A new donkey(?), a farm wreck, and Lyme—oh my!

This week I was laughing and telling B-Rad about how so many episodes of Heartland have something crazy happening on the ranch. And how most people think, “Well, that’s tv for you!” But B-Rad and I know the truth: crazy things really do happen on the ranch!

 

Case in point:

 

I’ve saved this picture with higher quality so you can zoom in if you’d like: 

 

I was in the house when I got a call from B-Rad, “Come quick, ManChild crashed the golf cart!” I ran out of the house and down to the lower pasture to find ManChild laying on the ground, B-Rad bent over him.

 

ManChild was standing up and dusting himself off by the time I came into the pasture. We use the golf cart to haul hay around, bales of shavings, buckets of water, grain, and to pull the manure wagon. The golf cart is electric and we just leave the key in the “on” position while we work, putting the brake on when we stop. To go, push the gas pedal and the brake releases. We’ve owned this thing for 2 years now and by the fact that it’s built this way, I’d say that’s the expectation in how people use it. 

 

When ManChild came out to pick up manure in the lower pasture that evening, I had just finished chores. I had forgotten to take the bale of shavings off the front seat. I figured I'd do it the next time I was out for chores. Not even 10 minutes later I got the phone call about the accident. Which, you're about to find out, was totally my fault.

 

ManChild had driven to the other end of the pasture and started scooping manure into the attached wagon. Drove the golf cart another 20 feet and did another section. Came around the coaching barn and stopped. Hopped out to start cleaning another area when all of a sudden the golf cart took off all by itself. Being electric, it has a fair amount of speed off the line. 

 

Imagine his surprise. 

 

Seeing the trajectory was the fence and then the lower garage door, ManChild sprinted after it, caught up and tried to jump into it, only to find the bale of shavings was in the way…laying right on the gas pedal.

 

This is where my Grandpa Hall pops in and says, “Jesus CHRIST.”

 

ManChild is quick thinking in these situations (yes, that is plural LOL) and tried to lean in and turn the key off, all while running next to the golf cart and seeing a collision was imminent. 

 

It didn’t work.

 

The golf cart hit the 50 gallon stock tank full of water (which was probably a good thing as it slowed it down), rolled over it, hit the fence and gate (both brittle and 40 years old), which just snapped off and fell over—stopping the golf cart. ManChild, soaked with 50 gallons of stock tank water had fallen onto the toppled rusty gate but miraculously didn’t have a scratch on him. Good God.

 

It took a rolling floor jack to crank up the front of the golf cart and get it off the shattered water tank, and then a bit of maneuvering to get the broken fence post and gate out from under it and a bit more to get the pieces of fencing that had been wedged into the passenger side out, but the mighty golf cart is in one piece and driveable!

 

This is how it looks now (although the shattered water tank is wedged in better), until B-Rad can get it fixed:

 

If you want to read a few other stories of crazy things that have happened on the ranch, check these out:

 

Sheep Wrecked!

 

Also, I saw this on Facebook and thought I'd try it. This is what came out 😁 I do have a lot of stories!

 

Up next: Lyme disease. Seriously. WTF? I was bitten by a tick the day before my birthday and like people who live in the south, we put the tick in a ziplock, sprayed some alcohol in, labeled it and put it my bathroom drawer—expecting to toss it in a month or so. 

 

But no.

 

The tick bite on my hip didn’t heal after a week and then I came down with a sudden fever. It all came together in my brain then and after my brother talked me into it, I headed off the urgent care—where they suspected the same and put me on doxycycline for 10 days. The next day I went to my primary for bloodwork. They took the tick to test too! Yay for keeping that little blood sucker. It will take a week to get results back but since I’ve responded well to the doxycycline, the suspicion is a tick born disease. And you’ll never guess how long I’ll be on doxycycline if that is indeed what it is…6 weeks. Seriously. My God. Lots of probiotics for me. Lyme can become chronic if the bacteria isn’t completely killed off so they go long to make sure it is. Once it’s chronic, doxycycline doesn’t work anymore and then it’s just dealing with symptoms for the rest of your life. Lovely. I’ll take the 6 weeks.

 

They say the doxycycline takes 24-48 hours before you start to feel better. Currently the fever comes and goes. 48 hours will be this evening (Thursday), so I'm hoping that I'll be a lot better tomorrow!

 

So, just like tv, when you live on a farm among machinery, farm animals, and the buggy outdoors, crazy things happen.

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I’ve started thinking about colors to paint the main part of the house. Maybe grey? Nah, not enough light in the house to be grey, blue? Yellow? We'll see. The way we do it is to tape a million chips on the wall, ripping off what we hate right away. Over a week or two we pare it down to things that look ok during all hours of day or night. We were just starting when I took this pic:

 

And while thinking about the main part of the house, I painted my loft bedroom during my time off last week and the attached laundry room/half bath (pink of course) and after I did that I decided I needed to paint some flowers on these canvas laundry baskets that came with the house :-)

 

 

 

 

Like all good home projects, this one expanded into adding a ceiling fan to the loft bedroom, a new light in the laundry, new vent covers, and then, because it is dingy and gross, I will have to paint the ceiling this weekend as long as the doxycycline does its job and I feel okay! And then hanging pictures!

 

I read this email from Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way:

 

And I realized how true that was for me. Even though it's still hot here in NC, fall is coming and it's one of my favorite times of year. I do feel invigorated and it shows in all that I find myself wanting to do to the house. So, while my most recent painting is still only half finished on the easel, I'm still creating every day and that feels lovely!

 

A few birthday pics:

 

 

 

And then a few birthday memories. Unlike some, I love celebrating my birthday and always feel like I'm 12:

 

 

And speaking of mini donkeys! Actually on my birthday this year I was contacted by a local couple who is moving out of their farm and into a city home in Raleigh. They have several mini donkeys and one of them they think would make a really great therapy donkey! I thought it was a nice touch from the universe that they contacted me on my birthday, the same day I first heard I was going to get Sweetness and Light, my mini donkeys back in 2016. Turns out, this new little donkey was given to the husband on his birthday too. Fun! We'll see if it all works out!

 

A few pics from around the ranch this week. My pretty girl Rayn:

 

The Polar Bear:

 

Rayn and Wynter grooming each other in the moonlight. This used to happen all the time in Colorado. It's nice to see them getting along again:

•••

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