once upon a time.

My Dad had this obsession with carving back this dirt that circled half of the "driveway".  When Stelth and I were living with him we every once and a while would get ambitious to get one of his projects done.  One day we worked for hours and hours on chipping away at the dirt, shoveling it into a wheelbarrow, and hauling it off into "the hole" at the other end.  We worked, we sweated, we made funny noises when the dirt fought back, and we hoorayed each other when some extra show of strength was found as the hours went bye.  There is something about that day that was really great.  When two people who are very capable and inspired to get something done they often fight when they have to do it together.  Something as easy as making a rabbit box can turn into a divorce before marriage because one design is better than the other and the others way of screwing in screws, screws with the others head.  The other really special thing about that great accomplishment of carving back a significant amount of dirt and filling most of the hole, was that in my mind, I never had to do it again.  There is something so satisfying about doing something really hard and at the same time disillusioning yourself into thinking you never have to go through it a second time.

Today, Mirek and I, did just that.  We carved away at dirt for hours and filled a flipping hole.  Mirek is my dubbed work partner.  Aleš, who seems to be the right hand man of the right hand man (Karel, my essential boss, has Robert who is basically the business manager, and then Aleš, who helps distribute orders as well as follow them) is what I have come to know as the "bitch" of the operation.  Somehow, he sucked some ass and because of it he gets to tell everyone who has to do what.  Everyone being myself, Petr, and Mirek whom are both young guys working for the summer.  Aleš has not only begun to literally separate Petr and I (class case scenario of we have a lot of fun and Aleš doesn't like it), he has started to assign himself to evening milking so he can be weird and stare at me while I massage sheep tits.  The good thing is most jobs need two people and because Aleš does a lot of the tractor work (which does not require two people), Mirek and I get to do a lot of work together.  In short, we shave bark from freshly cut planks of wood, we evenly distribute giant mounds of mulch for miles on end, and we fill holes with dirt.  Oh yea, today we moved a bunch of fence posts too.  In the afternoon I clean out the horse stables and then we move onto milking etc.  Poor Petr is stuck by himself all day removing giant staples for the old fence posts which go for miles.  We are like kids getting away with anything we can.  Today we all met in the woods and enjoyed each others company until we heard a tractor off in the distance and scattered accordingly.  

I was near meltdown today to a point where I almost excused myself.  I have now become educated on what a tic sucking the blood of sheep looks like and how to take care of it.  Fortunately, for everyone else, they never see them and don't really care.  Unfortunately, for me, I see them from ten feet away and can't stomach the idea of letting it go.  I can barely stomach removing the sons of bitches but I would rather get them off than not.  It has become traumatizing to the point that I can't focus on milking because I am freaking out about seeing tics and getting them off.  It is unnerving and I don't know what is best.  Letting myself ignore them and continue to feed off of the ladies I have somehow bonded with or let them eat away at my ability to stay sane while going through the process of removing an invasive bug from an animals flesh.  Ew.  Ick.  Bleh.  For those of you who went through Outdoor Education in Junior High and had to watch a girl remove larva that was multiplying and dwelling in her flesh while lost in the amazon.....this is basically my new found equivalent.  I was near tears tonight.  Everything was wrong.  I hated milking.  I hated that these damn sheep were putting up a fuss when I was relieving their swollen utters and removing blood sucking bugs from their bellies, and I was pissed that I got so attached in the first place.  

The day was tapped off with a beer from the milk fridge and then Mirek pulled out his motor bike to go home.  He gave me a look that said "hop on?"  and shit, I did.  I am the stupidest girl in the fucking world.  I jumped onto the back of a motor bike thinking that I was going on a neighborhood ride with flip flops on and no helmet!!  The moment he spun dirt from behind my stomach lurched and all I could do was be ok with dying because it was my damn decision in the first place.  Two minutes later we are doing a wheelie at top speed through cow pastures and I wanted to die.  I would complain that he didn't understand "slow the fuck down" but I think my screams produced a universal language.  I have never been so afraid that I could actually die.  I was thinking that at any moment he was going to overestimate BRINGING US UP ONTO ONE TIRE and I was going to be flat on my back dead.  I felt naked and the wind was stripping me to the bones.  NE NE NE PROSÍM PROSÍM PROSÍM.  Nothing could have stopped him, I was his to take for a ride and he was to do it to the fullest.  We did make it back alive.  Tears were forming in my eyes because they realized that now was the first opportunity that they could respond to such speed swishing by them and I plopped myself face down onto the ground.  "Dobře?" Mirek asked me beaming with satisfaction.  "Ne dobře......ale moz dobře" was all I could muster and a pitiful breath towards the earth.  Not good.......but VERY good.  What a thrill.  

The weekend is here and I am here.  Karel and the girls went camping and I will milk twice a day and have the rest of the days to myself.  I think I will enjoy it with Czech step by step in hand and long walks.