Bent Blades

I got home from work Friday afternoon, changed clothes and got on my riding mower. It was one of those perfect evenings in between spring and summer, the fading sunlight highlights the dust hanging in the air like a golden mist. The beer in my cup holder is shaken into a fine froth from the vibrations of the spinning blades and bumpy terrain. A steady roar is muted through the ear goggles I wear and work week tension melts away with every lap around the orchard. WACHUNK! Engine dead, complete silence. Oh crap. Parking brake, kneeling, peering under the mower. I see a segment of a branch I had cut off an apple tree, about as thick as my wrist. The blade is bent all to hell. Defeated, deflated. I motor back into the garage and lift the mower up onto risers to check out the damage. The other blade is fine, motor still runs smooth. I reckon it was time for a new set of blades anyway.

The next day is Lamaze class at the Hickory Mall. I am the first dude who volunteers to wear the empathy belly, a thirty pound rubber and lead contraption designed to show men what it feels like to be pregnant. I am comfortable with the new girth. I would be a good fat man. When breaktime rolls around the instructor asks if I want to take it off, I say I'm fine and decide to walk through the mall with it on to get a cup of coffee with April. I had hoped for some awkward stares at my male pregnantness but I am dissappointed that a Zumba dance demonstration has captured everyone's attention. They make me take it off after break. At lunch, we have pretzel wrapped hot dogs that are supposed to be covered in fresh jalapenos like the sign in front of the booth. They do not look like the picture and taste like salt and old pickles. We go to the Sears to get two new blades, an air filter and a new oil filter for the mower. I opt for the high dollar deluxe blades that are supposedly 16% thicker. We'll see what the stumps and branches think about these when we get home. After lunch I feel like I am back in a boring high school class that will never end. At each break another couple dissappears from the class but April will not leave early despite my whining that this is ruining the entire weekend. Freedom, finally. It is almost six o'clock. We stop at Lowe's to get the last Moroccan light fixture in the tri-county area and some carnivorous plants that I hope will solve the fly problem in our house. When we get home I am pumped, ready to fix some mower and show April how virile and mechanical I am. I am unable to remove the bolt holding the bent blade on. My pumpedness and virility are in a nosedive. April brings me a beer and suggests I try to turn the bolt the other way. Victory is mine. I get both blades off and the two new blades fitted on and tightened up. April asks me if the blades are on tight. I assure her they are as tight as they're gonna get. I fire up the mower and feel a deep primal stirring in my loins as I roar out of the garage to show the grass what's up. The front lawn looks like an emerald carpet beneath my burgeoning apple and cherry trees. I am the orchard master and retire to the couch to check on my fantasy baseball teams and drink more beer. I notice a venus fly trap has partaken of the housefly population. Despite Lamaze class, it has been a most triumphant day.

Sunday. I awake eager to finish mowing around the chicken coop and the peach orchard on our back forty. We have granola and yogurt and grapefruit juice and I step outside. It is sweltering. I feel like I am wearing a spacesuit in a sauna but have on just shorts and a t-shirt. I am mowing around the chicken coop and the barn. There are thick gnarled oak tree roots rising 6 inches and higher out of the ground and I mow around them in a chaotic, swerving pattern. I listen to Bunny Wailer and Eek-a-Mouse and Sublime on my ipod. Some of the weeds that were knee high refuse to submit to the new blades and stay erect even after I mow them down from multiple directions. The mower blows grass clippings through the fence into the chicken enclosure and the older hens crowd out the younger chicks to greedily gobble them up. Underneath a cherry tree, in sweet cool shade. WACHUNK! Silence. Kneeling on the ground, looking underneath the mower. One blade has fallen off and wedged itself into the path of the other blade. It is bent all to hell. I can not find the bolt that held the blade on. I am sweating like a hog and feeling some strange combination of anger, depression and disgust. I pull back into the garage and lift the mower back onto the risers. I promise myself I will find the bolt after I take a break. I never do.

Sears Parts Direct wants twice the cost of the bolt for shipping. I waver back and forth before I finally pull the trigger and order two bolts. Just in case. That evening I walk out underneath the cherry tree. A thunderstorm and torrential downpour has soaked the ground and the grass is looking taller. The bolt is sitting there on top of a patch of red clay dirt. Mocking me.

April's dad comes over on Friday evening to help fix the mower. I suspect his true mission is to prevent his mechanically inclined son in law from maiming his daughter & granddaughter with a flying mower blade. I have two new blades, two new bolts & a new breaker bar from Sears to put some torque on those bad boys. In 5 minutes we are done and I am mowing test patterns around the grapes and rose bushes. I don't know what lesson I am supposed to have learned. All I know is that I still love mowing the damn grass into an emerald carpet.

Beach Week

just chillin'

handsome n' soggy

strawberry & shrimp ceviche

beach clyde!

catch me big dog

sun kissed

...and we came home this guy had eaten 13 chicks who had managed to squeeze through the links in the fence.

Marsupials of Unusual Size

3 Funerals and a Wedding

Death is a strange visitor during springtime. Various shades of green returning to the grass & trees, flowers blooming, bugs buzzing back into activity. But here on Cardinal Ridge the Reaper has been making his rounds. It all started when April's dad and I were chipping down the big woodpile for the second Saturday in a row. We were making good progress and down to a small pile of sticks when I came across a nest. The spring sun was warm and bright and as I took a closer look at the nest, I saw a single tiny grey mouse whose eyes were still shut tight. For a while I left the nest alone as I worked around the mouse and thought about what to do. I decided to try and relocate the nest out of the sun back into the woods underneath a fallen tree, I hoped the mother mouse would be able to hear or sniff out her baby when she returned. We finished up chipping and then April and I hustled off to return the rented chipper. Later that evening after a tasty Chicago dog and limeade chiller at Sonic, I was admiring the lack of a woodpile behind the chicken shed and decided to see how the little mouse was doing. The nest was empty and two white chicken feathers lay nearby. Since I had seen the girls eating a frog last year, I feared the worst for the little guy. As I hunted around the ground looking for the mouse, I could've sworn I heard a faint squeaking. I thought Clyde was helping me search for the wayward rodent but when I watched him more closely it looked more like he was trying to pick something up in his mouth. Clyde has a pretty gentle maw and when I got over to the mouse, it was a little moist but no worse for the wear. I scooped up Benito Mousolini and brought him inside to show April.

Fast forward the rest of the weekend. An old box with old socks became his home. We fed him condensed milk warmed to room temp from a syringe with a pin hole in the cap. He came with us everywhere, to lunch at Zaxby's, grocery shopping at Sam's Club and April volunteered to take him to work with her during the week. I wondered if that would fly in her office but I was cashiering and I knew customers wouldn't be too happy waiting while I fed a baby mouse 5 times a day. Everything was going pretty well, Mousolini was putting on weight and waking us up only once a night squeeking for milk. Then one night the dogs went crazy when they heard a car pulling up the driveway, we weren't expecting anyone so I went outside to see who it was. April's folks were excited about the impending birth of their granddaughter and had decided to pay us a visit. We talked about cribs, reading Richard Scary books to her and feeding her the fresh fruits and veggies we grow. Then I proudly picked up the mouse box to introduce the little refugee from the woodpile to her parents. I though her Dad would be a little concerned about the threat of bubonic plague or just the fact that I had a rodent baby in the house with his pregnant daughter so I wasn't too surprised when he announced that he would've thrown Benito right back in the field he came from. Saving a orphan baby mouse is not a common undertaking here in Caldwell County, maybe country folks have more sense than I do. After a while, her folks left to go back home and we let the dogs out of the bathroom where they had been jailed during their visit. I got another beer from the fridge and we settled down to watch a little TV before turning in for the night. Something told me to take a peek at Mousolini and see if he needed any milk or to be tucked tighter into his bed of old socks. When I looked into his box, my heart sank. The little mouse lay motionless and cold, his swollen belly still matted with the dried milk he had gorged himself on. I felt sad, sadder than I thought I should be. I had moved his nest and then tried to save him from freezing or starving to death. His fate was the product of a quickly taken decision and our best efforts to save him. We had a mouse funeral and buried Benito Mousolini in the rose garden. It was only the first time death would visit us this spring...

Just a week after we laid the baby mouse to rest, on a warm Sunday evening, we were finishing up preparations for 45 new baby chickens to arrive. We had hosed out 2 steel feed troughs and dragged them inside the second kitchen, laid a deep bedding of pine shavings inside them and washed out the chick feeders and waterers. The brooding lamps were dusted off, reloaded with red bulbs and clipped on to the troughs to keep the babies at a cozy 95 degrees during their first week here. When we finally collapsed onto the couch late Sunday night we had spread wood mulch around the raised beds, mowed the front orchard and completed as many chores as we could handle. We felt physically and mentally beat; but the prospect of picking up a box of chirping chicklets from the post office the next morning had me giddy as a kid before Christmas. The synthetic sound of a ringtone roused me from a deep sleep around 4:30. I fumbled the phone trying to answer before it went to voicemail and had to call the post office back. They told me the chicks had landed and that I should knock on the big brown door. The sky was dark purple and I listened to Alice Cooper on the ride over. My precious cargo got buckled into the passenger seat and I raced back home to see how they had fared on their journey from Iowa. We set the white cardboard box on top of the chest freezer and pried open the stapes carefully. The were 48 chicks, 3 more than I had ordered. One had not survived the trip. We settled 30 birds into the larger feed trough and 17 into the smaller dipping each chick's beak into the water dish so they would know where to get their drank on. A batch of emerald green gro Gel Plus was mixed and offered on an old tupperware lid. A feeding frenzy ensued and the chicks were soon flecked with globs of green goop on their faces and beaks. Reluctantly, I left for work thinking about returning home to hold the chicklets and take pictures.

Home earlier in the afternoon than usual, I went straight to the back kitchen with both dogs close behind. Clyde seemed offended I hadn't given him the welcome home pat and scratch he expected. As I replenished their water and food, I noticed a chick lying in the shavings, unable to stand. Prodding her tail got her up for a few seconds but she soon settled back down and the other chickens were running over her and pecking at her. We decided to set her up in her own space, an old plastic ice cream tub with her own water and food. I checked on her 3 times that evening and again before falling asleep, she was still on her haunches but the food showed signs of pecking and I saw her drinking. April got home from work earlier than I did the next evening and she was dead. We lost 3 more chicks in the next day, they fell within minutes of each other and we buried them with honors in our compost pile. That was the second visit...

I remembered I had left the coop door open in the shower the next morning. I hollered for April and said I needed a favor if she could go check on the chickens for me. While waiting for her to come back and tell me everything was all good in the coop, I secretly wished that if something had gotten into the coop it had not gotten Goldie or Bad Bird. April returned crying and I knew it was not going to be a good day. I walked out soaking wet to find my wife standing over our favorite rooster still sobbing. Bad Bird was hurting. We flipped him over and it looked like he had been scraped clean of feathers and flesh on one side. I knew what I had to do but I wanted so badly to listen to the voice in my head promising he could get better, he could heal. I walked slowly into the house to retrieve the Mossberg and some shells. I was torn up over being responsible for his mauling and heavier responsibility of ending his pain by my hand. I raised the shotgun over him and let it fall three times before I worked up the nerve to pull the trigger. It took three shots and made a mess of his beautiful plumage. We prayed over his ravaged body and I tried to imagine his noble spirit rising towards rooster heaven. We buried him deep within the compost heap. It took me a month to finish writing this post and I still think about him every day.


The best day in April was the sixteenth. April's brother Tyler married his lady Carolyn on a glorious Saturday afternoon at the height of springtime. She wore a flowing white gown and her maids wore purple, my brother looked his best in a tuxedo and silver vest. Family & friends feasted and made merry in a fellowship hall decorated so that it looked like it belonged in a bridal magazine. Love and life and beauty and happiness floated through the atmosphere and for one day everything was right with the world.

48 new employees

dave the bonus rooster

golden crested polish chick

getting settled

Overheard in Caldwell County

On filling the emptiness
Lady at Sam's Club sample table offering Atkin's Diet Snack Bars: "We have Dark Chocolate Decadence, Peanut Butter Crisp, Cinnamon Bun, Caramel Chew..."
Large Woman waiting in line to try them: "Oh my gawd! Which one is the most filling!?!"

On revenge minus motivation
Neighbor explaining what he'd like to do to the dude who ditched his pregnant sister a week before she was due to give birth:"I'd kill that son of a bitch...if I didn't have to go find him."

On naming our baby daughter
Helpful mother of April's co-worker: "You can even make a girl's name out of a guy's name. You just take a name and add a different ending What's your daddy's name?"
April: "Carroll."
Helpful mother: "How about Carolnette? That's pretty!"

On saving money on your electric bill
Electric Company Field Service Technician: "Sir, what's with the insulated box you seem to have built around your electric meter and the heat lamp you have rigged up facing the meter?"
Creative old man: "Well I noticed my 'letric meter runs too fast when it gets cold outside, so Imma tryin' to keep it nice and warm!"

On aging and losing one's vision
Patient's grandaughter: "Granny can't see so good anymore; she's got them Cadillacs in her eyes!"

On Google Voice's continued inability to understand a southern accent
Customer leaving a message to see if we have eggs for sale: "Jon, we's calling to see if you got the AIDSs yet...Give us a call back if you got AIDs to sell.

Ides of March

chipping wood with April's dad

Clyde and Bad Bird share a moment

Clyde wants to play catch wearing one of April's old shirts

Bad Bird

say a prayer for the ruler of the roost

It rained hard from Friday night until late Sunday afternoon. A pounding, heavy rain that the earth greedily drank up until it was soaked full and muddy. April asked me Friday night if we were still going to try and chip the huge woodpile, something about the moisture affecting the gears in the chipper and whether or not wet wood would chip properly. Earlier in the week she had expressed concern that our unborn daughter's ears might be harmed by the high decibels from chipping wood for 6 hours. To this husband's trained ear, these comments sounded like I might be doing a good deal of chipping by myself this year. No matter, I assured her, a few sprinkles couldn't stop us from transforming the big pile of limbs and sticks into mulch. As we laid to rest that night and I set our alarm for 7am Saturday morning, I secretly cursed the wood for making me get up early a 6th time this week. Way too early on Saturday morning, we made a pit stop at Hardee's for their breakfast platter which came with a fluffy biscuit, a big gulp sized cup of sausage gravy, a pittance of eggs and disappointingly, a single slice of bacon. A dude behind us was berating his chubby little daughter for not putting a lid on her breakfast soda and finding fault with her choice of booths. The combination of his asshattery and the lack of bacon made my desire to punch him in the face nearly irresistible. The rain was falling harder as we got in my truck and headed over to Valley Rentals. I recognized the traffic cone orange Bandit XL woodchipper we had rented last year sitting in the parking lot, just waiting to dig its massive mechanical jaws into our stack of sticks. Not another soul was in the parking lot which is unusual at a place that rents manly machinery on a Saturday morning in Caldwell County. The guy at the counter looked amazed that anyone had bothered showing up, reservations or not. He asked if we were sure we wanted to rent the Bandit since the rain tends to affect the gears in the chipping apparatus and wet wood doesn't chip properly anyways. April 1, Jon 0.

I had other things I wanted to get done, so we swung by Lowe's to get some grass seed and a spreader. When we got back home and I read the fine print on the 40lb bag of fescue seed more carefully; I realized the current 40 degree temperature was a bit lower than the 60-80 degree range it said was optimal for germination. Still not discouraged enough to do what a sensible man would have done in the downpour, start a fire and curl up with a book on the couch; I loaded more of the crap the previous residents of this house had left in the basement into my truck and made another trip to the dump.

The rain showed no sign of letting up Sunday morning and my plans for a productive weekend were melting away like the chicken poop on our stoop. We made smoothies with frozen fruit and yogurt for milady, vanilla ice cream for me. I had brought our Roomba robotic vacuum out of storage on Saturday and plugged it in to recharge. Now, I was ready to suck up the tumbleweeds of shed dog hair rolling around the house and for the free entertainment that watching a robot vacuum tormenting our dogs would provide. Rainy days bring out the best in me. After the Roomba depleted his batteries and returned to its dock to recharge, I made an attempt to bake a loaf of whole wheat sourdough bread which ended up more like a dense dark brown brick of fiber despite the copious amounts of gluten I added. By late in the afternoon, I thought I saw the sun trying to break through the clouds and felt like I should let the dogs and the chickens out to enjoy what glorious muddy freedom the waning weekend could offer. Just before sunset, I heard a terrible squawking outside, grabbed the .22 Ruger and went to investigate. A quick headcount came up one short of our current flock of 12 birds, and I knew right away who it was. Our huge, ornery rooster: Bad Bird.

When he was a chick and later a cockerel, Bad Bird was known by a different name. I called him Little Wing; both because he was so much smaller than all the girls and in honor of one of my favorite Hendrix songs. One time he went missing overnight and I remember praying so hard that a snake or owl had not gotten him. After worrying me sick and using up any favors I might have accrued with the guy upstairs; Little Wing emerged from underneath the chicken coop unscathed and hungry. He never was much into being held but I scooped him up and cradled him tight. I felt a wave of relief wash over me as I gave thanks, that sickness and worry just washed away. As he grew older, he soon towered over the hens and was spending most of his time pecking at their necks and trying to make chicken babies by standing on their backs and ruffling his feathers. I don't think he ever really worked out the mechanics of chicken mating, but it was not due to a lack of effort on his part. At some point he started to turn ornery and began chasing April around the farm flapping his wings and trying to leap on her back. I guess he still respected my authority somewhat since he wasn't trying that stuff on me or maybe he just didn't find me attractive. It got so bad April started refusing to refill the water in the chicken coop and she carried a big stick with her anytime she was outside with Bad Bird on the loose. She told me she could see Bad Bird giving her the stink eye whether we were outside pruning trees, inside doing the dishes or just reading on the porch. I though she was crazy at first, but I did start to notice that wherever she went Bad Bird would follow. At a respectful distance if I was around, at stalker like proximity if I was too far away to be a clear and present danger to him. One day, when I was taking out the trash, I felt a stabbing pain in the back of my calf. It was Bad Bird making his move to usurp my position as top cock. A hastily aimed Sam's Club sized bottle of laundry detergent soon solved his delusions of grandeur but I knew I had to do something before things really got out of hand. Google led me to some strategies for getting inside the mind of the chicken which mostly involved doling out large quantities of chicken treats to keep the rooster distracted from attacking you. April's strategy of walking softly and carrying a big stick seemed to be working out pretty well for her, a few lovetaps from her staff of protection had reduced Bad Bird's desire to stand on her back. But that crazed look in his eyes has never gone away. He reminds me of Cobra Commander, bent on world domination yet destined for disappointment.

I found an explosion of white feathers that trailed off into the woods and felt the familiar sickness in my gut. The birds had only been out of the coop for an hour or so, the dogs were supposed to be guarding the flock, but I knew I had failed them once again. I followed the trail of Bad Bird's white and green plumage deeper and deeper into the woods. My slippers sucked in the mud and thorns and brambles grasped and tore at my pajama pants. Clyde found him laying in a heap; taking shallow, ragged breaths. I had the gun and my first thought was to put him down, to end his suffering. I gathered him up in my arms and carried him back towards the house. April was in the shower and the bathroom full of humid steam. I told her something had gotten to Big Bird as I sat down on the toilet cradling his bulk in his arms. I started to pick the muddy clumps of leaves out of his feathers and watched him gasping for air through his gaping beak. I was amazed to find no blood or large wounds. I prayed silently that he wouldn't die from whatever fiend had drug him so deep into the dark woods. Night was falling and I knew I was lucky to have found him before the darkness had hidden him away until morning. I doubt he would have lasted that long in the cold in his condition. April was out of the shower now, drying off and watching her nemesis cautiously, with a tender look in her eyes. I stroked his neck, trying to warm him and willing his heart to slow its racing pace. His eyes were clear and open, his stare nearly reptilian. Something told me to set him down and see if he could stand on his own. He settled, rose slowly into position and dropped a massive chicken gift on the edge of our bathroom rug. I cleaned up his mess, saw him take a few tentative steps and gathered him back into my arms. He looked much better than when I had found him in the woods. I decided to carry him back out to the coop so that he might live or die in good company; surrounded by his harem of hens. I checked on him in the morning and he looked about the same, still shaky on his feet. When I got home from work and let the girls out for their twilight free-range forage, he stayed huddled in a corner of the coop. I tried taking him outside to join the hens but he was having none of that. He has strength enough to hop back into the coop and return to his corner, settling back into an awkward heap. I brought him some fresh water which he greedily guzzled down, though he wouldn't eat a bite of the wheat bread. Bad Bird is usually a big fan of my baked goods. It was getting really cold and I decided to move him to the other side of the coop and set him up in his own space in a steel water trough with fresh wood shavings and a heat lamp. Tuesday morning he looked about the same but I noticed he had eaten some of the food I had left him. By that evening, he was back to looking sturdy on his feet and a lot more of the chicken feed was gone so I returned him to the other side of the coop. We prayed for him before dinner and I will again before I fall asleep. They say you should never name a chicken. Especially a rooster with a bad attitude who doesn't even know how to make me some more chickens. I guess seeing the vulnerable side of anything so ornery is bound to help you come to a new understanding of it. Just like with Clyde the blue heeler, it's funny how the Bad ones do seem to find a special place in your heart.

winter's end

sunrise over hibriten mountain

Otto, Goldie the hen & I in front of the woodpile we will chip in a few weeks

just before a February afternoon rainshower

first hints of green in our freshly pruned apple orchard

the strange case of the disapearing weekend

If it supposedly flies when you're having fun, I think time moves even faster when you're trying to get things done. I had lofty ambitions of productivity this weekend and achieved a small portion of what I intended to. Sitting here on a chilly Sunday evening, watching twilight fade behind bare trees and little lights glowing in the distant valley, I feel good. Friday, another hen was lost to a hungry hawk and April was kind enough to wait until I was driving home before breaking the news. Losing a lady chicken is always tough no matter how many times it has happened before. We have been lucky the past few weeks with our flock spending the work week confined to the coop and then having a few glorious days of freedom from Friday through Sunday. I'm not sure who between us looks forward to the weekend more. If I was a betting man, I would say the chickens since they get to peck around for bugs and tender shoots instead of pruning fruit trees or repairing faucets in their leisure time. When I got home Friday evening, I went to the garage for a shovel and pitchfork and then walked over to the murder scene. Hawks, much like zombies, seem to have a taste for brains because I have yet to find one of my chicken's heads still attached when they get attacked by those flighted zombie devil birds. April came out and told me the story while I dug a grave in the compost pile for our black australorp. Until we are able to get our chain link fence aviary built behind our chicken coop, we will continue to test our luck as Friday through Sunday free-rangers, at the mercy of the Hawk posse. Saturday morning came later than I had planned for, we threw on some dump appropriate duds and loaded the pickup with refuse before making the bi-weekly journey to the local "convenience center" on Dragstrip Road. I unloaded our crud into the dumpsters and sorted our recyclables into metal, glass and plastic while April watched an Asian couple try to decide if an old couch was worth rescuing from a certain doom. Afterwards, we brunched on delicious BBQ at Hannah's before reloading the truck with chicken feed, pine shavings and a large metal trough for the chicks we have coming in early April. Final stop was Lowe's where we picked up a new faucet and the stuff you need to install one. We lingered amongst the kitchen cabinets, tile flooring, showers and bathtubs awhile, dreaming. One the ride home, April announced that she would install the new faucet all by herself. I was foolishly about to offer my assistance but my curiosity about potentially having a wonderous Mrs. Fix-It available at my disposal got the best of me so I kept my mouth shut. Besides, I had planned to shovel out a year's worth of chicken deuce, decomposing pine shavings and fine particulate dust out of the chicken coop and prepare it for our new arrivals. I got a N95 respirator from April to keep the stuff I was stirring up out of my lungs and got down to business. I was about halfway through shoveling chicken crap and wood chips into a wheelbarrow and dumping it into the compost pile when I saw my lovely wife approaching. She informed that the faucet install was going swimmingly save for a massive crack in the PVC pipe that she had just discovered. In man speak, that translates to: "I just cracked the PVC pipe to the faucet." I was slightly worried until she mentioned that she had shut off that water main in the basement which moved my concern-o-meter up a few notches and I followed her inside to see what the situation was. In one of the few instances I can remember where things weren't actually as bad as I had imagined, I saw that the problem was really that the dude who built our house had decided to bond all the PVC pipe straight into the faucet without using any of those convenient supply hoses that can be easily removed. The crack in the pipe was really the least of our troubles we were going to have to cut the line anyways and install a straight valve before we could install a supply line that would fit the new faucet. Actually, I knew none of this at the time besides that we needed a PVC pipe cutter and some sort of adapter for the 1/2 inch line to connect a supply line to. My wife, the plumbing genius, returned to Lowe's to spend more money to fix a problem we really didn't need to fix in the first place. By the time she was back, I had finished shoveling out the coop and had the chickens put up for the night. I returned to my wife and her faucet nemesis inside covered in a fine dust of shaving and chicken poo and crawled under the sink to cut the lines with the pipe cutter she had acquired. That part of the operation went smoothly and we were ready to pull off the old faucet when we realized the previous installer had actually cemented the plastic nut holding the faucet to the sink to the metal nipple. After maybe an hour and a half of trying tin snips, hacksaw, reciprocating saw, pliers and elbow grease we finally got it off and the sink pulled out. The rest of the install went smoothly, as I followed orders like a monkey being directed by a plumbing puppet master. The bloody knuckles and PVC shavings in my eyes were nothing compared to the satisfaction of turning on the shiny new faucet for the first time and hearing the air clear the lines before gushing smoothly out in a triumphant flow. Sunday morning I had a strong hankering for some apple granola and made a beeline for the kitchen. April joined me as I munched happily while making up one of my famous lists laying out the tasks of the day. She asked me why I never cross anything off these lists, instead just adding the things not done to a newer, longer list. I did not have a satisfactory answer so I told her to mind her own beeswax. We ended up finishing pruning the entire bottom orchard and making the pile of wood to be chipped even more enormous. I had planned on taking some pictures to accompany this post but the sun was on the way down and I was already beat. So that's what it was, another weekend gone, a little more done and lots more still left on the list...God willing, we'll get most of it done by next winter.