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First, my apologies for not posting recently. I’ve been too busy livin’ la vida rural. The short Clarks and I attended the Midwest Highland Association BBQ last Saturday. The kids wanted to see our future cow – Fieldstone Farm Blossom. Then, I’ve been busy ripping out some windows and putting in new ones on the house. You can’t really stop in the middle of that project. Once the window is out, you’ve got a giant hole in the wall until you’re done. Hate to go to bed under a mosquito net. Finally, I had to set up delivery of our first batch of hay. It comes in tomorrow. I’m cashing serious family chips to get it put in before it rains.

Most importantly, though – our apple trees work! I’ve been so busy I hadn’t checked the trees recently. They’re so old and ill-maintained that I figured there was no way they’d produce any fruit. Wrong, city boy. Of course, now I’m desperately reading up on pruning and spraying. Spraying ain’t organic, but I prefer worm-free apples when I can get them. I’ll have to figure out the organic part later on.

In any case, this saves me a ton o’ work this summer. I’d planned on putting in a batch of apple trees late in August, but since we already have some- however ossified – I can wait until next spring. Once I’ve taken care of any number of other details. Aside: Apple trees take 3-5 years to bear fruit, so missing a growing season is pretty huge.

To sum up: busy as hell. Hope to have an actual cow on my actual land by next Tuesday with actual hay in my actual barn. I also hope to have an actual engine in my actual truck, which is sitting gutted in a bay at Allegan Transmission right now while they send out to Grand Rapids for a new one, but I digress.

I hope to post on Sunday, but we’ll see with the hay and the cow and stuff.

I didn’t get as much done this weekend as I wanted to. Mostly, this was my own fault. I had to make three trips up to Philly’s Feed on Saturday and two trips to Carter’s Lumber on Sunday. (Reference my earlier post on planning ahead if you like. I’m in a hurry and refuse to look it up myself, so it can’t be that great can it?) That’s the bad news. The good news is that we’re slowly but surely making progress.

I met with one contractor about interior work on our house. I’m very handy, but ripping out the old staircase, installing a new one and putting in a bathroom upstairs is out of my scope. I can’t imagine how many trips to Carter’s Lumber and Home Depot that would take. More than two. And that doesn’t count the umpteen months we’d be climbing a ladder to go upstairs to bed. I still work 40 hours a week, too. I learned on our last house to time repairs so that you could either live without the room for awhile or get it done quickly. I learned this because we were once without an upstairs bathroom for nine months. Cath says longer, but she’s exaggerating because the only other shower available was prison nasty.

I met with another contractor about doing our siding. Can’t wait to get that up. The house currently looks like…(let me think of a colorful analogy)…shit. Its a mix of siding types including “white trash shingle” also known as plywood. Nothing says you’ve failed in life quite like really weathered plywood covering up large sections of your home’s exterior. (Exception: Hurricane survivors currently suing their insurance company to get their money).

I met with Valerie White of Fieldstone Farm and we shook hands on a deal to sell me her prized Buttercup – a beautiful red 2 year old who’s due in November. I wanted to buy Buttercup’s half sister, too, but Valerie just couldn’t part with them both. Fair enough! One should be plenty to get started with. Especially with a late fall calf on the way. Valerie is hosting the Midwest Cattle Association BBQ next Saturday and I still need to put up some hay just in case, so we agreed to consummate the deal next week after the party.

I also built an add-on to the chicken brooder to give the fledgling poults more head room. They were bouncing off the roof when they got excited…but you must be tired of hearing about poultry by this point. If not, you should be writing this instead of me. I moved a shelf/clothesrod unit from Max’s room to the Master Bedroom closet, effectively doubling the amount of space in Max’s room by moving a tiny fraction of Cath’s thriftstore – er, wardrobe – into our walk-in closet. One day, Max will realize that our walk-in closet is bigger than his entire bedroom and there will be hell to pay in therapy and/or teen angst. Until then, everyone is happy with the current arrangement. Max and I scouted under the barn, too. Max thought it was a great adventure. I got cockleburs all over my socks.

The point of all this is that I did all this while playing Civ 4, watching E.T. with the kids, attending a big party Saturday night and eating a great breakfast out at Ruby’s Fine Foods (motto: “Your Family Restaurant”) on Sunday. Maybe I still haven’t unloaded the new water tank from the back of the truck, wacked weeds in the mudlot or changed the radiator fluid on the Benz, but I moved forward nonetheless. Slow and steady wins the race. Unless you’re racing top fuel funny cars.

I’m regularly amazed at how much I can get done if I stop planning and get off my duff and do it. I made a list last Sunday night (on my duff) because I felt I hadn’t gotten much done recently. Since then I’ve been knocking things out in bite size chunks (off duff). The motto of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy is “Acta Non Verba” – Deeds Not Words. Their motto should be “Having an actual Merchant Marine based in the U.S. would be nice, too”, but globalization is a bitch.

In any case, sometimes it feels good to do something. To make progress. Turn off the computer (I know, I have problems with this step as well) and go do a chore you’ve been putting off. You’ll be glad you did.

Cath is no longer a Ruppie! That’s Rural Unemployed Poor for you Yuppies (Young Urban Professional). Cath will be a school marm again, of course. She will also outearn me again, a fact which fills her with endless delight. Its no coincidence that both jobs I’ve had where she outearns me have been in the game industry. I’m no kept man though. I earn my keep by doing most of the cooking, auto repair, home improvement, animal husbandry and computer administration. I try to wash my hands in between doing the last two.

Still, its good that we’re both working or will be starting in the fall. I was waist deep in my 1992 GMC Sierra 4×4 last night. I don‚Äôt think it will help much that I changed plugs, PVC valve, air and fuel filters. I think I have a blown head gasket or worse ‚Äì worn out piston rings and valves. GM‚Äôs sales fell 16% in May. It‚Äôs probably a coincidence…

Some would say that people who buy $3500 pickups with 174,000 miles on them shouldn’t complain about heavy-duty maintenance. I’d agree more except my old Mercedes diesel has 248,000 miles on it and runs like a top. What really irks me is that I didn’t want a pickup. Try running a farm without one, though. It’d be like living in LA and relying on public transit. You might be able to do it, but you’d be late for all your auditions.

Its also hard to haul drywall on the bus. At least, that’s been my experience. Thus, money is important. There’s been some recent bubbling online about the cost of trying to get off the grid and be independent. I am not trying to do anything that radical and brother let me tell you, it ain’t cheap to live free.

Think about that the next time you dream of a place in the country. I stopped counting receipts from Tractor Supply Company and Home Depot aways back, but a quick survey of my garage floor will find many thousands of dollars in farm gizmos. And I still haven’t bought/made a cattle chute or a tractor. Now that Cath is employed I might bring up the latter again. Buying one that is. I’m not making a tractor, dammit. In any case, I’m a one man economic boom – I have my own line item on Allegan County’s income ledger. Even so, I feel guilty paying cash for things when apparently home equity loans are all the rage. I won’t feel guilty when I don’t go bankrupt later.

More deep thoughts coming your way this weekend. Stay tuned for my deranged ramblings on some thing or another.

First, let me address everyone who may be concerned that I have not posted about poultry in awhile. I ran home for lunch today to discover that a) no one had bothered to feed the chickens this morning and that b) one of the chicks is “pasting up”. For those of you not familiar with the term, go here. Of course, it could be worse. It could be cattle. I’m working on that, however. I need better hobbies.

The other poultry-related news is that I think I built my brooder about 6 inches too short. I don’t think a 4 week old poult (turkey chick for you city folk) is going to be able to stand upright in the one I built. Luckily, my l337 carpentry skills should allow me to graft on a 6 inch riser. I sooooo need better hobbies.

On the other hand, I met the world’s nicest marketing exec, Dave Arwen, who doubles as a gentleman rancher just outside Allegan. Max and I went over for 2 hours on Monday to talk to him about buying some of his cattle. Max blew my cover about 30 seconds into the field when he loudly announced to Dave and I that he was trying to avoid all the cow poops. Then, he asked if anyone ever had a “cow ride”. Then, he wanted to know why the one cow was standing in her own poop. He was very excited. Dave, of course, must think I am a Grade A moron for wanting to buy cattle when I obviously know de nada about them.

He might be right. Time will tell. Here’s a list of other moron things I’ve done:

• Bought a Fiat
• Bought an MG
• Bought an AMC-era Jeep
• Bought another Fiat
• Bought Sunbeam stock
• Married someone I can’t outsmart
• Lived in Oxford, Ohio.

You get the idea. Still, I’ll be talking with Dave again soon. After the cattle fun, we had some friends over from Chicago. Former Michiganders, they were still amazed by the whole “rural thing”. Then we all hopped in the hottub, drank cold alcoholic beverages and let the kids run around the tick infested yard. Bliss, really. The only thing missing was someone having to go post bail for Uncle Reggie “again”. Or cattle. I don’t have an Uncle in town, so hopefully cattle will make it just perfect.