Nirvana on wheels

Every so often Martin announces, "If we could get another vehicle, I'd get a pickup truck."

He says it as if we don't have one.

When in fact, we own TWO: Big Rig and Chitty.

So here's the scene this afternoon at the farm. Martin's vehicle dream team.
Wake up Martin! The two on the right are just here for Mouse House renovations. Don't get attached.

Recovering from summer

Just six days after a blanket of snow, Maryland basked in 72-degree temperatures. Everyone in the area crawled out from under their rocks, hurled off their ski jackets and ran around madly screaming "summa-time! summa-time!"

I know it's only March, but it was a two-day taste of seasons to come.

I borrowed a friend's seasoned hunt horse, and went fox hunting for a few hours on Saturday... and now have the sore muscles and aching joints to prove it. It was a great time, but man, I feel like I'm a 100 yrs old. And have been run over by a truck. Dragging myself out of bed this morning, I groaned as I leaned into my jeans. And abandoned all hope of wearing socks. Those toes are just too far away to reach.

So with my (normally) immature brain and my elderly body, I cannot put a cohesive thought to blog. Instead, I offer a few farm photos from Sunday when we began spring cleaning and unleashed the kids on the world after months of indoor dwelling. Back to normal blogging tomorrow. Promise.

On Sunday, first order of business: mow through the Huck's goldy locks. Huck grows a winter coat like a woolly mammoth, which is a grooming nightmare and a sweaty mess when it's warmer outside. So instead of letting him shed out naturally, I decided a buzz cut was in order.

Fortunately, he doesn't seem to mind being poked, prodded and nicked. In fact, he enjoys the attention.

An hour and 50 minutes later, I had sheared off enough hair to fill a garbage bag. Secretly I hoped to find a svelte draft horse beneath all that hair.

No dice. He's still a fat guinea pig. Though I must say, this is not a flattering camera angle. Come-on Martin, go easy on the butt shots.

While Huck was at the beauty shop, the kids were plotting an attempt to hijack Chitty.

Next up, the dog, who also wore a winter's worth of mud, muck, and canine grunge, peppered with a few irresistible rolls in deer carcasses along the way. Last year, Martin built an outdoor shower on the side of our house. Initially, he planned to install just the plumbing... and shower under the magnolia tree. Yes, we live in a rural community, but we do share a driveway for Pete's sake. You can't shower naked in a tree. So we added this shower stall, much to Maisie's dismay.

Maisie was stoic, all the while thinking happy thoughts about well-heeled sheep....

About this time, Hadley the Barbarian thought that it would be wise to bathe the cat as well. As much as I would love to de-stenchify that cat, I nixed the idea. Drippy, you can thank me later by not defiling our mudroom.

By end of day, most farm beasts had been ridden, run or otherwise exercised, and scrubbed clean. Hope they enjoyed it. Winter returns next weekend.

Farewell old friend

Little Zippy 1995 - 2009


Martin and I frequently refer to our offspring as "the kid" or "the boy and the girl" but we always call our vehicles by name. There's "Chitty," the banged-up '87 Ford pickup that was free with our tractor. There's "Big Rig," the big-ass white pickup with the grumbling diesel that could probably flatten a tank. And there's "Little Zippy," my fire engine red Civic which is just that.... little and zippy.

(Ok, so there's also a Toyota SUV but it's utterly personality-less and not yet earned the right to be named.)

So, I'm sad to say that one our fleet sailed away this weekend. Or rather was jumped, sputtered to life, and limped down the driveway.

It's heartbreaking, sort of like losing a toe. But lately, Little Zippy has not been a valued team member. I've had some good times in Zippy (get your mind out of the gutter, not those kinds of good times...he's a small car), but he's been lawn art for the past year.

But I will miss Lil Zip, a car bought off a former college roommate in '95. I had just secured an entry-level editorial position with a horse magazine, and with a little help from Dad, ponied up the cash to buy my own first car. I would later learn that whilst I was retrieving said vehicle from Pennsylvania, the entire editorial staff had been laid off in a battle between publisher and owner. I arrived to work the next day to find a padlocked front door.

How ironic that I'm now unloading Zippy 14 yrs later and just weeks after being laid off from ANOTHER horse magazine. Guess it was meant to be.

Little Zippy will always be car #2. My first ride (shared with the parents) was a blue Volvo station wagon...God, that was sexy machine. All joking aside, it was stick shift, thank you very much, with overdrive.

My best memory of Zippy: cruising down I-81 in Virginia on the way to a horse show, moon roof open, music blasting, dog sitting shot-gun, while I read and re-read the lyrics from a CD jacket, to memorize all the words. Those were the days when the highways were empty and you could actually drive AND read at the same time. Ah, the memories.

Little Zippy was fast, reliable, got kick-ass mileage, and cost about 10 cents to fill up. He survived a near flattening by a tree during a summer thunderstorm. And he experienced not one, but two deer attacks, both on the front bumper.

So Zip, I'm sorry to sell you down the river. I hope you bring joy to future passengers, but judging what I got for you, you may be chopped up and used as an organ donor for younger hot rods.

The meat of our fleet: the tractor that beget Chitty, and the soon departed little zippy.