Today my dad woke me up at the ass crack of dawn to help him out at the farm. Usually when this happens, he asks me to drive him to one field or another so he can drive a tractor or some other piece of machinery back to the farm. To my utter dismay this was not to be the case today. That's right folks, my dad woke me up at 7 in the a.m., when I would have rather slept for another 4 or so hours, and expected me to work until almost sundown. I mean really, just because I'm spending my two weeks off from work at my parents' house, eating their food, and using their gas; does that mean I should be subjected to a full day of manual labor?
Yes?!
Well who asked you anyway?
Oh...right. Well, anyway, on with my tale. My friends usually make fun of me for being a farm girl who never really worked on the farm, so I sent them a picture as evidence that it does happen on occasion. Today I was responsible for running the Kabota (the brand name of a tractor company-all you really need to know is that it's a small tractor that I only learned how to drive for one summer several years ago). I got to lay down a line of tile (which is actually a kind of thick plastic tubing) from one side of the field to the other. That's a lot of bouncing around in my day.
I met a man named Frank who sometimes works for my dad. He told me that he needed to call his wife to bring him some water because otherwise his mouth would become "as dry as a popcorn fart." He then proceeded to tell me why he had a perpetual case of cotton mouth: "I had throat cancer and when they give me the radiation-the chemo-I got an awful case of dry mouth. Water works best but girl scout cookies and bacon can get it going too."
Imagine my surprise when this cancer survivor-who put in a hard day's work I might add-was lighting up later this morning. I swear by the end of the day he had gone through at least one pack. My dad told me later that Frank's philosophy on life was that, "We've all gotta die from something."
By the end of my impromptu work day I had driven back and forth across that field and to the farm and back several times. The biggest bit of excitement came when someone put the tile on the spool wrong and when we tried to put the whole thing on the other way, we had a clusterf*** of tile trying to unspool itself onto the ground. Three farmers, my cousin (a sometimes lineman) and me (a former theater manager). Were all trying to figure out how to fix things without making it worse. As it turned out, the whole thing looked like a film wrap to me. I tried to explain to my dad how I thought we could fix it, but he's a stubborn man (don't think I can't see some of you nodding your head and muttering to yourselves, "So that's where she gets it.") and he didn't want to listen to me. Eventually, after much cajoling, I got him to listen to my idea. I won't say it was the best, but it got the job done. Of course, one of the other guys added to it, but the main thing was that we got it figured out and got it done.
My day ended at 6:00 p.m. So I had an 11 hour day, 10 of which were spent actually working. While I thought I and my father deserved a good rest, he had a weekly ritual of shooing at clay targets that he did not want to miss. He convinced me to take up a shotgun and join him on at least a couple of runs. I shot 50 shells during two 25 shell practice rounds and hit a total of 20 targets. I haven't actually handled a firearm in almost ten years, so I'm feeling pretty good about myself :)
So, all in all, I have had a well rounded redneck day. Now, I'm so tired I think I really may pass out at any second, so I'm going to crash. Have a good night y'all ;)
