Burned

I knew there was a difference before I started. I knew there was a difference between reading and planning and budgeting and, you know, the act of flinging yourself off a cliff that is starting something new. Lately it seems like a constant battle to keep positive. Even thought I knew that there would be things that I never thought of to contend with, I didn't really anticipate how many of them there would be.

Last week I came home to find that the goat had learned to climb the ladder to the hayloft, walked across the floor and onto the ceiling of the milk house. Then she fell through, knocking a 4x8 piece of plywood onto the water spigot breaking it off, flooding the milk house and 1/2 the barn. But don't worry, I got the plywood back up and the faucet fixed and the goat is fine, only because I cannot yet turn an animal into curry with the force of my rage.

And then there was the carpenter who after doing quite a bit of nice work for me decided to fuck me over to the tune of 800 bucks. Again, another person that has benefited from by inability to castrate things with the power of my ire.

I came home the other night and found that my aunt had posted the speech that my cousin gave at graduation on the internet. It's all about how we're pretty conditioned to try and avoid mistakes, but that really this is how we learn things. Well, trust me, my mistake to learning things ratio is in the 99th percentile.

But then I bring the cows in the barn and Paulina goes right in her pen and Moxie goes right into hers and they lay down with a sigh and chew their cud. Tiny calves come and nuzzle up against me for apple slices and people who come by to work on the barn say how nice the cows look. At the farm where work I give meds and pull a calf without incident and back the dump cart into the squirrely tiny garage opening on the second try.

"Chin up, tiger," my friend says and kisses me on the forehead. "You'll be on the road to prosperity soon. Either that or bankruptcy," he chides. "But no one will accuse you of being faint of heart."

Here's my cousin's graduation speech