It’s Complicated


Sometimes, homesteading sucks. When the temps in October, for cryin’ out loud, drop to 23 degrees overnight, after two days of highs in the 40s and overcast skies, you get just a bit snippy. Especially when you’re out of practice working the wood furnace and it takes two hours for the heat to kick on.

Lest you think we’re freezing, the entire time, we are not. My husband turns on the fireplace when he gets up briefly around 5:00, and I turned on the space heater at 6:30.

I was up all night, every few hours, checking on Charm who I swore would probably foal during the wee hours. She did not. Of course.

The stars were amazing, though, as I looked up through chattering teeth. My fault. I was so anxious to see her that I forgot to put on my boots AND my coat. The first time. After that, I remembered!

This morning, her udders are huge. That’s the only change. So far.

At any rate, the sun is up and shining into my office, the furnace finally kicked on after my husband did something to it—not asking questions—and the horses are all eating or stampeding. It’s warmed up outside to just above freezing, and inside it’s pushing 66.

I can live with that, especially wearing long underwear and a couple layers on top.

Thankfully, all the plants are in the greenhouse and the herbs I use most often are on the kitchen table. Once the mercury hits 40, I can finally turn off the heat lamps in the greenhouse and start outside chores.

I have a lovely Carhartt coat and gloves and yes, I wore my face mask this morning. Have to wait for the manure to thaw, though, before I can work on that, but there’s plenty more to do. Firewood, for instance. Need lots of that, obviously!

Here’s the thing—regardless of the weather or lack of sleep or any number of things, you still have to get up and get out and get moving. Animals need to be fed; ice on water troughs must be broken up. If you don’t have animals, there’s still plenty to do.

Just because it’s frigid today, and last night, and the last couple days, doesn’t mean it’s winter and you should just give up. It means this is a taste of what’s to come, so you better get your butt in gear. Sometimes it’s hard to prioritize.

If you don’t harvest your garden before it freezes, you’ll have less food than you expected—and the same goes during the summer when it might be “too hot” to get out there and hoe and rake and pick vegetables. If you plan your work, you can do it when it’s cool or warm, depending on the season, and be a lot more comfortable.

In the summer, we start outside work early in the day and let the inside stuff slide until after dark or when it’s raining or way too hot to be out in the sun.

In the winter, it’s just the opposite. I still get up early, but I do inside stuff like cleaning until it warms up a bit. And by “a bit,” I mean I prefer it to be at least 50, but some things have to be done no matter how cold it is!

But it’s complicated. Much more complicated than, say, watching TV reruns of Little House on the Prairie. You could say it’s like running a corporation—being CEO of survival.

For instance, in my case, how much do I feed the horses, hay and grain, and when do we need to purchase more? How often can they go into the pasture before they eat it down to dirt, and how often to seed and water and let it rest? Is it too wet for hooves? You have to balance all that along with record-keeping and weather. That doesn’t even include a training schedule or just hanging out—or shoveling manure and cleaning water troughs.

When do you start a fire in the furnace in order to make sure the house doesn’t get too cold when the sun goes down? How often should you feed that fire? Will opening the thermal curtains help with warmth, or keep out the cold? And in the summer, when do you close those curtains and when do you open and close windows?

Is it warm enough and not too windy to air out the greenhouse? Should you turn on the heat lamps or can the plants survive without them overnight or even during a cloudy day? The garden, of course, needs to be planned to make the best use of space, water, and sun, but you also need to learn how much of what to plant—and what to freeze, dry, or can.

Like I said, it’s complicated. We’re not a sitcom or even reality TV—although some days, we could be!

 

 

Sneak Peek!


Thought you all might enjoy an older WIP I came across this morning:

Prologue

POP!

The sound was distinct, yet unnerving in the context of a nearly empty room. The lone occupant, an overworked, underpaid freelance graphic designer, slumped over his keyboard. The desk, the walls, the ceiling were spackled and dripping with rivulets of red, interspersed with bits of gray.

POP!

In another city, another state, a solitary accountant became immobile in the space of a second, a miniscule amount of time, and landed, reposed, in the same manner.

POP!

Chapter One

Nick looked up at the sound. He was alone in his office, desperately trying to keep his mind on his latest manuscript as he carved out a rare half-hour to actually write. He shook off the tension racing up his spine, speeding like an inchworm on meth, and tried to ignore the screeches and squeals from the hallway.

After a short moment, he slammed his hand on the desk and jumped to his feet. He was going to explode if he didn’t get out of there, move around, run in circles, anything to stop this feeling of exasperation and imminent explosion.

As he jerked open the door, he stopped dead in his tracks. His boss lay on the floor, gray skirt soaked red, pale blue blouse wet and clinging, dripping with unidentifiable something . . .

Nick rubbed his eyes. Not unidentifiable. Not at all. What the—

A scream echoed down the corridor. Nick ran. He crashed into the far wall, failing to negotiate the turn into the large room that housed the administrative staff. He clawed desperately at the slick wall to remain upright, and kept going, sliding to a stop.

In the far corner, three secretaries huddled together, eyes wide, gaping at the mess. The youngest, a pretty, dark-haired girl, was the screamer. She was gearing up for another round when Nick approached and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“What the hell is happening?” He roughly shook her as her head bobbed back and forth. She gasped for breath, but made no discernible sound.

Nick glanced at the others. Susie, he knew her name, and another woman, older, who seemed the most calm. “What’s going on?” he repeated, still holding the girl.

Martha took off her glasses and squinted as she wiped them on her blouse, leaving pale red streaks on the cloth. She took a deep breath.

“We heard a . . . a pop, I guess you’d call it. And then blood and . . . and stuff . . . just spattered. Everywhere. The first one was Jane, the desk right next to me; and then Harold. And it just kept . . . happening. All of them.

“Except us.”

Susie reached for the dark-haired girl and put her arms around her, shielding the younger woman’s face from the dripping mess all around them. “This is only Maggie’s first week,” she explained, as though this . . . whatever it was . . . would have been okay had it just happened, say, during Maggie’s third week on the job.

Whatever. Nick shrugged. No time to worry about Maggie and her employment history at this point in time.

POP!

Dammit. Now what? Nick turned toward the sound and heard three more in rapid succession. He pointed at the three women. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

He made his way gingerly through the room, trying to avoid headless bodies and more gore and gunk that he’d ever seen in one place. Well, to be fair, he hadn’t actually seen a lot of this, but he did write about it. His imagination was pretty active, but this—

He opened a door and peered inside. Same mess. He went to the next door and the next, ditto.

He came back to the admin room. The women were still huddled in the corner, but Maggie was standing on her own now and seemed to be taking in the whole scene, minus her earlier hysterics.

“I haven’t checked all the offices, but the partners are, well . . . dead. Yeah, pretty sure of that.” Before anyone could react to that bit of news, Nick continued. “We need to get out of here, for starters; I suggest we go down the stairs and at least to the lobby. We’ll call the police from there.”

The four of them moved as a unit to the stairs and shakily descended. They were alone in the stairwell, but when they reached the main floor, all hell broke loose.

As one, they stopped and stared at the chaos.