Are You Sure the Dinosaurs Are Extinct At Night?

So there's this gate.

It's rusted and old, yet heavy as all get out and not warped, cracked or weak.

It was the gate the "For Sale" sign was attached to when I first saw the land we now call Home.

A full 16 ft long, it's not aluminum, but solid iron. Even attached to the tree-like post with hinge pins wider than my thumb, it would work itself loose by turning the hinge pins via sheer weight as it was opened and closed. At that point it would thunk to the ground as I was closing or opening it, jarring my shoulder almost out of its socket as well.

When we built the house, the gate had to come down and the opening in the fence widened to make way for the cement trucks and the log trucks. It was gently set aside for later.

Over on the barn side of the property, there was no gate- just a "cheater gate" made of barbed wire stretched across the opening. When we built the barn, we installed a brand new aluminum gate. It's light and shiny, and swings effortlessly and straight as an arrow.

When it was time to re-install a gate over on the house side, Joe offered to do it and he and the rest of my family begged me, implored me, wheedled and cajoled me to please, please, PLEASE, PLEASE put a twin to the barn gate up on the house side.

Absolutely not.

That gate is part of the farm's history- I'd no more discard that gate than burn down the 80 year old barn that's part wood, part sheet metal, perched on some cement blocks and some big rocks that somehow manages with slatted walls and colander-like roof to keep everything inside it dry. Even Edna holds a grudging respect for the old barn now. Mostly.

So Joe set to hanging the gate.

We set it in from the road so we can pull off to open it- the road is just over one lane wide and although a pretty straight stretch is to one side, the other side curves pretty sharp- it wouldn't take much of a bump from another vehicle to topple us into the creek...and there's a creek on both sides of the road.

There were old railroad ties left next to the old barn and he used one on each side as gate posts. So far, so good.

Because of the weight of the gate, I recommended a wheel be attached to the bottom to help hold it up and not let it pull the hinge pins over, like before.

So he got the wheel.

And found out that they don't MAKE wheels for heavy, square-cut gates. Only light tubular aluminum ones.

Yanno what? You really CAN'T fit a round thing onto a square thing very well.

The gate dragged because the wheel wouldn't turn correctly.

The worst spot was right in the center of the dirt drive where there was a giant root sticking up a few inches- the gate would have to be pulled (cha-CHUNK) over the root.

Blowing the root out of the ground was not a viable solution. Which gave Joe a sad.

Eventually the wheel was removed because it didn't work worth a damn and the gate hung pretty well all on its own. But then it REALLY dragged on the ground when opened and closed just from the weight and width of it and it would now have to be LIFTED over the root.

Finally, Joe pulled the entire shebang off and re-hung the gate...almost a foot higher than before. The gate swung free of the root at last.

I work till 9pm, making me the last one in the gate at night, so I'm out there fall, winter and early spring in the dark closing the gate.

I'd pull the gate shut, chain it and turn back to the car...tripping over the root. Every. Single. Time. Even with a flashlight.

I started calling it the Root of All Evil.

I'm not afraid of the dark. Really I'm not.

There's about 1,500 ft from our gate to our closest neighbor to the east...then another quarter mile in to his house. There's about 3,000 ft. to our closest neighbor to the west...then another quarter mile in to THEIR house.

Across the road from us is over 400 acres of bottomland and forest.

During the day, it's glorious. At night, it's still glorious except when the compies are out.

Remember in Jurassic Park? That guy with the glasses who ended up getting eaten by the cute little dinosaurs in the creek? I swear something at night (not frogs) sometimes makes the cute little noise those comprasauruses (0r whatever the hell they were) made.

Matters not that there's no way we even know what those little things sounded like. That's what they sounded like in the movie and that's the noise I hear at night sometimes and it freaks me the hell out. Because OUR house is over 1,000 ft from the gate.

Which makes it eminently easy to forget and trip over the Root of All Evil.

Most of the time now I'm able to close the gate with dignity, say "Hiya, Root" as I step OVER the Root of All Evil, and calmly get back into my car.

So Nature decided to up her game.

Monday night I got out of the car to close the gate, swung the gate closed, and almost tripped over...

...the ugliest possum I've ever seen.

And that's saying a lot.

On accounta they're absofuckinglutely the ugliest creatures on earth. And I think they know it. And don't care.

So he just looked at me, balefully, and kept walking. Never even tried to avoid me or acknowledge my clearly superior ranking on the food chain.

I hope the compies eat him.

Goodnight Moon...

Sitting at my desk, I look straight up and see the moon.

This house is our shelter from the elements, yet our love of the outdoors shaped the plan- where 1/3 of the under-roof footage is covered porches and 9 doors, 20 windows and 3 skylights barely allow for the walls of the less than 1,500 sq. ft. interior. In order to stand anywhere and NOT be able to see outside you need to be closed into a closet or the pantry. Or have your eyes shut.

Most of the year all the windows are open and the birdsong flows through on the wings of the never-ending springfed creek and pine needle scented breeze and we are living outside...inside. And I love it.

This morning we trundled 10 cartons of books over to Denton for the homeschool garage sale. When we moved from the big house to the little house we (and by "we" I mean Ward, mostly) had to winnow down the books that came. We all love books, but Ward is the most avid collector and has been the best at keeping his collection with him between moves. I left a lot of my books in Wisconsin, something I regret now.

Ward also inherited the majority of his parents' books when they passed over- a huge assortment of frankly horrifying psychiatric tomes from his dad, and an overwhelming amount of western romance novels from his mom. On his own he had cartons and cartons of paperbacks, along with many hundreds of hardcover books.

The hardcovers came to the new house along with a select group of his dad's books and paperbacks- in addition to his small but designated library we have bookshelves in the living room, dining room, bedrooms and Alec's study. We took most of the rest, along with the kids' books Alec outgrew to the rummage sale.

Tomorrow is Saturday- the day when Ward and Alec go to lunch and the bookstore. Sometimes Ward comes home with a new book (he mostly buys used from Amazon anymore) but it's an almost certainty Alec will have a new book. When we were in Denton today one of our options for the afternoon was to visit Recycled Books- a family favorite. After the rummage sale any leftover books will be sold to Recycled Books.

There's a very good chance the boys will end up buying a few of them back... and our recycled books will be recycled back to us. And I love it.

On the way home we drove through storms. Or they passed over us. I'm not sure. At one point the rain suddenly pounded the car and Ward was driving almost literally blind, the roar of the downpour drowning out the radio and then

nothing. We were out of it momentarily.

Alec said "How did THAT happen?" and I said it was the cloud that had been over us. He said "The entire sky is clouds, mom". I said, "Yes, but they're not all raining at once". I don't think he believed me. He's skeptical that way.

Alec will be 12 in a few weeks- my last baby. And with all three of them I've learned so much more than I've taught, been shown over and over again that babies and children are NOT empty vessels or lumps of clay to be molded and shaped into humans. They're born human and have innate gifts and powers and if we allow them, they remind us of all the wonders we overlook in our rush to grow up, our determination to attain and maintain that elusive illusion of adulthood.

I know I spent more time than I should've worrying about what other people (other adult-type people) were thinking and less time than I should've paying attention to the lessons my children were trying to teach me. I'm making a valiant (if sometimes failing) effort to pay very good attention with this last baby- the young man who is as tall as I am, as brilliant as his father, and who is a free yet critical thinker. He is a daily, constant yet constantly kind and funny reminder of how much I don't know about parenting, being adult... or even being human. And I love it.

I've been loved and hated, ignored and dismissed. Been married to the absolute wrong person and married to the absolute right person. I'm surrounded by people who need me, depend on me and count on me but all the while they're the ones who give me strength and support and a reason to get up in the mornings. My family- blood related and otherwise, human and otherwise are my treasures pure and simple, and I'm as fiercely loyal to them as they are to me.

All the bad bits (and there've been some heinous bad bits) are the glue that enable and encourage me to stick the good bits together, making damn sure I hold onto them and never let them go. If there had been no bad bits, I'm afraid I'd take the good bits for granted- letting them fall away like so much confetti, so many snowflakes glittering in the sun like they'll never melt and disappear. Until they do.

This is life. This is my life. All the inside is outside, released yet recycled, knowing less with every morsel learned, receiving blizzards of kindness and compassion for every snowflake given minute of it.

Sitting at my desk, I look straight up and see the moon...And I love it.