Sunday, January 24, 2010

Today started like most fabulous Sundays in the history of "us". We got up around 7:30, got dressed, took the dogs out to their kennel and headed to town. After a brief run through Starbucks, (for crying out loud we aren't that sheltered), we drove to one of our favorite places ever. Ace Hardware. Now I don't know how many 30 something year old women love to go to a po-dunk hardware store on their Sunday mornings, but it's definitely one of our top 5....right up there with going to the county dump...but you'll hear about that later...
So we were strolling through Ace with our cart, (we always get a cart in Ace, even if we don't need anything because OF COURSE there is something there we need...we just don't know it yet.) We cruised through the lumber, admired the new vanities which were the first they had gotten in since the 1980 Special they carry...(we have one in our bathroom), picked up some birdseed for our wildlife friends and headed to the garden tools. Now we already have most garden and construction tools....we love to buy tools, you can never be too prepared... But we didn't have any for the barn, which is quite a hike from the house. So duh...the barn needs it's own tools. So for starters, I picked out a nice Ace rake, pushbroom and regular broom for the barn. Patty went to eye the circular saws while I looked at the galvanized buckets. I have this great idea I saw in Napa style catalog to make hanging lights out of galvanized buckets...I think it will look great in the barn...just not for $100 something each. So after a little more of oohing and aahing over future must haves, we headed home.
Now of course it was pouring...but I was pumped. Patty donned her rain slicker and headed to clean out the dog kennel, (glad she didn't want to rock, paper, scissors for it), and I threw on my steel-toed boots and carhart and headed down to the barn with our new treasures.
Now we both agreed the best plan of attack would be to clean the barn out completely, pressure wash the concrete slab, and start from there. The current state was far from it. There was about 4 to 6" of antique horse crap covering the concrete slab (which my mother later informed me would be wonderful compost for the garden I don't have yet,) and we had moved bags of concrete, cottage stones left over from the fire pit, and 4x4 treated posts into the barn, over the crap to keep it out of the rain and dry. The barn only has 3 sides, and I had the 2 other doors open, but it was still pretty dark down there (no power yet)...especially being overcast and rainy outside. I had thought about wearing my ipod while I worked because Monster Ballads and 80's hits make the day go by faster, but I wanted to hear any tarantula or anything else that could possibly sneak up on me...so I went without. I spent a good hour raking, sweeping, restacking posts etc for about an hour. When I got to the bottom of the pile of posts I saw a bunch of spiders scattering in all directions, and some egg sacks attached to the posts I wanted to move. I hate spiders...and I almost walked out. But I told myself to be a big girl. So I used my broom, (which would have given me about a 6 feet headstart if they started coming after me,) and smashed the eggsacks, and swept them all away... I moved the rest of the posts and tried not to think about the ones that got away, and where they were headed. P came down with Bubba and Belle to help shortly after and had the great idea to move the cottage stones with the trailer attached to our John Deere riding lawn mower. Great idea in theory...it even started...but considering it hadn't been run in about 6 months...well I'm guessing it had bad gas in it and it ran long enough to get out in the rain...and die. So we pushed it back in the barn, (sounds easier than it was), and gave in to carrying the cottage stones (60 pounds each) one by one to the outside of the barn. Now there were about 20 to do, and Patty was carrying them while I continued to break apart and sweep petrified horse crap,(good for my garden I know..) and after a few she screamed...did the eeby jeeby dance and flew to the other end of the barn....She pointed at the cinder block and kept saying "a nest! A nest!" So I peered under the corner of the block, and sure enough it was a mass of insulation and shredded paper towels, all cozy in the hollow of the block. I giggled thinking of the Secret of Nimh, and the little mice in their block in the field....oh well...these mice would have to find a new home...Plow day was a comin'...So I picked up the block, convincing myself the mice wouldn't chew threw my gloves...and headed outside with the block. About 3 seconds later P was shreaking again so I ran into the barn. It was great...she was halfway up the ladder to the loft pointing at the little mouse highrise and said that a mouse came out of the nest, looked at her, and took off out the door and into the field. I casually looked around me, (terrified that little jackass would run up my pant leg) and asked her how big it was. She held her hands about 2 feet apart, arm wrapped around the rung of the ladder to keep from falling. Now let me tell you a little something about my P. She is rarely scared. She will blow your head off, and ask questions later....(because shooting at stuff is the solution to everything...besides burying it behind the barn....but we are putting our chicken run there, so that's now a negative ghost rider.) I am normally the chicken shit...but we tend to make eachother brave...and if we are both scared, then we will wait till the sun is shining....or go get a bottle of windex. Although not "green" windex will kill most creepy crawlys if you spray long enough, and I'm sure it would daze a mouse if necessary...) Several little (empty) nests later we finished about 2/3 of the barn and called it a day. (It was only 2 o'clock!) The dogs were drenched, so we brought them up, gave them a bath and relaxed the rest of the day.