Day 2

Day 2.

 Cue glorious music.

I wake up at 7:00am, because that is farm times. I did not factor in the one hour time difference that makes Utah 7am my 6am, so I slobber on the pillow in protest and hit my snooze button three times before rolling out of bed at 7:30am. I take stock of my self: one scratch from walking into a fence post (note to self: Google what the symptoms for tetanus are), and one blister on my index finger (also Google if blisters can turn into cancer). All in all, despite a little soreness and impending tetanus cancer, I'm peachy.


First order of business: make tea. I guess I'll just go out to the kitchen and OH WAIT NO I HAVE A BEDROOM COFFEE MAKER.

Fucking genius.

I take my trusty Yellowstone tumbler of tea out to the greenhouse and get to work. The outside of the high tunnel greenhouse resembles a person who was supposed to go to a party, didn't realize it was a costume party, dressed up as a shitty ghost and then got really drunk to compensate for their terrible decisions. 

 This fucking guy.

Also his insides are filled with grass.

And I'm gonna DIG 'EM UP.

I dig, and dig, then do some more digging. I dig so much that I wonder if I am digging the way normal people dig. I conclude I have certainly come up with a much more efficient and amazing way of digging because I have dug a lot of things and I still don't hate myself. There is no evidence to support my claim of superior digging, which makes it a belief and therefore infallible. I pat myself on the back for that brilliant piece of logic, and dig until breakfast.

Breakfast is a delicious hearty plate of fresh eggs, potatoes and lamb burger. Having dined previously on a sachet of tuna, I inhale the meal and assume that I have exploded out back into normal personhood, like Popeye's arms, only all over. I eat so quickly I don't even have time to document the event in picture form for all posterity.

Here are some turkeys on a fence instead.

After breakfast, I return to digging. The wind is beginning to pick up, and the drunk flaps push me, as if this guy is saying, "Hey, hey, what you're doing is terrible, I am going to gently nudge you until you stop that." Not to be outdone by a drunk greenhouse, I adamantly continue impaling the dirt, despite being now nearly enveloped by thick plastic and next to deaf from the insanity of flapping coming from every direction.

But victory must be mine! The trench will be dug, no matter what happens, come wind, come rain, come--

Lauren comes out and asks me why I insist on standing in the high tunnel when it is so unpleasant in there. Having no good answer, I put the shovel down and silently tell the tunnel this isn't over. I know he heard me...

Because it is windy, Lauren decides it might not be such a good idea to start another project right away. She tells Ed to introduce me to the pigs, since they are his favorite animal on the farm. I walk up to the pen, and stand on the pile of pig manure while he stands on normal ground. Why? Mostly because I did not realize it was a pile of poop. We have a moment where we both recognize that I am standing in a pile of manure, but I do nothing about it. He talks about the pigs, and I can tell he is beginning to wonder why I am still standing there. I wonder myself, but the thought, "This honestly isn't even close to the worst thing you've stood in," already crossed my mind, so laziness wins out and I continue to stand there.

I MADE MY CHOICE, DAMMIT.

My choice is to take clandestine pictures of pig balls.

 

Meeting the pigs takes approximately five minutes, and then it is back to figuring out things to do that do not involve being outside, since the winds are threatening to close in on 45mph. I am randomly reminded of an episode of Mad About You where Paul Reiser has to film wind for a Japanese director, and he can't figure out how to film wind. Paul Reiser clearly did not live in Utah, because he would have heard that request and then shot himself because his job was now to be around wind. Lauren instructs me to wrap up the loose dance floor boards in the barn that they use for a stage when they have farm festivals. I acquiesce, and go into the barn. I am surprised immediately by how many adorable mice are running around. I am further surprised when I run into this:

"Can I fucking help you?"

 

I assume I have just met the barn cat, and am no longer surprised about the amount of mice I see. I return to the room with the cat three times, and do not discern any attempts by said cat to catch a mouse. I make a note to keep an eye out to see if the cat ever actually leaves what will now forever be known as The Room With The Cat, although it is really called the barn office.

After a long stretch of board moving, it is still too windy to go outside, so I price out some meat that was previously a pig on their farm. It is a very serious endeavor that is necessary to the livelihood of the farmers, as it is one of the few ways to derive a profit in the windy and arid climate they inhabit.

Hehehe.

 

After taking it as seriously as possible, I return back to the house for more assignments. I am told to trim another goat's hooves. After yesterday, I have decided this is the worst job. It is as if the goats do not even realize that women in Hollywood would pay at least $200 to be held down and have their nails done against their will.

 

"Satan compels you to not give me a manicure."

By the end, I have amassed a total of four blisters on my right hand. I pray for a swift death.

Our work day ends a little early, because Lauren has run out of things to think of that I could do while being out of the wind. Instead, we await the arrival of a family that is going to trade soaps made from her goats' milk for other goods. I feel incredibly country and lament the lack of things to barter. I wonder if the girl will trade me a bar of soap for a packet of tuna.

The family consists of Marti and Johnny, a couple who live on the Army base at Dugway, a few miles down the road. They bring their children and their niece along. The baby, Jett, is an adorable child with a serious face that possesses adult-like eyebrows so that all his expressions seem like they are coming from a human instead of whatever babies are. The niece, Alicia, is a sweet girl with a kind face and kind disposition. The five-year-old, Kylar, is what happens when you forget that you have a kid and then wake up one day and a five-year-old is bouncing on your bed, screaming, "WHY ARE SOME THINGS LIKE OTHER THINGS?!"

He is everywhere at once, touching everything, asking what everything is, climbing everything that should not be climbed. At one point I swear he is trying to climb a door jamb. I sympathize with the parents, knowing how difficult kids can be, and help them out as much as possible. I even take a picture for them.

Nailed it.

 

"I'm hungry," Kylar complains in earnest, and I think that perhaps we can share a bond after all, since we have so much in common. It does not help that we are both impatiently staring at this:

Gimme.

My bond with Kylar is broken when he starts crying because his mom won't let him eat the pork roast before it is done. I find him amateurish, as I am silently plotting how to quickly incapacitate everyone around me, so that I can eat the whole thing, like an adult. Lauren announces that the roast is done, and my elation at eating is so much that I scrap my plan to murder everyone. I am an altruist that way.

Dinner is a mess of Kylar adamantly maintaining mountain lions only live in the desert, which is totally absurd and would make me question his mother's sanity in allowing such horrible misinformation to go unchecked, but she is a nice young woman who reminds me of my sister Jasmine, so instead I just tell him that they totally live in varied habitats and what does he even know about lions anyway.

Our food consumed, we all leave Lauren and Marti alone to do their bartering, while Ed throws some feed down for the chickens to eat. It keeps Kylar entertained long enough for an adult conversation to follow itself to completion, and Marti exchanges some soap for the meats I priced out earlier. Then it is time for them to go home.

The farm all of a sudden seems so quiet. All my lessons learned for the day, I prepare to go inside and go to bed.

"That's the fucking stuufffffff..."

Before I make it to the door, I learn one last lesson: goats love to get stoned off of campfires. No wonder people thought they were the devil animal. 

GOAT OF THE DAY: Pan

This is Pan. He is a little baby goat. One day he is going to grow up and pull a goat cart with his sister, Pandora. His likes include hitting things with his face, ear scritches, and my camera. His dislikes probably include mountain lions. I don't know, I didn't ask.

"Whatcha doin'?"

"Whatcha doin' now?"