and then they end up pulling all of the weight in the relationship. Sometimes they realize what has happened and discard those vampires - but mostly they struggle to live with them, appease them, care for them indefinitely, until the vampires themselves wander off, leaving my friends as empty shells of themselves.

I'm watching a friend now get sucked dry by his vampire friends and family. Friends he chose, it's true - but family, too, that will not stop demanding that he put whatever money or effort he has into them, their hopes, their dreams, their day-to-day lives. Makes me sad - like Debbie, he will never shake them loose until he has nothing left to give, or changes his life in one fell swoop that dislodges them permanently.

Meanwhile, while my 'old' friends watch TV and have parties and skim the Internet and go to the latest restaurants, I drive down to the Hub and have the Sunday grass-fed Angus buffet for $6.50, and chat with friends and co-workers at the school. Then I come back and look at the Internet, comparing tractors and accessories, cattle prices and feed costs; look at the auctions for farm equipment and antiques, and dream and hope and plan. My life is so far removed from them now. A walk around town with a friend is more satisfying and fun than any TV show, the Hub is more pleasureable than any trendy restaurant. And I am sad because they will never have what I have, see what I see, do what I do - and never want to, either.

Winter/Spring midground thoughts

My long-lasting cold is better now. Less coughing and more energy.

There are so many things I want to do! The vegetable seeds are "on their way" shipped Feb 27th, a whole WEEK after I ordered them... arggghhh. They'll probably come in this week while I'm at work. Next weekend is Spring Break; I'll get this Friday and next Monday off. I hope the weather is warm enough to do everything I want to, need to, do outside.

The ground outside has a light frost of snow It isn't really cold - well, not for here - about 27 degrees and climbing already. Too cold to go out and dig my trenches yet; I'm afraid my cold will come back gangbusters if I do. I could shovel some more manure out of the corral.

Still thinking about the chickens I will order this month... or next. Want my chickens. Badly. But I don't want them to be full grown before they can come out of the basement. Patience, patience!

Talking with some new friends I have made on some forums. One works on a 300-cow dairy operation and owns a sheep farm. We talk about the cutting of farm subsidies, the niche market that everyone seems to be trying to adapt to, first one than another - then about the labor intensiveness of real farming as opposed to the pie-in-the-sky ideals of newbies who haven't a clue about supply and demand, fertilization, harvesting; that think that growing things against Mother Nature is EASY. Another is moving to AK and is talking about how to alter his soil. I wonder if he has any idea of the costs involved of shipping everything he wants to AK, but I am too polite to ask.

Meanwhile, it turns out that one cousin is living in the second most kidnap prone capital of the WORLD - Phoenix, AZ! Another lives in Orange County, CA. They both talk about the increasing crime, burglaries, robberies, and violence. They blame the economy. I prefer to blame - Congress. Bailing out their buddies while the 'gimme' generation sits and waits for everything to be handed to them; when it isn't they will take it from others. And I think how glad I am to be out of all that.

My stressors are small and merely frustrating compared to many other people's. I watch how their lives, this country, is changing, and I think how awful it is, and how minor my problems are by comparison. My neighbors having to undersell their beef and not seeing a real profit. My mind is full of profit and loss on my scale, but when comparing it with others it seems minuscule. I told them it was coming and no one listened. I know it will only get worse, and no one notices. They are all about surviving the changes, and I know that for some there will be no surviving. I know of one who will definitely commit suicide before the year is out. He and those around him don't know it yet, but I see it as plain as red paint splashed on a white carpet. But I can't save any of them. I know. I've tried. All I can do is struggle on in my own little world and listen and watch. And wait for my seeds and plan my plans, and survive as best I can.