#98. or, Dear middle son:

  Dear middle son:

  You graduate from high school today.

   It seems like only yesterday you were a squalling baby when I would come in from doing the chores. Your mom would hand you off to me because you had driven her to wits' end with your constant crying and you would fall  asleep in my arms. She didn't like me very much for that.

  You have such an imagination. (I like to think that at least part of that comes from me.) Getting into everything, to see how it worked, a thousand grand projects on the go. That hasn't changed. Except now it's pick-up trucks and ATV's instead of toys and RC cars.

  You lived in your Superman pajamas and to an extent, you lived the part. Loved it when I'd toss you into the air. I remember how you used to run up the cattle chute and leap, flying, stretched out, through the air, into my waiting arms. Then have me back up a step so you could go again, seeing if you could fly even farther.

  You loved your grandfather and would spend all day in the tractor with him and when it was time to come home, do that crazy twisted hand wave you did to each other. I remember how bad he felt when you were helping him on the fertilizer spreader and you got your finger crunched in the chain drive. How you both laughed when someone passed on the advice, not to stick your finger anyplace you wouldn't stick your pecker.

  You had planned together, that you would not go to school but stay home to be his helper, and in turn, he would teach you everything you needed to know. And when he passed away, how you kept a spot on your dresser for the card and flower that someone had given you in sympathy.

  Teachers loved you in school. Bright and funny, charming and smart. In elementary, every time we would go in for parent/teacher interviews, they always gushed about you. Mrs. McCarthy had to show us the family picture you drew that had, "baby" labeled with an arrow to your mom's belly, because you were so excited about the new arrival. Funny how much you and that brother don't get along these days.

  I remember getting a call from the school because you had accidentally been kicked in the groin. They wondered if I wanted to come pick you up. They said it wasn't too bad but you were having some discomfort. I chose to let you stay at school for the last hour of the day. Because sometimes, we are going to get kicked in the nuts, and sometimes things, are going to happen that just make you feel that way. You needed to know that the best thing is to get up and try to carry on.

  Once, you got expelled for a couple days for fighting. Some kid decided, doing a gross thing to you would be funny. It wasn't and you punched him in the head. That wasn't so smart because you broke your hand. We had to talk to you about other options when things like that happen. But inside i was doing a fist pump because you stuck up for yourself, even though I couldn't tell you that at the time. That cast was a badge of honor.........and the gross thing? It was worthy of a punch in the head.

  You don't have natural athletic ability like your older brother but you joined the basketball team anyways. You were good enough to not get cut in the four years that you played. This last year you struggled and sat quite a bit and thought about quitting. Deciding to see it through until the end was a tough decision. Walking away would have been something that stayed with you for the rest of your life. Making that choice showed your loyalty.

  Your friends rely on you. So many times you got a text to come pull someone out of a ditch or try figure out why their vehicle quit running. Off you would go, sometimes later than i liked, tool box on the back of your truck to lend a hand.

  With the spirit of an adventurer and the knack for a deal, it seems your latest venture involves rounding up old campers and holiday trailers from people willing to give them to you for free. To the point, in fact, that our yard is beginning to resemble the set of Duck Dynasty. That doesn't surprise me though, you've always had a bit of a hillbilly streak in you. Maybe you get that from your mom? (just kidding dear.)

the more things change......

........the more they stay the same.

  The part time job at the parts store, that you carried through most of this last year in school, has the potential as a career choice in a trade vocation. Since they've offered you a full time position, it seems full time employment isn't something that you have to worry about looking for right now. I just wish you would put some of that money in the bank instead of spending it on speakers and truck parts. But then, I don't suppose that's any different a wish than most dads have for their sons in this town.


  You've done well, young man. Not all your decisions have been the right ones but that's part of becoming an adult. As long as you continue to learn from your mistakes and never stop trying to be better, you'll be fine. You graduate from high school today. You have the world by the tail. Not a worry in the world. And that's fine for today, have fun, your mom and I will do the worrying for you. At least for now. Because that's what we do.

  Sometime today, you will probably notice that my eyes are red and watery. You don't need to ask about that. I'm going to tell you it's allergies.

  .........and just in case I've never told you before, I am so very proud of you.


  Dad




 ***A few weeks ago, some very talented guy blogggers introduced a site called Dude Write. It's a site for guy bloggers (Dudes!) to submit a post to, once a week, to be voted on for top honours. This week (7/3/12), this very post claimed that prize. It is truly a grand distinction and I encourage you to visit the site, poke around, read some of the other posts. Any one of those posts were good enough to be winners. I thank them for the opportunity to share what I'm doing and hang out with the Dudes. You can also view the other top winners by visiting the Dude Write, diamond club.***

#97. or, I have this tractor to give away

A couple posts back ( i had really intended it to be more.) I posed the challenge to ask me some questions until the day that i arrived at 10 000 views. When I got to 10 000 views, I would put all the names, from all those who commented and asked questions, into a draw to win a tractor. This tractor!

 Today, i hit that milestone, put all the names into the draw and selected the winner. The name of the person selected is...........oh wait, i have a couple other things to take care of first!

  More awards! For some unknown reason, people keep passing awards onto me. The thing about awards is that they come with duties to take care of in order to claim them. I really should take care of that first.

  The first one is from my dear friend Pish Posh. (who i always seem to be gushing about) From her, I received this. You can read about that here.

  I can't say enough about Pish Posh. She is one of the best friends that anyone could have in the blog world as well as out there, where the real stuff happens. She is so supportive of other bloggers and I've made so many connections through her that I am quite certain I'd still be way back at around  1000 views if I hadn't gotten to know her. Thank you Pish, you've become a wonderful friend.

  The rules for this award are to list 7 random facts about yourself and pass it on to 10 other bloggers.

  SEVEN RANDOM FACTS:


  1.  I'm only 5 foot 8 inches tall. I wish i was taller.
  2.  Of all the questions asked, there is only one left unanswered. It's from Josie 2 Shoes and it has me stumped. I'm still working on it. Sorry Josie, I haven't forgotten about you.
  3. I may be addicted to my new phone?
  4. Sometimes I wish I had an anonymous blog so I could vent about some things I can't......because I'm not.
  5.  I've entered the DudeWrite competition twice now, and reading the stuff some of those guys write, I may be way out of my league in that thing.
  6.  I'm probably going to try again next week.
  7.  My "suit of awesome" isn't actually as awesome as it makes me feel awesome when I'm wearing it.

 I will do the passing on of awards later in this post.

  Do you know what this is?

  It's the box that I put all the names into so I could make the draw! Also, I probably should have dusted it off before I took that picture. I'll get back to that later.

  The other award that I've received is from Becky at Just Passing Through. . I've only recently  become aquainted with her but have quickly found myself looking forward to her posts. Thanks so much Becky!
She has seen fit to give me this:

 The rules regarding this are as follows:
  1. Post the rules up on your blog.
  2. Name 5 of your most fabulous moments. (either in real life or the blogosphere.)
  3. Name 5 things you love.
  4.  Name 5 things you hate.
  5. Pass the ribbon on to 5 other bloggers.
As the rules are up, on to #2:
5 MOST FABULOUS MOMENTS. (these will be regarding this blog.)
   1. Hitting 10 000 blog views.
   2. Hitting publish on post #1.
   3. EVERY TIME someone new follows me.
   4. Getting my first comment on a post.
   5. Realizing that this isn't just me telling stories but it's a community that looks out and supports each other.
5 THINGS I LOVE. (in no particular order, other that #1.)
   1. My wife and kids.
   2. Friendships.
   3. Cigars.
   4. Tractors.
   5. Date nights.
 5 THINGS I HATE.
   1. Half assing a job.
   2. People who drive like idiots.
   3. Hitting the city at rush hour.
   4. Having to charge my phone half way through the day.
   5. When Blogger gives me grief and I have so much trouble opening things and posting.

And who shall I pass these awards on to? Ten deserving choices for The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award.

  1. Lady in Red at A Bozo's Abbozzo
  2.  Becky at Just Passing Through
  3. Holly at A holly With Follies
  4. Carrie at Hammock in the Honeysuckle
  5. Robin at Thoughts and Reflection
  6.  Red at Doesn't Speak Klingon
  7.  Brett at The Transformed Non-Conformist
  8. Heather at Stretching My Wings
  9. Squirrel at The Squirrel and His Nuts
  10. Kianwi at  Simply She Goes

The five for The Fabulous Blog Ribbon Award.

  1. Josie at Two Shoes in Texas
  2.  Dan at  WorkingDan
  3.  Reanna at Rock The Single Life
  4.  Pish Posh at Pish Posh
  5. Joelle at J is For Joelle

 OK, that's a lot of  passing on of awards. I know some of you don't participate in these things. I'm not expecting you to go out of your way to do this. I just want to recognize some of the friends that I've made here. If your aren't on the list, please don't be offended. Some of you I'm just getting to know, Some of you I just didn't have room for. It's not an exaggeration to say that a month ago, i couldn't have tagged so many friends. I thank you all for supporting me.

 Now, there's only one final piece of business to take care of. I need to give away a tractor. Thank You all again for all the wonderful questions and comments. I wasn't really sure if this would even work but i think it did. Hopefully, it helped you to get to know me a little bit better. I know it inspired a few posts for me to write in the future. I hope that you continue to stick around. So, without any further blathering on my part. The winner of the tractor is:

Carrie at Hammock in the Honeysuckle

   It appears that my friend Carrie is going to be doubly awarded this post as I also tagged her for the Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award. Thanks so much to EVERYONE for playing along. I am going to have to try come up with something for 20 000!  :)

 One more thing, you get this video because it made me smile. I hope it does you as well.

#96. or, a camping we will go

  So, we went camping this past weekend. It was nice to get away and relax and spend some time with some friends. I just wish the weekend had been longer.

  Now, you should know, it's not really "camping" it the sense of sleeping in a tent and tying your food in a tree to keep the bears out of it, sort of camping. My wife and I are fortunate enough to own a holiday trailer. We have pretty much, all the amenities of home when we go. But there's always campfires and being able to wander around in your pajama pants until noon without looking like a schlub. (because if you don't, you sort of look out of place.) But we also take a portable generator. Just in case we feel the urge to make fruity blender drinks. Because as manly as i am, occasionally, i like to get me some fruity blender drinks. I'm comfortable in my sexuality that way.

  My wife and I have gone through three distinct stages of holiday travel in our lives. We started out using an eight foot truck camper. We took our honeymoon in one of those. As our family grew, it became a space that was  entirely too small to accomadate all of us. You can fit 5 adults into an 8 foot camper, easier than you can fit   2 adults and 3 children. I know that seems unreasonable if you take into consideration the mass of the bodies and divide it into the square footage of avaliable space. But if you have boy children, stop reading right now and go take a peek into their room. (I'll wait while you do that.)  If you are a woman with children, you probably don't need to do it..........you just know.

    Stage two, put us into a mid-sized, bumper pull holiday trailer. It was laid out quite well for a family with small children. We got to see a lot of country in that trailer. It was the first one that my wife and I actually owned for ourselves. The bad thing about that trailer was that it didn't have much outside storage access. I don't want to brag here (maybe a little) but I became a master at confined space storage. Everything we owned, that we used on a daily basis, was easily accessable through the only door to that compartment. Everything had it's place. When that hatch closed, there wasn't room to wedge in another item. Occassionaly, my wife or kids would try to help with the packing of that compartment and i would have to stand to the side twitching with a dry mouth, willing them to put the things in, in the exact proper order that they belonged. I might have a touch of OCD?

  Eventually, we outgrew that trailer and now we travel with a 5th wheel trailer. There is a bedroom in the back for the kids (that still travel with us) and my wife and I have our own bedroom on the other end of the trailer. The bed is actually bigger than the bed we sleep on at home. It's a little older and we bought it used but it is still quite luxurious compared to where we started out from. The thing that impressed me when we bought it was ALL of the doors to outside storage. We would never be able to use all of it. It appears though, that we must have aquirred a few items because it seems, that my master of confined storage space skills seem to still come into play.

  The plan, when we got this one, was that we would have everything stored and ready to go. But that never happens. Every time we  go somewhere with it, my wife will say we are leaving at a  particular time. We always leave about 4 hour after that. I'm running around checking things, trying to clean all the crap out of my truck, checking wheel bearings, and generally freaking out. I think, the last 3 hours before we actually leave, may be the most stressful time of holidays. I lose about half a day winding back down from that. Blender drinks help.

  So, we don't really rough it. Although, because i do most  of the campground cooking, thing like this happen.

BACON.........NOM  NOM  NOM

......and pancakes

   And there was also fried eggs. But because fried eggs on an open fire require ALL my attention, alas.....no picture.

  While at the picnic table, eating fried eggs, bacon, and pancakes. I was stricken with this little decision.

Nutella or Peanut Butter on my pancakes?

  Actually, I was rather surprised that we even had Nutella in the trailer. Our son used the Nutella. I used the Peanut Butter. Because, of course, Peanut Butter is the correct answer. It can be used on just about everything. On warm pancakes, it melts and runs into the low spots and has a wonderful appeal. Then I pour syrup over it all and everything is right with the world.

  ................we are now planning to go again some time in the beginning of next month. I should be ready approximately 4 hours after that.

#95. or, what the hell have i been doing?

  Alright, here's a quick little post just to let you guys know that i'm still alive. I actually have a few post ideas brewing in my head that i want to write about but time has not been smiling on me the last week or so.

  I was finally able to get my seeding done. Finished it on June 12th. A couple days past the deadline that i had set for myself. I had to push pretty hard to get done between rain showers. One night i seeded until around 4:30 in the morning, trying to get a field finished. It's a good thing that the Lady in Red was awake on the other side of the world, chatting with me on Twitter. She helped me to stay awake. Staying up all night doesn't seem to come as easily to me as it did about 3 or 4 years ago. This is what the sky looked like on my way home to bed that morning.

the sun was just starting to come up

  June 11th was also my 18th wedding anniversary. My wife and i took advantage of a rainy day and went into the city on the 10th. As usual, we had a list of things that needed to be picked up or taken care of while were there but we went to a movie and out for supper. It was a nice evening.

  A week or so ago, when it was too wet to be seeding, i had started on the new stone flower bed, so i had a  place to plant the trees that we had bought in town. I got started on it just after we bought the trees, and actually, i was quite excited about the project.

before......well, just after i had gotten started

  I had to wheelbarrow the stones that i needed around from the front of the house to the back where the new and improved stone wall was going to be. Once i finished seeding, i was able to spend a couple days on the project, getting it finished up. I wanted it done before Fathers Days because we were having most of my wife's family over for the afternoon. Also, my trees were starting to turn yellow and i really wanted to get them in the ground. This is it done, for now anyways. It didn't occur to me until i was pretty much done that i had spent the better part of three days putting this together to save $40 worth of trees. Somehow, that doesn't quite add up.

 I finally got a start on moving my cows to pasture. I would really like to get it done this week because i need to turn the bulls in with them to breed. Otherwise, it will get so late into the season before i start calving next spring. Plus, two different grain companies have called, asking to have us deliver our grain to them this week, and we are in the middle of trying to spray our crops for weeds. We also have plans to go camping with friends this weekend (which i am really looking forward to) and because i'm lazy that way, i've just started looking at getting our trailer ready to go. Things are a bit busy around here.

  The following weekend is graduation, my wife and i volunteered to help on the decorating. That means we will have to put a few days at the arena, preparing it for graduation. It appears as though i'll be running, right through until the end of the month.

  .................after a long day of sorting cows and calves, it would be nice to sit down in the evening and have a beer, except i'm still trying to fit into that damn suit, so at least until then, it's water in the evening for me. Somehow, it's not quite the same.

..............OH! I am less than 400 views from 10 000. I am still open to answering questions for a chance to win my little tractor. If you have anything cross your mind, feel free to send them on.

#94. or, not another awards post.

  So, something wonderful has happened to me through this blog, It's pretty cool and exciting. Except I'm not entirely sure that I'm supposed to be talking about it just yet.......so forget I even said anything about that.

  A couple weeks back, I received a Kreative Blogger award from Carrie at hammock in the Honeysuckle. You can read about that here. One of the seven awesome bloggers that I passed this award on to was Reanna at Rock the Single Life. As per the rules, which appear to be quite flexible, I answered the seven questions and listed the 10 random facts about myself. (because there is ONLY, 10 random facts about me.)

  Now, because Reanna, my Hip Hop Homie, is so bad-ass awesome, she has done something completely unprecedented, and listed me back as someone she believes that is deserving of this award. This is fortunate on a couple levels. The first, awards are just awesome and to be thought of as deserving of these is so surprising to me. So thank you Reanna, I am pleased to roll with your crew.

Thank You, Reanna!

  The second fortunate thing about receiving this award is that I'm going to use it to solve a problem that I've been having. I'm not sure that any of you have noticed this but, i am rapidly approaching two separate milestones on this little blog of mine. The first one is my 100th post. This isn't such a big one. I mean, it's a lot of posts but really, if half of them are worthy of a second look, I'd be surprised. The one that means more to me is that, I'm closing in on 10 000 views rather quickly. So much of that is due to the wonderful family that I've made here, that support me and help to spread the word about me and my tractor. I can remember writing a post about how shocked i was because i was at 700 views. That doesn't seem all that long ago and to all of you, who stop by here on a regular basis, or even once in a while, I am deeply grateful.

  It seems, the thing to do for you're 100th post is to compile a list of 100 random facts about yourself to let people get to know you better. I had trouble coming up with the first 10 for the Kreativ Blogger award, I'm certainly not interesting enough to have 100 random facts about me, so I decided i'm not going to do that. What I am going to do, for my 10 000th view, and to completely ignore and basterdize the rules of the Kreativ Blogger Award, is to have you, my readers and followers, ask me the questions.

  From this post until i hit 10 000 views, ask me anything you want to know. I will do my best to leave you an answer. If it's too personal, I may have to do it by e-mail or something. (I'm not anonymous here.) But I will do my best to give you an answer. Maybe through answering the questions, you will be able to discover a few random things about me.

  AND NOW FOR THE SURPRISE!

  To reward you for the honor of having you visit here, time after time, from this post until 10 000 views, if you leave a comment, ask a question, or just say hi, I will put your name into a draw for a * rare, limited edition, collectors item, one of a kind, replica tractor.* (I'm going to include my facebook comments on the links I post as well because I know some of you like to comment from there.)

not a tractor i own but as close as i could get



  * This tractor isn't actually rare, limited edition, a collectors item, or one of a kind. I just threw that in there for dramatic effect. I just picked it up off the shelf at the local John Deere store.

  If, on the day I reach 10 000 views, and your name is drawn from the hat, I'll leave a comment and ask for an address and I will mail you this tractor.

  About that thing that I'm not sure that I can talk about yet, it involves writing a couple posts that you won't be able to see here. I hope that won't effect what's happening here and I do realize, I've been a little scarce lately. I will do my best to keep in touch. I'm kind of hoping some of the questions will trigger a few thoughts in my head which currently seems to be full of work related things (Damn, I hate it when that happens.)  So please, send them along. And thank you for stopping by.

#93. or, about a boat

  It's raining again off and on here. I'm two long days from being done seeding. I had really hoped to be finished before the tenth but i'm getting a little doubtful that's going to happen now. There's showers forecast, off and on, through the rest of the week and as wet as it is now, i'm going to need two good days for it to dry enough just to get back on the field. Guess we'll see what happens. I've got cows to take to pasture and a truck in the shop to paint, so i guess i can work on that.

  I like the rain. Rain is a good thing. I'm not a big fan of working out in it though.

  It stopped raining for a bit after lunch and i started work on the rock wall flower bed, then it started again so i went and sat in the shed, hoping it would pass. Luckily, or maybe good planning, my beer cooler is in the shed. I keep a few emergency cigars in there as well, so i dug out my lawn chair, propped open the door, had a beer and a cigar, while i watched it drizzle.......and i though about holidays in the rain.

  When i was a kid, we just about always went on holidays with my uncle. He's only about  six years or so older than i am. My mom and dad, my brother and myself, and my uncle. Five of us squished into a eight foot camper. This wasn't so bad when my brother and i were a little younger but when i got to be about sixteen, with my brother two years behind, it could get to be rather tight quarters.

  Now we used to have a boat. Really, it was only a boat in the loosest sense of the term. It was boat shaped.  It had what appeared to be a decently large outboard motor clamped to the back. It had seats and a steering wheel, and it was on a trailer. Except this was only a poor excuse for a boat. Of the times that we used that boat, we had to row or be towed off the lake more times than we were able to look, bad-ass cool, driving up to the dock. Rest assured, if people are lining up on the dock as you come to shore, your boat on the end of a rope, it's not to check out the guys trying to look cool in it.

  The previous owner, for some reason painted the trailer bright blue. Blue is nice but if your boat is bright red, it's hard not to hear circus music playing in your head at the boat launch. The steering was the old cable and pulley system and it was inevitable that if you tried to pull a water skier, all the turning would cause a cable to jump off or a pulley to pull out of the wall, making it impossible to steer. I tried to make the motor run. Sometimes it would, sometimes it would just die. One time at the lake, because we had limited supplies, i  made a temporary starter bushing from the tin of a beer can to try keep it going. It was terribly unreliable. Really, the best thing about that boat were the seats. Somebody had done a fine job upholstering them.

  The only time you could look cool in that boat is if you put it in the water, rowed over to the dock and tied it off. Then, busied yourself looking impressive doing boaty things like stowing gear and tying knots in ropes.

  So, we were on holidays, in the rain, with my uncle, and the boat. (see how this all ties together.) We were on holidays in the rain and for some reason the boat runs perfect. The steering is hanging on and seats look awesome. (the seats never ever let me down!) Not to be deterred by the rain, we decided to take advantage of the boat actually running and go water skiing. I was driving the boat but because of the rain in my eyes, i had to wear my sunglasses. My brother is hunched in the back of the boat spotting and trying to keep warm and my uncle is skiing.....in a full yellow rain suit to keep from getting wet. At least i think that's why we was wearing it?

  I can only imagine, as we roared around the lake, people huddled in their trailers to stay dry, wiping the fog from their windows, to look out onto the water to see the guy driving the red boat in sunglasses, pulling a man sized banana across the lake on water skis in the rain. That those, are some pretty awesome dudes!

  .............at least we had the lake all to ourselves.

#92. or, Soap box derby day

  Last Saturday, was the annual soap box derby day in our town.

 When our middle son, (the one that's graduating this month.) was in about grade five or six, he came home one day and informed us that he was interested in entering the soap box derby that they hold in our town every year. To be honest, I'm pretty sure the first image to come to my mind was one of the kid, sitting in an apple box with four different sized wheels, aviator goggles, and a propeller beenie on his head. I didn't even know our town held a soap box derby at the time.

 ...... There's a bit more to soap box derby than that.

  You have to buy a kit that basically gives each kid the same car. The box that holds the car parts is a pattern for all the pieces that you need to cut from plywood. Every car has the same wheels and steering. Every car has pretty much the same design, although you can paint them however you like or put on any sponsor decals you want. The kit gives you a couple options for brakes but really, as long as they look like they might work, you're probably going to pass inspection and be able to race.

  Our middle son, being the mechanical sort he is, even at that time, wanted a different type of car. We couldn't change the basic car. That was against the rules. And so was born, what I am pretty sure for our little derby, was the very first, soap box concept car.

It used to be a little spiffier but survived a crash into a spruce hedge.

   I think that he felt like the guy with the Lamborghini in the Wal-Mart parking lot when we showed up with the car that day.

  You race three times against two other cars, best of three wins the heat and you advance. He was a very technical driver, studying the track from each of the three starting ramps. He discovered the middle lane was the fastest, the right lane was the slowest but if you ran with one set of wheels in the dry tar strip where they patched the pavement, you could gain a little speed. The left lane has an approach half ways down and if you drifted left, you could shoot through the dip in the road from that approach and make up some speed.

on the starting ramp

 When our youngest son wanted to race as well, we had to build another car. We tried to make a aerodynamic, fiberglass body. It turned out OK, but is rather heavy.

    Only our youngest has raced for the last number of  years and we use the first car. I seem to remember throwing out my back one time lifting the heavy car onto the ramp. He's more of a carefree driver than his brother was. I tried to impart some of the wisdom his brother had obtained from his time behind the wheel but he asked me if it was OK if he just went straight? I guess it worked, he won gold in his age group.

with the gold medal

  I don't know if my kid will race again, he's getting to that age where it's not all that cool of a thing to do. I had fun with it though and if he doesn't race again, i'll be a little sad.  I'm going to miss the kids, hunched down in their cars to eliminate wind drag, white knuckling  the steering wheel as they will gravity to suck another ounce of speed out of their cars as they cross the finish line. That and the ten year old's talking smack on the starting ramp.

.............The race this year was a week earlier than usual and i'm generally done seeding by then. I'm still not done but as it turned out, i had to wait an extra day for a field i was trying to seed to dry a bit more, which allowed me to go to the races. That's the same field that threatened to open up and suck my tractor and seed drill right out from under me. The extra day was all i needed, as the day after the race, i was able to travel across it no problem. Funny how things work out sometimes.

#91. or, What's good about it?

  Trying to be the hap, hap, happiest blogger on the internet.

  One of the reasons that i chose to label myself as "in a tractor" was obviously, because a lot of my time is spent sitting on that tractor seat. I can remember, in the dead of winter, trying to convince myself to start a blog, thinking, with all that time seeding, haying, and what-not, the dam of wonderful blog ideas is going to overflow with creative excess. 

  Ya, well........not so much. 

  I've been sitting here the last 4 or 5 days, seeding my ass off, trying to resist the urge to post about the difficult time i seem to be having. The sun is out, holidays are on their way, i should be able to come up with something good to talk about?

  Part of the problem is from the different equipment we are using as a result of the fire. It's good stuff, just.......different. Things that were second nature because i'd done them hundreds of times, take longer than they should because i have to take extra time to figure them out. 

  Things like, having to cannibalize the hitches off of two different tractors to make one, on a tractor i bought and had neglected to notice that part of the hitch was missing. 

......... actually, I WAS quite proud of myself about not throwing a wrench across the yard over that, so there's a good thing. 

  And how, because the two inches of rain last week, I had to shut down for five days and now feel that I am dreadfully far behind. 

 ........that rain sure helped the pastures for when we take the cows out to them after seeding. So that's good too. 

  How about those two inches of rain, added to an already wetter spring, causing endless holes to seed around. The same holes, that although I've only been stuck twice, (so far) one was so bad, i had to unhook the tractor from the drill. The drill from the seed cart, and pull each piece out separately. No small feat. 

 ..........but it's nice to get out of that cab for a bit and get some fresh air. 

 Maybe to some people, dropping my practically, brand new phone the other night and breaking the battery door might be a bit of a downer. 

 ...........I got to spend an hour shopping from my phone on e-bay for a new one. I love shopping!

  Also, because of the long hours I've been in the tractor, i've hardly got to see my sweet wife this week at all. Not to mention the fact there has been no time available for happy bedroom time. 

 ............but she does bring out supper and we spend some time together, her in my handy jump seat, chatting in the tractor during that time.

 All things considered, it's been a decent week. I came in 2nd in the voting for the Pish Posh Get Fit! Challenge. (read about that here) Turns out the votes were so close, Lady in Red, the real winner, and Pish Posh, decided it would be awesome to share 1st place between her and I. How cool is that? I won a book written by an awesome blogger, The Bloggess.

  I got to see a moose and some deer, multiple sets of new baby ducks, and unbelievable sunsets. I lost another pound on Friday morning weigh-day, so I'm at 183. (Suit of Awesomeness, here I come.) I kissed my wife, talked to the kids and petted the dog. 

  As bad as the bad was, there was a lot of good as well, it all depends on how you spin it. 

  ................oh, the first couple fields of wheat I seeded have new rows poking through the ground, so straight, you could shoot a bullet down them without hitting any plants. Plus, it appears there isn't any screw ups, so that's another bonus!