The Time Between

“Taking a break” is not a real thing for a girl who lives on a farm and has animals to feed and a tractor payment to make and and a list eight-feet-wide of things that need to be done this year…

Which is perfectly fine with me because actual breaks drive me crazy. But that doesn’t mean I don’t try to find some time between lists– after I’ve wrapped up my big summer projects, and before I start the mad dash to get things done for winter–to do, ah, other things. Like daydream about building a little mobile “bee shed” to go out on one of the hills behind my house to hold my beekeeping equipment…

Because since when have I ever said something reasonable like, “Oh, two beehives and three gallons of honey, that’s good enough… I should stop here.”

Hahaaaa. Ha.

Of course I’m going to add a few more hives next year. And expand my orchard. And build some arbors for grape vines. And probably build a greenhouse along with my Bee Shed. I’ve also been studying aerials and topographic maps of my property, and trying to decide if I can afford a disc attachment for my tractor, and researching how to cultivate a really good wildflower field.

And in all of the moments I’m not spending trying to figure out why, when you see my property from the top down, it looks like both my garden fence and orchard rows  were staked out by a drunk person (ahem), I’ve been making new friends. Like this poor little guy I found shivering in the bottom of the (mostly empty) water trough…

(I’ve gotten better at getting mice out of buckets without them ending up on top of my head, apparently.)

And there’s this guy…

No, not the guy with the beard, the other one…

This little dude literally swam behind our canoe for two miles down the river, but any time we turned around would stop and pretend to be digging at something on the bank…

Very sneaky.

(I think he may have had a crush on that guy with the beard, but really… who could blame him?)

Doc has thoughts about that too …

He and Parker are starting to get their winter coats in (and get jealous when I take pictures of other cute, fuzzy guys… apparently.)

All in all it’s been a nice little break, but this weekend I’ll be jumping back into the work with a few outdoor projects to finish up (I’m looking at you, last unpainted side of the garage), plus a bathroom that needs a floor (and that one damn shower tile), and a kitchen renovation but I may actually admit to starting sometime soon…

Maybe.