She's Back... Welcome Holly

Well, after 9 years I thought we had seen everything but clearly not !!! The evening had been designated “Costco night” which meant that I had my statutory five minutes to get a wash, brush up, sprit zed and “citified” and Greg had time to remind me how long I had… and to change his t shirt. “The best laid plans of mice and men….”.  The rather odorous Honey buckets had been cooking in the heat of the sun all weekend and the plan was that the familiar blue plastic structures and their unsavoury contents would leave when the Green River Mountain Men left…sadly, as the last horse was groomed, the flags were lowered, Tiger and Shy the resident mouse catchers curled up for the night on a hay bale and the girl team (and Greg) headed up for the evening, said Honey Buckets were still on location in the barn yard. After a terse phone call, Mr. “I’ve come for them now, I’m not on a schedule and I need to return with 2 Honey Buckets” appeared to complete his invoice,… whether we were home or not. Reluctantly, checking his watch and Costco’s closing time Greg accommodated “Mr. Honey Bucket”. The two Honey Buckets wafted off  and a disgruntled Greg returned to the house to check on the progress of my transformation. With one leg in a pair of jeans and halfway into a clean shirt I happened to notice a strange figure on the wrong side of the fence, wandering through the supposedly padlocked barnyard. “Uh…..someone’s in the barnyard Greg and he doesn’t look like he’s supposed to be there ” . Predictably, yet another deviation to his plans caused Greg to have a semi melt down……the FULL blown meltdown came AFTER his conversation with the aforementioned strange figure. I guess the conversation followed the lines of….”WHY are you in my barnyard when the gate is locked” curiously the very unrepentant and accusative reply was “I was looking for eggs, I have been twice and you had sold out” Greg replied that he could have called the sheriff , the even more curious reply from our middle aged trespasser was, “go for it, call the sheriff, I have been here twice and you were sold out both times”. Oh…right, so he had a valid reason to break in, silly us, we thought a locked gate after a 12 hour day meant we were closed, clearly it means that we aren’t there…. but the eggs may be. Really ? The icing on the farmyard cake came when our un- announced and unwelcome farm visitor announced that he would be looking for a new egg provider…hopefully on his schedule.

Holly returned to the ranch today after several months back in the city. With freshly painted nails and not a hair out of place, our long time WWOOFER volunteer arrive for a few days. If I was a betting woman, I would be happy to wager that, despite pounding posts, weeding the garden and rooting in the creek, Holly will still be impeccably groomed when she heads back to her real life in Seattle. There is just NO justice !!! Welcome home Holly.

Tomorrow is Anna’s last day here, after 6 weeks, it is tough to become fond of our WWOOFER guests only to have to wave them goodbye. Since our dynamic young volunteer is living and studying in Tacoma my guess and hope is that it is au revoir…not goodbye. Thank you Anna, it has been fun having you here. Come back soon !

The girl team, under a scorching Summer sun got to work on erosion control in the creek. Katie, Anna Holly and Greg set out to right what wind and rain had made wrong. All afternoon, the sound of whirring chainsaws and steel pounding steel echoed across the valley and as the evening shadows fell the newly reinforced creek bank looked like it could contain the worst of the Winter flooding. It’s going to be a long term project but we will never forget the team that made it happen.

Well, time to go, it has been a long hot day, we are tired, Bran the dog is tired and the cuckoo clock has spoken. Good night, take care, keep safe, M