Happy Fall yall, and the devil machine.

 

Right when you think you have this "live in peace and bliss" down.... it comes a downpour.

Recently I had some family, that had an "emergency". Things beyond their control, and they lived with us for a week. The week is not over... it was during this time of my display of my uncanny ability to adapt and "play it by ear" that I discovered that parents create an atmosphere of ...well.. im not sure what to call it. But Its from the Devil. Im just saying.... Now those of you that know me well, apparently better than my wife does.... know that I value privacy, and peace. My wife would live on Walton Mountain, and entertain every person or animal that came up the road. But enough of our differences.... and more of this Devil machine! So, when creating this environment to help a baby sleep, they create what they call "quiet noise". I would attempt to type how funny this concept is to me....but it is not! This quiet noise consists of what sounds like a lost radio station, and the volume is wide open.... like static. It drives me completely insane. After hearing a baby cry and cry and.....well you get it..... you might think I was not a family man.... but then when finally that cute lil granddaughter goes to sleep...the white noise from hell begins. It may be worse than the ringing in my ears!  I wonder if anyone else agrees with me?  Im told its a "thing" now..... I always loved opening a window and hearing nothing but coyotes, a hoot owl and some cricket noises.. a frog maybe. I once shot a midnight mocking bird (on meth Im sure) in the tree, in mid song....and told any friends that might be listening...to shut up until daylight.! 

I finally (almost) finished the chicken run.... and the new chickens are settling in. and the ducks... oh the ducks.... you know the cute quack quacks that waddle so cute? Well dont get miscovie ducks. They dont quack, they dont waddle, and they love mud. They are like pigs with wings. Pigs DO fly.... they are miscovies.... They manage to get back inside the coup each night to pig out on the water and food. And I run them out daily. Now to finish one little strip of space to keep them out.... I sorely underestimated this project. It seems to be a thing....me underestimating my little jobs around here. Took me a week, a bottle of aleeve, and if Id had alcohol, i may of tried it. But its mostly done...now. Id click a pic, but I cant figure out how and when this page accesses google pics....as they all seem to be about a month old! 

Its fall now. I thought it would never come, and i figured it would last about 30 minutes... but its here now. I can tell because my eyes itch and water, and sometimes I think I might remove an eyeball just to relieve it. I pour all kinds of eyedrops in them.... and take my daily pill. Again, its good I dont have alcohol....I put a "pirate " skeleton on the flag pole and I think I know why all the pirates have one eye and wear an eye patch. They spent childhood in oklahoma, and clawed an eye out, and fled to the ocean where they turned pirate. If yall remember chuck.... my skeleton, hes busy making the country folk around here shake their heads and go " that boys crazy". (good thing he dont drink) someday a pic of Chuck doing pirate duty...

Well its time to plant wheat, and looks like it happens tomrrow. small farms like mine cant justify the money to buy a drill to plant the seed, so Im paying my neighbor farmer to do that for me. Then that tree thats waited so patiently for me.... will get cut up. and I need to stretch a bit more fence and finish the painting outside on the house. then I can step back and re evaluate.

Seems the time passes faster and faster.... each day zooms by so fast....Sometimes I need help or feel like I do...just to get up out of the floor....and I say hey...im not 60 yet!  But my hip doesnt say that....now another presidential election... and such unrest in almost everyone I know. Im sure glad my God is the creator of true peace.... All these things will pass, and someday I will too. I hope that before I did, my kids and grandkids will remember me as the pawpaw that loved them so much and have good memories of me. Not the ones of me hurting all the time, and becoming grumps...that sounds way too close to my dad. So for today I am grateful, because I dont know what will happen tomorrow. I especially am thankful for just a small handful of close friends, that i can talk to, vent to, laugh to, (ususally they are laughing at me),  and I just love em. What would I do with no one that understands me? Heck they even read this blog.

Let us hold close the things we love and value. Let us keep the boundries we need to keep those things safe. Let us show love and reflect Christ as much as we can, and then we can say yall stick it, Im eating chocolate. DONT interupt me.....

Until the next time....happy fall yall.

What I learned this week, and then some.

ok im back. I forgot to mention a few things from before. I knew Id forget ! I wanted to mention some "things I learned" this week. okok some of it was maybe a few weeks ago. I wonder if people would write about the things they learned each week, if maybe I be like.... smarter from reading what crap they screwed up?

So we had a cow rug. No matter how tempting it is, do NOT vacuum a cow rug. We now have a new rug. And of course my wife snuck (is snuck a word?) that aqua color that I hate into it.

Do NOT ..while welding a pipe fence, lean up against the metal barn adjoining it. It will light up  your world! No i didnt pee my pants. Yes a said a couple wordy dirds. I mentioned  previously alittle  about the fencing...and wearing the shorts vs favorite jeans while stretching fences.... but I forgot to mention this ingenious invention called a "wire unroller".  Well thats what I call it. It hitches to the back of your whatever you drive, and you put a whole roll of barbed wire on it...and you drive across the pasture...and it unrolls itself!! whoever invented that thing deserves chocolate chip cookies!!

When you are playing chalk draw on the porch with your 5 year old grandson, make sure you make it clear, to draw "the  mouth" on the porch...not on his mouth. But I admit it was very very entertaining. He thinks he is now an artist, and I even let him play with the barbie doll collection.  He did ask about the fence scars on my leg which were still bloody, and discovered that paw paw fights bears and chokes them down with his bare hands. He wanted to know where the hide was....I pointed to the cow rug. Yes he noted it was cow looking....but now knows that cow bears are around these here parts and are much more dangerous then like...a simple grizzly. Dang Im a good paw paw.

During all of these lessons I lost a chicken to coon. well here we call em coons. the correct term is Raccoon. Cute furry mask over the eyes type. But it sneaks up inside the coop, and slaughters poor innocent egg laying bertha. Bertha laid a big egg. So it really pissed me off, and I found the remains of Bertha and tracked where the coon gained entry to the coop.  yall didnt know I was a tracker. I learned that just before I killed my first cow-bear. So anyway, I have now coon proofed the coop, and I swear if another one gaines entry, Im gonna turn that place into fort knox for chickens. So i put out a trap and ...dont you hate being outsmarted by a coon? It stole the bait, by turning the trap over on its side and avoided springing the trap. so. I got a bigger heavier trap.  He simply stepped over the spring mechanism, and stole the bait. Hes eating well just stealing my bait. So.. I went back to the small trap, and zip tied that bit**h to a wood pallet! Then I tied the bait to the back of the trap! After a few attempts I caught him. From the size of that fat coon, he had been stealing bait all over the country. But that was his last one! I reset the trap, but didnt put any bait in it...and promptly caught another smaller coon. I told him how he was probably feeling pretty stupid by getting caught in a trap without bait...and after I disposed of him, reset it again. poof. caught yet another one....with NO bait... they mustve been brothers...and their parents were stupid ... now the trap remains set and even the cats wont go in it. someday Ill put some more bait in it. coons love twinkies. just sayin...

Now I know what your thinkin...if he learned all that recently, hes probably brilliant by now... like Dr so and so, and just wrote a book. Im listed in the whos who of redneck farmers handbook. I am. read it  youll see. Maybe I could print these blogs, and call it the Redneck Farmers Handbook? I think Im onto something....

ok thanks to jenner for reminding me that I failed to mention these above items... and if I learn anything today...like unloading new 1" tubing gets BLACK grease all over your new gloves, and remember to take them off before grabbing the steering wheel.... then I will includ them on the next edition of " what I learned this week".

Like a duck on a tractor...

 sometimes you just need a duck on a tractor kind of day. Im overdue to write here... and I cant find the pictures I want! So ducky here is cute and all that, but she made me make a 2nd trip in the rain to put her up at dusk. She for some reason gets bored and flys out of the coop to do silly stuff. Kinda like me I guess. Its a part of retirement. I think its required. I wonder if the duck is retired too? Im just glad I didnt leave the door open! 

You might note that this is not a chicken. I TOLD yall that they would turn into ducks if it rained toooooo much! Over night, it rained 7 inches here!!! So while I sip my coffee, and look out the window to see when its going to start again, im checking MY feet....

My fencing is almost done. When you think your done... your not done. Thats when the "what if I did this" thoughts enter in... and the results are I have a bit more fencing to do. yay.  Im not sure which aspect of it I enjoy the most... the barb wire stretching, or the cutting/welding part. hmm. its a toss up. I still after all these years am not sure whether I like doing it in jeans or shorts. While shorts are cooler, they are not as much protection, and I carry the scars. But when your in your favorite pair of work pants..( i get attached) they rip all to crap. You just cant throw away favorite pants. Then you have to sew them up....or rather pam does.... and that takes forever before she works down her list to me. so theres the delimma. 

So what do you do when you have an OH SHIT moment? besides the obvious... which may require changing those favorite pants? I try not to have those "moments"... but sometimes it just happens. Like a duck on a tractor. So I go the the tractor barn, and open it up.... and back the mule up to the welding wagon... no not a real mule.... a kawasaki mule. ok I spelled it wrong. who knows how to spell that the first time?? Anyway, there I am... hitching up the welder... when I notice a movement. Its a SHUNK.... and its walking unhurriedly down the edge of the barn. We look at each other.... and Im pretty sure my oh shit moment was bigger than his... So I had a choice... either way I was likely to come out of this smelling like him. lol I decided to just keep hitching up.... and finish what I was doing.... and luckily the little critter found his way out and left. Sometimes... you just gotta keep working your plan.... and if you come out on the bad end of it..... well... you just stink for awhile... It is just something you MUST do or you wont ever get to where you want to go. I was sure thinking i was going to have to live in the tiny house until the aroma wore off!

I know I was supposed to mention some other stuff, but I cant remember anything anymore. Like oh...im not strong as an ox anymore, and oh, I cant do that...I do remember...after Im half thru it.. other things I forget.... that I wear glasses, where my glasses are at?, that I cant eat ice cream before bed time...that am not as strong as I was in my 40s.. 

Well it took some doing, but I finally got that ol sprayer fixed up. new pump... cleaned out the tank...I was smart...i did not crawl inside the tank...I used a mop! and I cut the field down to 7 inches... I was about to spray when the rain started... and I need 8 hours after I spray before rain.. so... that makes this whole week a gamble... so my sprayer is sitting there hitched up to the tractor, with 300 gallons of fertilizer in it... waiting to go. My best plans are held hostage by the weather. I also learned that a JD tractor WILL keep going even when your brushhog gets stuck  on something. yep, itll drag it right off. And if the blades to said brushhog get in the dirt and lock up, it will twist the drive shaft right off of it. By the way, a drive shaft for a brush hog runs $240. And it takes about 2 to 3 hours. Thats 30 minutes to hook it up, and 1 1/2 hours to figure out that your blades are seized up underneath.

Recently I was reminded that God may not speak to me if I dont read my bible more! And I do need to read it more... but God speaks to me all the time.. well its more like He thumps me on the head...but He speaks in many ways. Like through a sunset, or a bright moonlit sky. Or a sight that takes your breath away. (skunk in a barn?) I wish I could upload the pics I want to.. to make my point... but IF you stop...just long enough...you will feel this little tapping... like  something's  here but you cant put your finger on it...That is God ...mostly saying "whoa... enjoy this moment"... and usually I do... and when I dont, I always wish I did. Like seeing, a baby calf, or a baby anything. Well my rambling session is about over I guess. Ill remember some things later and add it if I dont forget it! I think my old posts are more entertaining...maybe if I wrote more often Id remember how to write again. lol. Im surprised I can type! 

This is a reminder, that if all your seeing is gray clouds, your not looking with the right eyes. You may have to change your view...but God has something for you. Find it. Like a duck on a tractor.