Rough Patch

I'm in the screen porch. It has become my springtime refuge on occasion in the evenings. Because of the near incessant rain this year, the roof is often needed. Due to the resulting sogginess the bugs are often unbearable, and so the screen is wonderful. Since it is next to the baby's room, its location is ideal. I get to breath in the fresh air, listen to the birds, the wind, look at something other than the endless dirty dishes, the perennial laundry baskets, the stack of papers needing my attention, and decompress for a few minutes sometimes in the evenings.

Tonight the frogs' throats are thrumming down by the pond. A mockingbird is wrapping up his last songs. A catbird is mewling in the dusk. The barn swallows are twittering as they swoop over the hayfield catching the last insects of the day. The crickets are warming up for their night-long symphony. The tulip poplars' large leaves are rustling at intervals in the wind. A humming bird is buzzing around the impatiens flowers behind me. The first bats are circling. And I sit, sit and breathe, collect my swarming thoughts from the scattered edges of my mind.

It's always something. That's what life's made up of, an endless onslaught of, well, something. Last week it was things like the storms, the power outage, ticks on the kids (including the 4 month old), a coon in the grease pan under the grill, a miserable teething baby, and and over-tired and acting-out preschooler. This weekend it was stuff like kidney stones: the intense pain, the passing of crimson-colored urine, the worry about whether it could be something else. It was making cookies for the gentleman at church who always hands some out after Mass- but just has shoulder surgery. It was the in-laws camping on the land and visiting.

Today it was the printer. I needed to print off and send in my oldest son's assignments. He's remotely enrolled this year, for the first time ever, in a private school. I need to submit a bunch of end-of-quarter paper work and the printer is probably inoperable. It is my sons, unable to settle for bed, singing and yelping and raising a ruckus until too late at night despite my intervention. It is my husband, overwhelmed by work and still at the office, leaving me with all the evening chores... again.

I'm really not surprised. Like I said, the endless string of stuff is life. That's why heaven is called, "eternal rest", the "heavenly banquet", and "paradise". Nothing is perfect "here below". The respites are few and far between. So I try to embrace my proverbial crosses.

Everything is dark now. The only thing I can see is the sky above the tree line and the occasional darting bat. Just now a dim shape walked only inches from me alongside the porch. I hissed at it, and startled, a raccoon scuttled along- only to return shortly thereafter to the grill to fiddle with the cover. I had to chase her off again. I guess that is my cue to return inside and get done what I can before the baby rises again, my husband returns, and I'm a complete jelly. I'm just hoping I have the stamina to push through this rough patch, this bit called life.

Outage

Yesterday was eventful, as usual. I awoke at about 2:30 in the morning to a flash of light and a crashing boom. The storm had caused our power to go out. I got up and called in the outage and spent the rest of the night getting in and out of bed to tend the 3 month old. We didn't have electricity for over eleven hours yesterday. Luckily we have a generator, which we turned on periodically to keep the refrigerator cold and to flush toilets and get water. (Our well pump is electric.) It was a first world problem, for which I am only grateful. It makes me appreciate what we have on a daily basis. My children got a kick out of seeing the repair men too. But it still complicated my day.

Additionally, the tractor place came and hauled off our tractor for repair yesterday. It needs a new clutch, which my husband can't replace himself because it is part of the tractor's structure and requires special stands and such to complete. A giant flatbed came and took it away.

My oldest boy installed the new belt on the riding mower yesterday as well. My husband had made the long drive to the big city to pick up a new belt from the dealer earlier in the week. They gave him the wrong one. He found this out only after trying to put it on. But he went back and got it exchanged, and my son put it on. Unfortunately, the intermittent rains we've been having are seemingly never ending, so between the delay in lawn mower repair and the tractor repair being completed by someone else who is "scheduled out a few weeks", the place is getting rather jungle-ish.

After the power kicked back on, I washed laundry and dishes like crazy, and the children flushed the toilets with abandon. After the tantrum-ing preschooler wound down and the teething baby fell asleep, we finally got around to collecting another water sample last night also (water quality issues, well repair/modification).  The jar has to sit for 48 hours before we can read the results. Hopefully it turns up clear. I'm tired of the brood washing and brushing with the filtered water at the kitchen sink. Oh, and I took a much-needed, long shower. That was nice.

gratuitous photo of my teething 15 week old

I did discover that the telephone line is down, though. I hadn't thought to check it earlier, assuming that the cordless phone was out of commission due to the lack of electricity, so something unusual was saved for today. What would it be here on the homestead without a daily adventure, anyway?! Besides, I get swallows over the hay field, the screech of baby birds being fed, the smell of French Toast, baby smirks, and cool breezes to tide me  through today. 

Mechanical Failure

So to add proverbial insult to injury, not only did we recently replace the sewer line and just install a new well pipe, the clutch on the tractor broke. Ordinarily my handy husband can fix mechanical problems, but in this case, the clutch makes up part of the structure of this tractor. So the tractor literally needs to be split into two parts in order to get to the clutch. This requires a special stand and 4 floor jacks. So, although the part "only" costs $200, the labor is outrageous. Ouch.

The clutch went out yesterday as my husband was using the flail mower. (Flail mowers are awesome by the way!) So tonight he got out the riding mower in order to do what he could with it. And.... the belt broke. Nice.

Plus, we still haven't gotten the water quality for the well tested again. After the disparate test results of yore, we no longer trust our local lab and sent away for do-it-yourself test kits. I was too cheap to pay for expedited shipping, so the tests haven't even shown up yet! It's still jugged water and brushing our teeth at the kitchen sink with water from the faucet filter. Ugh.

But we did manage to put together an over-sized swing set! Now if only my 3 year old wouldn't freak out every time the 5 year old wants a turn with the half-bucket swing. Argh.... or when he wants to be lifted into it..... or to be pushed constantly....  This new baby/daddy travel/big sister "schools"now thing has been hard on him.

These are some of my "first world problems" today. That's what I console myself with in moments of stress. "It could always be worse."

Nursling

Snuffling and seeking
As if in a panic
You nuzzle and nudge

Warm lips suckling
You relax in satisfaction
As I cuddle and croon

I rock
As your fuzzy warm head
Just fits in the crook of my elbow
Your chubby arm
Tucks snugly between my breasts
Your round tender belly
Nestles neatly beneath them
Your chunky legs
Wrap gently around my side
And tuck securely under my arm

We fit like puzzle pieces
Nestled together
You
Curled in my arms
Me
Cradling a perfect parcel
Of love incarnate

Well

Before we put an offer on this place, we sought out and contacted the couple who had lived here the 17 years before the fly-by-night folks that were listing it for sale. Amidst the information we received was that they had "never had any trouble with the well." We knew that the owners at the time had replaced the well pump. That wasn't too surprising since it was 40 years old. We thought it was one less thing for us to worry about. We had a comprehensive water test done, and the quality was better than the water co-op to which we belonged at the time. We thought we were good (as long as the nearby quarry didn't mess with the water table.)

As it turns out, the contractor the previous owners hired to replace the pump broke the bolts off of the well cap when they removed it. So when they were finished, they just covered the top of the hole with the rubber seal... and covered it back up. Yup, the well head is buried. I'm sure the gentleman who built this home designed it that way so that there was no unsightly pipe in the front yard. The down side was that when the submersible pump failed, the well had to be unearthed. Digging it up every 40 years is probably not too unreasonable. It's not too deep.

Since the cap was not replaced and the well left unsealed, we of course ended up with water issues after a time. I noticed them a few weeks ago when we had some torrential rains in a short amount of time. Although the water tested positive for E. coli initially, a second water test (before doing anything) came up clear for E. coli. That's impossible if we had actually had a contamination before. Maybe our initial sample jar was contaminated?

I'll spare you the details, but we had a trusted well guy unearth the well and add a pitless adaptor. Cha-CHING! That was pricey. So now we have the muddy path from the new sewer line in the back yard, and the muddy patch from the well extension in the in the front yard. At least they match, right? Well, except for that big ugly pipe that now sticks out above ground. We'll see what the next water test turns up before we do anything else. And we'll have a DIFFERENT lab test it. 

Oh, and I learned the the pump is 350 feet down. That's great news. The well man was impressed by the depth. And who knows how much deeper the well is?! 

Mornings

Mornings are brutal here. In general, the run-down goes like this. I go to bed late. I don't sleep through the night. The sleep I do get is poor and fraught with nightmares and weird dreams. I get up early. 

Mornings really, really hurt. I sort of scrape myself from the bed by force of will. I always wake up sore and with a head ache. And the general goal for the day is to keep busy/moving so as not to face having to get myself going again. Am I doing something wrong? Maybe. Should I change what I am doing? Probably. But I am too busy holding on for dear life! Besides, heaven is called "eternal rest" for a reason, right? 

Anyway, my mornings are currently mitigated by baby smiles, bird song, and views like the one above. I snapped the picture early yesterday. The humidity here culminates in morning fog that quickly burns off as the sun hits it.

Oh, and that mocking bird from a previous post? It sings for all it's worth in the morning too! And when I can manage to in the midst of MY morning fog- I sing too.

Mockingbird

If I am lucky, I sit in my screened porch in the late evening. One of the lovely things about this is the nightly serenade by a local mockingbird. His song is lusty and long-lasting, exuberant and confident. Instead of the softer evening calls of other songbirds, the mockingbird is more of a showman. He often likes to sit on a bare branch in a nearby copse. Then I see him silhouetted against the silvery evening sky as he cycles through all of the songs he has assimilated. 

I can't help but to smile somehow as he brazenly belts out all of the melodies and sounds that he knows. His repetition of everything that he has found inspiring and worthwhile is uplifting. Like the mockingbird, I hope that I can reflect to the world and amplify all that I find that is good and beautiful. Like him, I may not be a perfect imitation of that which I seek to emulate. Like him, I may stand out or be different, but I hope that the way I live  also causes others to experience a bit of beauty and the unquenchable joy that is life. 

In the meantime, the mockingbird's song resonates in my soul like wordless vespers, and I send this aspiration as a petition to the heavens alongside his indomitable songs.