Whoa-o, We're Halfway There!

March slips away. We planted 14 trees yesterday morning, and so are exactly 50% done. Phil chipped a large pile of pines in the afternoon, and cut other trees into three-foot sections ("the chainsaw really does make it go quickly" was his comment).

I noticed that I could see spaces in our mass of heeled in trees. Then the final box from the orchard came, and took up all those spaces. After taking trees out of wet sawdust, it sure felt odd to put trees back into the stuff.

Two hundred one trees to go.

I had a few errands to run in preparation for his trip to get the cows. I am thrilled to see how God puts the pieces together for us to get the cows. One little example: a promised check finally arrived yesterday, but when I went to deposit it, the teller said it would probably have a seven-day hold. As the receipt printed, she looked at it, and with surprise said, "They split the deposit. Some will be available next Tuesday." My impression was that she hadn't seen such a thing before. And the amount that will come available is exactly what we need by that date.

Today I woke to rain, and a mountain of unwashed dishes. And an ever more untidy house. And the realization that we still haven't mailed in our tax paperwork. Blech.

At day's end, the tax paperwork is in transit, the dishes clean (minus those used for dinner, as I refuse to wash dishes in the cold and the dark, alone in the barn), the house more tidy than this morning, the rain ended.

The funniest thing today? Phil is trying to make it to a veterinary workshop with Dr. Paul Detloff, the head veterinarian for the Organic Valley family of farms. This workshop, though, isn't in a major city or thriving metropolis (perhaps there are not many people interested in homeopathy for the herd and the ill-effects of stray currents). Rather, it is in Viroqua, Wisconsin. Never heard of it.

I spent about two minutes looking for flights, but since I don't know anything about Wisconsin, I figured I would call our travel agent extraordinaire, Deedee.

I prefaced the conversation saying, "You'll need all your amazing travel agent powers, because Phil wants to go to Viroqua, Wisconsin."

"Oh, I know where Viroqua is," she said. "My husband goes there every year to play golf."

The population of the place is only about 3500, but Deedee knows where it is. What do you know about that!