Opossum Wars

Today has been one of those days. A true "farm wife's" day. 
Caleb and I are leavin' tomorrow and headin' up to NE Missouri for a family reunion and then were headin' further north for a vacation. So today I was needin' to get things wrapped up before we headed out.  Well, I woke up at 6 this morning, but decided to be lazy and stay in bed till 7:30 cause even though I had a lot to do today I would have plenty of time in the morning to get things moving so no big deal. Well I jumped in the shower to get woken up and Caleb headed out on the 4-wheeler to go and check something...

...I really have no idea where he went, I just know that he was gone.

After my shower I went out side to pull some weeds and water some plants before it got too hot. While I was out there Caleb come back from where ever he went and get things ready to head back over to another farm where he was mowin' weeds off in the pasture.

I was hoping that he was just gonna drive himself over there and then we would play musical vehicles later, but he wanted me to take him, so off we went.

We get over there and first he needed to drain a little oil from the beast, cause some how he put too much in it. Then next he decided he wants to work on the AC cause even though it keeps you cool it also allows all the water that condenses while it's running to pour strait into the cab. So he climbs up on top of the cab and takes all these bolts out only to discover that he also needed a phillips screwdriver, to take some screws out before we could get the roof off, but we didn't have one. I then suggest that he wait till we can get the tractor into the shop to work on it that way it will be a whole lot easier. He agrees and puts it all back to gatherer again and is ready to go, or so he thinks.

I am about to drive off when he waves at me to stop cause he thinks he might have a low tire.

I should mention here that I forgot my cell phone at home....this happen a lot...so I had to wait until we knew everything was ok before I could head out.

Well after movin' the tractor and checkin' it with an air gauge he figures out the tire is low and will need some air in it.

At this time I am told of two options we might have.

Option #1: Drive the tractor and brush hog back to Pop's and air it up. It is a little over 4 miles one way and in a tractor that takes awhile.

Option #2: Go to Caleb's folks and get the old Ford that has a generator in the back and bring it along with his dad's portable air compressor back and air it up.

Both will take a while, but after deciding that it would probably not be good to do all that driving on the low tire Caleb and I head to his folks house the get the Ford. At this time I am wanting Caleb to go back in the Ford by himself and we will mess with getting the truck back later, but he wanted me to come, so I did.

We get back to the tractor and Caleb goes to start the generator and the battery on it is dead as a door nail! To make it worse there is no pull start either, but there is a 'junk' pair of jumper cables in the back of the truck so Caleb hooks them from the truck to the generator. 

We wait for a little bit then try it....nothing. Not even a little grinding noise. We wait a bit longer and still nothing.

Caleb then informs me that he was thinkin' about call the guys to come out and repair it but he wasn't really wanting too. He had thought about it earlier (this would have made option #3 but I didn't know about the idea till later) but he didn't want to wait on them and wanted to get brush hoggin' ASAP. Well the ASAP part wasn't really workin' for us right now.

Well after dealin' with some mechanical errors on his phone we then find out that he doesn't have the number for the repair guys in his phone so he has to call his dad up for the number. While doin' that he decided to try and jump it again but this time hooking it up to the tractor battery instead of the truck, but it still didn't work. Finally he gets the number and gives them a call but it was be 45 minutes till the get there.

What am I doing this whole time? Well I am sittin' in the shade waiting for Caleb to make a decision and talkin' to the cows.

By this time it was now 11 am and we have successfully done nothing but drive around. So while waiting for the tire to be repaired we take the Ford back to where it goes, feed the dogs and then head to our house where Caleb is gonna grab dinner before he goes back and is then gonna leave me there and take a truck back to the field so we can play musical vehicles later, even though he wasn't wanting to. 

While Caleb is eating dinner, I look out my picture window only to see a dead stinky opossum laying in my front yard.

I should tell you that the previous day Caleb came in and told me not to let Hank or any of the dogs for that matter lick me cause they have been eating on a dead, nasty, stinky opossum in the back yard.

I ask, "Did you get rid of it?"

Caleb, "No, I don't want to touch that stinky thing!"

Since it wasn't disposed of yesterday, it is now in my front yard and well that just doesn't work for me.

I ask Caleb again about getting rid of it but he still doesn't want anything to do with it....

...but like I do. I really don't want to smell that every time I walk out my door either!

So, as he's leaving I go out to my garden and grab my potato fork and head towards the nasty thing.

Caleb, "What are you doing?"

Me, "I'm gonna go get rid of that THING."

Caleb, "We should get a bag and put it in, then take it down the road and throw it in the ditch."

Me, "I'm just gonna take it over there a ways and toss it into the pasture."  I then pick it up with the fork and start walkin' towards where I'm gonna throw it.

Well Caleb doesn't like where I'm gonna throw it so he them tells me "to get on the back of the truck and he will drive me down the road a ways and I can throw it into the ditch. So I do and the beast is gone. Seriously I think my husband is wimpier than I am. If you don't believe me then you all so should check out the bunny story and the dead calf story.

By this time it is about 12:30 and I still haven't gotten anything done, except for getting rid of the dead opossum...no thanks to Caleb....haha ;)

Well, I spend all the rest of the day tryin' to get things ironed out and ready so we can leave bright and early on Saturday morning.

Needless to say after that morning I am soo ready for a vacation! We aren't doing crazy special, but we are going to get to see one of my cousins and his wife and do some horse riddin'....don't tell Caleb, he's not a big fan of ridding. O-well that's his punishment for not taking care of the opossum! 

I'm not gonna take my computer with me so it won't be till the end of next week till I will post again. I Promise to take tons of pictures and share it all with ya'll when I get back. Till then, miss me while I'm gone.

Peace, Love, Craziness,

JP

Sunday Drive

Every Sunday Farmer Caleb and I load up in the chore truck (after taking a nap) and head out on a drive around the farm to check everything out.

Depending on what time of the year it is we check different things.

Right now we are just watchin' all the crops grow so it's a little more relaxin' then other times of the year.

Checkin' the corn fields is one of Caleb's favorite things to do. I think it's because he loves harvesting corn and when he sees all those ears he can't wait to see how they do.

So every week we head out to the fields, stop and head into them and start pickin' some random ears of corn.

When they are nice lookin' ears like this one I get a big ol' smile from this happy farmer.

While lookin' at the crop fields we also stop in to see our ladies and put out any slat or mineral that is needed in each of the pastures.

While he's counting I'm shootin' pictures of our lovely ladies.

Occasionally we have to go search for a missing lady. And with as hot as it's been this lady had the right idea of hangin' out in the creek.

We also have a tag-a-long on our drive.

The newest addition to the family my little lab Hank.

He loves riding in the truck cause that means lots of attention as well as some AC...

...and who could blame him with as hot as it's been around here!

A Year of Photos

A year ago I got an early Christmas present from my wonderful husband. It was my Canon Rebel camera. I had a film version of the rebel, but after doin' the math on how much it was costing to develop a roll of film.

Little did Caleb or I know just how much I would use this camera. It goes with me everywhere! When I walk out of the house I grab it. I love to take photos!

Here is the first picture I took with it the day I received the camera in the mail. Our silo sits out in front of our house and has been in soo many pictures.

Over the past year I have taken well over 10,000 pictures. Gosh that's a lot of pics. I can hardly believe it myself! Part of the reason I have taken soo many pictures is that I wanted to share what we were doing around the farm with all of ya'll here on my blog.

Here are a few of my favorites from those pictures. Some of them have appeared in previous posts and some are new ones. Either way I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoy sharing them.

I hope ya'll have a wonderful day!!

Peace, Love, Shutter Bug,

Janet