I Think I Should Just Stay Home!

This is the events that too place this past Tuesday night to Wednesday night. There's a lot here, but there was a lot that happened.

So the crazyness really started Tuesday night after attending a ladies event at church. After the event was over and we had everything cleaned up I headed out to the parking lot and got to visiting with our pastor's wife. Finally we decided we had better head home or we would be there till morning visiting (we're both talkers). Well I climbed into my old GMC Jimmy (same as a Chevy Blazer), our good truck was in the shop getting some warranty work done on it so I was using the back-up. When I went to start it, there was nothing. No juice at all.

So the next morning the day started out by watching it rain all morning long. Finally after there was a break in the weather in the afternoon so Caleb and I loaded the chore truck up with tools and headed down to our Church to try and fix the Jimmy. We thought that the starter might be going out in it so we stopped by one of the local parts stores and picked one up just incase we needed it. Well while we were there the clouds started coming in again and we were afraid that it was gonna let loose again. But once we got down to our church it was a little clearer and we thought that we might not get any of the rain that was moving through.

Once we got there Caleb crawls under the Jimmy to look at what he's gonna need to do. After being there for a few minutes we start to get hit by some big ol' rain drops. Caleb then decides that it would be a better idea to drag the beast back to the shop because we weren't gonna be able to get it goin' again before we got soaked. So we hook the chain up to it and start headin' down the back roads toward home, Caleb drivin' while I'm steering.
 Of course as soon as we get going the skies let loose and since I have no electric current running through my truck that means I have no windshield wipers...so I can't see a lick, so you know this is gonna be good.

Well first things first I call Caleb and tell him to slow down cause he's drivin' way too fast. He then informs me that he's only goin' 25mph. Well since I can't see and I feel like we're flyin' down the highway I hang-up the phone and try to concentrate on what I'm doing.

We make it through the first two stops with out a problem, but when we get to the third one Caleb takes off thinking that there was still tension on the chain, then wham....he yanks the Jimmy forward with a huge jolt. Not realizing what’s really going on, and noticing that he is in the middle of another high traffic road he takes off again and with another yank of the chain I am jolted forward once again. This time I hear this "pop" sound and see this black piece of something go flying through the air.

All this time I am yelling all sorts of things that I can't remember and even if I could remember them I wouldn't dare repeat them. Once we get through the intersection Caleb stops the truck and gets out to se what in the world was going on.

Once we get out to look things over I go see what it was that I saw flying through the air, only to discover that it was one of the tow hooks from the front of the Jimmy and it had been snapped off and tossed through the air about 30 feet.

At this time Caleb and I were having a nice light hearted conversations about how we love to go for drives down the country roads and how beautiful the weather was today and how pretty all the wild flowers were. Ok maybe that's now exactly how it went but anyways we fix the chains and get to going again. This time I call him up again and tell him that he has to stay on the phone with me so he can tell me when we are going to stop or turn, or when there is a hill coming up, cause I'm not at all familiar with any of these roads and we will like each other a lot more when it's all said and done if we can communicate with each other on this drive.

So with my cell phone on speaker and layin' in my lap we head down the road towards the shop. Occasionally I make Caleb stop so I can wipe my windshield off.

This is what my view was most of the way back.

The rain slowed down some as we drove along, or should I say as I was pulled along.

When we were about four or so miles away I hear Caleb say, "Oh no."

"Oh, no what?" I ask.

Because of all the rain we had gotten that day there was a lot of water over the road. I think it stretched for well over a 100 ft. Soo....this meant that we had to turn around.

Oh joy.

Turning around is not a very easy task when you are pulling a vehicle. So we ended up pulling the Jimmy backwards well over a half a mile so that we could take another route. Well as we were heading up this other road, we once again come across a lot of water over the road.

You know the saying "Turn around, Don't drown." Well that idea just went flyin' out the window cause we already had to do it once, and Caleb wasn't about to do it again. So this time Caleb just go plowin' through the water and me well I really didn't have a choice since my vehicle was chained to his. Caleb didn't think we would have any problems, and I am very happy to say that we both made it through just fine.

Finally after that was all said and done we made it back to the shop.

Once at the shop we had to try and figure out how to get the Jimmy into the shop cause there wasn't really any way that the truck was gonna be able to pull it in there. There wasn't the room.

Well, Caleb and Jeff (the hired man) decide that the 4-wheeler would probably do the job. While they were figuring that out I went around the corner and started playin' with some cute puppies that Caleb's grandparents were raising. In the mean time the guys had already tried pulling it in once, but didn't have any luck cause they were needing someone to steer the truck and well I was playing with puppies. (Like I said before I am very easily distracted and they were really cute puppies!) So finally I get back into the Jimmy and steer the beat while Caleb drives the 4-wheeler and Jeff pushes and we successfully make it into the shop.

We figure out the reason we couldn't get the beast started was because of corroded battery cables and after a little cleaning the Jimmy starts right up.

An unknown fact to most, but if you hold your tongue just right, it helps you to concentrate and you can do anything.

Well as we're cleaning up our mess and putting the tools back where they go, Pop comes in and tells us that there is a heifer down below the shop that is tryin’ to have a calf, and he thinks that it might be having some trouble. So we decide to give her about 30 minutes and if she hasn't made any progress in having it by then, then we will have to pull it.

Well ya'll can probably guess how that went. 30 minutes went by and she still looked the same. So we get everything ready. All the gates opened and all the equipment that we will need and we head out to get her in. She was kinda crazy acting, but ya know I might be crazy actin’ too if I had a big ol' calf tryin' to come out of me!

So by God's grace we got her up and into the alleyway without any real problems.

While pushin' her up into the pen that Caleb notices that this wasn't just any heifer, this was the really young heifer, or in today’s terms this was a teenage pregnancy. To add insult to injury she was probably bread by her daddy. The poor girl she will never be able to show her face in that herd again.

Ok back to the story. With her being a younger heifer she doesn't have the size that the older girls have and it makes it sometimes harder for them to have calves which means we have to help and pull them.

FYI: I am going to be showing ya'll some pics of the calf being pulled. I think it's really cool but not everyone may share in my enthusiasm so if you don't then ya might want to close your eyes now

So unlike my sushi trip experience, Caleb did all the ooie gooy work of wrapping the chain around the calf's feet.

We use what we call a 'calf puller'. You hook chains around the feet of the calf. Next you hook those chains to a cable of a com-a-long, which is connected to pole that has a cradle on one end. The end with the cradle is placed on the back end of the cow. You then slowly ratchet / pull the calf out of the momma cow.

I however got to do the ratcheting. So truth be told I pulled the calf, cause the ratchet does the work well most of the time.

When the beast was about halfway out, Caleb thought he could easily get it all the way out. Well....

  

...it took a little more muscle then he thought. 

He had to ratchet it a little more. That's why he's leaning the way he is. I should have been doing that, but I was taking pictures instead.

Well, we did finally get the big guy out of her, and I am very happy to tell you that it was alive!! I didn't get any more pictures cause once the little guy was out we wanted to momma and baby together as quickly as we could. And once we did this, momma was acting a little crazy so I didn't want to go and disturb her any more than I had to.

When we were finally finished with all this mess we were suppose to be heading to bible study, but by time we got home and got cleaned up we were gonna be about an hour late so we decided to stay home.

When it was all said and done I was in no mood to cook, so we ordered a pizza from good ol' Pizza Hut. Then we brought it home, I drank a Mt Dew and just relaxed!

The End!

 

I'm Done!

I gonna go to bed and I'm never getting out again!

J