{"id":1798,"date":"2011-01-16T13:09:37","date_gmt":"2011-01-16T20:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=1798"},"modified":"2011-01-18T12:47:28","modified_gmt":"2011-01-18T19:47:28","slug":"the-farm-abhors-a-vacuum-but-the-ducks-love-a-mud-puddle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=1798","title":{"rendered":"The Farm Abhors a Vacuum (But the Ducks Love a Mud Puddle)."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Ah, don’t you love a day off.\u00a0 I didn’t have anything planned for today except for 2 cups of coffee and a morning news show.\u00a0 Yes, I had to make some cheese.\u00a0 And finish emptying the boys’ bedroom in preparation for work on the house addition.\u00a0 At some point, the broken microwave had to be returned.\u00a0 Plus, the hinge fixed on the door to the snack cabinet (clearly an overuse injury).\u00a0 All in all, a slow day.\u00a0 But, joy of joys, a thaw in winter temperatures meant the barn chores would be a snap.\u00a0 Water pipes should be thawed and automatic waterers restored to their blessed job of quenching the thirst of the critters and sparing me the tedious and shoulder wrenching job of carrying buckets.\u00a0 Never mind, sparing me the whining from Big who had the job of filling said buckets in the kitchen sink and delivering them to the deck door. What a sweet, sweet Sunday.<\/p>\n

Until I turned on the water to the barn and all of the hose connections turned into sprinklers.\u00a0 Apparently this year’s ferociously cold winter was just too much for them.\u00a0 Determined to share their angst, they burst wide open, scattering the ponies, curdling the milk of the goat herd, and trying to wash out my contact lens by spraying at full force into my face.\u00a0 Imagine the anger that seeks to blind the farmer!!\u00a0 But perhaps it isn’t the fault of the hoses alone.\u00a0 You see, the farm abhors a vacuum.\u00a0 It seeks to destroy free time like Luke Skywalker seeking out the reactor core that could detonate the Death Star (I introduced the kids to the Stars Wars trilogy during their last 4 snow days from school, can you tell?). It expands from a quick game of Memory to the deluxe edition of Monopoly (another snow day favorite) in the blink of eye.\u00a0 Basically, it sucks in a relaxing Sunday morning like a black hole.\u00a0 Although, I must say, the ducks did love the gigantic mud puddle created during my 50 yard dash back to the house to turn off the water connection.<\/p>\n

You might think this was enough to spoil my morning.\u00a0 But all I could do was laugh.\u00a0 After all, the sun was shining down with a warmth we haven’t felt in weeks.\u00a0 Bruno looked adorable trying to chase the flailing end of the hose to the buck pen.\u00a0 The ducks were in dabbling heaven. \u00a0 Best of all, I thought to myself, it was a weekend.\u00a0 Which meant the men working on the house addition wouldn’t be arriving like they do most mornings.\u00a0 Imagine, I thought, how embarrassing it would be to be caught struggling with the water trough in my pajamas!\u00a0 Besides, what would I do with free time anyway?\u00a0 Except troll the farm listings on Craiglist.\u00a0 That’s a path that can only lead to trouble.<\/p>\n

So I headed to the shed where I keep various Home Depot bags filled with hose connectors, O-rings, and spray nozzles.\u00a0 I dug through the tool box for the adjustable wrench and searched the silverware drawer for that handy little plastic non-slip gripper perfect for opening jars (and disconnecting wet hose connections).\u00a0 Satisfied I had everything I needed I went back to the barn and started the task of unhooking the hoses from the waterers.\u00a0 Then I made a trip back to the house for the vice grips since the hoses were loose enough to shoot out a 3′ by 8′ stream of water but tight enough to require the strength of Hercules to disconnect.\u00a0 Then I made another trip to get the needle nose pliers since the old O-rings were practically melted into the hose threads and I needed a fingernail to get underneath them to pry out.\u00a0 Since I am a farmer I don’t have fingernails.\u00a0 They get torn off by catching in twine on hay bales, ripped off when snagged on fencing, or fall off after turning black when mashed under pony hooves.\u00a0 Finally I went back to get the W-D 40 since there was one spray nozzle that refused to yield to my usual tricks and needed to be assaulted with chemicals.\u00a0 That time I carried my coffee out, too, since I realized it was the only way in hell I was going to manage to have time for 2 cups of coffee.<\/p>\n

But when I was finished, the sound of water rushing through the hoses was as sweet as the bird song filling the tree tops.\u00a0 I went from barn to barn, pasture to pasture, using a wash cloth to wipe away a couple weeks’ worth of grime and muddy slush from the waterers and watching as they filled with clean, fresh water.\u00a0 They filled and filled.\u00a0 And filled.\u00a0 Then started to overflow.\u00a0 In a small stream, then a waterfall.\u00a0 As lagoons began to form around their bases, I rushed to each one, checking the floats.\u00a0 But no matter how I adjusted them they never reached a point where the water shut off.\u00a0 Probably because after 4 years of service they just couldn’t take it anymore.\u00a0 Or because the floats are made of plastic and we all know all enduring plastic is on a farm.\u00a0 Or\u00a0 maybe they got little cracks in them after that last frigid ice storm.\u00a0 Or maybe even because of global warming.\u00a0 Who knows?<\/p>\n

So I did what any reasonable farmer would do when a problem was only half finished.\u00a0 I made a mental note to add “Fix water floats” to my to do list and started gathering my tools to go back into the house.\u00a0 I announced to the animals that their water was now clean and full, gave everyone a pat, and shut off the water at the house again.\u00a0 Just as I was standing in the driveway, wiping my grimy hands on my night shirt, my contractor pulled up to check on the progress of the house framing.\u00a0 Which just goes to show that I am probably psychic.\u00a0 Because it actually is embarrassing to get caught doing your farm chores in your pajamas by the people working on your house.\u00a0 Go figure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ah, don’t you love a day off.\u00a0 I didn’t have anything planned for today except for 2 cups of coffee and a morning news show.\u00a0 Yes, I had to make some cheese.\u00a0 And finish emptying the boys’ bedroom in preparation for work on the house addition.\u00a0 At some point, the broken microwave had to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[98,100,99],"class_list":["post-1798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hose","tag-ice","tag-waterers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1798"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1857,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798\/revisions\/1857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}