Where's Annie?

We're starting to believe, sadly, that Annie is probably never coming home. Her tags had our phone number on them, but nobody has called. I stopped jumping every time the phone rang – thinking it was someone calling about Annie – earlier this week. The nightmares about searching for our beautiful girl haven't interrupted my sleep for a couple nights now. Still, the process of accepting her fate has been hard. Two nights ago in the barn, Dan looked around and asked, "Where's Annie?" I had to tell him, "Honey, we don't know where Annie is." Almost instantly, he told me, "Annie's at school, Mom." Yeah, I hope Annie is in a happy place. I'm not sure where Dan got the idea, but I'm glad I didn't have to explain the situation any further.

The farm is eerily quiet without her. Vehicles arrive unannounced. There are no shrieks of joy as Dan and Annie run together across the yard or up and down the mangers in the barn. The cats and chickens have cautiously expanded their territories. One of the barn cats – the one that has the same markings and coloring as Annie – actually ventured up to the house last night and was sitting in Annie's place on the front steps.

Deep down a little part of me is holding out hope that she's out there somewhere and will find her way home. I'm just not ready to say goodbye yet.

Worried sick

On top of being sickened by the fumes blowing into our yard last night (see previous post), I spent the night worried sick. For the record, I now know how my father must have felt, sitting in his recliner, waiting, when us girls weren't home by curfew. Our beloved Annie is missing. She ran alongside the tractor while Glen was baling straw on Wednesday afternoon and that's the last anyone remembers seeing her. Fearing she was hit on the road, I've checked the road ditches for a half-mile in both directions and found nothing. None of the neighbors have seen her either.

My heart aches thinking about her. Where is she? Is she hurt? Did someone dog-nap her? The first night wasn't so bad, but going to bed last night know that Annie wasn't in her usual place on the steps in front of the door just made me sick.

The farm is noticeably quiet without her. I don't think Dan has really noticed that she's missing yet. I hope she turns up somewhere before we have answer the question, "Annie, where are you?" He'll be devastated when she doesn't come running to his call of "Annie, Annie, Annie!"

If you live in our area, please keep your eyes open for our friend. Annie is an extremely friendly, pretty well-behaved dog. She's wearing a blue collar and tags. Regardless of where you live, please keep your fingers crossed for her safe return. We miss her terribly. (And I could really use a good night's sleep.)

Toxic fumes, anyone?

Quick, what's the most nauseating, headache-inducing smell you can think of? Road-killed skunk? A liquid propane leak? Cigarette smoke? The container of leftovers that was lost in the back of the fridge? A stroll past the eau d'parfum counter at a department store? All of these will make me hold my nose, but nothing will make me more ill (and more crabby) than the smell of burning garbage.

Somebody in our neighborhood decided to barbecue their trash last night. This was no pile of baler twine and feed sacks, either – this was the whole can of household refuse. I can tell the difference. My family burned garbage when I was growing up. To keep the smoke from drifting toward the house, the fire was started when there was an east wind, which meant the toxic fumes blew toward the barn instead. I swear that burning barrel was only lit on the nights when it was my turn to milk. I know exactly what burning plastic smells like: awful.

Last night was no different. The prevailing winds carried the stench right into our yard. Our new barn fans pulled the reeking air right into the barn and milk house. I gagged through the last half of chores and finished with a splitting headache. You know the old commercial where the lady says, "I have a headache this big," and holds her hands out? That was me last night.

Maybe my olfactory system is overly sensitive, but I'm pretty sure there's a good reason why burning garbage was banned: the fumes released from incinerating household trash truly are toxic. Thanks, neighbors, for polluting the air my children and I breathe and making my bad night even worse.

Fair day

What a difference a year makes! Our day of fun at the Great Minnesota Get Together was a vast improvement over our trip to the fair last year. There was no blood this year, very little sweat, and only a few tears. We were not prompted to leave the fair early by a toddler meltdown. No, despite waking up four hours early on fair day, Dan made it through the entire day without a single meltdown – something we've been seeing more of lately now that he's trying to explore his independence. We even navigated the sea of people sans stroller for a couple hours, with Monika in the baby carrier and Dan on Glen's shoulders. It was almost like our days at the fair before we had children.

The biggest difference we saw in Dan was his patience while we gabbed with friends we happened to bump into. Glen said he used to hate waiting while his parents stopped to chat at the fair; now, he was doing the same thing to his kids. In our first half hour at the fair we stopped three times to catch up with friends. What are the odds of finding our vet and two old high school friends among the hundred thousand people at the fair – and we weren't even close to the barns.

Dan also did much better this year as a Little Farm Hand. He peddled the tractor, gathered his egg and tomato, milked the cow, and picked an apple. At the end, we pulled his hat down over his eyes as we raced through the gift shop at the exit and decided we wouldn't go back again next year. Dan lives every day as a Little Farm Hand – with real chickens, cows and apple trees, (He did learn some very important lessons in learning to wait in line, though.)

We didn't have any blood in the sheep barn this year, but our visit with the woolies did require a change of clothes. The young man who worked for us when we farmed up north had his ewe lamb at the fair for the 4-H show. Glen put Dan in the pen with the lambs so he could pet them. After kissing and hugging the lambs and proclaiming, "I love them," escalated into chasing the lambs around the pen, one of the lambs jumped into the water pail while trying to escape. Three gallons of water went flying in all directions, including Dan's. Luckily, I was a good mom and had packed a set of cool weather clothes into our back pack.

I can only begin to imagine the memories we'll create next year at the fair.

Soggy business

I believe Mother Nature got the codes for June and August mixed up when she entered them into the national weather program. In June, our lawn looked as brown and dried up as is usually does in late August. Right now, it looks as green and lush as it usually does in June. The same is true for our pastures. During a typical year, we'd be heavily supplementing the cows and heifers with dry hay. We're feeding a little hay right now, but not as much as we usually do. Actually, we're feeding more hay because it's wet than because it's dry: we had to keep the cows in the barn for a couple days because the sod was too soggy to handle the traffic.

And when the pasture here is too wet for cows, that means our yard is really a mess. I wear muck boots all year long and by late summer they've always acquired a few cracks. Usually, it's not a big deal because mud isn't an issue in August. I walk around in cracked boots until September or October, when soggy socks send me to town for a new pair. Not so, this year. I went in yesterday for a new pair.

As further evidence that Mother Nature is mixed up this year, our third crop of alfalfa is the crop that got rained on. Apparently, the third time's not always a charm. Our first crop went up without a drop of rain; our second crop saw a little sprinkle, but not enough to push us back terribly. We took a chance on third crop and tried to squeeze the harvest in between two weather systems. It's a good thing we didn't buy any lottery tickets that week. After two days of terrifically muggy weather that resulted in no dry-down at all, our beautiful third crop was thoroughly washed by over two inches of rain.

Glen was pretty bummed, but chose to see the sliver lining behind the clouds. "Look at it this way, now instead of 150 bushel corn, we'll have 200 bushels an acre," he said.

(All in all, the third crop turned out to be pretty decent. The test results aren't back yet, but it looked reasonably nice coming out of the baler.)