The Farm is Not For the Faint of Heart. And Other Things.

Mike has been talking for some time about how we need to take the fence down along the front of the farm. (We do have to. The county is requiring us to build a shoulder the entire length of the property. They are also taking ten feet of our property along the entire stretch of frontage. So, the fence needs moved.)

In any case, when Mike would mention the fence, I would always blithely agree. "Oh yes, you are certainly right. That is one of the things we definitely need to get done. The fence must come down."

I don't know what I thought taking down more than a city-block's worth of barbed wire fencing would entail. In truth I guess I didn't think at all. So when we actually began working on it this weekend (in the 90-degree heat I might add) I was rather shocked to realize what a job "taking down the fence" was going to prove to be.

My job was primarily taking off the metal that held the barbed wire onto each post:

It is not a metal that readily bends. And you are trying to twist it off with barbed wire trying to cut you at every turn. I would use pliers to try and get a grip and untwist each side, and it took me probably twenty minutes to get my first one off. TWENTY MINUTES. There were I don't know how many posts like this. And each post had five strands of barbed wire. Meaning five of those metal bits on each of the posts. It felt hopeless. Give me some angry geese to feed in the freezing cold winter. Some bails of straw needing stacked. A pile of branches to be gathered and burned. But a barbed wire fence to take down? How innocently I had been existing.

(I even look older in that picture. I think a day on that fence might have taken a decade from my life? Ha.)

But, with that said, I did actually improve. Drastically. I went from getting one piece of metal off in twenty minutes to one about every minute or two! Jesse and Anders (and for a spell Penny) would help some with the metal and also follow behind pulling the posts out. And Mike wound up the miserable rolls of barbed wire and did all the other things I was oblivious to in my metal-twisting focus. And we got maybe a third of it done? (There are still gates needing taken down and the bigger wooden posts and railroad-tie posts removed.) It felt like the old "by small means are great things brought to pass" as it felt so tedious and the gains so miniscule that a third of the fence actually down seemed impossible to have gotten to. (And two-thirds more ... impossible to complete.) 

But maybe if we get some cooler weather? 

And coax our college kids home? (I won't tell them why of course. Hopefully they don't read this and stay away forever.)

But. It's probably good for all of us--the work that living on the farm (and readying to live on the farm) has and will necessitate. When you've taken down a barbed wire fence you feel ... well ... like someone who knows what it means to take down a barbed wire fence. And that ain't nothin'. (Even if Jesse and Anders moaned a great deal about how literally we were taking the "labor" component of "Labor Day" yesterday.)

I've always been a hard worker. There's no way to survive a home with ten children and their needs without being one. But this is a new kind of work for me. And it was interesting to me that I could be there working alongside Mike. For so many years it seemed that Mike would go do this sort of thing with whatever kids were old enough and my job was to take care of the babies. But now? The "babies" can all just come along. (Even if there is a fair amount of moping, and crying over a lost toy in the canal, and asking to go home.) 

(This part was actually pounding in some posts and making a smaller fence with some panels so the cows our neighbor is still running on the farm wouldn't escape with the fence down.)

Pulling posts.

More pulling. ...

They really were good workers. Penny even said she likes doing work on the farm!

I find Mike in his element (his element=manual labor/fixing/building/animals etc.) very attractive. 

The house will be back through these trees. Last picture of the farm before the fence came down.

IN OTHER NEWS.

News? 

I don't know. This post just seemed as good as any for tacking on a few random photos:

Abe after (just before?) receiving his jiu-jitsu blue belt.

Trampolining. I never tire of our new views. However we really don't have any big trees anywhere close to our rental. Which seems saddish for fall!

Mike out on the trampoline chatting with Mette after some angry blow up on her part lead her stomping away outside ready to forsake her family for good.

"Time". The kids get to do 30 minutes of some sort of electronics most days. They call it their "time". "Can I do time now?" "Have you finished your time yet, Mette?" Etc.

Look at them all staring at their devices. Charming. I blame Mike (who bought not only the Wii years ago, but both of these switches they are playing!). I guess he thought they'd think they were fun. And oh. They do. "Stop playing time. Is your time done? All right, you've lost your time tomorrow." And so forth.

A strange spot for a tired Starling to have put herself to sleep.

Hansie boy with Ellie.

Abe was home for about ten days between having to leave his Provo summer apartment and not yet being able to check in to his fall apartment. (They call it homeless week. And I don't know what all the students do who don't have family nearby!) In any case, he took Jesse and Anders fishing one of those days and climbing another day.

This sign as you enter our little town (yes it's the actual town name) has always had the white part at the top mostly rubbed off. I had no idea what it was supposed to have been until recently when Mette went around the backside (where the same image was more intact) and took this picture. While it is a true representation of where we live, I was quite disappointed. No lovely mountains or grains of wheat. Oh no. Zoom in if you dare.

Penny got asked to the Homecoming dance by her good friend Dan. He asked her with a princess/prince sort of theme, so she took that and made it a bit more Star Warsy in her reply. (Yes, that is a Baby Yoda waffle maker.)

And this one photo I have from my niece Maddie's wedding reception a week or two ago. My older sisters Kathy and Amy. Shannon and Megan were there as well. But apparently just the three of us felt to gather for a photo? I don't recall, but I can't think I was too ready for a photo as I had food in my mouth when it was taken. So.