All of my best laid plans start with the same words. Hey Dan.
…
And when I say best laid plans, what I actually mean is terrible life choices.
Allow me to demonstrate:
Hey Dan, we should get chickens. (I love our chickens. But beware, as chickens are most certainly the gateway animal)
Hey Dan, I would really love to get a dairy goat.
Hey Dan, we should buy an intact male goat instead of borrowing one.
Hey Dan, lets get meat rabbits.
….
(This is probably a good place to insert a picture of one of those said meat rabbits that got loose, had a nest of babies outside, and ended up getting killed by the neighbour’s dog. Good gracious)
Yesterday was a big day for us. Yesterday was the day the last three goats I will ever own in my life (Lord willing) were driven away in a cube van.
Glory hal-le-lu-jah.
There was quiet on the farm. Quiet that I have not experienced in 5 years. In fact their cries are so ingrained (ingrained? engrained? whatever…you get it) into my head that for about 2 hours after they left I thought for sure I could still hear them.
We sat on the porch, Dan had a beer, I had wine. We enjoyed the silence. We fist bumped in victory. It was spectacular and so surreal. It honestly felt like a burden was gone.
And in that moment of pure joy and bliss I turned to him and stated the next time I start a sentence with “hey Dan” that he should tell me to stop. Be the man! I exclaimed. Put me in my place!
(The world gave a hardly laugh when I exclaimed that. Even I couldn’t get all the way through it with a straight face. God bless that man for putting up with such a woman as I.) But seriously, the goats were a really reeeallly bad idea.
But then…
All the best stories have a but then in them, don’t they?
…
Ok carry on.
But then…today.
It was midmorning.
I had done some quick online work for the church I work for and then ridden out on the 4-wheeler to make sure my bull was still where he was supposed to be. (The dude wanders. He’s gonna be steak.)
I had just come back in. It’s HOT today. Humid and still. The kind of day where it even feels hard to breathe. My hair was wild, fizzy from the 4-wheeler and the humidity. (Like my hairstyle really adds anything to this story. But whatever, I feel like a bohemian princess with my wild hair and barefeet and I like it!)
I had just poured myself a glass of raw milk and added a squirt of chocolate syrup when the phone rang. (And yes I’m a 30 year old woman who still drinks nesquick in her milk. Don’t judge me….also not sponsored)
I grabbed the phone from its cradle, saw Dan’s number on the call display, and said hello. And that is when it happened.
There I was in my kitchen, with my milk, my barefeet, my wild hair. I had the phone tucked against my ear and my shoulder as I cut a large hunk of bread and buttered it.
It seemed so innocent. So casual. I didn’t even think of it. Six little words.
Hey Dan….we should get ducks!