Grumpiness

Phil continued his convalescence yesterday. This has been one nasty bug. Because the Bessettes are out of town, he’s been sleeping there—it’s easier to close the chickens in at night and let them out in the morning when you don’t have to drive back and forth. And it’s nice for him to heat his chicken broth or use the neti pot to drain his sinuses in a place with running water (the water even comes out of the tap warm!).

I did the chores today and was stunned by the cold. I was warm enough, in my down jacket, but the sheep’s water had an inch of ice on the top; the chicken’s waterer was useless. I tried to refill the sheep’s water with the hose, but enough ice had blocked the line that I had to haul the water in the end.

The sheep and goats follow me hungrily around the paddock. I think because they are in with the chicks, who get purchased feed (instead of just purchased hay), they are ever hopeful that I will bring them some grain goodies.

The chicks are eating what seems to be a lot. I figured that we might have a bit of Arctic syndrome going on: I’ve heard that explorers at the Poles eat 8000 calories or more a day, just to maintain their weight and keep warm. So I turned their light on in their house, in hopes that they won’t be quite so ravenous. It’s a bit disturbing to dart into the barn and slam the door shut in the beaks of eager biddies. They do get in sometimes, and I have visions of them pooing on all my clean dishes, cleaned with water heated on the stove.

Which reminds me: I left the cleaning water in the plastic tub yesterday after doing dishes. It was a bit warm still, and it may have some further cleaning ability. And today it was frozen solid. I suppose that makes me feel like a “real” pioneer. Not until the water froze in my “sink” could I claim true hardiness. (Or would that be insanity?)

As the boys and I finished The Outlaws of Sherwood today, I read a quote that resonated. Marjorie, a delicate lady before she was spirited away to become an outlaw’s wife, says, “I have learnt things, these past months, that I had not expected ever to learn—about what it is like when you have not enough to eat and your neck is stiff from sleeping in the damp. I had not thought that these things might give you choices as well as take them away.” I guess that’s true: I realize now that I could probably survive in more primitive situations than I would have imagined.

I do hope, though, that I will not let myself go; that as I look on my cooktop with muddy cat pawprints across it, I know that my life will not always be so unsanitary or so bizarre. (What was the cat doing on my cooktop anyway? I shudder to think.)

Today was a day of aimless waiting. Phil waited at the Bessettes for a hay delivery. The man was over an hour late. And this afternoon we waited for our excavator delivery. That was two hours late. Phil spent those hours broadcasting clover over the pigs’ previous paddock, and then mulching the area with hay.

Phil requested vegetables for dinner, and I was bummed to see that my vegetables were looking worse for the wear. I pulled a turnip the size of a navel orange (the biggest yet), but the greens are all looking wilted and cold. The pigs have grown much longer hair in the chilly weather.

I try not to stew, but this week the relentless cold, the lengthy drive time, and the hours of aimless waiting (whether from sickness or tardiness) have taken their toll. Sometimes I don’t feel chipper; I feel thwarted. In Boulder, I multitasked and got a lot done each day. Now I heat water to wash dishes by hand and serve as much food as possible that requires no dishes. And I don’t usually listen to sermons while I’m in the barn either.

In the spirit of grumpiness, I will close with the list of “things that were sad” from Arnold Lobel’s charming children’s book Owl at Home. (Owl seeks to make tear-water tea, and the only way to do that is to fill a teapot with tears, so he deliberately makes himself cry by thinking of the following and “many other” sad things.)
• Chairs with broken legs
• Songs that cannot be sung because the words have been forgotten
• Spoons that have fallen behind the stove and are never seen again
• Books that cannot be read because some of the pages have been torn out
• Clocks that have stopped with no one near to wind them up
• Mornings nobody saw because everybody was sleeping
• Mashed potatoes left on a plate because no one wanted to eat them
• And pencils that are too short to use