ok, since it was such a long time since an update, I may as well continue with today.

coffee and raw cream, check. Thank God, as it really is the only reason for getting out of bed, except for the thought of ending the evening with wine.

milking, check.

hurry, we gotta go to the dump, partial check.

We go to feed and water the lambs that get on the trailer tomorrow, and load more on the trailer. He picks up the trailer with the bobcat and drags it over to another shed.

Ok, so he runs partially over this piece of crap, and I do not yell: STOP!

Of course when he drug it out of one of the sheds, he and Marcello were so proud about how it can be fixed, and can run again… Kill me now.

I guess I have to digress, and fill in some gaps.

last summer, when Non and I were on our farm tour in Switzerland, he drives down the road and sees that an old farm is going up for auction. hmmm. too tempting.

He goes to the auction, and stands in the back, seeing no one he knows amongst a handful of people. He thinks the auctioneers are mafia used car dealers, with a scam up their sleeve.

This farm is the first one on the block and they begin the bidding, with no bidders. A measly opening bid is garnered, and then it quits.

The man is dumbfounded, and then raises a little finger.

MIRACULOUSLY, after no one dares bid again, one of the shady auctioneers picks up his cell phone and says, “Oh my we have an amazing bid on the phone!!! Sir (pointing to Mr. Crouching Dutchman in the Back) Will you bid again?…

The Dutchman emphatically shakes his head and says no, no, no.

There is a big Texan in the group, who bid and bought all of the other properties but this one, and he saunters up to the shady auctioneer with the cell phone and screams, “Give me the F**king phone!!!” and everyone was in shock, including the Dutchman, and the auctioneers.

“Oh my goodness, for some unknown reason, the phone bidder has retracted their bid, and SOLD to you sir (Mr. Crouching Dutchman). hmmm.

So for the next few days he contemplates how he is going to tell me that he bought this “farm.”

Anyway, since we have had so much rain this year, and the place has many natural springs and lots of grass and variety forage, it has been a wonderful place for the sheep. Last year where the sheep spent the summer we lost over 20 to coyotes, bear and lion, and 20 the year before, from the same and neighboring dogs. This year we have only lost three lambs, the youngest ones, so now we need to get them home as soon as we can.

There is so much junk there, and much has been burned. Much more to do.

One of the old log buildings, which was part of the homestead and now a tack room, was broken into recently by the bad bull. He had been on pasture down the valley on rich grass with the horse and two steer calves, but he kept breaking out. We have had him corralled on hay, and he found a way into this building.

Every square inch he tore into, crapped on, broke up, trampled… and it is a miracle he is still alive.

I think he has learned his lesson, and has stayed put in the meadow with his friends for the last two weeks on the rich grass. He will soon get to have a honeymoon with Faline, (as he is an A2/A2 pure Jersey bull) then he will take a ride on the trailer. He has been knighted. His name is Sir Loin de Tournedos a la Hamburguesa.

Here is some of the stuff we loaded on the trailer today. I did have to deal with a lot of comments such as, “Oh my gosh, this is such a great coat! Can you imagine how warm this is? I’m sure it would not be that hard for you to wash!”

and lots of sh*t covered items, that have so many practical uses, we should not throw them away…

but in the end, reason prevailed, after a few snarky comments such as, “You have a real bad habit of throwing too much away!”

hmmm.

Of course as a mother of a teenager, there are many unnatural songs floating around in my head. This one was on a loop in my brain today… ” la, la la… whatever… la, la la, Doesn’t matter…” (of course I am not hip enough to know the song name or singer, but then again, I don’t care.)

I was a little curious as to why the previous owner felt the need to take a shotgun to this filing cabinet, but it had to go.

have you got the picture yet?

This is just about the time when I reach back, grab the auctioneer and say, “give me the fu**ing phone” and tell the ghost on the other line he can have this place.

But all is well, as we ran out of time to make it to the dump. We rush over to our neighbors, who still has his hay down and he is 82. We try and help him rake and bale the rest of it, which was dry as a bone, but he thought it was still too green. We move on down the valley, as it was beginning to threaten rain, and had to wait a while to load the hay bales. My man loves, loves, loves any birdie that flies or tweets or floats.

I admit that I am a weenie. He made me climb on that dumper, and to the top of the hay, and he would throw the bales (which were really baled too wet and were over 75 pounds) to me and expect me to heave them higher to the top of the stack. I could not lift them, and it was scary being on top of the slippery bales.

So he has to move them from Ruby to the dumper and stack them all by himself. Panic sets in when we can’t get the tarp on quick enough and I don’t tie it right.

The rain comes anyway. Ok, don’t get me started.

So then we had to take the cattle trailer and unload all those bales into the barn. I could not lift them, but I could drag them out of the trailer so he could stack them.

This is the POS which is still on the road. Hopefully he can change the tire and bring it home tomorrow.

This is the fence which is forever to be finished. He is building a new one, as the old one from the 1800’s is not online and the neighbors never work the ditch to make the water drain to the river, so we and they are always flooded out and can’t properly mow that bottom land. Now he can have access to the ditch and clean and rework it so it will drain.

and these are the fattest, fattest fattest pigs. It is a wonder how pigs can get so fat on just eating grass.

So, that is it.

I think I’ll quote the song ringing in my head again, as we did not have time to load and separate the lambs for tomorrow morning that I have to leave with them at 6am.

” la, la la… whatever… la, la la, Doesn’t matter…”

But, in case you take this as complaining… we are so very, the super most, grateful. No matter what comes our way, we get to see and experience beauty, and real life

and that is a beautiful thing.