Life Is A Game Of Inches And Instants

Oh, dear. How time flies when you don't have to go to work! A more productive woman might have finished up her blog posts before the stroke of 9:45 p.m. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is not a more productive woman.

It takes a large chunk of the day to drive to town to pick up a gift for Farmer H, one he specifically requested, from a store staffed by no discernible human. Seriously. I could have hitched up The Pony and made a getaway with all sorts of goods, the names and uses for which I am happily ignorant. Thank the Gummi Mary, The Pony found the item on our stroll down the 14th aisle. I would have asked for assistance, you know, if there had been a human staffing the checkout. The item was with accessories of its kind, in a section with a separate counter, also unstaffed by humankind. Thank the Gummi Mary again that Farmer H was only two dollars off on his description of the cost. We think we got the right thing. Time will tell.

The trip itself was fraught with danger. Down at the bottom of the nearest section of our gravel road, there is a T stop where we get onto another gravel road. A truck was parked there. Not just a pickup. A delivery truck. Like a long truck that hauls furniture on a cross-country move. Not only did Trucker have his nose in our path, he was parked on the wrong side of the road. Oh, perhaps I forgot to mention that our gravel road is still packed with about three inches of solid ice. I suppose Trucker slid down that 90-degree turn on a 45-degree hill that we were about to attempt ascending. Thank the Gummi Mary that I always put T-Hoe into his full 4WD mode when I leave our driveway and venture out onto the public ice.

Simply making it to the ice-packed county blacktop road was not the end of our adventure. There near the blind fluffy dog curve again was the Wood Chipper. Of course he had the road down to not merely one lane, but to half a lane, making a generous semi-circle around his truck with a plethora of orange cones. He had a helper today, who could not be bothered to direct traffic over the blind hill, but was instead snatching at limbs with a big vaudeville-type hook. Like that couldn't have waited until the guy in a man lift with a chainsaw-on-a-stick was done lopping them off. Thank the Gummi Mary I have sense enough to slow down to a crawl to lesson the impact of a head-on collision. Just after cresting that hill on the wrong side of the road, a compact car barreled around the blind curve right at me. And again, on the way back, at least I saw a smaller version of a delivery truck headed my way before I had to go through half-man's-land.

Oh, and that delivery truck was still parked at the bottom of our gravel road hill upon our return. The driver was missing, though. Sweet Gummi Mary! It's like people forget that Hillmomba is still not over her recent receipt of 10 unexpected inches of snow.

Life. A game of inches and instants. As my blog buddy Kathy well knows.