Along goes 2021, and here comes 2022. It is always a surprise to see the passing of a year, as though it has not been a year since the last one. They do go fast! Or, they seem to, anyway!
This year we tried to see if we could sell our field, and that did not work out due to the drought in our area. Well, okay. What to do now? We have some things to fix on the house that we would have done if we had sold the field. Those will have to come out of earnings instead. I cannot cut the price from what we were asking. The field provides feed for our livestock for the low price of yearly property taxes, which are not much on unimproved land. We found out we are maybe two years from them putting the canal underground through our place, which will bring interesting changes to the land. Maybe then will be a better time to sell.
It has been another Covid year, and things have been home focused and slow for us just like last year. I cannot say we want for much outside of the home repairs and upgrades we would like to do. We will be working our plans on our place a bit different than we have though in the past. There is no chance of our land ever seeing irrigation, so we get what falls from the sky. These past few summers have not given us much hope, especially where the drought was concerned, and the hot, smokey days we had.
A few days before Christmas one of our llamas died. He was the old fellow, and his death came as no surprise. It may have come on the same day that one of our neighbors died. He was a 61-year-old man, and his death did come as a bit of a surprise to me, though that could be only because I have not had my nose in his business to know he was in ill health. What did surprise me is that the Facebook group for the local Church congregation he belonged to did not mention anything of it. I would have thought there would have been some word said, but alas, not. Then again, he was not a good Mormon boy, so maybe it is not a surprise. People who don’t conform do tend to get forgotten.
Our two new puppies are doing fair in their potty training. I am trying to get them past that and in good habits before moving onto other little tricks. They seem smart, and they seem to be picking it up. If anything, we fall short with getting them out to the yard at regular enough intervals.
Christmas was good to our family this year. We were able to be together. We got every gift and gave every gift we could have hoped to. The older kids made supper for Christmas Eve, which left us beaming with pride, especially as it was all very good! I cannot complain! I am off nearly everyone’s Christmas card list, at last. We did get missed by a few new people this year. That is fine with me. I never get it together to send cards out to others, and I have gotten them from a few people who seem to do it only because it is a social expectation. In other words, I wish they would keep in touch as friends, not as a once-a-year card recipient. If you want to be my friend, be it, and don’t just send a card because you think Jesus is watching you.
So, at my tender old age, with 51 looming at me in the near future, what will this year be about? I am going to have to think it out. I know there will be some wood working in the warmer seasons. I put off buying a tractor because we thought we would move. The day our llama died, I had a list of four or five jobs that would have been possible with one, but none of it got sorted properly because I cannot lift as much or do what I needed to. There was moving the dead llama, sorting out the ramp into the field where the canal company has once again ruined it, and cut off my access to my own land. There is putting hay to the ground where I can serve it out without having to climb up on top of it and risk falling. There is snow removal from where I have to do my work. There is moving quantities of firewood from the Service Yard to the house, and there is carrying large amounts of water to the animal tanks, so they have enough. That would have been that one day. I cannot do all that by hand.
My dog loves to steal cans from the recycle bin and play with them all over the dining room floor. She is raising Hell and getting in trouble with Missus, which means I may also, by proxy. Time to go find out if I’m dead.