My original "plan" for this blog post was to show and tell all about our day of educating folks about maple production and selling our products at the Tractor Supply Company in Cortland, about how nice our on-line store turned out and products we hope to introduce this summer.
However, last week presented a few challenges, a bit of drama, and a test of my faith and fortitude.
On Monday, she just seemed off. During the course of the day Tuesday she began vomiting and had severe diarrhea. By Wednesday morning, I thought I might lose her. Our vet appointment produced few answers, but IV fluids were administered, as well as intravenous medication, and we were sent home with a couple of medications.
Thursday was horrible and I cried because I wasn't ready to let her go...not like this. She's 10 years old, but until a few days ago, she was still rather spry and jovial.
Finally, on Friday she seemed to be coming round.
Phew!
So, we left the house at noon on Friday for our ethics and civics class that we are doing with another homeschool family.
As always, we had a terrific afternoon of fellowship and learning. We left, picked up Rosemary, who'd been helping a friend paint a shed, and headed down to Walmart for some shopping. Before we even got there, a family friend, who used to serve with the Homer Fire Department, called us on my cell to say that he'd heard our address on his scanner.
What?! "He's got to be kidding?" I thought.
It became apparent that he was not kidding, so we headed home immediately - of course, we got every single red light between the Walmart and Route 41 - it was the longest twenty minutes of my life!!
We arrived to discover our barn on the ground, consumed by flames.
However, the kids and I collectively sighed with relief when we discovered that it was NOT our house on fire, and none of our animals sustained injury....in fact, they were all just doing what they normally do - the chickens were contently ranging around the yard, pecking and scratching, the horses were calmly grazing towards the back of the pasture, one cat was sleeping in the bushes next to the house, while the others had temporarily disappeared to escape all the commotion.
My dogs, safe and sound in the kitchen, were barking furiously at the firemen crisscrossing our driveway.
PHEW!
Sadly, however, we lost all of our farm equipment, with the exception of the sawmill that sat out in an open corner of the pasture. While we were so thankful that no lives were lost and no one was injured fighting the fire, we were a bit distraught and overwhelmed at the magnitude of our loss of equipment and everyday items we use on this farm, not to mention half of our maple syrup equipment.
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| What's left of our western saddle |
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| This was one of our English saddles. |
Ride the horses? Nope. No tack. How about groom them? Nope. No grooming tools, no halters, no lead ropes. Thankfully, the farm that Nate works for donated enough hay to get us through the weekend.
Work in the yard? Nope. No rakes or shovels or lawn mower or pruners.
Chop wood? Nope. No chainsaws, axes, log splitters.
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| Our cool, fully restored tractor that we used for many things. |
And, our display for TSC? Thankfully, we had most of that in the house, but we did lose a few things.
Despite all of this, we decided to head down to TSC on Saturday as planned. It was a lovely day, we talked to lots of folks and sold more products than expected! Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, and Grace only took two pictures, so there's not much to show. The sweet folks at TSC gave us a gift certificate so that we could replace a couple of the items lost, like feed for the horses and chickens, halters and brushes for the horses.
Friends provided meals for the weekend, so we could rest and work on our inventory list for the insurance company.
I am anxiously awaiting for their "go ahead" to begin cleaning up. I realize the process will not happen overnight and rebuilding will likely take a few months - inconvenient, but in the end, we will have a brand new barn. Stuff is just stuff - it can be replaced, little by little.
Stay tuned as we share the transformation with you.
In the meantime, I think I'll buy a bunch of flowers...annuals, like impatiens and pansies and violets, this Mother's Day weekend to "pretty up" our property around the house, at least!
Pray with us for an uneventful clean-up - lots of nails to step on and sharp objects to get cut on out there - we don't want ANY injuries!
