Relative Something

I have been given a chance for a mini-vacation for a few days this week in an advance payment for holding down the ranch solo next week when Cyndie takes a trip to visit friends. Cyndie arranged for a local contractor at our lake place in Hayward to do some work inside the main house and wanted to have someone here to let him in and be around while he worked in case he needed anything.

Her solution was brilliant, as far as I’m concerned. She offered me the chance to come up alone, and I accepted without hesitation. A solo road trip! Yahoo!

Not that I was excited or anything, but I packed the night before and snuck out the door at 5 a.m. yesterday for the drive to the lake. It felt reminiscent of my time commuting to the day job, except it took another hour and a half longer to get here than it did heading to the old workplace.

There had been just enough snow (you know, “nuisance snow” amounts) that I did a fair amount of shoveling to clean up walkways and stairs to both buildings for Brad, the contractor. He will also be doing some work for us in the little cabin while waiting for the sheetrock mud to dry.

Old seals on the hoses to the washing machine in the laundry room leaked when nobody was aware of it, and the resulting water damage included moldy sheetrock.

I took a picture while he was dismantling some shelving to show the yucky wall. After helping carry the frame and countertops out of the way, I gave Brad some space and listened to construction sounds from a distance.

With all obstructions out of the way, he made short work of ripping out the old and installing the new.

While Brad was doing real work, I enjoyed a leisurely day free of any animal duties and listened to my music library at high volume, set up a jigsaw puzzle, did some reading, took a nap, ate like a king (of course, Cyndie sent me off with oodles of good food!), and watched shows on Netflix that Cyndie won’t tolerate.

The hardest part of my day was learning that after a full day of the waterer in the paddock working fine and the temperatures moderating a bit from the most bitter cold, the line still froze again yesterday afternoon. Aaarrgh! Cyndie was able to melt it again and has the installer coming today, hopefully, to check out whether one of the heat tapes needs to be replaced.

I feel bad that the problem continued into her solo watch. One way to look at it though, maybe the added stress yesterday could help her to appreciate even more her vacation from animal responsibilities next week.

Giving each other separate turns to have an extended break from daily chores is a fair exchange. Right now, I’m soaking up my brief autonomy opportunity at the lake with maximum appreciation.

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