What's One Hour?

I can’t define true love any better than the next guy, but I do know it when I encounter it. True love is putting one foot in front of the other, and carrying onward and upward, even though your partner-in-life, your wife of 36 years, is an hour away.

What's one hour here and there, among friends? I'm not sure about friends, but for lovers, it's an eternity.

If this were January, and someone were willing to look after my flock of chickens and feed my two kitties, I could entrench myself in our little apartment down in Willits, break out a jigsaw puzzle and a good book, and take a long winter’s nap.

Realistically though, it’s the last day of September and the farm is jumping. With the showers arriving yesterday, there was a frenzy of activity to prepare for rain. Tools, a roof still awaiting installation of metal roofing and an assortment of items best covered, required immediate attention.

Sunrise in Willits, Friday morning, as I arrived.

I returned from a 24-hour visit to Willits, Saturday morning, fully expecting to have to put down some 30-weight tar paper on the roof of the little 10-by-12 storage unit I built earlier this month. Instead, I found the chore already done, HeadSodBuster having stepped up and taken care of business Friday evening, just to make sure the rain would not catch us napping.

The chop saw(s), Skil-Saw, tape measure, chalk line, pencil, paint, and electrical cords were all placed in the new storage unit, much to my delight. It was just HSBuster’s way of lending support for Gluten-Free Mama. 

Having determined that life up here on a remote ridge-top, an hour away from her primary caregiver, was not practical, we made the move at the beginning of August. Since then I have commuted, going down every fourth or fifth day, to ferry GF Mama around town, taking care of logistics. Should she need immediate help, we are lucky that Ben-Jam-In lives down in Willits, also.

Friday night GF Mama fixed me up some soft-shelled tacos, heated perfectly in the oven, and we dined in, sumptuously. Saturday morning found me scurrying back up here, not even pausing at April May’s, on the north end of town, to pick up a much-needed latte. 

If I'm not careful, I will kill the job...

When I found out that the pressing business of preparing for rain had already been attended to, I went back to finishing the installation of trim boards and thresholds, in the newly remodeled bathroom and laundry room. 

Around lunchtime, SmallBoy brought in the three packages of frozen cube steaks that were originally scheduled for HSBuster’s birthday, and deposited them on the kitchen counter. “What do you say, Pops?”

To which I responded, “Is this the day, then?” in reference to an earlier conversation, in which I had volunteered to cook up some chicken-fried steak. Mind you, I had never cooked this dish, but I did know how to google recipes. The first two I looked at had in access of 20 ingredients, and since I was not going to town I was easily able to reject them. The third had salt, pepper, eggs, flour and nothing else. I was ready for action-ready for danger. 

Additionally, I had also signed up to prepare the requisite home-made French fries that HeadSodBuster had requested for his special dinner. Never in the history of our universe, have enough of these precious fries been actually prepared for any given meal in this household. The best one can do is arbitrarily select a number of potatoes to be prepared, and go for it. I figured twenty smallish specimens, fresh from Irene’s farm, was the proper number for the six of us, and it was as good a number as any other. 

As for the six of us, there were HeadSodBuster, BossLady, SmallBoy, farmhands Tim and Danielle, and I, munching away. We laughed through “Cool Runnings,” as we informally dined, plates sitting on either TV trays, or perched on laps. Though a fire in the wood stove would be necessary in the morning, Saturday evening was still reasonably pleasant, despite the rain showers.

Gluten-Free Mama picking pears...

It would have been GF Mama who cooked the steaks, while I prepared the French fries, in a perfect world, but this is not a perfect world. That being said, I can envision a world far more bleak than this one, so I hold my tongue and thank my lucky stars that I can still drive back and forth to see my love.

Only one week ago she was up here on the mountain to celebrate HSBuster’s birthday, so there is that. On a good day, I could whisk her up here for a quick visit, and return her to her safety zone in Willits, so there is that, as well. A little of anything goes a long way these days, so when you have a lot of something, like love, you are in good shape for the shape you are in. 

Love is the greatest power, you know.