The Surly Farmer

Yesterday was Dr. Evil’s mother’s birthday, so we made the trek ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE ROAD to wish her well and present her with a vegan/gluten free gift basket. Ask me, I think I’d boil and eat the wicker basket the gifts came in before I’d hit the stuff inside. They have been doing the vegan thing for over a year now and seem to be pretty good with it at this point. We tease them about their cereal-for-dinner evenings, but had to chuckle at ourselves when we were eating oatmeal on a Saturday morning (yes, friends, it was a pasrtyless Saturday, and no good can come from that). There was dairy-free cheesecake. I passed.

Dr. Evil’s brother and brood also attended. Two boys, ages 11 and 7, and one girl 5-ish, and they seem to be made of pure energy. Chattering, storytelling, kidsplaining, leaping, bouncing, circling. Holy smokes. We stayed for a bit less than two hours and I was spent. If you want to feel old, just hang out with young kids. What’s amazing to me is how unfazed parents are by all the tumult, but I suppose it’s what you get accustomed to. One of the birthday cards bore some priceless advice, though: Never invite a black hole to your birthday party. I’d extend this caution to all parties, but it’s solid advice nonetheless.

It’s foggy and damp today, so we have a fire going. I hope everyone’s Sunday is as quiet as they want it to be.

Oh, Dr. Evil tried to kill me, but I’ll save that story for tomorrow.

Can you really claim to live somewhere until you’ve experienced that place’s particular brand of bureaucracy? I say no. And to that end, Dr. Evil and I are headed off this morning to tangle with the beast of beasts: the DMV. Wish us luck, and I’ll be back later with a full report on the festivities.

PM UPDATE:

The photo I posted prior to going the the DMV (sorry, BMV) was a stock image from Google. Here’s what we really found:   

There was no line, and four clerks, three of them quite pleasant, even. It was one of the better DMV experiences of my life. Naturally, we could not do all the things we wanted to do in one trip—that’s just the nature of the DMV, I think—but as interactions with the government go, it was a solid A.

Side note: Two younger men came in to renew their licenses while we were conducting our business. They both declined the offer to register to vote.

We weren’t overwhelmed by noise in Charleston, but there was always the hum of I64 way in the distance, the sound of coal trains rolling alongside the Kanawha, barking dogs, and, in season, the various roars of air conditioning units. Here, it’s just quiet. We are a hundred yards or so off the road (it just seems like two miles when you’re walking to the mailbox in the cold), but traffic is sparse, so sparse in fact that your attention is drawn to any car (truck) that comes down the road. We did, however, encounter a traffic jam last week, but the goats eventually got out of road and we were underway again in no time. It’s been snowing and icing for the last few days, which adds another buffer to the noise of the world. I know that spring will bring new noise, what with machinery springing back to life, but it’ll be nothing like the lawnmower chorus of the suburbs. It’s quiet. And I like it.

Not bad. Got rid of a bunch of empty moving boxes, wrestled a freezer into the basement, met with the builder about rehabbing an outbuilding . . . oh, and I roasted some coffee. Really, really roasted some coffee. Who else needs a beer?

How is it that the shortest month feels like the longest month? It can’t be just the weather, can it? We’ve had some cold spells over this winter so far, and more snow earlier than usual, but as a whole, it’s been a very typical winter around here, yet from here, March 1 looks like a very distant mountain peak. Our family jokes about February being the worst month, with NOTHING good about it; this is because it’s the birth month of Kid Number 1 (22 this year? No way. Way.) Now that the Super Bowl is firmly ensconced in February (yes, children, it used to occur in January, back in civilized times), I suppose there is that to look forward to, but my enthusiasm for the NFL in general continues to wane, and lately the Super Bowl has not raised my interest much. Add to that Tom frickin’ Brady, and I don’t even want to hunt for the remote control, ya know? And don’t think that I’m overlooking the general shafting Black History Month gets by being relegated to the shortest, coldest month. Valentine’s Day, you say? Yeah, VD, Hallmark, and the chocolate and floral industries can kiss right off. Heck, this February is so weak, it doesn’t even get its own full moon.

I’ll say this for February, however: At least it’s not a big, fat liar like March. We’ll discuss March’s inadequacies another time, I promise.

Have I mentioned that everything is 25 miles from us? Groceries? 25 miles. Hardware store? 25 miles. Dining (other than Subway)? 25 miles. There’s a stop-and-rob in the village nearest us, so we’re good for gasoline, Twinkies, and Coors Light, but if you want anything else . . . you guessed it: 25 miles. This has changed the way that I shop. Prior to this, I was more of an every third day grocery shopper. We kept staples and frozen meats and whatnot in the house, but for day-to-day things, I generally would not plan out farther than three days. The new way tends to create a sense of panic when you are at the grocery store, “Oh, I’d better get two of those. No, THREE.” And beer? Fuhgetaboutit. I’m considering getting a kegerator. (Just kidding. Probably.)

This distance problem is especially meaningful come Friday. Dr. Evil and I like to treat ourselves to pastries on Saturday mornings while we watch This Old House. Hey, we’re wild. Now, that means either baking something here (to which we’re not averse, but c’mon, every week?), or trekking into town, 30 minutes each way, and probably using the trip to run some other in-town errand. Pastries and paint. Pastries and oats for the horses. Pastries and a full-out Friday grocery shop. Oy. Maybe our new tradition can be Frosted Flakes and This Old House. Surely the Little General has fresh milk, right? Right?

Alright, I’m going into town, anyone want anything?

A brief timeline of recent events:

15 January 2018—Moved from Kanawha County, West Virginia to Vinton County, Ohio

28 January 2018—Ran out of coarse salt for my grinder

29 January 2018—Ordered one pound of coarse salt from J.Q. Dickenson Salt Works . . . in Kanawha County, West Virginia.

**EDIT**

31 January 2018—Salt arrived via USPS. The same day I travelled to and from Kanawha to do some work on the old house.

The move is done. Well, mostly, anyway; I still have stuff at the old crib that couldn’t be taken by the movers, oh, and Buford the Smoker of course. We packed and packed and packed, right up until the evening before the movers arrived. For a while leading up to moving day, I was stress waking thinking there was no way we’d be ready in time. But we were, you know, because we had to be. It snowed the days before the movers arrived, but the weather held off on moving day, for which I’m certain the movers were quite grateful. Our ski jump of a driveway is challenging in good weather and perilous in snow and ice. Six guys and two trucks later, we were packed out (419 pieces!!) and Dr. Evil and I sped west trying to beat more weather. We arrived at the farm just after dark, and Dr. Evil’s parents were kind enough to bring us a picnic dinner. It was snowing by the time we arrived and was ridiculously cold. The delivery of our stuff was supposed to occur on Tuesday, but we got a couple weather delays, which were actually kind of welcome. Our stuff arrived on Thursday, and it’s been an unpacking frenzy since then, but we are pretty well settled in now.

It’s very different here, of course, and I’m finding something new and notable every day. For example: Being out of the hills and hollers, we now have a huge slice of sky visible to us. Crazy.

The weather has been fickle, warming up after the move, which has turned the landscape into a bog. I am now the proud owner of big, clunky muck boots.

We had a scare with Zöe the Cat, thinking she’d managed to slip out of the house one very cold evening. She was nowhere to be found in the house, and there was a trail of catprints in the snow going to the barn and back, then out to the road where they disappeared. I looked for her for a long time, then gave up and came home. Hours later, we heard a *thunk* from a utility area (which we’d searched twice), and I opened it up to find her covered in sawdust and cobwebs, yelling for some food, Damned cat. Needless to say, she got spoiled that night, and access to that space is now restricted to humans only.

We were not as fortunate with Roscoe the Wonder Dog, however. Sad news, my friends: Roscoe is gone. He died last Sunday and my heart is broken. He was nearly eighteen years old and had cheated the canine grim reaper a year and a half ago, but I was not ready to see him go, not by a long shot. Hug your critters. Excuse their annoyances. Give them a treat. Tell them they’re loved. They know it already, but it’ll be good for you.

Yes friends, I have indeed dropped the ball at the Surly Farmer. Sorry, but things have been kinda hectic here at Casa de Uhaul Boxes. Add to that the holidays, which seem to be going by faster, yet require more energy with each passing year.

The girls came home for the holidays, our last Christmas in this house, and the girls’ last days in the house. Girl Number One left this morning, to be followed by her sister this weekend. It’s stupid cold here lately, but that did not stop GNO from taking a quick spin around the exterior, taking it all in for the last time. She moved into this house when she was 10 years old, so this is effectively her childhood home. There were tears. Coming back into the house, I noted a cosmic emptiness, bigger than when she left for college the first year, and that’s saying something. I’ll be interested to see Girl Number Two’s reaction upon her departure. Dr. Evil is traveling next week, so it’ll be just me, the boxes, and the geriatric animals next week. Should be interesting.

I’ll be packing up the main computer in the next few days, so this’ll probably be the last post until we get settled at the farm. I did want to take time to wish everyone a happy New Year, and hope for a much better 2018. Thanks for reading, and I’ll be back as soon as possible, broadcasting from a whole new ZipCode. (Four? How did I end up with a 4 ZipCode??)