If You Build It . . . .

Was really busy working on a tricky brief yesterday (and will be again today) so I didn’t get to allow my mind to wander as much as it usually does.

Even the grans left me alone. Almost.

I did get to chase them from my office a few times threatening them with all kinds of bodily harm as they snuck in to pilfer paper from my printer.

They sometimes try to stare me down until I leap from my chair and chase them down the hallway and up the stairs shrieking with terrified joy.

But later in the day, when I slipped out to the basement kitchen and waited for my Keurig coffee to brew, I glanced outside to see if I could spot the mules out back.

I didn’t see the mules out on the back property or in the yard, or down by the old barn. I was beginning to think they were out front somewhere, and was about to turn back to the legal world when I spotted something move from inside the doorway of Geppetto’s Studio, aka the New Barn, aka The Two Mule Salon.

Now my past blogs have chronicled how Lisa decided that since major portions of Claire’s Laire’s roof kept getting blown off – the wind in NoCo is everything I said it was in TWA – and it was as old school a structure as you would find in the outer Yorkshire Dales in All Creatures Great and Small, that we should convert the GS into a wonderful new upgraded barn for Claire and Honey. After all, Claire deserved the best we could provide.

Now I have a historical proclivity to immediately knee-jerk reject all of Lisa’s ideas that require physical labor as a matter of self preservation. I always apply it defensively to avoid any new projects that looked like they would consume any little bit of free time the Universe was likely to provide me. Or worse yet, anything that may require me to consume massive quantities of Aleve.

I will often say “No,” at just the utterance of the word “Tommy” by my extremely patient wife, if I sense that it may be leading into a interrogative sentence. It’s all in the inflection.

But anyone who knows me knows that my responses rarely get me out of doing what Lisa wants.

And the interrogative sentence quickly and always evolves into a declarative form. Again, it’s the inflection.

Once that question mark is converted into an exclamation point, I’m basically fucked.

So, over the past few months I have slowly emptied GS of a ton of stored furniture (which Luke and Georgie will take to their new digs) and other collections of farm related accoutrements and chemicals, which are slowly making their way to the county landfill. I have also hired Josu and his band of purely Spanish speaking laborers – who have to be repeatedly told “cierra la puerta” on a regular basis as I point to whatever gate they left open – to perform the most important part of the transformation from storage area to new magical Mule living quarters – building barn doors on the Southern side of the GS.

At first, I kept the doors cerrado because I didn’t want to expose the interior to the elements. But since it has been rather dry and hot, and the interior of the Two Mule Salon is much cooler due to the interior shade, with open windows to a constant breeze, and the running overhead fan, I decided to leave the doors open and see if I could entice the mules to investigate the building.

It worked.

Yesterday, as I scanned the various structures one last time before returning to my desk, looking for any sign of Claire and Honey, I spotted some movement in the shadows of the Two Mule Salon Doorway.

That’s Honey peeking out from the right side of the photo.

A later investigation disclosed that the mules have marked the smooth cement floors with dung and hoof dirt, which I will leave in place as an incentive scenting until I build the stallish sleeping area hopefully this weekend.

I have to order the 6×6 beams, rubber mat rolls and wood shavings.

I will also move their hay rack and interior trough to the new digs.

I’ll also move their radio. They enjoy classical music.

And it is all happening at a good time, because once the transition is complete, I can order a much larger delivery of hay at the end of the summer that I can now place in the soon to be abandoned old barn.

During the next few weeks I will leave those doors open as a welcoming enticement for a slow and steady, and comfortable transition. I will leave the Claire’s Wee Laire sign above the old barn to maintain it’s mystical feel, but I will order a new Two Mule Salon sign for over the GS sliding doors.

But before any of that can happen, I need to finish this brilliant legal brief, so I better get on it.

Well, my fine, five readers, Thursday, Friday’s hand maiden, is again upon us.

That means you break your hump to wrap up your work week so you can spend your Friday lollygagging and planning a fun summer weekend.

I better head out now to cuddle some kitties and make my rounds before the sun also rises.

But, whatever else we may get up to, let us remember to make today a great one.