rain delay

Well, Friday was an interesting day. I was just getting out of the shower when the phone rang. Charlie answered, and it was a neighbor up on the hill (west of us) saying that there were some cows in his yard, and weren't they some of the ones that belonged in our pasture. Charlie called up the cow owner, I dressed, and we set out in the blue truck. As we were leaving, we saw the cow owner (henceforth referred to as Williams, since that's his name) speed by on his way up the hill. Sure enough, when we got up to our field (a 20-acre open plot on the north-south road at the top of the hill, and on the west side of our woods), Williams was chasing about eight of his heifers (young dummies) with his truck. We headed them off with our truck (this is how we cowboys function these days), and they plunged into our woods. There was also a dry cow there, and she did not go with the rest, but stayed up in the field. We got out of our trucks and ran down into the woods (very steep hill) to see where the heifers had gone, since there are no fences in the woods, and though we have only nine acres of woods, the neighbor's woods are enormous. The silly girls had gone right back over the failed gate they'd stepped across in the first place, and were back in the pasture. We propped up the gate. Luckily Williams is a nice enough guy to simply say "Gee, you have an awful lot of fence to maintain" rather than yelling at us for neglecting that part of the fence. We'd been aware that it was bad, but we didn't know it was that bad.

Anyway, we went back up to the field, and while Williams and Charlie and the original neighbor who called jawed for about 45 minutes, I wandered around looking for the cow, who had wandered off. No one seemed too concerned, though I worried that it would head for the highway and cause trouble. When the long conversation was over and we were caught up on the neighborhood gossip (men are quite the gossips here in the country, though they may see each other only every few years -- in fact Charlie had not laid eyes on neighbor #2 since high school graduation, and he's about my age), we headed back home. Williams went into our pasture from the road (29) to look for the cow. She'd jumped the fence somewhere else (cows get lonely) and was back in the pasture with the herd.

So we got into the truck again and headed to the local farm supply place for fenceposts and other fencing stuff. Spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon on fence repair, very hard work, particularly because a lot of it was on quite a steep hill. Lots of going up and down, carrying heavy stuff. Lots of brush cutting. And Charlie cut down a very large cherry tree that was going to fall on the fence one of these days. In fact that's one of the reasons we'd put off repairing this part of the fence, since we'd have to take the tree down first. More firewood, very nice.

I left at 2:30 to go pick up Ben (no lunch). He and Mom and I shopped, then played at Florence's, and then went back to Marty's to play a little more.

When I got home Charlie was nowhere to be seen. I walked out to the upper end of the pasture, since I could hear him driving fence posts. We worked some more and came into the house at about six-thirty. He'd taken a bite of lunch, but otherwise he'd worked all afternoon. Emergency dinner: steak (quickly thawed), baked potatoes, green beans.

Since Friday it has rained constantly, putting off further fencing. Also delaying gardening, which is bad, since we have sprouted 600 peas, and they need to be planted.

On Saturday, after we rested in the morning (tired!!), I attacked a Gourmet recipe for lasagne, Mario Batali's. Three hours, Mario said. We started at three, ate a little before eight. It was very complicated, including making the noodles, these with a little spinach. I'll spare you the details and contretemps . It was excellent, though we were nearly too tired to eat!

On the other news front, my distraction that arrived late Saturday afternoon (FedEx) is the complete New Yorker on DVD. I've been wanting it for a long time, finally ordered it last week. It cost $49, a tremendous bargain. I didn't look at until yesterday, but that was the end of any useful activity for the rest of the day. It's a marvel. I found some recent articles that one or the other of us had missed (printed out a long interesting article on Condi Rice that I'd read in 2002, for example, though most reading should be done on the screen), then sailed into the original version of In Cold Blood . Actually used the laptop on my lap for a change! Got about 3/4 done by the time we went to bed at the beastly late hour of ten.

So anyway, I hope the GC is going well for you, Suze. Have you gone on to the next book?

Enough!