A month ago my 87-year-old neighbor Donna had a stroke in my garden.
I was in my hands and kneel in my garden. I looked up to see Donna quietly over me. “We have to go to the emergency room,” said Donna, leaning onto a stick, her leg stiff, the right side of her face meandered and her eye increased.
“You have a stroke. Get into the car immediately!” I ran into the house to grab my handbag.
From my window I could see how the Windmühlen Repeparationman went through Donna's Weidegitter, but I had no time to deal with him. In minutes we accelerated the 15 miles to the next hospital.
Donna and I, two English or non -Taminish women, have lived side by side in the middle of the region of the old order for years. I moved to an old Amish school house in 1988 and attached it to a residence worth living. The school building still kept a lonely desk in the middle of the large room with dust layers on the floor. There were two bathrooms, a boy and a girl. I knocked down a wall, installed a shower and created a toilet.
The school building had a long switch under the south windows. When I ran a sponge over the top of the counter, large pieces of linoleum came in my hand. So I tore out the counter and installed a sink and cupboards. . Voila! I had a kitchen.
I started to cook meals and felt at home, except for one thing. The greenhouse right next door. Here I was in the middle of nowhere and had another house that stood against me.
There was an amish phone cell in the garage of the house. Five or six families shared the phone there and I liked the coming and going that created them.
My Amish neighbors drove into my trip and scaled their horses to a few old T-posts on my property. The amish can use a phone, but cannot have a house in which it would inevitably ring the bell if they sat down for a family meal in the family.
Harriet, the owner of the greenhouse, did not take care of the Amish and complained that they were updated by the one bare light bulb that hung from the ceiling in the tiny telephone booth. In the course of the year there was a patient situation with Harriet-Streeplutz and even some broken glass on their trail to prevent the amish from using the phone.
“Damn,” I said one evening when I made my dishes. “Here I am in a beautiful area, except for the woman who lives in the greenhouse. And the house is right next to me.”
After a year, a sign for sale in front of the greenhouse rose, and Donna and her husband Stu soon moved in. They painted the Gelb green house. They cleaned up all the fields and glass. They took off an old flag mast and made it into an hitchhiking position to greet the Amish.
“Whoa, that was better,” I thought. My only complaint was the bright court light that installed Stu. My stargas ruined, but I tried to let it go. I resisted the urge to shed out the light bulb with the slingshot.
“When we moved to our house,” said Donna years later. “I thought everything was perfect, except for this old school building right next to us. And why should this woman live in this old wreck of a building? I wish we could get rid of her.”
On the day of her stroke, I stayed in the hospital with Donna and moved with her through various tests, an MRI, then a cat scan that was waiting for the neurologist to appear on a small television screen next to her gurney. Finally Donna was admitted to the hospital floor, and her son and daughter -in -law, who had just come from work, came into the room.
Donna had been a city mouse and raised her family in an urban area until her five children were grown. Then she persuaded Stu to move into the country. Once here she quickly turned into a country mouse and had her children spread into other cities in the United States
I drove home to get a bite to eat and then fell to bed. The next morning I got up early, just to spy Donna's two lambs through her front yard and take to the street. Yes, the gate to the pasture was wide open, probably an oversight of the windmill repair man.
I pushed the lambs back into the pasture and tried to close the gate, but the bar was not sure. I found an old piece of wire and made a temporary repair.
Then I saw that the gate did not match the adjacent bar. There was a gap that was far enough so that the lambs could wack through. I threaded a bungee cable through the gate and caught it around the poles and pulled it.
“There,” I thought. “This is a bit of a girl fix, but it should keep until I can get help with this goal.”
A few hours later, the lambs were outside again. This time I saw how they step directly through Donna's wooden gore. In the past, Donna had kept horses, and the wood gates with their wide slats were always sufficient to hold the animals in their hands. But after her divorce of Stu and the death of her favorite wall, Donna decided to concentrate on manageable animals.
But once again the lambs and Donna's three high geese went through the wooden gates with high bumps. This time it took me a few good days to bring the sheep and the geese back to where they belonged. The geese turned into versions of Daffy Duck and laughed at the Barnyard dance. No handful of grain or hay would attract them. We gradually do it for 48 hours until the animals finally tasks.
Thing!
A text from Donna's daughter -in -law.
We assume that everything is fine and that they take care of the animals.
I replied that I could use a little help at the gates out here. No help came. I covered the gates with some old beefs and more bungee cables.
Thing!
Can't you just add the lambs to your?
I explained that I could bring Donna's lambs to my place and insert her with my, but then I would have to mow Donna's hilly 2 hectare pasture.
Thing!
Why don't you just put Donna's lambs into her barn?
I could do that if I could get you to go in there. And it's so hot … it would be best if we could simply repair the goals properly. Then I would like to take care of them until I could bring them to slaughter in autumn.
Thing!
Slaughter??????
Oh no, I thought the city mice are vegetarians. These lambs are not pets, I said. You are cattle.
Thing!
We contact the Humane Society to take the lambs.
Good grief, I said. That is not necessary.
I called my handwoman and climbed to her list. A month later she arrived and we worked together for a whole day and repaired the gates and bars with new screws with hardware cloth and cattle panels.
Later on that day I visited Donna in the rehabilitation unit and told her that everything was okay, don't worry about the animals or the house. We had been good neighbors long enough to support each other.
“I can't thank you enough,” said Donna.
She took a break and then turned to me. “And why don't you see if you can make my lambs slaughter in autumn.”