Posts Tagged ‘good neighbor’
Exhausting Effort
Yesterday was an unplanned effort that turned into an all-day haul. This is how it came about…
We were looking to double the amount of hay we have stored for the winter in our hay shed. Using just our pickup truck to move 41 bales at a time over the summer, we had accumulated under half of what we are comfortable having for the winter months.
It made most sense that we should find a trailer to haul more bales per trip, so Cyndie contacted our neighbor.
His immediate response was, “Not right now.”
He had a car loaded on the trailer and didn’t want to take it off. Maybe next week, he said. Okay, we can live with that. Then a day later, after I had spent half a day covered in spider webs and dryer lint (the hose venting to outside needed replacing) and half a day mowing and cleaning the mower deck of moldy grass clippings, I was desperately looking forward to a long soaking shower.
The second I turned on the water, Cyndie said our neighbor just arrived to drop off his trailer and wanted to show me some details of the hookup. Surprise! She told him I had just stepped in the shower and he said he would be waiting down by the trailer.
I barely got wet, then dried off and jumped into clothes so I could hustle down to greet him.
He generously provided his ball mount attachment to fit the coupler and guided me through all the safety connections. We are so very lucky to have him for a neighbor.
With trailer in hand, we suddenly had a different itinerary for our Saturday. We ended up making two trips to transfer a total of 240 bales of hay for the day. That involves stacking 120 on the trailer, strapping them down, anxiously driving to our place, unloading 120 bales, lifting 120 into place inside our shed, and then driving back to do it all again, a second time.
Keep in mind, the bales appear to get heavier with time, as our bodies fatigue. The second batch of bales are harder to lift, and I need to climb higher in the shed to stack them on top of the first load.
Since we were trying to fit our two loads into the hours our hay seller was available –basically, the hours in a day– this effort came with nary a break. As I finished stacking the first load, Cyndie hustled up to the house to put together sandwiches for a lunch we could eat in the truck at 1:00 p.m. while driving back to pick up the second load.
After a non-stop day awash in dusty, scratchy hay, I was looking forward, even more than the day before, to that long soaking shower to calm my itchy skin.
It was a soothing finish to a full day of exhausting effort.
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Buying Time
By the grace of a friendly and helpful next door neighbor, we have bought some time to find out whether the engine in our lawn tractor is worth repairing or not. If not, we need to buy a replacement mower. In the mean time, we have been granted the use of an old John Deere 318 that burns a little oil to cut our grass while awaiting the ultimate solution.
I was getting desperate. Some of the areas that hadn’t been cut at all when our engine failed back on May 19th were getting so tall I was worried the borrowed mower wouldn’t be enough for the job. Alas, my fretting was unwarranted.
This Deere was up to the task. The weak link in the system was the novice operator. I struggled to get used to the biggest difference between this one and ours: a lever on the console for forward and reverse control, versus simple foot pedals.
I breathed a sigh of relief when, having mowed until light faded, I ended without incident.
Exciting as it was to be able to cut the grass again, it paled in comparison to the thrill over reports from visiting Elysa and Ande about their surprising interaction with the chickens. Well, one of the Barred Plymouth Rock chickens, in particular.
As they explained it to me, Elysa crouched down among the chickens and the friendly bird hopped up on her knee. Then it kept going and hopped up on her shoulder.
When the rest of the chicks wandered away, Elysa tried walking –bent over for her passenger– to keep the loner from getting left behind. Much squawking ensued.
I guess we’ve done something right in the realm of socializing our birds to interaction with humans. I sure hope they are adept at figuring out the difference between friend and foe when it comes to non-humans.
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Mutual Support
We have received a lot of support from our neighbors, George and Rachael Walker in the time we have been here. They have provided us with meat and eggs from a share in their CSA farm, cut and baled our hay, George trims our horse’s hooves, and Rachael has provided riding lessons. We welcomed an opportunity to finally offer support to them in return.
Yesterday, we went over to learn the details of feeding their variety of horses so that we can “farm-sit” while they are away for a few days over the weekend. Most of their animals will be set up with enough food for all three days, so it is just horses that will be our primary responsibility. Still, I found the process of feeding some of the other animals equally fascinating.
The pigs eat anything and everything. Rachael found a stash of eggs that had been secreted away in some nook, so she tossed them to the pigs. Mixed in with the pulverized corn that had already been served, it looked like a baking accident had spilled in there. The pigs took to it like… pigs.
I didn’t see the ducks getting fed, but they put on a nice show of their dark colors, strutting their stuff in the yard. It had me wondering how we might ever condition our dog, Delilah to accept the presence of poultry on our property without assuming they were put there for her to eat.
I’d like to have some ducks and chickens as assistants in controlling the fly populations around here.
After animals were all fed, and George finished cutting one of their hay fields, we joined them for dinner at the nearby El Paso Bar & Grill. I ate fried cheese curds, and other ill-advised choices at an unusually late hour, and stayed out way past my bedtime. It was wonderful.
George and Rachael are a joy to be with, and we feel ever more connected to community as we grow more familiar. Being able to offer them some support contributes greatly to that feeling of connection.
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Precious Godsend
A few weeks ago, our neighbor stopped by to deliver some mail that had erroneously been left in their mailbox. He walked around to the back of the house to find Cyndie, and noticed my pile of logs awaiting the ax. He told her that he had a gas-engine splitter that wasn’t getting any use. He offered to come over and help me split firewood.
I had mixed feelings about it. I don’t like the noise the gas engine makes, but it would be a huge advantage for getting a lot of wood split all at one time. I loved that our neighbor wanted to help us, but he is 77-years-old and this was a task that seemed above and beyond the call of duty. Since his first offer, he’d mentioned it a couple of other times when I’d seen him, so I knew the offer was genuine. That made me really want to take him up on it, but I just hadn’t gotten around to it.
Yesterday he made it easy for me. He called and asked if I would be around in the afternoon, because he wanted to bring the splitter over and take care of my wood pile. Happily, I was just on my way home from picking up Delilah from her grooming appointment. How could I refuse?
I’m no longer worried about the effort being too much for him. I think he can out-work me. I wanted to stop when the sun set, but there was still some wood left in the row we were on. He told me I could go and he would finish those last few. I stayed, ultimately insisting he quit when it got too dark to work safely.
Obviously, the powered splitter made much quicker work of the logs than I could accomplish with my manual splitter, but more importantly, it is able to tackle the stringy-est wood that would defy my splitter entirely. I don’t know if it was ash or elm (he said it’s a hybrid of the two), but some of the largest logs were of that wood and I never would have gotten them split without the 22-ton force hydraulic ram-rod he volunteered to bring over.
I think splitting wood is something he sees as a pleasure to do, not a chore. I also think that I live a charmed life to have landed this paradise of a property with two of the most helpful neighbors on either side. As he prepared to depart for home on his 4-wheeler with the splitter hitched to the back, he very matter-of-factly stated that he would come back tomorrow to finish the remainder of the pile that needs splitting.
I didn’t try to refuse. I’m putting that energy into trying to figure out how I will ever be able to return the favor. My gushing thank-you’s don’t feel anywhere near adequate.
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Relative Something 