Thursday, May 24, 2012

Summertime

I was driving my girlie to her last day of seventh grade today. That means it's officially summertime.

Summer

Buggy windshield.
Frosty drink.
Sunny days.
They make me think of
Summer.

The wheat harvesters that are gathering in the fields are another clue. I love the wheat harvest.  That wasn't always the case, though.


When I was a kid not much older than my girlie, I drove the grain truck for my dad.  Our day would start early with maintaining the combine, which often included duct tape, bailing wire and harsh words.  Our grain truck didn't look like the one above, either.  It looked more like this one:


I think our truck might have been cursed.  There was a hole in the floorboard on the passenger side.  The passenger side window wouldn't roll up, and the driver's side wouldn't roll down.  It also didn't have good brakes.  Since the elevator was at the bottom of the biggest hill in town, you had to be very strategic trying to get the truck into the driveway.  I missed it the first time and hit the culvert. The truck battery was not screwed down, so it jumped off its little platform and melted to the manifold.  Luckily, my grandfather was there to run interference for me when my dad finally came looking for me in the era of pre-cell phones.  A snake once slithered out of the dashboard while my sister was driving. She jumped out of the moving vehicle.  My dad was still inside.  The truck met an unfortunate end when my parents were transporting an open five gallon bucket of gasoline in it. My dad hit a pothole (not an unusual occurance in a field); the gas sloshed out of the bucket onto something important (and apparently also very hot) just below the hole in the floor board, and caught fire.

It was during those summers, sitting in the truck waiting for my dad to whistle at the top of his lungs (and sometimes, if I were particularly inattentive, he'd also stand on the platform of the combine frantically waving his cap around), that I realized that farm living wasn't really the life for me.

Other fun happenings around the place that have been keeping me busy:

Max

Ruby

A little bit of art.

May the good Lord bless you with a job you love, cute kitties to keep you company and a house full of people you love.  Amen.

<3 Lori

13 comments:

  1. AMEN! Thanks for the trip down memory-lane with you Lori! gotta love it! Have a great weekend;D

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    1. You, too, Linda! Thanks so much for stopping by!

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  2. Love the story and the great art! xoxo Kath

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  3. Great story! I fantasize sometimes about living on a farm, but something tells me it would be a way too much work! I want to live with a bunch animals that someone else takes care of, and I just get to love 'em up. Heeheehee!

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    1. Yes, I agree. Sitting on the porch and looking at them is better than mucking their stalls. :)

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  4. Your memories being back some of my own. Spent summers on my Aunts farm but it was cow manure spreaders instead of harvesters! Fun times!

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    1. Our cow manure spreaders were called "cows". Ha!

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  5. Great story and I too can relate, I grew up on a farm in South Texas, my Dad used to whistle and wave his cap too... Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Awwww!! Nice to meet a fellow farm worker. :) When I saw my dad waving his cap, I had always had to fight the urge to start that truck and peel out in the opposite direction. :D Thanks so much for stopping by!

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  6. That was definitely one cursed truck! Thanks for the laugh today. Lovely artwork too!

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  7. Absolutely loved your little farm story. I didn't grow up on a farm, but my children did and I'm sure they have lots of stories to tell about their mother. :)

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