Time, Money, or Help
It's spring!! Now the work starts. My health concerns over the last eighteen(+) months caused the work around here. You might not have been concerned, but I was.
Let me tell you why. One especially windy day this past winter (Did I say windy? I meant sixty miles per hour sustained wind. We get those here.) I looked out the window to see my grandmother's (recovered from Grandma's house and brought to mine) seventy-year-old windmill wasn't moving. It may surprise everyone but sixty miles per hour winds are usually strong enough to make a windmill spin. Upon further investigation, I discovered Grandma's windmill was trashed. Pieces of the steel fan were literally, just gone. I couldn't find the missing pieces.
The pit in my stomach was huge. You cannot replace your Grandma's seventy-year-old windmill, and you can't repair it if you can't find the parts. Time. money, or help. I had no plan other than pull Grandma's windmill off its foundation and throw it in the dumpster. I had no time for that, I'll get to it later.
The winter/spring changed from windy to snowy and rainy. Recently, I have spent a lot of time looking out of the window. Not because I'm wimpy, well maybe I am wimpy. Rain and snow never bother Jerimiah Johnson. He would just go outside and fix stuff. He made time, didn't need money, and had no one to help.
Winter's winds blew a few shingles off a shed I built twenty years ago when we moved here. I can see the missing shingles from our bedroom window. I ask Elaine to keep the blinds closed, but she likes a sunny bedroom. No help there.
It is time to clean the corrals. For those of you that don't know what this means, it is not the most pleasant of jobs, especially after spring rains. There is nothing more fragrant than soggy yak and llama poop. Imagine the thrill of driving the skidsteer through the corral with the bucket filled with poop and the spring breeze blowing the scent back into your face. Nobody raised their hand to help with that.
Mac the yak and Yank the llama just complicate this task. First, they add to the problem daily and will not quit. I've asked. They have their choice of thirty acres or so, but they just use one. I'll get to it when it dries up a little.
It rained on Mother's Day. Both batches of kids spent the day with Elaine. One twin came to eat and use our couch, the other brought along another outdoor project. Boy Twin bought Elaine a pine tree for Mother's Day, which leaves Girl Twin as the couch user. Boy Twin had every intention of helping plant the tree, but that (construction language) rain. we could have Jerimiah Johnsoned it, but we came inside. I planted the tree myself last week.
Being the empty nesters that Elaine and I are we decided on a late dinner last night at Elaine's favorite restaurant in Red Feather. We/she decided how fun and pretty it would be to take the back roads to Red Feather. Remember me telling you it had been raining? Well, it wasn't raining when we left for the restaurant, as a matter of fact, the sun was shining brightly. But it had been raining earlier in the week.
The rain had turned the back roads into no roads at all. More like wagon-train trails. Potholes? You city folk ain't go nothin' on us. Even Jerimiah would have turned around. Not us. The drive was really pretty, very pretty.
We had a great meal/time in Red Feather but decided to take the main roads back home. As we rounded the last curve before home, Elaine said, "Hey, our motion sensor lights are on." I guessed we had some kind of wildlife near the house. Lions, tigers, and bears, or maybe just a fox. I sped up. It wasn't wildlife, it was Mac the yak standing in front of the deck looking at Lizzie the dog. Somewhere he found a hole in the fence. Another spring project.
Remember Grandma's windmill? I was walking through the pasture, about one hundred yards from Grandma's windmill, laying in the grass was the last steel piece of the windmill fan. Boy Twin can weld. He rebuilt Grandma's windmill. It's going to be a great spring.
Just realize I could be out there putting shingles on a shed, but I'm writing this (construction language) for you.
God bless, love ya.
Our crazy lives!
Monner
