Wasted days and wasted nights

Have you ever had one of those days where it seems like everything is going "the hard way"? That's how our Thursday went.

We were going to take Jakob to a cultural event in Tulsa and he wanted to get a laptop and some shoes, so we left early to do some shopping. We made the hour long trip to T-town and stopped at a shopping center. We went to the electronics store, but he decided not to buy a laptop and talk to his parents first. Then we went to a shoe store, they didn't have the shoes he wanted. We walked down to a clothing store to look for orange shirts for our family photos next weekend, they had none. We drove across the street and went to a department store and found the orange shirts we were looking for. However, there is another one of these particular department stores much closer to home and if we hadn't driven to Tulsa, we could have gotten our shirts in Stillwater next week. We drove to a sporting goods store and again, no shoes. Stop #1 = strikeout.

We drove to a mall that was about 20 minutes away where the store that had the shoes online was located. Five shoe stores later, no shoes. They were either out of stock or the store didn't carry them. And the store that had them advertised online said that his size was completely out of stock nationwide. We consoled ourselves with a cookie for me, a brownie for Jakob and coffee for D. Stop #2 - strikeout.

We drove another 20 minutes to the park where the cultural festival was to be held. We were super excited about going; D and I had never been before and Jakob would get to eat some food from his homeland, and this is supposed to be a premier event; known worldwide. Let me tell you about it - IT BLEW. All three of us were utterly disappointed and felt like it definitely did not live up to it's name. There were a few rides, which none of us were interested in. There were a few vendors selling knick-knacks and t-shirts, which none of us were interested in. There was lots of food, which we ate, even though it was overpriced. There were several bands, but the music was so loud inside that we couldn't even hear each other talk and had to use abbreviated sign language to communicate with each other. After we'd been there for about an hour, we'd had enough and decided to go to the football game. D asked if I knew where we were playing and I said that I thought it was in Dewey and Jakob agreed.  We wouldn't make it before kickoff, but we'd be there before the second quarter. Stop #3 = strikeout.

We left the park and headed north to get on the highway. However, the highway is under construction and we didn't take into account that every single entrance to the highway was shut down. So, we ended up in downtown Tulsa. We tried to take our normal route back to the highway, but it was blocked off. When we found another entrance to the highway, we didn't know if we were now east or west of US75, the highway we needed to get on to go to Dewey, so we got on US412 and headed west, thinking since the two highway intersect, we'd run into US75. Oh, no. We were still east of US75, so we ended up right back down at the park where we'd just left 15 minutes earlier. I think I might have uttered 1 or 20 bad words. So, once we were back at our starting point, we went south and found an entrance onto the highway and followed it around and 30 minutes after we'd started, we were finally where we needed to be. As we headed out of town, I asked, "The game is in Dewey, right?" and D and Jakob both said yes. D had been texting Shawna about the game, so we were positive that's where we needed to go.

We drove north for about an hour to Dewey and as we entered town I told D that I didn't know exactly where the stadium was, so he needed to start looking for stadium lights or I would have to stop and ask for directions. Then we saw the stadium. No lights on. No cars in the parking lot. No kids. No parents. No bands. No mascots. No teams. No cheerleaders. Nothing. From the back seat Jakob said, "How do you spell the name of this town?" "D-e-w-e-y," I said. "Oh, the game is in Depew." I think I said another bad word. We were at least 90 minutes away from Depew; there was no way were making the game. D texted Shawna again and she said that when she had received his text earlier, she thought that his phone had autocorrected "Depew" to "Dewey". If you're allowed 4 strikes, then this was #4 for us.

We wasted 8 hours of our lives driving to and around Tulsa, then to Dewey and then home, shopping for nothing and walking around a festival that we didn't enjoy. We wasted $35 in gas, $10 to park, $6 each to get into the festival and $50 in tickets that we had to purchase for use inside the festival. It wasn't anyone's fault, it's just the way things happened on a random Thursday. As Jakob said when we finally got home, "It was a bad day all around."

Poor pete

A few weeks ago D told me that one of the petes had died under our back porch. I logged the info in my brain and immediately forgot about it.

A few days later I stepped out onto the back porch and there was an awful, I mean AWFUL, smell - but I was only getting it in small whiffs. I knew it was a dead animal, but I couldn't tell where the smell was coming from.

The next day, the smell was worse and I couldn't even stay outside because it was so raunchy. As I stepped back inside, I remembered what I had forgotten - there's a dead pete out there! I went back out and took a look; sure enough, poor pete was there. I gagged and told D he needed to haul it off. Which he promptly refused to do, saying it wouldn't stink in a day or two. I hate to say it, but he was right. Two days later, poor pete's bones were still there, but the smell and any other remnants were gone.

We have no idea what happened to pete; it looks like he just laid down and passed away quietly. There were no obvious injuries and no blood. I'm not sure why he chose the area under our porch for his final resting place; generally wild rabbits run away from humans. A lot of animals will seek out a solitary place when they know they're dying, so I'm baffled as to why he would go under our porch. Maybe he felt close to us because we feed the birds and petes and he wanted to die close to his food source? And I want to know why he died. Did something scare him to death? Did he have a heart attack? Was he old and just die of natural causes? Did he eat some kind of poison? I don't know.....

This leaves me in the same quandry as the old woman who swallowed a fly, I don't know why she swallowed the fly.... been trying to figure that one out since I was five lol.

In the early morning...

5:15 am

1.  Step outside to see if there are any armadillos or other critters in the yard.

2.  Shoot said armadillo.

3.  Let the babies out to potty.

4.  Notice a super bright star in the eastern sky that you think must be a planet.

5.  Haul the telescope out to the front porch so you can investigate.

6.  Spend 10 minutes trying to find the "star" in the viewfinder because it's early and your brain is foggy.

7.  Find said "star", which is actually Venus, and marvel that you can actually see a planet so clearly and tear up a little bit at the majesty of the moment.

8.  Yell in a whisper, because you don't want to wake those who are still sleeping inside, at the babies as they chase after several petes. Run, pete, run!

9.  Watch the girls prance back pridefully as if they really got pete, when in reality he ran under the fence and the girls couldn't go any further.

10.  Haul the telescope back inside while trying to not trip over the babies as they run around your legs, fighting to get in the door first.

11.  Realize you're now running late, skip breakfast and forget your lunch on the counter as you rush out the door.

First game

Jakob played in a one day tournament in Berryhill on Saturday. Eight boys went, coached by two parents, and played three games. They won the first two and then Berryhill beat them by two points in the last game. Jakob said it was a lot of fun and he can't wait for basketball to officially start! We weren't able to go because we had to work, but Belinda was nice enough to take some photos! Look for #45!

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!

I can think of many captions for this photo, none of which have anything to do with basketball. Something like, "Strike a pose!" a la Madonna :)

Leap and block!

Nice!

Hustle!

Down our long dusty driveway....

I love walking down our driveway, whether it's just to retrieve the mail or to take the girls for a little outing. There's something comforting about walking down the driveway and not a sound can be heard except for the wind blowing across the tall grass and through the trees, the crunch of gravel under my feet and the pump jack moving up and down. It's such a peaceful place; some days I think I could just plop a lawn chair down in the middle of the driveway and stay there all day.

Part of our driveway was formerly the bed for the train tracks. The trains and the tracks are since long gone and now, in addition to being our driveway, the road that's left leads to the pasture and out to the pump jack and tanks. I can remember driving along the road to go check cattle or riding horses out here when I was a little girl. The road is bumpy and dusty and long and beautiful.

My babies like the driveway, too; sniffing, exploring and checking stuff out. There was a huge pile of cotey poo in the middle of the driveway, about halfway to the road. Biggest pile I've ever seen. I know you wanted to know that.

This is some sort of animal hair, I assume from a dead rabbit, that I found on the edge of the driveway. We call rabbits "petes", short for Peter Cottontail. I also assume he met a violent death from a cotey or some other predator. Poor pete. Also, fyi, quail are called "bobs", short for Bobwhite. It's important to know your terminology, so take out your pen and paper and write that down - add it to the definition of cotey from last week.

This is a funky looking plant and I have no idea what it is. The tall shoot came up several months ago and the smaller ones sprouted in the last couple of weeks. Any clue as to what it is?

This is a wad of metal, wood and barbed wire that I surmise are remnants of a feed trough and fence. See, I'm smart like that, I can just look at a pile of crap and figure out what it used to be. We found it bound up in the tall grass when we were plowing a food plot for the deer.

And these are bones of the old train tracks - broken, busted up and rotted out railroad ties. They also turned up when we plowed. It's amazing what you find abandoned and forgotten in the tall grass.

These are killdeer eggs. We watched the mama killdeer lay her eggs over the course of a few days, then she sat on them for the next 4 weeks and then poof! there were four baby killdeer running around. Rather than stay in the nest and wait for mom and pop to bring them food, baby killdeer can stand and run shortly after hatching. About a month later, they're on their own.

This is the mama killdeer pretending to be injured to distract me so that I wouldn't take pictures of her babies. I was not swayed.

This is a 4" x 4.5" cat track that I found in the driveway last year. We haven't seen the cat that made the tracks, but he must be a monster!

These are the things that entertain me - my babies, cotey poo, dead animal fur, funky plants, old rusty metal, rotten wood, hatching birds and big cat tracks. My husband is so lucky that I'm not high maintenance. And if you'd like to come relax and plop down in a lawn chair with me in my driveway and watch the day pass by, BYOC.

Picky eaters

I finally cooked something that Jakob didn't like ........... hominy. How can this be? I don't understand. It's so good and good for you! He didn't know what it was and quickly decided that it wasn't for him. I'm going to venture a guess that he probably wouldn't like grits, either. D doesn't like hominy, either. Picky, picky men folk! D ate about three bites and I think jakob had less than that. lol

I will admit that I don't care for plain hominy, but I drain off the liquid and melt cheese over it. And it's yummy! I wanted to make something we don't usually eat and I thought the hominy would be a nice alternative. Needless to say, the girls ate most of it. And they loved it.


Ode to Hominy
Oh, hominy, thou art so yummy,
I like it when you fill up my tummy!

You're big and come in yeller or white,
I eat you up in big ol' bites!

I don't like you plain, but like you with cheese,
My mouth says, "Can I have seconds, please?"

I don't understand why people call you icky,
I think that they're just too darn picky!

A poem for gloves

We took the boy to the farm and home store,
Where they had gloves and gloves galore!

He thought this pair looked really cool.
And with them, he can wield any tool.

They fit his hands nice and snug,
And keep them clean when smashing a bug.

Next on the list, he needs a pair of boots,
But, being a cowboy is not in his roots.

We'll get him converted to our country ways,
Before he goes back to Ger-ma-nay!

:)