Off to the Farm We Go and the Great Cast Adventure (By Great I Mean a Miserable 6 Weeks)

Wisconsin, Aug 13th to Aug 16th

To start this story off right you should know that I have never broken anything in my entire life. I have been bruised and I have torn a few things but never ever broken a thing, at least nothing of mine as I may have broken stuff on others.

                So Marcia and I finally made it up to visit Grandma, Debbie, Tommy, Dorothy, and the Farm up in Wisconsin. We have been meaning to go for a while but between a lot of different factors it just didn’t work out. We flew up to Wisconsin, rented a car, and drove a few hours to Antigo and the Farm. We saw a few interesting sites on the 3-hour drive as we decided to go the scenic route instead of just the highway. The coolest thing that we saw was the river that had all of this smoke/fog rolling on top of it and in a few spots a funnel of smoke rose up from the water and moved across the surface. It was really cool. We saw a lot of farm land and cows as we drove and everything was beautiful.

We could easily see why people enjoy living in WI, the air just seemed fresher, and the trees seemed greener.  The drive was also fun because we talked a lot and had good audiobooks.  Marcia convinced me to listen to this series by Eoin Colfer called Artemis Fowl and it is very well written, full of suspense and narrow escapes.

                When we got there Debbie gave us the grand tour, we had food, we saw her animals, drove around on the ATV and learned so many interesting things.  For example, Debbie had 2 donkeys that are called Bethlehem Donkeys because of the distinct cross shaped pattern on their back.   They came up to us and nuzzled our hands just like a dog would do to be petted.  They were so gentle, and you could tell that they were well loved.  Debbie had been to Shepard School and so she knew a lot about taking care of her animals, and she has quiet the reputation in town for her kindness.  We learned that some sheep have hair and not wool, some sheep are better for milk, AND that most sheep have naturally long tails. This was surprising considering we thought all sheep were born with short tails.

 

After the tour, we talked with Grandma for a good long while. I am so happy Marcia got to sit with Grandma and Debbie and hear so many stories about the family and me as a little kid. She laughed and smiled the whole time, I was a bit embarrassed of course but it’s Grandma Boothby what are you going to say. They kept trying to get us to ride Dorothy’s horse and eventually I jumped on and gave it a little ride as Dorothy lead the way. It was such a fun day just talking and laughing and telling stories. At night Marcia and Grandma stayed inside where it was warm and Debbie took me on the “Wild Onion”. It was a fun ride and we saw quite a few deer.

                Finally, it was very late and everyone was heading to bed so Marcia and I head to our hotel for a good night sleep. But before falling asleep Marcia wrote down all of the stories and anecdotes that she heard. She smiled and laughed as she wrote; remembering all things Grandma and Debbie told her.  

                The next morning we woke up and headed back to the Farm where Debbie had breakfast waiting for us with some amazing Chocolate Chip Bagels. Seriously, these things were amazing. Anyway we had great breakfast and some more great stories. At some point Debbie said that they had to get some of the sheep ready for a Sheep Show that Dorothy was doing that weekend. So we sat with Grandma and talked while Debbie, Dorothy, and Dorothy’s friend Katie got the sheep ready.

                It was an interesting process with securing them, cleaning them, shearing them, and getting them ready. While most of the sheep were behaved there was one that did not want to be cleaned. Somehow this one sheep escaped and started to run around the Farm. I mean it literally ran around the farm at least 3 times with Debbie in the ATV and Dorothy and Katie chasing the sheep on foot. Grandma, Marcia, and I laughed and I was reminded of the ending of every Benny Hill episode.

Finally concerned that this sheep (found out later it was easily worth a $1000) would run into the road I jumped into action and cut the sheep off. I outran it and got in front of it in an effort to slow it down or stop it so the others could catch it. It sort of worked. I stood in front of the Sheep and it stood still. It went one way and I kept the pace with it but it suddenly cut the other way and as I changed to cut it off again I tripped. Apparently the Farm has about 5 boulders all in a single area and as my luck goes I tripped on one of those boulders. Instead of catching myself of stumbling a bit I fully tripped and landed on the other boulders. My hands hit first taking most of the impact and then my left knee followed by my face. I immediately jumped back up to catch the sheep when everything started going black and dizzy. I knew better than to fight this feeling so I quickly laid back down. Thankfully that worked and I didn’t lose consciousness. The sheep eventually got wrangled into the pen and I got to my feet. Apparently I looked really bad from a combination of shock and blood covering my entire face. I scraped up my face and punctured my top and bottom lips with my teeth. My knee was all scrapped up, bloody, and gauged. My left wrist was hurting a bit but it felt like it was sprained.

 

                I cleaned myself up and took some medicine and a few icepacks to my face, knee, and wrist. The day then continued without any more incidences. We went into town and saw a few things and just sat and talked some more. Marcia was happy despite my injury because she was getting a chance to ask all sorts of questions about my past and my family from someone new.

                We had some food and Debbie wanted to show us some unique things in Antigo so she drove us around town a bit and showed us the albino deer, a lake, and the loons.

The lake was freezing and they kept telling us to jump in but I was still a little shaken and Marcia didn’t want to jump in so we stayed on the paddle boat while Debbie and the girls jumped in. While swimming around Dorothy did a very cool loon call and we were impressed that they responded to her. It was so cool. She would call and they would respond every time. It was hard to tell the difference between her calling and the loon itself.  

 

                Finally the day was done after a lot of fun and more conversations and we were exhausted so we headed back to the hotel. Marcia had a brilliant idea of getting some sports wrap and wrapped my wrist. The wrap on it felt really good and we went to sleep.

                The next morning we got up and packed as we were leaving that afternoon. We headed to the Farm and talked some more and we watched Debbie’s wedding video. We watched the video so Marcia could see all of us as kids and get to see and hear what my Mom was like. It was bittersweet to see my Mom again on the video but having Marcia see her brought me a lot of happiness. I am very glad we watched the video.

                Before we left Debbie surprised us with a big bag of the Chocolate Chip Bagels and some squeaky cheese for our journey. Don’t know what that is?  It’s basically cheese curds, and they really do squeak in your mouth when you eat them (the fresher they are the squeakier they are).  I have had them before and love them, but it was new to Marcia and she just laughed so much when she ate them.  We said out goodbyes and started walking out the door when Debbie said if we had 30 minutes we could see one of the Wisconsin Dells that was not too far from the Farm. We had a little extra time so we decided to go. It was really cool to see the dells and learn about it. Apparently a dell is created from an iceberg carving its way through the land. It leaves unique rock formations and interesting rock cuttings leaving almost perfect smooth and square rocks in its wake. It was cool and glad we saw it. We once again said goodbye, took some more pictures, gave hugs, and promised we would be back as soon as we could. We then jumped in the car and drove to the airport. A few hours later we were waiting for our flight home.

                Our trip was short, but it was a great trip.  Debbie was so good to us, and fed us the most delicious food and told so many funny stories, it was delightful.  She has great taste, and we loved looking at all the colorful and eclectic decorations she had.  The old church doors, the lights in the kitchen and so many things were fascinating and I am sure we just scratched the surface. 

Getting to know Dorothy was wonderful as well, Marcia and I both think she is really cool and we were so impressed by her.  I hope she decides to come visit us in DC some summer; that would be so much fun! Tommy was so good to us too; he would come home late from a long day of work and would stay and visit with us for hours upon hours.  So much hospitably, so much love.  We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family!

 

 

 

                We landed late at night, went home, and slept for a few hours. The next day Marcia was concerned about my wrist and despite my assurances that everything was fine we went to the ER. As it turns out I broke my wrist in three different places along the radius. The nurse walked up shaking his head saying “You broke your wrist good”. I didn’t even fathom it was broken as the pain wasn’t that bad. A few days later we saw a doctor for a follow up.

                 After getting some new X-rays and waiting for a while the Doctor came in and first thing he said was “You are going to need surgery”.

                I was shocked and did not have a good feeling about this. He showed us some fuzzy X-rays that I didn’t really understand and he said “These are the places and we are going to put a plate in here and we will put in a few pins just in case.” He said thanks for coming in and we will schedule you for surgery on Thursday. He left without really letting us ask any questions.

                Well neither Marcia nor I felt that this was right and we sought a second opinion. After some research and a referral from our friend Lorena, we found Dr. Cassie Root. She is amazing; I recommend her to everyone. We went in and she took a few X-rays and then sat down and talked to us about what happened, how we felt, what we wanted, and then showed us the X-rays in great detail. She basically gave us an anatomy lesson and all of the options. We asked about surgery and she felt that it wouldn’t be necessary unless things got worse. Marcia and I were so relieved we almost hugged her. 

               

So I then had to deal with a cast on my arm for 6 weeks in the wonderful humidity of a Virginian summer in August. I didn’t get to go swimming, to the beach, to the roller coasters, or really anything that I like to do in the summer. I was sidelined with a hot, itchy, stinky, sticky, sweaty, and miserable cast while everyone else had fun. I even had to switch casts a few times because my left arm atrophied some and a second time because the cast they put on fell apart.

Marcia was such a good sport helping me make the best of it. She even did a few different drawings/designs for the casts. Granted they were Doctor Who’s Gallifrayen so they were awesome, I just hope they were accurate. We laughed as this will be as close to a tattoo as I will probably ever get. Weeks seemed to go by slowly and my arm shrank as it healed but finally the day came where it came off. Dr. Root examined my arm again and was pleased with the progress and said the cast could come off and I needed to start physical therapy. As soon as the cast came off I spent the whole next day just scratching and letting it air out. It was so much smaller and it didn’t even look like my arm.

               





Well as of today, after 6 weeks in a cast and 6 weeks of therapy, I am fully healed. Lefty does not quite match Righties’ strength but it will get there. I will just need to stretch more, strengthen more, and play some more video games.