Is anyone else as ready for this weekend as I am? This has been an extremely long week and I’m exhausted. You know though… I’m tired of complaining about being tired. ha! I’m not sure I’ll ever get fully rested so I might as well just take it like it is and be done with it.
Tomorrow hubby has to go with the Missouri Governor’s Mounted Guard to help park cars at a Bluegrass festival. I’ve been asked/invited to go but I may get stuck at home doing homework. Ugh, beautiful weather and I’m stuck inside doing homework… Well it could be worse I guess! So really I don’t know what my plans consist of yet. We’ll take it as it comes. And who’s to say I can’t go park my butt in a lawn chair in the front yard to do homework.
But being as though they are the Missouri Governor’s MOUNTED Guard… mounted means they’re riding something and that something is their trusty stead. In case you don’t know what that is… that’s a horse.
So I only thought it fitting to give you a little information about horses today. That information is about “Witches Knots.”
They really are the biggest pain in the butt. As you can see, it almost looks like a human who has dreadlocks. Now I’m not sure how that person who has dreads gets them out… maybe they have to cut their hair? But I can tell you how to get a Witches Knot out without cutting it out… although sometimes you might get so frustrated you want to cut it out.
I’m getting closer to not being able to say that I can’t count the times I’ve gone trail riding on one hand… the current count is 4. Now, this doesn’t include riding all over the place at my parents/grandparents house checking for cattle, this only includes going to a place specifically for trail riding. The 4 times include once while I was dating the hubs, Trails for Kids in April and now 2 Rides for Life (One in fall 2013 and this years).
For my husband’s job, he is committed to working 2 weekends a year. This year one of those weekends happened to fall during the Ride for Life over the weekend. Because of that, Tbug and I were on our own if we wanted to go ride. We invited my dad but he had hay to mow/bale.
Earlier Friday afternoon I was texting with Karen about this, that, and everything else when I decided to see what time the ride started on Saturday morning. Initial plans were to pick Tbug up on Friday evening, she and I would get up first thing Saturday morning, load horses up and head to Pineville. When Karen said she thought it started at 8 am though, plans quickly changed.
Hubby suggested I ask if Jared & Karen had room we could sleep in their camper. They did so we decided to load up Friday evening, go down and stay the night. And then Fit hit the Shan. haha…
I quickly started packing a suitcase with clothes we’d need. That seemed like it took forever. Oy! Then we headed to my parent’s house to hook up my dad’s truck to the trailer, load horses, and then go pick Tbug up on our way to Pineville. All went fairly smoothly until pulling out of my parent’s driveway we noticed dad’s truck didn’t have ANY power. Trucks are made for hauling things and it wouldn’t pull the trailer with our 2 horses and tack in it. Something was wrong.
Hubby called Grady and asked if they had an extra truck we could borrow. He said yes so we drove to their house to switch trucks around. Then I took my dad’s truck, which now drove perfectly (not pulling anything), to go pick Tbug up. From there we went back to my parent’s house to drop the truck back off and pick up my car. Then Abug, Tbug, and I headed to Pineville.
On our drive down I happened to look up and see a guy standing on the side of the road (about halfway between home and Pineville). The more I paid attention to the man and the vehicles, I realized it was Pokey and Earl. Tbug was yakking my ear off about Kansas history, so I told her to hold that thought and quickly called Earl to see if there was anything I could do to help them. She said that Pokey had a blow out on a trailer tire and they were waiting for their brother in law to come rescue them but thanks for calling. I was like, well I know my car can’t pull a trailer but I didn’t know what was wrong so I wanted to be sure they were all A-ok.
Hubby left Deb & Grady’s house with their truck, our trailer, and horses. Deb and Grady were leaving the house at the same time so I assume he followed them. They stopped at a burger place in Pineville called Burgertime. They grabbed Tbug and me a burger and fries. We both tried sharing with Abug but she wanted no part of any of it. He also got cheesecake for dessert. There were 2 boxes so I assume one for Tbug and one for me but we were told later that we weren’t to eat them without him. lol. The burger was good. I love a good cheeseburger.
This last weekend started off with celebrating my grandpa’s birthday Friday night. On our way down to pick my grandma up my dad got a phone call from a friend asking him to come over and ride horses Saturday morning.
I knew hubby had plans on cleaning up around the house… no specifics were know, just the knowledge of it. So when dad asked if we wanted to go ride with him, Tbug, Abug, and I jumped at the chance. Come on, ride horses or work… you decide. Hubby is a good sport and said, “well you girls have fun.”
We got up early enough Saturday morning that we could run through town and get breakfast, then we headed to my parents house. Dad decided we could eat breakfast before we unloaded horse/cow feed (don’t worry we got him some too) so I sat Abug down on the dog food for a place to eat her breakfast. If you want to know how to keep a toddler still for a photo, give her food! :). haha.
Then it was time to unload feed. Tbug decided to help Grandpa carry the feed into the barn so I drug the sacks to the back of the tailgate so they could grab them. I stayed at the truck though to watch Abug and make sure she didn’t decide to nose dive off the tailgate.
Then Abug and I jumped in the front seat of the truck and moved it over to the trailer so we could hook it up, load up the horses and head to Wayne’s house.
Once we got to Wayne’s house Abug and I stayed on the outside of the fence for a few minutes while they warmed horses up. Our horses hadn’t really been ridden in about a month to a month and a half so I didn’t want her on one that might act up.
If there’s one thing I did when I was growing up, it was growing up at the county fair (and the district fair and the state fair….). I started showing sheep the summer I turned 15 and ended my showing career when I was 21, the oldest you can be (in FFA it is 4 Novembers after you graduate).
This last week was our county fair. On Thursday Abug and I met up with a friend for lunch and some other friends stopped by to talk to us. They asked if I had been to the fair yet and I told them no. I think it shocked everyone. Hubby and I did have plans to go, just haying season took over as did life and so our plans were to go out Friday night. And that’s just what we did.
Last year Abug was able to experience the fair at like 2 weeks old. Everyone thought we were crazy for having her out there, but like I said, I grew up in these show barns so it didn’t seem all that crazy to me. I was a fair kid.
I’m not going to lie, I sure hope she’s involved in showing and continuing the 6th generation farmer and on to future generations. I guess only time will tell.
These two girls are roughly 4 months apart with Abug the oldest. The last time they were together PN was a few weeks old and both girls were sacked out experiencing their first “Play date” ha! And now, good luck getting them to both look at the camera, little lone smile!
You would think I might do these posts in a specific order… you know by given date or whatever, but that’s just not my style. So yesterday you learned what a Thursday evening looks like for us, then I promised you Friday evening but instead let’s jump forward to Sunday shall we? It only sounds fitting… I don’t know why, ask me later why it sounds fitting but for now just go with it.
Sunday we made plans to go to the Four State Farm Show with my dad. It’s a yearly farm show that is held over in Pittsburg, Kansas.
Last year Abug was only a couple weeks old so she wasn’t able to join us, but this year, this year she’s a year old so that didn’t stop her or us! I have started making it a point to get pictures of her “driving” all these different things… I think it started with my dad’s new truck back the end of May. So we had to climb all over all the new farm machinery. We “drove” tractors, combines, sprayers, lawnmowers. There was nothing off limits.
The other night we needed to get the rest of the hayfield mowed. Hubby sent me a message earlier in the day asking if I’d meet him after work at the hayfield and bring him work clothes. I figured this might be the perfect time for baby girl to take her first tractor ride.
After baby girl had her round on the tractor, she was sitting in the field in the shade with me. While I was sitting there I was wondering how long my family has been farming. When my dad got there after work we were discussing what generation farmer baby girl would make to our family.
On my dad’s side of the family via my grandma, my great-great grandfather moved to this area from Illinois, his son (my great grandfather), my grandfather, my dad, me, and now baby girl. = 6th Generation farmer. The history before moving to SW Missouri is a bit sketchy. My great-great grandfather fought in the Civil War. He found his way down here moving with the troops, loved the area so much he went home after the war, and moved his family down around here. At the time land was cheap to purchase so he bought 800+ish acres. Since then it has been sold.
Then while Dad and I were talking he said that my great grandma via my grandpa’s side of the family, her father was a farmer, my great grandma (yes grandma) was a farmer, my grandpa, my dad, me and now baby girl is coming into the family as the farmer. That = 6th generation farmer as well.
So either way, you look at it, baby girl has the 6th generation legacy of farming in her blood. And I say that’s a pretty cool fact!
So now it’s time to take you on baby girl’s first tractor ride.
I have been fighting some kind of crap since Father’s Day Weekend which was also the Safari Hunt at the lake with our scuba diving which was also a weekend I was supposed to get night/limited visibility diving certified. That last thing didn’t happen, I couldn’t dive.
Tuesday I went to Urgent Care to find out what was wrong. 4 weeks plus I lost hearing in my left ear. So I finally gave in and went. I have bronchitis, an ear infection and a sinus infection. I guess if you’re going to go, you should go all out!
Anyway a couple weeks ago my uncle was baling hay. Dad was going to help but wound up needing to go pick up square bales in a close by field so I volunteered to go help Jackie (no that’s not my uncle’s name, it’s Jack but I have called him Jackie for so long he’s Jackie).
When I got to my grandma’s I couldn’t get dad’s tractor started. Dang it. A few minutes prior I had go into my parents house to steal a long sleeved, light weight shirt out of dad’s closet because I had a sunburn I didn’t want to burn more and they were pulling back in the driveway. So I called dad and asked him what the trick was. He came down and the tractor immediately started. Isn’t that the way it goes?
I took off for the field. Apparently in the process I dropped the stand for the rake. Jackie stopped to pick it up and later gave me fits.
Sunday evening I had just gotten back from taking Tbug to her mom’s house. I left Abug sitting in her chair up by my house with my mom and went down to help dad with the tractor. Earlier I had been on the big tractor raking and just as I got done with the last row the tractor started acting funny so I shut it down. Turns out a line that runs hydraulic fluid broke and I drained the tractor of hydraulic fluid. #fail. But I shut it down the minute I realized something wasn’t completely right so I had that going for me.
So I was helping dad tear the line off to fix it and I start hearing a horrible metal clanging sound over in the field where hubby was on the other tractor baling. About that time I heard dad say shut it down you’re going to catch it on fire and then the fire broke out. Ugh! I ran to the edge of the field to see what was going on and then took off running (in flip flops, shame) toward the house to get a shovel. I wasn’t about to be able to put the fire out in flip flops.. this is why you farm in boots….
Growing up I just knew we had red cows. As I got older I knew they were Santa Gertrudis cattle. But from there I got to wondering how my family decided upon this breed. There are lots of breeds of cows out there, the most popular that most people know is Angus because you’ll see a lot of restaurants and fast food joints promoting 100% Angus Beef.
But we have Santa Gertrudis. The other night dad and I were sitting in the truck waiting for hubby to finish up baling the last row of hay up so we could move on to the next pasture and I thought, I wonder why Gerts. In fact, the fields we were baling, the guy is trying to get in the Gert business so it was a good opportunity to strike up a conversation on why we had Gerts. So this is my dad’s response to my question, Why Gerts (Santa Gertrudis)?
In 7th grade our family was going on a trip to Gulf Port, MS and we stopped in Morrilton, AR at Winthrop Rockerfeller’s house. He was the governor of Arkansas at the time and owned quite a few acres of land (read quite a few as A LOT). He had Santa Gertrudis cattle from the actual King Ranch line in Texas and grandma had read an article that they were going to be on exhibit.
No, that 2014 wasn’t a mistake… I’m talking about last year… finally.
Last year’s hay season sucked. I’ve grown up on a farm and I know that farm life throws curve balls at you all the time. I guess if you add in the fact that going into haying season I was 9+ months pregnant and had hormones running through my body, well maybe that made it suck worse… but our hay season started out like this last year…
Now you might be looking at this picture and thinking… what’s so weird with that. Well, first off notice there is no driver… which means the tractor isn’t moving. If you caught on to that, good job :).
So the tractor broke down on our way from my parent’s house to my mother-in-law’s house where the mower was sitting. Like it died… dead… no more moving. I was supposed to meet my dad and hubby at my MIL’s house so when I get there, they call me and tell me to come meet them on the road and bring tools. Not a good sign.
They beat and twist and cuss and discuss and whatever it takes to try and get it to run and it was a no go. So we had to call a tow truck. Again, NOT. A. GOOD. SIGN.
