Not Rudolph

 

There are harsh realities that comes with certain professions.  For example, if you work at a retail store in December, you are likely to develop an aversion to Christmas carols.  Tammy and I have our own set of realities that come with the professions we have undertaken during our careers.

For example, we still cringe when someone asks us what we are doing to enjoy our nice May (or any other growing season month) weekend.  You see, when you work a small-scale, diversified farm, you don't necessarily get weekends off.  In fact, if you do farmers' markets, Saturdays are often one of your longest days of the week.  You need Sunday off just to recover from it... except you still have to do the chores.  And there's always something else you really need to do on Sunday anyway.

I know I have mentioned this recently, but the Christmas holiday season can be difficult for those who are teachers or professors.  There typically isn't time or space in a teacher's life to prepare for it - unless it is part of their job (holiday concerts anyone?!?).

That's why the appearance of our small tree inside the house ALREADY this year is a minor miracle.  The fact that there are a couple of new strings of solar lights is a bigger deal yet.  The question is this: were the appearances of these things an attempt to ward off the impending insanity of Finals Week or signs that things are going better this year?

I'm not going to answer that question.  Instead, I'm going to take you back to 2009.  We were still relatively new to the Genuine Faux Farm and we had not reconciled ourselves to the fact that our house is adjacent to a snowmobile trail.  In 2009, the weather was pretty cold and there was plenty of snow.

And this is an account of the events that happened on Wednesday (and Thursday) of finals week that year:

--------------------------

11:30 PM - The lights are still on in the house. It is finals week. The schedule is a bit topsy-turvy. It is the way of things during finals week. The humans will placate the cat and go to bed soon. Tomorrow is an early and long day. Must get some sleep.

12:15 AM - One human takes a while to wind down, but he always takes longer to fall asleep. Don't worry, he'll...zzzzzzzz

1:00 ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

1:29 AM - Something is going on...huh? wha? Must wake up..... Why does it seem like there is a pulsing light?

1:30 AM - A clock rings the half hour. The pulsing light is still there. My brain is still confused, but becoming a bit alarmed - literally. Don' t all of our smoke detectors make loud noises if they go off? I wonder if the speaker went bad in one and it is just blinking. I'd better get up and investigate!

1:31 AM - Hmmm. That light isn't coming from inside the house. It is OUTSIDE! What's going on here?

1:32 AM - Arg! All of these older windows are covered in frost and I can't see out, but the lights are right outside on the road. And they are very bright. Was there an accident? Did Santa come early with Rudy?

1:40 AM - Here's how you know the lights are bright and annoying. Even Tammy has been awakened by them. We now have identified the source. The trail groomer for the snowmobile route is STUCK in the ditch in front of our house. It is REALLY cold out there tonight and the driver's out there shoveling away in an effort to get out. I'm not sure that I'm feeling sorry for him right now. 

We have thoughts about calling...who?... I don't know... the sheriff?  We have conflicting feelings about how difficult it must be to work in -15 degree F weather vs our own annoyance at the continued blinky lights, lost sleep and periodic loud growling as he tries to rock the vehicle to 'unstick' it.

None of this is helping me to feel sleepy either.

1:45 AM - Ok, fine. He hasn't come to the house to ask for help. It seems as though he's been on a cell phone. We don't have a big tractor to pull him out.  About all we could do is grab another shovel or two and try to dig.  But, that doesn't seem useful.  Our lights are on, so he should know he can come to our house to warm up.

We desperately need to get to sleep (if we can). So we do our best to try and drown out the light.

1:50 AM - white snow outside and really bright lights. grrrrrrr (was that me or the machine out there?)

2:00 AM - The clock rings in the hour. Tammy appears to be asleep again - at least part way.  I'm still annoyed and still alert in case there is a knock on the door. 

2:04 AM - blink blink blink grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr blink blink blink...

2:10 AM - Finally!  It sounds like the thing is moving now. 

2:11 AM - Oh no.. it still has to go all the way around our property (where the trail runs)! Ugh. Blinky lights for a while yet.

2:20 AM - The blinking is fading into the distance.  I get up and take a quick check - no presents under tree. Drat.

2:30 AM - The clock rings in the half hour.

2:40 AM - One human takes a while to wind down, but he always takes longer to fall asleep. Don't worry, he'll...zzzzzzzz  

---------------------------

You can tell that this was a different time in our lives.  Yes, we would still be annoyed if this happened again.  But, I would probably get bundled up and go outside to see what is going on and offer to help.  I would also make a strong suggestion that they not groom the trail quite so late the next time they do it - especially not by our house... during Finals Week.  Ok, I might have lost my temper (after I woke up enough to do just that) - but I'd still be out there, in part because we've experienced it once and it wouldn't take so long to figure out exactly what was going on.

Because, regardless of the year, Finals Week is always difficult to be our best selves.

Yes, we've got a tractor now.  Yes, we have other tools that might help.  But at that time, we had an old truck that likely couldn't have done much (other than possibly lose a part of itself in the process of trying to help).  And the experience I had with trying to get vehicles out of (or through) ditches was minimal.  In addition to being tired and annoyed, we were out of our element and probably not thinking too clearly.

But, I still think the kicker of it all is that I was awakened by a blinking red light.

And it wasn't Rudolph.