A Bad Feeling

I was suspicious of the black dog from the start. Who gives away a dog whose tongue hangs out the side of his mouth like Astro from the Jetsons? Supposedly the guy, let’s call him Manny, had run into some financial difficulties and just had too many mouths to feed, what with the new baby and the other kids and dogs (not clear on the exact number) already eating him out of house and home. Something had to give. So he picked Sebastian to give away because he was the one who ate the most. I would think the difference between what a big black mutt eats and what a German shepherd eats (one of the other dogs—one of the keepers) would be negligible (if anything you would think the shepherd ate more), but this is what he said was the reason for giving him away.

There had to be more to it than that. Sebastian was just too cute. Manny claimed they were keeping him on the porch because he was big and he’d knock over the kids, inadvertently of course, and they had the new baby and all. He didn’t look that big to me. He was probably a biter. Maybe he bit someone and they wanted to unload him before the newspaper articles came out about the lawsuit. But if he took off a small child’s finger who was poking it through the fence, or disfigured the babysitter so badly she couldn’t go to prom, this guy wasn’t going to volunteer the information. He’d never find him a home if he told people he bit. So I acted like a biting dog was no big deal to me. I pretended I was stifling a yawn and asked, “Does he ever nip?” real casual.

He said, “Oh yeah.” My heart dropped. “He licks. He licks alright.”

Hmm. So he was a licker.

I asked if he was housebroken. He said when he used to let him in the house, before he was worried about his waggedy tail whacking the baby, he would put wee-wee pads down and point. Ew, that wasn’t good. A two-year-old unhousebroken dog. I have brand new carpet. But I know how to do crate training so unless he was some kind of a problem case, I was pretty confident that if he was crapping on the Orientals, I could fix it. I had a crate. I just had to get it out.

Supposedly he didn’t chew couches or bark when he wasn’t supposed to, though he would bark when a stranger knocked on the door. But he’d stop as soon as you told him it was okay. He was pretty good off the leash too—would come right back when called—and got along with cats and of course, kids, since Manny had a number of them and there was no mention of missing digits or ripped off lips.

Apparently there was nothing wrong with this dog other than he would eat me out of house and home. Which, of course, didn’t rattle me one bit being that I have horses who really know how to bankrupt a person with their demands for food and new saddles and the newest headstalls encrusted with Swarovski crystals on hand-painted leather.

We made plans to go see him on Sunday when Kurt was off. Someone else was interested but Manny promised he wouldn’t let them come until we saw him first. We had first dibs. (Yeah, right.) I asked for his address so I could MapQuest it ahead of time to see exactly where we were going but he said let’s wait until Sunday. No offense. It was Craigslist. Who knew who I was and what I could be up to? I could be a robber. Though robbing people who posted ads for dogs who needed homes would be stupid. Unless I wanted to rob the actual dog. Robbers usually post their own ads for expensive things they are selling and then whip out a pistol when some unsuspecting rich kid from the suburbs arrives, pockets full of cash after having made a stop at the bank, to buy a five thousand dollar four-wheeler that doesn’t exist in the middle of the ghetto. They don’t answer ads for dogs. Or maybe I was a rapist. I just read about an Angelina Jolie lookalike who raped a cabbie multiple times. He didn’t scream because he didn’t want anyone to think he was raping her. Jennifer Aniston was more his type. Okay, bad joke. No one said I was a comedienne. But it’s a true story.

Anyway, on Sunday, after he got back from church (yeah, right), Manny texted me the address. It was the address to a park. Supposedly we could see the dog in action running in the grass, playing with sticks and whatnot, when I knew the real reason was he didn’t want us to see where he lived. The dog was probably a biter after all. The kids would scream bloody murder when he looked in their direction. Or he destroyed the entire porch he was being kept on—the doorjamb was all chewed up, there were claw marks gouged in the woodwork and dark stains on the floor—and the couch on the curb with all the stuffing coming out of it would have caused us to pretend we were someone else and keep right on driving.

I had a bad feeling. I said to Kurt, “Let’s promise that if there are any red flags about this dog, we don’t take him.” Because if I wanted a dog who wasn’t quite right, I would have just kept the Doberman. That was a nice dog. And I was afraid I would weaken, even if the torn up couch was out there, seeing the tongue hanging out the side of his mouth looking so cute and dopey. I even got Kurt to stop at the local dog pound, since we were early and had some time to kill, just for one more look. But they were closed. So we found ourselves the only white people sitting in a gravel parking lot next to a basketball court where a couple of dozen folks of color were playing ball and glancing over at us suspiciously. Kurt promised he would be strong. He would not let me take any Dobie-wa-was or a snarling, growling dog, and we would definitely not take him if he lifted his leg and peed on my or Kurt’s new shoes. That would be a bad sign.

But Manny wasn’t showing. Maybe we were at the wrong park. I texted him. I didn’t want to text him. He wasn’t coming. We could go while the goings good. But it was the right thing to do. What if the guy was caught in traffic or something? It wouldn’t be right if we just left. No reply. We waited longer. Obviously he was up to something after all. This was our chance to hightail it out of there and forget the whole thing. Who needed a dog anyway? Life was pretty peaceful the last few months without a dog. I have to say, I was really enjoying not having all the work from a dog and the original idea was to wait until after the summer anyway, after we got back from vacation. Why take one now and have to deal with the whole dog sitter problem? I never know what’s worse—getting someone to come to the house and him being home alone all day till the sitter gets here or putting him in a private dog sitter’s home where he’ll get scared because her Great Dane looks like our pony but doesn’t smell like our pony? Or is bringing him to a professional kennel where they have outbreaks of kennel cough that they don’t tell you about worse? And what happens when they want me to give the dog more shots like what happened with Motley and then I’ll worry that his kidneys are going to fail like Motley’s because I wasn’t going to give him shots at that exact time and if I give the shots I’ll worry and if I don’t give the shots, I’ll worry. Whenever we go away, I spend most of my time worrying about the dog. I should just wait. I was about ready to say, “Com’on, let’s go,” relieved Manny was a no-show, when a guy came out of the woods with a big black bear on the end of a leash who was bounding around like a puppy. He was prancing, tail waving, and falling over his own feet, he was so joyous over being out in the park. From the distance I could see his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth, blowing back behind him. And I knew that we were taking him.

The Mission

As soon as my friends found out we were in the market, my inboxes and Facebook page were flooded with links and posts and emails about dogs who needed homes. It was a literal smorgasbord of cute canines—little dogs, big dogs, young dogs, old dogs, purebreds, mutts; you name it—with an emphasis on pit bulls because the shelters are loaded with them, and brindles, because that’s what Motley was.

My friends were on a mission. They’re animal lovers like me and if you can’t get another pet yourself because you have too many already, the next best thing is helping your friend get one. It’s like shopping by proxy. It’s not the real thing but you can still get your rocks off. This happens in the horse world all the time. We’re always finding horses for each other and going out on shopping expeditions together. One of us will say, “Hey, you want to take a ride and go look at a horse?” and the next thing you know, you’re driving three days to Texas.

The problem was, I didn’t like any of the dogs. I’m sorry, but after Motley, I want it all. Motley spoiled me. I want a dog with a nice disposition. I want a dog who, when people come and go on the farm, they won’t get scared when he runs up to greet them but who will make someone think twice when they knock on the door and hear him bark if they had any intention of robbing me. I want a dog who I can let loose to trot alongside me as I go in and out of the house to do my chores and who will follow when I ride my horse around the pasture and come when I whistle. I want a dog who, even if he is untrained, is willing and trainable. I don’t think Marley and Me was very cute at all. Yeah it was sad at the end and it brought a tear to my eye when they buried him but I would have been burying that dog about ten minutes into the movie because I would have killed him right around the time he ripped up my couch.

So we ruled out the high energy, couch-eater types. And the ones who looked like they belonged behind an eight-foot fence with a curl of razor wire on top in Nazi Germany or in a drug den in Camden. We ruled out the ones who hated cats and small children. Little dogs because we’re big dog people, though we wouldn’t rule out a little dog as the second dog. And all the ones with pushed-in faces because we want a dog with an actual snout.

My friends were getting frustrated. They kept sending pictures. What about this one? Nope. What about him? Nah. How about her? No, I want the ears a tiny bit floppier and the tail just a little more waggedy.

Yes, I discriminated based on looks. I don’t want any Dobie-wa-wa in my pocketbook. (See Dobie-wa-wa here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZQogu_rt9Y&feature=player_embedded) I want a good looking dog. The grim reaper in the dog pound doesn’t care what it looks like. I can just as easily save a pretty one as I can an ugly one.

Plus, getting a dog is a big commitment. It’s almost like adopting a baby. You’re going to have this animal for ten or fifteen years and you will never again be completely free. You certainly won’t be able to go out all day and all night without making a pit stop home to let the dog out and that can be a pain in the ass if you’re in the middle of having fun, say, you’re at a barbecue and your ex is about to walk in with his new wife who you heard gained quite a bit of weight since the baby and now you are going to miss that. You have to go home and let the dog out. And they can be expensive. You might even purchase the new pool for the vet’s summer home if you get a sickly dog or a dishonest vet who takes advantage of you because now you are paranoid since you lost the last one, and you keep running to the vet every time the new dog looks crooked.

And what if the dog doesn’t measure up to the best dog ever? What if he pees on the floor or steals a steak out of the garbage or doesn’t stop to let you wipe all four feet, patiently lifting one at a time, because, it’s a dog after all. And you realize, perhaps, Motley was not a real dog.

I felt bad, ruling them out left and right, especially since my girlfriend was trying so hard, texting me pictures of dogs when she should have been cooking dinner, and keeping an eye on Craigslist for new posts like someone waiting to make a run for it when there’s a break in the traffic. She forwarded me new ads at all hours of the day and night, at midnight and dawn, whenever they popped up. She was relentless. It was a lot of pressure. So in a moment of weakness, I threw caution to the wind and I just grabbed one. I knew it wasn’t going to be the right dog like a drunk girl knows it’s not going to be the right guy but she does it anyway. Plus I was afraid the dog was going to freeze to death if I didn’t.

Horse Crazy

Joke:

The doctor told my friend that if she didn’t stop riding horses, she was going to need a walker.

So she went out and got the Tennessee kind.

That joke, and all of the posts on a medical board by people who fractured their spines in accidents, a shocking number of them from falling off a horse, whose main concern was not whether they would need surgery, or even be in pain for the rest of their lives, and not whether, but when they could ride again, illustrates that we cowgirls are not just tough. Some might say we’re crazy. And perhaps they’d be right, because most of us don’t even wear helmets, never mind protective vests, when we climb onto the backs of thousand pound animals who are unpredictable at best, who really don’t want us there to begin with, no matter how much we like to think they love us, and then perform daredevil acts like race around barrels on said animal at forty miles per hour. That’s a little cra-cra if I do say so myself.

My father said for years that I was going to break my back. He said it like fathers of daughters who hang around with the wrong crowd say, “You are asking for trouble, young lady.” He said it like the mother on “A Christmas Story” said, “You’re gonna shoot your eye out.” I don’t know if he really believed it was going to happen. Not literally. I like to think he is amused by my dedication and passion, how I have to leave every family shindig early because I have to go home and feed the horses, how I have indents in my upper arms from the muscle even though I am 53-years-old, how I report the number of circles I’ve ridden and how heavy my horse was breathing. How I got back on the horse after I fell off that night.

That one through him for a loop. I said, “But Dad! You’re supposed to get back on when you fall off a horse! How was I supposed to know I was hurt that bad?”

He heard enough tales over the years—Kelly falling and getting dragged; a friend whose horse reared up and fell over backwards on top of her, causing her to get half her intestines removed; a friend who lost her ear (the whole ear—they had to scoop it up like a clamshell from the shavings on the floor) when a horse tried to scramble out of the trailer in a panic. He even saw me fall one time. But back then I was still bouncing. I got back on the horse and finished the race. I don’t think I even had a hair out of place, never mind a broken bone. In all honesty, I was kind of happy about it. It was a good story to tell. And then Shada slammed on the brakes and I went over her head and landed in a garbage can (true story) and she stood there looking at me like, what are you doing down there? She’s so good. She didn’t even run off!


I haven’t fallen lately. It’s because I’m very cautious and I don’t even get on my horse if he’s been sitting around for any length of time until I work him in the round pen a few times first. I’m talking I’ll work him for a week, knowing that I’m getting ready to blow off the cobwebs and start riding. Then when I finally get on, I’ll only walk. Another week. Then I’ll start picking up speed. Some nice easy jogs. Another week. I don’t know how long it takes me to lope the first circle.

People laugh at me. And that’s the problem. I succumbed to peer pressure. I heard people’s voices in my head (Kurt), Let him go! I heard snickering from the girl I’m always trying to catch. You know the one. She looks like you, she has a horse the caliber of yours, she’s all decked out, and she puts the pedal to the metal and beats you every time. (She wasn’t really snickering but she was there.) And so I ignored my normal mode of operandi and when I was coming out of the keyhole obstacle, I stood up in the stirrups and gave him his head. The rest is history.

Every time I ignore my gut and listen to someone else, I get into trouble. I might as well be the daughter who’s hanging around with the wrong crowd.

When I got my first pony when I was a teenager, it was what kept me from hanging around with the wrong crowd. While my girlfriends were smoking cigarettes and standing outside Evan’s Liquor store waiting for someone who would buy them a bottle of Boone’s Farm strawberry wine and kissing boys, I was on my pony. I got on that pony first thing in the morning and didn’t come home till it was dark. No saddle, a bridle that hung on by a thread, shorts, bare feet, and of course no helmet. Sometimes I had a stick to make him go because otherwise he wouldn’t. I’d meet the other girls in town who had ponies and we’d ride from Port Monmouth down to Highlands on the dirt trail where the railroad tracks used to be, parallel to Highway 36. We’d race, miles and miles, first one way, then the other, stopping every time we came to a street and then we’d hurry across. Click, click, click, click, click, went the ponies’ feet, then quiet, onto the soft dirt again. People in cars on the highway waved at us. Nowadays it’s a paved “nature trail” and the only running that goes on is by joggers in Spandex shorts and pink t-shirts that say something about breast cancer. I don’t know if anyone waves at them.

Seeing all those posters on the medical board wondering, not when they’d be able to walk again without a walker, but when they would be able to ride, made me think that this is not unlike the trouble the bad girls get into after all. It’s an addiction. They get addicted to drugs and alcohol, pills, piercings, abusive men. We’re addicted to horses. It is crazy. But at least I’m not guzzling Boone’s Farm strawberry wine.

The First Thing I Do and the Last Thing I Do

The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is stand on my tip-toes and look out the window facing the barn. I see the big barn doors that Kurt made. They have criss-crosses on them just like I wanted. Pretty soon I will paint them, red with white trim. I see the green lawn and green pastures with white mist floating on top like a ghost’s blanket.
I see the horses. Bullet and Lowdown but not Harley because we’ve been keeping him on the other side at night and you can’t see that side from here. I don’t know if I can actually see the lilac bush on the front lawn from this spot or I just know that it’s there, but it’s got big purple blossoms on it shaped like horns of plenty.

When I come downstairs I definitely see the lilac bush that’s by the kitchen window.

Yesterday when we had the window opened because the weather was so nice, you could smell the lilacs in the house. I picked some and put them in a vase.

I was so happy when we got this house and I discovered that I had two old-timey lilac bushes. I texted Kurt, “These lilacs are making me horny.” I knew he’d get a kick out of that, plus it was true, maybe not in a direct way, but indirectly, like how being able to pay bills gets me horny or riding the horse gets me horny—if I feel good, I’m much more likely to want sex. When he came up to the bedroom last night, he brought a lilac with him and dangled it over my nose. Then he gave me a massage because my back hurts and we made love.
That was the last thing I did last night.

Things You Need on a Farm

I can’t even imagine how often the heat would be going on if I didn’t have a woodstove. Thank god we got the woodstove. I have the stove going around the clock and still the oil heat kicks on every time I’m in the smoking room, aka, the basement.

I’ve relegated myself to the basement in a desperate attempt to cut down. It’s working pretty well. I’m smoking half as much as I used to smoke. Who wants to go down into the basement every time you want to smoke? It’s not a finished basement. The floor is cement and when there’s a lot of rain, a trickle of water runs down the center of it to a pit where the sump pump is. There are paint cans, buckets of joint compound, and plastic jugs of water in case the electric goes out and it’s not worth pulling out the generator because we think it’s going to come back on again. Like if there was no reason for the electric to go out—no snow, no wind, no rain. Nothing’s happening weather-wise. That means there was probably an accident—someone went into a pole—and as soon as they clean it up, the electric will come back on again. But if there’s a reason, if there’s any kind of precipitation, it could take days.

These are things you need on a farm. A woodstove and a generator.

People don’t realize that, when you’re out in the country and you lose your electric, you not only lose your lights and can’t watch The Bachelor, but you lose your water too because you have a well and the pump runs on electric. My sister thinks I’m out there hand-cranking it, but that’s not the case. For someone who has horses, it’s a disaster since horses drink about a dozen gallons of water per day each and if they don’t have water, they can colic. My first pony died of colic so I’m really paranoid about that. If you have six horses, that’s seventy-two gallons of water a day. That’s a lot of water. It’s not like you could run down to Walmart and get a few jugs off the shelf. Well, you could, but that would be the last thing you’d want to do because it would be really expensive. Like if it was an apocalyptic situation. You know, an end-of-the-world thing and your horses were dying of thirst. Of course if that was happening, even though I love my animals dearly, I think we’d be hoarding the water for ourselves. The horses get their feet done and their teeth floated before I get new shoes or go to the dentist, but you have to draw the line somewhere. So I would go down to Walmart if I had to. It would have to be really bad but not end-of-the-world bad.

Last summer it got really bad. We had a fierce storm that knocked out power for a week. I almost had to resort to Walmart but then Kelly’s boyfriend showed up with a 250-gallon container full of water sloshing around in the back of his truck. He had rustled up the container from his grandfather’s farm, brought it over to a friend’s farm where he rinsed it out (including using bleach because he knows what a fanatic I am about the horses) and filled it up, and then brought it back here for our horses to drink. I felt like the Calvary arrived!

Since then, one of our neighbors who is an electrician, rigged something up on the electrical box so that now all we have to do is plug the generator in and flip a switch if the power goes out and we’ll have water. He didn’t charge us a thing. I tried to pay him, I was so grateful, but he waved his hand and said to just give him a good deal when he needs new carpet someday.

The electric has gone out twice since we got the woodstove put in and the gizmo installed on the box. I dared it to. It was flickering. I said, “Go ahead you sucker! I don’t need no stinkin’ lights!” It came back on so fast I didn’t even have to get a log but I felt very secure knowing that, no matter what, we were going to be warm and the horses were going to have water. Because we have a woodstove and a generator.

And good people around us. That is something you need on a farm.

A Girl of Steel

Kelly put up the round pen by herself. She said, “That’s it; I’m not waiting anymore.” We’d been here for two months but hadn’t been able to get to it. We had to put up fences, bulldoze dirt, and find places to put all the stuff sitting in the middle of the barn that we used to keep in the garage because we don’t have a garage here yet. We had to paint, unclog bathtubs, fix windows, change faucets, and put up a mailbox. (The mailbox might have been a bad idea because it was promptly stuffed with bills.) We had to repair the washing machine (washing machines are always broke when I move to new houses, even if they are brand new, which made me madder at Slow Bob for extorting me for mine), install a dishwasher, and change light fixtures and light bulbs high up on the roof of the barn so we could see where we were walking at night.

I’m not even talking about the unpacking. I’m not talking about finding hay, a farrier, a vet, a doctor for the humans, the dump, a new bank, an oil company, and motor vehicle where we went back and forth a half dozen times to change our licenses, registrations, and get the vehicles inspected. Of course the van failed because Kurt didn’t get all dressed up and lead the guy on like I did. So then we had to find a new car mechanic. I still don’t have one of the trailers done. It still has Virginia plates on it and is, in fact, illegal. So the round pen was low priority.

But Kelly was itching to ride because it turns out we’re in a real horse community and she joined the 4-H club and Future Farmers of America and made friends with the other girls in town who wear blinged-out belts, pink camouflage caps, and barrel race like she does.

But I wouldn’t let her get on any of the horses until they’d been worked in the round pen first. They had been sitting around for months twiddling their thumbs while we packed and unpacked and were jumping out of their skin being in a new place and on a busy road where a whooshing car made them all throw up their heads and take off. The perimeter of the property was not fenced in yet so there was no safe place to ride if someone bucked while Kelly was texting and she fell off. Even though she swears she never texts when she rides.

I’m a worrywart mommy. She’s got the helmet and the emergency-release stirrups and I insist on working a horse in the round pen first after he’s been off from work for any length of time. It’s not the same as on a lunge line. In the round pen, they can really blow off steam. At the least, you can see what you’ve got under the hood. Some people might say I’m overprotective. I don’t care. It’s a dangerous sport. She’s lucky she’s riding period.

So she put up a whole sixty-foot, steel round pen by herself. She had to drag it over, panel by panel, from the other side of the yard. I have no idea how she got it started and got the first panel up. You have to hold the first one up so you can attach the next one to it. Then you angle them like a Hallmark card to keep them standing while you get the third one. You can’t angle one panel all by itself so I don’t know how she did it. It’s a job for two men! But it’s up now and she’s been riding. She rides most days, trying to get her horse conditioned so that she’s ready for the barrel racing season.

Now I have to figure out how to get her to put the stall mats down. I’m thinking, how can I link the stall mats to the prom?

Pulling the Horse Trailer

I think I almost hit the horse trailer coming into the driveway. I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t see. It was dark. But it looked pretty close. It looked so close, in fact, that I cringed while waiting for the resulting scrape of wood post on metal. Luckily my entrance was of the soundless variety except for the slow crunch of tires on gravel and the horses whinnying to each other—You’re back! Hi! Welcome back! But it scared me.

I only thought I had to be scared going out. I exit out of the driveway onto the side road. Even though I got out the loppers before we left and cut off all the bushes that I could, widening the driveway by about a foot, it’s still pretty narrow and the street you turn on to, which I could do nothing about as far as widening, is just as bad. If I miscalculate, I’m in trouble. If I don’t turn wide enough, I’ll hit the hip of the trailer. If I turn too wide, I’ll go into the ditch. And I don’t know how to back up. It’s the reason why when the weather was iffy last month and we were supposed to go to a 4-H meeting on horseback (hence, requiring the trailer), I said, “I’m not going in this rain. I think I saw lightning. Yes, I definitely saw lightning!”

“It’s not even raining,” Kelly said, holding her hand up to the dry air. “And that was the neighbor’s headlights.”

You can’t pull the wool over her eyes. So I bribed her with the mall and then I distracted her by promising to take her to the tattoo parlor to get her cartilage pierced right after school on Monday. Hey, it’s not like I offered her a big sprawling tattoo of a skull-and-crossbones. Plus we were completely out of Victoria’s Secret underwear and Cinnabons.

The truth is, after twelve years, including trips back and forth from New Jersey to Oklahoma and Oklahoma to Virginia and then to New Jersey again, numerous times, I’m still no good with the horse trailer. It’s the backing. It’s tricky backing up a horse trailer. When you want the trailer to go left, you have to turn the steering wheel right. When you want it to go right, you turn the steering wheel left. It goes against everything I was taught. Point the nose and the back end will follow. I know, I know about the trick where you grip the steering wheel on the bottom, so that when you want to go right, your hand is actually moving to the right. But then I get even more balled up, as my mother would say. Top, bottom, left, right—where am I supposed to put my hand?! Wait, wait, I can’t think!

Throw the video screen in there that’s in the new dually, and I don’t even know where I should look. At the screen? Over my shoulder? In the side mirrors? But which side mirror? The left one or the right one, the whole mirror or that little miniature mirror that’s built into the whole mirror? Do I look ahead or should I just stop and get out and survey the situation before I go one more inch? My head is whipping all over the place like Linda Blair’s head on The Exorcist, my hand is going all over the place like the steering wheel is too hot to hold and the horse trailer is going all over the place—veering to the left, jackknifing to the right—and somehow I am getting more and more off course. Pretty soon, if this keeps up, I will have to call Kurt.

It’s embarrassing. I know I shouldn’t be embarrassed. No one who may be watching knows how long I’ve been pulling the trailer. As far as they know, this is my first trip out. I have nothing to be embarrassed about.

Kurt says just smile at one of the guys and he’ll help you. And that, in effect, is the whole problem. I’ve been smiling at the guys to get them to park my trailer for twelve years now, or letting Kurt drive (because he likes to drive and every time I think I should practice while he is with me, I’m too tired to insist and decide just to put my cowboy boots up on the dashboard and find a good country music channel instead) and so I’ve never really practiced.

Now I’m getting desperate. I’m thinking about letting Kelly do it. Of course, she doesn’t even have her license yet. But I’ve got a loophole. I heard there’s something called a “farmer’s license.” This is a special license for kids who aren’t old enough to get their real license yet but are needed on the farm to drive tractors and pickup trucks laden with blueberries or asparagus, a special permission for farm families who need all hands on deck, so to speak.

Or I can cowgirl up and just practice. And hang one of those Victoria’s Secret bras I got from the mall on the antenna. It couldn’t hurt.

Getting Ready For Winter

We had to get hay. There was no getting around it. We could be here for a while. Our latest buyer, let’s call him Bob, got turned down for a mortgage because the bank thinks his commute to work is too long. You’ve got that right. The bank is suddenly concerned about a borrower’s quality of life and butts into decision-making like a meddling mother-in-law who gives the baby a pacifier, or takes it away—whatever she deems is right—because the mother of the baby is obviously an idiot.

I warned Bob about the trouble the banks were giving people who tried to get a mortgage to buy this place. Bob told me if he got the house he planned to transfer to one of his company’s branches closer to home after he got settled in. But in the meantime he would commute. Admittedly, it wasn’t close. Almost two hours. Just like what my girlfriend’s husband does who owns a car dealership up in New Jersey and less than what my other girlfriend’s husband does who works in Manhattan. Sometimes you have to travel for good things.

I advised him not to mention his plans to the bank. If he transferred, they’d claim he got a new job and they don’t give mortgages to people with new jobs. I said don’t give them any ammunition. Don’t even mention it. Don’t tell them that I have a really nice riding arena and you could give riding lessons if you wanted to even though you don’t plan to. Don’t even say it. (They rejected my first buyer because of that. Didn’t want her to rely on paying her mortgage by giving riding lessons even though she was a registered nurse and in fact took riding lessons on her days off.) I warned him: don’t say anything.

But who knew they’d have a problem with the commute? It didn’t even occur to me and I don’t know if it occurred to Bob because he was fine with it. Why should it bother anyone else? I have no idea how the bank found out. Are they Mapquesting the distance people go to work in addition to pulling credit reports and looking at tax returns? What’s next? Will they ask for proof that you own a riding lawnmower because push mowers require too much energy? Will they ask for references from people who will vouch that you know your way around a toolbox and can fix a broken window and repair the heater if it conks out? That actually makes sense. You would think maintaining their investment would be more of a concern to them than worrying about how far the borrower has to drive.

Bob hasn’t given up. He’s trying to get the transfer. But I don’t have a lot of confidence. Last year we thought we were closing, so we didn’t cut wood. I’m too cheap to use the electric heat continuously so I got ripped off buying a dump truck full of wood that turned out to be so green it sizzled and spit like driftwood just washed up on the beach and had to be resplit because the pieces were so big and heavy I could only carry one at a time. And you know how strong I am. I don’t want that to happen again even though getting hay is the worst job in the world. I’d rather clean sheaths. I’d rather weed-whack all the monkey weed or the pig weed, whatever that crap is that grows on the bank behind the arena like it’s on steroids. Forget manure. Even though most people would lump manure in with the sheaths and the weed-whacking, I like picking it up because that’s when I do all my thinking. That’s when my mother talks to me.

At any rate, we had to go and get the hay because I have no faith Bob is going to get the transfer and I think we’re going to be stuck here for the winter, possibly forever. Kurt was kicking and screaming. He’s sick of this farm stuff. It doesn’t help that he hasn’t ridden the horses since we moved out of Jersey eight years ago. And that was the whole point. The horses. But all he’s been doing is building barns and building fences and fixing houses and then fixing houses more so we could sell the houses. We thought we were going to kick back in the country. Have a nice, slower-paced life. Sit on the porch with a glass of iced tea and a slice of blackberry pie; maybe mosey down to the barn for a ride once in a while. But he spends more time and energy maintaining things, fixing things and trying to get rid of the things that we fixed than actually partaking in the rocking chairs on the front porch or the triple gates we installed on the riding arena so we could enter and exit on three sides or the manicured trails he keeps in tip-top condition because you never know when someone’s going to want to come and look at the house. He doesn’t even have a horse anymore since Kelly took over Bullet. So he was not happy about the hay.

The thing about hay is you have to get it while it’s available. It’s not like Jersey where you can pick up the phone once a month and say you want some and the hay guy delivers and stacks it on Thursday. Here, you’ve got to go get it yourself. And you’ve got to get it while the going’s good. Because the farmer won’t store it for you. Even if he had a place to store it, he’s not doing it. You want it, you come and get it right now before Wesley Bell comes and gets it because Wesley just picked up a couple of nice Walkers down at the sale and they need some groceries right quick. Hay, in the land of hay, is somehow a commodity that’s in short supply. At least if you want hay without mold or Johnson grass or crushed up cans and Styrofoam cups baled up with it. And it’s almost impossible to get delivered.

We got 95 bales at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning after going out for Kurt’s birthday the night before. We tried to schedule it for later so Kurt could sleep a little on his only day off. I claimed the horses were on a strict schedule regarding their meals and we would come over after they ate their breakfast but the hay lady was having none of it. She had something else to do and wasn’t waiting around for us to buy her hay. She’s one of the few around here who doesn’t go to church so I don’t know what else she had going on that was more important than getting three hundred dollars in a place where people work half a week to bring home that kind of money and where by the looks of her house—blue tarp on the roof, plywood on a window—she could use.

We’re going to need another four hundred to get through the winter. Three hundred if you go by Kurt. Five hundred if you go by me. And we’re going to have to go back before Wesley Bell gets them. I don’t even want to think about the wood.

My Mother's Sweaters

I wear my mother’s sweaters. A nice, big, cable knit, olive green, from Land’s End. It’s the kind of sweater you wear when you’re eating soup or getting firewood. She never got wood. She thought this life on the farm was, “A hop in the ass.” Those are her words. She also said, “This is for the birds.” She shook her head and said, “You’ve really got to love this…” when she watched me going out to feed the horses, putting on the rubber boots, camouflage sweatpants and ski mask that makes me look like a burglar, twice a day. I took that as a compliment. She saw my passion.

I can’t wait to look in the mirror when I put on one of her sweaters. With a face like mine, that looks so much like hers, and then in one of her sweaters, I can trick myself. If I stare into my eyes in the mirror, and look really hard, she looks back. I get a fleeting glimpse.

Sometimes I think about dying my hair red to see how much I will look like her. She was a natural blonde like me but she dyed her hair red for so long that I don’t remember her as a blonde. I always used to joke around that I was going to do it to see what kind of trouble I could catch her in, when people mistook me for her. With a name like Cookie, and red hair, she was bound to be in trouble. But I never got around to it. Now I’d like to do it to see if I could channel her, like I do in the bathroom. But I’m afraid I’ll be disappointed when I find out it’s really not her.

When I was in the beauty parlor last week, they took my coat. It was my mother’s coat. I wanted to say, “Be careful with that coat! It’s my mother’s coat and she just died in April!” My father let me take whatever clothes of hers I wanted. I left my sister the Elk’s jacket even though I wanted it myself because it was all covered with her pins and buttons, a real piece of her. But Sharon is an Elk. That’s what they had together. I think about that jacket a lot but I’m proud of myself for giving it up. Especially since no one asked. No one would have even known, there were so many clothes and shoes and pocketbooks to sort through and I was all alone, taking what I wanted. That’s what my mother would have wanted. For me to be good. She could count on me for that.

I worry about what’s going to happen as things wear out. Should I conserve the sweaters and wear the coats only on special occasions? Some things that she gave me long before she died are already wearing out. Hand-me-down sweatpants and sweatshirts, flannel pajamas, things she knew I could always use on the farm because I’m hard on them or because they would keep me warm. The sweatshirts have dark cuffs from dirt that won’t come out, bleach splatters and paint stains, red like the barn and grey like the porch. The neckband on the sweatshirt from Wildwood is loose and hangs like a necklace. What happens when one of these is to the point of no return? Do I throw them away? How can I throw an item of my mother’s clothing in the garbage? I don’t care how messed up it is.

The silence in this house is loud when I think about the loss of her. You really notice it when you’re alone and you stop for a minute. The finality of it. I will never have another chance to tell her how I appreciate the hand-me-down pajamas with the pictures of the monkeys on them. I can’t believe it myself how much I didn’t appreciate these things enough when they were coming on a regular basis. How I took it for granted that they would always come, worn ones replaced with new ones, another kind she rustled up just because I mentioned liking the ones with elasticized ankles. She had a pair! “Here, see if these fit you,” she would say, coming out of her bedroom where she had been digging around.

I want to say to my daughters, “Appreciate me.” Not for my sake. For theirs. I want to warn them to pay attention, to slow down, to savor whatever I do to show them how much I love them. But they won’t listen. They can’t imagine. Just like I couldn’t imagine. I thought I knew what it was going to be like, losing my mother. I worried about it my whole life, in fact. Pictured screaming and crying. And I have screamed and cried. But I never imagined I would feel so powerless, that this would be so final, that I would never have another chance, no matter what I did, and all I can do to comfort myself is wear her sweaters and hope I feel a little bit better by the time they’re all worn out.

I'm Okay, You're Okay

I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a while. It’s been hectic. Since I quit smoking, I can’t think and I’m not doing anything efficiently. That’s right. You heard me. I’m still not smoking. I didn’t relapse. I’m okay. Everything is just taking longer. Hence, I have like, three times the work.


All this snow hasn’t helped. We have gotten non-stop precipitation. Snow, hail, icy rain. If it’s bad, we’ve gotten it. Today we’re getting wind. Might as well be living on the tundra. Is the tundra like this? I’ll have to ask Kelly what the tundra actually is. I think she learned that in science class. It’s very hard to take care of the horses in weather that’s like the tundra. Truth be told, I hate their guts when I see snow out there. When Kurt told me it was snowing again this morning, I couldn’t believe it. I said, “Is this a sick joke?” like he put a Gummy worm in my salad. Or I just found out Sarah Palin was running for President. Sick.


Anyway, I heard you guys were looking for me and that’s really nice. So I’m just checking in and letting you know that I am okay and you’re okay for being such good friends.

The Attack of the Spotted Donkey

Spot went on the warpath. Spot is the polka-dotted donkey next door who has long ears like the dishes for banana splits and round, pink-rimmed eyes like he’s been crying. He’s the one Eldon puts his grandniece on, the little girl who is his pride and joy and whose knees Pearl keeps padded, even when she’s not on her bike—that’s how careful they are with her.

One morning, very early, before I was quite awake, I saw Spot’s long, banana split ears bobbing past the deck. That wasn’t right. I blinked to clear my head like I blinked that time I reached up into the kitchen cabinet to get a mixing bowl and there inside, as casual as cake batter, coiled like a garden hose, was a snake. I screamed even though I’m not afraid of snakes. It was the shock of it.

The dog, AKA the Big Stupid, was as shocked as I was, and he started barking and running from window to window, jumping on the sills, threatening to crash through the glass, spittle flying every which way and then Kurt’s alarm started ringing. I grabbed the phone, slid into my flip-flops, and even though I was braless and still in my guinea tee, hair sticking out all over the place and teeth unbrushed, I ran outside while I dialed Pearl and Eldon.

By the time I got into the yard, Spot was trying to crash through the barnyard fence and the horses, who are unaccustomed to uninvited visitors of the equine kind and especially those who are attacking, crowded around on their side of the fence, the old guy, Doc, in the back, and the little one, Minnie, looking quite like me, with hair sticking out all over the place, behind him. Bullet and Harley were in front. Everyone was screaming—the horses were whinnying and Spot was hee-hawing. In between hee-haws, with his neck stretched out as far as it would go, his jugular quivering, his nostrils flaring, Spot clapped his teeth together and bit the air. Once or twice he made contact and grabbed a hold of the skin on Bullet’s neck. Bullet reared back, releasing himself. I looked for blood. Then they spun around and kicked at each other. Wham! Wham! Wham! Someone’s foot landed on a rail with a loud clunk. But the board stayed up.

“Get back!” I screamed. “Get back!” I waved one hand and dialed the phone with the other.

It rang. And rang.

Com’on, com’on.

I ran to the barn and grabbed a halter and lead rope and ran back out again. I broke a flip-flip. I discarded the good one. It went flying up by the pool and perhaps landed in the water—I don’t know—I never found it.

Finally Eldon answered the phone and I blurted out what was happening, “Spot’s loose! He’s attacking the horses!”

“What’s that you say?”

“Spot’s loose! He’s trying to crash through my fence!”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Debi! Spot’s loose!”

“Alright. We be right over.”

When I got back over to the horses, Spot was on the top rail and it was making a cracking sound like how a log sounds in a wood splitter. I don’t know how he got up that high. He’s only as big as a large pony. But to see him in action… It was pretty impressive. My horses hovered around him even though, fence and all between them, and he was sorely outnumbered, he was getting the better of them. If that rail broke, he’d get in there and he’d kill at least one of them, if not all. I didn’t know what to do! He wasn’t backing off because I was yelling. He was completely oblivious to me. So I took aim and whaled the halter and lead rope. It hit him dead on. Whump! He jumped down off the fence, surprised, and ran back a few feet. Then he turned around and faced me.

Now I had to catch him. He took a couple of steps toward us again, trying to figure out a way to get around me.

All this time I could hear Kurt’s alarm still ringing and the dog barking in the house. Eldon was probably still putting his shoes on. I was going to have to do this myself. But I was barefoot. And I was scared. Spot is a stallion. Now I knew why they say don’t keep stallions unless you’re a breeder. Who would have ever guessed Spot to be so violent? Spot, the one whose pink nose I tickle and who loves to get his neck scratched. Spot, who lives peacefully on the other side of the lilacs along my driveway and gallops clumsily to the fence when he sees me coming with an apple. This was not the Spot I knew. This was more like one of those stallions fighting to the death on a National Geographic documentary, ripping flesh and cracking skulls with flailing forefeet.

I’ve heard stories about stallions. I’ve heard that one will suddenly, for no apparent reason, maybe he smells a mare on you, or you made some sort of an error with your body language, grab a hold of your arm in his mouth and lift you off your feet and shake you like a rag doll. If you are lucky, he will dislocate your shoulder. If not, he will take the whole arm off. But I had no choice. I couldn’t let him get my horses.

I squatted down, and while keeping my eyes on him, I picked up the halter and lead rope. I stood back up. I took a few steps forward, reached out and talked to him in baby talk. But he stared at me, stock still. I didn’t know if he was suspicious because I’d just whaled him, or he was getting ready to attack me. I got closer and closer. Easy. Easy. I could feel his breath on my knuckles. The horses behind me were running back and forth along the fence, still whinnying, they were so shook up.

I slipped the halter over his head. Nothing.

Around that time, Pearl and Eldon appeared. They scratched their heads.

“How in the world did Spot get hisself out? Someone musta left them gates open.”

They were not fazed by what happened. They couldn’t picture it. I knew they didn’t get it because they were too calm, thinking about getting back to their coffee. Eldon slipped a piece of baling twine around Spot’s neck and handed me back the halter.

“Well, thanks a lot,” he said. “Com’on Boy.”

“Sure looks like it’s gonna be a pretty one,” Pearl said, looking up at the sky as they walked across the street.

“No harm done,” I called after them. “I didn’t see any blood!”

Perhaps they think I’m some hysterical Yankee who gets all riled up because of some loose livestock? Spot is as gentle as a lamb! Next thing you know I’ll be complaining about roosters cock-a-doodle-dooing or flies congregating. Maybe they thought I was mad at them and they felt funny? Which I was not. Because accidents happen. Especially concerning animals. My own horses got loose one time and ran down the middle of a highway causing traffic to be stopped in both directions for two hours and damage to the manicured lawns of brick McMansions newly built in the neighborhood. So I know shit can happen.

I just wanted someone to say, “Oh my God! That was close! I can’t believe he did that! You must have been scared to death!” Anything! But only the dog seemed concerned.

A couple of days later, Pearl brought us over a big mess of green beans and we brought them over some watermelon. That’s what you do in the country to make sure there are no hard feelings.

And put up good fences.

The Simple Life

Five years ago, we left New Jersey to live the simple life. We figured we’d kick back a little, ride the horses, grow some tomatoes, maybe even spin some wool. Nah, not spin wool. Who am I kidding? I can’t even hem a pair of pants. But I figured I could manage a couple of tomatoes. This is what an average morning is like for me now:

I get up at five and get the fire going again. Even though we put in new heat, and the plastic on the windows, which are also new and shouldn’t even need plastic, and even with the woodstove going—which before we moved to the country, I thought would be romantic—I am still freezing my ass off here.

I get the coffee going. I read a few e-mails. Then I get the kid up and out to school. This involves cries about homework that was forgotten and suddenly remembered, papers that need to be signed that I wasn’t told about the night before even though I asked, the need for new pencil lead or hand sanitizer or a one-inch binder with a picture of Hannah Montana on it or else she’s going to get into big trouble, plus disagreements about whether the child is warm enough or looks nice enough (“You look like a rag-picker!”) and won’t she please let me make her some grits or a nice soft boiled egg?—Toaster Strudels are okay once in a while but not every morning. Might as well eat a candy bar. Kelly says that’s a good idea. Kendal’s mother let’s her eat candy in the morning. Then I let her go out the door with her coat hanging open and no hat because I can’t stand to annoy her one more time. I tell myself, she knows if she’s cold.

Next I get Kurt up. I make numerous trips up the stairs. The first trip consists of loving kisses and cheerful statements such as, “It’s a beautiful day in Virginia!” and “Com’on you handsome devil!” On trip number four, there is rough shaking, lies about what time it really is and warnings that if he’s late, his boss might fire him. This causes hysterical laughter. It doesn’t necessarily get him up.

But I can’t keep farting around. I have to go outside to feed the horses before they start stampeding. I peek out the window and see them leaning against the fence, trying to pop the boards off. They are staring at the house hard. They think if they concentrate hard enough, they can will me to come out. Actually, it works. I tell Kurt he better get up because I’m not coming back—I’ve got to go feed. He kicks the blankets roughly like there’s a big spider after him and furiously pulls them over his head and barks “Go away!” Now his feet are sticking out of the covers but I don’t say nothing.

I go downstairs and feed the dog. After he’s done, he takes a drink and forgets to close his mouth when he exits the bowl area. Half the water dribbles onto the floor. I step in it. I grab a new pair of socks which I keep on the shelf by the phone just for this reason and put them on. I put his blaze orange collar on so he doesn’t get shot in the woods. I put on my boots, a ski mask like the kind burglars wear, my Giants jacket if it’s normal cold, or the heavy duty mother that’s made for Michigan or Maine, if we’re getting an Arctic blast. Meaning really really cold. I top it off with Thermolite gloves with micro insulation (don’t ask me, that’s what it says on the tag and I assume that’s how it translates from the Chinese writing on the other side). They are so thick I can’t wiggle my fingers. I have to keep taking them off to do things like pick up the newspaper or open up the trash can. Which defeats the whole purpose. My fingers are numb before I even get to the barn.

The horses are thrilled to see me. They adore me, those horses. Why wouldn’t they? A large part of our relationship consists of me feeding them. And it’s not easy. They all have to be separated or else the herd leader, who lives on air, will gobble up his grain and then go eat the next-in-line’s, who in turn will go eat the grain belonging to the one below him and so on. (Not unlike the Wall Street guys.) This will leave the old guy, who needs the most and takes the longest to eat it, with nothing. (Kind of like our senior citizens.) So I catch them all and separate them. (Similar to government regulation.) It’s tricky. When they see me, they are like a busload of sugared-up school kids let out for the summer. Run! Yay!

While the horses are eating, I fill the water barrels, drain the hose, feed the barn cat, empty a fifty-pound bag of grain and empty the ash can which weighs about thirty pounds. I carry a bucket of water with me to pour on the ashes in case they’re still hot and that weighs about twenty pounds. I’m like a Dutch girl carrying two buckets to the dam. Next, I get kindling, more batteries for the electric fence which is dead again since they don’t make anything in America anymore, and I bring some moldy hay over to Pearl and Eldon who will give it to their cows. Then I pick up manure.

This is when I do my best thinking. This is when I came up with the idea for this story. This is when I mull things over and decide what exactly my sister-in-law meant by that remark anyway and wasn’t that Amish guy who was selling ham steaks in the town market gorgeous? I didn’t know they could be that good looking. I mean, he was seeexxxxyyyy. I wonder if he is considered hot in the Amish world? Maybe they don’t think he’s all-that in those phoneless dark houses? Maybe they think he’s really ugly and that’s why they make him go and sell the ham steaks to the heathens in town who talk on the phone every waking minute? Every culture is different about what it finds attractive. Oprah did a show about a country that thinks fat ladies with big butts are the ideal. The fatter the better. Talk about paradise. We all ought to move there and take the pressure off. I mean, imagine being encouraged to gorge on macaroni-and-cheese and chocolate cake and bragging about your cellulite?

While thinking such important things, I make two trips down to the manure pile to dump the wheelbarrow. Four if the horses have been in the stalls. On the way back up the hill, I say something slightly derogatory about Kurt—okay, I cursed him—because the wheel on the wheelbarrow is still broken and he hasn’t fixed it. I can hardly push it. I stop to rest. The guilt I was indoctrinated with in Catholic school kicks in. The poor guy’s been working day and night for God’s sake! He’ll get to it when he can! I make a mental note not to vie for the clicker tonight. If he wants to watch Two and a Half Men or CSI even though it’s a repeat and The Bachelor’s on, that’s fine. I look at the beautiful mountain behind my farm and remind myself that this is my dream. I cry, “Look at that mountain, will you?! Just look at that, you ungrateful thing!” The dog runs over. I bend down and pet him. “No, I’m not calling you.” Then, recharged, I start pushing again.

I get wood. I hose out the broken wheelbarrow and wash the mud off the wheel so it’ll turn easier and squirt off my boots. Clumps of clay fall to the lawn. No matter how careful I am, my ankles get wet and my sweatpants are spattered red like I’d been slaughtering pigs. Which I would never do. Farm or no farm, I’m one of those hypocrites who eats meat but who thinks the people who butcher them are mean and cruel. Someday I am going to get a pig as a pet and call her something funny like Paris.

I drain that hose. I fill the wheelbarrow with logs and start pushing. Even with the broken wheel, it’s still easier than carrying it by hand. See, here’s the thing. All the wood-getting I saw on the Waltons or read about in books showed the people carrying an armload of kindling into the house, whistling, leading me to believe that that was all it took. A simple armload. No wonder I thought it was romantic. Anybody can get one armload of wood. One armload of wood would be worth doing for the atmosphere alone. But in real life, one armload is nothing. One armload would barely warm my cute little button nose. One armload of wood is like spitting on the windshield of the truck, wiping it with your sleeve and saying you’ve been to the car wash. It’s nothing.

At any rate, I push the wheelbarrow to the deck and make eight trips up the steps to the sliding glass doors on the side of the house where the stove is. Up and down….up and down….up and down….up and down….up and down….up and down….up and down….up and down—just to give you an idea of what eight times feels like. Only carrying about forty pounds of wood per shot. (Funny how I know how much everything weighs except for myself—I don’t own a scale and I’m not getting one and if I’m unaware that I put on a few extra pounds from all that Peanut Butter Panic Ice Cream, well then, so be it; after all this work on the farm, I think I deserve it.) I stop and look at the mountain again.

Then I check the heater in the well house and I spend ten minutes (while squatting because you can’t stand up in there since the roof is only yay high) turning it higher, because I’m paranoid the holding tank is going to freeze, then turning it lower, because I’m worried about my electric bill, then turning it up again, then down again. No spot on the dial gives me peace. Finally, I curse Kurt again because he hasn’t insulated the well house or fixed the door and if it was insulated and if I didn’t have to hold that door closed with a rock, I wouldn’t have to worry about this and I can’t do it, I can’t do it all, I can’t do everything here, I’m a girl, I’m just a girl, I shouldn’t have to do the guy stuff too!

Then, the nuns from Catholic school again. Sister Grace Gabriel is poking me in the head and swinging that crucifix like she is going to smack me with it. It’s brutal. I better toe the line and be nice. I make a mental note to check if I have the ingredients to make Kurt’s favorite dessert tonight. Maybe even give him a massage while he’s watching Two and a Half Men.

Next, I drag the garbage cans over to the truck, heave them up onto the bed and the dog and I go down to the dump. I pull over and pick up any litter that’s on the road. I stop on average from my house down to the main road about six times. Slam on the brakes when I see a Chick-fil-A wrapper, throw it in park, jump out, ding, ding, ding, the door’s opened with the key still in it so it’s beeping, the dog is rushing from window to window, whatever side I am on, getting drool all over the glass, grab the trash, shove it in the trash can deep so it doesn’t blow out, and jump back in. Effie drives by while I am bending down for an Old Milwaukee can. She taps her horn and an empty Wal-Mart bag flies out of the back of her truck. I get that too.

Back home, I clean the house (I suppose if I wasn’t a clean freak I could forgo this part, but I am, very anal and Felix Unger-like, so that’s not going to happen—I tried it once and went into a deep depression and I still have nightmares over those unmade beds and the coffee cup in the sink), do the laundry, stoke the fire, pay bills and make the phone calls. Kurt needs his cholesterol medication renewed. There was a mistake on the insurance bill. I have to call Kelly’s school where hopefully they won’t mention that she looks like a rag-picker and is not wearing a hat, and I need to make an appointment with the accountant and the horse vet.

On some days, I do what I call “an extra”—paint something, clean bookshelves or wash the blinds and the curtains which are full of soot from the woodstove. Sometimes I do errands. Sometimes they’re kind of fun like yesterday I got my hair cut at Wanda’s House of Beauty where the entire procedure cost me less than what my sister tipped the girl for doing my hair up in Jersey. I didn’t tell Wanda that—I don’t want her getting any ideas. Then I picked up ten bales of hay, two gallons of milk—whole for the coffee and one-percent for drinking—and one jar of peach butter that the lady in the bank sells for the rescue squad.

When the weather is nice, I somehow squeeze in riding a horse.

This is an average morning in the country. I didn’t spin any wool, but it was a lot. Next time I’ll tell you what happens after lunch.