Then today I showed up to a text telling me that I had a “project” waiting in the barn, which turned out to be building a loft. Yeah…that was so not happening.
After making my way over the large heap of lumber, I stomped out of barn doing one hell of a Big Bad Wolf impression, huffing and puffing harder with each step I took. I scanned the area for any signs of Hud-life. I lifted my hand to shield the harsh rays of sunlight blanketing the serene scene. Other than a few leaves blowing in the morning breeze, there was no movement. I knew he was here. I’d parked beside his truck not even twenty minutes earlier.
When my three hundred and sixty degree surveillance proved futile, I started across the gravel drive towards the main farmhouse with purposeful determination and Romeo at my side. If Hud wasn’t there, I would head to the bunkhouse and then walk the fields until I flushed him out like the rat he was.
As I searched every nook, cranny, and crawl space in the farmhouse, my mind raced with a running script of all the things I planned on telling him. And like any good script, I’d written his responses and had rebuttals cued up accordingly.
No matter what he threw at me, I had an answer. If he told me that my being out here was a punishment and asked condescendingly if I’d rather be on the side of the road picking up trash with an orange vest, I would tell him yes, because at least then I would know what in the heck I was doing.
If he threw the fact that I’d been raised on a farm in my face again, I would point out that if he needed cows milked, a horse brushed, or a loaf of fresh bread baked—I was his girl. But if I was required to do anything outside of that scope of work, then he needed to train me on whatever task he decided to assign me. For safety reasons, if nothing else. It was getting to the point that I was going to hurt myself, or someone else. As much as I believed in my abilities, there was no way I could build a loft, without it turning into a potential death trap.
Was this a punishment? Yes.
Did I deserve it? Well, that was open to interpretation.
Was it dangerous to leave me to my own devices when I didn’t have a clue what I was doing? Yes!
And I wasn’t being dramatic. It was absolutely dangerous. If I actually tried to take it upon myself to construct a loft, did he actually think that it would be sound and sturdy enough to pass any kind of inspection, much less be able to bear the weight of whatever he planned on storing up there? If he did, then he was crazier than Charlie Sheen when he was winning, and that was just one more reason that picking up trash on the highway was looking better and better.
The hatch door squeaked as I pushed it up and peeked into the attic. Grabbing a flashlight from my nifty tool belt, which I’d picked up over the weekend and was now coming in very handy, I shone the light and called out Hud’s name. My voice echoed in the hollow space and my visual inspection turned up nothing.
He wasn’t in the main house. Next up, I scoured the bunkhouse, fields and riverbank with equally disappointing results. By the time Romeo and I made it back to the barn I’d worked myself into quite the tizzy. A hot tizzy. It wasn’t even ten a.m. and it had to be close to ninety degrees already. My shirt was damp with sweat, which was doing nothing to improve my mood.
Romeo, on the other hand was happy as could be thinking the entire thing was just one big adventure. He’d run through the open fields, bounding with joy. And since he’d splashed and played in the river, he didn’t seem to be suffering from the same overheating issues I was.
Kneeling down, I ran my hand over his big, goofy head and scratched him behind his ears.
“Why can’t you find Hudson?” I asked him the same question I’d asked at least a dozen times over the last hour.
Romeo barked his response before he lapped a sloppy kiss up my cheek.
“You’re cute, but clueless. Why can’t you be more like Lassie and go tell the Sheriff that Timmy fell in the well? Or in this case, Harmony fell in a pile of wood…” A plan instantly formed that some might find insane, but I was categorizing as brilliant. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.”
With a tiny resurgence of renewed purpose, I stood and ran back into the barn and took inventory of my surroundings. This could work. Why go looking for Hud when I could have Hud come to me? Sure, when I’d texted him yesterday to ask him to come help with some irrigation issues I was having, he’d responded that he was sure I could figure it out. This time I wasn’t going to tell him what my problem was.
I crawled back over the pile that I’d scaled with much more ease back when I was filled with righteous indignation. Now that my emotionally fueled momentum had drained, it was a much more daunting task.