You too can achieve your dreams!

I am sorry for being away for so long. It was a pretty long weekend full of the kind of personal stuff that I don't really feel comfortable sharing, so I have pulled over an applicable blog from my other location, Rants by Lauren. Enjoy! And come back soon! We're making jelly!


I did it. This weekend I achieved one of my lifelong dreams. You know those dreams that haunt you? Day after day? Night after night? Pushing you? Pursuing you like a hunted stag? Those dreams that motivate you on a core level?

I attained one of those. Yes. I did it. I fell through a barn. Again. What do you mean that isn’t a dream? You have never had that dream where you fall through a barn floor? What is that? Oh, a nightmare you say? Psh. Nightmares are dreams too. Don’t be a hater. You have your goals. I have mine.

You’re just jealous because I achieved something glamorous. Bruises are considered glamorous, right?

Saturday was supposed to be Farrier day at Prinrock Farms. Farrier day is a magical day from hell that involves gathering up every single horse and having a farrier give them the equivalent of an equine pedicure. For the most part this isn’t bad. Generally 23 horses out of 26 are good. They are catchable and they don’t fight too much, but oh when the hellions decide to fight it is a sight to see. Anyone who thinks people kicking or smacking their horse around is abusive should really observe what they will do to themselves and each other when they are in a pissy mood.

Let me tell you, a horse is a half cocked gun. Take Luna for example, she can be the most docile thing ever, but Heaven help us all if she is PMSing. She can clear a six foot tall fence from a standstill and cause concussions with the best of them. I watched Dreamer break two halters and her own face rather than allow herself to be tied. They’re nuts. They’re exquisitely beautiful creatures, but they are nuts. Anyways, between Luna trying to prove herself the world’s best jumper, Joey picking your pockets and wandering away with any tools that aren’t tied down, and Barbie being the wild mountain horse who will never be touched! Never!!!! Farrier day is one of the days that I look at with trepidation.

So, at 7:30 ON A SATURDAY I already knew the day would not be in my top ten. Then the farrier was late. Then he was an hour late. Then we realized he wasn’t coming, which made life suck for a variety of reasons.

1.       I had been up at 7am on a SATURDAY for nothing.

2.       I had a pen full of agitated horses that I somehow had to feed without them beating each other up too much. This pen would also get grosser and grosser with every passing moment. So I would have to wade through a foot of muck rather than six inches when I eventually tried to capture them. Lovely.

3.       I had made a big deal out of being busy all day the night before. Now I was no longer busy, and my entire argument that had been emotionally charged and ineffective to begin with was void. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

What to do with a free Saturday? Call and eat crow? Can? Winterize my yard? Clean house? Clean barn? Do laundry? Sleep? Relax?

None of the above. I got wrangled into helping my dad clean out my grandpa’s barn. Which is good because a good wind could knock it over, and my grandpa does not need to be wandering around in it, so I’m glad that I was there, but did I mention a good wind could knock this thing over? Danger! Danger!

Naturally I am selected for the job of retrieving items from across the loft floor. It only makes sense. I am the least useful of the group. It’s like in a horror movie. You know someone is going to die, and you know it is going to be the ditzy blond chick because she contributes the least to the well being of the party. I was cannon fodder. They said it was because I was the lightest, but I know the truth. So I was like, “Hey! Okay!” and “Is this a bad time to tell you guys I have been having dreams about falling through barn floors again?” Chirp, chirp went the crickets. “Hey, Lauren. Why don’t you start by gathering up all the jars and glass [from over there on the sketchy side of the barn]?” Seriously, take the flashlight. Go down the hall alone. It’ll be cool. There isn’t certain doom down there. That’s just bad lighting.

So I collect jars, crocks, and giant wooden things like the good girl that I am. I’m creeping from floor joist to floor joist, spreading my weight out the best that I can on the termite riddled wood. I was practically belly crawling along to reach some of these jars and other mystery objects. Most mystery objects being made of cast iron and appearing to be tools of some sort that I couldn’t identify. My grandpa has some cool stuff. Some cool, HEAVY stuff. A few hours pass. We uncover two glass display cases, because every barn has two antique glass display cases in it for grain and things, right? We found a cider press. Who doesn’t keep one of those laying around? There were also some old chairs, an engine, a steam engine, a tractor, a seed box, thousands of strawberry cartons (WHY?!?!?!?!), planters, enough canning jars to make me ache with jealousy (Really. They are about $10 a box. I have bought about $50 worth of them recently. When I could have just come rummaging…AGH!), and those are just the things I could identify. American Pickers would probably jizz all over themselves if they saw my grandpa’s barns. The point is, I got cocky.

At some point in the barn’s past someone had laid down plywood over the floor in places. This gave me a sense of security. Nothing could harm me. I couldn’t see the broken and decaying boards. They weren’t there! The floor was strong. It was plywood. I laughed in the face of decaying boards! Ahahahah-AHHHH! Yup. The plywood gave out. Dad and grandpa were nowhere around, and I was stuck with one leg through a barn floor sprawled out amongst a pile of shattered glass. ‘Cause of course I had been holding glass. It wouldn’t have been nearly intense enough if I hadn’t been holding glass.

So, I’m chilling there with one leg through the floor, wondering how on earth I’m going to extract myself, when the total absurdity of the situation hits. Seriously, how many people get to achieve a lifelong dream TWICE? TWICE!!?!?! And I’m still young. Think about it. At this rate I am falling through a barn once every ten years. Actually it is freakishly close to being exactly ten years. Assuming that my penchant for freakish accidents will continue, I will fall through barns an estimated six more times. This experience was significantly less traumatic than before, so theoretically I will survive all six falls and perish of more natural causes. That is achieving my dream an anticipated 8 times over the course of my life! Can you believe that? Talk about a goal! Man, I am so lucky!

DIY Newspaper Pots (otherwise known as Cat Bait)

Damn, I’m cheap, and I want to start some seedlings for my garden. What to do, what to do?

I should get one of those newspaper pot roller things. They’re great. I’m reusing old newspaper and I don’t have to transplant them. Plus all those damn plastic trays I bought last year didn’t hold up to the cat and dog laying on top of them, so I’m gonna have to do something for that anyway.

That thought process led me to getting an awesome little tool and losing about three hours of my life to making paper pots.

If you have read the rest of this blog you're going to know that I am not that big on measuring things, so it should come as no surprise when I tell you that I had no ruler and no idea of how long 3.5" actually was. So the first thing I did was cut my newspapers into fourths.

Okay, I lied. The first thing I did was wrestle the newspaper away from my cat and manage to miraculously not cut his feet off while I was trying to cut my newspaper. Such. A. Bad. Kitty. Seriously, if cats could take Adderall he would be on it.

Anyway, my lovely method of measuring yielded newspaper that was way too wide. Go figure. So rather than cutting it again I took the lazy way out and folded it. Wanna see how the cool little pot maker thing works? Yes? Awesome. Because I made you a montage. I hope you like it.

Quick! Go play Eye of the Tiger while you look at it!

Pretty sweet, yeah? I thought so too until I had to fill this. This being a big clear plastic tub that I had to buy and drill air holes in to protect all of my newly made pots, because someone, not going to mention any names *cough*MyGodDamnCats*cough, cough* decided to destroy all of them last time. Lets see them crush and shred them now! Yeah!

You might need to put it on loop for effect. That is three hours of Survivor right there.

Craptastic!

My craptastic weekend...was great!

So why do I call it craptastic? If you read my second to last post you saw my gigantic to do list. On that list was an entry called “dig out Moon’s pen.” What does that mean exactly? Well, overwintering animals in smaller pens closer to the house for monitoring and pasture management reasons has some drawbacks. Like an overabundance of manure. When the animals don’t have as much room to roam it builds up pretty quickly. So digging out the pens means removing the animal and attacking the ground with a tractor. Ideally this happens two or three times a year, realistically (I mean did you see the rest of the to do list?) it happens once or twice.

And I shall call it Mt. Horse Apple.

Well, we got Moon’s pen all cleaned out (about five hours of work all told. I started it out, but my dad stepped in and finished it after it hit a tree with the bucket (front end) of the tractor as I was backing up. I don’t think he trusted me near the edges after that for some reason. I don’t know why! I have skillz damnit. You can tell they’re legit because the have a “z.”

Well, I started on cleaning out the milk house of doom while he was finishing up on that. I had no clue what I was getting into there. There are things in that tiny building that have no place being there. Like porcelain bears, old boots, knitted something or anothers. As I was hauling fruit basket after fruit basket of junk out, because for some reason we had dilapidated fruit baskets in there. ‘Cause, hey why the hell not. They go with the glass bears. I got to thinking that there are probably even snakes in there. *shudder* The things I do to try and get a potting shed. So, it still isn’t done, but I took a few loads out.

Then dad and I moved hay, and dad decided to dig out the cow’s winter enclosure. We live pretty close to the Cahokia Mounds, and dad has decided to create the “Cowpoopia” Mounds. He seems to think it’ll make a great attraction. I’m not convinced. (Actually, I told him it was a shitty idea. Then cackled like a fifth grader. Geez. I am too witty sometimes!)

One day archaeolgists are going to have a field day with this one.

While he was working on the cow pasture I walked around and located six trees down over the fence. Yet another good reason to keep the livestock close to the house for the winter months. Ice and wind are hell on trees, and trees are hell on fences. So, dad and I loaded up the chainsaw and he cut and I dragged until the perimeter fence was at least up again. I am not going to count it as cleared yet, but at least it should hold the horses and cows. It will be another weekend or two before we have another chance to work on it, but at least it is serviceable right?

Yeah. I’m going to tell myself that. Just wait for the post about the livestock in the neighbors field. I sense it coming.

Sunday found me trying out my carpentry skills, which are, uh, nonexistent. The good news is I now have a dog house, the bad news? Well, I’m not sure I should be allowed near a saws-all again anytime soon, but that deserves its own little how to. Check out my post on DIY Dog House out of Pallets for more of that story! I also started in on making pots for starting seedlings, but I will wait and fill you in on that one in its own post as well.

Hope ya’ll are surviving the daylight savings shift!

DIY Disaster, well it is a dog house made out of pallets!

I was inspired by all of the cool things that people have done with pallets lately. http://howdoitcom.tumblr.com/post/43161225742/more-pallet-ideas The projects look amazing, and pretty simple, right? I am very interested in repurposing because: 1. It is cool, and 2. I’m cheap. Dog houses retail for about $150.00 a piece at the local feed store, and though I love my dog, I did not want to spend that much when I knew I could build one. How hard could it be, right? If only I had known. This isn't an exact tutorial, because if I had it to do over again I would do things a little differently. Think of it more as an inspirational piece! Anyway, not knowing what I didn't know, I decided to get crafty.

I have taken three things away from this experience. Saws-alls are not as easy to use as I thought. I am capable of using power tools, sorta. Most importantly, always pre-drill your holes! Dear Lord in Heaven pre drill your holes. It sounds like a stupid extra step, but it isn't. Across the path of least resistance danger lies in giant wooden chasms!

Hyperbole aside, I am lucky enough to have free access to small shipping crates with collapsible sides at work. For this project I used one crate bottom, two sides, two pieces of scrap lumber, one 1x4 board, and one salvaged crate lid cut to size. I also used a band saw, a miter saw, saws-all, a drill, sand paper, hammer, and 1 ¼” screws. Oh, and all my PPE. Gotta be safe!

I started out by setting the sides on the crate. I haphazardly decided on a door size and cut my scrap lumber to even lengths before screwing it onto the crate and learning the importance of pre-drilling holes. Without planning on it one end of my scrap wood fit perfectly into the space I had made with a few taps of a hammer, so I screwed that on too. Then I tried to cut out a nice rectangle using a saws-all. It didn’t work so well. I then absently wondered if they made bondo for wood, but went along anyway. It might not be pretty, but it was my creation damnit!

I was not very good at taking pictures of this one. Sorry guys, but do make sure to note the splitting wood and my freaking awesome saws-all job! That's ergonomic, or aesthetically pleasing, or something?!? Maybe?

I used my awesome measuring skills, ie holding it up and marking it with a pencil to determine the length I needed (but you could use a measuring tape) for the roofline which I cut in two sections, one piece being the length across the front and one the length of the sides. I then attached my front board to the poor, splintering frame I had made for the door and proceeded to draw a diagonal line across the side board so that when I cut it I would have two identical pieces.

Which I pre-drilled (see, learning!) and screwed to the front board. I chopped a scrap piece of wood in half and screwed the back ends of my diagonal pieces down for stability. I then grabbed a lid and screwed it on top of my angled boards. I then tried to sand down the doorway so Susan wouldn’t get splinters. It needs a few coats of waterproof paint, but Susan loves it. That’s the main thing.

Kitten Season

I was just informed that the rest of the world doesn’t know what kitten season is; and that, dear reader, is flipping tragic.

How do you live without the knowledge that in the spring there will come a time of such joy (finding kittens) and pain (getting clawed up by momma)? Seriously, handfuls of kittens. Is there anything cuter? It is one furry, warm, mewing ball of awesome.

Well, except for the momma. If she is tame it’s cool, but the half feral barn cats don’t take so kindly to interlopers. For some reason tricking them into leading you to their kitten nest really makes them mad.

But it is so worth it.

That is an armful of cuddly goodness right there.

I see your deer, and I raise them one albino doe.

Yeah. Albino deer by my driveway. You'll have that. :)

And people wonder why I love living in the middle of nowhere?

SPRING!

Some people would say that this is oregano poking through straw. I prefer to call it SPRING! And it is about damned time!

Although, now instead of a to do list made up of cooking, eating, and catching up on my reading I have made a monster. My to do list looks like this:

Why am I excited it is spring again?

Oh yeah, BONFIRE!!!!!!