We are going to have Peace, even if we have to fight for it. –Dwight D. Eisenhower

Greetings Dear Ones,

A young woman marches into the shop with a bag slung over her arm. She heaves it on to the counter and begins to rummage. She draws out a long purple thing. “I’m not sure how much of an altercation this dress is going to need,” she says cheerfully, “it actually fits pretty good already.”

“I’m relieved!” I announce. “I despise altercations! Peaceful persuasion is more my style.” She looks momentarily confused, then shrugs, and enters the dressing room to try it on. (I guess we all have to pick our battles.) A minute later, she calls me in.

She’s right, this bargain scored from the local thrift store is generally flattering but she pokes at a few things she does not like. We agree to do some tweaking here and there—just a few Peaceful, easy negotiations with the garment where it disagrees with her body type. I talk nicely to the dress, hang it on the rack next to the prom gowns, and turn back towards my work table where a bunch of zippers lie in wait to beat me up—four pairs of heavy duty work pants with busted crotches and a jacket zip that was originally installed with three rows of stitches so tight and tiny they had to have been done under a microscope. Removing them has caused me to lose blood and curses. Altercations indeed!

It’s been a week of wild energy. I’ve been too busy sitting in the maternity ward in the barn, having my hair and earlobes nibbled by newborns to check in on the cosmic forces at play and figure out why so many nutty things are happening. I know Mercury is in retrograde. (A planet never actually moves backwards; it just seems to, much the way a train sitting on the tracks feels like it is moving backwards when the train next to it pulls forwards.) I know how Mercury feels. I’m going forward so slowly, while everything else is rushing, it feels like I am going backwards. I know that Things Happen For a Reason. Everything happens FOR me, not TO me. And yet, there have been a few meddlesome DISTRACTIONS (beyond the glitter everywhere) that make me wonder whether the mischief is being done by sportive pixies having their play or if more malevolent forces are at work. In random order, they are:

a. A customer who needed his suit altered right away refusing to answer his phone when the work was finished because he thought my calls were coming from the Dominican Republic.

b. Attempting to jumpstart a customer’s car that wouldn’t start, accidentally dropping my own keys through my own engine into an unreachable spot behind the front grille so that we could not start my car or hers.

c. Locking myself out of my shop and having to break in using one of those slide rulers I call “a stick with numbers.”

d. A person asking me to recreate their favorite underwear that features an external “sock” to hold, um… (what pop-eyed Prudence called “the stem of the apple,” before she passed out).

e. Briefly considering the dazzling life of Crime I could lead if I was unscrupulous about my use of a stick with numbers and a seam ripper…

f. Nigel Braveheart, the elderly, nearly blind, nearly deaf, nearly toothless, totally Senile Jack Russell deciding to take on three young pit bulls (of course he did!) who were off leash in the cemetery where we walk each day at noon. As I scooped (leashed) Nigel in my arms in the nick of time and had barking, snapping pit bulls jumping all over me, their owner appeared and yelled “Hey! I really like your outfit! You look really cute.”

Such things are doing nothing to stop the deepening of that groove between my eyebrows that my beloved sister calls the “WTF Wrinkle.” It’s becoming a permanent trench in my face.

And then there’s the Tractor… This is probably WAY more information than you bargained for, but I must preface this by saying in Modern Lives as busy as ours, we can all agree that we cannot do as much “nothing” as we want at some points if we don’t multi-task like fury at others, especially during morning routines. Some people brush their teeth while reading inspiring affirmations taped to their bathroom mirrors. Some do their morning commutes listening to good literature. Some simultaneously talk on the phone, pack all the lunches, drink a day’s worth of caffeine and provide minor veterinary care to all the household pets. Some use any “chance to sit down” as a time to “wipe ‘n swipe” on social media. Me? I use my time on the throne to shop for used farm equipment. Hand on heart, there is nothing that hastens peristalsis like the discovery of a vintage manure spreader in the Northeast Kingdom or that a champion hay elevator is for sale in Littitz, Pennsylvania. (“There’s a Vintage Manure Spreader right here,” says Prudence, eyeing me disdainfully.)

It helps tremendously to be positioned appropriately for the crap of a lifetime when one comes across a low mileage John Deere 4032 (with not a scratch on it!), located an hour away, for the miracle price of $3,200. (“The unbelievable price is your first clue that you should not have believed it,” says Prudence, groggily working her way to her feet after the underwear scandal.) The Dream Tractor was being sold in haste by a woman who had lost her husband and needed to get rid of it quickly because she was moving and this thing reminded her too much of him. I could barely contain my joy. I was instantly so deliriously busy—mentally clearing brush, building stone walls, digging fence posts with a fresh auger, I nearly forgot to pull my overalls up.

Then it hit me. A woman has lost her husband. A husband who took such loving care of his tractor (not a scratch on it!!) probably took good care of his family too. Who was I to mentally rearrange garden beds and manure piles with a pristine front end loader when this woman was suffering? I was suffused with remorse that I should profit from her loss.

My shame was embarrassingly brief. Moments later, my inner scrappy lady farmer decided, “whelp, better me than some other wheeler-dealer!” I promptly composed a heartfelt note of condolence and offered to buy the tractor, telling her how sorry I was for her loss and that I would cherish the tractor in his memory. I even promised to clean the garage and keep it indoors.

Her reply was curt. No, I could not see it in person. I could buy the tractor but “for the safety of us both, she wanted to use eBay services to arrange payment,” which was odd, because the tractor was not listed for sale on eBay. And she wanted to be paid in gift cards, poor thing. Who prefers gift cards to cold hard cash?? Meanwhile, I continued to pray for this woman and the soul of her departed husband.

I also excitedly called my Lone-star All-star brother-in-law who, being from Texas, knows a thing or two about tractors. Breathlessly, I told him about this amazing deal. I sent him the picture and the model number. “They don’t match,” was the first thing he said. “That’s not a 4320. This deal is bogus.”

A Scam???

WHAT????

Suddenly, I felt like Richard Pryor in that scene “whaaaaat’s happening-ing-ing to me-e-e-e?” Thankfully, I did not go through with anything, or purchase any gift cards. “Neither, I must point out, did you clean the garage!” pipes Prudence.

I know I am leaning in to leading a life of “Wonder and Awe” but the bewilderment that arises from narrowly avoiding a potential scam-artist is not the sort I am seeking... Who does these things to honest, well-meaning, scrappy lady farmers?

“Bad guys,” says Prudence firmly. “really Bad guys.”

“But WHY?”

“Seriously, Nancy?” she says rolling her eyes. “For money. People do bad things for money.”

“I do bad things for money,” I say.

“We aren’t talking about when you open the cuff on a pair of pants and ten year’s worth of leg dandruff falls out on the table. We’re talking about Crime. Most people don’t want to install zippers in down jackets or chop four inches worth of glitter off a dress someone will only wear once. They want easy money, not good hard work. Crime…”

My inner kindergartener is stunned. My inner criminal wants to meet this tractor scammer in a dark alley with a seam ripper, a stick with numbers, and some underwear that will not be needing a “sock” of any length after she gets done with him.

Prudence has been having a field day with all this chaos. She’s a Godly woman out to teach me that the world is a dangerous place and that people cannot be trusted. She can hate and pray for someone and it’s basically the same thing. Both depend on her believing she is “Better than...” She’s not the kind of “Christian” you know is a Christian by her Love.

Frankly, I’m sick of her muttering. I’m not sorry I am such a Fool. I’m not sorry I get easily tricked. It means I am a pretty nice person (mostly) who gives and expects the best in others. I might be a Fool, but I am nobody's victim. My life runs way better when fueled by Faith and Trust than fear and anxiety. I know. I’ve tried it both ways.

So Pruddy and I have had an Altercation of our own. I’ve had to get stern with her and tell her that she can judge people, including me, but only for the purposes of awarding prizes to worthy contestants in this Game we call life. (I’m trying to get that bitch to focus on the Beautiful and Positive.) So far, she has grudgingly awarded prizes in the following categories: Best Brother-In-Law, Most Full-Service Tailoring shop (includes automotive work), Most Appreciative Customer, Bravest (Idiot) Jack Russell, and Most Teeth (awarded to the pit bulls, not their owner).

I’ve won awards for Poopiest Pants and Most Ingenius at getting car keys out of places in cars where they don’t belong. The poopy pants are my favorite prize. Especially since the poopy is NOT mine (hay feeders and vintage water troughs notwithstanding). It comes from the two little lambkins born Sunday afternoon during a heavy rain shower. Their mother did a wonderful job for a first-timer. She had been off her feed and looking uncomfortable at breakfast so I knew birth was immanent. Shetlands are very private and sneaky about lambing so I couldn’t tell how long it would be. The little darlings were all cleaned up in their soft new pajamas and tottering around the nest when we came back to check on her again.

So! Here they are, two braw lambs, strong and healthy, curious and comical—a little black ram and a little morrit (brown) ewe. Both have “the Bishop’s blessing” in a little white star on their foreheads. Twice a day, I crawl over the fence to sit in the corner of their pen and return to Pure, unadulterated, un-altercated Innocence. I become a jungle gym for them to climb upon. They jump my boots and hurl themselves up the mountain range of my knees. These, Dear Ones, these are my lambs of God. They restore my spirit, my love, my faith. They help me Mend from all of Life’s “altercations.”

Keep mending Dear ones! Keep bringing all the YOU—innocent, foolish, or savvy YOU—you can to this crazy, amazing, mixed up world of chaos, wonder, awe and Beauty. Avoid unnecessary altercations when you can. But when your WTF wrinkle gets so deep it requires a healthy altercation… just know I’m right behind you, a scrappy farm lady with a seam ripper and a stick with numbers. We GOT this!

I love you SEW much!

Yours aye,

Nancy

P.S. If you don’t have your own awesome brother-in-law from Texas, maybe check out “popular online scams” before attempting to purchase used farm equipment from widows!