![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/DSCN1145.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThat’s right.\u00a0 After six weeks of swimming and bowling and fishing and sleepovers and beach trips and baseball and tiger tours and fireworks and even a 70th birthday party….<\/p>\n
….summer break came to an end for the younger kids.\u00a0 The boys finished the summer with a round of putt putt,<\/p>\n batting cages,<\/p>\n go carts,<\/p>\n and a ball pit.<\/p>\n Yeah, yeah, I know those pits are never cleaned and are full of filth and germs and, probably, specks of feces.\u00a0 But my kids are about to go to school and sit next to fellow classmates covered in filth and germs and specks of feces.\u00a0 So I consider the ball pit like a free booster shot for their immune system.\u00a0 You add probiotics to your kids’ smoothies, I throw mine in the ball pit.\u00a0 Different strokes, people, different strokes.<\/p>\n And when the kids start their new school year, I start my year fresh, too.\u00a0 Oh, you can start your year in January if you want.\u00a0 But cold temperatures and only 6 hours of sunshine make me want to curl up next to the woodstove with a bag of chocolate, a pot of coffee, and the only goal of finishing an entire book in one sitting.\u00a0 Putting the kids on the bus at 6:05 am, as the sun peeks over the treetops, a warm breeze ruffles my stained barn T-shirt and ripped milking shorts, and an entire 9 hours of kid-free silence stretches out before me, is energizing.<\/p>\n True to form, we missed the bus on the first day of school.\u00a0 Which would be annoying except for the fact that the bus has never picked up the kids on the first day of school.\u00a0 Never.\u00a0 Even though we have been riding the same bus on the same route since Big started kindergarten many years ago.\u00a0 Either it comes earlier than expected, or so late that I assume it isn’t coming and drive them to school, or it doesn’t show up at all.\u00a0 So missing the bus on the first day of school is actually a sign that all is right with the universe.\u00a0 Or an indication that my expectations for the public school system have finally hit rock bottom.\u00a0 It’s a close call.<\/p>\n Since I was driving the kids to school in town, I decided I would go to the gym while I was there.\u00a0 All part of my new year plan.\u00a0 It’s been a while since I’ve been at the gym\u00a0 So long in fact that when I came down in running shorts and a tank top, Little was taken back.<\/p>\n “Where<\/strong><\/em> are you going dressed like that<\/strong><\/em>???!!”<\/p>\n Huh.\u00a0 Perhaps it’s been a really long<\/strong><\/em> while.\u00a0 Since my youngest child doesn’t even recognize work out clothes.\u00a0 He seemed shocked to see I even owned a pair of tennis shoes that didn’t have goat berries and straw stuck to the bottom.\u00a0 Good to know I haven’t set the standards too high for my future daughter-in-law.<\/p>\n And that workout was just what I needed to get my new year started off right.\u00a0 As soon as I got home, I dragged a friend out to the barn to help roll in the fresh round bale of hay.<\/p>\n Plus, I fixed the broken feed trough.<\/p>\n Although I did bail before I redug the trench, which is currently just a cesspool, that carries away the dirty water from the barn.\u00a0 It didn’t really feel like a trenching day.<\/p>\n Inside the house, I cleaned all the bathrooms.\u00a0 By cleaned, I mean I scrubbed toilets and bathroom sinks.\u00a0 But I saved the showers and tubs for another day.\u00a0 Because I might wash some fleece in Pretty’s tub this week, which would defeat the purpose of cleaning it.\u00a0 And the boys’ tub still has a crack that might leak if I splashed too much water around.\u00a0 And the red mold in my shower is not so prolific that I might accidentally touch it while washing my hair.\u00a0 Which means there’s still time to put it off.\u00a0 Sometimes 1\/2 clean is not 1\/2 bad.<\/p>\n Besides there was still a lot to do outside.\u00a0 The garden desperately needed weeding.\u00a0 So I carefully cleared away the brush from the cantaloupes and gave their vines room to sprawl.<\/p>\n Then I pulled the creeping charlie out of the zinnia beds.<\/p>\n And gave thanks that I planted the pumpkins too close together.\u00a0 So that their leaves provide too much shade for weeds to take hold.\u00a0 Unlike the bush sugar baby watermelon plants in front.\u00a0 Which aren’t even holding their own against random blades of grass.<\/p>\n I would have weeded the watermelon but I already had a huge stack of greens for the pigs.\u00a0 Which meant weeding 1\/2 the garden counted for feeding the pigs 1\/2 of their rations for the day.<\/p>\n And somewhere I read that 2 halves make a whole.\u00a0 So it was really like doing the whole garden.\u00a0 I think.\u00a0 Probably.\u00a0 Maybe.<\/p>\n While I was down there, I mowed inside the garden fence, around the perennials, and the edges of herb beds.\u00a0 But I left the rest of the property, including the steep slopes of the ditches and the thick, overgrown areas around the pampas grass for The Other Half.\u00a0 Also, I left him the job of removing the guinea that apparently got killed trying to protect her eggs.<\/p>\n I know what you’re thinking.\u00a0 It’s amazing how much stuff I can get 1\/2 way done.\u00a0 The truth is that The Other Half is a manly man who enjoys opportunities to exert his manliness.\u00a0 Opportunities such as pushing the mower up steep inclines and removing dead bodies.\u00a0 Who am I to interfere with his expressions of masculinity?\u00a0 Really, I only leave him those things to do out of love.<\/p>\n Anyone else might have quit after that much productivity.\u00a0 However, new years are not for quitters.\u00a0 Even after the kids were home and dinner was served, I was right back out there.\u00a0 The pond lilies needed replanting.\u00a0 Originally, I just dropped them and their roots in the water.\u00a0 But as they began for wilt, I googled it and discovered that they need to be planted in dirt and submerged in pots in the pond.\u00a0 Apparently, this involves special soil or pea gravel or mesh planting bags or lots of other expensive things I am not going to buy for the free pond lilies I took from my friend’s pond.\u00a0 So I settled for an old nursery pot filled with a couple large rocks to hold it on the bottom and a black plastic bag with a few holes poked in it with a fork.\u00a0 That will give the lilies enough soil for roots but also keep the soil from leaching out into the water.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n