Sanguine Tenacious Tidings

100 Years Past-Now-100 Years Future

I'd like you to detail your day for us--break it down into your daily routine. But then, if you are up to it put a twist on it. Give us the same routine as if it was 100 years past or 100 years future.

I’m retired. I don’t have a set schedule. I’ll do today for you. Wake up. Pick up a book and read for an hour crawl out of bed about 6:30 a.m. My daily routine is in about the first 4 paragraphs after that it is a summer twist.

Morning routine for myself, then feed, water, and clean parrot cages. Feed, water, and clean cat box for the cat. Turn on the TV to PBS so the parrots can watch cartoons. (Yes. They follow the stories.) They don’t like Dinosaur Train because one time the dinosaur children were running from some large lizard and were screaming for help. It scared the parrots. They don’t like any type of extreme violence in their shows. My birds are very kind, gentle souls. Besides, because of that one incidence I’m sure they can’t discern between real and animated.

When I go down stairs I put the dog out, start the computer, put it on sleep for later, bring the dog in and fix breakfast for both of us. Then, I take a few minutes to drink water or tea. Some mornings I take time to drink my morning beverage on the balcony upstairs, where I can interact with a noisy bunch of red squirrels who like to steal cat food off the balcony.

Then I’m off the the barn to feed, water, and groom the pony. This morning I’m going to see if I can throw some hay off a wagon into the mow. The dogs will be on the back porch while I’m in the barn this morning.

It’s 8a.m when I reach the barn. That’s because some of the time since I woke up about 5 a. m I was reading. The book for today is “Swamplandia” by Karen Russell. It’s a book about a gator park in Florida and the family that runs it. I borrowed it as an eBook from the local library. It’s on my kindle. Plugged in the kindle when I got up so I could continue reading later.

I stayed in the barn until 10 a.m unloading hay and stacking in the hay mow. I was able to get 41 bales put away before my energy started to fade. I’ll take an hour or more off now to see if I get enough energy returned so I can stack more hay. This is not a typical day or week. We have been putting in hay all week. I have helped some but most of the work is being done by my son and his family. From what I see there is probably 40 or so bales still left on the wagon. The bales weigh between 30-50 pounds.

K works Thursday mornings so he will help when he gets home. I got a hang up telephone call since I came back in the house so probably the neighbors are checking to see if I’m still conscious. I need a snack.

Yesterday, I baked cookies, washed laundry and dishes, blogged, and read an audio book while I knitted. It was a slow day. The main floor of the house needs vacuumed but that isn’t going to happen until the first of next week.

Friday we will all be putting in more hay. During hay season we eat a lot of take out and keep bottled water stocked in the refrigerator. It is ideal weather for hay right now, long hot sunshiny days. I heard this week the good weather will end for about 10 days, so the rain will return. Whatever hay we put in this week will be enough for winter. If the weather goes back to hot and sunny we may put up more hay. Our haying help also continues to work their regular jobs during the day and hay in the late afternoon. Everyone works 10 to 12 hour days. It is difficult to be aging. It’s harder to keep up. Haying is a harvest. You see the result of your labor all year round. The animals eat well and stay happy during the worst types of weather.

If I was fortunate to be here in 100 years I would probably be still doing what I do now. I like routine and although haying is only one part of a small farm it is still a necessary part of life. In 100 years maybe the farming will shift into lots of other types of products. More and more people are going to live longer because we are all shifting to better foods for better life. One of the nice things here is the continuity of life. The red winged blackbirds are still showing up first in the spring. Robins like to build nests above the back porch. Deer show up at dusk to eat apples that are falling under the trees. In a 100 years, I may have more rooms finished. I would like some solar to run electric heat in the winter. I would still be vacuuming and the vacuum would run itself.I would still be reading and writing. Machinery will just keep upgrading until people have more time to sit around and watch the machinery do the work. If you could send a Mower out into the field to mow the hay by itself like the robot vacuum cleaner. More people would farm.

The old house that was here when I was growing up was unheatable. It had slat walls and no internal heat source. There was no running water. Water was pumped by hand with a hand pump and carried in buckets to the house. An outhouse was yards from the house and very cold in winter. I put up a new house. Since the house was built we have remodeled and added lots of insulation. We have running water in the house, barn and the garage. Computers, kindles, TV, and internet are part of our lifestyle. We use tractors balers, air tools and other convenient implements.

100 years ago. My Dad was living on this property as a boy. His family farmed dairy cattle and used horses to pull machinery. We are using a hay rake that was here when I took over the property. There was a one room school house at the end of the road. Dad told me when the weather was extreme in the winter he was not allowed to go to school because he was the youngest in the family and too small to walk to the school. The family also attended church at the school house. My Grandfather ran a school bus part of the year with a team of horses and a hay wagon. Dad always loved the horses and told me about using them to mow the lawn. He was proud of the fact that he was one of the first farmers around to own a tractor.

Since I graduated from high school I’ve lived in North Dakota, the Panama Canal Zone, and Texas. When I returned here I was set to stay. I don’t have much urge to leave and I like it that way. My nomad cells have been satisfied with wandering at a younger age. Now I find it an adventure to see how many bales of hay I can unload and put away by myself and still stand up when I’m finished. If I get a yen to explore I go surfing on the internet.