This morning we missed church-it's been my experience that any day you skip church you're not gonna have a terrific day. Something is bound to go wrong. No, it's not God getting petty revenge..it's simply that you're not 'set' for the day. When you don't start a Sunday off right you might as well expect some tribulations-small though they may be.
The day started off pretty with the sun shining as if it meant to warm the world in short order. I heard people had been out in their short sleeves but seeing as I didn't step outside until I was forced to, I wouldn't know. We'd had snow two days before which didn't waste any time the next morning in melting. LA (Lower Arkansas) isn't used to much snow so it was a surprise to find the weather doing an about-face and spitting out snow. I say spitting because that's about how it was. We had just decided we'd better go put the hay out when it clouded up. Before I could get outside Leslie calls me (we use our cell phones like walkie-talkies) from outside and tells me to hurry up because it's trying to rain. Yeah, right..I saw the sun shining earlier...didn't look like it was gonna do much...
Before I could get my insulated coveralls and boots on it started a light rain. By the time Leslie took off on the tractor and I pulled the trailer down the drive, it had started becoming a slushy rain. It was apparent that it was NOT going to be a nice outing weatherwise and that we'd have to feed in some pretty uncomfortable conditions. I didn't know how true that was...
The funny thing is, we'd always left the tractor keys in the tractors. To tell the setup in this story would take too long..suffice to say, the tractors were left elsewhere and not behind locked gates so we'd taken the keys out two days before when we'd finished feeding. Well, we finished up feeding across the road and Leslie drove that tractor back to the house to park it while I'd pulled down Lover's Lane and parked in front of our drive to wait on him. It's starting to rain again. We get about two miles down the road and he remembers the key-it's in a different truck. I turn in at the Country Club to turn around (don't tell anybody--I don't think they like you even turning around in their driveway if you don't have a membership). I drive back to the house and park along the road to wait on Leslie to go get the tractor key. Once he's back in the truck we are on our way across town to feed.
We have hay still in a pasture because it started raining before we could move it and it seemed to never stop. We kept waiting for the ground to dry up so we could haul it out but nature seemed to be saying, "Plan better next year" and "Get an earlier start next year, Chump!". It started raining in late June and hasn't stopped long enough for the ground to become anywhere near dry enough to handle trucks, trailers and tractors without at least two out of the three getting stuck.
We get over there and are nearly to his tractor when I have this sudden thought that I voiced.."Leslie, did you get BOTH keys?!?"
Since we are already nearly there, I stop at the intersection and let him out to walk up and get his tractor. He decides he'll just use his alone even though it's heavier and it's gonna be hard to get through that trail in the woods without burying himself in the soft mud. As I drive on down the road, headed for the opening into the woods that's on a different road it dawns on me-he can't get his tractor down the trail because MY tractor is sitting smack dab in the middle of the trail-with no key!
He pulls up and parks his tractor and comes back to the truck--having realized the same thing. He gets in, I turn the key and it grinds to a slow halt. Nothing....
After working on it awhile and trying to jump start it with the tractor he decides to change out the batteries with the one in my tractor. We walk back down the road a short ways and take that battery out and Leslie hauls it back to the truck..that's the ticket. So, here we are about an hour later and haven't fed a single cow...
We head on to the Wildcat Road to the pasture over there and feed. That tractor is a Deutz just like the keyless one we just left. We'll feed there and grab that key and head back. Well, the Deutz won't start without jump-starting it (I have this process down to a fine art). Once we get it started I take off for the back pasture..it's a little more than a fourth of a mile back. The cows are already up front waiting on us so they turn and follow the tractor. The snow is coming down hard from the north at a blowing pace..and yes, I'm headed north. The speed of the tractor is causing the snow to hit me in the face and there's no getting away from it. The tears are streaming and the mascara is running, I'm pretty sure. Mud's flying up at an alarming speed but I'm figuring the mud is preferable to the wet snow stinging me in the face.I make it back and open the far gate. Luckily the week before I'd hauled down about 25 bales so I just set out about six of those as fast as I could and headed back. By the time I reach the road, Leslie has turned the truck around and is waiting for me. I park the tractor, grab the key, close and lock the gate and practically fly into the truck to escape the snow. By that time my face is frozen along with other unmentionable parts of me. The insulated coveralls are not as insulatable (yes, that's a word) as one might thing...I think I even have blown snow inside my gum boots!
We head BACK across town to where the tractors are and in short order we are loading hay. The truck and trailer are parked in the road , I'm going through the woods on my tractor and getting the hay I'd stacked along the tree opening in the pasture. The trail in the woods has been traveled over and over so you can imagine the shape the track is in. There's one spot where the tires go down into a deep rut and if I'm not careful I'll lose the bale of hay--that's happened a couple of times already. The mud is unbelievable and what should have been a simple task turned into a frustrating ordeal. I'd bring the hay through on my tractor and Leslie would take it from me onto his with the front end loader and load onto the trailer. All the while I'm fighting the ruts with tires that appear to have minds of their own and keep fighting me ..the ruts have some kind of magnetic pull because no matter how much I turn the wheel or press on the brake they insist on falling right into that rut. I lost one bale but I was determined it wasn't going to happen again. I forged a new trail by straddling the ruts and driving over trees.:-)
Once the trailer was loaded Leslie takes off down the road with two bales of hay so he can stop and feed the few old cows in one spot. Then he heads on down to where I'm parked so he can put out hay for the heifers. Once that's done he parks the tractor, closes and locks the gate and comes to the truck. We take off for home and it is now dark enough that lights are needed. We started off right after lunch...on the way home we discussed the possibility of selling out...:-)
Here we are cold, wet, hungry and aggravated but feeling blessed that nothing else happened. I'm always thankful for small favors. And I always say it could be worse. We could have had flats, we could have not been able to get the truck started which would have meant no way home--we're clear across town and out in the country and there's no way we could walk that far even if we'd had the stamina--which we didn't.
Here it is nearly 6:30 p.m. on Valentine's Day and we are just getting into the house and stripping down out of the wet, muddy and cold clothing. Plans? First, warm clothes..second, something warm to drink..and third? I'm NOT leaving this house!
