It's been a long, slow winter. (Which is part of the reason for my recent lack of blogs. The other part being, of course, laziness) But it's also been a very cold and snowy winter. So imagine our delight when the mercury rose just high enough over the last two days to hit the fifty degree mark.
But, one should also remember that with warmer weather, comes new challenges. For instance, take the following equation:
4 months of near constant snow and single digit temperatures + 2 days of 50 degree weather =
Yeah...that. And we're not just talking about regular mud, this is a very specific mixture of wet dirt, broken down bits of hay and silage, and of course, cow poo. It's thick, it's wet and slippery, it's deep. The kind of stuff you sink into.
Today, Nick managed to get his tractor and feed wagon stuck while feeding the cows. So while I'm sipping my Saturday morning cup of coffee while reading the news on the internet, Nick comes trudging into the house with one of my least favorite phrases, "Jaammii, Can you come help me?"
So up I go, throwing on a pair of jeans, shoving my hair into a ponytail, and faithfully following my favorite rancher to make my best effort at getting him unstuck. Apparently the plan is this: He'll take another tractor and I'm to follow in the infamous little white pickup. He's going to try to pull the feed wagon sideways to get it out. If that fails, I'm to get in the big tractor and try to drive it one direction or another while he pulls some more. If that fails, well, then he'll have to come up with a new plan.
Now, before I go any farther, I should mention one more thing. I don't know how to drive a tractor. I know, I know, that sounds terrible coming from a "ranch wife." The thing is, before Nick and I got married, one of my great-aunt's (with more than probably 50 years worth of ranch wife experience) gave me a piece of advice. "Never learn how to drive a tractor," she said. "The minute you do, you'll be expected to do it all the time."
This is advice I've taken to heart, and for more than 3 years I've avoided any lessons in operating a John Deere anything. I knew it would never last however, and today, I got my first lesson. Fortunately, the feed wagon wasn't stuck as bad as Nick thought, so my lesson was a short one - consisting only of learning how to drive approximately one foot forward and one foot backward. I'm just hoping we haven't opened Pandora's Box.
Nick trying to decide which of his plans seemed most likely to work.
At some point Gimli materialized. Presumably, he came to check on what we were doing, but seeing as he's afraid of cows, he elected to jump into the back of the little white pickup and watch.
