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The Living Without Series

This is a series of posts that I wrote back in 2006 on living with less stuff. Check them out: liv011Living #2liv031liv04

Coal Creek Farm on Facebook

The Chicken Doctor

April

The Architect

Clay

Empty Milk Crates

Ramone passed away yesterday. We will miss him terribly. I sure wish we would have had just a couple more years with him or even one more summer.

I loved looking outside to see Ramone working in the yard or talking to his ‘kids’ which is what he called his cows. “Here kids!” he’d call when he had a treat for them. Last summer he saved some pears in several five gallon buckets and would yell, “Bucket Kids, BUCKET!” and those darn cows would come running across the field to get a pear from him.


Many days I would look over to see him sitting on his milk crates waiting for the water tanks to be filled, that’s when I had the best conversations with him. He told me about the families that had lived in my house and about the land around our homes and the railroad that used to run through his property. He told me about serving in the war and sailing with the Navy. He told me how he was the first Mexican American to graduate from the local high school. Ramone told great stories.

Ramone had a habit of leaving things in a certain place that seemed befitting. Those two tractors, empty, still, but in that one spot together they were just right. Now those milk crates will sit there empty and still, but in just the right spot to remind me of sweet Ramone.

Watering the Cows

While my neighbor, Ramone, is in the hospital I’ve been watering his cows. I think I am now officially a tiny bit of a farmer because I had to break the ice in the tanks. Not only did I have to break the ice, but I had to do it with a bent piece of pipe that I assumed was used for breaking ice purposes……..until I saw the axe setting by Ramone’s porch.

What I’m trying to make you understand is that I got up early in the morning, braved the frigid cold and watered the cows. Now, it wasn’t so cold that I had to light a fire in the barrel to thaw the hydrant like Ramone does, and to that I say, THANK YOU GOD! But, still I was beating the heck out of that ice and was yelling to the cows DON’T WORRY YOU WON’T DIE OF THIRST…..NOT ON MY WATCH….I’LL BREAK THIS ICE IF IT’S THE LAST THING I DO…..I’LL SAVE YOU ALL…..I’M A FARMER…..I’M A FARMER… I…..AM…A…Far…is that an axe over there? What the heck?

I must admit that the cows were a bit afraid to come get a drink until after I went back to my house.

Oh! I almost forgot……

I took a picture of my new haircut while I was watering the cows. I know! It’s great, right? You love it? I KNOW!!!!

And look! My new glasses! Am I annoying? Do you want to punch me in the face?
Please don’t hurt me….please. I’m a farmer and I wear glasses.

From my hair with love.

Remember when I had long luscious hair that flowed like silk down my back and I fixed it every single day?

Remember when I got my glasses and it became painfully clear that my hair wasn’t really all that lucious or silky and that pulling it back in a pony tail was not considered ‘fixing it’ at all? I also discovered I had grown a beard.

I know you remember this. Right? The bangs. Good Lord the bangs. Well, okay….

maybe, it was more like this. Remember how I couldn’t stop talking about those bangs?

Then I went and got my hair cut again and forgot all about posting pictures of me with my new style.

And that’s just silly, because this blog is allllll about me, myself and I.

It’s just that I feel so wonderful and free with my new cut and the six or eight or however many inches I had chopped off has given me a renewed lease on life and I’ve been flitting around town like a little bird. Flit, flit. Flutter, flutter. Tweet, tweet.

Who knew that hair could weigh a person down so much?

I’m a new person.

Gone is the serious Olivia with no smile.

Gone is the scruffy Sawyer with a scraggly pony tail.

I’m the best haired April I’ve ever been.

I mean the layers in my hair alone have brought out the body and bounce that my head has been missing all these long, dreary, big-bangs months.

Are you ready to see the new April?

Yes?

My friend, prepare yourself…..

I KNOW!!!! I’M GORGEOUS!!!!

See how my stylist incorporated my big bangs into my new cut? I feel absolutely radiant.

Please don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.