A day in the life: the calm before…
We were over having dinner at my Godparents’ house last night in the town of Hartland, VT and it was amazing to still see between 1 and 2 feet of snow on the ground. With the exception of the small glacier that still plagues the shaded back of our house — and therefore our grill — we have really been down to bare ground for close to two weeks now. It’s the difference that the raised southern exposure makes here on the farm.
The frost that has been in the ground since winter time is finally thawing out and there remains some hope that the worst of our road’s mud season is behind us. We discovered this year that muddy road, studded snow tires, and attached garages are a bad mix. If the town finds that it’s missing considerable material on Wheeler Camp Rd. I can safely say that it’s in our garage. Provided things have dried up enough, the boys and I have a plan for this weekend that will involve not just brooms but shovels and wheel barrows for getting the accumulated hard-pack out of there. Ah, the joys of spring cleanup…
Today will be spent, amongst other things, trying to figure out the fan setup for the big trailer. Jen and Jason (who has been on our staff for 5+ years, the poor bastard) spent yesterday testing out the generator system which is built into the house on wheels. Jen figured out that it produces enough juice to run +/- 20 fans, far more than we’ll ever need. Today we’ll see about running some extension cords down the length of the thing and seeing what possible hang points we have on the side walls versus just having them up front. As otherwise, the fans will have to point back and ventilate the full 30′ length of the trailer from where the gooseneck starts.
Jen, Ryen Munro, Dave Serino and the combined CCNF/Tripping Gnome caravan are scheduled to hit the road to Nebraska early next Tuesday. Our rig will be carrying all of the females which will number somewhere around 30 animals. Ryen will have all of the boys on his rig, which is not quite as obscenely large as The Beast, with all told the team being comprised of some 55 alpacas. After a quick detour to snag their favorite hockey-playing Italian outside of Albany, they figure they have 24 or so hours of actual drive time to reach the Futurity.
For my part, I’m sitting this year’s Futurity out in favor of a multi-generational father/son trip (the boys and I are taking my Dad) to the Gettysburg National Park late next week. We’ll also be taking advantage of the boys’ spring vacation week and reconnecting with some old family roots in Lancaster County, PA. Before all of that though there is a trailer to pack, a research paper to start for Sam, our 6th grader, and lest we forget that Spring is truly here: the real start (Max has already done indoor training for three weeks) of the dueling lacrosse and spring soccer seasons for each child. Yee-ha! I have a feeling that the USB modem I got for the laptop last December might be getting some use in the coming weeks!
