I DON'T REMEMBER DROPPING THEM ON THEIR HEADS

Sometimes I wonder where I got my kids or what I did to make them so weird.  Surely it can’t be something they inherited.

My first child, CindyLooWho, and her brother, Beavis, have been challenged by their other brother, Bobert, to run in a half marathon in May.

 So they decided they needed to put in some training miles this morning… in a blizzard.  They asked me to drive them eight miles out into the Siberian Tundra east of CindyLooWho’s house.

They checked their GPS and the training aps on their mobile devices, made sure their running gear was all set…

…and ran off into the storm.  I felt like I was dropping off unwanted kittens.

Or maybe just very weird, nutcase wacked out children, who, by the way, immediately started running for home.

They told me they expected to arrive at the house in about an hour and a half so I went with DH to Walmart to get new wiper blades for my car.

 See, I knew I needed new wiper blades but every time I’m reminded it’s during a sideways snow storm or the drenching rain.  So every time I’ve ever bought wiper blades I’ve spent half an hour in a Walmart parking lot trying to install them in that same kind of gosh-awful storm.  Therefore when DH complained about the condition of my wiper blades I told him I’d buy them if he’d put them on my car.  Which he did in the parking lot in the wind and snow.

The cold and snow must have put a little fire in the hearts of the runners because they cut their time way down and arrived probably fifteen minutes early.  Therefore by the time we got back they were out of their cold clothes and getting warmed up and bragging about how hard core they were.  So I didn’t get photos of what they looked like after their run.

 But here’s what my car looked like after traveling over the same route.  So take that and add it to

 the Yeti in the movie, Monsters Inc. and you’ll have a pretty good picture. Sheesh! 

A REAL FARMER

On the previous post my friend, Anzu, commented she wanted to see the guy who went with the farm woman.  So to give equal time to my dad here is a post about the farmer.

If you’re looking for a photo of a real farmer, check out this one:

When the home town newspaper needed a picture of a farmer out standing in his field, they asked my dad to show off his wheat crop.

Here’s a photo I took of Dad at work in our barn milking cows.

To be fair to Mom this is one of Dad geared up for work in the winter.  Um, Dad, the calves are getting into the hay stack.

Dad had a real soft spot in his heart for animals.  Bingo, the cow dog, loved Dad with jealous passion to the point of climbing on his lap when he paid too much attention to cats like the black one there on the sofa.

Most visits to Grandma and Grandpa’s farm included a ride on the tractor.

While he was still healthy, Dad took anyone who was willing to his favorite fishing spots.

So, although some artists have depicted farmers and their wives like this…

My favorite farmers look like this.

A REAL FARM WOMAN

My poem in the previous post was a tribute to my mother and all women who work on a farm.  So often they have unfinished dreams and don't realize how unique they are.

When artists depict farm women sometimes they pose them like this—

 Very lovely, no?

A slightly more realistic, but still much romanticized painting by the very skilled artist, Robert Duncan.

Yet, any woman who has been there knows a real farm woman looks like this:

This is a very rare photo of my mother in her element.  Usually she was behind the camera or behind the cow.  Although Dad and we kids helped, often it was Mom who put on boots and overalls, went out in the dark and the cold and did the milking and cared for the cows. The ladies in our dairy herd were her babies. They helped put food on our table and us through college.

Another photo of Mom with a litter of kittens.  She raised and sold Manx cats, I think so she would have an excuse to always have a few extra felines around.

My kids have great memories of time spent at Grandma and Grandpa’s farm.

 This a picture taken after Grandma and Grandpa came and got the kids right after a flood devastated our town.  The girls got real farmer overalls and new cowboy hats.  All the clothes they owned were deep in mud.

A ride on Grandpa’s tractor was usually part of a visit.

This is how Grandma babysat.  That is the big tank that holds the milk behind our second son.  He is keeping Grandma company in the barn.

Our kids also loved to visit the animals.  They all have many great memories of the place.  It’s almost tragic that so few children now have an opportunity to know about farming, as family farms become more the exception than the norm.

Here’s to real farmers, men and women, who work long hours, gamble every day with the weather and the market, and put food on our tables with very little thanks.