A VISIT TO THE FARM

A Gilbert neighbor called last Wednesday and said that if we were coming to the farm anytime soon, he would plow our lane. He said they had five or six inches of new snow on top of the five or six they already had. Knowing that warmer temps were predicted, I said I didn’t think he needed to plow, but we thought and decided maybe we should go on Saturday (Nov. 14). Mike arranged for the plowing.

So, we checked our lists and loaded our supplies. We didn’t see snow until we were halfway up the Gilbert Grade, and as I thought, it wasn’t all that much. The road had been plowed and the neighbor had plowed the lane. We had no trouble getting in.

We were greeted at once by the sight of the maple tree again in disarray. Some terrific event of nature had pruned her, leaving lots of limbs for us to clean up. The odd thing was that we found very few evergreen limbs. We left clean-up for another day, perhaps during Thanksgiving weekend.

I found one mouse in trap in the house and mouse sign under the sink. Unfortunately, we left our traps in town so we had to make-do with the few we had on hand -- not enough for this time of year.

And – Mike found several manure piles in the yard. Since we didn’t see Blaze the Horse over the summer, we assumed that problem was solved, but Nick took a picture of a horse in the canyon when he and Hallie visited last month. I couldn’t tell if it was Blaze, but the color was right. At any rate, some large animal had visited the yard.

Mike put away the clothesline – no sense to leave it out in the weather at this point. I won’t be using it again until spring. You may recall that we turned off the water, so it’s impossible to use the kitchen or the bathrooms, to cook or to clean. I put away the clean laundry and loaded dirty laundry to be washed in town. I packed up my sewing machine, food items, and other things I wanted.

Mike’s most time-consuming project was to install a light in Bess’ house to give her extra warmth on cold winter nights. Why now, I asked, since we’ve spent time at the farmhouse for more than 15 years. He said he had just realized he could run an extension cord from the outlet on the porch. This igloo doghouse has a narrow, offset entry, which made this task a little difficult -- "No Humans Allowed."

We had planned to have lunch back in town, but we were both hungry, so we toasted some bread from the freezer and made peanut butter sandwiches. Mike mixed some instant tea and I found a bottle of Perrier water in the fridge. (You can’t eat a peanut butter sandwich without something to drink.) KW