Forever

5:30. The Roosters are seeing who can be the loudest. It’s only five minutes until coffee because I had the foresight last night to throw grounds and water in the blue enameled camp pot – a quick twist of the propane stove knob and I’m good to go in a few. I need a shirt for the early morning chill, daybreak mosquitoes and milking stand flies in a little bit, some not too rancid pants (because heading out to the barn for thunder bucket time is potentially dangerous on less than two cups of coffee when there are seriously needy bottle fed kid goats running around), and a bandana to keep the hair back. Shoes aren’t required after April Fool’s Day.

Sit and meditate for awhile and the wave of shit to do attacks with a fury. Beat it back saying I’m only one man, there are only so many hours in a day, and late 48 means I ain’t in my thirties anymore. Discard out of hand the bulk of it as things I really could care less about doing today along with the things that can’t be done before the necessary stars align and the short list is about the same as it was yesterday and the day before – feed chickens, chicks, really little chicks, move, feed, and water rabbits, feed pigs, milk goats, cook down the next batch of pig food, check on broodie hen and then start in on the plant kingdom. Somewhere about this time the Gotta Eat alarm goes off, the attitude goes to shit and I gotta regroup with the mantra that saves my ass on a daily basis – I got Forever.

Some day I’ll feel a mule kick to the chest and I ain’t got no mule. Or maybe just fuzz out in the garden rooting around in the dirt. Possibly just might turn “off” in my bed at night, but until then I got Forever. And since between now and the end of my time there exists in my world nothing more critical that putting this over there, planting this in that, making some gizmo work on an odd thing and hauling some sort of crap to a less crappy location what’s to worry? Okay, I’m probably going to bleed sometime during the day and gain a scrape or a bruise, but the phone isn’t ringing off the hook and most always the things that are bugging me are bugs. Truck’s broke – meh, didn’t want to leave the place today anyway. Truck ain’t broke but the plumbing is?  I got a big tackle box fulla plumbing tools and three 5 gallon buckets of every fitting known to man except for the one that sends me to town. What the heck – it’s kinda hot (or cold, or wet or dry) for weeding. I don’t have appointments with lawyers, stockbrokers, bosses, social services or any other gov’t agencies. Biggest hassle is walking down the hill to fetch a pail of water from the spring or find the damn goat at milking time.

But there are some times this whole lotta nothing seems as if I’m spinning my wheels getting nowhere, and that’s when I have to just get a handful of beans and the hoedad and punch them in the ground.  That’s my statement – there’s some reality. And in a week they’ll be sprouting next to the ones planted the time before and maybe I get to pick a few from some planted some unknown aggravations ago. Those are the best times. Those are the times that say there is time enough.