Progress on the Fourth

My day did not start out very well. Belle, plagued with flies these days, shifts forwards and backwards just a bit as I milk. If her hooves are covered, she kicks with her front legs, enough to dislodge the flies but not at all aggressively. She is a very good cow.

Last night, with all the rain we've had, she had mud squelching between her hooves, and when she kicked, a huge mud clod landed in the milk pail. I was planning to feed the calves anyway, and they didn't mind a chocolate-milk colored milk, colored with mud.

This morning I headed up to milk and the same thing happened. But this time, I had been rejoicing in the rich color of the milk. To watch a mud clod make a perfect parabola and land in my pail ... I admit I screamed in frustration. (And then, when that brought no response from any person making sure I was okay, I grew more grumpy. Petty, but true.) Did we actually need that milk? No. We had a gallon and a half or so in the refrigerator. But something about not being able to protect my planned on pail really irked me.

And it's funny how, when you want to be irked, there are always plenty of annoyances just waiting, whether it be the case of peaches that went from rock hard (as in, crunch like an apple when bit into) on Monday to almost 100% moldy today. Clearly those peaches were lacking in brix! Or maybe the stinky compost bowl that needed to go out and reminded me of my failings as a homemaker. Plus the general disarray of the living space (amazing how quickly 224 square feet can be completely suffused with all manner of debris!).

Hours later, after reading some in my beloved Mandelbaum Aeneid (my professor in college is mentioned in the Foreward to that book, so I have only two degrees of separation from the translator!), working with the boys to do a general cleanup, bringing out the compost, and eating several delicious peaches (the 70% that wasn't rotten), my day was looking better.

Phil's day ... that was another story. He had literally just brought the tractor down and picked up the first joist to load when it started sprinkling. Then raining. Not hard, and not long. Just enough to wet him through. After an hour or so, he came in. The grumpiness had spread. "My shoes are soaked. My shorts are soaked. I'm spreading mud everywhere. It's slippery." He took a nap.

I thought things were going better until I heard him tell some boys at play around him, "You need to leave me alone. Now." It turned out that he had been hammering in joist holders when a son who shall remain nameless climbed up the ladder to watch. In the split second he turned his head to make sure the son was safe, he whacked his thumb. With the heavy hammer with the dimpled surface.

I had tapped my thumb at times, hammering little brads into the wall. It wasn't fun. I gave my thumb a pretty good whack a few weeks back and was amazed that the pain continued for the rest of the day. Little thumb shooting pains. And I hadn't even whacked it hard enough to discolor.

I cannot imagine the pain of a heavier hammer, swung with Phil's strength. Ugh.

Besides, the rain was falling again. Only for two minutes or so, but enough time to get everything packed up and under cover. Phil took a break, ate some bread and cheese, and slept again.

When he stopped work, after 9pm, he had again made excellent, visible progress. The upper level center beam extends halfway now. He hammered in all the holders on both sides. He put up all the joists on one side of that beam (still waiting for dry weather for bituthene on the south wall): another eighth done.

And, in perhaps the most tiring of tasks, he had brought down all the joists so they are ready to go, and loaded all the plywood and hoisted it with the tractor up to the roof. (The boys spread it out, but only the same one and a half sheets from yesterday are actually in place permanently.)

And right at the end of the day, he put up the next piece of rimboard, in preparation for the next eighth.

With the plywood spread out, it's a very different feel. It'll be dark in there!

And, on a completely different note, two animal stories. Belle has a paddock right now of about an acre, with some trees in a gully, the road to the lower pasture, and all the land in the finger we had hoped to use for market garden crops. The fertilized but not planted soil has produced an abundant crop of rank weeds, most over my eye level. Every time I go to milk right now, I hope I will find her easily, because the idea of a tromp through 5' weeds, with ticks and snakes and mice—let's just say, it's not a favorite idea.

The first three times, she was in plain view, enjoying the clover and grass along the road. This evening, she had branched out into the tall weeds. I saw her backside as I walked down to get her, but when I called she darted further away. I wasn't sure if she was attempting to make her way to me, or if she was startled and spooked, or if she wanted to play hide and seek.

The boys stood upslope and called to me her progress. "She's at the big pit! She laid down [that was Abraham. I don't think he had a good view of what was happening]." And then, there she was. She had come when I summoned her, like an obedient dog. As I said, she's a good cow.

The other animal story is a bird story. I know most of the sounds here on the farm. I might not recognize exactly which bird is making which call, but I hear the same range of noises. Today, though, when I stepped out of the trailer, there was a weird shrieking noise. Then Phil said, "Look at the hawk!" And sure enough, a hawk came looping over the trees, shrieking away. A second hawk answered. They called back and forth for perhaps an hour. Presumably then they found a nice meal on a neighbor's property.

That's pretty neat!