Back home from the country

    This past weekend, we took a trip to my dad's place for a bit of piece and quiet, but also had to do some work. There are many large oak trees on the property that have shed roughly 1/3 of their leaves. We slept in til around 0900 on Saturday morning then we all got up and started on the leaves. I had brought some equipment up to help speed the clean up along. The kids took a rake and had a huge pile of leaves within minutes, but as you know with kids that pile never made it into my utility trailer. They ran and slid in them for almost a hour. As for me, I was well into a dust storm of dried leaves and dirt. After 5 hours of work, they were all pushed into the woods.

    In the early afternoon, my family friend showed up on his John Deere tractor with the Disc Harrow attached and headed down to the garden. He tore the crap out of that ground, when I mean tore it up, he was bringing dirt up from about 2-3 feet below the surface just into the red clay layer. When he was done, I was ready to start some rows and put stuff in the ground.

 

 

   When he finished up, I told him we all would be down to his house in a hour, we had already made plans to head to the livestock auction around 1800. He had brought it up a few weeks ago and we said hell yeah we will go. We meet up at his house and take off the back way, down two lane country rounds that later turned into dirt roads. They are not the best roads to travel down, but they sure are fun to drive on. We got to the auction house and went on it. They were setting up for the small animal auctions, such as chickens, turkeys, guineas, and rabbits.

 

   As the auction starts, I look over at my boys and they have no idea what the auctioneer is saying, but they like every animal in the auction and they want them as pets. They were amazed at the guy who would open up each crate, pull the rooster, hen, doe, buck out and display them to the buyers. Of course the bidding was for one animal, if there were 5 in crate, whatever the winning price, multiply that by 5. Little be known, I discovered that ND had been raising his hand bidding, I'm not shitting you. I didn't know this until the auctioneer had stopped the bidding to ask him to stop raising his hand. Thank god they had a rule for kids not bidding or I would have walked out with a rooster and two hens. Roosters went as high as $50 a piece. After about an hour and a half, we retired back to the house for a warm fire and college football.

 

    Sunday was more of a relaxation day. I was picked up around 1000 by our family friend and we went over to a friend of my dad's house. He was also a pal bearer at my dad's funeral. He has had a rough go as of late. He is 71 and lost an eye to diabetes and now has prostate cancer. He caught the cancer early and is in treatment and he looked extremely well. We must have stayed for 2 hours talking about chicken coops, tractors, gardens, baseball, college football, golf, and the yuppie society that has encompassed this country. Once back to the house, we took off to town to find American flags for my dad and two uncles that are buried at the cemetery. If I would have remembered to grab the four I had in my garage at home, there would have been no need to stop at the Walmart in town and have my wife go through what she did.

 

    My dad's side of the family had it hard back early 1920's and 30's. The depression didn't help either. They farmed or worked in the mills. Their only escape was to join the military. Dad served the entire Korean Conflict in the Air Force and got out as a A1C, one uncle served 3 years in the Army after WWII and got out a Corporal and my youngest uncle served 3 tours in Vietnam, that crazy M*%^&$% ^&*(^r wanted to go back for a 4th time but the Marine Corps said no. He also had a tour on SARA as a member of the embarked Marine Corps security detachment. He would have retired a Gunny, but he had disciplinary issues and settled for Staff Sergeant. I visit each one of them every time I am in the cemetery to pay my respects for their service. Once we got back to the house, I took the boys to the garden and we had some range time. NW has no problems shooting and has no problem hitting a target. He shot my Henry Lever Action for the first time and was a pro at it; however ND is a work in progress. His major problem is he is a lefty, but right eye dominate and struggles to hold the cricket rifle. So I go back through my vast military knowledge and come up with a plan. ND, lets try this. I wish I would have snapped a pic of him doing, but for illistrative purpose, this is what he did.

 

    BY GOD, it worked. ND was not shooting to the right anymore and was hitting the targets every time, I was jumping up and down like a kid on Christmas day. God, I love being a father teaching my kids. After we finished up I had brought my ATV with us and let JUGM get some time on the ATV riding around the property. That led to her riding the kids around one at a time and they had a blast. Once it got dark, I got a fire ready in the fireplace, they settled in and I went to the hill top to listen to the night and have time to myself reflecting on my memories on that hill top. Made my soul feel good to have that time looking to the sky, reflecting, questioning, and requesting.

 

    Monday we headed back to normal life, and back to work and school today. Got a notification that BOOF and his ya clattie wee toerag were making noise over at some blog. C'mon Randall, do I need to go there. By the way, send my best to Ellen as she recovers with emphysema.

 

Have a great week everyone.

 

Senior