FROM BAD TO WORSE... life in Hades (Part 56e)

We’d had warmer and better weather than normal from the time I arrived at the farm. Dan was well ahead of the rock picking schedule he’d set up and the new barn was completely fitted out. The only problem we’d had was that the new training track wasn’t firm enough. Dan, as I discovered, wasn’t one to spend money if he didn’t have to. When he graded out the track, moving dirt from one side of the hill to the other to make the track level, he failed to put in a solid base of crushed stone. He also failed to add sand to help with drainage. It would take two days after a rain for the track to dry out enough just to get on it. Since we had to keep the horses moving Dan measured out a mile on the roads within the boundary of the farm. It was bizarre. We’d start out in front of my trailer and go down the hill to the back gate. The back of the new barn was about a half mile and that’s all we had to go on.

Elle and I were invited up to Dan and Jeanne’s on New Years eve. We delayed until both the kids were asleep and then carried them on up to the house. Bert and Bethann were there as well. It was obvious when we arrived that they’d had a head start on the celebration. Bethann was especially animated. She was wearing a dress and I had a chance to see the ”magic triangle“ a couple of times which helped my attitude. By the time midnight came she was really drunk. Bert had told her to ”calm down” and they had a bit off a tiff. She went into the kitchen and the rest of us watched the ball drop in NYC. Both Elle and I, used to going to bed around 9pm, made ready to leave right after. When we went into the kitchen to leave we saw Bethann asleep. She was sitting on a stool with her upper body on the counter. But what I really saw was the puddle under the stool. I don’t know why but I pointed it out to Elle. Normally I would’ve kept it to myself. Walking to the trailer Elle made a comment to me along the lines of “I’m sure that made you happy". Maybe it was the alcohol in me but I remember admitting that it did. As we went to bed I was in first and was really surprised when Elle climbed in on top of me and her panties were wet. I stopped worrying about what would happen if Elle was ”fixed“ right then and there.

Unfortunately, the new year did not get off to a good start. I don’t remember which day it was but I woke up to find blizzard like conditions as I made my way to the barn to start the day. It was another day lost as we had to just walk the horses in the area in front of the stalls. At about mid morning Dan rounded us all up to go down to his potato storage barn which was on the other side of town. Bert had a station wagon so we were all able to go either with Dan in his pick up truck or with Bert. We had a hard time getting to town as most of the rural roads in that area were anywhere from one to four feet below the farm fields that lined both sides of the roads and, with the wind blowing the snow, it filled the roads making them almost impassible. When we got to about 1/2 mile from the storage barn we found the main highway blocked with a large snowdrift. There was no indication that any snow removal equipment had come through up to that time. I was with Dan in his pick up and he was ready to explode, cursing the highway department... and the weather. We had no choice but to return to the farm and what should’ve been a 15 minute trip took about 45 minutes. What really had him mad was that there was no real work for us to do under those conditions and he had to pay us anyway. I thought it was funny.

It snowed the rest of the day and into the night with the wind blowing the whole time. When I woke up the next morning I couldn’t see anything of my car but a part of the back window and a small part of the trunk. Just the way the wind had been blowing and the location of two small buildings created a snow drift that buried my car and continued on out into the driveway to the barn. As I made my way to the barn I found myself in snow up to my waist. The door to the barn had a drift halfway up the door. I couldn’t even budge it and didn’t have a shovel of any kind. It took me about 20 minutes to make my way back up to Dan’s house where I knew there was a shovel. By the time I got back to the barn I’d been outside for almost an hour and hadn’t really accomplished anything. It turned out to be a very, very long day, spent mostly trying to move snow. We didn’t realize it at the time but we were to be ”snowed in“ for the next four days, not able to do anything with the horses but walk them around inside the barn. Dan had me and the others dig the snow out of the road in front of the driveway so that he could drive his big tractor over to the farm field on the other side. Once able to do this he drove it across the field with me and Chit standing on the power take off bar and towards town. The wind had blown most of the snow off the fields so other than the roughness of the fields it was a relatively easy trip. Our goal was to get needed staples (milk, eggs, bread etc) for those of us back at the farm. The trip back was interesting with Chit and I trying to hold onto the tractor aa well as our our purchases. We made it without incident but I remember my legs being ”shaky“ for quite a while afterwards.

To be continued...