Painting workshop day 1: the walking dead

Hours slept: 0

I laid in bed with a pillow smashed over my face all night, waiting for sleep that never came, then got up with the sun and had a cup of tea. I walked around the farm for a bit to say hi to the chickens. My friend’s car is fucked and she needs to fight with the insurance company, so I was on my own for the day. I decided to head up to the reservation to see if the guys at the dispensary could give me something to knock me out cold for the next 4 nights, then drove over to Moulton Falls to spend the afternoon hiking around and looking at waterfalls. I was glad I brought a jacket; the heat wave rolled out with the fog and it was chilly. Good day to get lost in the woods.

Morning on the farm:

Mid-morning I drove up to the dispensary, which looked like a candy-coated Apple Store, and the nice beardy guy at the counter took about 5 seconds figuring out what I needed. I was in and out in under 2 minutes with a little $20 box of sleep in my purse. Plugged Moulton Falls into my Waze app and proceeded to turn a 15 minute drive into a 34 minute one. I am good at driving, but maybe not so good at following a little winding purple line with no fixed direction that blanks out and recalibrates every time it loses signal.

Families were jumping into the river and splashing around like it wasn’t 74 degrees, while I shivered in my jacket. After an hour of walking around in the forest and climbing rocks, I warmed up enough to peel the jacket off and use it as a pillow to lay by the river with my feet in the water. I was willing to fall asleep like that, but a group of men showed up with a portable speaker blasting country music, so I put my shoes back on and dipped out.

Moulton Falls:

Back at the farm, I ate TJ’s cheese, bread, and figs with half a can of honey pear hard cider, until I almost faceplanted in the brie. NO. If I did actually manage to fall asleep, then I’d be up at 9pm and awake the rest of the night. Determined to stay upright until at least 7pm, then sleep the sleep of the blissfully sedated, I took a very hot shower and set up a few little apples to paint. By 6pm I was hungry and went upstairs to chat with the owners and eat bruschetta before walking down to the apple trees with them to feed the cows. We worked until the bats came out - picking apples, hauling branches to the burn pile, getting cow slobber up to our elbows, and pulling up armloads of weeds. It was the happiest I’ve been in a year. I really needed that. 

Fingers crossed for sleep. I just opened up the box and there are about 20 of these things in here. Oh no. I will need to find someone to give the rest  to before I get on the plane on Tuesday. They are Not Allowed.