Last Lap

Monday, the skies poureth bucket upon bucket of water upon us.  We almost drowneth.  
I came home, late afternoon, because I was beyond soaked.  My last job in Opelika was rescheduled, lo and behold, I couldn't have gotten there anyway with some of the road closures due to flooding.

Opelika 3 PM

The Hyundai, lacking amphibian capabilities, was relieved to have been spared having pond water in her motor.
After drying myself out, I picked up Cole from physiotherapy and went to clean a student rental.

The last one.  I'm DONE.  Three days ahead of schedule. (crowd goes wild).  Tonight, we celebrate:  in bed before 10 PM and no warning shot to anyone who disturbs my slumber.

Maybe we can get back to some semblance of normalcy around here..... ooooh, I slay myself!
I can guarantee one item that is now on the top of my list:  vole annihilation.  Now, that I think back to some of the crop failures this past Fall, it wasn't frost, it was vermin.
The good news is:  they have no liking for my basil, my tomato plant, my arugula, nor my corn.  Small blessings, count them, even if only on one hand.  

Puckering up to kiss Toddy under the ten foot tall Bloody Butcher corn.  Great for the oxen...

I grew a quarter acre of corn for the boys when they were babies.

Every morning, I'd take my machete and chop some down for them.  Spoiled?  Nah.

I did keep some for myself to dry, grind and turn into spectacular corn bread.

Ahh, Glory Days!

Off to bond with my PJ's, night y'all!

Correction

I've been informed that math is not my strong suit.  One gallon of water weighs 8 pounds, so the one five gallon bucket I pull up from the well is 40 pounds, not 8.  Yes, I am a dunce at times. Or a clown, take your pick.

Staying Busy

Between an overabundance of work and farm projects, there's been little time and energy left for much of anything else.  

Eventually, I'll catch up on all my correspondence.  Currently, I'm still weeks behind.

Months ago, I guaranteed clients that I could take care of all their student rentals that become vacant the two weeks around the first of August.  In a college town, it's called Rollover.  Contractors flood in to repair, paint and clean all the units left in varying degrees of uncleanliness and ravagement.  Rollover is akin to a marathon versus a 5k.  You work into the night (or straight through) until you get them all done.  
I'm gearing up for the Lake Martin 100 this Spring and I consider all-nighters to be part of ultramarathon training. 

 I've been told that staying awake and moving for over 30 hours straight is the hardest obstacle for runners to overcome during a hundo (runner's slang for 100 mile race).  Me thinks I got that part licked.

I've been fortunate to have many heroes in my life, some now passed, great ones still inspiring me daily and many more yet to be discovered. One such source of strength is someone I've been working for twice a month for a decade. 
I had lost my vim and vigor when I saw her last Monday, complaining about my workload and how unsure I was if I could get all the rentals and my regular work completed.  Her answer was to grit my teeth, plow forward and get it done. No coddling from this one.  She has one daughter with a double doctorate and a son who retired as a general on the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.  She obviously has a handle on motivating people! 
For years, she's amazed me with stories from her life.  The hardships she endured while being pregnant during WWII, with her husband abroad, she being left with her in-laws on a dairy farm, struggling to get by.  
The voles may have devastated most of my garden this year, but I can get in my car and go to Earth Fare to buy more organic produce.  70 years ago, with rationing, you didn't have the gas to go to the store.  Once at the store, you couldn't buy what you wanted anyway!  We have no clue what true resilience is anymore.
When I grow up, I want to be like Mrs. C.
By telling you that she was preggers back in the early 1940's you can guess that she's no Spring chicken anymore, but don't tell her that, she won't believe you (she may actually swat you).
A couple years ago, she begrudgingly allowed her daughter to permanently borrow her Scuba gear because she was letting her Hawaii time share go.  The agreement is that it's hers to use whenever she wants it back!
I'm telling you, she's a hoot.
I called her on her cell phone a few years ago, she answered and related to me very quickly, in a language most unbecoming of a great-grandmother, that she couldn't talk now, she was hauling cattle over the mountains, in an overloaded trailer, trying to keep up with her grandson's rig and the blasted @%!! boy was driving too fast.  8 hour haul in your 80's.  My 5 mile haul to the vet school every few months exhausts me and I'm half her age.  

So, last weekend, my gardens were parched from the lack of rain.  I carved out 6 hours on Sunday to draw water from the well for irrigation.  I draw up a 5 gallon bucket of water (40 pounds) and fill a tub on wheels until I have 25 gallons to tote around the yard.  I lost track at 44 forays with the tote.  That's over 1100 gallons, over 220 buckets drawn from the well.  
When I thought my hands were going to plop off, I'd wander off and work on another project for a while.  My strategy worked because it permitted the dropping water column level to replenish itself by a few feet.
When I thought of quitting altogether, I asked myself:  What would Mrs. C do?  
I grit my teeth and stopped only when I was finished with the last plant and I was drawing up pebbles from the bottom of the well.

Have you hugged your mentor today?

The Welcome Wagon

Cole and I returned late from work tonight, to find this guy waiting for us.

Tree frog clinging to the dining room screen.

I sat at my dining table eating my supper, midnight snack, whatever it should be called and watched him dine along with me.  

What a groovy way to end a long day.  Thanks little buddy, same time tomorrow?  
I'll leave the light on again to attract more bugs for you!

Under Assault

Earlier this Summer, it was discovered that I had a vole infestation.  

Voles, not moles.  Not cute, tiny, velvety bug eaters, but nasty rat sized vegans, who travel in tunnels, erupting at night to treat your landscaping as their personal salad bar.

Jamie's Most Wanted

They've obliterated all my beets, twice razed 20' rows of lima beans,desecrated all but 6 bean plants, ravaged my hostas, assault my sweet potato vines daily -- well, you get the picture!

The protective netting I had placed over the original remaining sweet potato plants confounded them only temporarily.  Only four healthy plants still exist.

They are the ones planted around my single tomato plant.  Maybe voles hate tomatoes -- I second that emotion!

Team Smith is losing, in spite of Jinx catching and eating one and Cole bringing me two live but dazed voles.  I've trapped two, perhaps more.  Apparently they're too big for ordinary mouse traps and they've made off with a few of mine.  

I've since switched to rat traps, with still no luck.

All this warring hasn't been without casualties. Amphibians are precious to me, they are my canaries in the coal mine. A backyard full of toads, frogs, skinks and lizards is a sign that I'm doing a good job as steward of my land.

So, it was a bad night when I accidentally crushed a toad while skulking around the yard checking traps. Further upsetting was the next morning's emergency amputation to save the life of a big mama toad whose front limb was mangled by my trap.
The icing on the cake was the bird, who had to fly off obscenely bare breasted, after getting stuck to one of my Super Sticky Trap Pads.

New tactics are required. I found exactly what I need online. Greatest 30 second video:

Dear Santa, I need one of these! 

Pity all the vole tunnels are primarily under my home and the old farmhouse. Somehow, me thinks Dr. P would not be amused.

The Canadian Contingency

July 30th, for a brief day, I was rewarded with visitors from Canada. Several times now, my cousin and her family have made this monumental detour during their return trip to Ontario from their vacation home in Florida. We made the most of our 12 hours together.

Fasten your seat belts.

9 AM, cousins arrive, we stick the youngest one down in the storm shelter mostly for my amusement.

 Then we head to the Uchee Rifle Range in Tuskegee National Forest.  Nothing like a few miles on those ill maintained dirt roads to make them start hearing banjo music in their heads.  
I'd been collecting an assortment of targets:  gourds from my compost pile, Perrier bottles, frying pans and, of course, regular paper targets.  I'm a creative Redneck.

After the jolt from the first shot, Mona, adjusts her stance and proceeds on to take care of business.  RCMP looking for new recruits?...

Rolly is brave enough to try the 300 Win. Mag that kicks like a mule.  Most folks give her back to me after the first shot.  He efficiently plucks off all the gourds his first time around.  The quiet ones always surprise you.

His daughter, Sarah, shows us the bear gun's ammo.

A fellow next to us had been firing at our frying pan and felt obliged to offer me a chance to shoot his AR-15.  Like I'd turn him down.

Fun, no recoil and an amazing scope, but not my cup of tea.  I'm too much of a traditionalist, I prefer something Daniel Boone would be proud to carry.  Besides, the AR-15 holds 10 rounds, if you can't hit a deer after 10 rounds, you deserve to become a vegetarian.

Fast forward to lunch.  The cousins go to downtown Auburn and I return to the farm to fight with the oxen who refuse to load into the trailer.  Dr P  helps tip the scale in my favor, but we're still 10 minutes late for our appointment at the vet school.  
One of my little cousins had a notion at one point of becoming a veterinarian and I thought a behind the scenes tour of Auburn University Vet School would be educational.  The feral Angus cows being treated before my oxen could turn anyone off the profession. Kicking, charging, snorting, bleeding, I hadn't planned on this X-rated version of large animal medicine.  
The plan was for Family Rated fun.  Like watching Tommy get a manicure.

Next stop:  Small Animal Clinic's Physiotherapy Lab, to watch a demonstration of the new equipment...starring my favorite rock star.

I load up my dog and oxen at 4:30 and rush back home to get ready for Tommy and Mack's birthday party.  With less than an hour before my cousins return and four other guests to arrive, I should calmly prepare myself to be a proper hostess... that would be so out of character.  Instead, my cousins return to find me in my Wellies spraying the manure out of the horse trailer.  Busted.
We walk to the barn to see the new kids.

Both cute as a button!
Sadly, we stumble upon a goatlet clinging to life by a thread.  I call Dr. P to tell him of his animal's plight and I leave my cousins with instructions to stand over it, protecting it from trampling, and I head back to finish washing my trailer.  Five minutes pass, I look out to see the sentinels still standing over the goat.  That's when it dawns on me that these metropolitan folks are not seasoned farmers and this may be sensory overload for them.  Oops. I shuffle back as quickly as my Wellies can take me.  
Dr. P shows up, I pick up the baby and we head to the shop to decide on a course of action.  Along the way, the goatlet dispenses the foulest diarrhea all down the side of my shirt, my shorts and into one boot.  
Two seconds later, the last of my dinner guests show up.  Welcome to my world.  I had forewarned them all that I would be casually dressed...the toxic sludge was an added bonus.
After a good decontaminating, the festivities resume.  Carter had made party hats for the oxen.

Happy Birthday to Tommy, the #2 love of my life (Cole is unopposed as #1).  
Mack doesn't give me a chance to finish tying his hat.

The hat slips off to one side and he puts in his best rendition of a rodeo bull in full flight.  As he is neither #3 nor 4 love of my life, I find hilarity in his reaction.

Supper goes off without any major calamity. Time's up, we have to say farewell for now to my family.

Horsing Around

Firstly, the non-news:  I'm trying to get my weekly mileage over double digits, but it's not been working out for me.  I ran 6 miles a week ago and my back protested for 3 days.  I'm a hostage in my own body.

Cole isn't faring any better.  His surgically altered back leg is fully rehabilitated.  Dummy's recently injured front leg isn't as cooperative.  He has a support bandage he's supposed to wear all the time.

This is what happens when he's been without it:

The other cripple at the farm opted to fare worse before showing signs of improvement.  Axel sprained his deep flexor tendon.

Exhibit A

This would be best resolved with icing, bandaging and stall rest.  But, there's no room in the barn.  Spring has sprung late at the farm this year:  the nanny goats have begun kidding.

Precious baby goatlets don't mix well with a neurotic horse.

Goatlet:  n. a Smitty-ism, should be used instead of 'kid', suits them better.

Therefore, the best I can do, is to ice Axel daily, give him Bute (anti-inflammatory), wrap the leg for the first two weeks and hope for the best.  
Oh, and turn my backyard into a convalescence stall.

Axel mowed the lawn all day while I worked on my horse trailer a couple Saturdays ago.

His lameness has altered his gait, causing him to strike the back of his front foot with his back foot.  Prolonged bruising of the hoof bulb caused a coronary band abscess this week.  Bad blowout:

More soaking required, this time with warm a Epsom salt solution.  Axel can be a temperamental diva.  Twice now, he's arbitrarily decided that the soaking procedure was life threatening and should be ceased by rearing up and flying off backwards.  Princess almost ended up on the hood of my car the last time.  Now, he gets lassoed to a tree with no more than 2"  play in the rope.  Bad patient...

versus...

Good patient:

Sweet Bella.  She has a chronic skin condition that required clipping, scab cleansing, all sorts of un-pleasantries, yet she rarely fusses.  

My draft horses have spoiled me, so I try to return the favor.  I bought a watermelon to share with the chickens.  The horses attempted to steal the half I was carrying out to the chicken coop.

The hens were mildly offended by the big bite marks taken out of their prize.

Instead of eating the other half, I served it up to Angus.  You've never lived unless you've watched 2000 lbs slobber over watermelon.