a true odyssey

[dragonlady7]

via https://ift.tt/4imIMkz

ok well so. it’s time to tell a long semi-pointless meandery story so buckle up. <3

mostly my job at the farm is to assist in the making of sausage, which happens two or three weeks every month, and when it happens it takes the whole week, y'dig, what with setup and cleanup and all that shit. but this is not a sausage week. this is the week between sausage and the next. and as it happens next week is the first chicken processing of the season, so like, a big deal. I’ve spent weeks slowly cleaning up the winter’s mess in the slaughterhouse– which is several rooms at the end of the barn, each of them cluttered with different types of detritus. I’ve spent hours washing things, putting things away, finding homes for things, tidying things, cleaning things, and my BIL has spent hours fixing broken things and helping me move heavy things that really need to not be where they are. It’s looking pretty good in there.

But this week, now that the heavy lifting is mostly done, and most of the heavy cleaning is done, I’ve been mostly subsumed into bizarre odd jobs. Yesterday I learned how to use a woodchipper. I also did some light fence work, a stark contrast to the kind of fencing I learned in college. (Sabre and epee, then; now it’s wire mesh and staples.)

And eggs; endless egg management. Mostly washing, and packing, and putting away, but some stock rotation too now and then.

This morning I was called away from my egg washing and prevailed upon to take a journey of about 40 minutes’ drive each way, on a quest to obtain a new throttle cable for the New Holland tractor that VegMan needed for a task that had to be done as soon as possible and could not wait.

So the nearest New Holland dealership that stocks the part we needed is in Greenwich, NY. I haven’t been there super often but it is exactly two towns over from where I grew up, so it’s not exactly terra incognita. BIL gave me rough directions, and I immediately knew just what he meant. I put the address in my phone anyway, because I wouldn’t know precisely where it was, but the bulk of the drive, I absolutely knew where everything was. So I left the directions in my phone and hit the road, and after about half an hour I’d passed through Schaghticoke and was headed north on 40 and was like “ok time to get Maps loaded” and tabbed over to the app and said take it away, my friend!

and it was like “make a right out of the farm driveway onto the main road” and like buddy i did that half an hour ago, please show me the current driving direction??? it would not do that. well, i don’t need it to give me the turn by turn just show me where to go i guess, I thought, and then I looked and it was telling me to turn off Rte 40 and make a right, head east on the very next road.

The very next road was an unpaved road I happen to know meanders for a long distance before it ever connects with anything else. Doubt.jpg, I did not take the turn. I might mention, I grew up here, and I know fine fucking well where Greenwich is, and I had the utmost confidence that haring off into some unpaved Easton hinterland was not going to get me to the tractor dealership any faster than simply continuing on this very nice state highway. But it kept updating itself to show me turning right. Which I knew I did not need to do.

So I finally pulled over and tucked myself up in the DO NOT BLOCK DOORS DO NOT PARK HERE parking lot of the Easton volunteer fire department, and tried to restart Maps, which wasn’t having any of it. I eventually had to hard-restart my whole phone.

And then it wouldn’t come back up. It was just on the little loading thingy for ages, probably a minute and a half, but it was a long minute and a half, as those tend to be; with no other distractions, I stared bleakly at my seemingly-dead phone and had some contemplative thoughts.

I’m from here, is the thing. Like, if my phone won’t come back up, I’ve come too far to turn back in defeat. I can’t go home without the throttle cable. I can only go on. But I don’t know how to get there. I don’t think there’s anywhere I can easily run in and ask someone for directions. (If there was a Stewarts I absolutely would but I knew there wasn’t.)

But like. I cannot be lost this close to my fucking hometown. Route 40 is the street I learned how to shift into fifth gear on. Route 40 is the way I drove to school. I cannot get lost on Route 40.

Finally my phone came back on and I was like ok thank fucking god where the hell is capital tractor and it was like yo dummy you just drive up rte 40 for seven more miles and then make a right why are you being so weird about this

thanks bud. anyway, i clipped it back in its holder and got myself back on the highway

and about 20 feet later i almost hit a bald eagle that was swooping low over the road with something in its talons

so like i don’t do augury so idk what that meant but i did make it and i did get that throttle cable and then i did make it back safely to the farm so who even knows

anyway your reward for reading is this photo I took of some lilacs at my mother’s house:

[image description: some blooming lilacs, pale purple] (Your picture was not posted)