Farm Sitting Day Five

The best laid plans...

I've come to the conclusion that planning is what you do to make yourself feel less than successful. I truly wanted to be done with the weed eating around the pasture fence today but after the yard, I didn't even get to it and the yard looked a little iffy at times.

Let me start at the beginning. I took Bowser on his morning run, which I decided today is more to let him relieve himself outside the yard than for the exercise, and this time we visited an oil/gas well by going to the left instead of to the right on Signal Ridge. This oil/gas well isn't on my parents' property, although the road that dead ends at it cuts through their property. I had visited it when it was relatively new and there was a lot of raw earth in a crude mud mixture around it. Now it looks relatively benign but I still wouldn't want to eat any food grown on the ground around it, including the meat from animals that grazed on the grasses around it.

West Virginia is one of several states that allow mineral rights to be sold separately from surface rights and when it comes to getting to the minerals, the surface owners have very few rights. They receive no compensation for the surface that is violated or directly used by the mineral gatherers. In fact, out of spite one mineral rights owner made a well pad for a well that he never intended to drill. This included bulldozing down a few harvestable trees--that as a result were never sold.

I got back to the house, turned off the electric fence, and started mowing with the riding mower. The temperature was perfect. Unfortunately everything on the farm just seems to be low, particularly the branches of the three apple trees that line their drive. While I lost my hat three times on the riding mower, I didn't bump my head seriously until I was using the push mower. Even though the brim of the hat may have partially contributed to my not seeing the branch I stepped into, I was glad to have it on because it at least kept my scalp from getting cut. (I don't normally wear hats but when I'm out in the sun for prolonged periods, I like not having to put sunscreen on my forehead and not getting my scalp sunburned. By the time I started using the push mower, the temperature was no longer perfect. In fact, it had risen to 94.

I doggedly continued with the weed eater and didn't really notice when it started to rain a light rain as I was already wet. After completing only about half of the weed eating around the yard and running out of gas, I started hearing thunder. Now normally thunder wouldn't bother me either, if I'm not seeing the lightning but working around an electric fence means that if lightning strikes it anywhere, I could provide the ground. Discretion being the better part of valor, I stopped. I could say that I had a late lunch or early dinner but since I had already eaten lunch and had even more later for dinner, I have to say that I just ate, again.

It never really rained much and the thunder moved on so after the sun tried coming back out, I went back out and finished the weed eating. At least the temperature had dropped a full five degrees.

Just after I made it back into the house, it had gotten dark and really started to rain. My day was over just in time for me to relax in front of the TV. Just as the Heat and Pacers began to play, the rain was hard enough to knock out the satellite reception but it did come back on in time for me to see the ending and overtime. I was convinced that the Heat had won and the Pacers hit that three pointer. In overtime, I was convinced that the Pacers had won after their third foul shot dropped and then LeBron made that drive and layup in just 2.2 seconds.

I hesitate to make plans for tomorrow as I know the grass is going to be wet with still a high chance of rain. One thing I know I need to do is get some poison ivy medicine. It's definitely not psychosomatic.