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After blazing a trail through the ultrahip Crystal Lake night scene, Cath and I returned to BLF to welcome our newest arrivals – April, Lavender and Charlie. The latter is a an elderly draft horse about the size of a Ford Excursion. We’re boarding them for a friend while she moves. She was kind enough to let me take the last round bale in her barn which my cattle haven’t stopped eating since I dropped it in the bale feeder last night. It’s like Old Country Buffet for Highlands. Sooner or later, they’ll have to stop eating, but it won’t be today. In the meantime, I’ve got the horses behind the barn so they don’t get injured in the non-stop eatathon going on in the North pasture.

Such is the life of the Urban to Rural transitioner. One night you’re hanging out drinking after hours in a posh wine and cheese bar discussing Broadway (that would be Cath, not I!) with minor celebs and the next night, you’re trying to make sure that a 30 year old draft horse standing about 19 hands tall doesn’t get bonked by “sprightly little” Highland cows. Somewhere in the bowels of Google a server just died trying to figure the relevance between Highland cows and Caroline Rhea. Best of luck there.

Costaki and Caroline put on a great show. Our friends Ivan and Leanne were awesome hosts and insanely patient about the fact that we showed up 2.5 hours late to their house because Rural Man here forgot to allow for crosstown traffic on a Saturday afternoon. (Note: The best way to get from Lincoln Park to Mt. Prospect doesn’t involve Lincoln Ave.) Ivan’s firebrand mom, Mary, was a hit as well. I’d link to the documentary about her and her late-husband Craig, but I don’t have the link. Neat stuff. Ivan and I got to geek out about miniatures games and RPGs as well. If I could move all these people closer to my cattle and horse boarding operation, I’d be in heaven. So would Cath.

Until that day, I’ll just have to content myself with giant draft horses in one place and goofy discussions in another.

The turkeys are in the freezer. I trailered them over to Homer Skinner, the butcher, yesterday morning. After work I picked up 12 gigantic (22 -33 pounds) birds, bagged and tagged, ready for Thanksgiving. I’m less excited about eating them than I am about not having to deal with them anymore! We kept them around an extra 4-6 weeks during which time they ate me out of house and home. AND, we had to herd them into the coop every night because they’d gotten so big they didn’t want to go through the door anymore. Fat bastards. I blame the Cub Scouts.

I did the math last night as well. I think I will probably break even on the birds. I might make as much as $75, but I lost track of their feed costs, so I was guessing. After all our hard work, I can almost take Cath out to dinner at a nice place after we drive the turkeys over to Chicago. We start boarding horses on Sunday as well. I can’t wait to see how I lose money on that one.

Yes. Horses. You’ve probably seen them on old TV shows and in movies. I swore I’d never keep horses until the kids could take care of them by themselves, but a student of Cath’s was in a bind and said she’d keep them in round bales. How could I say no? (That’s a rhetorical question, thank you very much.) On Sunday then, we’ll have 3 long-faced equines joining our 5 Highlands for awhile. That’s me. Mr. Rural. Soon, I’ll be wearing a path to “Chad’s Western Wear and Tack” to buy fancy shirts and show outfits. It’s only a matter of time.

Until then, I’ll drive to work. Just not always with a trailer full of turkeys.

Every summer I’m busy and I think that fall will be a nice relief and things will slow down. Ha! I’ve been snowed in (figuratively) since Labor Day. We only have a couple more weeks of soccer, which is good, but by then it’ll be too late to get much done in the way of big projects outside. I’ve got even more wood to cut, and we close on a 2.5 acre lot just to the north of ours on Tuesday. 2.5 acres isn’t much, but our north pasture *already uses* about 1 of those acres! It was important to get the land, even though the retail price I paid galls me. Ugh. To graze cattle on. Fencing of the land (that isn’t already part of the pasture) will have to wait until Spring though. Too much to do elsewhere until then.

Cath dug up some potatoes that survived our misplanting and the brutal summer weather. It would be kind to call it a crop. They’re mostly small, but we’ll do better next year. We also just cleaned the chicken coop, barn, garage and the stable area in anticipation of visiting Cub Scouts. I’m still not done, my tool area looks like a pipe bomb went off in it, scattering nuts, bolts, nails and bits of tools by Ryobi all over the place, but its a lot nicer than it was. We desperately need to finish that last room in the house.

In other farm news, Blossom sure looks pregnant. I predict a January baby just to make my life difficult. She’s like that. We had some nice neophyte farmers look at Thorndale on Sunday. Nice folks who, clinically insane like us, are starting a small farm from scratch without any prior experience. Wow. I should hang onto their number even if they don’t buy Thorndale.

We take a break from farm life soon though. Cath and I are both trooping over to see my friend Costaki perform near Chicago. His famous girlfriend is the headliner, so it’ll be fun to watch both of them back to back. We’ll also check in with our good friends Ivan and Leanne, who are quietly subverting Crystal Lake from within. That last sentence ends in a preposition, but it reads well, so deal with it grammar police.

Before we say hi to all these preposition disaster friends, we’ll be taking the turkeys and ducks to the butcher. I wanted to do this a month or so ago, as they are eating me out of house and home, but we held onto them for the Cub Scout visit. Cath inquired if there was a “Plucking badge or belt loop” the kids could earn, but alas. No such luck.

I thought for sure I’d be able to get Stella Artois in South Bend. I didn’t count on spending so much time in scenic Mishawaka, part of the greater South Bend Metropolitan area (AKA “Michiana”, which is dumb, because no one in Michigan calls it that. The Michigan side refers to itself as Southwest Michigan. Given the strength of the economy in either state, they might just want to call it “Mississippi North”, but I digress). Admiring fans showered Costaki, Tony and Mike in buckets of Bud and the occasional JagerBomb, but sadly, no Stella. My Oktoberfest brew should be ready to drink starting next week, so I’ll have to make due until then.

In the meantime, I’m reveling in desk ownership. Last night I did something I haven’t done in 2 years. I put things…INTO DRAWERS. Hey, you try using a bookcase for a desk for two years. You’d be excited, too.

Farm Report: On the way back from South Bend, I stopped and picked up a truckload of firewood at my friend Dave’s. Dave has another three whole trees to cut up though, so I’ll be back soon. It’s definitely fall. Winter is almost here. Cath is moaning about the children’s extracurricular activity load and I am trying to figure out how to cut firewood AND work on insulating the crawlspace in between insanely under-resourced projects at work (Hey, I’m an Army of One. Well, half. I got dragged into a new project that should be a full time gig without being allowed to drop my other duties. I’m sure it will all turn out well. Feh.) and debauched weekends in Mishawaka. Not so bad, really.