Happy Birthday to me!

Figured I'd better post my happy birthdays to myself before I drink myself into a stupor and slide out of the chair and under the desk. Doug, Em and Jake are preparing my birthday dinner and I'm drinking amaretto sours like there's a neverending supply. Life, at the moment, is good. Very good. I hope they clean up afterwards too, not sure if I can...
As you can see by the obvious sign we have power - we didn't lose power. Jeanne kind of fizzled out, much to the chagrin of my girls who really hoped for AT LEAST a two hour delay for school this morning. But alas, we were in the car by 7:20 and headed for school. What a pisser.
Does anybody think it's weird that I want two hour delays and flood days as much as the kids do? I mean, I still get up at 6:00 to check the closings reports and it's not like I get to go back to bed or anything. What's the deal?
We lost a couple more trees in the storm in spite of the fizzling. We have GOT to have some of them cleared out or we'll never have a barn. The back 30 feet or so is now completely collapsed. Sniff, sniff...we're YEARS away from being able to get horses. All is not lost though because we're getting a GOAT! I love goats! Baaaa Baaaaa Baaaaa
Ok I'm going to eat. Then I'm having more amaretto.
Hey! It's my birthday! I'm 24 years old and I can do whatever I want to (ok, I'm really 36) but BAH! I can still do whatever I want to! As long as it doesn't involve coherency. I can do it.
Really I can.

She's heerrreeee

The wind is howling, we can't keep a satellite signal for more than a few minutes at a time, and the power has started to blink. Jeanne is stalling and we're expecting up to 10-12 inches of rain in our area (depending on which weather forecast you watch). Either way, it doesn't bode well for us to keep power through the night. The winds are picking up and there have been times when the maple tree out front looked ready to lay down. Just give up.
We just restocked the refrigerator yesterday.
I got my hair cut today. I didn't go for the big change, just a nice shape-up. The guy (who came highly recommended by all the women with great hair that I asked "Who does your hair?") was awesome. I am glad I decided to ask all those people, it was worth the two months of 'research'. He cut about 5 inches off the length and I feel every bit of it. For the first couple of hours it felt like my head wanted to fall forward. It's amazing what a little bit of hair must weigh - how we become accustomed to supporting that weight.
There's still a lot to do - a lot to get out of the floor just in case power goes out tonight. It wouldn't be safe to try to walk through the house in the dark as things are now. Hopefully, we won't have to. And maybe no more trees will fall.
Please, please, don't let any more trees fall.

Outisde the air is heavy with the promise of what Jeanne is bringing with her. She's supposed to pass through quick - be done by tomorrow, but we aren't taking any chances. The wind has my long chimes in a constant state of song and the sky is dark even though the sun came up almost two hours ago (or somewhere thereabouts). It is just like what I've always thought Alaska must be like during the dark half of the year. I've heard it is like twilight. It sounds beautiful to me.
The first thing I said when I walked outside to the heavily overcast skies and chill of the wind was, "What a great day this is going to be!"
Just call me Morticia...

Today I have an appointment to get my hair done (tomorrow is my birthday) and I'm not sure what I'll end up with. I love the cut I have, but honestly, long hair is getting old for me. Maybe I'll be satisfied with a reshaping of the cut th loatoks so good on me. Then again, maybe I'll just go crazy and have it whacked into some kind of new and sexy 'do'. No telling. Whatever I do I'm sure I'll be thinking (soon enough) that I should have gone the other way. I'm weird that way.

The chickens are hunkered down, the bikes are put away, flashlights and candles stand at the ready, the cell phone is fully charged...I have NEVER had a hurricane season like this before. It's usually the coast that gets pounded, not the western part of the state. It has kept us from having the usual brutally hot summer though. For that, I'm so thankful. I wither in the heat of summer. I'm such a wuss.

a quick catch up

Ivan brought a lot of rain, gobs of wind that sucked several window panes right out of the cracked and chipping glazing meant to hold them in, and we lost 6 - 10 big oaks around the barn (some on the barn). It is such a tangled mess of trees out therre it is hard to tell just how many are down. There's going to be a major bunch of clearing out going on here in the near future.
We were without power from early Thursday evening until Sunday morning and the last several days have been spent catching up. It's amazing the house could get in such a mess when we couldn't really even do anything.
The chicks fared well and my patching job on the roof worked better than I had even hoped. It still leaked some, but not the big gushing leak from before my patch up job, so we're happy about that. The roof didn't blow off completely and we figure we're pretty lucky in that respect.
The storms brought us a highlight that none of us will soon forget. We were standing in the kitchen trying to can the rest of the muscadine jelly Doug had ready. I looked out the window and saw this tube of big black clouds behind the trees that line the field.
"Oh," I said to Doug as I pointed out the window, "Is that it?"
We just stood there for a minute watching the tunnel.
"It looks like smoke," Doug said, "Maybe something's on fire?"
I went to the back door to get a better look and he went to the front. We got out there just in time to watch the funnel cloud cut around the trees and head across the field beside the house. I lost sight of it around the corner of the house and I ran to the front door to join Doug on the porch. It wasn't big and it seemed that the wind was barely blowing, considering the face we were standing there watching a tornado, small though it was. Leaves and other debris spun around the outside edge of the funnel and we just stood there, transfixed by the sight.
Then it leaned sideways like a tree about to fall. The top stretched out toward the center of our drive and that's when we noticed the huge swirling mass of clouds hovering low in the sky, swirling wildly, kind of like when water swirls around the sink drain.
It reminded me of the movie Independence Day when the ships hovered above the city. It was so big and it looked like every cloud in the sky was being drawn to the center of the great big spinning circle. The small funnel we had been watching was sucked up and it continued to spin for a few minutes then it moved forward and was gone in an instant.
I have never in my life seen anything so COOL. And way scary (after the fact).
It was a busy weekend full of attempts to keep things organized enough to walk around once it got dark, candles positioned, and flashlights turned off so the batteries wouldn't go dead. And since Sunday it's a mad dash to catch up with laundry and cleaning. We're not sure about the barn...I have to talk to the insurance agent and see if anything can be done to help or if insurance will help with getting the windows put back in (none broke, thankfully).
And now I'm off to get started again...

Fall

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting
and autumn a mosaic of them all.
- Stanley Horowitz
Fall is coming. It is evident in the crisp air of early morning and evening, perceptible in the lazy breezes of late afternoon and in the earlier setting of the sun. It’s my favorite time of year. For weeks now I’ve watched for signs in hopes it will be early to arrive and late to leave. I will happily wish away the last days of summer in exchange for the near perfection of the days of fall.

Jake and I spend more time outside when fall arrives. We trade the air conditioned indoors for the comfortable air of outdoors to collect colored leaves, fallen acorns, nuts, and pinecones. Laundry dried on the line smells particularly good these last few days. Along with the scent of sunshine there’s something else that I can’t describe. I noticed it yesterday as I approached the line for gathering the clothes. Long before I got to the line, the smell wafted out on the wind surrounded me, moving me immediately into the sense of calm that always settles over me as I stand at the clothesline looking out into the fields.

Now I hear the chicks chirping away while I hang laundry since their house is only about ten feet away from the line. Their peeping sets a sweet rhythm to the hanging or folding of the clothes and I am lost in the quiet sounds of nature all around. Wind seems to answer the call of a wet shirt shaken just before hanging, birds sing, things not seen rustle the field grasses and the big dogs lay quietly to the side, overseeing the tranquil work. I love laundry on the line in summer, but I am finding there is something extra-better about it as fall makes its way in.

The remaining eight chicks are doing just fine. They are adorable, and amazingly friendly. One in particular, a little black one with a yellow chest and mottled face will hop right over and beg shamelessly for attention. The kids just love that. I’ve noticed that, just like me, they like to hold the baby chicks close to their faces to feel the tickle of the silky down that will soon enough give way to feathers. We hope they will remain friendly as they grow up so each of us make sure to spend a little time each day in the chicken house with each tiny, peeping bundle of fluff perched on a knee or finger. Even if they grow up to be unsociable bundles of pecking feathers the time spent now will be so worth it. There is nothing like baby chicks. Well, maybe puppies and kittens – there’s nothing like them either.

Two days - two chicks. I don't know what went wrong this time, but I found one of the little reds near death this morning when I went out to check on them just after daybreak. Things aren't looking so great for us as farmers.

Strange things are happening to me

It was a simple plan. Clean house until lunchtime, meet Doug at the restaurant, then leave for my cousin’s son’s birthday party. Plenty of time. All I had to do was wrangle gas money from Doug (who had spent the morning making candy and in spite of the fact that he hates making candy, he’s always cheerful on candy-making days).
That’s how it looked on paper.
Here’s how it went down in reality.
About 1:00 this morning, Winkin came into the bedroom where we were reading. Her eye was swollen and running – NOT a good thing for a one-eyed cat. We flushed her eye, checked for scratches or boo-boos (there were none evident). It was no big deal really, we have the world’s greatest vet with office hours on Saturdays (he makes house calls too) so we were just going to swing her by to be checked out before going to lunch.
We’re sitting in the office, getting smoochy with the world’s sweetest Doberman and a precocious little lab/terrier puppy when he walks out and tells me the chicks are ready. We can take them home today! Oh YAY! But the building isn’t quite finished, so we decide to bring the chicks home and find temporary housing that will give me time to finish clearing the floor and making sure there are no more bee nests inside. I can do that…a quick trip to the feed and seed for the starter food and stuff to put a fence up tomorrow and we’ll be set. We’d only be a little late for the party.
The large dog crate was supposed to work well for holding them while I did this but somehow, in spite of the fact that the little chickens are way bigger around than the openings in the wire crate, they started to walk right out through the holes. (This is where it gets kind of sad) Buddy picked one of the little black chicks up and hurt her leg. He seemed awful sorry and, naturally, I felt like a real guilty baby chick killing idiot. It never occurred to me that they would fit between the wires. They are so fat. And fluffy, and cute, and full of chirpy sweetness. OH GOD I KILLED A BABY CHICK! I didn’t mean to, really I didn’t. Poor Emily was devastated. She was crying, and I felt so bad…
We planned to go straight after lunch and get the food and latches for the door so that we could be sure the rest of the chicks would remain safe (we stashed them in a non-wire dog crate inside the house this time. We’d only be a little bit late for the party. We would do what we could to make it but the little chicks had to have a safe place to sleep tonight.
We left for Tractor Supply right after lunch.
Mistake. Game day in Clemson. Seven hours before the ball game and traffic was already building up…we’d never make it back in time for the party.
Emily cried some more, but a little talking had her once again sure that finishing the house for the chicks was what we needed to do.
It took a trip to Tractor Supply and Lowes but finally we had gathered all the supplies we needed to fix a fine chicken house and make a lovely little pecking yard for the babies so they can get out (safely) and get fresh air and yard bugs. We stopped for a quick bite to eat so we could get right to work on the building when we got home, I called Doug for directions on how to get home the back way (I don’t know how to get to the new house from there) and we were off.
Not even a mile after we’d exited onto the highway traffic came to a stop. For 30 minutes we sat while firemen and police worked to stop the fire from the crash where a truck had jumped the guardrail just before the bridge. Through that snag, finally, and we were ready to go again. I called Doug again so I could talk to him while I made our exit and made sure I got on the right road to home. He had been badly burned at work and blistered the palm of his hand and all 5 fingers. It would just be me finishing up the floor in the chicken house.
I was on the right road, not too far from home, but with only one more road to get on.
“Stay on 24 and you’ll run right in to 59,” he said.
Ok, I can do that. 59 is the only road around here that I’ve started to really learn. It gets me to Wal-Mart and the girls’ schools. If I can make it there, I’m in good shape.
We hung up so he could pack up to come home and take care of his hand. Hwy 24 did indeed run right into 59, but a few miles down the road, 59 ended. It just stopped and I could go right or left.
I called Doug again. “You need to take a right where the road makes a little triangle with houses in the center.”
Ok did that, but it’s a dead end road.
He tried to explain it to me, got frustrated because I just wasn’t getting it and he just wasn’t getting what I (the girl with NO sense of direction) was saying and he hung up on me.
I headed down the road I was on originally to back track and see if I could find out where I went wrong. All the road signs said I was on 59, so I could only assume that I was on the right road, but headed in the wrong direction. Doug called back and I opened the phone and closed it immediately.
Hang up on me when I need you, how ‘bout it. That’ll teach him. HA!
A few minutes later he called back again and said go back to the building I’d passed earlier…he knew how to get there and he’d be there within 15 minutes.
So we went back and we waited.
An hour and a half after we’d left Anderson, he pulled up beside us.
“I gave you the wrong landmark.” He said before driving off in the direction that would take us back home.
We made it and I finished cleaning the building just before dark. We needed a little help from the flashlight, but it’s done and they are tucked away, safe (we hope) and snug into their house. I’d forgot to buy a new lock for the door so I did the innovative country girl thing and drove nails and bent them over to hold the door tight shut.
We named the little dead chick Muscadine and buried her under the bush of the same name. I’m so sorry about that little chick.
Doug’s hand is in pretty bad shape.
If Winkin’s eye isn’t greatly improved by Monday morning, she has to have surgery to try to save it because it’s the only one she has left. We have no idea what happened, but that isn’t important now. It only matters that she doesn’t lose it.
We didn’t make it to the party.
What a day.

Just wondering

My cigarette makes a frying noise each time I take a draw – much like the sound of a tightly rolled, seed exploding, whopping big doobie. I find myself wondering if maybe somebody in the cigarette factory might have spiked it. Then I find myself wondering again if maybe they did the other packs in the carton too.

I find myself doing all kinds of wondering lately. All kinds of wondering about weird and ridiculous things like…
Why do the shoes of men belong in the middle of the floor? And is it contagious because lately I find the shoes of my youngest daughter following in the footsteps of the shoes belonging to her dad and brother. And is it only the very young and unimpressionable women that are susceptible?
And other things like…
Why is it the more phonics and grammar I teach to Jake do I have to stop and wonder so often (is it doobie or dooby?)
And still others more mundane such as…
Why can’t I sleep late on Saturdays?
Why is it that every time I try to have a t-shirt and panty day does somebody show up at my house to visit? I’m dressed 99.9% of the time and you’d think I’m a leper for all the company I get, but the underwear and relaxing day really brings them out in droves.
And I also wonder, but can’t really complain about…
Why can I do all the laundry on days I get to hang clothes on the line, but if it’s raining and I have to put them in the dryer, the last load will sit in there for THREE DAYS.
And…
Am I the only one that thinks this dude looks an awful lot like Captain Piccard?

You’ve reached Noah’s place. Leave a message after the beep…

The animals came in two by two because there was no dry place to be found. Allie’s house had flooded and she could only stand in the rain and whine. The boys (Gimli and Buddy) stood on the front porch trying to escape the blowing rain that soaked every inch of space. The little dogs had already been brought inside because they are scarcely able to keep their noses above the 10-inch deep rivers that flowed through the yard. Not a one of them is over a foot tall at the top of their little heads.
Leirin and I brought in every big crate we had, soaking wet in the pouring rain and filled the little nests with wet puppies who seemed happy to have a warm, dry place to hunker down. We’ve got a little wet dog stink going on in the laundry hall this morning but it’s nothing that some airing out won’t fix.
The animals might not have enjoyed navigating the great river called yard, but the kids and I sure did. We tossed off our shoes and ran out the door to enjoy the world’s best puddle-jumping. Rain pelted us from the sky and made us have to squint our eyes tight to keep from being blinded by it. Tendrils of wet hair clung to all the kids faces, occasionally slipping into their mouth as they ran screaming through the water.
We jumped, we did cartwheels (well they tried to and I avoided it because I’m too old for that crap you know) and they did barrel rolls.
One word of caution: deep puddles with grass underneath is NOT suitable for belly slides. That takes mud to work properly.
School was delayed an hour this morning so that it would be full daylight when the buses ran, and by the time we got out of bed, most of the ground water had receded to the place where ground water goes. It’s still pretty soggy – evidence that yesterday did, in fact, happen. But just as quickly as snow manages to come and go, so did our flood puddles.
It’s still raining – a nice, slow drizzle. Frances has packed up her party favors and gone the way of the wind. The kids are sad that today won’t bring a repeat but I feel pretty sure a second day could in no way top the memory of the day we did get. For years and years they’ll say “Remember the hurricane…”

Treasures

Our vet stopped Doug at work one day, a couple of weeks ago; to tell him he had ordered chickens for us. He was ordering some for himself, thought of us, and ordered some for us too. How nice is that! I really love our vet. He’s such a great person.

Of course that meant the little building out back was to be cleaned out completely because it will serve as temporary housing for goats and chickens until the barn is restored. We only got to clean the one side out because the other is full of bees and we ran out of spray. But the chicken side took all afternoon and we don’t have goats yet anyway, so no big on that one.

We were amazed at the things the women who lived here before kept. Newspapers dating back to 1958 were found tucked in a box. Shame they had been left sitting on the dirt floor and were ruined. We did manage to salvage a section of funny pages that were in perfect condition. Snuffy Smith was running in the funny pages way back then. Amazing! It also included Uncle Remus. Won't find that running anywhere now. We’re going to take the page to the printers and see if we can have it preserved. We thought it would add a nice touch to the antique Coke theme of the kitchen (which it will have once I get around to redoing it). We also found two small tabletop fans that we’re going to restore and use just to sit in the kitchen.

As we unloaded each item from the building I wondered why the elders are so often likely to save every little thing. Those ladies never ate a jar of pickles, mayonnaise, mustard, or pancake syrup that they didn’t save the jar for. Apparently once it was empty it became reusable. I know it makes sense to reuse a lot of those things, but the hoarding doesn’t stop with jars that would be useful for canning. An old standing wreath from someone’s grave stood leaning against the wall in the corner. Magazines had been boxed up and stored away from the 50s – obviously read and finished with, now ruined and disintegrating on the dirt floor of the building.

Most everything inside the building was trash. We did find several half-bushel baskets that, while not suitable for picking any longer, will make good nests for laying hens. There was even a full bushel basket that is in perfect shape…handy for the picking of the pears next year (and muscadines if they produce again like they are this year – our first round of picking the vines yielded enough to make a gallon and a half of the best smelling juice for jelly YUM). We also managed to salvage a couple of old Pet milk bottles that weren’t broken, and a 36-ounce glass Coke bottle. The kids were amazed when we told them Coke used to come in big glass bottles. Now we rarely find coke in a bottle and if we do, we’re happy about it because it just doesn’t get as cold in a plastic bottle for some unknown reason.

We also found a picture of the sisters taken at the Christian Booksellers Convention in 1958. It is in perfect condition and the kids thought it was so cool to have a picture of the ladies who once lived here. We’re going to contact the family and ask if they will identify the ladies for us and ask if we can keep them.

The other side of the building (where the goats will bed down) we have an old icebox. As soon as we can get the bees out I’m taking it to be restored. It is so cool! And in perfect shape except for a dent on the top and a bent leg; which I think can be straightened at a sheet metal shop with no problem. I hope so.

So today is a day of errands and fun kind of running around since the kids are out of school. We’re going to stop by the vet’s office to visit the chicks and spend some time playing with the animals in the adoption program if they are open today. And we’ll make a long trip to the library, of course. We end up at the library several times a week since we moved here. It is on the way to the restaurant so we end up going there a lot. Amazingly enough I still manage to forget to turn things in on time. How do I do that?

Today I will finish emptying the building and get the rest of the bees out so I can put on the new roof before the chicks come. I will clean up the things we are keeping and wonder again why it amazed me to see what the ladies were compelled to keep and yet I managed to find some treasures of my own out there.

Birthday shopping

So I wasted my evening alone until my husband came home last night then I curled up contentedly next to him on the couch and fell asleep. He didn’t even wake me up to go to bed. I woke up at 5:00 this morning with Cutter slapping at the bells on my ankle bracelet. I joined Doug in our bed but I couldn’t sleep. I kept opening my eyes to see if the sun was ready to come up yet.

I love being up to watch the sunrise. There is a quiet just before daybreak that even my insane-o barking dogs respect. A cup of coffee on the newly hung and painted porch swing with the sun coming up slowly over the back of the house and all is right with the world. Of course, the sun was up by the time the coffee was through brewing and I didn’t enjoy it sitting on the porch swing, but still.

I sit here now with my coffee, watching the dogs stretch lazily as they wander across the yard and I’m shopping QVC for large hoop earrings for the oldest. Her birthday is coming up in a few weeks and she wants some large hoops. All of my kids are afflicted with sensitivities. And it costs me money. Penicillin? The good, cheap stuff – no way. They’ve all gotta have the expensive stuff. $71.00 for 5 tablespoons. Same with jewelry…neither Leirin nor Emily can wear cheap earrings. Their ears will swell and itch in protest. Even the earrings for sensitive ears won’t do. They can wear those occasionally, at least, but more than a few days in a row and it is a mess.

Shopping for her is easy because we have the same taste – difficult because I want to buy myself a pair of everything I pick out for her. Good thing my birthday is only a few days before hers.

I’ve looked at (I’m sure) thousands of pairs of earrings and haven’t found anything yet that is just perfect. Well, there was that one pair but even my own earrings don’t cost a hundred bucks and if I’m going to spend fifty on them, there had better be something really way cool about them – like the pair I have (which I can’t find now) that have a moon face molded into the back of the hoop and a little dangling white-gold star that hangs in the center of the hoop. That’s a pair worth more than twenty bucks.

Seriously, 500 pairs of earrings so far; you’d think I’d have found SOMETHING by now.

Home Alone

Jake is not big on spending the night away from home. This afternoon when he talked to my mom about spending the night with her tonight he made a point to say he only wanted to stay for one night - not the whole weekend. He hung up the phone when he was through and said to me, "I'm still getting over the three days away from home from before." The girls love to go to Nany's, but Jake, he likes hanging out with me. We have great fun when we're together. He is always with me. During the day we have school, and since he doesn't care for spending the night away from home, he is here then too.
But tonight he went merrily off to spend the night with Nany. And I'm home all alone.

It goes without saying that though Doug was supposed to be off work tonight, he wasn't. 10:35 and he's still there. And there you have the number one reason that romance is never first on the list of options when chances like this come about. It just ain't going to happen. The work gods will see to it. So I left the restaurant knowing for sure that when he said he MAY be home soon, that meant I had the whole night to myself. Sure enough, here I sit alone. I don't really care for being alone. Actually, I love everything about being by myself - the intense quiet, the peaceful thoughts, the house staying as clean as I move from room to room, the intense quiet - yep, I love it all, except for the alone part.

For 13 years I have not been alone more than a handfull of times, so I have a teensie bit of anxiety over just what to do with myself when the opportunity arises.
I came home this evening before the sun set and since the house was bright enough with the light filtering through the curtains, I didn't need to turn lights on. I finished the job of straightening Jake's closet which we had started earlier today and a few other things that were desperate for doing tonight. A few things I left for tomorrow.

I'll be alone in the morning too and I'll be needing something to do then.

It is so not easy to adjust to being by yourself when you haven't even gone to the bathroom alone in such a long time. Okay, I haven't gone to the bathroom alone tonight either...Winkin' (the adorable, attention-starved, one-eyed kitty) is the one that always comes with me, but STILL. My footsteps through the house sound like wrecking balls, so I find a place to sit quietly. I tried for a little while to talk to the animals, but for some reason when I speak to them I'm self-conscious. Like singing. I can sing in the shower all day long, but let me even THINK somebody might be listening and my voice goes all weak and whimpery.

So I've sat, careful not to disturb the silence and break the peace.

I didn't read. I didn't get anything spotless. I didn't get next week's school lessons planned out. I didn't even get in the shower (I can NOT do that when I'm home alone and it's dark out - I'm a night-wuss). When I was in high school and I lived with my dad, he worked out of town all the time and I pretty much lived alone, except on the weekends (which I was never home for). I always ALWAYS made sure to have my shower before dark fell. I have no idea why, but being in the shower after dark in a house that's otherwise empty...it just screams Psycho. And I just can't do it. But that's just another bit of weirdness about me that I can't really explain. Like why, WHY would I waste a night alone. All by myself. No noise. No interruptions. Nothing but dogs outside barking at everything that moves (irritating hounds) and I am just sitting here passing the time until my husband comes home.