Carol has a rambunctious streak, she has a wicked sense of humor and loves to challenge and tease. She is very funny.

I haven’t see that side of her lately, for obvious reasons, but I flushed it out of her today. When Maria and I arrived at the Gulleys this afternoon to check on things, Carol  with some help from her daughter Maggie was installing a new knob on the back door, the original knob had broken.

Carol presents herself simply as the loyal wife of her farmer, but we know she is much more than that, we’ve seen the other side of her. She is quite playful, likes to kid and living with Ed, she gives it back as fast and as hard as she gets it.

Carol knows the machinery of the farm as well as any man, she is at ease with tools and repairs and lines and pumps. With Ed sick, she is doing even more maintenance on their farmhouse, she is not especially domestic but she is quite skilled and handy. One day I’ll persuade her to call it “our farm” rather than “My Farmer’s  farm.”

It is also becoming true, sadly. Carol rises to occasions, she doesn’t run from them, and she has a lot more decisions to make and things to repair and maintain now. She isn’t running the milking operation now, but she has found herself in charge of an old and creaky farmhouse.

She and I always kid with each other. She is used to dealing with pushy men.

She loves Ed very much, but he was a domineering, opinionated and stubborn man.  She knows how to deal with men.

Today, Carol was struggling to figure out the knob and was having some difficulty. I suggested that perhaps I should take a whack at it. Maria laughed and Carol came at me with the electric screw.

She made a great face and when I showed her I got a photo of it, she grimaced again, but she is a good sport, she is used to me annoying her by taking photographs. “What are you going to do with this?,” she asked, even though we both knew.

“It’s going up on my blog for sure,” I said. “Time to show the real Carol.”

The knob installation turned out to be a demonstration of women power. I was pushed aside happily, of course, I know nothing about knobs. But Carol, Maggie and Maria did, they focused on the knob, made suggestions, twisted and turned screws and figured it out.

It is always amazing to me to see how collegial women can be when they work together, unlike so many men.

The new knob on the door is working fine now.

I sat with Ed for a few minutes. He managed a hello, and then fell into his own collapsed world. The only change I saw was that  his left eye seems to be closing.