FORT KENT, Maine — Well, it’s been a somewhat tumultuous time here on Rusty Metal Farm, and I really hope the fates or the stars or whatever has been controlling things during February decide to go out like a lamb for March.
On the upside, there were a fair amount of lessons learned.
Like early in the month when, while washing dishes late one evening a glass decided to break while my hand was inside of it.
Before I could react, the broken glass had sliced neatly through the middle knuckle on my right hand. It didn’t bleed a lot — but man, did it hurt.
Luckily, my friend Julie, who is a doctor, was at the house at the time.
OK, so maybe that doctorate is in cultural anthropology. But she’s also a mom and grandmother, so well-acquainted with cleaning and patching up wounds.
I’ll lay even money now that neither her children nor her grandchildren whined as much as I did when she made me put my cut hand under the running water. However, the “Star Wars”-themed bandages I happened to have on hand — no pun intended — went a long way in cheering me up.
That was on a Friday. When the injury still troubled me Monday, despite the Imperial Stormtrooper and Chewbacca Band-Aids, Julie convinced me to go see a medical doctor to make sure I’d not done any serious tendon or nerve damage.
One exam and a tetanus shot later, I was home where I spent the next 24 hours having an extreme reaction to that shot. As bad as that was, I was assured it was preferable to actually getting tetanus.
The nerves are damaged, but will heal in time and the lesson learned?
Time to buy a dishwasher.
Not long after that, the fates pointed their fingers at Corky, everyone’s favorite Shusky.
Readers of this column may recall that last fall I had taken her to a specialist in central Maine due to ongoing nasal issues.
A regimen of medications and a highly modified diet later, and the most expensive dog nose in Aroostook County was on the mend.
But at some point last month she got into something that is not on the approved list, most likely frozen dog food laying on the ground in the sled dog kennel.
We had one very lethargic, very snotty, very sad Shusky on our hands.
Off to see our friends at the Fort Kent Animal Hospital, where she was prescribed a broad spectrum antibiotic for the nose and a special probiotic to counteract whatever those pills would do to her sensitive tummy.
In no time at all she started looking and acting like her old self — well enough, in fact, to renew her forays into the dog yard looking for whatever had made her sick again in the first place.
Lesson learned?
No matter how bad a shape the nose is in, a Shusky will follow it to trouble.
Speaking of four-legged critters, March may come in like a lion, but February was all about the squirrels.
They are everywhere — running around the yard, plundering the birdfeeder, burrowing tunnels under the snow and laying siege to the dog yard where they scarf up any frozen dog kibbles Corky may have missed.
For their part, the Rusty Metal sled dogs have simply given up, and it is not at all uncommon to look outside and see squirrels dancing on top of doghouses while a sled dog naps within.
Lesson learned? It’s not only birds of a feather who flock together.
I will say Mother Nature has been kind so far this year, with the exception of a major snow-to-rain-to-ice event last week, which, among other things, turned my driveway into a skating rink.
That storm also caused my power to flick out and back on several times, and I woke up the morning after the storm to discover we had no water in the house because of a non-working pump, presumably damaged in a power surge.
I should mention I did have plenty of water where I did not want any — in the garage and shop where all that snow and rain had poured in through the bay doors.
Since staring at the inactive pump for 10 minutes did not solve the problem, I called in the expert.
One house call later from my wonderful plumber, and the taps were again flowing at Rusty Metal Farm.
Lesson learned?
Those reset buttons on electrical outlets are there for a reason. Never be afraid to push them.
In the midst of the water-water-everywhere-except-from-the-faucet debacle, there was one critter who tried, in her own way, to help. At some point that morning my elderly cat Natasha had gotten inside without my noticing she was carrying a dead squirrel.
At least, I am assuming it was dead when she brought it in.
By the time I spotted the headless corpse on my living room floor, the scene looked like a combination of “CSI” and an Animal Planet version of The “Walking Dead.”
In all honesty, I have no idea of the lesson there.
So, as February gave way to March and as of the writing of this column I wait to see if the forecast foot-and-a-half of snow pans out, I can only hope the fates decide to give me a break.
Otherwise, I’m in for another month’s worth of lessons.
Julia Bayly of Fort Kent is an award winning writer and photographer, who writes part time for Bangor Daily News. Her column appears here every other Friday. She can be reached by email at jbayly@bangordailynews.com.
