Green Acres - the Tour

If you haven’t read the previous blog post – you’re going to want to do that so you can understand why the hell Rita and I are touring 92 acres of untouched farmland that Rita is interested in buying.  This tour occurred one Sunday in August in what could only be described as a beautiful day to be outside – assuming you wanted to sweat out your entire hangover in 30 minutes.  

So it was Dr. Ann, Rita, me and the lovely, young couple who are friends of Rita's and are looking at buying some of the adjacent land.  They were the right age to be considering this endeavor.  I…on the other hand…looked like I was an "agri-tourist" who had bough an afternoon's tour of a "real” farm experience.

First, I am the only one who attended the tour in their best silver jewelry. 

Second, you can only get around on the property on a 4-wheeler.  And just in case you…like me…have never seen a 4-wheeler before, there is only 1 seat.  So anyone else coming along gets plunked on the metal luggage rack platform right behind the driver.  This probably comes as no surprise, but my ass doesn’t really conform to luggage rack design.  Throw in the fact that it was 90+ degrees that day and every time we got back on the thing to resume our tour, I felt like a brisket.  I think Dr. Ann screens potential buyers by seeing who can stay on the half-bar-b-que, half-mechanical-bull 4-wheeler for hours at a time.

The property includes an electric fence all the way around it and cutting through it in order to keep the goats in and other animals out.  Rita won’t let me near the stove, how exactly do we think the electric fence will work???  Perhaps she should reread the old blog on my attempts to construct Molly’s invisible fence, which I’m pretty sure was lower wattage than a livestock fence.

During the afternoon, I forget exactly how Dr. Ann called me a sissy, but it was something like “now I’m being a sissy too” after she coldly pulled a leech off herself or something.  Like one of those statements where you had been so good all afternoon at not coming out and saying what you’re thinking and then you inadvertently back into the insult.  Noted, Dr. Ann, noted.

As the day wore on and we spent more time chargrilling on the back of a 4-wheeler, talking about crop rotations and the proper number of livestock to yield enough manure for bio-dynamic gardens (what I refer to as the crap-to-crop ratio), I couldn’t help thinking that I did not remember this being in the wedding vows.  All I know is I just got a season-long pass to watch every Titans game, pregame and postgame show there is. 

We toured around for three hours, through the woods, the barn, every corner of the property.  I fear I probably saw the toilet, it just doesn’t look like anything this city girl would recognize. 

Green Acres

It turns out the move to Nashville was not country enough for Rita.  She is now eager to acquire a little patch of land out in the country where she can spend a few days a month looking at the sky with “no visible evidence of civilization in view”.  Except for the glow from my laptop, presumably.  If we follow the natural extrapolation of getting back-to-basics, I fear sorghum and gingham may be in my future. But for now, she is just focused on finding untouched farmland.

And she may have found her homestead about 45 minutes from Nashville.  (On the way to Oxford?, you ask….)  Here are some key things to know about this possible addition to our real estate holdings:

• It’s pristine alright.  And by pristine, I mean no electricity, no running water (not counting the crick) and no toilet.  [I know the toilet thing is implicit to “no running water” – but given its importance, I thought I would emphasize it.] 
• It is being offered for sale by Dr. Ann, a 68 yr. old nationally renowned goat expert.  She even raises dogs to guard and herd her 400 goats.  So this is multi-species dedication we’re talking about here. Originally, I was going to write an entire post about being a goat expert (the Dr. is her Phd in goats!), but once I met her, I realized this woman knows more about goats than I will ever know about any subject (even Winston Churchill) and that I should probably just shut my joke-making piehole.
• When we arrived to tour the property, she asked me to change out of my hiking shoes and into a pair of galoshes-like boots from her collection.  At first I thought she just didn’t approve of my taste in shoes, but then I realized everyone was asked to use her boots.  Turns out, she didn’t want to risk contaminating the land.  [Perhaps she didn’t notice my hiking boots had seen precious-little hiking and there was little risk of contamination from the inside of an REI.]  However, I knew she had Rita from the word “contaminant” and the odds of us ending up with toilet-free farmland were going through the roof. 
• She is only interested in selling the land to the “right people” who will promise not to develop it.  I felt the need to clarify whether the addition of a toilet constituted development, but Rita shot me a look and I figured we could handle it in the fine print. So one objective of the afternoon was to convince Dr. Ann that we were the “right people”.  Rarely is Rita seen as the more country of us two.  But from the moment I told her I was an accountant until the beginning of Rita and Dr. Ann’s in-depth discussion of the medicinal value of vetiver, it was clear I was Zsa Zsa Gabor in this Green Acres reboot. 

But those were only first impressions – the tour gave us a real feel for the place. But that’s the next post.

Showertime

Since her stroke impaired her vision and balance, mom's bath-time has become a lot more challenging for her.  Since she moved in with my sister Nic, she now requires assistance to safely execute a shower and avoid any new mishaps.  And I’ve noticed a few things about mom’s showertime:

• My sister Nic is smart enough to keep shower days on a rotating schedule so you are never sure whether the Tuesday you’re planning to visit is an amphibious-duty day or not.
• It is unimaginable to me how so much water ends up outside the shower.  Certainly some of it should go down the drain – right?  Mom’s shower time is a complete twofer for her and the caregiver involved (as long as the caregiver is me, of course).  The dog is probably wondering when the ark is going to come along.
• The shower seems to reflect a double standard.  Her kids hover like helicopter parents if she tries to make herself a cup of tea.  But when it’s time for her to take a shower – independence rules the day.  Note to my future self: nakedness = caregiver distance. 
• The first time I “helped” with a shower (I use the term loosely) I mistakenly thought the transfer- bench was there to sit on.  Turns out it’s like a launching pad for mom's gymnastics routine.  She gets in that shower, stands up and my otherwise sedentary mother starts twirling like Dorothy Hammill in her heyday.  Honestly – the woman broke her arm walking to her chair.  But give her water and a slick bathtub surface and she can practically execute a double Lutz.
• Speaking of the transfer bench, 70+ years at getting out of the tub a certain way is tough to undo.  It has not once occurred to my mother to use the bench to exit the tub.  It doesn’t matter that you are telling her to sit down, she is still going to try to grapple her way over the lip of the tub (even though the task has been made decidedly more difficult by the bench that is in the way).  As designated shower-watcher, I have one job to do and yet there she is straddling the wall of the tub as my sister walks by to check on us. 

But mostly what I’ve learned from trying to help my mom with her showers is that being clean is overrated.