There's a Mouse in the House (or how to drive a man crazy!)

Last weekend, when arriving at the farm, we opened the shed to get tools and look things over.  Under the front end of the tractor was a pile of gray fuzzy stuff.  I reached down to feel it and determined it was chewed up foam rubber......like the stuff lining the inside of the engine compartment of our new tractor!!!!!  I mentioned it to Jeff.......going ballistic doesn't quite describe his reaction.  There was a LOT or stomping and ranting and words I won't print here.  We decided we should look under the hood......but how to open it was a mystery.  While Jeff went to look at the "tractor instruction manual", I opened the door to the gas tank.  Staring back at me was "the mouse"!!!!!  I don't know who was more startled....me or him!  I shut the lid, then opened it again and he was GONE.....poof! 
Jeff came back and opened the hood and right on top next to the filler tube was a little nest, all nice and cozy.  Now came the threats of 1000 mouse traps, 10 cats and rat snakes.  I say, just leave the hood open so it's not so cozy!  Gotta admit, they are very cute!

And Now for Something Completely Different!

Finally, the weeds around the peppers are under control and I can do something else for a change!  We decided to change the color of the shed from Fire Engine Red to a more earthy brown.  The old color made the shed shine like an emergency light from the road!  It screamed "LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME!!!!"   Not what we wanted!  The temperature and humidity were down yesterday and painting was therapeutic.  Jeff was trimming around the trees in the orchard so that left me and two lazy dogs to hang around the shed and paint.  Alone with my thoughts, the rhythm of a paint brush and the warm sun on my bare shoulders felt like cheesecake for my soul.  Every now and then I backed away to check my progress and sigh happily with a sense of accomplishment.  One and one half sides to go and it's done with its chameleon change.  I like it!

It happened so fast!

I slept until 10 this morning and was jarred awake by the knowledge of not having paid my Visa bill on time!!!!  I've been at my computer for over an hour paying the monthly bills and such.....ugh!  The weekend went by far too fast.  Off to the farm straight from work on Saturday evening.  Just enough daylight left to make the bed and start a fire.  Jeff made delicious pork chops in a cast iron skillet and corn on the cob in the wet husks over the fire.  Mmmmmm!  While we ate, the light show started with fireflies and stars.  The bats came out and flew silently overhead.  The fire died down to glowing embers and we decided to get an early start on our dreams.  While JUST dozing off, there was a fluttering sound in the peak of the shed.  Flashlight on and we discovered a little bat had let himself in through the still open soffits.  We opened the door and he swooped out.
Somewhere in the middle of the night, one of "the girls" (our name for the pregnant cows next door) was making a lot of noise.  I half expected to see a new calf in the morning, but the ladies didn't show up under the tree like they usually do.  Maybe there WAS a calf and that's why they stayed under cover away from the dogs.
We slept until 8:45 and quickly realized that was a mistake when the sun finally burned off the early morning fog.

Damn!  It got HOT quick!!!!  Jeff sprayed while I made a final pass at the weeds around the peppers.  Finally, I've got them all.  Production is down this year and we have decided the soil needs some amendments.  We learn more each year.  While he finished spraying, I whacked weeds along the fence and around trees while the dogs lounged under their umbrella!
We went back down by the shed for Jeff to get the tractor for a quick mowing while I put a coat of stain on the shaded side of the shed.  When he was done......miraculously, so was I!!!!  We washed up, put on clean, dry clothes and took a nap in the hammocks before packing up to leave.  Three hours til we arrived home to a pizza in the oven, courtesy of my stepson, Ryan!  What a sweetheart!

I LOVE this place!!!!

It was a magical weekend having guests at the farm again.  My daughter, her husband and their two small children met us at the farm on Friday afternoon.  Nadija, who is a textbook 3 1/2 arrived hugging her 3 "Pretty Ponies" with a big smile.  Kainen, who is JUST starting to walk was a bit less excited because he wasn't being allowed on the ground as much as he would have liked.

The very first things that we discovered upon our own arrival were a nest of baby mice in the bag that originally housed the toilet paper!  And a nest of baby wrens tucked into a roll of fencing in the attic of the shed!  And when Jeff moved one of the stones around the fire pit, he found a slithery inhabitant! A young Fox Snake.  I love this place!

The evenings were the most awesome part of the weekend.  As the sun went down, the entire landscape changed.  First the fireflies woke up and started to twinkle like tiny flash photographers everywhere we looked.  Of course we had to chase them and catch a few to hold in wonder and awe.  Then the stars poked through the dark blue velvet sky.  One by one they flicked on their lights until there were a bazillion over our heads.  After we were blanketed by stars, the bats joined us in the field, silently feeding on bugs in the night.  With a small fire burning, we sat, with big grins, watching the night show.  Much better than TV!!!  I love this place.

The morning brought breakfast by Nick.  Sausage, peppers and eggs over the fire.  A yummy way to start our day!  The guys went and did guy things and Rhyah and I "relaxed" around camp keeping two little ones out of trouble!!  The hammocks were a big hit and made great nesting places for napping children.  (The adults nap there, too!)

While the kids slept, I found a perfect, leftover board under the shed, and some leftover rope from the hammocks.  Four holes drilled in the board and a few simple knots and all we needed was a perfect branch.  Imagine the smile on a little girl's face finding she has her very own swing in a tree!  "More, Grandma!  Higher!"  It's the stuff good memories are made of!  Have I said "I love this place"?

When the guys got back from doing guy things, we all sat in chairs under the "swing tree" and rested in the shade.  That's when I brought out the old wash basin and filled it with water pouring from the field tile.  I can't believe how much fun those two kids had in such a small pool with no toys!  Why do we feel we need to bombard our children with so many colorful toys when the fun is really in the water and the company!

After his swim, baby Kainen got held up for a blessing by the "farm Gods".  Luckily his bladder wasn't full or there would have been a Christening, too!

Later in the evening, tractor rides were in order.  Kainen got his sitting still with Mama.  Amazing how little boys are drawn to machinery.  The minute he saw the tractor he started pointing and making "brrrum brrrrum" sounds.

Nadija got a full tour of the pasture with Grandpa.  "Faster, Grandpa, faster!"

The next morning, after the tent got packed up, kisses blown and they left, the place got very quiet again.  The peace was nice, but I missed them terribly.  So I went to pull weeds around my peppers.  I'll say it again........"I LOVE THIS PLACE!!!!!"  It seems to satisfy a hunger in all of us in a different way.

Refreshment

I gotta tell ya, this weekend was a blast.  But more about that later......
Jeff and I were winding up the 3 day weekend working in the garden and the orchard in the hot sun.  The weeds had taken over the garden in the 3 weeks since I'd been there and the effort to pull them made a sweat ball out of me.  Off to the west were some full bellied, black clouds grumbling.  The wind started to offer some relief with the approaching storm.  We called it quits and headed down to the shed to get our supplies out of the weather......just in time.  The clouds cracked like morning eggs and dumped their contents in a desperate attempt to relieve their heaviness.  Opportunity knocked.  A bar of soap and a basin of water in pouring rain.  What could be better to clean up a "sweat ball"?????  I stripped down and took a "shower" under the watchful eyes of neighboring cows!!!!  Dried with a fluffy towel and dressed in clean shorts and tee shirt, it was time to swing in the hammock to the tune of the pouring rain on the steel roof.  No sweeter lullaby has ever been played.  I never wanted to come back to civilization!!!!

A White Shirt Makes a Difference!

This was a very productive weekend!.....Finally!   Jeff got the new adapter for the power take-off to run the tiller from the old tractor.  He went over the remaining part of the garden and really tilled it up good.  While he was tilling the garden, I was back at the shed getting things ready for the evening.  It was pretty hot out and I figured we would probably sleep with the windows open this time and screens would be nice.  We had brought along screen fabric a couple weeks ago, but there was nothing to make a frame with.  I thought we might just tack the material around the window frame as a temporary measure, but then I started using my brain.  We had some old lath laying around that was used to stake the locations of the piers when we first started the shed.  Each one was 1 1/2" wide and about 4' long.  I measured the inside of the window frame and cut and mitered the lath to fit inside the frame.

I pushed screen into the opening in pushed the "frame" in piece by piece on top of it.  The miters kept the corners snug without any nails or fasteners.  They worked like a charm!!!!

   We retired early after stargazing and slept bug-free all night.  It was nice going to bed that night with a little bit of light.  I had purchased 2 cheap solar garden lights at K-Mart and brought them with.  They made a nice soft light in the shed while we got ready for bed.
   One thing that made this trip more comfortable was being able to wash up before bed.  We had an old enameled wash basin at home.  It was sitting, unused, under a table.  It now, proudly hangs on a nail on the back wall of the shed (in fact, you can see it in the picture where I'm sawing).  We keep a 7 gallon jug of water sitting on the picnic table in the sun.  By bedtime, it's nice and warm.  I never knew how good it felt to wash the dirt and sweat away with water heated by the sun.  I think the things that make me the happiest out at the farm are the ones that come about by using our heads and figuring out a way to do something with what we have available.  Something as simple as making a working broom out of twigs just makes me proud in my soul.  It's a good feeling.  One that keeps me going.
   The next morning we got up early and headed to the orchard for spraying and planting.  I brought a white tank top this time as the sky was cloudless and the temperature and humidity were both high at 8 am.  Jeff sprayed the apple trees while I planted the rest of the garden.  He had 120 trees to spray and I had 50 more jalapenos, 7 watermelons, 13 pumpkins and 3 rows of corn to plant!  We finished about the same time.  Jeff had bailed about 60 gallons of water into a tank to bring to the plants, so we gave everything a good drink and after 5 hours working in the hot sun, we could hear the hammocks screaming for us!!!! 

We had some lunch, took a nap in swinging hammocks, packed and headed home, smiling, after another working weekend.

It was a HOT one!

I was dirty, sweaty and melting!  And I only had 26 of the 60 Jalapenos in the ground before I called it quits.  Stupidity got me into this fix.  I only brought a BLACK tank top and BLACK shorts to work in.  And I was  planting the peppers in BLACK landscape fabric!!!!!  OUCH!

I thought it might be age-related fatigue until I thought about what I was wearing and where I was standing!  No, I'm not THAT old, but I think I've lost my mind!  What makes me want to spend my weekends sweating my ass off in the hot sun instead of sitting on my porch in the suburbs sipping an ice cold Pepsi?  Dayle has truly gone bonkers, me thinks!  No......I'm just working hard at making a place where we can grow old and have good home grown food and quiet times.  After reminding myself that I could plant more next weekend, I joined Jeff down by the shed and we had a couple sandwiches and decided to take a nap in the hammocks I made. 

They were made for sleeping in the shed at night, but they didn't have specific instructions that said you couldn't nap in them!!!!  So nap, we did!  We were inside the shed with all the windows and doors open, listening to nothing but bird songs and swinging in the shady breeze.  Slumber came easily and dreams were good.  What a great way to end a weekend of hard work!!!!