Tipping Point

I saw a quote a couple of days ago that seemed quite appropriate for my life lately. “Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or everything happen at once.” The latter is definitely what I have been experiencing.

In the aftermath of my father’s passing a month ago it feels like there has been one thing after another to deal with. I’ve seen the vet the last two weekends in a row. Thankfully everyone is fine and healthy right at this moment although when you live with horses that is subject to change at any time. Then some weird engine light came on in the dashboard of the truck so we had to take it to get checked out. As it turned out one of the glow plugs needed to be replaced so it was very minor but of course you don’t know that until you have things checked out. Jason is on injured reserve after having a necessary surgery (he’s fine, just restricted activity for a few weeks) and various other things. I had mostly been taking all of this with reasonably good humor. I’m pretty sure Jason would agree with that comment. For sure I’ve had my moments but my usual glass is half full perspective has been pretty much intact.

Then along came yesterday morning. I was halfway through morning chores and was heading towards the back barn to feed at about 6:15am. As you know our driveway is L-O-N-G. When I came around one of the curves I found the driveway blocked by a rather large branch. Initially I was not bothered by this.

I hopped out of the truck and was simply going to drag the branch aside. Then I realized it wasn’t a branch but the whole tree had bent at the trunk and was on both sides of the fence. I could not budge the branch and could not simply hook onto it with a chain and drag it because I would have also torn down a couple of sections of the fence.

I left the truck and just walked the rest of the way to finish chores. I usually walk anyway as I find it so pleasant to walk by all the pastures early in the morning. It is such a relaxed time of day and the horses are so happy to see you. After I was done with morning chores I sent Jason a text “where is the chainsaw?” Jason’s response: “WHY??” I sent him the picture below in response.

Jason’s reply was a short rant in text speak that the only chainsaw around was the heavy Stihl saw (Jason only buys Stihl chainsaws and we have them in various sizes) and why on earth was I even considering trying to use it. I reminded him of the blocked driveway and that it needed to be unblocked for the farrier. His rebuttal was he doubted I could even start the saw.

It was then, with a blocked driveway and feeling like I had no way to address it, that I finally reached my breaking point after the last few weeks. I turned over a bucket and sat down and cried and threw myself a massive pity party. Sometimes it really does feel good to feel sorry for yourself for a bit.

I was just wrapping up my woe is me party when I heard the golden sound of a chainsaw. I sat there a minute thinking “surely that sound isn’t coming from this farm.” I listened intently for another minute. At that moment in time the sound of a running chainsaw on my farm sounded as sweet as if the angels in heaven were singing directly to me. Indeed it DID sound like it was coming not only from our farm but along our driveway. I began walking towards the cause of my pity party and as I rounded the bend there was Bryan cutting up the branch. Jason had called in help as he was convinced I would try to use his heavy chainsaw despite his warning not to do so and cut myself in half or something. In good time the driveway was cleared, I thanked Bryan profusely, and life felt much more manageable.

The rest of the tree is still there waiting to be dealt with by Jason in a couple of weeks. That should be fun given the high potential to put the tree through the fence, so there may be yet another story from another day in regards to this tree. But for now it is out of my way and I am back to feeling like the glass is half full again. In fact I even think it is funny that of all things it was a downed tree that was my tipping point. I am fervently hoping for an extremely boring and uneventful weekend.

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Griselle