When I agreed to watch the farm for the few days that Nate and Channa would be on vacation, I knew that I was taking on a lot of work, but I figured that I could handle it. I’ve spent time learning the ropes of the farm and thought that I was well prepared for the challenge ahead. But, as I would soon learn, no amount of preparation could save me when it actually came time to assume my farm duties.
It probably began the first night that I was alone on the farm. During the milking there was a car accident on the corner that the farm is on, resulting in several disoriented folks wandering around the road while their car was on its nose in the ditch. I don’t know what happened since I was in the cow shed when the accident occurred, but I watched the clean up from the porch with Reese the cat who was seeking a little bit of comfort from the cold night. “Good thing I don’t believe in signs,” I muttered to Reese, but I probably should have taken mental note as the tow-truck pushed and pulled the car back onto the road and the emergency flares sputtered themselves out.
The next morning found me in the kitchen struggling to get the woodstove lit. I spent three summers working at a summer camp and thought I knew how to light a decent fire. Turns out I was wrong. After cursing and blowing on struggling kindling for a few minutes I went out onto the porch to get some wood and let the door shut behind me. The only problem was that the door was locked. So was the front door. In essence, I found myself locked out of the house. I grew up in an old house with a secret coal shoot where they used to dump coal into the basement, so I figured that maybe this old farm house would have a “secret entrance” of its own.
I walked around the house for a few minutes, checking everything I could, until I came to the bathroom window. Luckily, it was unlocked and I was able to jimmy it open enough to fit myself through, but just barely. I couldn’t reach the window enough on my own to get all the way through it, so I pulled a bench over to where I could stand on it and get myself through. But while dragging this bench towards the window I heard a tiny trill and turned around to see Winter perched on the windowsill, eyeing the freedom she could have if she only jumped. “NO!” I shouted, causing Winter to disappear back through the curtain and into the house.
Once the bench was in place I got myself halfway through the windowsill, before I became inextricably stuck. I couldn’t get myself back through and the only way to go was forward. Since the window is a good four feet off the ground and I was looking at a head first drop onto the tile floor, not something that you really want to do first thing in the morning. Gritting my teeth I gave the great push and fell with as much grace as I could muster (and with as few possible bruises) onto the cold floor before jumping quickly to my feet and shutting the window, thus thwarting Winter’s escape efforts.
I gave up on the woodstove and boiled water on the electric range to sterilize the milk bucket. I was running a bit late and still had to cut grass for Aura to eat while I milked her. Cutting grass was a whole challenge unto itself. Usually it only takes Nate a few minutes to be able to cut an entire bag of grass. But he’s using a scythe. I was not so fortunate. The scythe wouldn’t work for me because Nate is a towering giant and I am, well, I am not so much. So I was forced to cut grass with a sickle. Yes, a sickle. As Nate said to me, “You’re going back about 5000 years in the history of agriculture with that thing!” Hunched over hacking away with my sickle in the early morning I certainly felt like I was going back in time. People invent stuff for a reason. And harvesting grain is one those reasons.
After only managing to cut half a bag of grass before I started to hear the ducks screaming to be let out of their pen, I ran back up to the cow shed to manage the fastest milking anyone has ever seen. I was getting a good stride going during the milking when Aura decided that she was going to poop. Not only did she poop, but she did so right next to the milk bucket. My dreams of milking time records were shattered. Thanks a lot, Aura. The milking officially over I finished the job in the cow shed before returning a slightly disgruntled Aura to her stall.
The ducks were not much help that morning either. They did give me an egg, which is probably the only good thing they did then, but after I let them out I followed them up to the day pen only to find that they were outside the pen. Not a big deal, I’ve seen them do that before. Except this time they couldn’t find the opening to the pen. They didn’t seem to care that food and fresh water were waiting for them, they decided instead that they were going to run me around the duck pen for 20 minutes. I think it was planned. They’re usually really good about going inside, but some reason they just couldn’t grasp where the door was. So chase them I did. Eventually they got the idea, but their good image in my mind was already tarnished.
Getting back to the kitchen I felt like I’d been sent through the grinder. Almost everything that could have gone wrong, did indeed go wrong. But after that I figured that my luck could only improve. And true to form it did. I managed to get a nice fire lit and spent the day in front of it knitting and after a failed batch, producing a couple of decent loaves of challah in the woodstove. All in all my stay at the farm was very enjoyable and I did manage to get down a routine to the chores and get them done every time. But it will probably be some time before I’m ready to strike out a bit homesteading on my own.
Well now that that emotional stuff is out the way, here's a blast from the past photo of New Years FIVE(!) years ago in Australia. The dude wearing the tie is probably one of the most important people I know. His name is Glen and he's freaking amazing. Seriously dude. And that's little me when I was only 17 (awe!), now I'm 22 and getting ready to jump off the precipice into the unknown. But it's going to be really good. I can already tell. 
