Saturday, November 19, 2011

Moving day: Converting my life from Natural Gas to LP.

I know, I know...a city girl moving to the country is about as overdone and cliche as something can be. Be that as it may, here I sit on somewhere between 5 and 7 acres of land nestled snugly in between farmland and farmland. I cannot see another house from this house, and it is very dark out.

As I write this I am watching my almost-husband reassemble the brand new (very dismantled) stove so we can convert it from natural gas to LP.

These are not things "normal" people have to think about when they purchase a new stove. Normal people buy a stove, bring it home, and connect it- actually they have the company they purchased the stove from install and connect it- and the stove magically works. Out here you have a propane tank filled, by what I can only assume are some sort of middle of the night fuel vigilantes, and then you convert your appliance to LP. This ridiculous process seems to involve a lot of nuts and fittings. It also involves listening to one's almost-husband wonder why the rest of the world does not adapt to him and why he has to adapt to the rest of the world. I, as always, have no answer other than "I'm not sure, honey."

I am living with, engaged to, and have a baby with an honest, very hard-working man. A man so hard-working he wants to get chickens simply so our two-month-old baby, Annabelle, will have farm chores to do before school each morning. I am not opposed to owning chickens, nor am I opposed to our daughter having farm chores. But I guess in the interest of full-disclosure I cannot blame the chickens on Bryan.

I lobbied for the chickens because I like the idea of fresh eggs. I am not certain I enjoy the idea of chicken ownership or chicken maintenance. But I like the idea of using fresh eggs for baking (just like Martha). But since I am a fair-weather baker, it's probably best the chickens serve a dual purpose. The purposes essentially being: A tool to teach our daughter the value of hard work, and my being able to say "these eggs came from my chickens on my farm." But anyone who knows me knows that the first sign of chicken-related trouble or chicken-related ick will quickly extinguish my fresh egg fetish and they will then be Bryan's chickens...until someone asks where I got my eggs. Then they will again be my chickens. Despite the fact Bryan and I refer to them as Annabelle's chickens. Please do try to keep up. As you can see my new simplified life is quite complicated.

But I digress. Must.Get.Stove.Operational.

I neglected to mention that the stove must be reassembled and operational prior to Thanksgiving. In September I had a baby. One week prior to Thanksgiving I moved into a house that is still under construction. So the obvious thing for me to do was to tell my family it was really important to me to host Thanksgiving this year. But it should be fine, shouldn't it? I mean it isn't like everything I own is presently in boxes piled in my new kitchen where a Thanksgiving table should be....

No comments:

Post a Comment