4.4.26
What an interesting and yes, in a way, rewarding past couple of weeks it has been. Mother Nature has been in a topsy turvy mood, throwing everything at us from glorious days that remind you of summer to the next day pelting you with snow and bitter cold wind. Typical spring for sure! In a way this fickle weather has been a good thing for me, allowing me time to focus on chores in the house on the nasty days and then getting me outside on the sunny ones. I tend to work quite hard when I am outside, so the break of being forced to slow down now and then is good for me.
I began teaching an EMR (Emergency Medical Responder) class to 13 wonderful folks here in Monument back in the middle of March. We meet every Tuesday and Thursday evening at 6 o’clock for three hours then every other Saturday we have a full day of learning. Having this to keep me busy in the evenings has been a blessing. My students are like sponges, eagerly absorbing the material I throw at them during each class which warms my heart.
Out in the cow field, three of our girls have dropped their calves with three expectant mums to soon follow suit. Our new bull arrived just over a week ago and has settled in nicely with Heidi and Lady down in the milk cow paddock. Marty, as I call him, is a smart looking Hereford fellow who just turned three years old. He is already learning his gentlemanly manners and will respectfully come up to eat hay out of my hand each morning. Part of his education is to learn to back up when I tell him to and become familiar with the words “No” and of course “Oi!” which means “whatever you are doing you had better stop it right now!” I think he will be a dandy fellow for us for the next couple of years. Lady should be coming into season soon and then at the end of May, Marty will go out in the beef cow field to spend the summer with those ladies.
There was a big project niggling on my mind that Darrell and I had been planning on tackling for a while, a project that had been put off for the past couple of years once Lewy entered our lives. In what used to be our pig paddock, a 10 acre strip of land between our driveway and the neighbours fence that our sows roamed in during the year, a huge number of dead trees had come down and formed a higgledy piggledy mess. Between the bug killed ones Darrell felled two years ago and the ones the wind has since blown down, it was not only a mess but a big wildfire concern too. We knew it needed to be cleaned up but the task, especially last year when my dearest was failing in health and strength, was daunting. I decided this year that it had to be done one way or another.
As you may recall from a previous story, our wonderful neighbours Dallas and Cindy offered their services to help. Dallas came over with his dandy little skidsteer machine and a goodly section of the downed trees were cut into manageable lengths, swiftly placed into burn piles and disposed of. After about 5 day’s work, the change was impressive. There was still an awful lot left to do but as the weather turned warmer and wetter, the remainder of the project was put on hold as mud made using the skidsteer more challenging. Once the mud disappeared, instead of having Dallas come back, I made the decision to start clearing and cleaning up the rest of the mess myself. Grandson Evan came over and spent a few hours doing some chainsaw work for me, cutting the trees into lengths of about 12 feet while I was busy with another important chore, tilling the vegetable garden plot.
Over the last couple of weeks on days when the weather has been nice, after milking and feeding chores are done, I head out with the tractor and chainsaw to spend a few hours working on my “wood lot” project. I limit myself to one tank of petrol in the chainsaw so as to not overdo things – I still have a dicky heart to think about you know! Then using the tractor to pick up logs not suitable for firewood, I trundle them to an area and make a brush pile that I will burn next winter. Good logs go into a deck to season for upcoming firewood cutting. Limbs and big branches are hand stacked on the tractor forks and added to the burn piles. Bit by bit what was once a nasty mess is looking nicely cleaned up, greatly reducing the risk for this coming fire season. I now have the sow’s paddock all done and have moved on to other areas that need the same treatment.
It is hard work but so satisfying. As my chainsaw ran out of petrol and I finished up for the day, I sat on the tractor for a bit before heading back to the barn. Looking at what I had accomplished all by myself, the brush piles, the log decks, the cleared areas, tears started to fall. I felt my dearest beside me, his arm around me. I imagine him smiling at me as he gives me a squeeze and a kiss on the cheek. “Good job, my dear, I am proud of you!” I imaging him saying. I hope you are my dearest, I hope you are….
