It's in the Genes

Since way back when our eldest Son became a young man, I have thought that he inherited his redneckness from my side of the family. He instinctively liked to do the same things that I liked to do as a teenager. That was to go to Jackson County and just hang out in the deep woods.

While other girls my age were doing a lot of shopping and Malls were just coming into existence. I preferred going coon hunting, fishing or just driving around in God's country, if my cousin and I could talk her Dad into it. He never disappointed us. Even if it was in the middle of the night and he didn't have any spare batteries for his flashlight, us kids would just hold each other's hands and run through the woods after him and the coon dog.

Now back to my original thought, I am not a total redneck although I must admit I am mostly one. Just like today, when my Mother-in-law and my Husband's Aunt came to visit. I had perfect manners, I swept the chicken poo off of the front stoop. I consider my Husband's Mother a special guest and I don't mind going that extra mile for her.

My Mother-in-law won my heart years ago, when we were first married. She dropped in unexpectedly one day and told me that I didn't need to mop and wax the floors everyday as I had been doing. That totally changed my life. I don't think that I have mopped at all since then.

Now where was I? Oh, yes, my Son's bloodlines. After what happened tonight, I am not sure that all of our Son's quirks came from my side of the family.

We had gone to our youngest Son's house to see what they were putting in their garage sale tomorrow. They didn't have anything that I was interested in, until I saw the red wagon. I can't tell you how excited I was at the very sight of it. All goat herders should have a red wagon, they are perfect for hauling feed and water. Some goat herders flaunt their wagons, like a trophy. The really snooty ones have John Deere green wagons.

This wagon was purchased for my Granddaughters, it has fold up seats on each end, facing each other. It even has cup holders. This wagon will be perfect for hauling buckets in each seat. Now I can make just one trip and have everything that I need with me. My DH bought a very nice wheelbarrow that is light weight enough that I should be able to use it too.

We were on our way home, it was about 10:30 and we were driving on a country road at about the speed of light. When all of the sudden, our lights went out. Now when you are traveling at the speed of light and your headlights go out there is only one thing that you can do and that is slam on the brakes. This action tends to throw the new red wagon and wheelbarrow through the back glass of the truck. It would have been bad if it had broken that back glass because that would have been twice this year. The first time it was broken by a bale spear.

When my DH hit the dimmer switch the lights came back on and not wanting to lose his momentum, he accelerated back up to light speed. Then the lights went out for good. We managed to get stopped and he turned on the flashers, flashers tend to make me a little sick, when driving down the road at such high rates of speed.

This is where my Husband showed his true colors, he reached for the ever present spotlight, pushed the end into the cigarette lighter and out the window went his arm. This was just perfect, we had much better light than headlights could give.

The thing that really bothered me was that, I offered to get the spotlight and plug it in for him but he had to do it himself while flying down the road with only his dim blinkers for light but he wasn't watching the road anyway, so I guess it didn't matter.

We then noticed this strange, spooky whistle sound, this was bad because then he became focused on how the spotlight was whistling. I told him that they probably don't whistle like that when using them for a headlight at normal rates of speed but that the whistle was probably a warning than he was going too fast. He was still turning the spotlight all different angles to see if he could make different sounds and I resumed my important job of keeping us out of the ditches.

He hasn't always been this reckless, going a little too fast maybe but since he took a job as a rural mail carrier. His driving skills have suffered. He says he is a better driver but I don't think so. He does most of his driving with his left hand and left foot while sitting on the right hand side of the vehicle, with his hands constantly sorting mail and reaching into the back seat for more mail. He is a great multi-tasker. I think that he feels that he is a better driver because he has learned to drive without his eyes, he goes by feeling now.

Thank goodness that we only met one car with our new fangled headlight. The DH did point the spotlight off to the right hand side of the road, so as not to blind the poor guy but he still stopped his truck and froze in position at the sight of us, I hope it wasn't anyone we know.

Right before we got home, I asked him what he was going to do. His answers to me were the clincher of the whole matter. He said that we just weren't going to go anywhere after dark and then he said that he might have to think of something else to do before winter because his arm would get cold. So you see my dear Son, you came by it honestly.

(Edited to correct all of my errors, I obviously don't know my left hand from my right and sight is spelled s-i-g-h-t and not s-i-t-e. Let me know if I made any other errors.)

Mud

My husband and I sorta made a commitment not to ever complain about mud again after the terrible drought that we had last Summer and Fall. It is like a New Year's Resolution or a diet, it is one thing to say it but quite another to abide by it.

I really got stuck in the mud tonight with one foot and I didn't know what I was going to do, my back is so bad that I just could not pull myself free and my husband was in the house. I finally wiggled it back and forth until it lost it's suction and I pulled it free.

My dear husband got stuck in the mud as well but he managed to fall also. When he came back to the house, he handed me that handy, not so dandy anymore, Black and Decker rechargeable spotlight that was totally covered in mud to clean up.

I have to give him credit, even though it is taking him so much longer to feed on this treacherous ground, he isn't complaining. There is more rain on the way for the next several days. Our prayers have been answered and the drought is over. Thank you, Lord!

Nighttime Visitor

You know what they say about Indiana weather? If you stick around long enough it will change. I went to my favorite weather forecast website this evening and there was every kind of warning and advisory that you could imagine, except for a heat advisory. They had a Severe Thunderstorm Warning, Wind Advisory, Hail, Winter Weather Advisory and a Wind Chill Warning.

I dutifully shut down my computer and waited for the storm to hit, I didn't have a long wait. The thunder and lightning started, I went out without even a jacket on, it was so warm, a couple of minutes later it started pouring rain and hail. I mean it was coming down violently.

My husband had left me home alone, so I turned on my handy, dandy Police scanner and they were getting 911 calls for damage all over the county. Trees were down, two houses were flattened, power lines down and roads closed, trees down on houses and cars. But as they went door to door in hard hit areas they didn't find any injuries.

I called to check on my kids, then settled back with a good book (an instruction manual). All was quiet for awhile, the wind was still blowing but not as bad. Then my LGD, Angel the Great Pyrenees, started barking like she meant it. I figured that she was barking at the wind but then I heard the sound of something hitting the chain link fence on the dog kennel that holds Maude and Ethel.

I put my book aside just in time to hear Maude and Ethel start screaming bloody murder. I grabbed my handy, dandy Black and Decker Spotlight and ran out the door in just my night gown, only to discover that the temperature had dropped about 30º and it was snowing.

I was yelling as I ran out the door to scare whatever it was away. When I got there I found a lot of chicken feathers in the doghouse and Maude and Ethel behind the doghouse. My new rooster and one of my banty hens were cowering in the opposite corner together.

Maude walked out of hiding when she seen me and most of her feathers on one side were gone and she had large puncture wounds on her back side. I looked around with my spotlight and didn't see anything. Then my handy, dandy Black and Decker Spotlight went out. So, don't rush out and buy one on my recommendation because they do not hold a charge worth anything and they don't give you a warning before they die.

It was a dark and stormy night and there was something out there....

I finally made it back to the house in the pitch darkness, but I was still wondering what had been in that pen and what could have made those big holes in her flesh.

I put on more appropriate clothing for the sub-zero weather that had just blown in. I went out and started the Blazer, turned it around to face the kennel, so that I would have lighting. That was when I noticed that there were no horses around the big bale feeders, anyone that knows horses knows that they are always around big bales.

Not only were they not around the feeders but they were down farther away in the pasture, in a big group, snorting and blowing, with there ears forward at attention, so again I wondered just who our visitor had been. I gathered up the hens and rooster, one at a time and took them through the ankle deep mud into the goat/chicken shed for Angel to watch over for the rest of the night. It was the first time that I had attempted to pick up Maude, she is one heavy bird.

I will look for tracks tomorrow morning. We have coyotes here all of the time, we have even walked up on them while they lay in the middle to the herd on a foggy night. I find it hard to believe that the horses would react the way they did tonight, if it had been a coyote.

'Possum

Since one of my friends emailed me to remind me that I only have a couple of hours left before tomorrow and I will be dishonest if I have to manipulate the time and date on this blog again, I thought that I had better hurry up and get today's post written. Actually, I am down to one hour left, but I can get 'er done.

I had started to post here tonight when Chloe my Miniature Schnauzer (and you thought that I couldn't spell), kept giving me grief and annoying me until I realized that I had forgotten to feed her today.

I went outside at about 10:30 to get her food out of the dog food barrel, when I heard my brave Livestock Guardian Dog "Angel" barking. Then I heard this distressful cry that I didn't recognize at first, I thought that it might be a tom cat or my own cat in trouble. Then I yelled at my husband like I always do, whether he deserves it or not.

I finally decided that it was one of my big Cornish hens in distress. We ran out to the small dog kennel where we keep the Cornish hens, they have a nice dog house to sleep in because they are too heavy to roost up high.

We had our handy little Black & Decker Rechargeable Spotlight that we bought ourselves for Christmas with us and discovered that there was more than just Chickens in the dog house, a 'possum was with them and I don't think he was just trying to stay warm. My dear husband held the light on him while I ran back into the house to get my rifle.

When I returned, the Chickens had left the dog house to seek help from my husband but the opossum was still in there. I handed my darling husband the rifle and I took the spotlight while he shot the opossum and a hole in the dog house. It didn't kill the dirty devil but did mortal damage and he wandered off in a hurry.

We came back to the house and my precious husband went to bed, then said, "I hope I didn't shoot a hole in the big water tank." I considered this and decided that someone ought to go check, so I did. I stood right where he had stood when he had fired the rifle and followed the bullet path with my very handy spotlight and sure enough that water trough was right in the path, we had made sure that there were no other animals behind where we were shooting but hadn't thought about that trough. I checked for trickling water but didn't see any. I guess we will know for sure tomorrow morning.

And in case you are wondering why my LGD didn't take care of this problem for us, the hens were in a pen that she couldn't get into and she did just what she was suppose to do, she raised a ruckus. GOOD DOG!