Day 13: My Commute To/From Work

I have the best commute. I wasn't crazy about moving out of my hometown, but Jay convinced me to give it a try. His argument was that the scenery on the way into town was amazing. He was right.

It's hard to leave our little slice of paradise each morning, but knowing I get to come home to it each night makes it easier.

We live right off a dirt road, that when dry, is one of the best roads I've ever driven on. When saturated because of rain and snow, like today, is treacherous. Digger has mentioned more than once that Salome is much more of a bad ass car than most of the perfectly shiny 4x4 trucks that run around town. I tend to agree. My poor Salome will get a bath in June to get rid of the mud, and she'll stay mostly clean until September or so.

The morning drive in is spectacular, especially in the spring, when everything is fresh and blooming. The snow-capped mountains set my mind at ease about the potential for wild fires. The years when there is little to no snow visible are the years that scare me. The Rocky Mountains run in my full field of view from left to right and I consider myself blessed that I get to see them each morning.

Just off the highway, to the south, is a piece of property that I just love. I look forward to seeing it each morning, just as I descend the rolling hill by the dump. The property is lined on it's north side by trees, but there is one lone tree (Russian Olive, I think) smack dab in the middle of the property, standing sentinel over the growing crops. For some reason, I love that tree. It stands tall and proud by itself through all the seasons. On occasion, I've seen a hawk hanging out at the top of it, looking for dinner.

As I near the base of the hill and look up past that property, I can almost imagine that there are no houses beyond it. For just a second or two at 65 miles per hour, I can fantasize that urban sprawl isn't intruding. For a short period of time, all I see is the green crop, the sentinel tree, and the great snow-capped Rockies beyond. My heart gets very happy.

More and more houses appear as I get closer to the city and my heart breaks a little bit more every time I see new construction. The rural power company recently put in a huge solar farm and I was ecstatic when I realized that it was a solar farm and not another 100 houses. I'm constantly amazed at how many people city planners will cram into small spaces.

Farms that were "out in the middle of nowhere" are being surrounded by urban sprawl. The people come. They demand HOAs and covenants and rules and the next thing you know, there are no more family farms.

I'm no longer tense and angry when I cross I-25 into the city, but for the first two years I commuted back and forth, the minute I crossed into city traffic my blood pressure sky-rocketed and I became a road rager. I think the anger came mainly from seeing how much the city has changed from the small, agriculturally-based town into Boulder, North.

In fact, I was talking to a friend last night who spoke to someone who was touring "Ag" colleges and CSU was on his list. He came, took a look at CSU and immediately took it off his list - CSU is no longer an "Ag" college. It bills itself as one, but has lost its way, which breaks my heart.

The drive home calms me, soothes my soul. As much as I loved my hometown, there is next to nothing I recognize of it. It's gone and I'm beginning to come to terms with it.

I'm not a naturally poetic person, but living in our little slice of paradise is good for me. It truly does soothe my soul. Jay and I are so blessed to live where we do.

The Rural Life Suits Us

When Jay and I met, I swore I would never live east of I-25.  I was a mountain girl, pure and simple.  I had to have my mountains, period.

But then we moved out east.  Not far, only about 19 miles from my home town and I immediately fell in love.  I still must have my mountains, but now I live just far enough away that I get to see them.  My drive in to work every day has the best view ever and we're not so far away that I can't get a "fix" whenever I want.

I also get to pretend to be a farmer on occasion, which I love.  A friend of ours has a "small farm" that we get to house-sit when her family is out of town. 

The barn kitties are always fun to watch.

So when that same friend asked if I wanted to come help out on branding day, I jumped at the opportunity.  Last year, my job was to "back pour" the meds - literally taking the medication and pouring it along the backs of the animals.

This year, my job included holding the calves' legs with a rope while they got banded.  A few of the little boys took offense, but they all got through it just fine.

I also got to do the vaccinating this year.  My medical students would cringe to see me shooting the animals.  Human medicine is, in some ways, very different from vet medicine.  No swabbing the area with alcohol and waiting for it to dry, no changing of needles between shots (which means lots of re-capping), no choosing just the right spot.  Nope, it's more, knock the shit (literally) off the skin, jab, inject, re-cap and move on to the next animal. 

Shooting the calves is much, much easier than shooting the cows.  Believe it or not, the bulls were perfect gentlemen while they got taken care of.  The cows, not so much.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to stay long enough to complete the job, because Jay and I had to go pick up some hay.  There were just a handful of cows left to do when I handed off my job, so I didn't feel as guilty as I would have if I had bailed earlier.

I found a screaming deal on hay ($3/bale), but we had to pick the hay up out of the field.  Jay and I called in our substantial families and met them at the field. 

In order to have all available adult hands loading, I threw Deejo's son, The Boy, in Jay's truck to drive while we loaded.  Poor kid.  He had never driven before and was a bit wary.  He's fifteen-ish and should be getting his learner's permit anyway.  He got a quick lesson on which was the gas and brake and how to steer.  I must have been feeling particularly confident in this never-driven-before kid's ability, because I didn't think twice about making T (Junior's son) and Asset (Nebalee's daughter) ride in the cab with him.  Easier to corral all of the kids in one place than try to keep track of them.

With two trucks/crews running, only took us about 25 minutes to load 120 bales.  Not bad - I thought we'd be out there much longer.

Maybe my favorite picture of the day: Asset, T, and The Boy.

In no time, we were headed back to L.E.'s to unload.  We don't have much storage space, so fifty bales were put up inside the pen and the rest were stacked outside.  I just stepped aside and stayed out of the way while everyone else stacked the hay - too many people in one place makes for quick, but crowded, work.

It feels good to have most of the hay laid in for the year.  We've got another fifty bales that we'll pick up next week, and I'll probably buy another fifty in September just to make sure we'll make it until first cut next year.  It hurts the pocketbook right now, but we'll definitely appreciate not having to put out money every month for hay.  My hope is that we won't lose too much to mold, like Mom did last year.  We stacked and tarped with an eye toward air circulation.  If moisture gets into the stack, there should be enough circulation for it to dry out.

Yesterday was busy and physically demanding, but I loved every minute of it.  We have the best family, who were willing to give up a couple of hours in the middle of the day on a Saturday to work in heat and humidity.  It was truly "Just Another Perfect Day".

It's Just Torture, I Tell You

Jay and I are house-sitting for a friend of mine.  She's kind enough to let us use her property for shooting and is mean enough to make me come workout with her.  (I haven't made it to her house for a six a.m. workout yet and I'm not seeing that happen any time soon.)

When she asked if we could house-sit, it took me about half a second to say yes.  How could you say no to this bit of paradise?

I don't do mornings.  I hate them and don't really believe they should exist, but this morning I crawled out of bed to let her eighty zillion fowl out of the coops, feed the bucket calves, and check the four mommas who haven't managed to get their babies on the ground yet.

Holy cow, these turkeys and roosters are ginormous

They were wide awake and ready to leave the coop when I opened the door.

The not-yet-mommas

Turns out, mornings aren't so bad out here (but don't tell anyone I said that!).

After a trip to check out our first 9HealthFair of the season, I took a quick nap before starting the noon-time chores.  Here's the thing.  Actual farmers make it look easy.  Faux farmers like me huff and puff through the feeding of the animals.  I did get one hell of a shoulder workout, since the tops of the rolls of cornstalks are taller than I am.

I'm not exactly sure how many laying hens they have, but for someone who *hates* chickens, it was a feat to go gather the eggs.  I had long sleeves and leather gloves on, so I figured even if I ran into a stubborn hen who didn't want to give up her eggs, I'd be okay.

As I was reaching up into a box, I felt a hen peck at my leg, so I flicked my foot at it to shoo it away.  Only, it didn't shoo away.  It attacked me.  Full-on, wings flapping, spurs.  Wait...spurs?  I don't know if hens have spurs, but I damn sure know that roosters have spurs.  Sure enough, I looked down and there was a little rooster looking up at me like, "bring it, bitch."  In fact, not only did he look at me like that, but he opened his damn beak and cock-a-doodle-doo'd me as he puffed up for another attack.

Are you kidding me?

Little bastard wasn't so cocky once I had Jay hand me the shovel.  In fact, he might have been afraid I'd whack his head off with it and hustled out of the coop.

We managed to fill up our down time before evening chores with a little plinking.  Have I mentioned that this house-sitting gig is pure torture?

Deejo, and Jay's dad and brother came out to crack off a few rounds with us.  While we were waiting for them to arrive, we enjoyed just sitting at the picnic table in the sun.  (I might have gotten a bit too much sun, shhh.)  I looked down and saw this rattlesnake.

Dead.  Just like I like them.

We didn't manage to waste enough time plinking, so Jay and I tried our hand at pin-striping.  Newt has been pretty hard to distinguish from other Souls because she didn't have any tattoos.  We fixed that today.  Nothing as in-your-face as Ripley's tattoos, but still cute.

Not bad for a DIY job.

The requisite gun sticker.  Now Mom and Bill can identify my car.

Since she got her new tattoos, of course she needed a photo shoot.  What's the point of getting new body bling if you can't show it off, right?

Finally, time for evening chores rolled around and I made Jay come out to take pictures while I fed the babies.

This little cutie has a mommy, unlike the two I had to bottle feed.  But it's only 24 hours old and super, super cute, so we had to get pictures of he/she/it.

Now, it's bedtime and I'm plum tuckered out.  I suspect tomorrow will include a much longer nap than this morning did :)