Bed ridden

I am  having one hell of a time getting out of bed today. I've been laying here awhile reading and then drifting back to sleep and waking up to various work texts or emails and then just closing my eyes and going back to sleep. 

I am not sure if I'm getting sick of if my body is just shutting down thinking about the looming harvest. .. Their words, not mine. I have hired some harvest help and now I just spread all my papers with calculated tonnage and man hours and ripening dates and pre harvest intervals and I just pace around and ponder what will be next. 

I think I might be over worrying. Or maybe I fear I am over worrying. 

The best thing I could do would be my Thursday laundromat ritual with a cup of gas station coffee and a magazine with a pocket full of quarters watching the dirt from the week suds off in he industrial front loAders. 

Possibly the worst thing I could do would be to check my email obsessively (stupid new smart phone)  and lay here in bed worrying about how this next month is going to go

I think I need a hug.

I just got back from a terribly unrelaxing vacation filled with empty wallets, new tires, and tons of mosquitoes and ticks. I learned something about myself though. I like to have a point to doing something. I like goals or mile markers or a specific destination for a specific reason. That's probably why all my vacations are working or helping a friend move across country or going to seminars on farms far away. 

Alright. Now my dog is pawing me int the face to go out. Good dog. Time to get my day started. 

Space

I'm listening to the early August noise of a Monday night,
Where the cicadas are singing with the crickets and tree frogs
 Courting lovers with songs they're too shy to say.
The neighbor kids are in the streets shrieking and playing, enjoying the last few days of freedom in the loudest way possible, like teenagers do. I am slowly decompressing, melting into my couch and a bottle of refermenting hard cider that is champagne fizzy.  This is the equivalent of my Friday night, just kinda hiding out and trying to find the right combination that will end my week long eye twitch. Is really starting to get to me.

I am inventing other realities where I branch off like the hardy boy books and imagine different paths and endings to my life.
Like chapter 12 would have been when I was 18, if  I should stay with my professor boyfriend and move to Taiwan, go to page 88 or if I switch schools and get into music and drinking, continue on page 54.
I imagine scanarios where I could be in the peace core in Africa or on a boat saving whales... My plans I hatched when I was twelve. Or I could be a writer in Nyc chasing down stories like my senior year of high school idea, I mean, when I wasn't acting in of broadway plays. Or a rock bassist or a bartender or a college dropout or a mortgage broker.


But as is, I'm in a quaint little apartment in Akron with three dogs, two of whom aren't mine, listening to te noise of the street while I try not to think about work or my future or my present too much. 


Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space.

new!

I just bought a car. She's a sweet 2001 Subaru wagon in a nice dark blue. The cupholders are just like the online reviews said - in odd spots. But the AC works and it drives amazing!
It took me a while to get used to not having to do all the quirks that my truck did, like pulling to the right whenever I would brake. Or keeping my foot on the gas when idling.
The service engine soon light came on a day after I got it, but I'm hoping it something small. I paid cash for the car, which was nice to scrape together every cent I had and even sold a few goats to pay for it. Yes, that sounds odd to me now and a bit archaic, but a car is quite a bit more useful than a pair of fainting goats. Even though I do miss my goats, they didn't get me to work and back. I've already put 600 miles on it in just one week! Gas efficiency is in between the truck and the honda, but all wheel drive will be nice in the Ohio winters. I'll just have to give up sushi for a month in order to pay the insurance, but overall i'm very happy with my purchase.

I also got a new phone. A new smart phone. It's pretty sweet so far. It combines all those notebooks and calendars and notes that I used to carry around along with a music player and a mobile hotspot so I have internet anywhere I go.

New apartment. New car. New phone. Wohoo! Finally getting my shit together post DUI, which was incredibly expensive.

And overall, I'm very happy at work, mostly because I have an amazing crew of smart, interesting, and hard working people. I've spent my last week doing a task that should have been complain worthy, but these kids took it all very well... I mean, after the initial shock of having to re-do something we just did wore off. Yesterday we were uncorking hundreds of cases, but the mood was bright and we swapped playlists every couple hours and everyone was in a good mood and somehow still focused on a goal, as frustrating as that goal may have been.
I am having one of those moments though where treading water and barely paying the bills is frustrating because I like my crew and I want them to be successful and I want us to be successful and we're doing a lot of things right, but I can't seem to get ahead no matter what I do.
Maybe that's the inherent fear of managing people. They give me their time and energy and I pay them and try to make their labors into something.

Oh man, what a week. No real day off in sight and a giant party on Saturday that I hope works out, but isn't so popular that I can't handle it. Thin line between a nice turnout and a huge parking problem, understaffed, and not a table or chair in sight. Worrying won't help, I just have to tell myself.
Sushi, however would help ease the worrying...

Dead puppy and wolf dog curse

My dog died. She was a sweet little pomeranian who I had for almost 10 years. I guess I never thought about it until she was gone. She was just always around.
She did have an affinity for hanging out in the road, so you kinda knew how her story would end. I just really miss her. I guess death always is kinda sudden, even if you see it coming. I hope she knew I loved her, or at least she liked my company. She was a pain in the ass at times, but I liked having her around. I like how little dogs can have ridiculously big personalities.

I think I've inherited a curse. It's this white wolf dog that my mom's friend dumped on me because he saw someone dump it out of a car and this poor wolf dog was running after his dumper down the highway. Depressing.
But after hanging out with him for a few days, I can see what would drive someone to throw it out of a moving car.
I don't think people should mix wolves with dogs because they look cool and then think that they will act like dogs. This thing paces around me with his piercing amber eyes always following me. He watches me while I sleep. And if I leave him, he freaks out howling and tearing everything apart. You can't tie him. He slips collars, shreds leashes, and finds any way he can to be free.
Once free, he doesn't wander far. He just paces around his new turf in a wolf-like gait, head down and looking around constantly.

I have him posted on craigslist, but the people who want a crazy wolf dog are just the type of people who can't handle wolf dogs. I'm sorry, I just can't give this thing to someone with an infant. People are idiots.

Anyway, my throat is swollen to high heaven and I'd like a night out tonight, but wolf dog tears up my new apartment if I leave him alone. Sigh. I knew my fucking bleeding heart would bite me in the ass some time.

The quick torrent of rain swept me from my plans tonight and has me staring at the window through a wine glass half full of terrible wine. The waves of rain coming down in sheets across the road has me thinking that I need to go to the ocean and soon. I like being consciously consumed by something so much bigger than me, tossed by a gravitation pull of the moon and collected in particles that touch me, touch millions of fish and crustaceans and creatures in the deep and kids off the coast of Africa and seabirds of all types. I like the thrill and terror of a good rip tide. It's less predictable than skydiving, but still the same amazing floating feeling.
I like ocean much better than politics, which gives me a similar feeling of being thrown around, but the ocean doesn't have any motives. It just is. Swimming would be my version of Zen.

I'm having trouble breathing today. Could be the 90 degree heat or could be the crawling in and out of pesticide laden grapevines. Tonight is like my Friday night as I'm off tomorrow, so the rest of this turned bottle of red wine is coming home with me along with a pit stop for some D batteries for my crappy keyboard. It's time to create, to write, to play.

And I love my new house. I feel terrible about it, like I'm guilty of treason, but I come home to my stark bare walls and minimal furniture and I feel right at peace. I'm developing new habits: where to take off my shoes or throw my keys, shower, brush my teeth a new way, clean out the cat box. It's all new and so therefore, I have tabula rasa. Each day I continue the sketch. With a fresh journal at my bed, I write before I go to bed and as I'm sleepily waking up. I listen to the birds outside the window, the sirens, the muffled conversations. I write. I read. I love it all.
I have a clear head, or a head that's clearing.
I have Parisian breakfasts of baguette chunks with some fruit and delicious cheese. I have fresh almonds to snack on as I pace around, nose in a book I've been meaning to read for years now.

Now I just have to purchase a vacuum and a drill. I never realized how much indoor cats get on my nerves. But she's pretty cool for a cat, so I guess I'll push out of my brain that part of my day involves scooping the manure of another creature. I swear she's whispering to me and changing my dreams. They've been about talking cats recently.
I need to sweep up around the catbox. That's the point.

And I'm drill shopping. Nothing makes a girl happier than a nice power tool. Don't be fooled. I'm serious.  Diamonds? No thanks. Unless you're talking about a sharpening stones. And platinum comes in chef's knives only. Silk is still ok in my book. As long as it's not underware. Those ride up and were invented by someone who hates women.
Anyway, I'm having trouble staying in my budget with a decent Ryobi or Black & Decker. I want the Dewalt cordless compact drill with extra battery. I'll probably get my girlie card taken away from me if I get a crappy vacuum and a super nice drill. Eh, I'm fine with that. My priorities are right.

I guess overall, I'm happy. The rain finally came so I don't have to water. I had an awesome week last week. I'm immercing myself in music and proper sleep patterns. My garden is about to produce for 10 families. I'm planting up a storm and lovign this June heat.... or so I try to convince myself. I night swim. I dream of what meat to grill. I am deep breathing, or trying to. I am centering myself as though gathering my footing on the starting block of a swimming pool, ready to jump....

Serial Lamb Killer

Round one is done.
I reek of lanolin and guilt. I gathered up my first sheep I ever got and loaded her up. She's a rare type of jacob with 5 horns and a free spirit that really made me hate her as she showed her follower sheep buddies how to scale my ramshackle fence with a single leap. I've had her for 4 years now (?) and she's been with me through 4 different rams and only gave me one baby. I loaded up her one baby next, a ewe lamb from last year that was just guilty by association.
Then I loaded up a shetland sheep I bought at auction a few years ago who only had one ear from an angry dog who didn't care too much for her wild tendency of not being contained by the fence. So a frustrated foster dog I had decided to prove herself to me by thrashing around with this shetland in the creek, the dog showing the sheep and thing or two about what destruction a four legged creature could do with a set of canine teeth and some strong jaws. A week later, the sheep got out again. Brainless.
After these three easy picks, I had trouble. I guess I grabbed the little lamb from last year, the daughter of the shetland who had the same wild streak and inability to listen to fences. Then I had a tiny bit of space in my crate for one more, another lamb born on the farm that I had no feelings either way for.

With a bleating truckbed full of unsettled feelings, I headed up, stopping for coffee at the gas station on the way. In the back of my mind, I know that going to auction without ear tags meant probably just a hop and a skip away from the slaughterhouse. :( But my free spiriting ways meant that I didn't care too much for registering my sheep as I didn't foresee this day ever coming. I thought for some reason that I'd just keep building my flock and running between buying a new ram each year and picking up boxes full of delicious meat from the butcher along with the hides hidden out back for me to tan.
So in the back of my brain, I felt like I was marching my creations to their death. And not the same way that I take the boys to slaughter.... not because I hate boys, which is the theory my assistant has, but because I didn't anticipate slaughtering these ewes. I had a conscience like a serial killer walking into the gas station, in a different frame of mind, feeling very apart from my own body as I drew a cup of coffee by the people who were just going to another day of work. ABBA played a happy tune and it seemed like the calm in a movie scene where you just know something is going to happen so your skin pricks up and you're more alert than usual.

The auction yard is not a happy place. It's filled with the feces and urine of a million animals who walked through those gates, and not in the same way that the butcher house is. These animals are the unwanteds who weren't even worthy of freezer space.
I remember going to the auction with happy anticipation and getting caught in the rush (thereby paying waaaay too much) of bidding on animals that I had no idea the history of. And then one by one bringing them home for them to just die 2 days later or learning of some new disease that I just inherited from the auction lot. God bless Jason and the 22 on several occasions where my impulse ran away with my reason and I ended up with a big problem. Those animals didn't get fruit trees. They rest in the swamp out back where I hope to only remember them by a twinge of what not to do and passing the warning onto others. Don't buy at the auction.
But there I was, dropping off my ewes, no registered ear tags so therefore, no sane person would put them into a breeding program. So they were to be put on display, prodded at, yelled at, and then scuttled away for the next lot, unaware at their future.
But then again, what do sheep think of the future anyway.

I've read a lot of farm books, usually of the happy times where people are getting their first chicks and harvesting their first carrots, building fences, rebuilding barns. I wonder where are the farm books that are the other side- the flock that's ravaged by the weasels and hawks leaving the empty chicken house, or the fences that are broken and can't be fixed, or the gardens that are eaten by the goats and so you sell them to the first person with $50 on craigslist.
Yeah, so I'm not sure if I would read that book, even if it was a very poignant warning against buying auction animals (except for mine) or not securing your chicken house correctly. Who thinks about putting their tail between their legs and leaving the country life for a shitty little apartment on the upper east side, surrounded by pictures of ghosts of sheep and chickens from the past.

I think this feeling will pass. Moving in 2 days. Probably just nerves anyway.

Iris blossoms, the big indecision, and romance novel covers on horseback

The iris blooms are up and billowing pale hues of yellows, lavenders, and deep purples, stretched on top of thin green sticks like surrendering flags or drunken girls skirts on a hot summer night. It amazes me at how unashamed nature is at displaying sexual organs with such prominence, with scent, color, and shapes to ensure pollination and procreation. I just imagine -RATED R for sexual content- posted outside of secret gardens.

Anyway, enough of flowers. Bob left me. Oddly enough, he left me for another 30 yr old girl, much cuter than I though, with a betty paige type haircut and a mortgage and a cute dress. He'll be happy. But not having a scary looking big dog around really has me wondering about just me and pepper living in the sketchy part of akron. Not that I'm not excited about going to the gun range and getting a concealed carry permit.... sigh.

I have it narrowed down to two places:
Apartment A is suuuuper cute with a nice landlord and rent on a month to month basis. The kitchen looks like a lot of meals could come from it with it's nice work area and decent amount of counter space and cabinets. The landlord is apparently quite stylish with his choice of antique farmhouse sinks and clawfoot bathtubs. There's a dining room and a living room, but the bedroom is a bit small. There's a back porch and off the street parking and a very low deposit with an invitation to rip up the carpet if my little heart desires to reveal the hardwood (hopefully) underneath. Month to month sounds very appealing as I'm not sure what the hell I'm doing.
The unappealing part about apartment A is the location is kinda, um, not the worst neighborhood, but also not the best. I guess that's just Kron, take it or leave it, but not being able to walk my dog at night does not sound very appealing. I guess I can just take her to work with me but... hmm. Guess that's what you get when you need something cheap.
Apartment B is pretty close to an efficiency. The property manager lives downstairs and wears stained tshirts and collected "background check" money but hasn't called me back yet. It's a big kitchen with just a sink on one side and the fridge and stove on the other with just about no countertops. That's right next to the living room with stained carpet and lightswitches that are impossible to find. The bathroom isn't bad, there's a couple of closets, and the bedroom is very narrow which is where the front door opens into. There's a back porch, kinda, off the fire escape, and off the street parking. It's in the Goodyear area, which just built their new world headquarters so the area is pretty well maintained and it's right across the street from a park. Playing basket ball any time I feel like sounds pretty appealing. I wonder how many unsavory characters collect there at night though....
Apartment B is more expensive. For sure. And it comes with a 1 year ball and chain. Yes. I am afraid of commitment.

I'm cleaning, which I secretly love to do. Sweeping makes me happy. I'm also pretty happy at how clean my truck has been since usually it's just me and a dog or two in it. I let someone borrow my truck for a couple days and it came back filled with trash and newspapers and a book about vikings. It's pretty insane how you can love someone for something and hate them for it too. Creativity and reading interesting things is awesome until I have to keep picking up after it. But that subject is for a entirely different blog.

Right now I'm making a list for what has become the highlight of my week: the BRX manager's meeting on horseback. It's the best way to focus my boss, who usually can't stand still for more than 2 minutes, let alone listen and retain what I'm saying. Trail riding is the equivalent of getting locked in a room and being forced to communicate, only it's waaaay more fun. And memory retention has been ridiculously high.
Maybe I'll write a book about how physical activity should be integrated into workplace communication. It just seems like my boss retains a lot more of what I'm saying and we both are in way better moods because of it. I'm not sure if that's because we're both incredibly ADHD and having to focus on keeping the horses (ahem, not very well trained horses) in line draws more connections with the topics of discussion or what. Or maybe I just like riding around with a shirtless, ripped dude who keeps feeding me beers and complimenting what a great job I'm doing. Hmm, I don't know.

Back to cleaning and debating A or B and staring at my phone for confirmation from B and chasing my nieces around. And then later planting tomatoes, mowing the garden, loading up sheep for auction (a task I have been dreading),  grilling veggies with lamb, drinking delicious refillable growlers, and trying not to dread the first of the month and decisions.