When you are a farmer, a welder, a machinist, or a mechanic, hand washing is what you do before you eat lunch. Maybe. Depends on which end of the cow you were working on. I’m all those things, so it isn’t unusual that when I wash my hands, the water comes off brown or black. That just comes with the job. There isn’t much hand washing till lunch because whats the point, you are just going to grab the next cow anyway. You just learn to scratch your nose with another part of your body.
But now we have hand washing as a national pastime thanks to this virus. And while we’ve always had the ability to wash your hands when you visit the farm, in our conveniently located bathroom (go back outside, turn right, no the other right, last door on the right, in the shop, past the box/wall thingie, turn left, turn left again….yeah, that’s not exactly obvious) We decided (Jeanette told me to) maybe it would be prudent to get our hand washing station from the CFSA Farm Tour back into operation and put some of our soap and water out front.
Step one, find the girls. One was working, so that was easy. And conveniently she was able to summon the other one with promises of warm weather and splashing with the hose.
Step two. Clean all the gook from sitting outside all year to you don’t end up dirtier than when you started.
Step three. Fix the drain. “Fix” may be a stretch. I bodged the dodgiest collection of random plumbing parts I had. And threw in a flower water jug for good measure. Just so the water wouldn’t splash on your feet. I’m working with random scraps here. I didn’t want to leave the farm to go to Lowes unless I absolutely had to. Cut me some slack.
The Princess is going to make a sign that says, “Stop. Wash your filthy hands before you come inside.” Or something like that. There really is no telling with her. Jeanette will probably fix it to be more welcoming when she gets here Wednesday. Whatever it says, please wash your hands before you come inside.
It will also say something about social distancing and no more than 6 people in the store at a time. That usually isn’t a problem, but for you Wednesday at 2pm people, it will be. Enjoy the sunshine and hang out outside until someone else comes out.
But for today, please wash your hands before you come in. The weather is beautiful and of course we have real soap (the thing that actually works on this virus) available right there in bar form the way God intended it. (Can you tell I hate those foamy pump bottle things my wife keeps scattering around?)