Sometimes It's Nothing

Last night was one of those nights where your imagination starts working harder than your common sense.

As I was getting ready for bed, I kept hearing strange noises outside.

Every so often there would be a sound that I couldn't identify.

Naturally, I started looking for the source.

I checked the cameras.

I looked out the windows.

I opened and closed the shades more times than I'd like to admit.

I never saw anything.

But I kept hearing the noises.

Truthfully, it was a little unsettling.

Not because I thought anything was wrong, but because not knowing what was making the noise is often worse than knowing.

Eventually exhaustion won and I fell asleep.

This morning started a little better.

When I opened the shades, I finally spotted a hummingbird.

Just one.

A small female feeding at the feeder.

After not seeing many hummingbirds the last few days, it was reassuring to know they were still around.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only excitement of the morning.

While laying in bed I got another bloody nose.

That makes three in the last few weeks, all on the same side.

I've never really been prone to bloody noses, so it's unusual enough to get my attention.

That said, it's actually a fairly common side effect of one of the medications I'm currently taking, so I'm not particularly worried about it.

More than anything, it's just annoying.

My plan is to pick up a moisturizing nasal spray and see if that helps prevent them from happening in the future.

For now, I packed it with tissue, waited for it to slow down, changed the tissue, and eventually laid back down.

Then I heard the strange noise again.

This time I jumped out of bed and headed outside to investigate.

Within a few seconds I solved the mystery.

The hose was still connected to the motorhome water tank from last night.

I had left the water running at a very slow rate.

The tank would fill.

The overflow would activate.

Water would rush out and make a strange sound.

Then it would stop.

A little while later the cycle would repeat.

Mystery solved.

When I went back inside I got another surprise.

There was blood in the toilet.

For about two seconds my brain immediately jumped to worst case scenarios.

Then I remembered the bloody nose.

And the tissue paper I had thrown into the toilet earlier.

In less than twelve hours I had managed to scare myself twice over things that turned out to be absolutely nothing.

I suppose that's a good reminder that sometimes the things we worry about aren't actually problems at all.

With the mysteries solved and the excitement behind me, I finally got dressed and headed outside.

The first thing I did was reconnect the water supply to the motorhome.

The night before, I had disconnected the bunkhouse after discovering another leak near the master bathroom. Rather than continue chasing plumbing problems in a system that's eventually going to be replaced anyway, I decided to shut the water off to the house and reconnect everything directly to the motorhome.

Ever since cleaning the well, I've noticed more manganese showing up in the water. I suspect that's going to be a reality for a while as the well continues to flush itself out.

The long term solution is a proper filtration system, and thankfully most of the components are already on order and headed to the farm.

Until then, I'm relying on a simple screw on RV water filter as a temporary solution. It's not perfect, but it does a reasonable job until the permanent system is installed.

Once the water was flowing again, I turned my attention to the grass.

There were still areas I wanted to mow, but before I could do that I had to clear some of the branches and logs that were scattered around the property.

That meant loading two cartloads of wood and hauling them over to the wood pile.

Only then could I finally get back on the mower.

As most of you know by now, mowing has become one of my favorite jobs around Memory Lane.

The mower headed first toward the bunkhouse where I finished up areas I hadn't gotten to yesterday.

While I was over there, I finally took care of something that had been bothering me for weeks.

A few weeks ago, when we had the dumpster on the property, I emptied several metal garbage cans that had been left behind by the previous owners. Once the trash was gone, the cans ended up scattered around the yard and had basically been sitting wherever I left them ever since.

Since I was already mowing around the area, I figured it was finally time to straighten things up.

I gathered the half dozen or so metal garbage cans, stacked them neatly along the side, and cleaned up the area.

It wasn't a major project, but it's one of those little things that makes the property feel more organized. Every time I drove past them, I saw another unfinished task. Now they're where they belong and the whole area looks a little cleaner.

Just as I was finishing one of the last sections around the bunkhouse and getting ready to move on to the pavilion, the mower blades stopped working again.

Immediately my mind went to the worst case scenario.

Two weeks ago I had repaired the PTO circuit by soldering in a new diode, and I was convinced that diode had failed again.

It was funny because this was already becoming a theme for the day. Every time something went wrong, I immediately assumed the worst.

Before I could continue mowing, I headed back to the workshop to investigate.

As I started tracing wires and pulling things apart, I discovered the problem almost immediately.

The PTO clutch wire connector had simply come unplugged.

Sometimes it's nothing.

I jacked up the mower, climbed underneath, reconnected the wire, dropped it back down, and just like that the mower was back in business.

No parts.

No repairs.

No money.

Just a disconnected wire.

After the strange noises outside, the blood in the toilet, and now the mower blades stopping, I was beginning to realize that maybe not every problem needs a worst case scenario.

With the mower working again, I finished cutting around the pavilion and continued back up Memory Lane.

From there I cut around the main lawn, the driveway, the main house, the coop cabin, and the workshop.

The property is slowly starting to look more maintained and more intentional.

There is still plenty left to do.

The upper orchard needs another cut.

The lower field near the garden still needs attention.

And the large field behind the workshop has never been cut since we bought the property.

Those areas are going to be the real challenge.

It's not necessarily the size of the fields that's going to consume the fuel.

It's the overgrowth.

The upper orchard was cut a couple of weeks ago, so it shouldn't be too bad.

The other two areas are a different story.

Those sections are heavily overgrown and will require slow cutting, heavy overlap, and plenty of patience.

If I had to guess, I probably need another ten gallons of fuel to finish everything that's currently on my list.

The truth is, you simply can't get bored here on the farm.

There's always something that needs to be done.

The challenge isn't finding work.

The challenge is deciding which project gets your attention next.

By the time I finished mowing for the morning, I was ready for lunch.

Lunch was a steak sandwich made from the leftovers of last night's dinner.

As I sat there eating, I started thinking about what project to tackle next.

The truth is, sitting around doing nothing isn't really my style.

So I decided it was finally time to move some of the logs that are still laying around the orchard.

The problem is they're too large and too far away to keep moving with the hand cart.

The truck made much more sense.

I loaded up a collection of tools that had accumulated around camp and headed toward the workshop with the plan of dropping everything off before heading to the orchard.

As usual, I got distracted.

Before I even made it into the workshop, I spotted a beautiful yellow bird flying around nearby.

One thing I constantly forget is just how much wildlife and color there is here in the Catskills.

Everywhere you look there's something interesting.

A bird.

A butterfly.

A deer.

A flower.

Sometimes the distractions are half the fun.

When I finally made it into the workshop, I remembered another project I had abandoned.

Organizing the workshop.

At this point, I'm not even sure if it's been a few days or a few weeks since I started that project.

I began moving tools around, reorganizing tables, and creating dedicated spaces for equipment.

While doing that, I relocated a tool I may have forgotten to mention before.

A few weeks ago I was driving into town when I spotted a large radial arm saw sitting on the side of the road with a sign that said:

"FREE. WORKS. JUST DIRTY."

Well, anyone who knows me knows that's basically an invitation.

I turned the truck around, backed up to it, tipped the saw into the bed of the truck by myself, and brought it home.

Since then it's been sitting in a corner of the workshop taking up valuable space.

Today it finally got a better temporary home.

From there I continued rearranging workbenches, organizing tools, and even fixed the handle on the weed trimmer that had been installed incorrectly from the day I bought it.

By the time I stepped back and looked around, I realized I had actually made a lot of progress.

The workshop still isn't finished.

But it's getting closer.

Ironically, the entire reason I headed to the workshop in the first place was to prepare for moving logs from the orchard.

That never happened.

The logs are still sitting right where I left them.

Somewhere between organizing the workshop, fixing the weed trimmer, relocating the radial arm saw, and a handful of other distractions, the logs got pushed to the bottom of the list once again.

One thing I've learned at Memory Lane is that the work never really ends.

You simply pick up where you left off tomorrow.

Then I looked up and noticed the sky was beginning to change.

Rain looked like it was finally on the way.

I loaded the gas cans into the truck and headed back toward camp.

Since the rain hadn't started yet, I figured I still had time to complete another project or two.

I cleaned up some wiring and installed a new security camera.

Just as I was finishing the last few adjustments, the first mist started falling.

The rain didn't last very long.

Just a light mist and a brief shower before things started clearing up again.

Not content to sit inside and watch television, I took another look at my growing to do list and realized there were a couple of projects that would actually benefit from the recent moisture.

Before tackling either of them, I finally took a few minutes to degrease and clean the outdoor grill. It wasn't a major project, but it had been on my list for a while and it felt good to cross one more thing off.

The first real project was a small conifer tree that had been patiently waiting for a permanent home.

About a month ago, while cleaning up around the bunkhouse, I found the tree growing out of an old rain gutter that had been laying on the ground.

Of all places to find a healthy tree, an abandoned rain gutter wasn't exactly what I expected.

The tree itself looked great.

Healthy.

Green.

Thriving.

Apparently it was perfectly happy living in a piece of discarded gutter.

The problem was the gutter was headed for the trash pile.

At the time, I pulled the tree out and set it aside with every intention of replanting it.

Like many projects around here, good intentions sometimes have to wait their turn.

For the last month or so, the tree had been laying behind the bunkhouse waiting for me to get around to it.

Today seemed like the perfect opportunity.

As I headed behind the bunkhouse to retrieve the tree, I noticed several flowers blooming that I somehow hadn't paid attention to before.

They weren't new.

They had probably been there for days.

But for whatever reason, today they caught my eye.

I stopped for a few minutes just to admire them.

One of the things I love about the farm is that there always seems to be something new to discover, even in places I've walked past dozens of times.

After taking a moment to appreciate the flowers, I grabbed the tree, loaded it into the truck, and continued with the project.

I drove it up near the main entrance where we had previously picked out a location for it.

The only problem was the ground.

Digging in the Catskills is often less about digging and more about negotiating with rocks.

I climbed up the hillside with a shovel and started working on a hole.

After plenty of effort, I managed to get only about six or seven inches deep and maybe ten inches across before the rocks won the argument.

To make matters more interesting, the root system had developed in the shape of the rain gutter, long and narrow rather than round like a typical nursery tree.

It wasn't an ideal fit.

But sometimes done is better than perfect.

I worked the roots into the hole, packed the soil back around it, stood the tree upright, and gave it its new home.

At the moment it looks a little tired from spending a month laying on its side.

I'm hopeful it will bounce back.

If I come back tomorrow, next week, or next month and find it leaning over, I'll add some support stakes and guy lines.

For now, it's planted and officially part of Memory Lane.

The second project was one that depended on wet grass.

A few weeks ago we picked up weed and feed for the main lawn, but timing matters with products like that.

The grass needs to be damp so the treatment sticks to the blades where it can do its job.

With the recent mist and light rain, today was finally the right day.

I loaded the spreader and worked my way across the lawn applying the treatment.

Hopefully it helps.

The goal is to eventually have a thick, healthy lawn surrounding the main gathering areas of the property.

Like everything else around here, it won't happen overnight.

But every small step moves us closer.

By the time I finished, I was dirty, tired, and ready to call it a day.

I headed back to the motorhome, took a shower, changed into clean clothes, and settled in for the evening.

Now I'm sitting here figuring out what to make for dinner.

At the moment, pasta carbonara is leading the vote.

Not a bad way to end a day that started with mysterious noises, a bloody nose, and another reminder that sometimes the things we worry about turn out to be absolutely nothing at all.

~ Making Memories