TMI - Too Much Information, or, why I was cleaning up tomato sauce in my bra

Why? Because we've put up eight half bushels of tomatoes so far this year, given some away, and I'm dealing with the nearly last bushel and a half today. And some inexplicable inner drive convinces me to share my stupidities.

Picture the scene: noonish, in the kitchen. Full tomato sauce production in action. Two pots on the stove have whole tomatoes boiling down to run through the food mill, the crock pot cools sauce ready to be frozen. Enter Ax with ideas of bagging cooled sauce. She has a t-shirt and baggy jeans on, eyeliner and mascara with messy hair just because it seemed like the thing to add this morning to impress the cows. She has a gallon Ziploc bag ready for sauce and begins to fill it using a cup measure. The bag holds all the sauce from the crock pot, but the last little bit needs poured into the bag. I should also mention that the bag is resting on the counter rather than securely in a bowl or measuring cup.

Is anyone still wondering why I ended up cleaning up tomato sauce in my bra?

Now, normally when I'm cleaning up spilled tomato sauce off the floor, counter and from under the dishwasher, clad in jeans ready to fall off my ass and a black bra, its a prime time for Dad, a neighbor, or Jehovah's Witnesses to come to the door. I'm at a loss for why they didn't. FYI: putting up tomato sauce works better when its in the bag and not down your t-shirt and socks.

Fucking tomatoes.

Calvies, calvies everywhere

It never fails: calving season and trying to go somewhere never mesh. I went to go to work today and looked at the cows before I left, finding feet. New calf feet. Coming out of the cow. It never fails. But the calf is good, the cow has a bum leg from the calf pinching a nerve on the way out, and Dad will probably be sore tomorrow from pulling the big bull calf today. But its all good. Loving the job, loving the live calves, lots of love going on tonight. ;-)

Two live calves, eight pending

I apologize for the hiatus. Lots of farm stuff, lots of drama. But today has been a good day, for all that it began way too early.

I got a job.

(Insert excited squeal here.)

I'll be milking and running equipment at a dairy farm near us and am very, very excited about it. More details to come I'm sure. Expect a tired, stinky blogger.

Cruisin' the mile. A lot.

I slept with the light on again last night. Been doing that a lot lately. I fall asleep with it on and it stays on until six or seven in the morning when I wrap myself back up in my blankie and try to catch another ten or twenty winks. I usually manage this. Spoiled bitch, I know.

It’s been a long couple of days. We have a new addition to our household and moving her in has been quite the adjustment. I’ve been blocked or at least too bound up to write, so I’ve spent a lot of time working at the farm. Today is the first sun we’ve seen in days. It’s been raining, not nasty, just raining. The colt has a puncture abscess on his foot that I’ve been treating. 119M sliced her foot open between her hoof and hock and we haven’t been able to get her in to treat since I squirted peroxide and blue coat on her on the fly. Gram’s television has been messed up since last week and still doesn’t work even after the Dish guy came yesterday. Add that to Dad having his head shoved up places heads aren’t usually suited for and the newlywed thing going on at home and various other points of vexation, I found myself macheting weeds around the fence last night until dark.

I’ve asked other women about this and they agree that at some point the relationship may not be bad, but something is so off that you quit even looking or desiring the opposite sex. Why? No one knows. But when you start to notice again, it comes in a flood that makes teen hormones seem like a really good Disney movie. It’s raised the question for me, what do you do when the person who finally interests you after this time isn’t your honey? And if you really care about the person you’re with, how do you deal with no longer being attracted to them? I’ll leave it up to you, dear reader, to decide if these questions rise from real life or writing, but I suppose at some point there’s always a certain amount of crossover there.

Let’s hear it for meaningful one-night stands.

Calving season began with a lull... I wish.

I’ve been a lazy blogger lately. With Dad gone, I have more to do than sit around and think up shit to write about. Not good as far as excuses go, but it's the truth. And I had my first calf of the season on Saturday. I started a blog that day, but never posted it. So here’s what I had to say about her:

80R calved this morning on her own. YEY! Beautiful little heifer calf. Of course, four hours after I found her, a coyote came sniffing around. Little prick. But the cow has the calf up by the barn now so hopefully everything will be fine. The calf is small, not much taller than Zip, maybe 65 pounds. Did I mention adorable?

She’s still the cutest thing ever. Jury is still out on a name.

Something killed a chicken Saturday night. So I buried that. Something is just wrong when you’re home on a Saturday night burying a dead chicken. Sunday the dogs killed a young woodchuck and I buried that too. I’d rather bury things like that than calves though. Especially after I saw a coyote through my binoculars after 80R calved. Luckily, it left, but good god. We’re being invaded.

Got a lot of canning done this week and farm work. Oiled my saddle on Sunday and have almost two bushel of tomatoes to put up when they ripen a little. Dad and Jenny should be home tonight so maybe she and I can start making salsa or can tomatoes whole or something. I’ve enjoyed the time on my own. Had a lot of time to think. Better get rockin’ though. I’ve got to help Gram later and be awake enough to deal with her. That woman is intense in the morning.

Chicken catching and impending doom

Dad and I built a cock pen yesterday and we contained ten cocks in it. Roosters that is. And Dad had a cock catching stick.

Yeah, it all sounds pretty bad, but really its not. Dad had a stick to hook the roosters, which he proceeded to catch two by two, each by one leg, hang them upside down and hand them out to me to put in the new pen. Me, never having caught roosters like that, probably took the bundle of chicken wide-eyed and astonished at my father’s chicken catching abilities. But it all turned out to the good, the rooster who tried to attack Dad got a comeuppance and the hens are peaceably going about their pecking and laying. The roosters however still act stunned, looking over at the hens like “what the hell happened here?”

So the weekend is over, the horses got locked in the barn overnight but survived to graze another day, and Dad’s getting ready for his trip. It’ll actually be nice having the place to myself for a couple days. Of course, I move from second in command to head hancho with Maxine as my faithful sidekick.

Yup, we’re doomed.

Oh what the hell?

Blogs called this week on account of haying. I spent most of Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday on a tractor. Then Friday was blow-off-some-steam-farm-girl-been-in-the-field-all-week day. And Wednesday? That was write like a son of a bitch day. So yeah, canned yesterday around my hangover. At least I’m productive when I feel like shit. Lesson supposedly learned: three rums and I’m out. Unfortunately, at that point, after some beer, I have no memory of lessons past. Good thing my honey is understanding.

So Dad got hay in the barn today before the downpour we got. And he rolled up my cars windows. Such a sweetie. I’m glad he did the last of the stacking. It was getting beyond my poor skills. Of course, so is canning salsa apparently. What I did yesterday looks like water got in or something. Freaking icky regardless. Oh well. First kicks at the damn cat in the canning department.

Got a busy Sunday. Dad and I just stuffed ourselves with my yummy pancakes and homemade syrup. (Better than sex, I’m not even sorry.) He and I both have bills to pay, laundry, dish debris from yesterday’s canning frenzy, cleaning out a closet for Jenny when she comes, setting up the new dog pen/rooster coop, and anything else we get into. The roosters harass the hens so badly they’ve finally pissed Dad off. One hen was bleeding from the side of her head where a rooster bit her and the roosters keep the hens on the roost all day and so harassed they can’t eat, drink, or lay. So either heads are coming off or the roosters are going in the new pen until we can deal with them. The scariest part: we’ve got another sixty or so roosters up and coming. Ye gods the chaos when they grow a pair.