Lesson 10: The Garage Door Bites!

Fall is here and it's wonderful! I love all the colours and the warm temperatures it's so great! What's not so great is the fall cleaning that is beginning including all the leaves, the box elder bugs that are hanging out all over my house, and the fact that soon I'll have to take down my gazebo roof because of the coming snow.

To start the fall blogging I thought I'd share something that happened to me last night. Emerson is working up north during the week which leaves the requirement that I act as domestic as possible. What I mean by that is, although I am quite capable, when my wonderful boyfriend is out of town, I have to be very focused on not doing too many stupid things because I can't just call him to come and help manage whatever it is I may have done. This story is a great example of that...

This past weekend, Emerson went to close the garage door and it wouldn't go. I have an electronic garage door (no man door on my garage) so all I have to do is punch in a code or push a button and the door goes up and down. So, Emerson went to close it and it wouldn't go but because we were in a hurry he just pulled the garage door closed manually and fixed it the next day. He then left for the work week. Enter me.

Yesterday, I opened up the garage door electronically to get my garbage cans out (it was garbage day today). I pulled them out of the garage, put them at the end of the driveway and walked back up to punch in my garage code and be done. Well, just my luck, the code went in but the garage door didn't move. I tried everything which included:
1. Punched in the code 3 or 4 more times with the same result... nothing.
2. Reached in and pushed the button a few times... nothing.

I think figured that the only thing left to do was to pull it down manually like Emerson did this past weekend. I realized very quickly that the garage door doesn't have a handle on the outside of the door making it very difficult to pull down on the door and get enough momentum to get it to the ground. I was trying to get the door down and it came down a little bit but I could not get it to budge when it reached about half way down.

Now, I want you to look at the picture below:

You'll notice that my garage door has little spaces throughout it so it can bend and fold up into the roof of my garage, etc. I thought it would be a great idea to put my fingers between two of the panels in one of these spaces and quickly pull straight down getting enough momentum to make the door go all the way down but yet pull my fingers out of the space as quickly as possible which would ensure my fingers wouldn't get caught. I thought this was a great idea. Well, turns out I don't have the fastest reflexes around and as soon as I pulled down my fingers instantly were squished between the closed space and it was like having 8 of my fingers slammed in a car door, not kidding.

I didn't want my neighbours to think I was helpless and uncool, so I started to panic in A LOT of pain, but quietly screamed and tears fell down my face as I lifted the door up enough to get my fingers out and I quickly ran in the house and put them under cold water. Being the massive wimp that I am I obviously didn't look at my fingers right away, I just started panicking that I was going to lose all 8 of my finger nails. The most frightening part about that is that I'm in a wedding next week, and I was so worried that I'd be the fingernail-less bridesmaid. Ugh!

Turns out my fingers are okay (obviously since I'm typing this out right now). They are still a little numb to the touch and I have purple flecks in my nails, I am not going to lose them and I won't have to spend this weekend gluing fake nails to my nail-less fingers. The garage door stayed propped half open as I refused to go back out and give it another go. My dear friend Scott came over today before a meeting and got it down... he laughed at what I did... I deserved it.

Things I learned from Lesson #11: 
1. All garages should have a man door so that I dont have to rely on the electronic garage door to work.
2. Don't stick your fingers in the spaces of your garage door. It will bite you and it will hurt.
3. Wine is a great medicine - after a couple glasses last night my whole body was numb, not just my fingers!

My Inner-Farm Girl Emerges!

Well, again, I apologize for the time between posts but it's been very difficult to keep up the last two months with all of the travel I've been doing (mostly personal travel, thank goodness) it's hard to think of witty and ultimately hilarious posts about me and my house when I haven't been there technically! Now that summer is coming to and end (I know, I'm sad too) things will get back on schedule and I'll have more posts for you... promise!

As most of my current readers know, my boyfriend Emerson is a farm boy. Even though he's spent time in the big city of Boston and is working in a non-farm related field, he spent all of his life on the farm. I always knew this and was always very curious about it because he never struck me as the farm boys I had met in the past. We decided to make the trip to New England, ND to visit his family and are now here over Labour Day weekend having a great time. Now, most of you are thinking, "Katie + Farm = A Hilarious Mental Picture"... and I wouldn't have disagreed with you at first, but let me tell you, I AM becoming a farm girl (partially).

The farm here is great!! It's large and got lot's of machines, and I haven't been able to stop talking about how amazing it all is since I got here!! I said to Emer and his family that I felt like a six year old that was taken to Disney World. You take them and they run around all day saying, "Look at that! Let's ride that!" and then by 7pm they are sound asleep in the stroller and you have to take them home and tuck them in. That was me (without the stroller part). I was so excited to actually see everything in action and more so ask questions about how things work, how its stored, how it's cut and collected, and how they overall just work together out in the fields. It's something that takes a lot of planning and hard work, and a part of me felt for a moment that what I do doesn't even compare to the hard work that his family does. For a moment, I thought about quitting my computer-staring focused job and getting my hands dirty and become a farm girl. It was only for a moment... but I thought about it!

So, I have told you about where I am and how I feel about it, but you probably want to know what Katie's Inner Farm Girl actually looks like. Well, here's what I've done so far:

1. Stared at the great open fields here and have commented multiple times on how big the sky is here. The size of the sky hasn't changed... I realize that... but it does look SO much bigger out here!

2. Rode passenger in a transport truck that carries grain from the fields to the big bins they store it in. I was a good passenger and constantly commented on how fast Emer was taking corners, and I worried silently about the grain spilling out.

3. Rode passenger in the tractor that pulled the grain cart. This thing drives up alongside the combines (which is the machine that actually goes through the fields and cuts the wheat) and let's the combines dump their collected grain into it. I steered the wheel for a little bit while Emer drove... but mainly I watched out the window as thousands of pounds of grain were poured in.

4. Rode passenger in a combine! This was very cool to watch all the wheat actually be cut! I rode with Emer's brother and asked silly questions for the few hours we spent together! I talked about how the combine's computer sounded like a video game and other very important farming topics.

5. I moved some cart thingy under a transport by pulling a lever. It was hard work and cool.

6. I climbed up the bins (the tall silos where the grain is stored) and looked inside. Then I realized how high up I was and got really sweaty palms.

7. I stood inside an empty silo to see how big it actually was. I also did some serious echo testing by saying "Helloooooo", "Whoooooooooo", "I'm on a farrrrrmmmmmmmmm" loudly and ensuring it was super echoey (it was).

8. I actually got dirty and dusty. This is a huge surprise for a lot of you, but it was actually fantastic and I enjoyed it!

There has been a lot of cool things so far that I've done here and it makes me appreciate so much more where Emer comes from and the unbelievable work ethic he and his family have! All in all, it's just been such a fantastic first farm experience!

I got to have a long bath after my long day of farming! haha! It was fantastic! Then, we thought about going out and seeing the one bar in New England... but decided that it was time for bed because they had to farm all day the next day. Now, I actually decided to stay with Emer's mom all day today and shop, have lunch, and see some of the sights... but that was hard work too!

The view from on top of the Buttes looking down on some of the farm land.

Looking at the combines working cutting wheat.

Watching Emer fill a transport with grain from the fields.

Me on top of the buttes!