AUGUST 25, 2011: Water, Water...nowhere?

Up at 430 again. Turned the sprinkler on before I left to pick up Brett and came home to find no running water! Now, I grew up on a farm that had limited water, similar to ours, and one day the well went dry and we didn’t have water for five years. Five years! Can you imagine? I had graduated by the time they completely lost the well and we in the process of digging the fifth one that would be dry. My mom had to haul her laundry to town to wash it and they could only take baths and showers on occasion when the little bit of water that would seep into the well could be harnessed. This morning, with a husband in a dirty field, lunches and dinners to be made, and four boys who need to work with their pigs, we don’t have a drop.

I don’t want to radio Wave about this, but what choice do I have? Thank goodness my husband can multi-task and keep his cool in situations that would have left me slamming phones into the wall. (FYI: That comes later)

Wave told me to call our electrician, and friend, Kevin. Thank goodness he can come out today. He says he’s getting calls for a lot of well issues right now. I ask him if it’s the hot weather, the solar flares, fate returning to try and scare the crap out of me, or what? He says it’s the pump. It’s dead, and we have to call another guy. While that might be bad news to some, to me this is great. Bad pump means we still have a viable well. I call the other guy, he can’t be here until Monday. That is almost a week from now. While I cringe, I must remind myself to say a little thanks again for the fact that water is possible within less than five days- instead of five years. The worst part about it is that I have been so busy I have not been able to do laundry, and today was supposed to be that day. In addition to that, it is 90 degrees outside and I have animals in the barn that need water. I also have kids that need water and a husband that will need bathed tonight!

Thank goodness for family! I call Wave’s dad in a controlled panic, tell him the situation and he snaps into motion – just as he always does when we have a minor crisis on the farm. He readies his laundry, empties his dishwasher and turns over his downstairs bathroom to us for our use during the next week. Not wanting to overwhelm one family member with our monster size brood and amazing amount of dirt and stink this August, I also call my grandma in Tekoa as well. She does the exact same thing as Dick. Our families are so amazing I make a mental note that I am a slave to the next person in need in either of them!

After that, I haul the kids to Tekoa to wash and work their fair pigs. As I have told the kids before, animals sense moods. Well, they must have sensed that all hell broke loose in our house and have decided to mimic their observation by completely mauling each other and the children. We come back home grumbling something about fate, and freaking pigs, and I instruct the kids to bathe in the hot tub water. I will then drain the hot tub, which needs it anyway. I think that act alone, climbing into a vat of warm water, calmed their nerves because they were laughing by the time they finished. When it was my turn, I lingered, stared at our farm, which is dry on a normal day, and said goodbye to what little flowers I managed to keep alive this year. At 630 PM I resign myself of the fact that this will be the way it is no matter if I scream about it or not, and I take the kids to a movie at the old theater in Tekoa. For two hours, we eat candy, drink ice cold water, and hope to hell we got the pig smell off so I neighbors don’t point and whisper about us.

After that, we go back home a little calmer. I heat water for dishes and for Wave’s “bath.” He was invited to go to his Dad’s of course, but I know my husband. Once home, he is not leaving, and the chance washing like you are camping will be too overwhelming for him. Luckily, it is a warm night, so we stand out by the hot tub and I dump pans of warm water over him until he is well…clean enough. 

August 23, 2011: DAY 5: New visitors to the Warwick Farm

            Today’s up at 430 moment brought homemade cappuccinos, or as our family likes to call it, Uncle Mike’s Special Drink. Although I have the right tools: good strong coffee, Sugar in the Raw, and a coffee press for foaming the milk, no one can make them as good as Mike does. No one! The sun was just peaking up as I got Brett out the door and tiptoed back to my chair to read another chapter of “Water for Elephants.” No one got redlighted thank goodness, but I’m starting to wonder what in the world Jacob is thinking.  I also hope that the author answers the posed question about how much water a person would have to haul to satisfy an elephant. Before I could get through more than one chapter, or more than one cappuccino, Wave was up and ready to move a tractor to the field to plow fire lines. The air is super dry, and I am relieved that he is doing this before the combines roll today, so I make him a cup of coffee and we are out the door.

            I have not ridden in a tractor with Wave since last fall, and with coffee in hand, the crisp morning air smells so much like Fall it is both exhilarating and eerie at the same time. I love the cooler mornings, but Mother Nature needs to hold off for a little while longer. We have to get the crops in first.

            After plowing the field and gossiping in my husband’s ear for the first time in a week about everything that has been going on with the kids while he has been working, we are all too quickly done. Wave moves the tractor to his dad’s house and I back the pick-up up to the little tiny air compressor in order to move it into the next field so that the crew can blow off their combines before they start this morning. This is the first time I have done this alone, and considering the fact that the air compressor is so small behind the pick-up that you cannot see it, I was pretty damn proud that it only took to tries to touch ball to hitch!

            I returned home just as the kids were stirring and the crew is arriving, only to find a mama and baby moose heading toward our “newly” dug pond. I was so excited, since drawing in wildlife was one of the main reasons for digging the pond, that I called the kids on the radio to tell them to run out to the shop and watch. Unfortunately, Summer’s 4-H sheep had jimmied the chain on their fence loose and the kids were out rounding them up. I hoped that they did not get mixed up with the mama and baby in the process. Knowing Jack, he might try to coax one of moose into the fence as well.

            The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. No break downs, no major parts runs, no cussing on the radio yet. It felt like the calm before the storm. Everyone, even the other families on the radio seem pleasant and content, so I took the opportunity to move more rock and make banana bread. My back is really starting to hurt, but I’m determined to get that rock moved before we leave for the fair in two weeks. I’m determined to get a lot of things done before then. I’m not sure how Wave will handle the rest of harvest minus his family and the parts runner, but at least we will be in Colfax, so if something major does happen, we are already only ten minutes from the parts store. I’m already dreading the amount of times I will be coaxed into running a part up “real quick.” 

August 20, 2011: DAY 2 - THE PICNIC

We are up at 4:30 again. I cannot say that it is getting any easier just yet. Chad arrives at 7:00 ready to roll. I finished a new Lentil, Orecchiette, and Feta Cheese salad for the picnic today, only to discover that it didn’t taste good. Experiment gone wrong. I cannot serve this to my family. Thank goodness for my friend Shelly, Chad’s wife,  who taught me how to make the best Macaroni salad on short notice. After whipping it together, I go out to wash the farm truck I’ve been trying to get to for three days. I want to wash it and wax it before the sun bakes it and me. I get it washed, but it’s already to hot by the time I get to waxing so it will have to wait until this evening. Thankfully, the other truck driver does not arrive until tomorrow, so I still have time.

            I am soaked by the time I have to move Chad to the field and return home to feed and water the animals and create a new mud bog for the pigs. It will be almost 90 degrees today, and by the time I start filling the new hole they are already rolling and splashing in the water covering Jack and I will mud. Thank goodness I waited to shower.

            I grab a cooler and fill it with ice for the salad and fresh huckleberries for the homemade ice cream and it’s almost noon before Jack and I head out to the picnic, so we will be fashionably late at best.

            The picnic was fun, but I learned that Grandma and Grandpa are putting the family home on the market and moving to an apartment in Spokane next week due to Grandpa’s cancer. I can hardly enjoy myself after Grandma asks me to run to the house with her to pick out some family heirlooms so that the kids and I will have something to remember them by. I sort slowly through the stuff, only to feel terrible for taking some and even more terrible for passing other stuff over. Grandma went outside while I was finishing only to find Jack sitting on the step moping about something. She asked him what was wrong and he said that I was taking too long and he was supposed to be in harvest. I think we already know this kid’s future.

            Jack and I return home about 4:00 only to learn that one truck is broke down already so Chad had to take the unwaxed truck to the field. That is not good since it has fresh paint, but that’s harvest. It’s unpredictable, so you better have all your chores done early. I didn’t this time and I feel bad about it because the paint job is so amazing. Oh well, can’t dwell on what you missed this time of year or you’ll never get anything done.

            I leave a very sleepy, but undeterred Jack with Wave and head home to make dinner. I BBQ Black Butte Porter chicken, bake diced potato with garlic and onions, some amazing oatmeal banana cookies, and a vodka tonic. Shelly came over to eat dinner with me and we got to visit minus children for the first time in history.  It was strongly quiet and I could actually hear what she was saying.

            Wave’s dad called from Utah, where he is competing in the National Cowboy Poetry Contest. He wanted to check on harvest and let us know that he won the championship! He is now the nations number one cowboy poet. Of course, he says it’s nothing, but we all see it differently.

            Due to the truck down, Chad, Wave and Jack managed to come home in time for dinner and we all ate together – probably for the last time this summer.

  

Diary for Harvest 2011: Day 1

AUGUST 19, 2011: 

            This is possible first day of harvest, and I promised myself that no matter how busy it got, I would keep a diary. We are so stinking ready to get rolling that I swear the hair on our arms is standing to attention at just the thought of hearing a combine roar to life. This harvest is late, extremely late for the Palouse. There are years when we have finished on this day, so it’s crucial that we do not waste a second. The problem is that not all of the crops are ready, so harvesting will be spotty at best. Today, Wave will harvest alone, jumping from combine to truck just to get a few loads into the bin so that he can make a better plan for the whole crew who are arriving tomorrow at 7 am.

            At 430AM Brett and I are up and semi-concious so I can take him to football practice at the high school in Oakesdale. I return home at 5:30. Normally I would want to fall back into bed and catch a couple more winks, but we’ve been gearing for this day forever. Especially our 6-year-old Jack, who is awake and ready to make lunches for he and his dad. He wants to get on the combine even worse than Wave does, but it looks like plans have changed. Wave needs to spray a field for a neighbor and we need to get a birthday present for Summer before we are deep in harvest and can’t get back to town.            

            By 7:30 we realize that we have two flat tires; one on the Rogator and one on the combine. And I swear it’s all because I made that comment the other day over our five o’clock beer in the shop that after all the time farmers have had to get their equipment ready this year there should not be a single breakdown. I should have known.

            At 8:30, I am showered, lunches are made just in case, and Wave and I deliver Brett to Mt. Hope to buck bales for the day with my dad. We make a mad-dash to Spokane for the present and I can already feel the tension in my husband’s body. He does not want to be in Spokane. He should not be on blacktop at all this time of year. He should be hot, sweaty and itchy from the wheat chaff that has been misting doen his back all day. I hurry out of there before some unsuspecting elderly woman with a shopping cart gets ran over by a cranky farmer in need of a wheat fix.

            By noon we are back home. The tires guys have yet to show, and I want my husband as far away from the house as possible. He goes to the field to harvest what he can with the other combine with instructions that I will call him the moment they get that tire fixed. Executive orders already being bellowed out. Full crew or not, we are in harvest now.  I spend the rest of the afternoon making a highly fattening meatloaf and potatoes for dinner, and start the salad I need to make for the family picnic at my Dad’s tomorrow. Harvest or not, the picnic will not be missed as my grandfather has just been diagnosed with two kinds of cancer and he is still going out of his way to make us homemade ice cream. I bring the few huckleberries I managed to pick this year. There won’t be any for Wave, but Grandpa’s ice cream is worth it.

            Brett calls after he’s done bucking bales and has decided to skip tomorrow’s practice to go on one last run to the lake with his dad for the week-end. I can’t blame him, but I make sure he calls the coach and explains everything.

            My mom makes the long trek from Moses Lake to Tekoa to see her parents, so Jack and I go over to visit for the evening. Grandma Squibb, Aunt Lori, Jack and my mom are there. So fun to see them! We end up out at the cemetery on a ghost hunt just after dark. No ghosts, but the cool, golden harvest air is refreshing and it’s great to talk with everyone. I do miss the cemetery at night. We will have a full crew in the morning, so Wave and I get to bed early. The wheat sample tested well. We are go for a full day of harvest tomorrow and I can only imagine what kinds of trials and tribulations that will bring. 

Flowers and Rum Do Mix!

I have a black thumb, and apparently black eyes too. I’m a farm wife, and yet I can kill a flower just by looking at it. Therefore, when my girlfriend Shelly came over to visit the other day and saw me standing on my sidewalk staring at my brown wooden house with an empty drink in hand and a stoic look on my face she apparently felt the need to intervene.

“I have no color,” I said to her.

The next day she did what all girlfriends do, she drove back over with a full bottle of rum, some diet Dr. Peppers, a trunk full of clippings from her yard, and the spirit of sight that I was lacking.

Still in the doldrums, she made me a drink, turned on the stereo and instructed me every step of the way on how to add color to my yard. What started out as a mere planting of starts soon turned into an art form born of shear imagination progressively inspired by Captain Morgan!

“So,” she said, “Whatcha got in the barn?”

“Huh?” I asked, straw sticking to my lips.

“Come on,” she said. “Show me whatcha got in the barn.”

“Okay,” I shrugged.

Apparently, an old broken down wagon makes for a cheap and easy potting bed. Who knew? Well, definitely not me. From there we walked the rest of the place, so much so that I feared a sobering up coming on. We went to the garage where Shelly’s eyes beamed at a pile of old broken toy trucks.

“Hens and Chicks!” she said.

Hens and chicks are a great little plant that looks like an artichoke that apparently needs little dirt, water or maintenance to grow. What can I say, the girl has known me for a while now. Within an hour we had rusted out toy trucks full of plants and flowers.

From there, things got almost aerobic as Shelly placed her drink down and drug me into every outbuilding possible, even daring to go into my husband’s shop and rummage around in his stuff only to locate an old blue tool box which we stole and immediately drilled holes in.

She nailed old pots to broken off telephone poles, filled washbasins with dirt, made a broken clay pot into a piece of art I cannot stop staring at, and turned a wood box into a beautiful flower box which I – in my apparently new found inspiration had Jack color flowers all over – into a flower box for the porch.

Thanks to Shelly, her rum, and her imagination, my house finally has a personal touch and I am starting to see things around my house with a new wonder and excitement. As for the black thumb, that has yet to be determined, but I was overwhelmed with possibilities and a renewed sense of hope by the time she left.

“Thanks!” I said. “Really, I would not have done this without you.”

“No problem,” she said. “Just wait until you see what I can do on Tommy Bahamas!” 

Writer's Block

Today's place of insiration

 I’ve been working on two novels for three years now. One is Young Adult. The other is Women’s Fiction. Every day I sit in my living room for four hours and pound away on the keys, amid fielding phone calls and questions, the hourly beep of the washing machine, unsolicited texts, the Seventh Day Adventists doing the Lord's work at my doorstep, and my own devilish procrastination. Maybe a snack will help, or a ten-minute break, or starting completely over, or pushing headlong on through type-o’s and all. Nothing really has.

            Behind me I feel the pressure of those who desire - either out of loyalty to a local or hopefully because I actually have talent– another book like my first one. I so want to give that to them. I can see the bold features of my characters and smell the cool earth beneath their feet. I can hear the robins in the background and see the house that they live in. I am given the rare gift of being able to sort through their problems like some ethereal psychotherapist who wants to be their friend. But, what I have to possess in order to make my readers relate to my characters as deeply as they, themselves, relate to their own friends (or if I'm truly lucky, make them hate them as much as they hate their worst nemesis) is inspiration.

            That, in my wonderfully warm living room is what I am lacking. I’ve seen that couch so often that it has lost all beauty to me. I know the people who sit on it, and am too accustomed to the stains in the floor. Inspiration for me comes from changing scenery, something so new that it may be a path trodden heavily by another, but it holds a mystery for me.

            So, I have wandered away, outside my living room, onto roads I have driven and paths I have walked before. They might be slightly familiar, but alone I see them with a different eye.
There are ducks in the pond below me. I have seen that pond before, but I've never stopped long enough to see that there are so many cattails. They alone bring me bring me back to my youth. They remind me of days at the Rock Crusher where the local neighborhood children and I would have cattail wars, and spend countless hours making forts amongst the boulders that we might never return to.

            There is a mysterious house down there too, set against the backdrop of the most amazing forest. It is only minutes from my own backyard, and has probably been here for well over a half a century, but it is new to me. I can see the kitchen, where once there might have been bacon cooked so early in the morning, and up the road there is an old gunshot riddled “School Bus Stop Ahead” sign. Were there children who ran to it at one time? Did they carry lunch pails, or dine on school lunch? Were there school breakfasts offered during that area, or were the kids expected to be well nourished at home prior to racing each other to the stop?

            And where are they now? Did a mother, in a dress or in cool lots, tend to that garden as the earth was just awakening in the spring? Do the worms still wriggle in the earth waiting for the first plantings of potatoes and lettuce only to wonder where all the commotion has gone? Was their a father who lit fires in that crumbling fireplace at night?  Was the atmosphere tense, cold or warm and full of laughter?

            There is mystery in the house. Probably not for the people who lived there, but now, standing alone and in danger of dilapidation, there is for me. I have always wanted to get lost in story, in mystery, and adventure. With every day outside as a child, feeling the cool spring air on my skin, or wiping the sweat from my heated brow only to find a outdoor faucet on a neighbors house to drink from, I found both adventure and inspiration. What I see today is that to find adventure, you must first be adventurous.

            Every day I will try and find inspiration, and maybe someday it will lead me to you; the ghost who waits for an ear who will listen; the character whose story needs told. 

Gettin' er Done

Oh my goodness, that sounds so George Bush or Sarah Palin. I would consider changing it, but I won't. Neither of them should have a right to talk about gettin' er done, when neither of them have probably gotten anything done without the assistance of a camera crew, a make-up team and an herd of editors.  When I say gettin' er done, I was referring to this opening statement on my new blog, so that I can get back to getting everything else done on this farm.

Today, my list consists of volunteering at the school library, ordering pigs from middle Idaho, cleaning the house, doing the laundry for four boys and one farmer, attempt to make a healthy dinner out of a freezer filled to the brim with hamburger and pork chops, convince all of my sons that they can do homework, music lessons, and wax the tractor all while texting their girlfriends on their cell phones. I have to tend to the cat, drive fifty miles into the city to pick up a pair of glasses, get one of the boys to piano and another to basketball, convince my husband not to freak about about the market when Spring work hasn't even started, stem the rising water in the basement, do the recycling, and oh yeah, the school called. I have to go. Sounds like the littlest one has pneumonia again.

Alas, these are my days. They are filled with laughter, irritation, sarcasm, and most of all speed. I have been accused of living my life on Novocain, and that someday I am going to wake up and realize what the hell I went through being married to a farmer, raising five kids and being a writing. I hope so, but I hope I don't wake up too soon. After all of this, I still have to start training for Bloomsday this afternoon!