Posts Tagged ‘neighbor’
No Plan
Sometimes I don’t have a plan for my day beyond the endless list of possibilities awaiting attention around our property. There are always plenty of things to do around here but my motivation doesn’t always rise to the occasion. Add in weather complications or limits of daylight and plans are often subject to change.
When I don’t have a plan then there is nothing to change. I did successfully accomplish a combination of driveway raking and grass mowing yesterday, so that felt like a win. I pushed the ol’ Greenworks lawn tractor to the single digits of battery percentage, making it back to the garage without needing to go get a spare battery.
While raking dirt near the road I was interrupted by the daily mail carrier delivery, a special US Postal package delivery, and a visit with our neighbor to the south. I think he is happy to see our property being well-tended. He always expresses a belief that we should be riding our horses and then regales an oft-repeated tale of the retired racehorses his friend had that were sway-backed beyond belief. They both lived into their 40s he tells us, I think as a way of suggesting ours may enjoy similar longevity.
Yesterday, Cyndie noticed that Swings has a “chunk” of her hoof broken in a way neither of us have seen before. She checked with This Old Horse and learned it wasn’t a cause for major concern. Other than that, I think the herd is showing signs of enjoying the gentle transition toward fall as our temperatures have started to moderate and the hours of daylight are shrinking.
I asked my neighbor if he expected good fall colors this year since we are seeing fewer hints of change than in previous seasons. He said the dryness we are suffering will likely bring good colors and the lack of change so far is just because it’s early yet.
It feels to me like the dry spell is shriveling leaves to brown more than triggering a color change thus far. Time will tell.
I won’t plan for spectacular fall colors and see if that helps. A failure to plan is a plan to fail, no?
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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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Relative Something 