Keep Moving!!!!

I am at a difficult time now. The weather has been gorgeous. I am so weary of fencing and there are starting to be other enticements..... like planning for christmas. I make a lot of stuff for christmas. Home made toys, recipe books, quilts and on occasion, ugly afghans. But I can't allow myself to think about it, especially when I am so close! The fence so close to finished and all I need to derail the whole project is to start thinking about something else. I have even hidden my to-do list. Nothing but fence!

Don't think...Keep moving!!

Though I did make my annual christmas organizer this morning. I usually save an old christmas card. One that is a convenient size for my purse. Then I staple pages into it. The pages are labeled. One will be all of the people that I will send cards to. Another will be the people I know that I will have a small gift for. Then there are a number of pages for christmas ideas. This will incorporate thoughts about decorations, things I want to try ... recipes. One page will be my grocery shopping list. The definitive list of what I need to cook my christmas menu. Then I save a page for each of my kids and their spouses and the grand kids. The bottom half of the page is filled with suggestions. Things that I have heard them say they would like or use and I wrote it down so as to not forget. Then I have something solid to work from when I make the decision of what to buy or make for a family member. The top of the page is broken into three sections. The first and largest bit is dedicated to the presents I actually buy with a column for what I spend. This way I can see the number of items that I've bought and keep a running total of how much I have spent. Under this is a place to list the stocking stuffers that I have gotten for this person. We are very big on stocking stuffers in our family. We buy as much weird crap as we possibly can and we all have fairly large stockings. The last section of the page is for the table present. This is the last present we open on the day. It has to fit on the person's plate. I try to make this a thoughtful gift... I don't always succeed, but it is the last opportunity to leave a warm, fuzzy feeling for the recipient. It is a process that I become totally absorbed in... gifts that evoke a feeling.

So I can't think about it! Don't think .... Keep moving!!

The other day there was an incredibly hard wind from the south and I was thinking about how badly I wanted to be working on my solar heat collector/window covers for the big windows in the living room and bed room. I was calculating the amount of wood. Site preparation. Hardware to keep it in place. Amount of plastic. How much money would this save us this winter. Then I had to stand back and tell myself...


Snap out of it!! Don't think.... Keep moving!

I so need to make some money. Money haunts me. I've even put myself on a diet.... not so much a traditional diet but one that is about the most conscientious way to use food, in order to save money. During the day, I eat if there are leftovers or if there is something that is really, really cheap. Sometimes a can of beets (don't ask me why, but I love beets) Ramen noodles or if I am feeling very extravagant... pancakes. Cheap and cheerful, but mostly cheap. Then I remind myself..

Building the fence will save money in hay and feed! Don't think.... Keep moving!

But I am so close and winter is coming and soon. One way or another, I will lay this burden down. It will either be done or it will be time to cry "Uncle!" But I don't want to think about that now. I just have to keep moving.

Louie

Today, I Feel Blessed

It has been a busy weekend for me, and it has left me feeling blessed. Our neighbor has been a godsend. He knows that Mac has been sick. Knows the burden it puts on me and he has tried very hard to step in and help me with things that take an extra set of hands, or a tractor, to do. Because of my neighbor the fence is so much closer to being done.

We started off by pulling out already cut posts. They were cut a couple of years ago, but being so large, I had been unable to move them. Then it became more difficult as brush started to grow around them. Some of them basically tree trunks off my Osage Orange (hedge) trees. I would not be surprised if some of those posts weighed in at three or four hundred pounds. They are huge. Some are in excess of fifteen or sixteen inches across. Some that we couldn't use are even larger. Then, on day two, my neighbor brought over his hole auger on his tractor and we started making holes. This goes so fast!!! For a person who has dug a lot of holes it is like some time lapse miracle! You don't know if you should feel thrilled or weep for all of the holes that you already dug by hand.

The last step was getting the monstrously huge timbers tipped into the holes. Even with a tractor this was very tiring... and dangerous. We had a couple of logs get away from us and it is surprising just how nimble a couple of fifty year olds can be when such an occasion arises. I may not be a graceful doe, but I can still execute an effective duck and dive.

Today I will be working on my own. I will be straightening posts up and tamping dirt around them. I will be pulling wire and with a great deal of luck, tomorrow morning I will be moving the horses to a new pasture. I think at that moment, I will breathe clearly again. The constant lump in my chest will subside and the reflux will ebb.

I am so blessed that such a huge task is so close to completion. I am blessed with a neighbor that despite his own personal trials, feels like he should help shoulder Mac's and mine as well. Most people only do what is good within the realm of what is convenient for them. With that in mind, I count myself doubly blessed.

Louie

Nothing Accomplished

Today will be one of those days when absolutely nothing will be accomplished. Mac will work half a day and then we will take off for Des Moines to see his regular oncologist. Not enough time to get anything done. Hardly any time to get myself sorted out and started on a project. Then I will work myself up to a bit of nausea, which I seem to do when ever doctors are involved. Then after the doctor, I will be famished and have a wee bit of a mental crash. Depending on how things go today, tomorrow I will either be invigorated or I will sleep off my stress.

So, what to do with my half day before we head to Des Moines? Well, hadn't better do anything that will make me smell. Better keep it calm. Calm is a good thing. I think I'll go count fence posts again and see if I have enough of everything to finish up the closest pasture lots. I wonder if that will be calm enough. Could start off a panic attack as well. This time of year can be so emotional... kind of like going through puberty on a seasonal basis.

I don't think I have totally made the transition back to normal from survival mode in a hospital. It is like being haunted. Every day when I plan how I want my life to unfold there is that little niggling feeling in the back of the brain. The question of how would I extricate myself from what I'm doing if I got the phone call. Always be ready to drop everything. Can I leave my life again?

Screw this... I'd rather have the fear of winter and not having the money to pay for heat , then to have the fear of doctors and hospitals. I need to go feed my girls and count fence posts. I'll choose my own poison.

Doesn't matter anyway... nothing will be accomplished today.

Louie

It's Coming!!!

I have been thinking about winter. Yup! even more then I was before. With the weatherman forecasting that night temperatures will hit 32 degrees F. this week, I am preparing myself for my annual event called...PANIC!!!!

The outdoor work is not even close to being done. So much time has been lost for one reason or another. It makes me sick with dread. I have several art projects that I really need to get behind me, and because I apparently like making myself miserable, I've been trying to start some christmas gifts.

The only explanation is that I must be mentally ill..... I'm a sick, sick woman.

It doesn't matter if I'm crazy or not... winter is coming. I'm not ready. In fact... I'm frozen in terror. At this time, I'm not even sure how to go about prioritizing. When it is cold you can't paint, you can't mortar and you can't dig post holes. It all needs done and it all needs done now. I sometimes wonder how my life gets so filled with hurdles. I sometimes wonder why I have to do every damn thing by myself.

STOP IT! This is a bad direction to be going with my thoughts.

What I have is... most of the fencing done on one section of pasture and the other sections started. I have the dishwasher running and the clothes washer will soon be started. I have the hamburger out to thaw to make meat loaf for supper. I have fence posts to drag out to the pasture for a round pen. I have mended the wheelbarrow tire and I just need to get air in it. I have enough hay for the winter. I have the christmas presents for my friends almost done. God knows, I could use some help, but at least, I have hope.

It's coming... so I'd better get moving.

Louie

More fencing....

I am trying to keep the fencing foremost in my mind right now. It is one of the largest projects on the little farm and , I hope that when through, all of the other projects will seem so fast and easy that I just fly through them. That's the hope anyway.

One woman post hole digging can be difficult.

When I started this project it seemed to me that I would need a minimum of twenty-two deeply dug holes to accomplish the basics of my pasture layout. Now as I look at my project, I realize that I probably didn't include all of the holes for brace poles and possibly some mid line reinforcement holes. I need to get a more accurate sketch of the finished product.

So far, I have dug eight holes and have five more started and soaking. My goal is to get all five dug out and get as many more started as I possibly can. Hope the clay isn't too heavy today. Hope a lot of things.

I had another odd dream last night. This time, I was digging post holes. No surprise there. There was a dusting of snow on the ground. I kept jamming the post hole digger into the ground and all I accomplished was breaking loose tiny chunks of crystallized, frozen earth. Over and over the digger was rammed down but the hole just didn't get any bigger. I awoke with a feeling of fear.

The good news is that I am getting some "guns" on me. The saddle bags (I call them speed bumps) are shrinking. My neck..well, I have the neck of a newscaster.... it's lovely. The bad news is that I still have the face of a longshoreman, but it turns very prettily.

As always, I take my good with my bad. But my heart feels quieter now. Over all, I feel happy because it finally feels like I am making progress. Life is good.

Louie

Fences Revisited

I have too much of a driven personality to be miserable for a long time. Probably lucky with that one, as it seems that I have plenty I could allow myself to be depressed about. So yesterday in my misery and depression I started looking for fencing options. The usual was popping up.. Red Brand woven wire, electrobraid, etc. All of it, no matter how economical they declare themselves to be, are outside of my reach. Then I saw another category as an option. Living Fence. I had looked at living fences before and all I had found were huge windbreaks and companies selling blue spruces for five bucks a piece. But what the hell, I clicked. These are two of my favorites that I found.

http://www.thewillowbank.com/

http://www.willowworks.co.uk/html/willow_structures.html

One of the things that gives me hope is that spring isn't the time for planting willow. I still have a shot at this. Planting needs to be after the leaf has fallen and before the new bud has opened. For us that means late fall or very early spring. It means I can borrow the neighbors tiller and get my rows cleaned and made weed free and till them down so the willow rod can be shoved into the ground. It means I can weave shade shelters into the corners. It means that I can make something that is utilitarian and beautiful and free! It is manpower that I can do on my own!

I have read that a fence needs to be horse high, cow strong and pig tight. The willow can be horse high. There will be other areas that need to be cow strong. If this experiment works then the next tree I try will be hedge. In other areas, hedge means a bit of clipped box. But here in rural Iowa hedge is an incredibly tough tree also known as an Osage Orange. A hedge post stuck in the ground can last fifty years. I will try the other method of planting them side by side, weaving them together and letting them graft to each other. That was the method promoted by the government back in the WPA years when the hedge and the hemp were planted all over this area. From now on I will think of it as "Farmer Bonsai".

I know I will still need some standard fencing, especially areas where guest horses will be staying, but this will free me up to take down some fence that I already have and re use the components. This gives me a chance to keep going. This puts me back on track for chasing my dream. I'm back in the running.

louie

fences

I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about fences. Fences take up so much in the line of resources, labor and money. So much of what I want to do is dependent on fences. I was recently visiting with someone about horsemanship. they wanted to know where I was working with my horse, Pip. I told them I was working with her in one of the smaller lots. It measure about 120 ft. square. "There's your problem!" , he said, "What you want for starting is a forty foot round pen." Well of course I want a forty foot round pen!! I also want a fifty-five foot round pen and a seventy foot round pen. I want those three round pens in a pasture with a small pound and a bunch of logs to jump over and some tire pedestals. I want some tractor tires set up as a permanent squeeze obstacle. I want to have a tether ball set in each pasture so a horse can play even if I'm not around. Go ahead and laugh but I have theories about how this might affect the well being of a horse. I'll update you when I do this.... but first there are fences to be concerned with.

I think I have beat this topic up until there is no other way to attack it. Of the things that you need for fencing... resources, labor and money. I figure to accomplish this task, I will need two of any of the things. I maybe, kind of have one... resources. But I can't find the labor to cut down my resources and I don't have the money to pay them anyway. My frustration grows. I'm getting really tired of being the only person here trying to make things happen. Tired of being broke. Tired of what money we do have going to trips to the Dr. Tired of bill collectors. Tired of not seeing any thing improving. I have flashes of rage when I see other people hire excavating equipment to do a job that takes me weeks and they have it done in thirty minutes.

Today I really feel like my sense of humor and my imagination are letting me down. Something has to get better today. I don't know how but something has to get better today.

louie