Picking stuff

I haven’t written much, but then not much is going on. The days blur together. I’ve been sick for almost two weeks now, and that slowed me down. I celebrated my birthday a day early because I had to work on my birthday. My usual celebration is to not do any work, but just sprawl out and read. Like I used to do all summer when I was a kid.

The garden is just coasting along right now. This is the easy time–all I have to do is water (when it doesn’t rain) and pick. It’s been raining pretty frequently this year. My tomatoes are loaded with green ones, but none has ripened yet. At the moment I’m pulling small beets and enjoying them. This year’s wild blackberry crop was fabulous; I picked enough for two pies and also froze four quart bags.

We still have no fence for a dry lot, so the horses are still inside 22 1/2 hours a day. They don’t mind a bit, but we’re getting heartily sick of picking stalls. I was complaining about it to my farrier yesterday, and he said he has to clean EIGHT stalls. I must remember to keep things in perspective!

Last night we went to the grocery store, and I noticed several items that touted the fact that they contained “real” food items. Wow, ice cream “with Real Milk!” One wonders what all the other products contain. It is a sad state of affairs, truly, and it makes me glad that I have a garden that contains real beets and real tomatoes and real cabbage. My real corn was eaten by a deer, which is running around somewhere with a label: contains Sarah’s real corn.

The baby is in the kennel

Sometimes I think about all the decisions I’ve made in my life and all the what ifs that litter the way. I mean, what if I’d gone to a different college, chosen a different major, not accepted that job offer…

Sometimes I think that somewhere in a parallel universe there is another me living a completely different life based on some small change in things. Sometimes I think that I can actually talk to that other me and check in on my other life.

Hello there, Sarah Who Had a Child. How is life going with little WhatsHisName? Do you ever wish he’d never been born?

Seeing as how I’m on the brink of another birthday and that old biological clock is winding down, sometimes I get a tiny bit panicked. I didn’t specifically make a decision not to have children. Part of me wants to have one, in fact. But time and situation have not been right and the desire has not burned that brightly.

I think I would enjoy a child; on the other hand, I don’t think I would be unhappy if I never had one. It seems a mistake better made by omission than commission, and so I decline the child.

But I often imagine myself with one. I had such a good time with my mother as a child that I want to repeat the feat with my own. I imagine myself going about my daily life with a child at hand. I imagine the layers of experience and knowledge that I would try to build around my child.

It’s just not the same with a dog.

I remember talking with my cousin’s young daughter at my grandmother’s funeral.  Our wedding had been just a year or so earlier, and we had gotten a dog recently. My little cousin remembered me as the bride, and–perhaps a little confused about things–she asked “and where’s your little baby?” The husband said “oh, he’s in the kennel at home.” She looked at us with the most traumatized expression I’ve ever seen, and didn’t ask us any more questions.

My friend, Mulch

I call this time of year “the weed season.”

They are everywhere, growing high as skyscrapers, choking off everything. I could spend my days doing nothing but pulling weeds out by their roots, and still they would dominate.

Fortunately, I have a friend. His name is Mulch. I put Mulch all over my garden, everywhere around the desired plants. I have had good luck with the newspaper layers. I put a stack of newspapers into a bucket of water and let them soak for 10-15 minutes. Then I take them out a section at a time and lay them out on the garden, overlapping, all over everything. Then I spread straw or old hay on top of that to make it pretty.

Now if I could just find out who’s been eating my corn plants.

Alphabetical what?

There is this listserv for public librarians that I read for my amusement. I like to check the teapot now and again to see what tempest du jour is brewing. When I go home and tell the husband all about my day at work, I say “you won’t believe what the librarians were riled up about today!”

The latest began when a librarian asked what he was doing wrong that caused the teenagers to give him the blank look when he was trying to explain that the books were in alphabetical order. He asked how they expect to graduate high school without understanding alphabetical order.

You should have seen how fast the librarian wit started to fly. How dare you try to teach the patron? Just give them what they want. Get off your butt and serve the patron. Don’t patronize the patron. etc.

The thing is, I completely sympathize. I often get the blank look too. Don’t they do alphabetical order anymore?
I remember 3rd grade. Every week we got a spelling word list and every week we had to put the list into alphabetical order. I hated it. I already knew how to do alphabetical order, and every week I demonstrated that I had the skill down. Yet every week I had to do it all over again. Sigh.

But when I grew up, I got a job because I knew how to put things in alphabetical order.

Incidentally, that tempest morphed into a heated discussion of the dreaded tax forms and why we don’t tell people what form they need to fill out. One mysterious poster ruffled all the librarian fur by asking some tough questions. Suddenly the discussion trailed off and the librarians all started moaning about how “the list gets all snarky and mean-spirited instead of helpful and nice and we must go back to being nice.” And then they went back to discussing cookies.

Personally, I thought the debate was just starting to be sort of thoughtful and interesting, before it went back to snack foods. But I guess that’s the sort of discussions professional librarians prefer, along with their tea.

Easter egg hunt, eh?

The problem is I don’t go on the internet very much except when I’m at work, and since I’m working fewer hours now, I don’t have as much time to write here!

I have been very busy though. It feels like all I’ve been doing is clean stalls. Repeat. Utah had a brilliant idea. He says Buddy, why don’t you add this food coloring to your hay…then when Sarah cleans the stalls, it’ll be like an Easter egg hunt!

Yesterday I completely pulled out the soggy bedding and then lifted up the stall mats to peek at what is underneath. It was a completely wet, uriny, stinky, gross mess. Ick. So I hauled the mats outside and hosed them off. Then I left them in the sun to dry and detoxify. Let me tell you, those suckers are heavy. They are made in Canada, and I find myself singing those stupid songs from South Park–“Canada on strike. Canada on strike. Canada! on strike!”

 

Buddy is a big goofus

He is such a funny horse, and an all around good guy. He is so laid back and cool. Nothing spooks him. Back when I could ride him, his biggest spook was a stiff-legged jump in place. (Utah, on the other hand, is a 180-spin-and-take-off sort of spooker.)

I’ve been turning Buddy out for a half hour or so while I clean out his stall, and I worried about catching him again, but why did I worry? Once he was a ways away in the pasture, but when I called him he just lifted his head and moseyed on over. Other times he tootles into the barn before I’m even ready for him. He misses his Utah pal too much even for grass to hold his attention that long!

Yesterday I could hear him somewhere close to the barn, but when I looked out I couldn’t see him. Then I saw this weird object waving around above the manure pile. Buddy was rolling–the manure pile obscured his body, but I could see his foot waving back and forth!

While Buddy is outside, Utah pitches a fit periodically. He can’t stand to be alone. I give him a flake of hay to munch on, and he does. Then he gives an earsplitting neigh. It’s like this–munch, munch, munch, AGHH WHERE’S MY BUDDY? munch, munch, munch.

Yesterday Buddy was in his stall while I was cleaning out Utah’s next door. I was leaning over with the fork and when I stood up BONK I ran into something hard with the top of my head. Buddy the booger was sticking his head over the divider, and I think he had wicked intentions toward my hair. He always has to have his nose, literally, in whatever is going on.

Buddy likes to reach over and nip at Utah, and then you can almost hear him snickering–like Ernie on Sesame Street–hee hee hee. Then Utah gives him the evil eye. But those two are inseparable.

So, when is that vacation?

I need a vacation so badly. Even dropping back to 20 hours a week is going to help when it starts next week. Is it next week yet?

You know how it is when you get so sick of your coworkers and you see them every day and you just want to not see them? Sigh. Maybe I shouldn’t be so irked when she makes a 15 minute break into a 25 minute one!

I’m on my supper break right now. I actually spilled my water down the front of my shirt; I hope it dries in the next ten minutes. You know it’s bad when you can’t hit your own mouth with a glass of water!

Just when I think I’m going to make it

Utah is feeling much better. I can tell because when I take him out of his stall, he starts acting his old ornery self. He’s walking pretty good–almost no sign of pain except on the stones. Today he even trotted on the line (his choice–he’s full of energy.)

I usually work 30 hours per week during the school year because I split a part time job with a coworker who is a teacher. During the summer I go back to 20 hours per week. This is my last 30 hour week, but since I’m covering for another person, I’m actually doing 37 hours this week. I can do up to 39 hours because the library doesn’t have to pay me benefits. The only benefit I get in my job is the fact that I don’t have to work 40 hours per week. So this week sucks, but I just have to get through it to get to next week.

I thought I was doing ok–I’ve settled back from crisis mode into somewhat of a routine. It’s a lot of work keeping two horses in stalls! A lot of mucking and a lot more tending to. But they are pretty laid back about it all (heck, Laid Back is Buddy’s middle name) and they seem contented enough to hang out in the barn. As long as they are together; Utah doesn’t like it when I turn Buddy out to pasture while I clean his stall, and Buddy isn’t particularly keen on letting Utah out of his sight either. But we’re settling into a routine and Utah is improving and I can finally focus on what needs to be done next.

But first I just need to get through this week.

My name is Sarah, and I have a fat horse.

It doesn’t happen very often to me, but I find myself falling into a depression this week. I feel like a TV commercial: sad, tired, hopeless, sick to my stomach. It’s the hopeless that hurts the most.

The vet finally made it to the farm. Utah seems to be pulling through, but the huge fact that is staring us in the face is that he is fat. I have been neglecting Utah because I’ve been so focused on fixing Buddy. I knew he was overweight, but I kept thinking “we’ll get Buddy back in business and then we’ll start working on Utah.” Meanwhile Utah is out munching grass and ballooning.

Well, the balloon has burst and now we must do something about it. Right now all I can do is keep him off the grass, which means in his stall for now. No more putting off that fence though.

This upcoming week will just have to be got through. I’ll be working full time, so I can’t do much but maintain. But the week after that starts my summer hours so I’ll have more time to get cracking.

Here’s my plan: 1) Get through this week. 2) Call fence company and find out if they build horse fence and if so, how much it costs. 3) Decide if I can afford a nice paddock fence or if we’ll have to build an electric fence ourselves. 4) Build it.

 

When the big hand is on the 10 and the little hand is on the 3…

This morning I did laundry and hung it out. Then I took care of the horses. I had to go to work at noon, so I had to be home to get ready by eleven. I checked the time after I hung up the laundry and–gulp–it was a quarter ’til!

I raced around, throwing things–a bale of hay, horse poop, some shavings, pitchforks, buckets, feed, etc. “Sorry boys, it’s got to be a swipe and a promise today.” I checked the stall doors one last time and ran. A quarter after…yikes!

I was halfway out the driveway before I realized it was a quarter after TEN, not eleven! So I had plenty of time for a leisurely shower and lunch, iron my clothes, pack my supper, la la la….

I usually enjoy hanging up laundry. I love the smell of clean, sunshiny clothes. I find hanging laundry out to be one of the most relaxing things. Maybe I’m weird, I don’t know. When I hang out clothes, they have to be neat and in order of size and kind. I learned how to hang out laundry from my mother, who learned from her mother, etc. I like to think that how I hang out laundry is just like how a woman years and years ago used to hang out her laundry, teaching her daughter as she went: now be sure to hang the big stuff first, and then the medium things; it just looks better that way; don’t you just love how the sheets smell after absorbing all that sunshine?