WE'VE MOVED!

Please go to the new site at http://hardlaborsucks.com for more adventures

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

There is a distinct possibility that the new website won't go up til Monday. Don't kill yourself!

I am giving you this really strange story about Tim to tide you over, just in case....

If you live in NYC like we do (during the week anyway), you'll know that it was raining for most the evening and into the night. I held off taking Zelda for a walk as long as I could and actually cleverly waited until Tim came home so he could walk her in the rain. I'm like a cat in the rain; hate it. But my plans were foiled by guilt when Tim accused me of never helping around the house so fine, I said, and we went for a walk together. I had the additional incentive of helping to pick out the movie rental from the video store. Tim has been known to rent some seriously awful movies (hello, Gigli) when he goes solo, so we trudged out in the rain together around 9pm.

As a modern gentleman, Tim let me use his umbrella, but as it was seriously raining, he was getting a bit wet and decided to use Zelda's shit bag as a rain hat. Ladies and gentleman, witness Tim's plastic bag rain hat.

Also available in this lovely du-rag style.

FRIDAY!!! hardlaborsucks.com!

http://hardlaborsucks.com/

Did I say the new site would launch October 14? oops, I meant October 15.

Today I am taking the day off to spend with Tim on our 3 year anniversary so yeah, I pushed the launch back one day. And well, to be honest, we're just running a little bit behind.

Here is a photo of our bedroom the night after our wedding for you to enjoy in the interim. It's a little fuzzy but I think you can still tell that a) the bed is broken and b) our room looked like it got hit by a tornado.

*photos courtesy of a very special blog follower

http://hardlaborsucks.com/

Hard Labor Sucks (dot com)

This site will be inactive until next Thursday, October 14 when Hard Labor is Seriously Ruining My Manucure moves to www.hardlaborsucks.com

It's going to be great. Mark your calendar!

Xxoo CitygirlFarmhand

300 Lbs of Fun

Tim warned me that this thing was gonna be heavy but at this point, it takes a lot more than just the word "heavy" to worry me. But I should have heeded his warning. While this picture may fail to capture the true heft of this thing, it's made of solid, thick steel and is about 7 feet wide by 10 feet long. And yes, it does indeed weigh in at over 300 pounds. In case you're wondering what this thing actually is, it's one of eight skylights that will go into the roof of the building and let the sun shine in. Sing it!

So, this monstrosity was loaded into the back of Tim's van earlier that day by four, count `em, four of his male (and very strong) employees and they even struggled a bit. So when we arrived at the barn and Tim was like, "you take the back side", I almost had to laugh. I couldn't even move it one millimeter. And I was trying to the point of actually grunting like a professional tennis player. After a few more fruitless tugs, I was like resolution: this is just going to have to stay in your van forever. Tim doesn't listen to me when I say the word "can't" and pushed me through. He was somehow able to lift the back of it, angle it sideways and and get it to a position where we could slide it out. Once some of the weight was supported by the edge of the van, I was finally able to lift it slightly (with a lot of Wimbledon caliber grumbling) and ten minutes later, we had gotten it out unscathed. Poor Zelda got yelled at a lot because she was in the way but I think deep down she appreciated the protection because if that thing landed on her, bye bye leg.

So we did it and the lesson here is that Tim inspires me to do things that I would normally look at and immediately give up on, before even trying. Maybe he can get a second job as a life coach. I'll look into it.

P.s. To my loyal blog followers, I apologize for being slow to blog these last few weeks, but I am in the midst of putting together a new site for the blog with a proper web designer and spending all my time on that. It will launch soon, get excited!

Classic Mistake

How dumb am I? talking about bugs not annoying me on the farm much. Stupid stupid, I must have encountered 7 million jumping spiders today. I'm seriously so stupid

Bug Competition

Tim and I were at the farm part of the day yesterday to meet with the well guy (running water on the horizon, woo hoo!) and I couldn't help but notice how awful the gnats were. It was the first time that bugs have really bothered me down there and it started me thinking about bugs in general and then, more specifically, if I despise the bugs in the city or the country more.

It's funny how a lot of city people claim they hate the country because of the bugs while in reality, there are tons of bugs in the city also. And some pretty disgusting ones. So I decided to start a bug comparison, NYC vs. Frenchtown, in the form of this very scientific list below. I assigned points on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the most disgusting. I found this list quite comforting, in light of the possibility of moving to the country full time, which I think Tim is pushing for once the house is done. I'm still wrestling with that but at least I have my little bug scale to help preoccupy me.

NEW YORK CITY

Cockroaches (large) 9

Mosquitoes 4

Bedbugs 10

Fleas 6

Bees 2

__________________

TOTAL 31

FRENCHTOWN, NEW JERSEY

Mosquitoes 4

Gnats 2

Ticks 8

Termites 2

Daddy long legs 2

Stink bugs 3

Crickets -2 (they're cute)

Butterflies -5 OK, ok, that's not fair. I won't count them.

Grasshoppers -1 (also cute)

Caterpillars 0

Bees 2

Flies 4

Horse flies 5

_________________

TOTAL 29

And just when I was pretty sure that the country was going to win, Tim reminded me about the wolf spider he saw in the trash can. While bedbugs are obviously the most vile bug to ever exist in terms of the way they spread and bite you in your bed, they are not that disgusting to look at. They look disgusting, don't get me wrong, but roaches are way worse. The only thing more terrifying to look at is the wolf spider which unfortunately rates it a 9 (since it's not poisonous and doesn't invade your bedroom), taking Frenchtown's score to 38. So New York wins.

It was a close race though, NYC, and you should be afraid because next up is the Critters Competition and Frenchtown doesn't have rats the size of small dogs.

Check it out, a wolf spider. I got the willies just cutting and pasting that horrible image. uggh

Tales of the Nightmare Campout

As I mentioned last night, we ended up camping out both Friday and Saturday night. Camping out is usually fun but it definitely challenges your ability to keep up your personal hygiene, especially with no running water. Two days was enough to make me feel really dirty.

Here was our little set up with the tent and grill...

We did manage to have two culinary feasts despite our limited cooking capabilities. On Friday, we grilled NY strip steaks and zucchini that were downright incredible. Saturday we basically spent the entire day touring the local farmer's markets and came home with a beautiful rainbow trout which we grilled in white wine, lemon, and garlic in a piece of foil, head and all. It tasted like arctic char which was strange but good-strange. It was also sort of fun (in that caveman way that I'm starting to get used to) to just pick it right off the bone. I also made a salad from a variety of small tomatoes including Amish cherry tomatoes, red hots, mini plums, chocolate cherries, and these little yellow guys called Italian Ice that were really good. They were so sweet they tasted like candy so I tossed them with a bunch of garlic, pepper, and fresh basil. Then we threw in some sea salt and fresh mozzarella. Delish. We also grilled some eggplant and garlic, corked a bottle of a nice dry Italian white and devoured it all wholeheartedly. Even Zelda had a good meal with some of the leftover steak from Friday.

After a meal like that, we were pretty much at the point of Food Coma but before we hit the sleeping bags, we decided to go for a night time ride on the scissor lift which lifted us up 20 feet into the air where we could see the stars. It was a really clear night and I told Tim that I honestly hadn't seen that many stars in years. City life definitely blocks that view a bit.

So you're probably thinking to yourself, that doesn't sound like much of a nightmare. In fact, it sounds sort of nice. Very true. That's because I haven't gotten to the horror yet...

After our ride, we came back down and sat in the dark, finishing our wine. It was at this point that Tim decided to talk about The Trespassers again. We have a bit of a trespassing problem, you see. Somebody has been driving around our property in a big truck at night, presumably to joy ride since there's nothing to steal. We keep thinking it's probably just some dumb teenagers

who think it's fun to ride around in our fields in their monster trucks or something. Not scary, right? And yet, the idea of waking up to drunk teenagers running around our property, possibly with guns, is a scary one. It makes me think of that movie The Strangers, a movie that actually scared me and I see tons of horror movies.

The Strangers coupled with my unfortunately vivid imagination led to a night of tossing and turning and thinking that every sound was a killer perched outside the tent with a sledgehammer, just waiting to bash my head in. I also kept thinking about that horrific home invasion story in CT that's in the news every day and was alternatively thinking how sad that poor man must be who lost his wife and daughters, then thinking about how much easier it would be for killers to rape and kill people who aren't even inside a home and are actually just sitting there, totally exposed. Once I calmed myself with the idea that we had a slight advantage over potential killers because we would certainly hear them sneaking up on us by being out in the open, my mind started to drift to fishers.

I'm not sure you know what a fisher is. I didn't until Tim's mom was nice enough to fill me in. They are these nasty creatures that are like part weasel/ part wolf/ part Satan's spawn that are, and I quote, "the only species in the animal kingdom that attack its prey in the face." I love my mother-in-law to death but I really wish she never would have told me that because that phrase kept echoing in my head over and over and over....

the only species in the animal kingdom that attack its prey in the face the only species in the animal kingdom that attack its prey in the face the only species in the animal kingdom that attack its prey in the face

Once I was finally able to let go of that mantra, I found my mind plagued with visuals that were even worse. I even made up this entire horror scenario in my head in which a fisher came and attacked Zelda in the face and I ran out of the tent screaming and crying because my dog's face was all bloody and ripped off and then the fisher jumped at my face and ripped it off and then Tim came out to see what all the noise was about and it ripped his face off as well. Then the three of us were running around blindly in circles screaming and crying and barking with our faces sliding off and oh, it was horrible. I really wish I didn't have thoughts like these.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep a wink the rest of the night. It didn't help when Zelda all of sudden started growling and and then barked her Defensive Bark when she thinks that we are in danger and ran out into the field to chase something. I assume it was not a fisher because she returned with her face fully intact, but whatever it was, it was unsettling.

When the sun finally rose, I think I did a little dance of joy. Daylight is just not scary. And it was back to work! I even climbed up the side of that machine in order to help the team move that cross beam around. And the second I had heavy beams in my hands again, all the nightmares from the night before were forgotten.

The Table Picture...finally

So, pretty much right after we got on I-78 Friday night, I lost all connection to modern technology and haven't been able to get to this picture until now. Okay, while you can use some technology on the farm, you can't if you forgot to charge your electronics before you leave because as I may have mentioned before, there is NO ELECTRICITY. In case I haven't mentioned that like 700 times. And- we camped out there TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW. Crazy right? I just showered for the first time since Friday morning. Disgusting. But I will go into the campout description, or Tales of the Nightmare Campout as it shall be known, first thing tomorrow morning, don't you worry.

Until then, enjoy the pic of the desk that launched Tim into the finals for Husband of the Year. Please note that the desk will have a glass top but it's currently being cut down to size in Chinatown. It's about 5 feet long. Imagine. And while you're at it, check out Tim's giant Louise Bourgeois-esque Spider sculpture in the background.

G'night

Husband of the Year Nomination

If there is an actual contest for HUSBAND of the YEAR, I would officially like to nominate my husband Tim. Despite the fact that he's generally just a good working and supportive guy, he surprised me with an amazing gift yesterday. I did not deserve nor expect said gift which makes it even more impressive. The background: because I am currently now working from home,as we newly unemployed like to call it,I was offhandedly moaning about how much it sucks to work at the kitchen table- I find myself snacking compulsively and unknowingly. All of a sudden you're writing or on the phone and you find your hand in a bag of pretzels and you're not even sure how you even got to the cupboard.
Irritating thing número dos is that the ol' cell service is patchy in the kitchen. I can't take another "what? Lost you there". I really can't. And then there's the dog who I do love having around but all she does when I'm working is mope and sigh and make me feel guilty for not taking her outside every second of the day. Needless to say, I don't get a lot of work done. So I of course blamed the kitchen and said that I was going to buy a desk to put in the spare room. Before I could even get on the bus to Ikea,Tim built me a desk. And an amazing one at that. Check this thing out. Ok I can't figure out how to upload the pic from this stupid new phone. Will do it soon I promise. Til then, you can imagine...

Love love. Husband of the Year, I'm telling you. At least a nominee anyway.

And I just wanted to share that HOTY and I are currently sitting in the most heinous traffic of all time on Broome St on our way to the farm. If I were in the driver's seat like HOTY is right now, I would be road raging and close to murdering an innocent person or traffic cop. He's damn calm though. Just throwing that out there so I can lock down that nom.

Here's to getting to the farm before 3am...

Progress Report: A+

I didn’t end up going to the farm at all this weekend because I had to go to a friend’s bachelorette party in the Hamptons. "Had to", I just said. Ha! It was ridiculously fun. We stayed in a giant mansion in Wainscott and did some vineyard tours. Ridiculous. What can I say? I’m lucky. The only thing better than having great friends is having great friends who know extremely rich people.

The long and short of that story is not to brag about my awesome friends but to tell you that when I sat down with Tim last night for dinner, he told me I was way overdue for a blog post. I was like well what the eff am I supposed to blog about? I haven’t been to the farm in two weeks and I really doubt that people want to hear about my weekend of leisure in a 20 million dollar mansion spent laying by the pool(s) and drinking gallons of wine and vodka. And even if they do, I’m not going to go into it because all of my mom’s friends now read this blog and while they drink more than I do on any given celebratory weekend and certainly will not judge, I will lose the ability to call my mom a lush. And that is really important to me.

So we came to the idea of doing a broad stroke progress report. It has been almost a year since we closed on the farm and we thought it would be nice to do a recap of what we’ve accomplished in that time.

Or, if in our findings, it turned out to be disappointing rather than “nice”, we figured it would encourage us to work harder and spend less time in the Hamptons next summer.

We started looking at the gazillions of farm photos on my laptop and realized that our accomplishments actually transcended our expectations. And while we are behind the arbitrary schedule that Tim had set forth last year- he thought we would be done with the first building by September- ha!!!! – it’s not for lack of trying. I think the goal was a tad unrealistic, considering that we went from a pile of mud and trash to an impressive steel structure in 11 months. As a reminder, in said 11 months, we were only working weekends, and with a core crew consisting of weak ol’ me, Tim, and Tim’s parents. So I think we’re doing okay.

On with the show, which I thought would be easiest to demonstrate best in pictures...

This was the beginning. I give us props for being visionaries who were able to see beyond the piles of slop and nastiness. There's a very fine line between being a visionary and being crazy, I realized along the way but I prefer to stick with the latter.

This phase I call the Holy Shit, Whatdidwegetourselvesinto Phase. I’ll never forget one of my father’s first comments as he furrowed his brow and said “I really hope you guys didn’t get yourselves a money pit.” Silly Dad. Money Pit? Ha! Never.

After the building was torn down, we experienced that which I recall most fondly as The Mud Phase. We even had to sweep the mud as you can see here. You may also notice how much Zelda truly despises brooms. (It's one of the many unique features that they didn't mention when we got her.)

Post-Mud Phase came the Draining the 20-Billion Gallons of Mud Phase. I’m not sure that any photo can clearly capture what a pain in the ass it was to dig those drainage holes and put those annoying tubes in them and then cover them with gravel. So I’ll just tell you: it fucking sucked. And I only partook in like ¼ of it.

(Please try to keep the obvious comments about Tim holding a giant dong-like tube between his legs to a minimum. I know it’s not easy.)

Somewhere in the winter, things began to put us all to the mental test. Perhaps for the health of our marriage, we split up zones for a little while when Tim and his father did their own thing down in the mud and I tackled many projects of my own that all turned out to be useless but kept me busy in the freezing cold winter where your options were to either a) do work or b) freeze to death. I call this phase Annie Got Weird with Herself WhileTim Ignored Her. Some of the things that I did that are now either covered with more overgrowth or completely destroyed: weeding, cleaning up the front yard, and moving rocks that may or not be actually classified as boulders.

**Just a friendly reminder that we had no heat, water or electricity during the winter. Just a reminder.

Once winter finally passed, we had a nice pile of rubble to show for all our hard work in the bitter cold. We’ll call it Phase Rubble. Btw, melted snow makes more mud so you may notice that Phase Rubble was framed by the Mud Phase Redux.

And somewhere in the midst of Phase Rubble, we noticed that Tim had a really bad haircut going on. And why was he wearing a XXXXL t-shirt? Good God.

I was laughing really hard at him until I found this picture of myself. Nice dress but what the hell is that thick yellow mop doing on my head? And where is my face? We like to call this phase the Bad Looking Phase. Hopefully we will not revisit it any time soon, but it’s one of those things you don’t realize at the time and then one day you look at an old photo and are like, oh. My. God. Did I even look in the mirror?

If you were somehow able to overlook that mop on my head, you may have noticed the floor. This was the era of the Floor that Changed Everything. The day that floor was finally poured was a momentous one. The floor was white and smooth and gorgeous and it finally felt like, yeah, there could be a building here. I think I even shed a tear.

And then the biggest step of all; the phase I endearingly refer to as The Steel Erection. The first day of erecting steel was the most exciting day of progress on the farm by far. It wasn’t just because there were cranes and half-naked men running around, it was because by the end of the day, we had a structure for a building. Since that day, Tim and I have secretly enjoyed playing House and we walk around it and say here is the kitchen, here is your office, here is the bathroom, etc like total nerds. We also run around and give each other cooties.

And while it’s true that we have been stuck for what seems like months in the Ol’ Filler-In Phase in which we fill in all the cross bars and girders and beams and crap, Tim finally came to his senses and brought his crew down last Friday. They accomplished a great deal of work, including adding on the entire front section as you can see here.

Let’s just say when you bring young, strong men who are accustomed to working with steel and big machines to the site, the process moves a little bit faster than it does when you have the Old Man and the Wife on the job. Shocking, I know.

As I stop and look back at all that we have done, I’m impressed again and again by the fact that Tim even knew how to do all this stuff. I mean, I definitely wouldn’t have known about all that stuff like drainage and pouring concrete and crap. True that while it’s within the realm of what he does for work, this is his first time doing an actual building on his own. Even though I bust on him all the time, I do so with love because my husband is quite something. He really is.

Mad props also to Tim’s father who we nicknamed The Bull because he just works and works and works and doesn’t stop, sometimes with a tad too much tunnel vision. Like a bull in a china shop, he doesn’t notice the fragile stuff around him and totally destroys it quite frequently. Sure, he’s set us back a day or two but he’s set us forward like 20,000 so we just have to zip it and let The Bull be The Bull.

But perhaps most impressive of all, please note how nicely my biceps have come along. That definition is a direct result of lifting steel and digging holes and moving boulders. Coming soon: The Farmgirl Workout

I’m just kidding. No, I'm not.

While my arms do look nice and all, the real hero here is Tim. He didn’t just say he was going to do something, he is doing it and he is doing it not just for himself but for us and for our future. If we weren’t already married, I’d ask him to marry me. I’d be the luckiest girl in the world if he said yes.

The Wolf Strikes Back

Zelda (we call her The Wolf since she sort of looks like one and we constantly get asked "is that a wolf?") is up to her old tricks again.

A simple, innocent game of fetch turned into a mauled and bloody death war. Okay, not really but look at my bloody finger:

She just gets so excited when she sees a stick that everything else just disappears and she chomps on that thing like there's no tomorrow- if your hand happens to be in the way, too bad...

Innings = Chukkers

Tim and I did not do an iota of work on the farm this past weekend. Perhaps that is why I'm so late for the weekend update? The shame has gotten me down? Perhaps, but even though we didn't do any work, we did support a local charity by attending the Bucks County Wine & Polo event on Saturday. And while technically, Pennsylvania is a rival state to New Jersey (*more on that in a minute), Bucks County and Frenchtown, home of the The Farm, are friends. They are good friends indeed.

The Wine & Polo event was held at Tinicum Park in Bucks County, PA where they hold polo matches every Saturday during the summer until mid-October. This particular match was a special one, however, and by special, I mean expensive. 65 bucks per person. Before you choke on your Tuesday night cocktail, let me clarify that by saying that it included a fancy lunch, all the wine you could drink, those nifty wine glasses above, a polo match, and the rest of the money went to the SPCA so it was for a good cause. Oh, and as a special bonus, we were graced with the presence of the incomparable Dianne Wiest, who Tim kept referring to as "the mom from The Lost Boys." I was like, she's also amazing in many other movies including a lot of Woody Allen ones like Hanna and Her Sisters but he was really hooked on The Lost Boys and actually kept referring to her as Mom. Although you can't tell from this picture (too

shy to get any closer), she is a very pretty lady and at age 62, looks like a million bucks. She also seemed like the epitome of normality which is a relief when you meet a lot of fucked up and disappointing-in-real-life actors which I've had the unfortunate opportunity of doing.

But enough about miserable actors and on to the game. It was my very first time attending a polo match and it was incredibly fun. Sure, it's possible that the wine enhanced my excitement, but I am honestly a fan of any sport that not only moves quickly, but requires serious athleticism. I always imagined that polo must be a difficult sport when you consider that before you can even think about hitting that tiny ball, you have to control an animal twice as large as yourself and even if you can control that animal well, there are other large animals running around that you also have to reckon with. Not to mention those mallets are surprisingly small and you can only use your right hand to hold them. It's like playing field hockey on a horse and I sucked really bad at field hockey so I give mad props to those polo players. I can totally see why Ralph Lauren made a logo out of them. Respect.

Some of my favorite things about the game, other than my awe over the physicality of the sport itself, were the fun names and traditions associated with it. As you can see from my heading, those things we call innings in a lot of other sports are called "chukkers" which I definitely thought I misheard the first time the announcer said it. The other thing that was surprisingly fun and something I'd only ever seen in made for British TV movies or read about in Vanity Fair articles, was that whole halftime thing called "stamping the divots" where you go out on the field and push the divots back into the soil.

Tim and I ran out onto the field and stamped like mad. I'm not sure how much I really helped in my high heels, and in looking around at all the little kids out there, I couldn't help but wonder if we didn't actually do more damage than good, but heck, it was fun. (The twisted part of my mind started wondering if anyone ever sabotaged a game by making the divots worse or by putting explosives in the divots but then I remembered that I do not live in a Bruckheimer movie or even something more realistic like Saving Private Ryan and I took it down a notch.)

Under the tent, there was food and wine and white people. We enjoyed many glasses of sauvignon blanc from Cupcake Vineyards and chardonnay from Barefoot Vineyards as well as these delicious mini-cupcakes with icing bones on them. BCSPCA in da house! Also under the tent were a few other random rug merchants pushing their wares. My favorite was the real estate broker with a table set up on behalf of Lisa James Otto, one of the foremost real estate agents in NJ and PA. This gets us to the NJ/ PA rivalry; as I was perusing through some of the LJO catalogues and trying to see if the real estate dude would believe that I could actually afford a home that cost $5 - 10 million (I think he did, sucker), any time he would point to a home that was in New Jersey, he'd be like, "this one is really nice, BUT....it's in New Jersey" and he'd say "New Jersey" as though he were taking a bite out of a shit sandwich. I almost told him that we own a place in New Jersey but decided it would be more fun to just pretend to be rich and shopping for a mansion in Pennsylvania.

Thankfully, right around the same time that the white wine started to taste like headache-inducing syrup, we were in the final chukker and the match was coming to a close. I can't even tell you who won but I think it was the local Tinicum team because there was a lot of cheering but I also think that it was a polite (and drunk) crowd so they would have cheered either way.

Timmy the Whizz surprisingly didn't make an appearance until the very end and we closed out the day with a trip to the port-a-john.

NRA Wine Club update. Great news.

Tim was kind enough to forward me the email from the NRA announcing their wine sale. It's true not only that Timothy loves a good deal, but that NRA members really love wine.

Dear Timothy,

Do you love a good deal? Do you love good wine? If so, this is an offer too good to pass up. Believe it or not, NRA members love wine and we have a great offer for you.

You could stand in front of a wall of confusing wine labels and search for a special selection...

Or you could take me up on my exclusive NRA Wine Club new customer offer (within the next 10 days, please).

A guaranteed-to-please, easy way to enjoy new wines while you blast your shotgun.

Labor, Interrupted

I should have known things weren't going to be as bright and sunny as a Tony, Toni, Tone song when I set off to work camp yesterday morning. So naive. You'd think I would know better by now.

Things started off okay as we unpacked and unloaded the machines but when we started trying to figure out how to put up this next set of beams, things started getting tricky. Seems the ol' beam weighed 250 lbs and also didn't seem to fit into the location it was cut for. This led to a bit of tension. And with tension comes irritation. And if you let the irritation grow, next you have bickering. The bickering eventually led to one girl leaving the worksite completely, headed for the hills, destined to never return. She would instead start a life on the road, alone, eventuallly ending up on a beautiful deserted tropical island where she could spend the second half of her life discovering edible flowers and making skirts out of dried seaweed and crabgrass. The key word here being alone. She was very excited at the prospect of never having to talk to another human ever again except possibly through her blog which she would somehow find a way to continue, perhaps by carving posts into the side of a tree with a conch shell. What would drive a girl to want to leave society altogether, you might be wondering? A grinding wheel is the answer.

We were having a hard time fitting this heavy piece of steel into the slot that it was designed to fit into. If you've ever had to move out of your home or apt and opted to do it the cheap way (i.e. yourself), it was like trying to fit a sofa through a doorway that is just too small, but there is no way in hell you're giving up because that sofa was expensive and you just know it will fit if you turn it at the right angle. I can tell you right now that there is no way this metaphorical sofa was going to fit. And I expressed that to Cheech and Chong who chose to just ignore me for an hour while turning it this way and that way as the hot sun beat down on us. After an hour of these shenanigans, Chong finally suggested exactly what I had been suggesting all along which was to cut a hole in one of the non-structural beams so that they could slide it in. This was the only way it would work and that was clear from the beginning but some times people think that girls are stupid and they just ignore them. A mistake since the beginning of time really.

In order to cut the beam, Chong, needed a machine with a sharp blade. He had the machine nearby but asked me to go get the blade out of the barn. Chong is usally very bad about his instructions but this time he was actually very specific and said "it's in the Metabo box. I need a grinding blade, larger than this one [shows me blade] but the same shape. A grinding blade." I was like okay and headed off to the barn where I found the Metabo box and the blades. The blades were labeled and it was weird but none of the grinding blades looked anything like the blade he showed me, so I grabbed a few of them, thinking that it had to be one of them and brought them back down to the site. Oh boy, let me just tell you about the verbal explosions. Chong went off on this tangent about how I never listen and he knew I would get the wrong blade and he didn't ask for a grinding blade, he asked for a cutting blade (not true) until the point that I just lost and said F you, I don't want to help any more and walked away.

I grabbed my backpack, stuffed my money and a Vitamin Water Zero into it, and headed off on the 10 mile walk to town. It was on this walk that I came up with my elaborate deserted island fantasy. I was totally immeresed in that world when my phone rang, 3-4 miles in, interrupting my dreams and happiness. I knew it was Chong calling so I didn't answer. But then it rang again and again and again and I finally accepted that my island trip was going to be ruined by my husband who wanted me to come back. I finally answered and said "I'm not turning back" and hung up but then he just drove after me and found me on the side of Route 519, sweating. I didn't want to go back at all but he made me feel guilty because his mom and dad and a close family friend bought us lunch so I reluctantly got in. I made sure that Chong knew that I wasn't doing it for him though. He said, I know. I'm sorry. I said "I'm sitting in the back seat" and I watched my island dreams float away into farm land and I found my way back home, like it or not. That Chong can be such a jerk some times.

Labor, Labour, Labre

You like that title? It's in honor of Tony, Toni, Tone although much like the third Tone with the accent over the "e", I don't think that the third spelling of labor is a widely recognized one. 

Wait, no this post was supposed to be in honor of Labor Day. That's right. I mean, "labor" is in the title of the blog and is the bane of my existence and it's Labor Day, and in the absence of actually having a job (also labor related), I figured I had plenty of time to reflect on the meanings of labor. It was all triggered last week when I was at the dentist's office (using up my last chance at affordable health care since my insurance expires at the end of the month- also labor related), and my chatty hygienist went into a long shpiel about how Labor Day got its name. She explained that back when New York City was just a lot of open land, the children stayed home from school to help their parents prep for the fall harvest so Labor Day was actually day of working the fields, planting, and crap. I couldn't find any actual proof to back this up as historically accurate, but it certainly sounds like a reasonable story so I chose to believe it. 

I really enjoyed her story because it made me feel good to know that there were children out suffering out on their farms, breaking their backs, much like I will in just a few minutes. (Tim is literally reading this over my shoulder and trying to rush me. What? You are!) Although we won't be planting stuff, but I will be doing a lot of hard labor which brings me to the latest recap. 

Yesterday we put up all those steel cross beam thingees. 

I believe they are called girders. The process basically entails lifting those beams off the ground and up over onto the platform. From there, we load them onto that blue machine, and then lift them up into the air and line them up over the little pieces they fit into, then bolt them in. It's a lot harder than I just made that sound and the fact that our little ragtag team did an entire row yesterday is sort of impressive, especially when you're considering how weak I am and how old Tim's Dad is (haha, I love you Dean). 

As you can see in this photo, the real foreman is Zelda. Seriously, she never leaves Tim's side. It's almost sort of sad. We have 24 acres of land for her to run around on but she just sits there, doting. Anyway, I am literally getting yelled at right now so I have to go. We have a lot of pole thingees to put up.

Mail Keeps Gettin Stranger

From COUNTRY WOMAN magazine to the handwritten Kitten Murderer note to the NRA catalogue, ever since we bought the farm, the mail just keeps getting stranger. And now it has even started to hit our Manhattan apartment. I just checked the mailbox downstairs and in addition to the usual mix of parking tickets and bills, I found SCHNEIDERS: VALUE PRICED HORSE SUPPLIES SINCE 1948. Thank God it finally arrived! I haven't been able to sleep knowing that the annual Dura-nylon Ocala Legstrap Blankets sale was coming up. (The cover really does boast "Warm Winter Fashion".)

Ok, I shouldn't poke fun because I'm sure that dura-nylon and ocala mean something important to somebody, somewhere. I just never expected a magazine that specializes in horse attire to ever be addressed to me.

It's not like it was a generic catalog that could have been passed off to "current resident". Nope, it is a very specific catalogue with my name on it. I mean, I like horses as much as the next guy. They're nice to look at and seem like pleasant creatures. I've just never really had anything to do with them so it's baffling to me that I have officially been recognized by the leading carrier of horse supplies and the US Postal Service as a person who likes horses enough to want catalogs full of mane brushes and equine bathing systems. I'm sorry, but I'd rather get the fall Saks catalog (for humans).

Zelda: First Blood

Zelda drew first blood last night when we were playing fetch. I really shouldn't be surprised since she has razorsharp teeth like a werewolf but I was still surprised when I saw the blood oozing out of my pointer finger and then, ouch, under my pinkie nail which had turned red with blood. Guess a tooth got under it somehow. Oh yeah, it hurts. In fact, typing this is semi painful but it's a momentous occasion that I survived and will learn from: you don't play fetch with a crazy German Shepherd whilst chatting on the phone to your friend otherwise your hand might get ripped off.

The Kitten Murder Chronicles: Resolution

So I called Jane, the "crazy old lady next door" who thought that I murdered her kittens and was sure to put on my sweetest, non-violent voice when she answered. I could tell at first that she was not buying my faux-nice routine and well, if we're being honest, I was laying it on a little thick with tales of my childhood cats Genevieve and Grumbuskin, the latter named after the mischievous alley cat in "Growltiger's Last Stand" in the musical Cats. At a certain point, I think she was like WHOA, ok, you didn't kill them. Or maybe you did and you just went to elaborate lengths to overcompensate and are a diabolical psycho. Just kidding, she didn't think that because guess what? The ma ma [sic] cat and all her little kittens, even the one with the black muzzle or whatever, came back! Seems feral cats aren't all that reliable. Really??? Who knew? I mean, come on Jane, before you're going to go pointing fingers at nice people who do genuinely like cats, maybe you should take a beat.

She wasn't kidding about the "crazy" part and went off on an odd and disturbingly detailed history about Egyptian times when cats were considered sacred versus the bad rap they got in the 16th century when they became associated with the devil and witchcraft and we've all studied just enough history to know that wasn't a good group to be lumped in with. I chimed in with a few animated "oh yes, you're so right!" and "yes, yes, Cleopatra liked them" and "oh yes, the evil cat of Nostradamus" and "Salem was rough back then" to make her feel good until it became clear that I am not just a good, friendly neighbor but I am also a supportive, sensitive, cat-loving, history buff of a neighbor. (Which btw, is not true at all, I am a history moron.)

You know, come to think of it, this is actually the first real neighbor I have ever had as an adult. Sure, I've had plenty of neighbors in apartment buildings in NYC but that doesn't really count. If they annoy you, you just bang on the wall or slip an "anonymous" note under their door. This is my first real neighbor at a long term property that we intend to actually call a home some day and have to get along with. Possibly forever. I just got the Grown Up Chills. Ick

Did you Happen to Kill our Kittens?

We found this handwritten note in our mailbox at the farm this weekend. Isn't this lady insinuating that we killed her cat and its kittens? Tim says she's not but it's pretty obvious to me that she is. I mean, I know our farm is still a bit overgrown and scary looking, but accusing people of killing innocent little kittens is pretty harsh.

FROM: THE CRAZY OLD LADY NEXT DOOR

(She actually wrote that)

Dear neighbor,

Have you seen the black and white ma ma cat? We haven't seen her or most of her smaller kittens in 11 days. She has one adult kitten that looks just like her except he or she has a black nose (mom's is pink with white muzzle). We have seen that cat, but not the ma ma.

We went away 2 days and they didn't get fed for a day. I know she was looking for a new home. She and her family camped out here for the summer, but i think there was too much activity on our front porch (they lived under). I hope she found a new home as opposed to being killed. If she went back to your barn we would still be seeing her every morning like always. We are worried about her. If you know anything please let us know.

Thanks, Jane

with phone number

I guess I have to call her now and convince her that we are normal people who do not enjoy killing kittens.

The Final Adventure in Which I Get The River Water Sickness

The end is very f*$%ing nigh and if you know what movie that is from, you are amazing. Because it's not even spoken, it's graffittied on a wall. And unless you're British, you probably aren't even totally sure what nigh means.

The Adventures of Citygirl/Farmhand and Tim

Part Five

Saturday, August 14, 2010

For our last full day of vacation, we decided to swank things up a bit and get a room at the W in San Francisco. It's in Soma, next door to the SFMoma, try saying that 4 times fast. And yes, while we would have preferred to stay somewhere a little less tragically 90's era hip, the St. Regis was overbooked and would have depleted almost all of our Starwood points. Plus, the SF W is surprisingly nice and the dated hipness actually seems to work for some reason. I mean, I truly got a kick out of the LED Buddha next to the TV.

And the views were pretty incredible, both during the day and at night.

Miraculously, we even had a sunny day! People were out in throngs to celebrate. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning...

We woke up early at the Holiday Inn Express in Monterey in order to hit the free breakfast buffet in the lobby. Boy was that special. Lots of posturing old dudes in Ferrari jackets and Pumas. A lot of them were even wearing their car rally badges just to prove that they had officially paid the entrance fee. We ate our boxed cereal and hardboiled eggs and hit the Starbucks across the street for some real coffee because the H.I. Express coffee tasted like hot water with some coffee bean scented Yankee candles melted into it. It was at the 'bucks that I was suddenly hit by a wave of stomach pain, followed by a very awful gurgling sound. And so began the 3 day Dirty River Water sickness. I will spare you the gruesome details but let's just say it was coming at me from both ends and leave it at that.

As you can imagine, I was slightly terrified to go anywhere that didn't have a private bathroom less than 10 feet away, so the thought of getting on a motorcycle for a few hours was really really terrifying. But because spending the last day in a gloomy hotel room with views of a parking lot and fog was just not an option, I hopped on that bike like a champion and away we went.

The ride wasn't as nauseating as I expected and was actually quite fun. Until we stopped and all the stomach gurgling started again. But I pushed myself through it and we walked down to this private little beach along the coast that was absolutely beautiful and desolate. We climbed around the big rocks until the tide started to come in, then ran back to the main shore and got back on the bike. Next stop: San Francisco! (Minus the detour we took at Tim's favorite burrito spot along the side of the road which I unfortunately couldn't enjoy and just watched while Tim ate an entire giant burrito that must have had 10,000 calories in it. Even he knew it was a mistake, but he just couldn't resist.)

We rode into SF and it was sunny! Unheard of. We did a sunny little bike tour before checking into the W. Once we got our room and got settled, I needed a little time out to deal with my stomach issues and was hoping and praying that I would be hungry for dinner because San Francisco food is so damn good. Tim bought me a bottle of Pepto and I took a nap for a little bit.

When I woke up, I was still a little woozy but I knew that I had to push myself to eat some dinner and figured that if I were inebriated, I would not be able to feel my stomach pain. So we got some old fashioned cocktails at a speakeasy called Rickhouse in the Financial District and don't you know it? My plan worked. With enough gin in my gut to kill a small child, I barely noticed the nauseau and it was off to dinner! We had a great meal at this spot called 54 Mint that boasts authentic Italian food. I enhanced my meal and suppressed my gut pains with a great Tuscan Nero AND a Kir Imperiale. Again, it worked. Tim and I shared the gnocchi with meat ragu and pesto trenette. Both were amazing. I was kind of partial to the pesto but a good gnocchi that melts in your mouth is always hard to deny. Yummers. This despite the fact that my stomach was in turmoil means the food was probably even better than I realized. (I also ate a few hunks of fresh parmesan cheese as an app to bind myself up. Just an fyi. Possibly a tmi fyi.)

Earlier that night, we said we were gonna get crazy with it and go to some clubs after dinner, maybe even visit one of our old rave-era haunts like 111 Minna but you know what? We didn't. We just went back to our hotel, admired the gorgeous Bay Bridge views again, then went to sleep.

The Adventures of Citygirl/Farmhand and Tim

Part Five

Sunday, August 15, 2010

This is the end, my friends, the end.

The next morning, we woke up happy that we didn't pull an all-night rager and went to the SF Moma where they had a show called "From Calder to Warhol." It was a nice sampling of art that we both like. Mostly. The piece that inspired us the most was this crazy little video art piece- which is surprising because we both hate most video art- but it was this genius and highly entertaining piece by William Kentridge assembled to The Magic Flute and called The Black Box (you can watch some of it on YouTube, although you need some patience which obviously works better in a museum: The Black Box). We spent almost 30 minutes watching it, completely transfixed by the imagination and excruciating detail.

I bought Tim a book called Prefab Houses in the SFMoma bookstore which has some inspiring ideas for the farm. The farm! We were both missing it so much!

Last stop before departure: Oakland. We had our last meal in the Bay Area along the docks in Oaktown with our motorcycle lender, Craig, and his wife. It was super chill and fun but before we knew it, it was time to get to the airport for our Red Eye.

And now we are back. Refreshed and excited about life all over again. Put your work gloves back on, kiddo.

The Adventure Continues...

The Adventures ofCitygirl/Farmhand and Tim

Part Five

Thursday, August 12, 2010

I'm nearing the end of the Around the Bay Area in 10 Days (on a motorcycle) wrap up report but August 12 and August 13 were probably two of the most interesting days so put on your reading glasses and get excited.

Thursday we woke up very early in Carmel because, as you may recall, we went to bed at 8pm. Ok, we stayed up until 9 watching "America's Got Talent" but that show is so mind-numbing that we can count our brains as being asleep.

We got our *free* breakfast at the Normandy Inn around 8:30 and were surrounded by more old people. They were even talking about cliched old people stuff like medicare and social security. For real. One of my favorite quotes was when one of the oldies saw the another oldie's USA Today byline about a new Youtube singing sensation and said "you know, America really does have talent." Apparently she watched the same Youtube special edition that we did the night before. Needless to say, we packed up as quickly as we could and got back on the bike by 9. We did a Carmel coastline house tour on the way out. Damn, there are some amazing ones. This one was particularly amazing and props to Tim who called it as a Frank Lloyd Wright. I guess it's pretty obvious in retrospect but I didn't know for sure.

And off we were to the Land of Younger People due south on Route 1 to Big Sur. After being rejected by an angry old hag of a park ranger in Andrew Molera State Park at the tip of the Big Sur region, we drove deeper in and chose Big Sur Station as our launching point because it was home of the trail that leads to the legendary hot springs.

We loaded our backpacks up with trail mix and Clif Bars and stuff to make S'mores and a pot and a mini-propane tank and burner so we could boil water. Our backpacks quickly became really heavy. Especially when we added two bottles of wine to the mix. And then they became even heavier when we added on our sleeping bags and Tim added the tent onto his.

We were finally all geared up and on the Pine Ridge trail around 2:30pm. The trail was really fun and easy at first but started to get really hot and steep pretty fast. We were adamant about making it 10 miles to Sykes, home of the hot springs, before sundown anyway. No sweat. I'm not sure exactly what we were thinking though. I guess we both figured that we can walk and run 10 miles with just a little bit of effort and thought that hiking up a mountain would be essentially the same. It's not. Hiking 10 miles directly up a mountain while wearing a ridiculously heavy backpack turned out to be pretty challening. We really thought we were booking it too- we were passing people left and right. Ok, that's an exaggeration because the trail was pretty desolate but we did pass people and we were pushing ourselves as fast as we could go (on a side note- I'm in way better shape than Tim and was totally kicking his ass on the climb. Had to keep stopping for him. Seriously. Just wanted to throw that in.) Imagine our surprise when we realized that after 3 and a half hours we had only gone 4 miles. That's like a mile an hour! WTF? At that point, we realized there was no way were going to make it to Sykes before sunset and decided to call it at the site, Ventana, which is only 5 miles in. We hiked down a ridiculously long trail along the mountainside and chose a spot right along the river. Since there were a few other campers in the vicinity, we decided to cross the river and camp on the other side. The location was amazing and completely private even if we did have to take our shoes off and cross the ice cold river every time we went to the bathroom and to set up our camp. Whatever- we found a private sandy beach along the river and a beautiful gorge that was actually still and deep whereas the rest of the river was moving pretty fast.
These were our rocks for sunning:
















And this was our secret ravine.


It was so amazing.





We made S'mores for dinner which is one of those things that sounds fun because you're not supposed to do it, but when you're as old as we are and your metabolism is not like a child's any more, S'mores for dinner actually makes you a little bit sick. No matter, we washed away our stomach pains with a great bottle of a Napa cab.

I didn't sleep at all that night because I was the Watchdog. A certain someone must have been tired from the hike because he just snored all night while I panicked and freaked at every sound. It's funny that I'm not actually scared of bears or mountain lions or snakes, I'm afraid of being murdered by some California meth heads hiding out in the woods or some stragglers left over from the Charles Manson cult, just itching to kill again. Not that I would be excited if a mountain lion came over to us, but it just seems like less scary or realistic for some reason. Anyway, no animals or meth heads attacked us and I finally fell asleep when the sun came up. Great timing. Tim woke me up a few minutes later and it was time to wake up and get out of the tent. I was a tad bit exhausted, especially because the River Water Sickness was just starting to take form. But more on that later...

Friday, August 13, 2010
*Friday the 13th, wooooooo

We ate a really nutritious breakfast of Big Sur bars and banana walnut muffins before playing around the campground for a while. We thought about spending one more night there but I think we were both too exhausted and wanted to sleep in a bed that night so we decided to take the 5 mile trip back during the day. Also, we were both starting to feel really dirty- our socks were black and our armpits were starting to ripen. It was time.



We hiked back and honestly didn't realize how hard our hike there was until we came back- our trip back was effortless and easy because it was all downhill. Which means that on the way there we went uphill the entire time. This made us feel a little bit better about how ridiculously long it took to get there. We cut our time in half on the way back and even stopped for lunch under a trickling waterfall where we had salmon jerky on everything bagels. Salty. Yum. (More carbs than I've had in years in one day. My butt is huge now.)

We were back on the road by 2pm and drove south all the way past the small town of Lucia then headed back up Route 1. We stopped for a brief dinner at NEPENTHE which boasts amazing views and good but totally overpriced food. It was a nice change from S'mores however as we had meat and vegetables. Vegetables never tasted so good.

We were going to head all the way back up to SF but it started to get really bitter cold on the bike again and we stayed at a snazzy Holiday Inn Express in Monterey instead. There was a car show in town so there were Ferraris all over the hotel parking lot which made it seem much fancier than it actually was. We weren't fooled. After a sleepless night in the woods however, I didn't mind the ol' Holiday Inn Express. We even got really nerdy with it and rented Date Night in our hotel room rather than go anywhere. We justified it by saying we were saving up for our last day- our final fun and amazing day in San Fran! Plus, my stomach was just starting to turn. I knew something was wrong when I couldn't drink my glass of pinot noir. Alert. But I was okay until morning.