Singularly Country

There are a few things that are singularly country - they happen only because you live in the country. Here are just a few examples from this week:

• Your husband's co-worker calls to see if he can have his truck towed to your property, because he hit a cow on his way back to town from work.
• You stand in your driveway* swapping stories of door-crashing animals with the co-worker's girlfriend, and she can one-up your story about the previous day's turkey/duck/goat poop fest with the story of the time her horse climbed the porch and walked on into the house. She wins. (*Is it technically a driveway if it's 1/8 - 1/4 mile long? At what point does it become a lane? I'd prefer to call it a lane. Probably isn't quite long enough. Shoot.)
• On Tuesday, you drop your 9-yr-old daughter's best friend off at the bottom of her driveway after choral group lessons. She clambers over the cattle guard (she's not very tall) and climbs onto the 4-wheeler she has stashed behind an old truck, then rides on up to her house. (I bet we could call her driveway a lane - it's at least 1/4 mile long.)
• After her Thursday choral group practice, your nine-year-old daughter is off to calf roping lessons. She may or may not be wearing her scuffed red cowboy boots. Country girls like high heels, too.

These are just a few examples of sure signs that you live in the country. There are many other such examples, but I hate to stir up all that covetousness and longing in the hearts of my city dweller friends. Especially with stories of playful old horses, snow glistening in the garden, and old gray barns looming in the background. I'll keep those enviable moments to myself.

Love from the farm,
Teri

The Open Front Door

Coming home to an open front door can elicit a variety of emotions. In the city, coming home to a gaping doorway might bring the following to mind: Have every one of our valuables been stolen? Was this a gang hazing ritual or an even more sinister breach? Is someone still in there, lurking in a darkened closet? If I call the police, I'm telling them the place was viciously ransacked; I'm not copping to the fact that it looks like this. Always.

Coming home to an open front door in the country fosters a whole different set of responses: How long have those doors been open? Am I the idiot who left them open? Dang it, I am. Is there a chance on this Great Green Earth that the animals didn't notice?

To the kids I was ferrying home from school, scouts, Grandma's and Grandpa's, I said, "Do you see something standing there in the doorway?" It was dusk. I wanted to believe the black shape about 2.5-feet up from the floor was simply a shadow. Then the shadow moved, and the kids started chiming in, "Yep, that's a turkey." "Oh, there's another turkey." "Is that the duck? Yeah, do you see her behind the tom?" "Where's the 3rd turkey?" Oh, don't worry she was there, too.

Sigh.

I weakly asked, "I don't suppose Gertie is in there with them?" No sooner had I uttered that last syllable then her little white horns popped up behind the black turkey backs. "Yep, there's Gertie," stated Captain Obvious (I'm not sure which kid it was, but their declaration was an unwelcome addition to the conversation.)

I kid you not, each one of those animals was craning its neck to see who had just pulled up; Gertie the Goat in the back, standing on tippy-toes to see over the tops of the turkeys heads. The duck finally had enough of the crowding, vista-blocking poultry and squeezed out between the turkeys to get a better view. It seems at the very same moment they all realized they were busted and slunk out of the house in a cluster, just as Mia came bounding up behind them from somewhere deep in the bowels of the house, ready to gaily greet us. It didn't occur to her that bringing up the rear behind a bunch of gate crashers is the walk of shame for a guard dog worth its salt.

By my calculations, those dang doors had been open since I got the call from the school nurse at 2:47p to come pick up a sick kid until our arrival home at 5:25p. Roughly 2.5 hours they could have been in there. I wasn't ready to face it. I resolved to stay in the car and just text Mike all about it.

The kids went in to inspect the damage and Tanner came out to report the results. "It's bad in there. You probably don't want to go in," he said as he dropped into the passenger seat, shut the door and fiddled with the heater vent. So, I didn't. It was warm in the car. I was disinclined to move.

Tanner and I sat there a good five minutes before I silently turned off the car, turned to look at him and said we'd better go in. Tanner was seriously surprised. He said, "Aren't you going to have us clean it up? Really, you're going in there? Mom, I don't know if you realize how bad it is."

Oh, I was so tempted. There're 4 strong yahoos around here that I'd labored to carry a total of 40 months (we may address the 9-month pregnancy fallacy at a later date) and who were responsible for my stomach looking like a cantaloupe rind - they owe me; I'm fighting the crud; it's been a long day - I can let them clean it up. But, then that stinking sense of fair play raised its perky little obnoxious head. I'm the one who didn't check that the security door was shut when I know darn good and well that our dogs Mia and Sadie can't resist their 'Starsky & Hutch' kick-in-the-front-door routine. It was my fault. It was my mess to clean up.

In case you were wondering, 3 turkeys, a duck and one goat can produce a colossal amount of poo in 2.5 hours. Eleven piles of bird poo and 2 smatterings of goat berries, to be exact. Of course, to make it all extra special, the goat will do one pile of bidness on the living room rug. I spent 45 minutes taking care of the 11 piles of poo and one goat deposit. Then, Macy and I rolled up the living room rug and took it outside. I have my limits and there was just one pile of poo too many.

I truly love our life in the country. I do. But, it just isn't right to have the farm critters greet you at the door. From inside the house. It's just not right. I have no profound or clever manner of wrapping this one up. It's simply not right.

Tepid affection from the farm,
Teri

Of Pharmacies, Bum Holes and Ornery Folks

Swine flu has hit the folks, so I've spent some time checking on them throughout the week, taking a trip or two to the doctor, grabbing a few groceries, and making about 64 trips to the pharmacy. The little errands and checking in I've gladly done and I'm so grateful we're close by so I could do it. I'm glad for any chance to do something for the folks because, oh my goodness, I couldn't begin to repay them for the amazing support and help and fun they've been all my life. Stories of all they've done for me and my family are fodder for a 3-hanky post complete with theme music and sweeping vistas. But that's for another time. Suffice it to say, errands I can do. Am glad to do. With love in my heart.

The only thing I'm sick of is the pharmacy. Not because I've made a bunch of trips for Mom and Dad, but because I've filled prescriptions for 5 people this week; some have had multiple prescriptions on different days, so there was no chance for efficiency. Since Mom and Dad weren't the only ones with medical adventures this week, I've filled prescriptions for Mom, Tanner, Macy, Karlie, Macy again, Tanner again, Mom again and Dad. I'm tired of the pharmacy window, in spite of the sweet people who work at our Safeway pharmacy.

There was one bright spot in my pharmacy adventures this week, or so I thought. See, Dad's name is Willie, but he goes by Bill. I love opportunities to interact officially for him because I get to use his real name. Dad's a Kentucky boy, and it's not unusual for Kentucky boys to be named Willie. It's just not a name you hear much west of the Mississippi, and you get to say it even less. So, while I have grown weary of the pharmacy this week, it was fun to go pick up his prescription and have the chance to say, "I'm here to get Willie's prescription." But then the pharmacist helper lady says, "Do you mean Bill?" and inside I'm like, "Dang. One less chance to call him Willie. Thought for sure they'd call him Willie here."

After picking up the prescription, I stopped by the folks' home with a Diet Coke for Mom and a cup of coffee for Dad, and the prescription.

"You going anywhere else?" Dad asked.

"No. Just home," I answered, "Why? Do you need something?"

"No. It's just that you have a hole in the butt of your pants and I wasn't going to tell you about it until you got back with the coffee, but if you were going anywhere else, I figured I'd better let you know."

Yep, that's my Dad. Gotta love him. Even sick to the point of not being up for blow drying his hair, he can still get me.

"Oh, what's that, Dad? I'm sorry, was I standing on your oxygen line? Oh, am I off it now? How about now? Oh, sorry, am I on it again? Darn - is that what just yanked out of the machine over there? Oh, shucks, should I not have accidentally ground the hose into pieces with my heel? Oh, sorry."

Teach him to let me walk around with a hole in my bum.

Love from the farm,
Teri

(P.S. I suppose I should confess that I actually ended up running a few more errands in public yesterday, but at least I knew about the small hole, and somehow that made a difference. It was the ruthless letting me out among the common folk with a hole and not telling me immediately that was the issue, in case anyone's confused here.)