Sunday
May012005
Git Along, L'il Doggie
Sunday, May 1, 2005 at 09:47AM
This is a bit of a weird thing - mostly cause I don't actually know some of the answers but here's the story, regardless.
Where I live the way it's set up is that we're at the end of this tiny little road and the property is narrow at the beginning and great big and fat at the end. As you come up the driveway you pass two houses - with numerous tenants, whom I've never seen, but one has a cat - Apollo - who is so old his meow cracks and who is so lonely he stalks us all, patting at the windows and knocking on the doors. Then, a little bit farther, on the right, there's the shop and the part of the shop where Stef & Cam have lived for seven years while they get out from under the sheer cost of this place, the barns in the middle and me on the left - before habitation ends and the property stretches the rest of the way back.
Now, Cam is a heavy duty mechanic and as I look out my window, I can see five big honking trucks. Down the driveway there's at least six more and I think I saw a school bus back there the other day. There're tractors and drums full of motor bits and oh, it's boy heaven here. They're all good trucks, I mean, it's not a graveyard full of hulking rusted monsters, although there is a bit of that as well, but these trucks are constantly moving around. I can close the blinds at 7 pm so no one can see in and open them at 9 am the next morning and they'll all have shifted places in the meantime, like some illicit secret truck ballet rehearsed in the dead of night.
Stef's "area" is the animals. She doesn't work in the traditional sense and so she runs the farm. Sheep, cows, miniature donkeys, chickens, geese, 6 border collies, 5 cats, she feeds the crows to keep the ravens away, there's a seagull named Gus with a lame leg who lives down the end of the driveway. You know, the regular menagerie and all it's assorted hangers-on.
Then there's Kevin. Back before I left, Stef worked in some sort of day care program for the school board and I get the feeling that this teenager was one of those kids. I don't know his story, I don't know anything about him, I don't even talk to him. He doesn't talk to me. I'm sure he thinks it's just downright fucked up that I showed up one day and moved into an RV, but whatever. Now, Kevin is, as near as I can tell - in his last year of high school. They mentioned at some point that he was the youngest person to ever get his air brake or truck licence or something and judging by the fact that he's always working on the trucks or in the shop, I'm assuming that he's learning from Cam.
He is here ALL THE TIME. Cam also has a regular job and Kevin is around even when Cam's at work and no one else is here. I'm pretty sure he goes home every night but I'll get up at 8 am on a Saturday and he's out there in his little mechanic overalls poking at one of the trucks.
It's creepy.
Anyways, a couple weeks ago a horse showed up. Stef mentioned that it belonged to Kevin's girlfriend. This girl would show up every once in a while, lead it around for a bit and then leave. I figure, hey, Stef's keeping it for her and feeding it and who am I to wonder about that - I mean, they bought *me* an RV, dropped a couple grand on a septic tank, pay most of the bills and I'm just covering the loan on the fifth wheel. And asked me yesterday if I wanted one of the houses instead so they could give one of the tenants notice (more money, would have to find furniture, not worth it, I'm fine here in my little home).
I'd pass it in the morning, standing with the two miniature donkeys whose heads are barely up to it's belly, looking lonely and, I imagine, a little sheepish that there's no one else to 'hang' with.
Friday, there's another horse.
I mentioned it while I was doing laundrey and Stef tells me that she actually bought the horse so Kevin's girlfriend could ride it and that she bought the new horse is so the other one isn't so lonely.
But, they're both going to need to be exercised regularily and as far as I know, Stef's not a big rider so I guess you could say, "I just got a horse."
How cool is that?
Considering that part of my fitness testing is a half hour of 'stepping', I quashed the urge to saddle up to return Finding Neverland this morning to, instead, get on my bike.
Seriously, it's like 1 and a half km but ow ow ow, holy mother of god. That big long muscle on the top of my thigh? Not used for jogging. And it's been hibernating for quite some time.
And madder than a wounded grizzly at being so callously disturbed.
well I've wanted more from this then anything I've ever known
Where I live the way it's set up is that we're at the end of this tiny little road and the property is narrow at the beginning and great big and fat at the end. As you come up the driveway you pass two houses - with numerous tenants, whom I've never seen, but one has a cat - Apollo - who is so old his meow cracks and who is so lonely he stalks us all, patting at the windows and knocking on the doors. Then, a little bit farther, on the right, there's the shop and the part of the shop where Stef & Cam have lived for seven years while they get out from under the sheer cost of this place, the barns in the middle and me on the left - before habitation ends and the property stretches the rest of the way back.
Now, Cam is a heavy duty mechanic and as I look out my window, I can see five big honking trucks. Down the driveway there's at least six more and I think I saw a school bus back there the other day. There're tractors and drums full of motor bits and oh, it's boy heaven here. They're all good trucks, I mean, it's not a graveyard full of hulking rusted monsters, although there is a bit of that as well, but these trucks are constantly moving around. I can close the blinds at 7 pm so no one can see in and open them at 9 am the next morning and they'll all have shifted places in the meantime, like some illicit secret truck ballet rehearsed in the dead of night.
Stef's "area" is the animals. She doesn't work in the traditional sense and so she runs the farm. Sheep, cows, miniature donkeys, chickens, geese, 6 border collies, 5 cats, she feeds the crows to keep the ravens away, there's a seagull named Gus with a lame leg who lives down the end of the driveway. You know, the regular menagerie and all it's assorted hangers-on.
Then there's Kevin. Back before I left, Stef worked in some sort of day care program for the school board and I get the feeling that this teenager was one of those kids. I don't know his story, I don't know anything about him, I don't even talk to him. He doesn't talk to me. I'm sure he thinks it's just downright fucked up that I showed up one day and moved into an RV, but whatever. Now, Kevin is, as near as I can tell - in his last year of high school. They mentioned at some point that he was the youngest person to ever get his air brake or truck licence or something and judging by the fact that he's always working on the trucks or in the shop, I'm assuming that he's learning from Cam.
He is here ALL THE TIME. Cam also has a regular job and Kevin is around even when Cam's at work and no one else is here. I'm pretty sure he goes home every night but I'll get up at 8 am on a Saturday and he's out there in his little mechanic overalls poking at one of the trucks.
It's creepy.
Anyways, a couple weeks ago a horse showed up. Stef mentioned that it belonged to Kevin's girlfriend. This girl would show up every once in a while, lead it around for a bit and then leave. I figure, hey, Stef's keeping it for her and feeding it and who am I to wonder about that - I mean, they bought *me* an RV, dropped a couple grand on a septic tank, pay most of the bills and I'm just covering the loan on the fifth wheel. And asked me yesterday if I wanted one of the houses instead so they could give one of the tenants notice (more money, would have to find furniture, not worth it, I'm fine here in my little home).
I'd pass it in the morning, standing with the two miniature donkeys whose heads are barely up to it's belly, looking lonely and, I imagine, a little sheepish that there's no one else to 'hang' with.
Friday, there's another horse.
I mentioned it while I was doing laundrey and Stef tells me that she actually bought the horse so Kevin's girlfriend could ride it and that she bought the new horse is so the other one isn't so lonely.
But, they're both going to need to be exercised regularily and as far as I know, Stef's not a big rider so I guess you could say, "I just got a horse."
How cool is that?
Considering that part of my fitness testing is a half hour of 'stepping', I quashed the urge to saddle up to return Finding Neverland this morning to, instead, get on my bike.
Seriously, it's like 1 and a half km but ow ow ow, holy mother of god. That big long muscle on the top of my thigh? Not used for jogging. And it's been hibernating for quite some time.
And madder than a wounded grizzly at being so callously disturbed.
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