Thursday, April 29, 2021: Mud

"Mud" is a good word for mud. I should look into the etymology of that word. It's a simple word that sounds thick and sticky. Pretty well defines the state of a pig pen after six inches of rain, don't you think?

When I stepped over the fence to feed the pigs, I almost instantly knew I was in trouble. We're out of the feed they like, so we cleaned out the fridge for them. I ate a little lean the last few nights so part of my helpings could go to the pigs. They appreciated it. Enchiladas, Spanish rice, spaghetti, and taco meat. They got their food with a little effort on my end, but paired with the rain, their thorough tilling job did me in. On the trip out, I stepped on a spot that looked above water, but it wasn't. I was able to ditch my boot before I got deep enough to spill over the top, but to no avail because there's a hole in the toe. I'm drying my feet right now on break at work.

Story of my day

Not to worry, the pigs are not starved and they live a good life. I'm getting feed for them Friday afternoon in the middle of what's to be a very very busy day. Melissa's aunt is in poor health, so we're leaving for Kansas later in the day. Before that, there's a slew of urgent chores to make the homestead ready for our absence.

Farmer Sam, bailing water

While I was getting stuck in the mud, Sam was bailing the flood. He managed to gather about half of the draining neighborhood and put it in my tote cart. When I needed help pulling my boot from the mud, he came to pull on me while I pulled the boot. We were able to recover it without further incident.

Happy as pigs in the mud

First up Friday morning, I'll be picking up eggs. We've got a community order for 28 dozen fresh eggs. Or is it 38 dozen? Whatever, it's a lot of eggs. After that, I have a load of carpet from the apartment that needs taken to the dump so I can use the truck to pick up feed. Then comes the picking up and storing of feed in the apartment.

We've started using the apartment for feed storage instead of using the mud room. With three different types of feed in use at a time, and buying multiple bags when possible, the feed bags were making it hard to access our storage shelf and the milk fridge in the mud room where we were feeding from. The apartment will be a much better place. I figure I'll be needing a handful of mouse traps. And maybe a cat.

Mushrooms in the corn patch, or corn in the mushroom patch?

After the feed is stored, it'll be lunch and cleaning the house before we leave. Likely around 3-4PM we'll start our five hour drive to Kansas.

It'll be a strenuous day, but such occasional stresses are actually good for the body. Plus, what other option is there when there's no other option?

Well. It's almost that time now, so I'm gonna call this one a wrap. Thanks for reading and supporting, it means a lot and I promise I'm putting it to good use.

Love from Texas

Nate 💚