We went out into the pasture this morning to find all of the fences in the rear were coming apart, one of the posts was completely knocked down. The animals could have easily walked right off of the farm and made their way to the highway. We scrambled, fed the sheep and put Chloe in the barn

There was so much damage, we couldn’t quite imagine what happened, and will perhaps never know. I called Todd Mason, the very good man who built our fences, and he came rushing over. He put up a new fence post, charged the fence with a good hit of electricity, tightened the wires.

He came from Vermont, worked hard for two hours, and charged us $100. I said that was too low, I insisted on paying him $150. The best people are like that, they try to undercharge rather than overcharge. You can’t let them get away with it.

As this unfolded, another dam burst, a whole bunch of checks we sent out last week – one to the IRS, another to the heating company, another to the cable company – appeared to be lost in the mail, we were about to blow deadlines all over the place. I spent an hour trying to reach the IRS – got a message saying they were too busy and weren’t taking calls – tracked down the cable company, starting paying online with our credit cards.

The IRS said to go to their website,but it didn’t work, and eventually crashed.

Later in the day, our new Iphone 7 plus phones arrived from AT&T, and they were the wrong phones, this is the third time we got the wrong over. We decided to scrap it and keep our Iphone 6’s, it just isn’t worth it. I was hoping to get Maria a new phone for India but we’re back the drawing board, after days of  confusion and mixed signals.

Then we saw that the checks had started coming through, our bank account began to shrink, and I was now-double paying everything. That wasn’t good. This went on all day, we got it all sorted out, but it took almost a full work day. Life in America is complicated some times.

We have the fence repaired, the wires strung the wires hot. Whatever took that fence down in the dark – a pony, sheep or deer – will get a shock tonight and will probably not try it again. I imagine this might have been the work of the pony. There was more trouble later on, but I’m sick of talking about it and thinking about it. It all ended well, and even thought we scrambled, I could see that we are a great team, when it hits the fan, we just start working together.

Time to head for the Round  House and Friday night pizza.