Barnmaven

Admit it, you're jealous

I suppose I should have some shame that I keep bragging about my commute, but I really have a hard time not going on about it.  Almost daily I'll be in the middle of my drive home and be struck by something beautiful -- a Northern Harrier flying next to my window as he searches the field for dinner; a beautiful field of alfalfa with nothing but sun and blue sky behind it; a cloud formation so striking that it takes my breath away.

I left the island in 1983 for the city to go to college.  After college I got a job, and then another job, and then eventually I moved to New Jersey for yet more jobs.  All of my commuting, for 24 years, was in the city.  I either drove or took the bus, paid for parking, struggled to find parking, and except for my home street, pretty much all the road was a minimum of four lanes.  Four lanes FULL of cars.

I've been in Central WA for four years now, and I don't think I'll ever take this drive for granted.

This is what it looks like as I leave work on a rainy day:

No, I don't know what that smudge on my window is, either.

Then I head down the hill and into the Horse Heaven Hills for about 20 miles.  All I see is this:

Yes, I know what THOSE smudges are.  Lots and lots of dead bugs.  I don't bother washing my car much this time of year. 

Finally, I come to the really fun part of my commute.

I push the button for my 4 Wheel Drive, and I need it:

 

For about five miles its nothing but a gravel road in the fields.  So far I've seen coyotes (alive and dead), the skeleton of a dead cow and a dead sheep.  And some antelope. 

Oh, look!  Off in the distance!  TRAFFIC!

Hard to tell from my crappy cell phone picture, but that's a farmer discing his field.

All too soon, I head down the hill to the end of the dirt and back to pavement.

Still, though, I'm not struggling with a bunch of other commuters.  The locals look like this:

Its not all fun and games, though.  I do have to put a few miles in on an actual highway.  I don't like it.  I think its ugly.

Soon enough, though, I cross the Blue Bridge and turn twice, and I'm on my street:

 

That's my white fence and mailbox on the left.

I don't care that its a 45 mile drive each way and that it takes me almost an hour.  I don't care at all, because I used to have to drive on the Garden State Parkway to and from work and it took me almost an hour and I was only going 20 miles.  Being flipped off, cut off, yelled at and stopped dead in traffic was the routine. 

Here, in the spring, I squeal in delight as I see the first new foals and the calves, legs still splayed as they try standing for the first or second time.  I see endless sky and mountains that fill me with wonder.  I see the Columbia River, mighty and broad, sweeping her way past the Wallula Gap as she turns the corner and thrusts herself toward the Pacific Ocean, falling over dams and skirting thousand-foot high cliffs.  I see countless Red Tailed and Sharp Shinned Hawks, California Quail, Red Winged Blackbirds.  I see eagles, sometimes, and deer.  I see rabbits and badgers and foxes.  I regularly watch kestrels drop off the wire and grab something right next to my car on the road as I swerve to avoid hitting them.

I wouldn't trade this for any city job, ever.  I dont' ever see myself going back to "civilization."

 

Hard Work

Child A has had a tough few weeks.  Since October she's grown considerably and the efficacy of her bipolar meds has slipped.  It creeped up on us rather slowly, just a couple of off days at school, a few more tantrums than usual, then BAM!  Total insanity.   She kicked a hole in the wall at J's place while in a time out.  Sunday last week she was pitching a fit when I picked them up after church, all J had done was ask her to brush her teeth and she was on the floor screaming.  She'd been at it for about a half hour when I got there.  Since I was blocking someone in and J was really ready to let it be MY turn to deal with her, we picked her up as she was and carried her to the car.  On the way home she spent about 20 minutes trying to rip my seatbelts out of the car, thrashing and screaming at the top of her lungs.  After what seemed like for-fucking-ever of me very calmly (through gritted teeth) reminding her to breathe, to try to get control, anything I could think of that didn't sound like "YOU ARE MAKING ME CRAZY" she finally hit the downward slope and calmed.  Normally when she has thrown what we fondly think of as Mini-Hurricanes, she falls asleep.  Not this time.  Almost as soon as the tantrum stopped, she turned into a crazy laughing chatterbox.  "Mommy, what street are we driving on?  Where are we going?  That man looks funny!  Hahahaha!"  I noted her glazed eyes and the realization finally struck that we were dealing with a manic episode.  Its the first time I've actually been able to recognize it in her. 

We've start with a new behavioral therapist next week, but her psychiatrist wanted us to up her meds.  In addition to her increased agitation, she's not been sleeping very well, so we are also trying melatonin to help her sleep. 

The same day that I heard an interesting story on NPR about new studies showing that keeping your heart rate elevated into your "target zone" for 20 minutes a day makes you both calmer and smarter, I had a conversation with my cousin. In the course of discussing what had been happening with Child A, she mentioned that a friend of hers who had a daughter with similar issues was having a lot of success with exercise.  Every day when she comes home from school, this little girl does what they refer to as "hard work."  Normally its jumping rope, sometimes its riding her bike or running around the yard.  But nothing else happens - snacks, dinner, homework, playtime - until she does at least 20 minutes of "hard work" 

This has been relatively easy to implement with the Amazon Queen.  Ever since I bought that elliptical trainer last year it has been one of the kids' favorite "treats" to allowed to get on it and make it go.   They will fight over whose turn it happens to be, they like it THAT much.  So now when Child A is here in the evening, I have her get on the elliptical for a 20 minute workout.  So far all of the things we have been doing seem to be helping, and we haven't had nearly as many tantrums or outbursts all week.

When the weather today turned out to be spectacular (we are having what feels like an early spring), I tossed out my plans to take the kids bowling and we headed over to Badger Mountain instead.  There is a one mile walking trail that goes up to the top, and it is a fairly nice exertion level.  All three of us had a blast, we climbed to the very top and enjoyed a spectacular view of everything from Hanford Reach all the way to Finley.  We took Lady with us, and she had a terrific time being petted by tons of strangers (I swear that dog has never met a single person she didn't LOVE).  By the time we were halfway back down the trail, everyone was feeling a little footsore and the wind chill was getting to us, but it was a really great hike.    The only downside was that I did not take my camera.  We would have had some terrific pictures to share.

I like it when we can get the whole family to do some hard work together.  After unloading a ton of hay this morning in addition to our little hiking expedition, I have a feeling that Child A isn't the only one who will be sleeping well tonight!

Mud City

When I moved to the Tri-Cities, one of the big selling points to me was their claim that they average "310 days of sun a year!"  I grew up on the wet side of Washington State, so by birth and raising I qualify as one of the Moss People.  Aging tends to whittle away at one's tolerances for discomfort, though.  I want to be able to ride my horses and I refuse to ride in anything colder than 40F, in anything resembling rain or snow or drizzle.  Of course, we also get blistering heat over here in the desert, and days when "windy" doesn't even come close to describing the gale-force winds doing their best to remove the tin roof from my horse shed.  Even so, I truly believe in my heart that I get more "riding weather" here than I would there, and so don't miss the other side of the Cascades too terribly much. 

There is one aspect in which this part of the state resembles THAT part of the state, and as we have had some unexpectedly warm December and January days (following a two-week cold snap in early December that had my chickens begging to become housepets), we have now entered an extremely early Mud Season.

The desert side of Washington has cold winters and hot summers.  In between each, they have Mud.  And its not that we don't actually get the advertised 310 days of sun a year...its that the 55 days of rain?  Yeah, they fall CONSECUTIVELY.  Or so it seems. Its almost enough to make me miss the constant drizzle in Seattle.  At least you get to experience that rain surrounded by huge evergreen trees and lakes.  Out here?   Oh, the desert has color in the late spring, when the purple sage starts to bloom and the wildflowers come in.  The trees are verdant and the warming spring air makes everyone just a little bit giddy.    But not now.  Now its just shades of brown, and its wet to boot.  Snow I don't mind, nor wind (much anyway), nor heat, nor storms.  But this?  Endless days of murky skies and being ankle-deep in muck everytime I go out to feed the horses?  Someone please take it away.

I only have what, 48 more days of this?  Someone plug in my lightbox and break out the antidepressants, or I might not make it until the sun comes back. 

All By Myself, I Did!

I fixed it all by myself!

 

 

The past couple of weeks I’ve been complaining to my carpool buddies that the water pressure in Franklin Irrigation District was really crappy.  Then this week the pressure in my sprinkler heads dropped to pretty much zero.  I asked my neighbor across the street if he was having the same problem and he said “You don’t have a pressure problem.  You have a milfoil problem.”  Huh.  Somehow I had forgotten that we get our irrigation water directly from the Columbia River, which this time of year is literally up to its ears in the stuff. 

 

I shouldn’t complain about my irrigation at all, honestly.  I pay next to nothing for all the water I can douse my pasture in all spring and summer.  Seriously, my irrigation taxes for the entire year are under $200.  I think my monthly household water bill is about $25.  And I live in THE DESERT.  I know, right?

 

So, no water.  Time to check the filter, which is housed in a big gray plastic junction right near the front of the property, along with the shutoff valve.  The cap of the housing is a big plastic cap about 4 inches in diameter.  I tried to unscrew that cap with everything I could find in my garage and nothing worked.  So I heisted my butt up to Lowe’s and bout the biggest pair of Channel Locks I’ve ever seen -  all 16.5 inches of them.  Turns out there’s not many things you can’t solve with the correct size channel locks. 

 

I did figure out how I could have made it easier on myself.  The cap has a big O-ring inside, and it comes off easier, I found, when it is not (NOT) pressurized.  Oh.

 

So not only should I turn off the shutoff valve, I should also open the pressure release valve to let the last of the water inside the housing escape *before* I unscrew the housing cap. 

 

Damn, that lightbulb almost hurt my head from the brightness. 

 

My filter was indeed plugged with milfoil.  A toothbrush and the garden hose with the sprayer set on “Jet” did the trick and before long my lawn and pasture were once more receiving their daily allotment of life-giving water.  TAKE THAT, BROWN GRASS! 

 

I love the rush I get when I have fixed something all on my own.  I love it when my instincts are right, when I am strong enough to do something without help.   Even if I am a little bit, um, slow in figuring out how to fix it.   

My mother mentioned to me the other day that my Aunt Bernie (God rest her soul) was a Rosie the Riveter during the war.  I hadn’t known that.  Why didn’t I know that?  I’m a little perturbed and surprised that no one would mention it to me, since I am, I believe, the first self-identified women’s libber in my entire extended family.  At any rate, I get a kick out of knowing that my little short, feisty, Aunt Bernice was one of what I like to think of  as “the ones who came before me.”  Freakin’ coooooooool.