Yeehaw!!!

I'm sitting here scratching chigger bites (in some very personal places I might add), moving a bit slow because of sore muscles, and my lower legs are itchy and covered with scratches and bruises. You might think that's a shame, but all I can say is . . . what a great weekend!!!!

We (Ken, Rick, Kevin, me, and Caleb, my nephew who is practically a son) made an overnight trip to the country. We took all the 3- and 4-wheelers and spent Sunday morning riding the pastures looking for a newborn calf. We found him, even though his mother had him well hidden, and encouraged her, with the help of the noisy wheelers, to bring him to the front pasture with the rest of the herd. His momma, of course, took the route through the woods, so we had to ride and walk through the undergrowth, stickers, brambles, and poison ivy. We call it deep-woods navigation. (Note to self: next time wear long pants . . . :) It's even more interesting when you pull a trailer behind one of the wheelers. But when you start pulling a 4-wheeler in a trailer behind another 4-wheeler, I call it 4-wheeling redneck style. Leave it to that bunch to come up with this idea . . . . . :)


After the work was done, it was time for another try at making the trek to a neighboring town by way of the backroads on the wheelers. Why??? Because it's a fun ride with lots of dirt roads and mud. We'd tried to make the trip a couple other times, but the road goes through the bottoms (where it crosses several creeks) and the way was blocked by water across the road due to all the rain we've had this spring and summer. It had been too deep to drive through before. One time, Rick, on the only 4-wheel-drive 4-wheeler out of the bunch, got stuck and we had to work to get him out. By the time he got unstuck, he was covered with mud and we were laughing so hard. I wish I'd gotten a picture of that. See Rick is the quiet one who never gets as muddy as the others when they go wheeling . . . . . until that day. Anyway, the way was still blocked Sunday, but not as badly as before. So we threw some branches into the truck ruts (did I tell you that there was an abandoned truck stuck in the mud on the side of the road?? And a 4-wheel-drive truck at that . . . we're talking ooey-gooey, suck-you-into-it MUD). We finally got through the ruts to the woods, drove through the woods a bit, and came back out on the road past the bad part. But we were pretty muddy anyway. Once we got past the bad section, we rode on up the road throwing mud clods all over the place off the tires. It has this way of making an arc over the wheeler from back to front and coming down on your head and in front of you, kind of like riding in a rolling mud clod. When we got back to high ground, we sat there trying to decide whether to go on to the town down around the bend or not. My nephew said it was already 6 pm and beer time, so we about-faced and went back through the mud one more time, laughing like hell, heading home.

It was a great day!!! A GREAT day!!!! I'm a very lucky mom. My boys don't mind me tagging along on their excursions . . . and Heaven help me, I love every minute of it . . . . . :)

Oh yeah . . . 31 years ago, a little boy came into my life and changed it forever. That's him on the 4-wheeler on the far left . . . (Kevin's in the foreground checking out the mud and Caleb is down the road there with a buried-up 3-wheeler). Anyway, I just wanted to say Happy Birthday, Rick!!!! I love you with all my heart . . . and you still light up my life . . . . . :)