!

Oh, the despair! Oh, the humanity! Oh, the drama that will be me the duration of the months of August, September, May, and June.

Me: David! I made the wrong choice! I should not have switched schools! You know how fussy I get when I am too hot! And then to be too hot and deal with the children?!

Yes. I spoke this to David who for most of his life had to work outdoors in all weather conditions. And I spoke those words certain he would feel so sad for me.

***

Well. We hit 26 years as married people! And we did it in style-on a cruise!

This time, we did not take the children, but my parents did join us and fun was had by all!

***

For the second summer in a row, Hadley has worked at a fishing lodge in Alaska. She talked Yesi into joining her and then a couple of weeks later, Carson was also offered a job. So I have two children and a daughter in law all working in Alaska all summer and not spending any time with me at the river. Such sadness. We got a picture of them all in a van on their way to church together.

Let us pause and be impressed that I put smiley faces on the people that weren’t my kin. Because they don’t know me too well and how do I know if they want their picture on a blog called The Lumberjack’s Wife written by a gal who isn’t related to any lumberjacks?

Anyways. We miss them.

***

David 0

Ground Squirrels: 75

Oh! Have I not told you? David has waged a full on war with some sort of creature that we choose to call a ground squirrel. We honestly don’t know what it is. But these things have a whole tunnel system throughout our lands and they steal the meager bounty from our garden and last year they slaughtered several of my newly hatched chicks.

David keeps trying to shoot them-and don’t judge us for shooting things. We live on a farm in the middle of nowhere. It’s like the wild west out here. It just happens. It’s fine.

He tries to shoot them, but he cannot seem to shoot them. And, oh, how it is vexing him! And then I add fuel to the fire by texting him photos of the little beasts as I see them throughout the day, because do you think I am going to fire a gun?

The other night, he was late coming in for dinner so I went to go fetch him and this is what I saw:

I think he is slowly losing his mind.

But we have good news! We were able to finally harvest some strawberries before the ground squirrels ate them!

It was a very exciting moment for us.

David and I have been battling our lands since 2010 trying to grow things. We have conquered the lack of water, no water, and orange water. For every actual plant we have grown, we have grown 274,000 weeds along with it. We are never very successful, yet we persevere.

Now, take my parents. They don’t care. They don’t try. They moved to their place and it had a small raspberry bush and now they are basically raspberry farmers. My dad gets annoyed and chops them and tries to get rid of them, yet they are up to their eyeballs in raspberries. I was over the other day and mom says,

“Oh! Did I tell you? We have strawberries now!”

And, reader. I looked at her with disdain. Actual disdain. Because upon further examination, it looks like the neighbor who lives on the other side of the fence grows strawberries and her strawberries have spread under the fence and given my parents a very nice, healthy strawberry patch. And they didn’t even have to hunt people down on marketplace and drive miles upon miles to take peoples strawberries starts and dig and transplant and water and weed and care.

They just came. And they bore fruit. With nary a ground squirrel in sight.

***

With Yesi and Carson in Alaska, I have Norman back, and let me tell you, these three dogs love me.

And the feeling is mutual, my friends. And even though I cannot get my children to join me much at the river, these three are always game.

***

While we were on our cruise, Eliza Jane gave birth to strapping baby boy!

A little colt! And I want to love him, but he runs away from me and is not interested in meeting my acquaintance.

Me: David! Because I have read “Farmer Boy” a gazillion times, I am so ready for this. I know that it is important not to spoil a young colt and to treat it gently and to be very careful with it!

David:

Me: Almanzo’s father would be proud of me. Father was known through the county for his fine horses you know.

David: This is great. You are using a fiction book to learn how to train a colt.

Me: I would hardly call it fiction! It is about their actual lives!

We haven’t named it yet, but I kind of already did. Since mama is Eliza Jane, I was thinking Almanzo, but to call him Manly, which was Laura’s nickname for him.

And I will love him forever. Or until David makes us sell him.

If the ground squirrels dare try to mess with Manly, I will probably have to learn how to shoot a gun.

Happy Monday!

So. He bought a horse. The horse was a girl . . . a mare, if you will. She needed a bit more training, and he found someone who could train her. He asked me if I would like to go with him, and here were the details I was given:

*The horse would be gone for at least a month.

*This would be costing money.

*We would need to take the horse to the trainer-over two hours away.

*He did not know when she would get picked up.

*I could get a complimentary latte if I went with him.

So, we loaded the horse, who was yet to be named, and started the trek to this horse trainer, lattes in hand.

When we arrived, I was a tad confused, seeing as how there was no home or shelter-for man or horse. The trainer-let’s call him “Rusty” greeted us and I quickly ascertained he was pleased to meet our acquaintance. He just rapid fired a whole bunch of statements at us.

“I hope she is your sister!” (?)

“Wow! Are you two Native Americans, or are you just really tan?” (We were neither. It was November)

“Dave! Do you like polo? You look like a guy who likes polo. I am starting a team. You in?”

“I don’t let the grass grow too long under my feet. If you know what I mean.”

“You get me, Dave. I can tell. Not many people get me.”

“Dave! I got a new weed eating tool! Wanna see?”

I would like you to all understand that this is the first time David has ever met this person. And as we followed Rusty to join him in his admiration of the weed eating tool, I asked David where on earth he found this guy?

His answer?

Facebook Marketplace.

Seems like a red flag to me.

Rusty was very excited about his weed eating tool, but he could not figure out how to work it. I could tell it was new because it still had the tags on it. Now, this may have been Rusty’s first experience with David Maliblahblah, but it sure wasn’t mine and I knew that my David could figure out a weed eating tool like nobody’s business. And I was right. David demonstrated to Rusty just how he could use the weed eating tool with ease. Because David is all that is man.

Rusty and I were both equally impressed.

Please be aware that our poor horse has never even made it out of her trailer at this point. So we suggested we backtrack and go get the horse. On our way, Rusty found a lone beer can in the grass. He picked it up. He offered it to us. We declined. He drank the beer.

As soon as David unloaded the horse, Rusty became all thrilled-like and shouted, “Woo! That horse just tripled my property value!”

Seemed like a red flag.

In fairness to all, the mare was a total beaut. David had been struggling with a name and was trying to decide between Nora and Annie. He had decided it could wait, but Rusty insisted the horse be named right then.

Reader. There is an unsavory truth I must tell you about David.

He has gotten old and can no longer hear well.

David: What?

Me: He wants you to name the horse!

David: Huh?

Me: You need to pick a name! NAME THE HORSE!

David: Oh, ok. Nora.

Me to Rusty: The horse’s name is Nora.

Rusty: Nope. That’s not her name try again.

Me: Ok. How about Annie?

Rusty: Oh, that’ll do nicely!

And for the remainder of our time with Rusty, he referred to the horse as Annie. That will be important later on.

David and Rusty got right to work on talking about all things horse. I got distracted by the world’s cutest puppy. Rusty told me, “She got kicked real bad in the head by a horse yesterday. She’s not quite right today.”

Which seemed like a red flag.

As the men were talking horse talk, I was taking a gander at Nora/Annie’s new housing situation.

Here is what I noticed:

*No shelter.

*One very full truck bed that maybe contained a bed for Rusty.

*A corral.

*A horse tied to said corral.

*A goat tied to a tree.

*A stand alone bathtub near a creek.

*A recliner chair facing the creek.

*The remains of one beer can.

*One very nice weed eater tool that was now able to be properly used thanks to my husband.

*A cute puppy who was not right in the head.

After some time, David was wrapping things up and we loaded in the truck and started to drive away.

Me: David! Where will she live? Where does he live? Is that where he lives?

David: I don’t know

Me: DAVID. Are you sure she is safe? Should you leave her with him? Do you think the goat feels safe?

David: I don’t know. Hey, did you noticed he kept calling her Annie even after I named her Nora?

Me: Yeah! He told you he didn’t like Nora. He renamed her. She is now Annie. How did you miss that?

David: Oh.

Me: DAVID. IS SHE SAFE? SHOULD WE LEAVE HER WITH A SAFETY WHISTLE?

David; I don’t know.

****

Fast forward about a month later. Rusty calls David and tells him Annie is not the horse for him. But he has another horse, an even better horse, and he will deliver her on Christmas Day.

And Annie was never seen from or heard of again.

Which seems like a red flag to me.

On Christmas Day, David got his horse. She was also a beaut, but now David was back to square one with naming.

Carson’s wife, Yesi, is very good with horses. Soon after we got this horse, she, David, and Carson decided to try out the horse and she got bucked off.

Which seemed like something a trained horse shouldn’t do. But what do I know?

And then there were weeks where David would spend an hour each afternoon just trying to get her to come to him.

Which seemed like something a trained horse should do. You know. Come? I don’t know.

So David started to feed her sugar cubes to lure her to him.

Me: You should name her Eliza Jane. Because she doesn’t care what anyone tells her. She’s not gonna let anyone boss her around. Just like Almanzo’s big, know-it-all sister in Farmer Boy.

So she was named Eliza Jane.

Eliza Jane has grown on us, but we are not sure she is exactly the trained horse David thought he was getting.

Me: David! Did you get rolled?

David: I think I did.

David has decided he needs to get a second horse. I know, I know. He has a problem. It’s gone too far, I cannot fix him. For some reason, he is telling people he needs to get a horse for me.

Me.

I would like the records to show that I have no desire to sit atop a horse. I don’t mind looking at horses. I don’t mind petting horses. I mean them no ill-will. But riding them?

Not for me.

Oh, my teacher friends get such delight out of this vision of David’s. We imagine David fancies that we will get home from work after our respective jobs, saddle up our horses, and check our lands and cattle on horseback together. This must be what empty-nesters do.

Sadly, he has yet to find the horse for me. He has not given up hope.

A couple of weeks ago, the farrier came to take care of Eliza Jane’s feet and the first thing he said to David was:

“Oh! That’s a pregnant horse!”

Me: David! Is Eliza Jane pregnant!?

David: I have no idea.

Me: Did Rusty tell you there was a chance she was pregnant when she came here on Christmas Day?

David: He did not.

Me: David! Did you get rolled?

David: Maybe.

Me: DAVID! The baby! The baby can be my horse! You can stop your searching. I will love the baby. That one will be mine.

David:

Me:

David:

Me: This is so exciting!

****

Happy Sunday!