Another day, another animal

Since we moved to Arkansas, I have been working on fixing up the little house that we are going to live in. Today I went to my house to do some work (we are currently living with the in-laws until our house in habitable), when I pull up and get out there is the sound of a dog barking really close by, but I see no dog. Now, most homes in Ben Lomond are built on a crawl space foundation - i.e. they are up off the ground and don't have a solid concrete foundation. Around the base of the house are small spaces where you can crawl up under the house if you need to (hence the term "crawl space"). Typically, the spaces where you can crawl up under the house are blocked by little gate looking things. Well, on our house, one of the gates is missing and Josh needs to replace it - so any old thing can snuggle up under our house (see where I am going with this).

So, I finally figure out that my neighbor’s dog is stuck under my house because he chased a cat in there and had it cornered!! My neighbor comes out of his house and says "I think my dog done chased a critter up under your house." He then proceeds to crawl under my house and yell for his dog to get out from under the house. The dog finally gives up on the cat, and gets out from under my house, but the cat stayed there. Now, I guess you can look at that as a good thing because if there were any mice under there the cat would eat them. The funny thing was, I was standing in the kitchen later and kept hearing the cat running into the grate things trying to get out. I still don't know if I am cut out for this farm life thing - every day is a new adventure that is for sure!!

Learnin'

Today was a new adventure! I learned to drive the John Deere Tractor today. Up until this point, I have been scared to learn how to drive the tractor because its not like driving a car, it has a lot of geers and to stop it you have to push the clutch instead of the brake and stuff like that. Aside from almost decapitating my husband with the front end loader, I did pretty good. Course, I only drove around at about 2 mph, but it was fun to learn something new.

Famous quote from my neighbor

So, I met my neighbor today. He is a nice man with four young boys (I didn't meet his wife). Now as nice as this man is, he is certainly country (has a very thick southern accent) and the outside of his house has more junk around it than you can imagine. Of particular interest is an above the ground pool that is not quite finished - i.e. there is nothing surrounding the pool to hide the blue tarp that surrounds the base of the pool. Also interesting is a goat that lives by the pool and walks around the pool all day. When we asked the man about the goat, he said that his 3 year old son wanted it and (I quote):
"I oughta barbeque that son of a bitch"

This struck me as hilariously funny!!

Farm Life

So, after 5 long years in Colorado, we are finally back in Arkansas. Ya know, after all the time looking forward to moving I still feel like I am in a foreign land. Don't get me wrong it sure is nice to be closer to my family and getting back to my roots so to speak, but I am still adjusting to this whole farm thing.

A little background info is probably in order. So I met my husband Josh at the University of Arkansas. He was really fun and charming and as an added bonus was also very smart. He is from this itty bitty town called Ben Lomond, AR. Now, Ben Lomond is about 10 minutes outside of Ashdown, AR and about 30 minutes north of Texarkana. Population in Ben Lomond - 126! Not a typo - one hundred and twenty six! So, I knew when I met and fell in love with Josh that living in this little place was a possibility. You see, my husband has this strange obsession with cows! He bought his first cow when he was 12 years old and his "herd" has grown to a total of 220 head to date. I also knew this when we got married. So Josh's plan has been that he wants to be a farmer, but being the smart one that he is realized that farming is a tough way to support a family. So, he has spent the last 5 years pursuing a masters and Phd in reproductive physiology in Colorado. This way, Josh is qualified to do all kinds of reproductive services (in cattle) that will supposedly rake in the dough - or he can go teach at the college level. So, after all that schoolin' Josh is now the most educated farmer in history. But you know what - he loves it! He is the most happy running after those cows than he has ever been and that makes me happy!

For those of you that know me well, know that I am somewhat of a girly girl. I like things clean, I like to be clean, and I don't venture out much without at least a little makeup applied. Well, farm life sure has changed me. I now own my own pair of Carhart overalls, steel towed boots, and leather gloves. I know how to herd cattle, feed cattle, drive a mule (a large scale four wheeler type thing), build fence, been to a number of cow sales, feedlots, etc. Yep, I am a genuine farm girl!

We are renting a small house in Ben Lomond until we figure out how the whole farm thing is going to go financially. There aren't many living choices available in Ben Lomond, so when this house became available for rent, we jumped on it without really looking at it (we lived in CO at the time). Well, the nicest thing I can say about it is that the roaches are friendly and the mice inhabiting it were all dead upon discovery - thank God for Terminix!!! But, after the roaches were exterminated and the place cleaned up a bit, it is not so bad after all. The other day however, I walked out to the back yard and there was a half eaten dead chicken lying on the ground! It had no head - only its feet were left - GROSS!!

All that to say that it is definitely a different world down here, but I am slowly adjusting. I love having Josh’s parents close by and being able to be within driving distance to my parents is really fun! I am just going to have to be a bit tougher when it comes to bugs and random other grossness – I’m sure there will be more interesting stories to come!

Ordinary Day

Today was a pretty normal day down on the farm. It was raining which meant that Josh couldn't do any work outside so we got to hang out some today. That is one super nice thing about his present vocation - even though he works really hard from dawn until dusk, I still get to see him periodically during the day and when it rains I get to see him a lot!