Un-glamourous

August 22nd, 1am: There's something about the early hours of the morning that makes people take their walls down and be a little more honest with themselves about reality. 

I've been meaning to post the drafts I have from my latest adventures with this new job I have. 

Driving.. that's what I do now. In case you missed the previous posts. I drive. I drive my father, the doctor, around Iowa. He's not a medical doctor, but he's had his PHD since before I was born, I'm pretty sure. I've never really given that much thought, though. But since following him around on his field visits and listening to him solve the farmers' problems in a matter of minutes and seeing his fingerprints all over this state... I'm coming to respect his intelligence a lot more. He is, truly, brilliant. 

We've driven up close to Minnesota and South Dakota on many occasions, now. As we drive he points out the cattle lots he worked on and designed and the barns he designed and saved and helped. He is an engineer, and he engineers very well. People know him. Farmers drive their giant tractors into our yard just to talk to him and ask his advice. I admire him, quite a lot. 

It was a lot harder on me, at first. The isolation, the time spent in the car... I would come home in not the greatest moods. I've adapted, I think. Well, most the times i think that. I resisted the change, at the beginning... but there's a point where you look around and everyone else in the world has moved on and adapted to their new circumstance and you're the last one. 

I must tell you, though I considered myself a farm girl for most my life, I was never very good at defining what that meant. I've since come up with the definition in my head. 

Farm Girl- One who lived in the country and saw the stars at night and didn't have to shut the curtains at night. Free from the sound of sirens and screaming and traffic and the general hustle and bustle of a city. One who enjoyed the natural darkness of not having the neighbors light shining into your window, or a street light that forever attracts bugs in your parking lot. One who walks barefoot on the grass and into the garden where one plucks fresh tomatoes or strawberries and eats them on the spot. 

A spoiled farm girl. I worked with sheep in my younger years, but it was an easy job. Haul a five gallon bucket of corn out of the grain bin to their pen every morning. Turn on the water spigot when they got low. Make sure the salt block was still good. 

Being back on the farm... my definition has changed... a lot. I'm just trying to think of a good starting point for explaining it. 

There are stars, yes... but there are mosquitos, too. If you're still outside by the time the stars come out, there's probably not too much left of you. Unless you own bug spray... which we don't. I also brought my curtains home with me. I think I'm the only room in the house that has a curtain besides our North living room. I don't really welcome the sun at 5am... I'm glad it's there.. but, preferably closer to 7. There are no sirens, no screammings or chaos. It IS quiet. Which IS peaceful and a little soothing. But I think it adds a little to the feelings of isolation. 

And about barefoot.... don't. Not here... not now. We have two baby goats who lost their mama about a month ago. They run free and wild... no pen.. no leashes... no restrictions. And they go everywhere. If ya know what I mean. They follow you around, which is cute... but it means that whatever they drop follows you around too. 

Plus... cows. We have cows. We never had cows OR goats in my young tom-boy farmer girl life. And we have 10 cows. 4 of them are not my worry at all. In fact... 9 of them are generally not my concern. 

But there is one. One little baby who is about 6 days old. 

We brought them back from close to South Dakota on Monday... and it was hot.. and they were babies. When we arrived and unloaded the truck that had the 6 little babies in it, there was the little one, passed out in the back, being trampled and pooped on by the other ones. We thought, perhaps, he was dead. But he wasn't. And when Dad pulled him from the truck, my brother gagged several times before stepping away. And then it was my turn to dry heave 10 or 11 times on account of the smell and the heat and the nastiness. 

As it turns out.. me, with the weakest stomach, am the only one of the 6 of us kids that were home at the time who had enough concern for the little animals to get past the pooped on cow. I had to carry the poor thing into the barn, which meant I was covered in all things nasty from my toes to the hairs on top of my head. I suppose changing diapers as a nanny prepared me some... but not much. But there's a point where you tell yourself to get over it cuz it's life. 

Showers... I took them for granted in college. I'm a huge fan, now. 

The little calf.. he's still alive. That's our assessment at the end of each day.. "Well... he's alive." He's not in great shape. Multiple times in the last week we've gone into the barn and thought he was dead. It's usually me, that has to crawl into his pen and pull his lifeless body onto a clean patch of hay and lift his head into a normal not-dead looking position. 

Rubber boots. I never had them before.. but Im a huge fan of them now, too. 

He doesn't suck his bottle like a normal calf would. Usually we milk the bottle into his mouth while holding his head up so is slides down his throat. We get excited when he swallows. 

He's alive. His name is spot. And as unpleasant as caring for a filthy, half-dead, stubborn cow can be.. I'm invested in him. I'll be sad if all our sweat filled efforts fail. 

But he gives me something to fight for. 

My biggest struggle since being here is having lost all sense of purpose in my life. I mean... driving dad around is important, I know. He needs me, I know. But I have no church, no friends, no ministry. No one to encourage, no one to pursue, no one to welcome into my house and feed. 

But little baby cow.. he needs to be pursued. If he refuses the bottle at 2oclock, we go out again at 4. If he refuses the 4 oclock bottle.. we go out at 6. And we stay.. we stay until it is almost dark and we fight for him and make him take it. Because his life depends on it. 

My farm girl life is not glamorous. Not at all. I went from a college girl in the city who hosted her friends for dinner and went on long walks and lived a wild, care-free social life... to a farm girl with very far away friends. Who spends her days driving, and her evenings covered in sweat and urine and poop and hay and flies. And by sweat, I mean... drenched. 

I wear, roughly, the same clothes every day. Doing laundry twice a week to keep my same outfits in rotation. Why unpack more clothes? They'll only get stained or caught on a nail. 

I don't mind my new life. It's very different, but it is what it is. 

I'm happy. Well... most of the time. 

It's hard at times... to not be happy. Because everyone else is. After all, their lives moved on, just the same. They adapted. I'm quite starting to believe that I should let my friends adapt fully to the absence of me and give them the chance to move on with out me constantly coming back. 

I did move, after all. It's not that I don't like them. It's because I love them. And long distance relationships hurt way too much for me to have enough emotional strength to keep them up too long. Because, there is always that gut-sickening feeling of knowing that you're in their life but not. And that you can't really be a part of their life... you just have to pretend... through social media and stuff. But in reality... I'm kneeling over a half-dead cow alone, by myself. And I will walk back into the house by myself and I will sit in the kitchen by myself and I will end my day by myself. 

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August 27th 11:30am

I'm trying to convince myself to actually post something so as to update people about my life. I fell asleep before the last post could be posted and life moved on quickly... but I'll let you read it anyways. 

It's been 5 days. The little baby calf died. Dad said he probably didn't have much chance from the get go. My work with the cows has lessened quite a bit with that little guy gone now. Occasionally I'll go out and help give the bottles to the other little ones... but there is no more kneeling down in the stall to lift the little one out of his own mess. No more lifting him out of the stall to let him walk around the pasture a little. No more sweaty hours of trying to force him to drink his bottle. No more holding him in my lap or petting or coaxing. 

But I'm doing much better emotionally, any how. I've spent a lot more time in the Word as of late and am much encouraged by all of it. I've started to read through Revelation, and it's quite a thriller and I love it a lot. 

We only had one farm visit so far this week. For the rest of the time I've gotten to catch up on other things, as well as begin Kolby's Sign Language lessons and reading and math. Sometimes I think about how I still enjoy teaching children... but I'm glad the Lord had different plans for me all the same. 

It's great to have my siblings around! It's not exactly the same thing as a social party in Iowa City... but they are humans and they can speak and they make me laugh sometimes. They like to hang out and do fun things and I like that they want to hang out with me. I'm not as lonely as I started out being... especially since I've come to embrace google hangout and skype and my phone even. Long chats with my cousins and friends at the end of the day are really great and encouraging. 

I also have taken for granted the amount of times I was a passenger in someone else's car. Since I can't ever touch my phone whilst driving, there's a lot of text conversations that are left hanging high and dry since a lot of the driving is a couple hours between towns. I drove to Des Moines and back quick with Pearl on Sunday and I got to ride shot gun. That was really great because I even go to sleep a little bit. 

This weekend I will be doing fun and epic things and I'm beyond words excited for them. Hiking, exploring, laughing, walking, chatting, coffee'ing, talking about Jesus..... It's going to be the best!