What a week ...

we've had here. Not that it's been all bad, as some stuff's gotten done around here, but we've had a big setback. Quentin got canned from the plant. I don't blame him, he went home early Wednesday with a major toothache, and it turned out the darn tooth broke later that day anyhow. (He does have horrible teeth, what he's got left, poor dear.) But he followed protocol and told his boss he was leaving early and why, and even had a witness to it. His boss acknowledged what Quentin said, and then denied even hearing it. HR wouldn't even listen to the fact that he had a witness, so he ended up fired for "job abandonment." That leaves us financially tight again, and means that all projects again have to be done piece by inch. I don't know if I'm strong enough for this, but I have to be. He's feeling like he's not a "real man" and is very depressed, and I can understand why. It just bites that I can't do anything to help, other than keep my job and keep things together financially as best I can.

Honestly, I HATE this. I really, really hate this. It feels better putting it on paper, so to speak, but it doesn't change or fix a doggone thing. It's three months before he can attempt to rehire at Butterball, though they did tell him he's eligible for rehire. And Tyson recently changed their rehire policy from six months to a year, so if they made it retroactive for everybody, that means he can't try to rehire there until mid-November. I don't know that I can do another fresh season - this last one just about killed me. I'm so scared that things are going to fall apart worse than they have that I'm just about frozen in place with the fear. But only just about, because I don't have a choice in getting myself in gear and doing what needs doing.

I did tell Quentin that maybe this is all a sign from karma ... because there's so much here that needs doing that male muscles make easier to get done, that perhaps he's supposed to be off work for a bit to get them done. Neither of us really believes it, but we're trying to make ourselves fake it till we make it on that one. Mainly because we both know there's two choices - give up or don't give up, and neither of us is a quitter. If we were, we'd've quit on this place a long time ago, when we first saw what a disaster it was last spring.

The good news is, it's nearly spring, days are longer and slightly warmer, and so there's not going to be major cabin fever for him. He can get out and do on the property a lot more than he could when Tysons got silly last fall, and goodness knows, there is a LOT to get done. So why am I hanging out at McDonald's checking email, blogging and doing whatever? Because it gets me out of the house someplace other than necessary shopping and work, so *I* don't go nuts. If we had 'net at the house, it wouldn't be so bad, I think, but right now, we don't and it's got to be worked out somehow. This is the solution I could come up with. It's not perfect, but it'll do.

We did take time yesterday to hit one of the pawn shops in Harrison to see if they had anything we could possibly use. They've got some tools and things that will be helpful if they're still there when we save up a bit to get them, including a weedwhacker. With the property being Ozarks mountain land, it means it's mostly rocks ... I've heard it said around here that you can sift out the dirt from an Ozarks mountain and get nothing more than a wheelbarrow full of dirt, but you'll still have a mountain full of rocks. I've also heard it said that if you dig out all the rocks out of a spot on an Ozarks mountain, you can come back the next day and there's 50,000 more of the things, because they breed worse than rabbits. But that's why the weedwhacker - with all the rocks sticking up around here, there's no freaking way you can get a lawnmower around the "yard" without breaking it inside of three feet. A weedwhacker will do the job just as well without busting, though it'll take longer. (Good exercise for the hubster.)

We went to Home Depot and priced out a couple more things we need for the windlass (which Quentin will now build, since he has tons of time) and the bailer bucket. If you guys want the plans for the windlass, drop me an email and I'll shoot it to you. Ditto the link for the bailer bucket on youtube. Incredibly cheap to build, overall it'lll run us less than $100, and we'll have water out of the well. It's now getting the $100 together to DO it that's the problem.

He's going to be able to get a lot more scrapping done now, though, from the stuff lying around and the little old tool shed that got clobbered by trees falling on it back during the 2009 ice storm, and even the Merlot. It'll bring in $500 or so that we will be putting to help pay off the truck (down to just under $1200 total left on it, so any extra will be a big help there). He's looking for some work to do till he can rehire at Butterball, it's just getting by till then that's the major pain.

He did get the one bike out of the weeds and up onto the porch that we'll be using for the windlass the other day. Now he needs to find time to fix it up for that, but he's got to work on the trailer and fix the one chainsaw first. The trailer needs a bit of work to make it able to haul bigger loads, and the chainsaw needs to be torn down to find out what went blooey the other day - he got it started and it went to blowing white smoke, so it either blew a ring or a gasket. It'll take forever and a day to fix it, but it's a whole lot cheaper than replacing it, and that's less time I have to think up things to keep him busy.

There's also the pasture fencing to fix. Trees to pull off parts of it and get the barbed wire reattached to the posts or trees acting as posts, and the loose brush and even paneling from inside the Merlot to weave into the wire, because he and I both know that once we can get hoofstock, feeder calves especially like to test fences to see if they can get through. We figure the more solid-looking the thing is, the less likely they are to even think about trying to get through, which saves us a lot of hassle in the long run. That alone will take several weeks to do, not even counting the couple of weeks it'll take to clear off and repair the fence. Then he'll have to build some kind of shelter out there for livestock. I want him to build the chicken coop and a small rabbit hutch/barn, too. We may be kicked in the teeth, and feeliing pretty low about now, but I'm by golly gonna keep him so busy around here that he doesn't have time to mope, any more than I do when I'm at work mutilating those darned turkeys.

So it's a tough week this week, and more of them to come, but we'll make it. Crying about it won't help, but when it all first started, it sure relieved a lot of the tension. Quentin says he has to be the rock throughout this ... and yet he's the one falling apart the worst. It leaves me in a precarious position, because I'm not all that great with stress, and I hate being the money-maker ... I did that for the better part of two decades in my first marriage and then as a single mom with two little ones to take care of, and it stunk. It may be just us and the boys, but it's still a pain in my tuckus to have to be the breadwinner. It's supposed to be the other way round for us, and it ain't happening, and we do NOT like it.

One change to the blog ... I've had to disable anonymous comments, so you will have to log in to leave a comment now. I've had some A. Nony Mous leaving me comments every week for a bit  now on how they think I can improve the blog "with pictures and articles and oh by the way, visit my potential porn site!" I don't think so. I already put up pictures, this isn't supposed to be full of articles on goodness knows what, and I am most definitely NOT going to recommend to my Gentle Readers that they visit a possible porn site, what with popups and malware and virii abounding on the blasted things, as far as I know. So from now on, to leave a comment, just to avoid this kind of silliness. Thank you to all who come and read and even occasionally leave a comment that isn't in the tone of A. Mous's ... you mean so much to me.

But, hey, I'm still working, he's got plenty to do, and we'll keep our spirits up as best we can. The earth is greening a bit at a time, so that's uplifting as spring always is, and we'll do our best to keep things on a more or less even keel. Till next time, happy homesteading, my Gentle Readers, and I'll "see" you next weekend.