Homesteading on 2 Acres – a Girl and her Dogs
Homesteading on 2 acres in a tiny house; a girl, her dogs, and some vegan recipes
These roses are meant to be a deep maroon but must reside in the greenhouse due to requiring protection from biblical amounts of grasshoppers. im hoping once i bring the lights down closer those roses will darken up considerably, but without fail they still smell amazing, especially the blush colored ones.
Well its that time of year again. Between two ranch dogs that never bathe and one human that sweats every endometriosis day, there always comes a point where the memory foam mattress becomes too grody and must be disposed of and replaced. The problem is, im always working two towns over during the business hours of “my” landfill and because im not a resident of the county in which i work, i cannot dump anything at their landfill. So, the mattress must be cut up into smaller, more manageable squares and discarded one bag at a time when trash day comes around. It would take 6 weeks to get rid of all the bags sitting under a tree in the yard but i would get it done before christmas. Then i could stop stuffing all the regular trash into one bag only and throwing away my lunch trash and water bottles at work. I borrowed a knife from a coworker who sharpens his own knives and prides himself on having extra sharp blades at all times. It was much sharper than any of my knives. It made faster work of the task.
Walmart did not come through for me. They only had spring mattresses in a twin. I ended up having to order another mattress online upon realizing the problem and give a neighbor permission to pick up my mail onna certain day so he could retrieve the package from the post office counter and leave it on my porch while i was at work. In the meantime, i slept in the car for about four nights waiting for the new mattress to arrive. The dogs took the backseat and i the front and i set my phone alarm clock to wake us up and brought a pillow. 3 out of 4 nights i was able to leave the car off. The final night, it was just too hot and i had to turn the car on to use the a/c but it was basically parked in an open field so we didnt have to worry about exhaust. the mattress arrived on endometriosis day. I hobbled up the steps after driving home from what ended up being a half day at work, wrestled the box inside, and got the new mattress, mosquito net tent, and bedding put together just in time to collapse and enter into the most intense hours of endometriosis day. I remember being so relieved the bed was finished and i was done moving for a while. This mattress has a protective cover on it so supposedly all i should need to switch out is the cover between the mattress and the fitted sheet.
The tuff shed green house was a hail mary last ditch effort to grow vegetables on my property. However, the grow lights were meant to be hung from chains and sit right down near the plants beneath them. The guy helping me install them said no theyd be fine up at the ceiling and there was plenty of light in there to grow the plants. It turned out that they did indeed need to be right directly above the plants and not on the ceiling. So, i began making plans to get 14 seven foot lengths of chain and drop the lights down near the plants. I would just need to change the outlet they originally plugged into. The only problem? The hardware store in the nearest city didnt have that much chain. I was able to get 5 lengths and then had to wait for them to order more. They assured me they would get a new truck in two weeks and theyd order more. Somehow the decree got lost in translation and theyd order did not have any more chain on the next truck. I would have yo wait and check the truck a month later for more chain. They had chain that was nearly 3 dollars more a foot but i wasnt looking to buy that chain. I need the cheap stuff. In the meantime my 6 okra plants made 1 okra in 5 months. Im aware that this is not a win but i’ll take what i can get at the moment, being that the setup is not ideal for vegetable procurement. I was very excited to have one beautiful okra from my garden and i roasted it along with a batch from the grocery and this little guy was so much better! It tasted like butter. Garden veggies dont even taste like their grocery store counterparts. it was just miles and miles better and i hope i can grow a lot of them next year when i get the lighting right in there.
As i get older and my auto immune disorder progresses i am forced to do things in a different way…slower and more incremental. It is endlessly frustrating because my mind still very much has adhd even if my body is heck bent on eating itself, and my brain only has two modes: “get shit done” and “floor blob”. You cant really choose one and not the other…they exist because of each other. So my brain still being fully functional and me, i bought 7 trees, because thats when they were in season and available at the plant nursery. Then the part where i take a pick axe, a giant metal stick with a point on the end, and a shovel and dig a 3 ft by 2 ft hole in limestone rock 7 times….that part failed to happen, until it was nearly too late. I began digging in late october. I did not get all 7 holes dug but i did as many as i could and the ones i didnt get to by the frosting months would have to winter in the house with me.
Today i walked past a room suddenly disheveled and in the process of packing. My heart dropped through my feet and i stood frozen. Staring at the balled up sheets mounded on the recliner. Staring at the boxes of personal items. Staring at the bare mattress. I felt the lump in my throat and the bottomless canyon of space where my stomach had been. I stood and stared for a while, knowing the answer. I turned and walked down the hall, looking for the nurse’s aid. When i found her, i asked, knowing the answer. Balled up top sheet means laundry. Balled up bottom sheet and boxes means death. She answered, “Oh honey he passed yesterday. Real bad way to go in the end too. He just couldn’t breathe baby. He got really hot too. Asked me to take his clothes off for him. He just couldn’t breathe and couldnt get comfortable. He was just really in a bad way these past couple days. And then yesterday he finally went.” I knew what had happened. My little quirky buddy, the only person i knew who was shorter than me…who for the life of him could not remember to lock his walker brakes and was always having to repeat the transfer safety course in the therapy gym, my little buddy who had his own unique language born of a stutter, excitement, and no teeth, my quirky little buddy who was always either watching westerns in his reclining rocking chair or sneaking to the vending machine to obtain his contraband potato chips when he thought the nurses were occupied or the therapists had gone home…my quirky little buddy wasn’t supposed to have chips. He was on a pureed diet due to swallowing issues. All those contraband chips were going straight into his lungs. He had pneumonia several times but try as we might, we couldnt break him of his potato chip habit. For him, life was just not worth living without his chips. For as long as ive known him he’s always had a freezer bag of potato chips by his side in any chair. His beloved chips finally did him in. He suffocated with lungs full of potato chips. It made me sad to think i’d never see or hear him again. I went and stood at the back of the hall, past the patients’ rooms. I leaned against the wall and tried to gather myself. You never get to say goodbye to your favorites. You just come in to work one day and they’re gone. Their stuff is all boxed or bagged up and the photos are pulled down from the wall.
My little buddy is in heaven where they have all the potato chips he could dream of, flat and ridged, and he is swimming in a vat of them and has all of his original teeth and no difficulties swallowing.
It is Saturday. I have finished working and i am sitting on a broken futon in the walmart automotive center waiting room. Its been 2 hours. They are still not finished changing the oil and inflating the tires but ive been here before so i know the drill and i brought a book. I am going through and highlighting the verses of the bible which i understand or think i understand at this point. I leave the bits whose meaning still escapes me unhighlighted so that i may return to those verses later in life and see if i understand them yet. It gives me an idea of where to focus my study and understanding. There is a skeleton dressed in a walmart vest with a name tag sitting on the couch across the room, as the nearest holiday is halloween. An older scruffy and heavy set man who is very sunburnt and hasnt shaved in a while walks in and i see out of the corner of my eye that he is looking at me. He is looking at me too long. I dont know him and therefore we have no business between us and so his extended gaze indicates to me that he now has it in his head that he wants something from me. What, i dont know yet but i have recently learned the hard way that when a man you dont know looks at you for an extended period of time when he thinks you cant see his gaze, he is deciding how he’s going to get something that he wants from you, and to my knowledge, ive entered into no contracts and have no business with these men that take a look at me and decide im going to be the one to give them something. I am nearing 40, have been on my own for 12 years at this point, and have no desire to be with or give anything to a man at this point. After recent events i’ve vowed to get better at recognizing the moment a man decides i owe him something and refuting that idea at its birth rather than when it comes to my attention. This man turns towards me, cocking his head and gesturing to the skeleton across the room, “if you dont mind, i dont care to sit next to him even if he is dressed as a walmart employee. I dont trust him.” This is a ridiculous statement as the skeleton is not a sentient being but a holiday decoration and he is equally incapable of being trustworthy or untrustworthy. He then plops his full weight on the futon closer to me than he needs to be despite the fact that there is another couch next to the one the skeleton is on and the seat next to me is not the only other seat available. The lack of grace with which he lowered himself bounced me up and down on the futon and the arm draped over the back of the futon let me know he was interested in invading my space. He was not making any attempt to be polite for real because if he was he wouldnt have crash landed to bounce me up and down…he would have tried not to bother others by sitting carefully. He was trying to see if he could jar me out of my task and get me to engage. I offered a grimaced polite smile without making eye contact and continued my task. He launched into a conversation as if we were old friends and i had asked him about his day. This is where i would usually stop what i was doing, make eye contact, and listen, because id been taught that when someone’s talking to you you dont ignore them, but ive learned that for some this is a test, a tool, to see if you are someone open to manipulation, and they’re not so much socially awkward as they are socially manipulative and sizing up their prey. I was doing something. Something i had no intention of foregoing in order to listen to this stranger’s babble about his day. We were not friends, and so he had no reason to be telling me about it. People who sit down and just begin talking to you as if you are someone to them are sometimes trying to see if they can make you someone to them by just plugging you into the place they think you will fit. So i ignored him. I continued my task. I did not look up or listen intently or shake hands and introduce myself. He shifted in his seat and moved closer, shaking the busted futon as he did so. He tried again, launching into conversation. He ended up talking to himself.
I did not answer. And just like that, his efforts ceased, his face changed to one of disinterest, and he left the room to go shopping.
Ive had a complicated time of navigating people and who they think they are to me recently. In the interest of peace and de-escalation i will probably not speak on the past few months’ events for the next few decades. Maybe when im an old lady i’ll revisit the topic but for now i prefer to put life’s recent events to bed and try my best to get back to some semblance of normalcy. all i can say is that im happiest when alone. A wild horse is beautiful because it’s wild. And what do you have when you run it down, capture it, and break it? Something broken. That’s what you have. The majesty of the animal is in the fact that it’s free. Leave it there. Let it be.
If a man needs to hurt you or scare you to remind you that you need protection, he has disqualified himself from the job.
I have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. I actually initially found the diagnosis myself. I was having a severe flare up and nothing that usually treated the symptoms was working. I sat there at night in the middle of my symptoms thinking; at times the symptoms are worse than others, they’ve been going on for 23 years, my lymph nodes have been chronically swollen and enlarged since the age of 14. This has got to be auto-immune. I know i have an auto-immune disorder. I just dont know what it is. So i stayed up all night and researched every auto-immune disorder known to man and none of them appeared to fit all of my symptoms or even half of them, until i read about Hashimoto’s. it explained my puzzling blood test results, my puzzling pee test results, why it always appears im deathly low on estrogen and have way too much progesterone but the moment they try to give me estrogen my body reacts as if ive given it cyanide. Why doctors dont believe me when i tell them i dont want any estrogen because it makes everything ten times worse and then they try to sneak it in telling me they’re just giving me progesterone when in actuality they’re giving me both, and i can only assume they think i wont notice because they think im wrong about estrogen making things worse. Hashimotos is mean in that unless you have the word “hashimotos” you wont know whats going on because it looks like you dont have enough estrogen when in actuality you have too much. It looks like your thyroid hormone levels are fine when in actuality your thyroid is under performing and your body’s own immune system is attacking it. You’ll end up with endometriosis, pcos, full body arthritis, chronic fatigue, depression, hand tremors, cold intolerance, swollen lymph nodes, muscle and joint aches, brain fog, chronic constipation, anxiety, periods of bradycardia and tachycardia, weight gain, dry and brittle hair and skin, liver problems, heart problems, puffy eyes, memory problems, heavy or irregular periods, decreased libido and infertility. Save for my ingrown toe nails and adhd, the article highlighted my entire existence on a piece of paper. I read article after article until i was sure i was on the right track and then reached out to an immediate family member to see if we had any relatives that had Hashimoto’s, knowing thyroid issues ran in the family on my mother’s side. As it turned out somebody did. I couldnt believe it had been right under my nose the entire time and for 23 years i had doctors tell me that i had all these things independent of each other and nobody ever connected the dots that they were related. Well its nice that no-one can ever tell me “estrogen is the answer” or “just take birth control and it will go away” or “you dont have arthritis, you’re too young for that, it’s all in your head” again. I do have these things. They are not random. They are a documented and connected set of symptoms that fall under the umbrella of an auto-immune disorder named Hashimoto’s in which your body attacks your thyroid and wreaks havoc on one, some, or all of your organs. It is progressive and gets worse over time. You can also have flare ups in which symptoms temporarily become severe. The thing that sent me looking for a diagnosis was the worst flare up i had ever experienced in life. I had just had covid twice in one year pretty much back to back. I work in healthcare. If they’re sick and you’re taking care of them, you’re going to be sick. Then things picked up at work and i was driving two hours a day, taking an hour long lunch, and working 9.5 hours on the clock. Thats 12.5 hours away from the house each day. I knew i would be tired, but this was a different tired. This was fatigue like i had never experienced before. I was having to clock out and go sleep in the car ten minutes at a time, frequently, so that i didnt nod off in the swivel chair while supervising the weight reps i had just given somebody or waiting for them to get done toileting and be ready to wipe and transfer. Any time i was not moving i was immediately eyes closed and pretty near asleep. No amount of sleep helped. You wake up feeling like you’ve been hit by a mack truck no matter what. You are just always exhausted even when you have a weekend and you get sleep, it puts no dent in the fatigue so crippling that you think you will surely die. The constipation increased four fold. It was insane. I was eating half a bag of prunes every day. I couldnt consume enough to make a dent in the problem. The only gummies that helped move things along regularly were $300 for two months so i was not buying any more so i just dealt with chronic uncomfortable constipation. Most of what i eat is fruit. Why on earth am i making pebbles, i thought? The depression, im used to that. Ive dealt with differing levels of depression for the last 23 years, but now i had treatment resistant depression that would not respond to anything. Nothing would make a dent in it. Those ketamine commercials started to look good to me. I wasnt sure why the people needed to tuck the square into their cheek like they were chewing tobacco. Did it absorb through the lip or what? But those people in the commercials said it helped them with their depression and after a while, knowing how addictive ketamine was touted to be, knowing i wasnt someone who wanted to be dependent on a substance, i was just so desperate for anything to put a dent in the relentless heavy curtain of despair that was ever present, ever lingering, and unmoving. I started to consider it as an option. I did not move forward with it, but the presence of treatment resistant depression told me something new was going on. The joint pain was as bad as it had been right after covid in 2020. My fingers hurt. Opening water bottles was now endlessly frustrating for me because between the joint pain and the hand tremors i always dropped the lid and i was beyond frustrated with this because the floor was dirty. The part that scared me the most was the presence of the worst brain fog i’d ever experienced. I felt like i didnt know myself or i didnt recognize myself, and maybe that was a combination of brain fog and depression, but i’d be driving to work and i’d be in the car and then i’d realize i was driving. And i’d have the thought, “oh, im driving.” And then i’d think, “wait, if im leaving the house, did i get everything? Did i pack a lunch? Did i lock the door? Did i put on my shoes? Did i remember to change from pajama pants to scrub pants? Did i put on makeup? Did i remember blush? Am i wearing my name tag?” It was as if id be walking or driving and then id suddenly remember that i existed and i was doing a task and id find myself in the middle of it and have to figure out if i was doing it right and if i remembered everything needed to carry it out, or how much of it i’d done and how much of it was left. The amount of times i asked myself, “im wearing scrub pants right?” Scared me. I knew i was out of it if i had to ask myself that question every day multiple times each morning. I just had this underlying feeling that things were happening and i was not quite on top of them start to finish. At some point i’d be driving to work and i’d have the thought, “i dont feel like myself”. I knew myself to be a very driven decisive person and i was now a person who was so overwhelmed by tasks that required energy and everything including fixing a meal seemed too complicated and too time consuming. Who i was usually just seemed out of reach and i was stuck there looking in the mirror and seeing that it was my face and my body but i didnt feel right. It didnt feel familiar. I didnt feel like myself. Unbeknownst to me i was having the worst flare up of an autoimmune disorder i didnt know i had brought on by an increased work load, even less time to sleep, two bouts of back to back covid, and stress over a number of things but mainly how i was going to manually dig 7 holes through straight rock for 7 trees to get planted before winter and how i was going to keep the lawn mowed without ruining the mower blades by cutting it on a 3, meaning the lawn had to be continuously mowed in patches indefinitely each day and i was never done because by the time i finished it was time to mow the first patch again. I adopted a new kitten which eventually had to be rehomed because she wanted to be outdoors and was drawing blood to the point of needing stitches at one point. She split my lip and split my fingers third knuckle to tip, so deep that it took two weeks to close up because i refused to go to hospital cuz i dont have insurance. (They want $10,000 a year and they wont let me use it for anything…and i do mean anything…so i cancelled it). I think the kitten was probably a huge part of the flare up if im thinking about it because i didnt want her to get eaten by coyotes which all the outdoor cats in this town have been, and so i wanted her to live inside, but she didnt want that. And i was very stressed about what to do. I sent her to be an outdoor barn cat in the city where i work with two of her litter mates (they have way less coyotes there). She is thriving and playing with the other cats and is finally hunting, which is what she wanted to do. She is a beautiful cat and remains in my daily prayers and in my heart as one of my babies but as i should remember, cats dont work out here. That was a lot of stress trying to meet her needs, socialize her, and not bleed in the process. While im on this topic…if we clip the cats claws, somebody tell me why we provide them devices to sharpen them on. It doesnt make sense. If we’re going to provide such devices, why are we clipping them? It seems like a special brand of insanity.
Anyways, im on bovine thyroid hormones. Im on an anti-inflammatory diet. Ive added seaweed, blueberries, and pineapple. Im supposed to sleep and avoid stress. I cant do the last two things. Im just going to have to live in agony. Because to do those things id have to swear off homesteading and swear off working in healthcare, and i cant do any of that. My neighbor pointed out, “well you’ve been doing good so far…” he’s right. Ive been living this way 23 years. If i could live with the symptoms thus far, i can do it some more. Im not giving up the things that make life worth while or meaningful or give it purpose. Im going to keep doing what im doing. I just may have to change the way i talk to myself when chronic fatigue or other things i cant control get in the way. I cant handle the ten hour days at work. The case load does need to be shortened because maybe someone my age should be able to do that but i cant. And if i need to sleep ten minutes in the car during shift, thank God im part of a profession where you can clock in and out as you please because you dont have a set shift. Take the nap and then get shit done. And i need to not bring cats home and i need to try to limit the amount of future projects i take on, like the veggie boxes that need to be constructed that are currently in cardboard boxes in the yard under a tarp. I need to consider that i am not well and stop taking on projects like 7 trees to plant in one year. Probably two trees a year is a better limit. I wish there was a pill to take to make Hashimoto’s go away but it doesnt sound like there is. It sounds like you take thyroid hormones, eat an anti-inflammatory diet, get sleep, avoid stresss and weather flare ups. Well, even though i didnt have the word for what it was, ive been doing half of that for 23 years, and the other half is impossible. To avoid stress i’d have to quit my job, get rid of everything i own, and move into a family members house and just be a dependent. What life is that? I refuse. I will just enjoy what i can as i am. Im not thrilled theres not a more turn-key way to manage this auto-immune disorder but it could always be worse. There are worse disorders to have. You only get one life and you make the best of it. You do what you can while you’re here.
I didnt tell my neighbor it was my birthday. I wasnt going to mention it unless we found something of interest. the information didnt seem relevant otherwise. He picked me up that morning and we went down to the gun show about half an hour after it started. It was at the veterans center. Everyone knew my neighbor. One of the ladies taking peoples cash at the door asked how long we’d been together which made me nervous because out here age doesnt really matter but my neighbor was old enough to be my dad and though i would take a bullet for him i had no interest in anyone having to see me naked so i wasnt looking for a relationship. I know all that goes into having to let ones guard down and be vulnerable with another person and it always seems to end in nuclear implosion for me and i think ive had enough of that vulnerability crap for a lifetime. My neighbor informed her that we were just neighbors and he was helping me get to a point where i could kill my own rattlesnakes. I think it was probably very apparent to everyone that this world was new to me. When we found a rifle i had no idea how to even carry it and i did not know any of the vocabulary needed to describe what i was looking for. I let my neighbor look around and pick out which rifles were contenders in his mind. If it werent for him i wouldnt know anything about anything in this realm. He’d seen me shoot. He knew my priorities. I trusted his judgment. We walked around and i realized pretty early on that this was a much better idea than going to the large show. I was an introvert overwhelmed by large crowds who didnt know enough about guns to know what i was looking for and so was shopping by process of elimination. If we had used this tactic for shopping at the big show, we would have had to look at every gun, which would have been impossible and once it was achieved the one i settled on as best would likely have already been purchased by someone who knew what they were looking for. At the veterans center show it was mostly older gentlemen standing or sitting on a scooter behind their table displaying 5 to 8 of their own personal guns for sale. They knew everything there was to know about each one. They were very friendly and very helpful and knowledgeable. All the guns had zip ties on the triggers and if you wanted to try one out (without bullets of course) they would cut it off so you could get a feel for the gun and see how well maintained it was or wasnt, see how much pressure had to be applied, see if it was what you were looking for. My neighbor picked out 3 that were his favorite for me and i knew which one i wanted before i knew it was one of his 3 favorite because as soon as he asked me to hold it and see how heavy it was the first time we saw it, i recognized it looked very similar to my favorite of the rifles he had let me practice with. The only vocabulary i had at the time to describe why i liked it was that it reminded me of my favorite of my neighbor’s rifles that we had practiced with. Now i know i like it because it’s quiet. I dont need ear plugs. It has so little kick back it might as well be none. Its very accurate and crisp and fits well in my hands and has just the right amount of weight and length that im comfortable with it and the wood on it is beautiful. I liked most of all that the scope was already mounted on it. I wanted that gun but i wasnt sure what i was looking for or what would be best so i walked around behind my neighbor to all the other tables until we reached the end and my neighbor told me the three he liked best. As soon as i heard the cz was one of his 3 favorite i wanted to rush back to the table and get it. I tried to keep my calm as i understood the art of negotiation didnt include showing the seller of the item that you now couldnt live without the merchandise in question. However, i was pretty certain that out of the three, that was the one, because it reminded me of my favorite of his guns. He knew everybody in there. He was friends with all the vendors at the show except one pair of young guys who had come from austin trying to sell some kind of plastic assault rifles. They had a rainbow light up flashing keyboard on a lap top that was playing a slideshow of 5 different videos of shooting all going at once. They seemed like they had done a butt load of steroids and then drank 15 red bulls each, strapped on bullet proof vests, shot up with testosterone for good measure, and then hit the floor running, ready to shout people into purchasing their first assault rifle at a small town gun show mostly populated by vendors and customers between the ages of 55 and 80. The two men did not have a lot of customers stopping at their table and soon decided if the customers wouldnt come, they would go to them. One of them befan walking around with an assault rifle on his back with a paper taped to it with painters tape stating, “FOR SALE”. I was not impressed with the young dudes, though my neighbor entertained them for a bit before moving on. He was nicer than i. I had nothing to say to these plastic worshipping vest clad way too hyped up whipper snappers in their tattoos and bling. They were sure they were the shit. Even knowing nothing about this world, i knew they were not the shit. They were trying to convince people looking for a deer rifle that you could shoot the deer so much more and so much quicker with an assault rifle. Not understanding that these people arent shooting for sport. They want to eat the deer. They want to carve it up, pack it out, vacuum seal the cuts, and put it in their deep freeze. They are looking to get food, not obliterate a target beyond recognition and then high five and belly bump. They should have stayed in austin if you ask me. Its called know your audience, but maybe im wrong, maybe they found some people who were there to get an assault rifle. Who knows. I guess its a free country and anyone can buy a table, so thats good, but i had no use for them. They just oozed “i dont understand the point of this process.” It was a game to them. How much stuff could they blow up or shoot holes in and how profusely and how fast. I too think its cool when i see a rock blow apart and i know i did that, but i think its cool because it means when i take aim at a coyote or a rattlesnake, im gonna get it. I dont want to blow stuff up for the sake of blowing stuff up. I dont want to just see how much destruction i can cause in 60 seconds. And thats what their videos were about. Just people obliterating targets beyond recognition repeatedly for 60 seconds in five versions. The older gentlemen with booths near theirs looked exhausted with the laptop set on the table with the video on repeat. They were trying to talk to potential customers overs the noise of repeated and duplicated assault rifle fire in the videos. When we went back to the booth where the cz rifle was my neighbor knew the man selling it. He said, “i think she’s interested in your rifle” and then gestures to me to talk to the man about it. He was so gracious and patient and kind to me. He could have exploited a clear moment of weakness as i clearly was new to this world and had no earthly idea how any of this even worked or what i was doing. But, in every other purchase i had been involved in, the pattern was to identify item interested in, ask price, negotiate price, and then hand over money in exchange for item. I decided that was probably the best blueprint to go with. You see, for kids who grow ip out here, they watch their parents and grandparents negotiate at gun shows for a couple decades before they do it themselves, so they know pretty well how it should look, but i’d never been to a gun show and was pretty flying blind in terms of knowing what to do. So i just tried my best knowing that if i took a misstep my neighbor would guide me back to the path if not take the wheel. For instance, after carrying the gun for a while i think he realized he hadnt taught me how to hold one at rest facing backwards against my shoulder pointed up, holding the butt under my hand and he decided it best he carry it until we went to the car. I knew to point it up at the ceiling (was unloaded) but was not holding it under the butt and was instead gripping it facing upright towards the ceiling as if i was holding a very heavy treasure and did not want to drop it or move. Anyways, my neighbor asked him the price. He stated it and it was also written on a little tag we had looked at when we first saw it and my neighbor had remarked that if that price included the rifle and the scope that was a steal because thats about how much id be spending on a good scope alone if i bought it new. I had no desire to negotiate with the man knowing that the pair together was priced at what the scope alone should cost. So he asked if the scope was included and the man said it was and then i just started counting out twenties until i had the full amount, but the atm had only given me twenties and i owed him a ten in the end. I gave him a twenty and he didnt have change so he just gave me the last twenty back. A nearby vendor said he could make change and handed over fives. I went to exchange and the man stopped us. He shook my hand instead and said a deal was a deal. He had already said i could have it for the ten dollars less and he wasnt prepared to go back on his word. I shook his hand firmly and told him thank you. He was a very nice soft spoken man. My neighbor went off to look at some guns that had gold on the outside that another vendor was very excited about. Ultimately he said they were very pretty but they were too pretty for his collection which was kind of more for regular and frequent use than to look at. But he seemed to know the man and liked talking to him so he went over there for a while. I thanked the man who had sold us the gun and he stood and chatted with me for a while. He said he was glad i got the rifle, that it was a good gun, and that i was going to have a lot of fun with that gun. I thanked him and told him it was closest to my favorite of the rifles my neighbor let me practice with. He seemed very genuine and very kind. The guy i bought rat shot from and the guy i bought 22 bullets from were also very nice and soft spoken. None of the men besides the two young hopped up dudes were very loud. They were all pretty soft spoken and calm and the guy who sold us bullets had two little dogs in a penned off area behind the table that he let me pet. My neighbor asked me if i was having a good time and i said yeah cuz i got to pet the dogs. It had said “dogs welcome” on the flyer so i wanted to go to the small show half just because i thought there might be dogs. My neighbor said with a grin, “oh, well, thats the most important thing then. As long as you got to pet the dogs.” Everyone was so nice. It was a great first experience with gun shows. I dont think it would have been the same if i had gone to the big one. This was perfect. And the man who sold me my first rifle, ill remember his kindness and genuine advice and well wishes. He showed my neighbor how he’d set the scope and everything. Any question we had, he answered. He was really very kind and of the people i interacted with there i found him to be the kindest and most calm so i was glad i ended up buying a gun from him. He didnt push any of his merchandise. He simply hung out and was quiet and if anyone expressed interest he’d answer questions. After i paid him for the rifle and he handed it to me we walked around to see if there were any spare parts for my neighbor’s pistol that needed screws. Everyone we encountered wanted to know if we had bought or were selling the cz rifle. They wanted to buy it if it was for sale. It wasnt. After a while my neighbor turned to me and said, “i think people like your gun.” On the way through the parking lot a truck stopped and rolled down their window and asked if we were selling. He told them we werent and the guy asked if there were more inside like it and my neighbor indicated that even though there was a variety if he wanted to go look, this seemed to be the only cz. The man asked, “do you know what you’ve got there?” When we got in the truck i told him, “i think we must have picked a good one because everyone wants to buy it off of us.” My neighbor said, “i think you really found a good one there.” I said, “yes. Its a good birthday. When i was 30 i bought my first house. When i turned 37 i bought my first gun.” He said, “you didnt tell me it was your birthday!” I said, “it didnt seem like relevant information unless we found something.” Later he and two other treasured neighbors got together with me at my other neighbors house to have dinner and celebrate my birthday. It was awesome and that neighbor is from italy so we used rice pasta so i could eat it but we had the BEST pasta dish with barely cooked cherry tomatoes from the garden, herbs, fantastic imported olive oil, anchovies, two kinds of olives and shrimp, it was chef’s kiss a meal to die for. The best pasta. What the **** are we doing ruining pasta with marinara sauce in this country? What the **** is wrong with us? It was the lightest most flavorful salty savory juicy delicious pasta i asked them for the recipe and they gave it. Of course the measurements are non existent. You have to use your own judgment how much because they just say “a little” or “some” for measurement specifications but my God was it a good meal. If i was on death row and i hot one last meal that would be it, that dish. And i would lick my fingers afterwards. The sauce was so good i used the gluten free bread to soak up every last drop. It was nearly clear. It wasnt sauce like you would imagine. It was very light, and mouthwateringly good.
Due to scheduling and health complications which were later identified with a diagnosis after 23 years of random seemingly unconnected symptoms, i was unable to get back to my neighbor’s house to try my new rifle and set the scope until a month later. When we did it was apparent to me that i had made the right choice. In my opinion this was the best rifle on the planet. I loved it so. It was so accurate and the scope image was so crisp and there was next to no noise and nearly no kick back. It barely moved. It was such a good gun. Bi wanted to keep it in the best condition i could. I asked my neighbor if he’d teach me how to clean it. I bought a few shooting bags and filled them with some white rice i had under the bed in case of emergencies like if the chicken feed supply chain got interrupted again, id have something to feed them with. I now have rifle bags, rat shot, 22 bullets, ear plugs just in case i shoot that loud rifle at my neighbor’s place again so i wont be deaf in my left ear for weeks, and a soft case that i keep the rifle in to keep the dust and moisture out. I did some research on cz rifles that further convinced me we made a very good choice. I dont know what possessed him to part with that treasure and scope for the price that he did but i appreciate it and i appreciate him. He was a good quality person to buy one’s first gun from and i am grateful to have met him. My neighbor says he knows him and he’s a very nice man. He seemed kind and wise. I wanted an experience that wouldnt be like trying to buy produce in china town where the person who is most aggressive gets rung up next. I got it. I couldnt have asked for a better experience. I am glad i waited and didnt just take a class at the gun range and buy a gun at walmart as many have suggested in the past. This experience i will cherish and i dont think the gun range would have caught my weird vision issues and realized im deadly with a scope. I think they would have just gone “well, you’re hopeless” because i am hopeless with line of sight shooting. The scope is a way for me to still take care of what i need to take care of regardless of my weird health issues. So, am i the best shot ever? Definitively not. Am i comfortable with my rifle now? Absolutely. Do i have enough skill to hit a nuisance critter in the butt with rat shot or kill a problem critter thats going after one of my animals? Thanks to my neighbor, yes. And as for the rattlesnakes…i noticed my neighbor used a snake handling stick to drag the bleeding snake from the chicken pen and then chop its head off with a shovel. I bought a snake handling stick. So now i have all the tools to replicate how my neighbor killed the rattlesnake. Im a fast learner and he’s a good teacher and im familiar that fuckuppery equals a $30,000 helicopter ride and some anti-venom at best…$50,000 at worst. So, im not one likely to f around. Im still going to pick my battles and im not taking that shot unless i know i can incapacitate it before it bites me. But, i now have the skillset and know how to do so, and that is what i wanted. Its never too late to learn a new skill and the more skills you have at your disposal, the better your life will be out here.
