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Pack it up, pack it in. Let me begin!

It’s been a busy month. As usual I am stretched too thin. I am trying to launch a new web site that involves a staggering amount of data entry. I am trying to redo our 4th bedroom so it is no longer the “Room of Shame” and I’m trying to get some stuff done for work. Throw in the usual  farm things like filling the trough (the cattle knocked out the cord to the tank heater),  the hot tub (its leaking somewhere), and the wood furnace (its cold out), and fetching beef from the butcher (tasty meat!) and I am seriously jumping around. And yes, I know that filling the hot tub is not a traditional farm chore, but you’ve never had to keep the hose reel in the mud room so it won’t freeze because you need to add water to the hot tub (and/or the wood furnace) every two days.

I got more task than cops at a dunkin doughnuts! (as the song says)

The thing is, January is when they tell you – they being the folks who write books on living on farms – that January is for maintaining equipment and getting ready for cutting timber or collecting maple syrup or something. I added diesel to the tractor the other day, but that’s been about it.  At least, it smelled like diesel. Oh well. The tractor is still running, so it’s probably fine. In any case, people always assume that country life is at a slower pace than city life. No. That’s just the lack of a rush hour fooling you. We’re busy out here, too. Maybe busier. We’ve got PTA meetings  and soccer and most everything else, with the possible exception of avant garde art gallery openings, AND we’ve got livestock on top of that.

Think about that the next time you fantasize about moving to the country. Your hectic life could get MORE hectic. On the other hand, you could just decide to pay someone to rehab the 4th bedroom and save yourself a big hassle, but where’s the fun in that? Its so….city.

Few things in life give a sense of accomplishment like laying in wood for the winter. Maybe running a marathon or completing an advanced degree in Astrophysics or finishing the Kenworth platter at Deano’s. Whatever. All I’m saying is that when you start the day with a giant pile of wood to split and finish the day with a neatly stacked pile of wood ready for burning when it finally gets nasty cold outside (or, as my friend Ivan has been known to say, “ass cold”) it feels really good. That might just be the Short’s Brew India Pale Ale talking, because after splitting and stacking a couple tons of firewood, one needs a decent ale and a lot of Ben Gay. Both should be applied strategically. For instance, Ben Gay should not be taken internally, but a good IPA simply cannot be appreciated otherwise.

Let’s just say that when I waved goodbye to Carmen and Sheryce, my two crazy friends who volunteered to help me, I walked back in the moonlight to view a looming tower of wood and sighed with relief. I’d started the day with about 2 days worth of wood ready. I finished the day with enough for about a month and a half. Of course, I need another 3 months worth, but what the heck. Here’s the thing though: most of it is still totally wet. ATTENTION CITY FOLK: wet wood is bad. The good thing is that my outdoor wood furnace can burn darn near anything. The bad news is that it craps up the inside of the furnace something fierce. The wood was dropped in July, but since I’m just now splitting it, its still really wet. Give me a break, I totally gutted and redid my kids’ rooms in August and we had soccer up until 2 weeks ago.

Now, here’s the thing. I had a ton of help. I borrowed the splitter from Carmen. I borrowed the hands of Sheryce. Many hands make light work. Both helped me with some real manual labor to get things done. We did this while their kids played in the hot tub – managing to blow the breaker with all the splashing, I might add – and playing Pacman on the TV (thanks Jackks Pacific!) – or riding around in the bucket of the Kubota. I’m sure that’s an OSHA violation, but I also think OSHA is based in a city somewhere.

Finally, it got too dark to work, even with the Kubota’s headlights illuminating the splitter.  Note to Kubota: next time you redesign the Grand series, put the damn headlights somewhere not totally blocked by the loader bucket that 99% of your tractors are equipped with. We headed inside and let the kids play card games and hide n’ seek while we warmed up with coffee and craft brewed India Pale Ale. Drinking IPA and using a Kubota might disqualify me from “true country” but for an urban to rural transplant, it was just fine with me. Now, where is the Ben Gay?

It was a beautiful fall weekend. The temperature was over 65 on Sunday. A perfect day to sit in the backyard and yak with friends while kids run around and play in the leaves. Sadly, one glance at the iPhone Weather Channel app told me what I knew in my heart: it was an all too short Indian Summer, lasting about 3 days from Saturday to Monday. I sighed a lot as I drove the tractor into the back to pick up a couple loads of cut wood.

That might be because as the sun was fading as I was finishing the wood, and I realized that it was the last warm, sunny Sunday for awhile, which in turn meant that I better step up my efforts to get some firewood laid in before the winter really starts to bite. Still, I like to think I was actually waxing sentimental about the fleeting moments of respite we have in a crazy world.

Tomorrow is election day. Not just here in Rural America, but everywhere. Its a tweener, so no state and national offices are being voted on in Michigan. That said, it’s an important day. Michigan’s state budget is a fiasco of disastrous proportions. County and city officials being elected this year are looking at a $300 per student education funding decrease slated to take effect about the time they are sworn in. I spoke with Fritz Sprietzer, an Allegan County commissioner, and he says that county funding looks bad this year, worse in 2010 and awful in 2011. In other words, until well after the next elections. Given the already dilapidated state of the nominally paved road I live on, its hard to imagine that things are going to get worse. Our entire sheriff department is already wedged into a mere 1600 square feet of office space in the county jail and plans to build a new facility look stalled into oblivion for dubious reasons beyond financial.

Its into this fun-filled environment that my father has tossed his hat into the proverbial ring for Allegan City Council. I live just outside the city, so I can’t vote for him, but IF you live in Allegan city limits (all 2 of you reading this!) should think about it. We have one candidate who was a convicted felon in Virginia (when he was a police officer, no less), at least one incumbent who doesn’t return phone calls or show up for any city events, and one newcomer who wants to “create a more festive atmosphere” for Allegan. Festive? I had a more substantive platform than that when I ran for Student Government Treasurer on a platform of “Stop the Bran Flake Menace”.

Now, my father has his faults. At 60, he’s starting to go deaf and will get mad at me for mentioning it here, and I hate how his lawn always looks better than mine, but when he tackles a problem, he does it. Even if all he has to work with is duct tape and a rusty screwdriver, he’ll improvise something. He’s also pretty good at reading a spreadsheet, something more politicians ought to try. What does he think about gay marriage? Who cares? How about making sure that the new waste treatment plant gets paid for or getting the sheriff into new space at the old Haworth plant?

And that’s the thing with local politics. Politics, as such, don’t matter that much. Its about the people. Your local officials probably have more impact on your life than the President ever does. And you might even know them. Maybe your Dad isn’t running for office this fall, but take the time to go vote anyway. The local school or the road in front of your house might depend on it.

The wood fairy came to my house while I was out camping in 29 degree weather this weekend. Actually, two wood fairies visited. One dropped off a load of cut firewood. The other put some of it in my wood furnace while I shivered in my tent halfway across the county. At this point, my city friends are going: and how much did THAT cost you? It cost nothing other than a little friendship capital and hunting rights.

My friend Brandon hunts my property, which is a sort of deer highway connector – like I-290 in Chicago  or I-575 in Atlanta. Nothing of interest in between the end points. In any case, Brandon drops me a few loads of wood in exchange for permission to hunt. He got a 3 point buck last week. Me? I wasn’t going to hunt anyway. I raise cattle. Much less sitting around in cold tree stands. In any case, my friend Sheryce came by and closed the chicken coop and tossed a load of wood into the furnace for me as well. After shivering in a tent all night, it was nice to come home to a warm house, believe me!

The point is that as much as I love all my Facebook friends, sometimes, it pays to get to know your physical neighbors as well. Even though our houses are much further apart out here, I think we’re a lot closer as neighbors than in most places where the houses are right next to each other.