Okay. I’m cheating a bit. But not really…
Feeling a bit buried in the work of a new job yet I’m only on Day 37 of a 60 day blog challenge. The only rule of the challenge: publish every day. I added the rule of publishing in this here blog–not just willy nilly on different social media platforms.
So in the interest of keeping a promise to myself, I’m going to continue to publish every day, damnit. To be efficient, though, I am going to reshare some of my writing from last year.
My family and I had quite an adventure last September (2018) when we agreed to “ranch”sit for an elderly deaf woman in Montana. We were there three weeks while she traveled to visit her sons and their families in other states. I posted to Facebook nearly daily and I’ve compiled the first three posts for you today to introduce the experience.
Finally getting around to posting:
We arrived two days ago after a stunning 7 hour drive mostly through our home state of Idaho. Thursday evening and yesterday, we trained up in the chores we’ll need to attend to as we care for the small ranch and it’s inhabitants: 3 majestic horses (my kids have always wanted to have horses,) 2 affectionate donkeys (who knew donkeys were so sweet?) and 2 rescue dogs who require lots of love and attention. Our hostess, Jane, loves her sustainably built home as much as her animals and refers to it as a living thing. What an honor for my family to be trusted to care for her ranch while she’s away.
Day 3:
Kiki was rescued from a hoarding situation. She spent years of her life in a small crate before Jane took the traumatized pup into her home. When I first met Jane via Skype, she held Kiki like a baby the whole time. I mentioned how much love she gave the little dog, and Jane said, “Oh no, she gives ME love!” It took Jane a long time to teach Kiki to go to the bathroom outside, but Kiki has never developed the habit of asking to be let out. It’s up to a human to pay attention to the clock and take her out every 2.5 – 3 hours.
So, the whole family can leave the property for a maximum of 3 hours to make sure that Kiki gets the consistency she needs to feel safe and cared for. Yesterday, we made the 30 min drive to Missoula for supplies. We stopped by Costco and then checked out Lucky’s Market. We’d made a quick stop at Fresh Market after we dropped Jane at Missoula’s airport on Friday and were not impressed. We all much preferred Lucky’s and agreed it would be our go to for food supply runs. In addition to a few days worth of groceries, we each picked a special treat for ourselves to take back to the ranch: Hubby grabbed an Octoberfest beer, I chose a bottle of pinot noir, the girl’s treat was some delicious sharp chedder cheese, and the boy opted for some toasted cinnamon squares (the first box of cold cereal I’ve purchased since having children.)
Day 4:
I love the unusual layout of this home. Jane is definitely an out of the box thinker and laughed as she told me how difficult it was for her architect to grasp her design requests. For one, Jane is not too concerned with privacy so there aren’t really “rooms” except for her dressing room and a storage room downstairs. The two toilets each have a tiny room that just fits the facilities–bidets on both and fans on timers.
Her husband passed away shortly after they moved here from their Colorado ranch and construction was never finished. There is a downstairs shower that is built into the wall between the laundry facilities and large utility sinks but no walls separating from the rest of the downstairs. She just recently had her upstairs shower installed though because of some communication issues with her contractors, it wasn’t finished until yesterday when my hubby connected the drain to the pipe.
We’ve used some clothes pins to put up a sheet, and while showering downstairs was an adventure, it’s nice to not have to notify everyone to avoid the downstairs and the stairwell when one wants to shower. And the kids are clean now too…
Restoring Justis 