Last Friday was a perfectly pleasant day. The weather was beautiful and it was a bright, sunny day. The horses and people were all smiling and content. It was one of those days when everyone with an office job is jealous of those working outside.
Jason and I were filling up the hay feeders before we took a break for lunch. We have a routine down. He is on the tractor moving the bales around and placing them in the feeders. I open and shut the gates and remove the strings from the bales. We were in the last pasture in the midst of putting out the last two bales when the front right tire on the tractor went flat. The amount of time that went by from the moment I noticed the tire was looking low to the tire was flat was less than a minute. Not kind of flat, or just starting to go flat, but so flat I wasn't sure if the tire was going to stay on the rim in the span of a minute. I ran to the gate and screamed at Jason to leave the pasture now!! He managed to get the tractor just on the other side of the pasture gate and then it was going to go no further.
Needless to say this put quite a damper on our moods. In a flash we went from working at a leisurely pace and enjoying the day to OMG we have to get this tire fixed right now. Jason removed the tire from the tractor, we loaded it in the trunk of the car and headed to the co-op.
The co-op is on the other side of town from our farm, and of course it was right at lunch time. We managed to hit every single traffic light as it was turning red. When we were actually moving everyone was acting like they were out for a Sunday drive and the top speed seemed to be in the neighborhood of 20 miles per hour.
Jason is an impatient driver at the best of times and this was pushing him over the edge. As we approached yet another traffic light turning red behind a line of cars going about 15 miles per hour Jason blew his top. "The only thing that could make this day worse would be if we get caught in a !#$% funeral procession!"
You can imagine what happened next.
That's correct, about two minutes later cue the funeral procession. The look on Jason's face was priceless. I couldn't help but burst into hysterical laughter. After a minute even Jason started laughing and our moods improved dramatically thanks to that funeral procession. I am sorry for the friends and family who lost a loved one but I thank them for making us take a moment to realize that our life really wasn't as bad as we were making it out to be. An hour later the tire was repaired. We returned to the farm and the drive back to the farm went much more smoothly than the drive to the co-op. Jason mounted the tire on the tractor and we finished feeding hay.
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The bird in this blurry picture taken early this morning has been identified on Facebook as either a chicken hawk or a red tail hawk. What do you think?
Noble
Kennedy
MyLight and Cinnamon
Who is that . . . ?
It's Sebastian!
Stormy saying to Rampal "let's play!"
Cuffie and Traveller
Calimba and Maisie
B-Rad
Alex always stands with his tongue sticking out for a few minutes after getting a drink of water
Gus
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6 comments:
Looks like a Redtail to me. Nice!
Calimba? Have we met Calimba?
Didn't think you guys had red-tailed hawks in your neck of the woods. I've always thought of them as "western" birds--but I don't know nuttin'! Tails on red-tailed hawks are a very obvious reddish-brown--can't see whether that's the case in your photo--Did either of you see?
Glad you got the tire fixed.
Love the story!
I thought for a moment that that was Lily's head buried in the hay - she does that a lot - but the ears weren't right.
And Pie does the tongue-sucking thing after drinking too - I've never got a picture of it but should try to.
Love that tale! Its always the way, need to be somewhere? Everything tries to get in your way!!
Looks like a Buzzard to me, but then again, what do I know?
I asked Pete who is an avian expert. He said it was a Broad-wing Hawk and not a Red Tail. Right now the Broadwing is migrating and would be coming down from Canada into Tennessee. FYI, the Red Tail hawk can be found all over the US and Canada.
At least it wasn't 3 funeral processions! My grandma lived in a small town and there were two other funerals that day and the processions all left at like the same time.
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