Making Hay and Storing Hay.

So a lot has happened and I meant to write separate posts about it but then I started putting the slats on the sides of the hay storage shed, but then I was so busy that I could only put a few on a day and it felt like I was making no progress and there was never a convenient time to write about it.

Mostly I was putting them on myself because Scott was trying to fix our old/new car and that was more important then putting like, a billion or so slats on this thing because we need to be able to get back and forth to work and shit.

Anyway after what seemed like forever in which it kept raining and I couldn't make hay and we kept treating the cats eyeballs and the car kept demanding that we replace all the oxygen sensors and the office was not giving us enough work I think at some point I finished the damn slats and then went and had some sort of quiet nervous money based breakdown in the woods where I reenacted that scene from Gone with the Wind where Scarlett holds up that motherfucking turnip and yells at the sky that with god as her witness that she will never be hungry again. Except being me I just cried a whole lot and yelled a few obscenities at the sky and then fell back to worrying that I am going to freeze/starve this winter.

It was all a little fuzzy.

And of course the cats eyeballs are still shitty and we have to keep treating her and I feel like I might have more luck just rubbing hundred dollar bills on her eyelids at this point but whatever. Oh and it seems like a bunch of shit like corn and beans that we Scott planted didn't come up at all because ha ha fuck you and your shit dreams Holly.

Sorry. I'm a bit bitter. Here have a picture.

This. This looks like Tim Burton made it. I am absurdly proud.

So in the midst of all this we had three sunny days coming up. Or at least not rainy. So we made hay. Sorry I mean Scott had to take the car in and get new expensive ass tires and I had to make hay. In which Holly was haunted by the ghost of back injury's past, and also haunted by by the fact that when you run yourself to nothing and life is grinding you down like the rocks at a sea shore suddenly finding you have to make two meadows of shit balls thick hay yourself until your man gets back is like trying to climb Everest while wearing tennis shoes and a swim suit made out of tissue paper.

Whenever it felt as though I couldn't go on I would go back inside and drink tea and sharpen my scythe. At one point all I could do was drink tea and lay on the floor and stare up at the ceiling fan and pray that I could find the energy from somewhere to get back up.

I am telling you all this because those of you who have called me a badass and said that am I super strong amazing person with a work ethic the size of Texas were totally right, but that doesn't mean that I don't break down and end up laying on the floor trying desperately to will myself to get back up and go back to work even though I feel like everything is turning to ash in my hands the harder and harder I try to hold it. 

 I'm human too you know.

And then Scott got home and I made him get his ass back in those fields despite his feeble protests that he had just got home and had a sprained ankle and it was alike 86 degrees outside. So then we finished the field I was working on and did most of another and then I had to stop because heat exhaustion is a thing that I get very easily now and I think I was getting it.

Of course I didn't let that stop me because I woke up at like 6:30am the next day and cut as much of the meadow as I could get done before the sun found me because I am not going to let a pesky thing like possible illness fuck me out of my goddamned hay.

Also throughout all this I painted the damn storage shed with occasional help from Scott when he had the time.

Shapow! Motherfuckers.

Then I went and passed the fuck out and took a day off to just touch up the paint job on the shed and make cookies while the hay was drying so that all I have to do today is bring the hay in. Which of course it's going to be much cooler today because the weather just likes to fuck with me.

But I am stupid excited that I did my goddamned homework and get to put the hay INTO A SHED and not under a tarp in the middle of a field. Because putting all your hay under a tarp and then having it snow a shit-balls-ton was the most not fun thing ever. Like, oh I know you just shoveled the driveway and the paths to all the animals and the porches and around the wood stove shed, but here you go shovel a slippery ass tarp off in crotch deep snow. And don't forget the wind is a motherfucker so you'll have to do this again tomorrow.

Mostly though because it cut unacceptably into my Skyrim game.

Also I felt really good about my decision making skills when Scott came home and told me that everyone else was making hay too. Because I have only been doing this a few years and the rest of these guys have been farming for like ever, and that means that I win at hay making. I think.

In conclusion, yes even I too have days when just getting up off the floor was the hardest thing I have done in the history of ever, and yes I really did construct an entire hay shed to give me more video game time in the dead of winter, and it's all okay now because I have cookies. And that when life has kicked you right in the lady lips and has you down the best thing to do is give it the finger until you can stagger back up and punch it right in it's smug lifey face.

And tell it Holly sent you.

Debarking and Logs for that House.

Today we debarked. And I learned a thing or two. I'm sure you all remember my adventure with the stomach flu, and me throwing my back out. Well, now I understand why those things happened. I hit upon a piece of good luck so singular it is hardly to be believed. Because it turns out that if you fell trees the best time to debark them is in the spring. Which means that you are not using the draw knife and weeping into your hands because the bark is glued to the tree and you haven't made any real progress even thought it's been like, a fucking hour.

Instead we had the bark come off in great slippery chunks and all we had to do was loosen it up and pull. Which meant that I spent some time yelling about how we were freaking debarking wizards and then I accidentally threw my own shoe at the logs.

Possibly in a misguided attempt to high five them. With my foot.

Although in my rush to explain to you, gentle readers, about the good news, I forgot to start at the beginning. And the beginning was getting the house logs, the biggest motherfucking huge ten foot long and a foot thick motherfuckers that were still in the forest.

In the rock bar.

So optimistically we drove Sue, our pickup truck down in the back and loaded him up with the first two logs.* The first two logs that were notably smaller. However the last two were demons made of heavy from the heaviest part of hell. We tried pushing them through the rock bar. We tried pulling them. We tried taking the ratchet strap off of the ratchet and using that to pull the logs. Which is when I learned a valuable lesson called when you are failing to drag logs out of the woods, wrap the strap around your non-dominate hand.

Trust me on that one.

So after about, oh twenty minutes of failing so hard I am sure they could hear it a few states away, we decided to get King, the backhoe. Of course this was no easy task as we had to shove and push our way through all the tree dead fall to get down into the back acres. See when super storm Sandy showed up and bitch slapped us around a good number of trees lost there tops. But I don't mean lost as in, they fell off, no I mean lost as in they mostly came off but then they didn't fall because there was just enough to hold them onto the tree. Basically it looks like the tree is trying to be a gentle man and take it's hat off for a lady, only instead of a hat it's just holding out it's top branches.

Right in the way of the backhoe.

Of course Scott was all do you want to ride in the backhoe and I'm all like, hell yeah I do. So I wedged myself in there and we got in a few boxing matches with trees and then we drug the logs out of the forest like it was goddamned nothing. Then we had to roll them close to the front bucket and play some sort of fucked up cats cradle to keep them there. Of course the whole thing was stupidly easy compared to the lets-destroy-our-spines-forever method.

Then we returned triumphantly back to the farm yard and dropped them into our backyard where we had laid out a storage/debarking area.

And the rest, as you know, is history.

Awesome history.

*Sue is a boy. We named him after Johnny Cash's song, A Boy Named Sue. Because this is the fucking country.

Getting Logs for Hay Storage and Beyond.

Today we gathered logs. I needed four to make the uprights for my hay storage shed and also we needed to start getting logs for the house. You know, that house thing that I mentioned we would be building and then never mentioned again? You know, the one that you have had exactly zero updates on? Yeah that house. We are still intending on building it. So today, in the hot as shit motherfucking weather we went out into the back acres to get ourselves some trees.

Some heavy ass trees.

Of course Scott was all like didn't you pick the trees you wanted in advance? And I'm all like ha ha no, that would have required planning. Luckily there was a downed pine we were planning on using for the house that had taken a smaller pine with it when it fell because trees can be dicks like that. Of course it had fallen in the middle of a rock bar, which for those of you that don't know, is an area that is filled with rocks. All the rocks. In this case rocks covered with a thin layer of forest duff. So pretty much it was an adventure of not twisting our ankles. So we cut them bitches up, getting four logs for the house and two for the hay rack and then had to find two more trees. Which of course was fun.

I also should point out that I hate killing healthy live trees because deep inside me lives a tree hugging hippy. But then again I also hate digging through a foot of snow to get to my hay pile, so I thought downing a few maples was probably the lesser of two evils. Also Scott wanted the rest of the maple for the house. Because we like to use every part of the tree. Like the buffalo. Except less edible.

Anywho so we cut down the trees and then we realize that it's way, way too goddamned hot. Like August hot because the weather just likes to fuck with us for no reason. So we decide to move the giant ass house logs the next day, and get my hay logs into the truck and up to the farm yard so I can debark them.

Unfortunately we had to drag the logs out by wrapping ratchet straps around them because the rock bar was filled with treachery. So at one point Scott was on the front pulling the log with the ratchet and I was in the back heaving the ass end of the log over rocks and the other downed trees while every fly ever buzzed around my head and I began to realize why America lost the majority of it's farm generation. Cause that shit sucked. Also Scott had interpreted my desire to build a hay storage unit that would last forever as I must cut down only the biggest trees for her. Which was probably an attempt to prove his manliness but which meant it took two people to lift one end of the giant ass trees into the pickup.

Did I mention that the trees were between 12 and 14 feet tall?

Yeah.

So we fought them bitches into the truck and then drove them up to the farm yard and stacked them on boards to keep them off the ground. Now all I have to do is debark them. Which I have no idea how to do. So I am going to watch every Youtube video ever. Which will probably max out my internet and then I won't be able to get to my blog at all but whatever.

I mean how hard can it be?

I know, I know, it's going to be terrible. And you are going to get to read about it. I think you have the better end of the deal, really.

Building a Hay Storage Structure- the Digging.

After last winter, aka the snowiest winter on record, I decided that this summer I was going to build a tiny barn like thing to keep the hay dry. Because using the tarp-it-over-in-the-middle-of-the-field-so-that-every-time-it-snows-you-have-to-clean-it-off method was really getting old.

Really old.

Also the idea struck me that it was kind of silly to build the thing after the snowiest winter of all time, but then I rationalized it by thinking that it was a lot like a video game where you have to get through the level with all the monsters and all you have is a crowbar just to prove you really didn't need the gun before you get rewarded with that pistol.

You know, like that, but in real life.

Now, seeing as though all this structure had to be was four supports, a floor and a roof I decided we didn't need to make a foundation. Instead we are making a pole barn. Basically, you put poles in the ground, just like if you were placing in fence posts, then use those as your foundation. Since the floor is also going to be raised off the ground we certainly didn't need to go all stone foundation crazy with it.

This all sounded like a good plan. On paper.

In reality I had to clear a large amount of barn debris off the site, since where I needed to put this thing was pretty much where we had torn down the barn. Which meant my mornings were spent heaving half rotted centipede filled boards out of the area and trying not to get surprised by any rats or snakes. Oh and I couldn't get cut by any of the rusty metal roofing and braces and spare farm parts and nails that were there either because I haven't had a tennis shot in like, fucking forever.

It was a motherfucking adventure is what I am saying.

Then I had Scott come out and help me measure the site so that I wouldn't end up with the corners being all weird. Mainly because I never measure anything like that and always end up with trapezoidal structures. Which is why I am not allowed to build anything alone anymore. Of course once we had everything marked out and flagged it was time for me to, you know, actually dig the holes.

Which was fun.

And by fun I mean it sucked. First off nature was all like, oh your trying to dig in the unforgiving earth? Here are some 80 degree temperatures motherfucker! Of course the first hole went well as it always does, to lure me into a false sense of security. The second hole was a bit of a challenge, mainly because it was in full sun and sunlight and heat saps my strength because I am apparently a vampire somehow. Also it was a little damp. Meaning that the dirt was heavier and harder to remove, but nothing major. Because that was all in store for me on the third hole. The third hole was wet in the same way that lakes are. Once I got past the top soil, and into the shit fuck clay layer, the hole began to fill with water. It's okay, I thought it'll stop here in a second.

It didn't stop.

So I was scooping blindly, hoping that ramming it with the digging bar was taking the rocks out, because I sure as shit couldn't see them. Using the post hole digger was like playing the worst claw game ever. When I did manage to bring up a load of half liquid clay, water would shoot out the sides of the digger and slop all over me like the very earth itself had caught that stomach flu I had.

Ha ha fun.

The forth hole was surprisingly dry. Because it was filled with all the rocks ever. Also during all this is was occasionally sprinkling just to fuck with me. But at least I got it done. I suppose that I could claim that I had dug an entire foundation by myself, but I actually already did that when we built the chicken coup. Of course then I went to show Scott what I had done this morning to find all the holes had filled up with water and the cats were drinking out of them.

Which was kind of defeating.

But it's goddamned done. So now all we have to do is get the poles and treat them and then bail water out of the holes with a cup set them in in the ground and add a roof and a whole mess of slats and a floor and okay we still have a shit more to do.

But that's okay because I am no longer crawling around with a bad back or throwing up all the time or trapped in the bathroom by a combination of those things.

It's the little things really.

It's the little things.