The Things We Carry (in our pockets)

You know how you get in a hurry and stick things in your pockets - items like money, keys, cards of various sorts, little pieces of paper, etc.? Sure you do; we all do. Pockets are handy. Once upon a time i would put my i.d. and ATM card in my back pocket for a night of going out (never liked to carry a purse). My cell phone often winds up in my back pocket, as do envelopes, my moleskine notebook, pens, memory cards, lens caps - the list is endless. I am an avid pocket user.

Even now, on the farm, i find myself stashing just about anything in my jeans. This harmless, though not always wise, habit (which i learned from my father) has been taken to an entirely new level in farmville. 

In short, anything goes.

Need a handful of nails, staples, or screws? Pocket 'em. Often i find myself trying to fix or rig something with no one else around. The result - screwdriver in one back pocket, wrench in the other. If it's night, a small flashlight; when i'm out with the horses - hoof pick. (The only tool that doesn't go in a pocket - ever - is my Leatherman. It has a special place on my belt.) Not even feed is exempt. (When socializing horses in the field we stuff our pockets with grain, which is sneakier than carrying a bucket.) 

My dad is the pocket master. I am continually amazed by what he can fit in his pockets AND what he can forget he put there. Commonly stowed items include lag bolts, carter keys, sockets, fence wire, nails and screws. Slightly less common ones include sandpaper, rocks (interesting ones, of course), syringes WITH needles still on them, memory cards for his camera and freshly cut pieces of horse hoof  (um...that last one was actually me...dogs love to chew on horse hoof clippings). If the washing machine is lucky these things get spilled on the floor or set on the bathroom counter at the end of a tiring day. Otherwise, they make it to the laundry room and...well, we're on our third washer in seven years.

4 a.m.

The nice thing about waking up in the middle of the night unable to go back to sleep on a farm is that it is not, in fact, the middle of the night. It is early morning, and there is a fat ton of work to do.

Today:
-take care of colicky mare (hopefully that shot of Banamine and an overnight stay in a dry lot did the trick).
-check, double check, and triple check all water tanks. (five 100-gallon tanks filled twice a day = 1000 gallons, not including fields with automatic waterers.)
-figure out what the heck i'm doing wrong regarding the polybraid electric fence i just put up (totally befuddled by electrical circuitry).
-extend aforementioned electric fence (i continually forget how quickly one horse wears the ground down).
-fix front gate (it was off one of it's hinges last night. NO idea why. i let it go for the night b/c i get that way, too, sometimes - best just to leave it alone for a bit.)
-continue fence repair/renovation (miles of it).
-learn, once and for all, WHERE to put the period when a sentence ends in parentheses.

I need to finish the majority of these tasks by noon. It's suppose to be 110 degrees...again.
Later, sleepyheads!


PS. the other nice thing about waking up so early - i can waste time on the computer and still be outside by 6 7 :)

Fahrenheit 114

Today was the hottest day of the year, possibly the hottest day of my life.

Having recently recovered from a mild case of heat exhaustion, i opted to stay inside as much as possible. When it's too hot to work outside there is plenty of work to do inside. The bummer is that most of today involved staring at a computer screen.

The thing about working on the computer when the body is accustomed to outdoor manual labor - it messes with a girl's schedule. My brain is tired, but my body doesn't feel like it exerted enough energy to warrant sleep. My eyes wanna bleed; my feet wanna run. And here i am, typing when i should be sleeping.

Five o'clock is going to hurt.

So today, the hottest day of the year, i edited photos, caught up on bookkeeping tasks, made lots of lists, and finally tidied up this little piece of cyberspace that is my blog. It wasn't an especially interesting day - certainly not worth writing about. However, in six months when i have to work in a blizzard-ice storm-tornado-earthquake, i'll read this post and (hopefully) find some consolation in knowing that at least it's not 114 degrees outside...and that i learned to spell Fahrenheit correctly.