A couple of weekends ago was tough. It was one of those weekends that made you ask yourself, “Do I REALLY want to homestead?”, “Am I REALLY cut out for this?” It was one of those weekends that Murphy’s Law no longer existed. Oh no…in Hall fashion, we went WAY past that. We were in “Hall’s Law” now, where if it could happen, it did, and did so spectacularly.
Nothing has ever been easy for us, personally or on this homesteading journey. I joked with Antoine that I think this is God’s way of getting us out of our “city slicker” mindset. You know, a mindset of ease, everything happening how you want it, things at your finger tips. This last weekend in April was the complete opposite of ALL of that. Let’s begin with Thursday…
In The Beginning…
Thursday was hot and I was hormonal. It was also the day we bought “Sylvester” or “Sly”. Oh, maybe I should introduce you to Sly. He’s our new truck because Willie is just not cooperating and killing batteries left and right. Anyway, Sly is from Maryland, likes long drives on the highway, and is a strong strapping manly man’s truck. He drinks a lot, but, he does his work, shows up when we need him, and passed all of his tests. I guess you can call him a functioning drunk (Ha!).
Anyway, his job is to haul stuff, and pull our tractor, Herman, to the property when needed. So far, he’s done a great job, BUT, getting him took a lot of time….well over four hours of “hurry up and wait”. If you ever had to deal with a car dealership, you know the agony. In all of that waiting, there was a recall they had to fix, so we couldn’t take Sly home right away. I know, it’s a “first world” problem, but, the dealership is really far away.
We had the kiddos with us, so I decided we had enough and were ready to head back home, and let Antoine finish up the paperwork. I was developing a headache and still had dinner to cook. So, I load up and headed out. I get maybe 10 minutes from the house and I receive a call from the husband-man saying “Um. Come back. You have my keys.” I had to turn around and make the long trek back to drop off his keys so he could get home. Thankfully, I have a sweetie for a husband and he gave me a reprieve on dinner that night.
Uneventful Friday…
Friday was the day we got to bring Sly home to meet the “girls” – our other cars. “C-Mini” that’s been our faithful hauler and all around “do everything” gal for the past 14 years. She’s old and regulated to city driving since she likes to give out at any moment. We don’t blame her, she’s been through a lot. And then there is “Elle”, our newer “travel” van. She’s our “every day” transport – taken over all that C-Mini used to do.
That evening, we went to bed with a plan. Our kids had a very early morning practice. From there, we were going to put Sly to work, load up Herman our tractor, and head on out to the property to finally finish cutting it. I think this day out of the whole weekend was the most uneventful.
The Storm Begins…
Saturday, bright and early we were up. Almost like true farmers, up before the sun came to visit. We did practice, grabbed a few groceries and headed home. The idea was to make a quick breakfast and be out on the property by 9am. Good idea, didn’t happen.
We went to get our riding lawn mower, so the kids could take turns helping with a part of the property that we keep cut low. Antoine went to start the mower before taking it with us out to the property. No power. DOH, we needed a new battery. So, off to the store we went. Thankfully, it was literally about two or three blocks from our home.
We make it back home, and the mower tries to start. *Sniff* “Do you smell gas?” “Yeah, I smell gas.” Then, we saw gas…running onto the ground and down the garage floor. The carburetor messed up. In doing so gas flooded the engine and our floor. We had to go find a way to siphon the gas that was left to keep it from running out. That stuff now days is like liquid gold and all I saw was money flowing on the ground. Next, we had to chase down the issue via google and YouTube tutorials. Once we had an idea of what it was, we then tried to find the parts to rebuild the carburetor.
With the old carburetor in hand, we headed to a store considerably far from us. “Do you have a model number of your mower?” “No. But we have THIS!”, as we proudly show her the used carburetor. “Yeah, we actually need a model number, we can’t find the parts without it.” UGH. We ended up having to buy a new one. We finally get home and take apart mower. While doing so, Antoine broke the spark plug. Off to the store again. Also, keep in mind, flooding the engine meant the gas mixed with the oil, so we had to drain it and let it sit for 24hrs. Needless to say, the mower never made it out to the property. Oh but wait, there’s more!
Remember we went to get groceries for breakfast? Well, now it’s about brunch time. And nothing has been cooked. Before we get started with the rest of the mower fiasco, we figured we’d get breakfast going before the day ended. Antoine wanted to make biscuits and gravy. I was on sausage gravy duty and as always he did the biscuits.
Fifteen minutes go by, well enough time for the biscuits to be done, yet they were still gummy. Weird. We felt in the oven and it was warm, but not hot like it should have been. We didn’t think much of it, after all, he sometimes turns off the oven and let them finish cooking. So, we turn the oven back on and cook them longer. Again, enough time passes, and they are still gummy and wet at the bottom. What the heck, man?
We finally really open the oven to find that the heating element was disintegrating right before our eyes! One more thing to do this fine Saturday. So, husband man went to remove the element only to find that the back of the stove was singed! We could have burned the house down – LORD have mercy! Well, He DID have mercy….we found out about the stove before something bad could have happened.
Anyway, we rent, so we had to let our landlord know that our stove was broken. We in return get a prompt response (he’s awesome that way) that the earliest he can have anything delivered will be Friday. Oh, we are about to truly live out this homesteading way of life. Grilling, crock-potting, pressure cooking….
Fun Day, Sunday?
We couldn’t get out to the property like we wanted to Saturday, so again we planned to go out on Sunday. It still took us a little longer than we wanted because – life, ya know? But we did it. With a couple of hours of daylight to spare. And man, we’re excited. We get the tractor off of our trailer and start cutting. We make a few passes. And we had to call it a wrap because, “Hall’s Law”. One of the pins that attach the brush hog to the tractor broke AND the battery died.
So, in another city we headed to yet another store in search of a pin and to get the battery charged. Luckily for us because we were still in the throws of Hall’s Law, the store could charge the battery, but they couldn’t test it to see if it was holding a charge. Their battery tester was broken. So basically, we’d get the battery back after 45 minutes of waiting not knowing if it will work or not. In the mean time, we got to spend some lovely family time together getting lunch at a sandwich shop while we waited.
We pick up the battery and some new pins and head back out to the tractor. We said a quick prayer and threw the battery in. Success! It started but Antoine turned off the tractor to fix the pin. Then we tried to restart it…..nothing. So, with the sun starting to set and the kids needing to get back to practice, we grudgingly left Herman behind and accepted defeat. Then we set our sights to fight another day.
“Pay-shunce”…
What did we take away from this weekend? PATIENCE!! We also realized and learned that you have to have a strong will to homestead. Not everything will be easy. And you have to be able to realize that as “city slickers” who want to be homesteaders, our mentality has to change about that. We have to get used to not having everything go right, fixing stuff unexpectedly, and Lord have mercy, spending money unexpectedly on equipment failures.
This life is NOT easy. Do we have the mettle to keep going? Well, we are too far in to turn around now, so yes, we do because we have to. It was frustrating at first, but looking back on it, it was a great lesson. Hall’s Law is very real – but so is our God and our faith. We’ll make it through and get things done in His time. We just have to be patient.
Alright y’all. Until next time….