An Odd Thing

I live on a farm, and I've had all sorts of odd experiences.  Like having to drag my groceries on a sled through three foot deep snow to get from the car to the house.  Like watching a spider cricket grow to maturity in the utility sink, because he was stuck there and I knew that if I tried to free him, he'd just crawl up my arm.  Like searching for a walking stick that can double as a web-wand.

We can also include under "Odd Experiences" the time I ran out of my house barefoot to rescue a chicken from a fox, then chasing that fox into the woods, and finally administering first aid to the chicken.  Or, the time when the sump pump backed up due to ice, and I got to spend several hours wading in my own basement when I wasn't crawling under the front porch, armed with a hairdryer and a few buckets of hot water.

I hardly think about the odd things I do on a daily basis now.  I stepped into the shower the other day, and saw a spider on the inside of the plastic shower curtain.  I was already wet, and I didn't want to call for assistance, so I just gathered the folds between my hands and slammed them together, effectively squishing the spider.  I then took my shower.

This morning, I reached into the trash can to rescue the toast crusts that the Boy had accidentally thrown away:  the chickens love cinnamon toast crusts.

However, something happened last week that has captured my imagination.

One of my best friends came for the week, a last-minute trip that was so great.  She and I did some of the things that I have been meaning to do for a long time, but never got around to doing:  visiting the local distillery for the tour and tasting; hiking a section of the Appalachian Trail; and getting out on Friday night to hit the local First Friday event.

We also spent hours talking and laughing, enjoying wine every evening.  I gave my usual tour of the farmhouse, pointing out all the charming details (moss from the 1700s, ax marks in the log walls, adorable kitchen) and the places to watch out for (sloping floors, odd steps up or down, low ceilings). Of course, I also showed her around the farm and entertained her with all the adorably odd habits I've picked up here.

Her favorite was my web-wand.  We went on a walk of the fields, munching on the occasional blackberries, letting the Boy pick our route, so he could show us the new paths he mowed with his father.  (And they are hilarious.  Period.  Curves and twists...if I hadn't known that the Boy had done them, I would have thought that his father had been doing something with the weeds other than mowing them.)  Anyhow, my friend was giggling over my web-wand, and had already pictured Lockhart before I explained it.

Moments, later, however, we came upon the really odd thing.

We have rain and storms often enough, and we come across fallen branches and other assorted storm debris.  But this evening, in middle of the path, we found this nest.

It looked undisturbed.  There were no obvious nesting branches overhead.  No sign of a distressed mama bird.  Just a nest full of cloth fibers and a perfect egg.  Google failed us when we tried to identify it, although the closest match was a bird species so common I've already forgotten its name.

Who knows how it happened?  We'll never know, but for once, something odd enough happened that I actually recognized that it was odd.  And it made me think about how many things I have come to accept as just part of my day, that had once seemed so extraordinary.

So, I will go back to waving my web-wand and eating fruit right off the bushes, tormenting the local foxes and feeding my chickens slightly-rotten but organic cucumbers and tomatoes along with their favorite cinnamon toast crusts.  And I will look at it all and giggle at how far the City Kitty has come.

A Fashion Nightmare

Ah, Friday.  Friday was supposed to be my day to do my social thing.  I was going into Arlington to deliver our guest cat back to Wine Friend, and I'd also checked with a few friends about maybe meeting up for the local First Friday after.  And, the boys were going out for an evening without me!  I was going to have a fabulous evening!

Ha!

My hair was all adorable and curly.  I actually put on a cute top and skinny jeans, and planned to wear hawt high heel boots.  Pretty earrings, light makeup... well, except for the eyes.  I did dramatic smoky eyes, in purple.  Hey, I was getting off the farm!

But, before I could escape the farm, I had to do less glamorous things.  I had to pick up the Boy from school.  I had to take Katt to the vet to get her nails clipped, and get more of her anti-vomit medicine.  And then I needed to pick up two big bags of the water-softener salt.  Muck boots were worn for those errands, and I only got two smears of dirt on my jeans.  I wiped them off, and thought, in an hour, I'll be heading east.

And then my cell phone rang.  I have a cool phone now (sorry, crackberry), and I told it to answer.  It was the Husband.  A hawk had been at the chickens, and he couldn't find any of them now.  It was already 3:30.

I got us safely home, let Katt inside, and the three of us began the search, taking Amy with us.  We walked through the woods and fields, searching for the freaked out chickens.  Eventually, we found Elasta-Girl and Peaches-and-Cream in a tree.  We lifted them out, and they were carried home.  Then we found Darth Vader, hiding in another tree.  Her tail feathers had been ripped out, and we found more sign of lost feathers there.  Had we lost a girl or not?

We continued stalking the trees, but it was getting later, and the boys had movie tickets for 5:30.  I told them to go on, that I would keep searching.

And I did.  I contacted my chicken friend, and got a few suggestions.  In the meantime, I took a break so I could prepare for the evening.  Emptying the litterbox, gathering all the cat's toys and the remaining food.  And, of course, making sure her cat carrier was ready.  And, since the driveway was still icy, I dragged the garden cart to the front of the house, so I could haul all everything up the hill.

I did another chicken search.  I let Wine Friend know I was running late, and let the other friends know that my time schedule was shot.  Texting while walking through the woods is hazardous, however.  I got caught by a low hanging branch and got a pretty good scratch across my forehead.  I exchanged the phone for a bowl of chicken feed to shake as I walked, and still managed to run into tree branches.  I was grateful it was winter, at least-- no spiderwebs or need for my web-wand.

Leia had shown up by then.  Ginger, Acid and Mocha were still missing.  But Mocha darted toward me just after the sun went down.  I took her home and conceded defeat, hoping that one or both would return in the morning, assuming they survived the night.*

By then, it was almost six!  I had to get out of there.  I was running so late!  I grabbed the kitty and my purse, put on the boots by the door, and wheeled the cart up the ice.  It was heavy, and I took off my coat again because I was starting to, ahem, glow.

Let's fast forward, shall we? I delivered the cat, and Wine Friend took me out to dinner, since I was shaking from hunger.  (I'd planned to eat something after the guys left and before I needed to leave, but that didn't happen, obviously.)  We went to a nice wine bar, and I ate a lovely meal and drank lovely wine.  I visited the lady's room.

Oh, and what a sight I beheld.  I might have been okay if I had freshened my powder and lipstick, although the smokey eyes were more smudged than anything.  And truthfully, the scratch across my forehead would have taken a bit of concealer or something.  My cute curls were in a ragged mess.  There were bits of twig in them!  I had smears of what I hoped was only dirt along my collar bone.  Never mind that I had mud on my jeans.

And I'd put on my riding boots, and not the high heels.  The boots that had been cute when I got them, but then had become my field boots, not to be confused with the muck boots.  These only had mud and a few scratches, and I am almost certain, no chicken bombs.  That I cannot say for the muck boots.

But yeah, the best laid plans of the City Kitty were pooped on by the chickens.  And I wasn't sure which I was more embarrassed by: being late because of the chickens, or looking awful because of the chickens.

*For those of you who could care less about the fashion nightmare, then rest assured, Ginger was there in the morning.  But Acid, the bottom of the pecking order, has gone to the great hawk in the sky.

Prongs and the Chicken Coop

Maybe you remember, Faithful Readers, that we were planning to attempt a chicken coop.  That hasn't been forgotten.  

Apparently, when you are a big old idiot like me, and obstinately determined to renovate an existing structure rather than just buy a nice Amish coop, it takes a lot longer to plan, price and compare materials, forage for usable scraps, scrap your original plan, then hold the second plan, then glean free stuff from the side of the road, and clean that stuff.

So, here is a photo of the old play-set that we'd intended to convert originally.

We figured we clean it up, kill the poison ivy, enclose the main structure, extend the roof down to the balcony area, add a door, a window, and use one of the pre-existing nesting boxes left for us, and we'd be good.  But the roof said otherwise.  See, I love the shingles.  But making a non-leaky roof would have required removing the shingles.  And replacing a roof?  Lazy girl said, not as such.

So, we looked at the other outbuildings.  Country Kitty had told me that all the outbuildings had been used for chickens at some point, but one seemed to be the best choice.  Here is what it looked like before we began.

 There was a lot of work involved, obviously, but the roof only has one leak!  Never mind that the floor was a minefield booby trapped with tunnels dug by Clarence and his entire extended family.  And that a tree was growing almost through the rock foundation.  Or that the back of the building was completely inaccessible due to overgrowth, making the east facing window a complete and utter joke.  Or that the sheer volume of grape vines, wild blackberry, Virginia creeper, and even some poison ivy gave the impression that it was the sole reason the building was still standing.  

Still, it seemed like an easier job to me, to fix an existing chicken coop rather than convert a new building.  So, we began.  We removed all the debris... mostly by transferring it to the other side of the building.  (But we stacked the lumber neatly, and placed the pots carefully on a flat surface.)  After we cleared the floor, we dug it up, filled in Clarence's deepest holes with every big rock we could find, and then leveled it all, raking and removing all the small debris we discovered.

The Husband got out his chainsaw and began removing the worst of the limbs from the tree growing out the foundation.  Armed with a whacking stick (which is different than a web-wand) and a pair of gardening clippers, I began attacking the overgrowth and vines.  I whacked everything in my way with the stick, and clipped only what refused the move.  I truthfully wondered, at the beginning, where one acquires Agent Orange, but then I discovered the true pleasure of the whacking approach.  I highly recommend it to any one in need of some constructive violence.  Upset about creative differences with your spouse?  Not after that!  Frustrated by your child's inability to keep Legos off the floor?  Not now!  Irritated because your hair is growing out and looking less cute than it did even a week ago?  Not even a worry.  (Those are all hypothetical, of course.)

 Anyway, after that, it was cleanup for all the remaining vines clinging, and marveling over the finds.  The skull from a medium sized animal!  An old county road sign.  A license plate from the 1960s.  We made a list of what we needed to plug holes and fill in that blank wall.

Minor cleaning, measuring tapes... and a hugely lucky find of windows and lumber from a free pile at the local farm stand.

I've gleaned some plywood scraps, and have been playing with them, trying to fit them without having to cut much.  (Did I mention I am lazy?)

So, the work is progressing nicely.

But someone is not pleased.   You see, the day before we began clearing, I saw this guy, and watched him wander inside the building.  If you look carefully through the little hatch in the front wall, you will see him. It is his favorite place to spend an afternoon.


This is not creative license.  This is not exaggeration.  He goes in there!  Just yesterday, I was unloading the windows from my truck, making an awful racket, and I opened the top half of the split door and SAW him leaping through the far door to leave.  Look at the bottom right-hand photo in the quad above.  You can see the outline of his body in the dirt.  


Here is what the space looks like after I finished work today.  This photo shows the half the building we are not using.  There is no door attached on that side, so I laid the old door down across the doorway.  Can he still get in if he wants to?  Sure.  But why would he when the path to his favorite nesting area is blocked like this?  

The buck has been named Prongs, and I sure hope he'll keep hanging around the property for another few months.  He'll be welcome in the house, just like the chickens...

Mwahahahhaha....

Ghosts, Spiders, and Croquet

We are settling in nicely.  I've spent a lot of time unpacking and arranging things, and while there is much more to do, it is more focused (i.e. "Where the %@^$ are my headbands?" versus "OMG, another box marked Kitchen?").  But, while unpacking is never an easy process, I have made lots of progress.

I've been able to linger over my coffee and my lunch, and the morning room/breakfast nook/ room off the kitchen is a marvelous place to linger.  Two walls are huge, old fashioned type windows, the ones with lots of little panes, rather than one big pane with a grid laid across it.  Miss L told me that if one of the panes got broken, we can actually go down an actual hardware store in the historic downtown area, and replace the pane.  How cool is that?

Anyhow, I read too much, and lingering over my coffee is one of the best times to read.  I sit here, in the morning room, with a view of the lawn to my left, and the patio and pond immediately before me, full of fluttering butterflies of black, yellow, gold, blue, and white... although at the moment, there is a little boy creating worlds with his Legos blocking some of that view.  Anyhow, the book I've been lingering with is by Shirley Jackson:  The Haunting of Hill House.  This is a selection from the opening paragraph:

"Hill House stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within...walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."

 Oops.  For those of you who haven't read it, this is a terrifying book, even if there is no blood, guts, or gore.  (Actually, there is a bit of blood, come to think of it.  If you HAVE to watch one of the films, watch this version.  You should read it, if you can.)  I've read this book dozens of times, and gotten the chills, and my mouth drops open as I discover new gems hidden within the text.  Here's the one that gave me chills just yesterday, in which Dr. Montague is explaining the architecture of Hill House...

"Every angle...is slightly wrong.  Hugh Crain must have detested other people and their sensible squared away houses, because he made his house to suit his own mind.  Angles which you assume are the right angles you are accustomed to... are actually a fraction of a degree off in one direction or another.  I am sure, for instance, that you believe the stairs you are sitting on are level, because you are not prepared for stairs which are not level... [they] are on a very slight slant toward the central shaft, the doorways are all a very little bit off center..."

I could go on, but I am certain you know where this is heading.  THERE ARE ALMOST NO LEVEL FLOORS IN THIS HOUSE!!  The rooms are odd shapes (not square!) The doors are unusual sizes, and some refuse to close while others refuse to open.  There are little stairs here and there.  All this can be attributed to four different constructions over the 300 year history of this farmhouse.  Before yesterday, I found all this charming and quirky, and I regarded it all affectionately.  But that scene, which has NEVER gotten me before, got me yesterday.  And as I walked through the house last night, closing windows, turning off lights and checking doors... I thought, "Whatever walks these wooden floors, walks alone."

Speaking of walking (yeah, I am totally changing the subject--there is no one to hear me scream in the night, except the boy, who does NOT need to wake up like that!)... this weekend the paths in the upper and lower fields were mown (and widened, thank you so much, City Tomcat Husband.)  Yesterday morning, the boy and I took the dog and our trusty web-wands out for a walk.  We saw many interesting things, but what captured our interest the most was all the fascinating spider webs along the path.  (The ones in our path were destroyed by my waving tree branch and the boy's swinging ball on a rope.)  We saw funnel and sheet webs, but the one we watched being constructed was an orb.  Here is a crappy picture of it:

Now what was extraordinary about it was the actual spider.  We were close and I found a picture of what it looks like.   (I am attaching a link, because I do have a few friends who might murder me if I put a big picture of a spider here.  Take a look at the blog, and scroll down to the 12th picture.)

Spiders are everywhere inside.  I am trying to remember that they are here to eat the other bugs, and that they are my friends... but it is hard to remember that when I am about to plug in an electric cord and see a little spider sitting on her web, grinning up at me with sharp pointy teeth.

The day ended nicely, despite the ghost stories and spiders.  The boy and I played a few rounds of croquet on the newly mown lawn.  It was fun.  And I tell you, there is nothing quite like being able to shout with laughter and not wonder if the neighbor is gonna start peaking out the window to see if someone is being slaughtered.  Because...

"No one can hear you if you scream in the night."  -Eleanor Vance in The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

I Live On A Farm... And I Have A Truck!

I LIVE ON A FARM NOW!!!

We've been here since Friday.  All I've done is unpack, pretty much.  I've managed to sneak in a few walks.

The best walk was dragging three garbage cans out the "curb"... down the gravel driveway, up the rise, after dark.  The first two trips, I entertained myself by shining the heavy duty flashlight into the trees and undergrowth.  The third, I finally remembered that we are close to a full-moon, so I turned off the light and walked by moonlight.  That was worth it.  The world looks different when not blazing with light.  I must do that more often.

The worst walk involved me forgetting that I need a "web-wand" when strolling down a mown path through the trees.  I usually grab a fallen branch and wave it around madly as I walk, as if I was Gilderoy Lockhart.  The purpose of the web-wand is to break up the SPIDER WEBS that form exactly where I want to walk.  So... there I was, strolling down the mown path through the trees, and I walked right into a big web, which I am certain MUST have had a carnivorous spider waiting for prey like me.  I shrieked... No.  Let's be honest.  I screamed like a horror-movie blonde.  I was madly attempting to brush the spider off (not that I knew she was there, but why take chances?) as I wiped the web out of my hair.  BECAUSE I HAD FORGOTTEN MY BIG-BRIMMED HAT.  To my credit, I did laugh after I stopped running.

What else?  We've seen a stray cat, a lot of deer, a chipmunk or two, several bunnies, a mangy looking cardinal as well as many chickadees, which is my son's favorite bird to identify currently.  Lots of frogs in the pond in the patio.  I saw five today.  I excitedly told my son, who hardly raised his eyes from his Legos to say, "I saw six yesterday."  

So what, kiddo?  I am sitting in the breakfast nook, listening to those frogs and the cicadas and the crickets.  He's asleep, the dog is stretched out somewhere, and the cat is catting around outside.

The dog has been here since the beginning of the month.  Amy and Katt began as housemates cautiously, but have progressed to touching noses and smelling each other occasionally.  But yesterday, they behaved like, well, cats and dogs.  Big fight over the cat food.  I made the mistake of feeding Amy at dinner time when Katt was outside.  Later, when Katt came inside, I thought I would feed her.  I must be stupid.  There was food EVERYWHERE.  Even under the dish.  Katt's water was splashed over cat, dog, floor, food, wall, steps... and into the three next rooms as Katt took off running.  Amy is now banished when Katt is eating.

Speaking of eating.  I have now cooked twice on the gas stove/ oven, which matches the rest of the kitchen theme.  1800s? (I must ask Miss L, the Country Kitty, before she leaves.)  Anyway, it is all rounded and has little doors.  It is a modern appliance, however...I've never cooked on gas before.  So, there I was last night.  I had decided to cook spaghetti, since I had two spaghetti squashes that we needed to eat.  I was prepared to do that...until I remembered that I have no effing clue where my baking dishes are.  Somewhere in the dining room in a box marked "Kitchen- Stuff", maybe?  Anyhow, I had to make do with real spaghetti (well, the gluten-free variety, which is pretty rocking).  I needed to brown the sweet Italian sausage from the half pig we bought last summer.  I needed to boil water.  And I needed to heat up the marinara.  No problem, right?  A dinner I could cook while half asleep.

The Stove/Oven.  (ignore the boxes)

First, I couldn't find the buttons, or dials, or whatever they are called.  They were hidden behind the cute little door on the left.  Then I didn't know which dial was for what burner.  And then I remembered that I had no freaking clue if I was supposed to push something to catch the flame, or how high to turn the dial.  I decided to just experiment.  I promptly managed to kill the pilot light.  Fortunately, I DID know what to do with that, since my son had blown it out the previous day when Miss L was just telling me about keeping eye on the pilot light.  So, I re-lit it.  After awhile, I managed to get one lit.  It wasn't the one I wanted, but I used it.  I had to get the meat cooking!  I then took about ten more minutes to get another going.  I am so grateful I have good pots (All-Clad Copper-Core), even if they are almost 12 years old.

My truck and the farm-house!  And a big tree!

Long story short (too late!), I did a great job, and the food was excellent.  And breakfast was even easier!  Yay me!  Although, Miss L dropped by this afternoon, and noticed that one of the pilot lights was out.  So glad this farmhouse was built during the French and Indian War... i.e. drafty.  Good grief.

Now, Miss L came to drop off the essential farm accessory.  A TRUCK!!!  Okay, I could care less that it is a truck, except that it is a stick shift!  My car, a 1997 Honda Civic, was totaled last November, and I miss driving stick so much.  So, I cannot tell you a thing about the truck other than it has almost 200k miles on it, and it is a stick shift!  Oh, and it doesn't have power windows or locks... JUST LIKE MY POOR HONDA!