"I forget you live on a farm, and then you go and say things like that."

That was a college friend's comment last week when I said I had to be out the door at 6:30am to load hogs for market. This is my "life on the farm" email, because a couple people have expressed difficulty envisioning me on the farm. ;-)

The hogs thing I've only once so far this trip home, although I'm sure I'll be in for it again next Tuesday. My mother just had some minor surgery and can't handle heavy things. The restriction is technically she can't lift anything over 20 pounds, and while you don't technically lift the hogs, they're pretty heavy when they come crashing into you, and they could be hitting her right where the stiches are, so we thought it best she not try. Too bad for my dad - Mom's hog loading skills are far more highly developed than my own. ;-) See you have to open the gate about six feet wide, because hogs are very skittish, and they want to give you and the gate a very wide berth. Unfortunately this means that you have to leave enough room for 3-4 big hogs to go through, and so sometimes 3-4 try to go through, but you only one 1 particular one to go, so you have to stop the other 3 w/o scaring off the one. It's a tough job my friends. Especially since you REEK when you are done. Hog smell is like no other bad smell - it CLINGS to EVERYTHING. I mean, when friends would come over and want to see the pigs because it was some novelty to them, I always cringed, because even 5 minutes in the damn hog barn and you smell.

But I didn't really mind all that much - I mean this is what I grew up with. It's like those of you who've stayed at my apartments, and lamented the lack of soap in the shower, causing me to explain that I usually just use the extra shampoo that squeezes out of my hair instead of soap. This is why. If I sit in an office for 8 hours, I am not really dirty. Dirty is when you get into the bathtub and the water changes colors. THAT'S when you need the soap. Dirty is actually having dirt (or sawdust, or sometimes unfortunately hog crap) on your skin.

Oh yeah, and speaking of people lifting things (see sentence #4), I'm very proud of myself because I managed to haul bundles of shingles today up on the roof. Dad put them in the loader bucket (a big huge metal carring scoop on the end of a small tractor; the bucket can be rasied and lowered by a hydrolic mechanism, for you city folk) and lifted them up to the roof of the house, which beats hauling them up the ladder. I couldn't have hauled them up the ladder, but I did managed to carry them from the bucket across the roof. (Incidentally, walking on an angle ALL DAY hurts your ankles, even in steel-toed work boots.) They were incredibly heavy though. So later I asked the roofer, "How heavy were those bundles?" and he responded "90 lbs." In seriousness. So I was very pleased with myself.

Which in case you're wondering, that's mostly what I've been doing - helping my Dad with the addition onto the house. We have a small house; since we tore out the basement it's only 1200 square feet of finished space. (The basement is now unfinished.) So they're building an addition of ~600 square feet. Dad hired me on as an extra hand to help with the work, so I've been scrambling around like a monkey, trying not to get burned, and, today, helping lay shings finally. It was freaking 100degrees on the ground and we're up on the roof with this black tar, laying shingles . . . uggg. In Jeans and work boots no less, which you need for protection. I had a really loose tank and sports bra though so that was good. Had to wear glasses instead of contacts though cuz too much loose crap rolling around.

And when I'm not doing that, I'm helping Mom with the garden. Her garden used to be 200 X 40 feet; it's now 200 X 20 feet, and half of that is the vegtable garden. We picked 11 gallons of beans the first week I was home, and then my 90 year old grandma and I snapped them into pieces (took ~4 hours for that part alone) and Mom canned them. When you can green beans you put them in glass jars in a pressure cooker with special canning leads which should theoretically make an airtight seal. Usually this works - I've eaten 20 year old food that's been preserved that long. (Grandma's pickle relish - she hasn't made it in years but we're still eating it.) Unfortunately, sometimes the seal doesn't quite get right, and those you have to eat as fast as you can. So we were eating green beans for every meal for over a week. Ugg.
Now the green beans have mostly given out, but the sweet corn is ready. Mom picked . . . *thinks* 4.5 bushels of corn today, which had to be shucked, cut off the cob, blanched, and then portioned out into quart bags for freezing in the deep freeze. She said that's about 1/3 of what's out there; the next round of ears will be ready over the weekend or by Monday.

And I was looking at the tomato plants - my most eagerly anticipated vegetable of the year because of my love of BLT's on Mom's homemade bread - and it looks like as soon as we finish the corn, it will be time for canning tomotos.

So yeah, my "vacation" is certainly not a vacation, but it's not so bad.