My Shed is Filling me with Hatred.

Today was super productive. Oh wait, I'm sorry, I should have said that the first half of today was super productive. The first half of the day, we went around and collected all the firewood we had cut. Then Scott chopped when it needed it and we stacked it and tarped it. It took two hours. That part was fine.

Then Scott was all like, oh I need to change oil on the truck. So we started that and that's when everything went to hell in a poop basket.

It turns out that we needed this tool, this tool that I still don't know the name for that Scott had to draw me a picture of. Which meant that we had to search the shed for it.

Cue that sound of a record being stopped.

The shed in an unholy pit made out of lack of organization and never throwing anything away. Let me explain. It was first my dad's shed and he as far as I can tell, kept everything. Every bolt, every screw, every washer, every nut, every strap and every bit of anything he ever took apart. After about half an hour we came to conclusion that we were never going to find it.

First off none of the drawers in any of the big rolling tool boxes had labels, which for me meant repeatedly opening drawers only to realize that I had already searched them. Or when I would find a tool out in the open, being unable to locate where it should go. At this point I realize that we are going to have to clean the shed.

About that point Scott left for town.

And I discovered a very important thing. I cannot clean and reorganize an area if I have no idea what the things I am looking at are. I found things. Things I had no name for. Things that did not exist to me before now. And of course being home alone, I had no one to ask. So after awhile I kept coming up at dead ends. Here's how it would go. I would put all extension cords together, only to discover that there were three or four more hiding around the place. Then I would have to pull out the others I had stored because now they won't all fit. Then I have to find another place for all them and I end up throwing them all out into the driveway. Same thing with the rope.

I found a bunch of random ass shit, but I had no idea if I should throw it away like: three arrows with no tips. Two nozzles? I think they were nozzles. About a billion little things that go into making electrical work. Or circuit boards. Not too sure on that one. About ten chains in various states of rusting. Fishing stuff in a cloth sack. Something that looked like a lighter before people knew how to make lighters. A bunch of padlocks and a coffee can that was fill of binder clips.

About this point I started to feel the grim icy grip of defeat on me. Oh, did I mention that the shed was freezing cold despite it being warm today? So cold that my hands ached the whole time I was working in there? Yeah, that shed was as cold as a witches tit.

Do you also recall Holly's theory that all the buildings with no foundations are sinking into the earth like Miss Brisby's house in the Rat's of NIMH? Yeah. This is after I had to take a shovel to get both shed doors open to ninety degrees.

So after a while I realized that the sun was going down. Which meant that project time was over for the day. So I shoved all the shit I had piled up outside into any cardboard box within reach and then shoved it back into the shed just as Scott was pulling up. Even now, I can feel that laughter of that shed, secure in it's knowledge that I will never come back for it. It knows that cleaning it out will take precious time from other projects, it know of my deep inability to organize things that I have no knowledge of, it knows if it's own icy depths. Oh it knows. It thinks it's above my caring. It thinks this token attempt is all it will see.

It thinks it has won.

But it has not. Tomorrow I will summon my army of trash bags and I will fight. DO YOU HEAR THAT SHED! THIS ISN'T OVER YOU BASTARD MOTHERFUCKER!

I'll get that shed, if it's the last thing I ever do.

Marry Christmahannakwazica

Well, my most beloved readers, I formally wish you a Merry Christmahannahkwazica. I was going to write more here, today, but I ended up going out with my family to look at Christmas lights last night then we also stopped by McDonald's and got their eggnog milkshake and then went back to grandma's house and liquored them up and now I feel like going back to bed.

Also, McDonald's eggnog milkshakes plus peppermint schnapps tastes like toothpaste.

Alcoholic toothpaste.

Anyway I hope your traditional holiday whatever it is you do goes well. And...

 I think that about sums it up, don't you? 

It Was an Immortal Vampire Possum

Okay so apparently it was an immortal vampire possum. I got up extra early the next morning, hoping to find my two missing chickens. Luckily they both standing in the yard waiting for me to open the coup and feed them. So I go in and feed them and then I look over the cage containing the dead possum. Then, because I am not stupid, I grab the pitchfork and poke the possum.

It was not dead.

After I stabbed it like six times with the pitchfork and Scott shot it in the head last night, it was not dead. After laying in freezing cold chicken coup all night it was not dead. I mean like, how in the fuck is it not dead? It was bleeding from it's skull. Let me repeat that. It was bleeding from the skull. My theory is that it is that it is an immortal vampire possum. See, this was why all of the chickens made it without being injured. Because immortal vampire possums only drink the blood of there own kind.

It all makes perfect sense!

I bet he was on the run from a gang of rival vampire possums. Or maybe a gang of vampire possum vigilantes set on returning the monster to it's grave, this time for good. You never really know with vampire possums. Although I suppose if I had gotten there later I might have seen the roving gang of possums fight the vampire possum. Possibly with kung foo. I wonder if they would need to stab the vampire possum with a stake. Does that even work when you don't have thumbs?

Well at this point even Scott was a little weirded out. Although he was talking about how they have really thick hides and that a wild animals will to survive is so strong.

Poor man just can't cope with the truth I guess. The vampire truth.

Although I think he secretly believed because he drug the unholy thing out of the coup and then shot it like eight times with a rifle because we don't want that thing getting back up now do we? This also makes me think that I need to keep holy water on hand, but I'm not sure that is something churches just give you. Although the church I went to as a kid had like a, I dunno, a small pool of it that you would bless yourself with. I guess I could just take some. Wait, will it work if I steal the holy water? Will a priest make me some holy water if I tell that I need to use it make sure a vampire possum stays dead?

You know, for all of my religious education as a child, it never really covered the important things.

Hopefully that was only vampire possum in the area. I would hate to have to set fire to the forest to kill them all. The fire department would probably hate that too. And the other people on my road. And the guy with the cattle farm. And my husband.

So yeah.

I think maybe I'll draw little crosses on my bullets in sharpie and pray that terrible vampire possum's rein of terror is over.

For now.

I Just Killed A Possum With a Pitchfork

Ha ha ha. I'm not kidding. This actually happened. So you know how you go and see family when they are in the area and it's the holidays and all and then you have a better time then you thought and then end up staying later then you planned and then your all like crap it's late I'd better go? An you don't for like another hour because there was pie?

Yeah that's pretty much what happened to me.

So I get home and take the dog out with me to lock up the chickens. Except there is a chicken in the yard. Just sitting there. So I put the dog back in the house and go pick up the chicken. Besides giving me a token sqauk of protest she doesn't struggle, so I shove her under my arm like a football and bring her back down to the coup. Where I see my rooster Rusty is hiding in the ditch under the bridge.

Huh.

So I take miss chicken in and set her down on top the food barrels. I sweep the flashlight around. Most of the chickens are on their perches, and appear to be asleep. Then I catch a flash of white. There in the far most corner, is a possum.

Well fuck. Fuck fuckity fuck fuck.

Of course I didn't have the gun, because I am a motherfucking idiot. So I do the only thing I can think of to do. I grab the pitch fork off the wall and stab that fucker in the face. He hissed. I stabbed him again in the torso. He freaked out and tried to make a run for it. I retaliated by stabbing him in the gut.

You might think that at this point that I would be cursing at him, but I made a surprising discovery. Apparently, I can curse in possum. Which sounds a whole lot like hissing and snarling.

Which is what I was doing.

Okay. You know how in Harry Potter he can speak to snakes but isn't aware that he is doing it so he is surprised as anyone else to hear that weird hissing coming out of his mouth when he talks to a snake? Yeah it was like that. Only with possums. Who knew?

So he makes a run, and by that I mean the slow waddle of a possum, to the other corner where I stab him three more times. He refuses to die. He is however in pain and highly confused. Here he had been shopping for a nice chicken dinner at the chicken store (which was finally open) and now he was being impaled by a pitch fork while being cursed at.

So then he got really freaked but can't run by me to get out the open door so he panics and runs right into the cage where I was keeping the younger peeps and had not bothered to remove because I am lazy. So I just kicked the door shut and locked it behind him. Then I went back to get the damn gun like I should have done in the first goddamn place.

Then I meet Scott who has come looking for me and he shoots the possum in head with snake shot because solid bullets might ricochet and I don't want to end up in the ER with a possum blood covered bullet lodged in my thigh. We decide the best thing to do is leave the possum in the cage to make sure it's dead using the let's-not-find-out-the-hard-way plan.

Also at this juncture you might think that the chickens would be raising holy hell and that we would be standing in a snow globe made out of chicken feathers and avian screams, but they were fine. As far as I can tell they just slept right through it. Self preservation is not there strong point apparently.

Of course then I had to get the other chickens back. Unfortunately I did not have my head lamp which meant that once I located a chicken I had to switch my flashlight off and make a grab in the dark. I knew I needed both hands and that if I put the flashlight in my teeth they would get a wing loose and start flapping which would send the flashlight spinning off into the darkness where no one could have it.

You know, I think that's what I love about the country, really. You learn so many things. Things like, don't pick up a frighted chicken with a flashlight in your teeth. Which is probably why West Virginians don't have that many teeth.

Anywho I was lucky in that the chickens were either so petrified with either cold or terror that they just laid there while a grabbed them. Although finding chickens in the dead of a winters night with a flashlight was not the best most fun activity ever. I was also doing this in my going out to see other people clothes.

Which is probably why I don't have any nice clothes.

Then me and Scott gave up and went back inside even though we were still down two chickens and I was all like, yuppers I just killed a possum with a pitchfork.

An Scott was all like, yes, yes you did.

And then I was all like I really need to sharpen that pitch fork.

And then Scott told me I would never survive the peasant revolts without a sharp pitchfork.

I also noticed that I keep using words like 'yuppers' and 'honken' and I think it has something to do with moving to WV and OH GOD WHAT AM I BECOMING? THIS IS JUST LIKE FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON!

Ahem. Now I need to eat pie. To mitigate the horror.

Yep, to mitigate that horror.

Flowers For Algernon Gave me an Existential Crisis.

WARNING this post contains spoilers. Like Holly lays out the entire plot of this book on the table for you. This won't take away your enjoyment of the book however, since it makes no bones about how it is going to end, but y'know SPOILER ALERT.

You know what book you shouldn't read whole in one evening and finish right before you go to bed?

Flowers for Algernon.

Yeah. Everyone who's ever read this just winced a little. For everyone who hasn't well, let me sum up.

Scientist take a willing retarded (mentally challenged whatever you want to call him) man and using science make him smart. Like really really smart. High level genius of the whole world smart. The world is his oyster smart. Everything is going according to plan smart. But then he starts to regress and everything he's studied and learned and fought so hard to understand leaves him. Of course it does this slowly enough that he has time to morn all that he has lost.

I shouldn't have to explain to you why this is terrifying.

This all led to the following conversation where I ambushed my husband coming out of the bathroom.

ME: “Scott, promise me you'll shoot me if I ever start loosing all my knowledge!”

SCOTT: “Um... why can't you just shoot yourself?”

ME: “Because I won't remember.”

SCOTT: “You won't remember how a gun works?”

ME: “Flowers for Algernon Scott. Of course I won't remember. Promise me you'll shoot me in the face.”

SCOTT: “Did you finish it? Did you like it?”

ME: “Yeah, it was thought provoking. I'll never sleep again. It was a book I could never have written.”

SCOTT:“Why's that?”

ME: “Because as soon as he stole the hyper intelligent lab mouse from the scientists when he realized they were just using him I would have had him and the mouse team up to fight crime!”

SCOTT: “Ah.”

ME: “Look. I need to go look at cat pictures on the internet to mitigate the horror.”

SCOTT: “I didn't find the book that horrific.”

ME: “How could you not? Can you picture being able to read and then just...just loosing that? I think I need to eat another dessert, to mitigate the horror.”

SCOTT: “Uh huh.”

Now I feel horrified and fat. Also, every time I misspell something my brain is all 'we're regressing JUST LIKE CHARLIE AND ALGERNON!

You know what? I think I need to go look at some cat pictures on the internet.

Lot's of cat pictures.

Going Outside At Night Not for the Faint of Heart.

The first thing you have to understand, is that where I live it gets dark. Like Grimm's fairy tales dark. Like really, really in the middle of the countryside in the mountains dark. Like, you can't just swing this bitch without a flashlight dark.

Now, I never used to be afraid of the dark, until I moved here. And it's not inside dark that bothers me, because I am not going to find a bear in my living room.*

Here is my brain, whenever I have to step outside at night.

ME: Alright let's go. Should we take a gun?

BRAIN: Nah, were just going to the car, everything will be fine, what's the worst that could happen.

ME: Okay, here we go. *Scans yard with flashlight*

BRAIN: Ohh look at the stars... OH MY GOD IT'S BEAR EYES WERE GONNA FUCKING DIE!

ME: That's the reflector on the backhoe.

BRAIN: Oh. Right. Good, good. Carry on.

ME: Let's just get this over with. *Scans again*

BRAIN: EYES!

ME: Yup eyes. Forward eyes, maybe? Can't tell. It's probably a deer. It's not moving.

BRAIN: It's a coyote. It's going to maul us and then we are going to die.

ME: You think? *Animal bobs head.* Oh god maybe you're right, Why didn't we bring the gun!?

BRAIN: Oh god oh god, it's moving! It's circling behind us! WE ARE GOING TO DIE!

ME: Oh shit, oh fuck, where is it? Where is it? *Scans with flashlight again.* Oh wait, I can see it now. It's a deer.

BRAIN: I think I'll just shut off the adrenaline, then shall I?

ME: Yeah, that would be good. Say, you think we should just forget whatever it was we came out here to get? Whatever it was?

BRAIN: It was a bag of gummy bears you left in the car, and yes, yes we should.

Okay, lets look at the same thing again, only this time Holly brings the damn gun like she should have in the first damn place.

Me: Alright. I'm just gonna stick this here revolver in my pocket. **

BRAIN: Word.

ME: Here we go. *Scans yard with flashlight*

BRAIN: Ohhh look at the stars. Hey is that a- nope just a reflector. Say what's that over there?

ME: I dunno, a deer or some shit.

BRAIN: Let's have a look.

ME: I dunno. Huh. Coyote maybe. *Puts hand on pistol grip.* “Hey animal, move! Hey you, get outta here.”

BRAIN: It ran off, it was a deer.

ME: There white tails are sooo cute. They are like scarves for their butts.

BRAIN: I know right!? Ohhh gummy bears.

ME: Yeah I bought the good kind, not those waxy one's.

BRAIN: Nice.

This is pretty much how it goes down. You would think that I would have learned my lesson by now, and just taken the damn gun, but nope. I still occasionally make a dash to the car, or something without it.

Considering Scott saw a bear, in the motherfucking FRONT LAWN you think I would stop doing that shit. But nope. Because learning from past experiences is for smart people pussies.

So I am writing this, not only to illustrate a point about guns have a place (a very important one) in my life, but also as a reminder.

Ahem.

Holly, TAKE THE DAMN GUN NEXT TIME.

Sincerely, your brain.

*Let all hope this never happens. Okay?

** I'm putting whole holster into my pocket, not just the gun, in case you were wondering.

Brush Clearing and the Fence of Thorns.

After spending, oh about a week in denial of all the branches and trees down around our place, we finally loaded up the chainsaw and went out to tackle it.

It wasn't that bad.

No really.

Scott would cut up the main trunk with the chainsaw and I would drag the smaller branches away. Except that I didn't really have anywhere to put them. Then Scott was all like, why don't we make a brush fence. Since we still have a row of old fence posts up along the road, this was a good idea. It got the brush out of the woods, and also made a nice barrier.

And it was fun as hell. I quickly became obsessed with it, to the point that Scott stopped helping me entirely because I kept redoing his sections and just went to load firewood and rail fence logs into the truck.

I entered a zone that day.

I was in brush fence zen. It did not matter how far I had to drag those limbs. All that mattered was the fence. The perfect loose crazy branches were held up away from my side of the fence by the posts. That way I could weave them into sturdy impassible barriers. That fact that I was taking something that most people were just piling up and burning and getting to play adult fort time. Really.

It was like when I was a kid making little buildings and forts out of sticks, except that now I am an adult and I can lift a shit ton more and have access to power tools and axes and shit. It was like stick fort time plus a thousand.

While Scott quietly did the real work, gradually moving away from me as he went, an idea hit me. An idea so pure, and so wonderful that I had to pause just to revel in it's sheer magnificence.

Imagine the scene. There I am standing in the forest on a cool winters day, with sticks in my hair, looking for things to go in my brush fence. And then I see it. All those multiflora rose plants I cut but never removed.

Oh no, your thinking. She didn't.

I did.

It was a process. Each branch had to be carefully removed from it's thorny, spiky fellows and then walked up along the fence and interwoven into the branches. Oh, you could get through my fence. You could force your way through it, but I wasn't going to make it easy for you.

About the time I was adding in the additional vertical supports Scott suggested we stop for the day. So we put the firewood away and laid out the rails for out split rail fence and put the tools away. Cause you know, stop for the day doesn't mean you stop working. It just means you stop working for the most part. Or you go work inside.

Look language is kinda tricky like that okay?

The important thing here is that for a whole day I got to play super brush fence fort time like I was motherfucking twelve. Even though I but the road trimming maintenance guy is gonna hate me so hard. So very, very hard.

Eh. Worth it.

So very, very worth it.

Moving Cinder Blocks and Why I Hate Them.

Today, today we moved all our random ass piles of cinder blocks, bricks, fire brinks and chimney blocks.

Everything is pain now.

First off I couldn't find my gloves. No wait that's not right. I could only find right hand gloves. I found three right hand gloves. I finally gave up and wore one of Scott's gloves on my left hand. It's like some one handed person broke into my mobile home and stole all my left hand gloves. Or all the left hand gloves joined a cult somewhere. Somewhere that understands them. Somewhere they won't be made fun of for being the non dominate hand. Right hand gloves are such stuck up assholes.

So one glove was a little loose is what I am saying.

Then we get out there, in the woods, next to these piles. I dunno where these piles came from. I assume that my dad put them there, but who knows. Maybe they are like cinder block fairy mounds. Any who, we back up the truck and start loading.

Doesn't that sound so tidy? We started loading. That conveys nothing of the excitement of hauling cinder blocks down an embankment and sloshing through a ditch. Luckily, I only ended up soaking my left foot through once! And I only twisted my ankle once too!

Lucky me!

Not only are cinder blocks as ugly as a chicken's butt hole, they are also heavy as hell. These particular blocks also had remnants of paint on them. Hideous paint. Sky blue and red. Like red red. Like fire engine red. Super red. The kind of red that makes me think of the Shining. That red.

After we had a truck full we took then over to where we are planning on putting that house and used them to hold the damn sand pile in. I don't know if you are aware of this, but if you put sand in a big pile it acts like a liquid, in that it will start to ooze itself flat. Until your four foot hight sand pile is a light dusting of sand all over your lawn. We were previously aware of this fact, but had only placed support on one side of the pile because being prepared for crap takes like time and energy and shit.

Which of course meant that we were shoveling the sand back into the pile while lining it with blocks. Also I noticed that the tarp was loose and the cats had been pooping in it.

Bastards.

I was standing in the truck, passing the blocks and bricks out to Scott who was stacking them. First off, you might think that this is the easier of the two jobs, but ha, ha ha ha haaaaaaa ha. The thing is, you really don't get to like, straighten up so your back is feeling that weird tense thing that is not quite a pain but really close to it sensation. What I did not anticipate however, is that once we were done and I hopped down to suck more caffeine into my face like a hummingbird, was my knees.

You know how as you get older you start having denial about your own health problems? Yeah. I kinda knew for a while that I was having knee problems. Like I'd be sitting in my chair an then I'd go to pull one leg up under me an my knee would get halfway and then I'd have to stop because it didn't want to go anymore. Yeah. That shit.

Somehow I don't think that today made them any better. I pretty much feel like I was playing that Head Shoulder Knees and Toes game but instead of pointing to the body part in question, I just mentally checked it off in my head as hurting.

Yeah. So I think it's video game time. Because nothing makes me feel better like swinging a sword into a monster's face. And then setting it on fire.

Skyrim is so awesome.