I have always enjoyed Kristen Kimball’s blog posts about their life on a farm. So this post is just going to document a day of our life. Yes this is a more dramatic day than normal... and on top of it Tyrel has been sick. So things don’t always happen like this... but then again, yes our life is very much like this and always full of surprises.
Yesterday, I woke up around 4am and couldn’t sleep, so I worked on a video I was supposed to get done for our family. I laid back in bed for 30 minutes and thought about what I could make for supper. I wanted to have our brother in law over for a meal since his family is gone, but Tyrel asked me the night before if I would go to work with him. My only option was the crockpot then, and I wanted to use some ground beef I had in the fridge. I decided to make some chili, so I got up at 6:30 to brown the meat and pack our lunch for the day. I was running out of lunch meat for sandwiches so I made a few grilled cheeses. I got the rest of our lunch packed and put the chili ingredients in the crockpot, minus 4 ingredients I was going to have to buy — the joys of a newly established pantry.
At 7:15 we left the house for Lewisburg (an hour away) to pick up a spreader for a job. On our way back with the spreader, the chain was engaging and spinning so we stopped to adjust the wheel away. I found out when we were nearly back that we were supposed to be meeting people at the job site at 9am and we were late — it was nearly 10am. I felt quite horrible because I could have started on our lunch and supper earlier. I’ve heard that communication is normally the cause of any problem for newly married couples. And yes, we both have some of that to work on.
We pulled into the field Tyrel was supposed to spread lime on... and as expected, the guy over the job was there waiting with Keith who had already unloaded the two tractors he had brought on the tractor trailer. After unhooking, Keith took Tyrel’s truck home and left us with the tractor trailer. In theory we would spread the lime on both fields there, take both tractors home, then come back with the truck and take the spreader back to Lewisburg that evening.
We were on our third lap around the field and things were going good. :) Tyrel was just saying he was hungry, so I was grabbing a grilled cheese out of the lunch box and was going to attempt to pour some tomato soup out of the thermos (a challenging thing to do in a bumpy field 😬). We went over a ditch and something messed up with one of the wheels on the spreader. 😓
The only thing to do was to take the tractor trailer home to get the truck and some tools and call to get a new wheel.
So I got my first ride in the new big truck going on the curvy narrow roads. I wondered when we would meet other semis how both of us would fit. From my vantage point in the passenger seat it just looked like we were surely covering the whole road already. 😂
We came back and jacked the spreader up and took the wheel off and found the problem. The lugnuts hadn’t been tightened down good, so they were wearing on the studs of the bolts. When we went over the ditch and the weight of the spreader went to that one wheel things just went south.
He’s smiling because I told him to. 😂 How ironic it looks now because it was so not a “smiley” day. 😝
We headed back to Lewisburg again to find another wheel. It was about 3:30 and Tyrel hadn’t eaten anything all day, so he finally ate the ham sandwich and some soup. 😏
Can I just insert here that my hands, spots on my skirt, and everything in the lunch box were covered in sticky juice. 🙄 I had taken half a grapefruit with sugar sprinkled on it in a ziplock bag and it leaked. 😭 The grapefruit was really good though, and I’m hoping my sacrifice to get all sticky to eat it will keep me from getting sick with whatever Tyrel has. 😜
We found a wheel 👍🏼 then went across town to NAPA to get new bolts. Still thinking about supper, I walked across to a Dollar General to get the rest of the ingredients I needed while he was in there and some lunch meat for the next day.
Sadly, NAPA only had 1 of the 8 bolts we needed but the rest would be in at 7 the next morning. I was thinking, “Wow, 4 hours in the truck today whizzing down the curvy roads today and possibly 4 more hours tomorrow if we get done in time to take the spreader back!!” 😳
We left Lewisburg at 5pm, got to his parents at 6:20 and he had to talk to his dad. So yep no time for making supper for anyone. I would be doing good to eat supper myself and get dressed to go to church at 7. And even that didn’t happen, as we got home 10 minutes before time to turn around and leave for church. Plus, the gritty lime was in my hair, so shower time. 😏
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Today, we’re back at it! This morning, I grabbed my d gloves, hat, and sweatshirt out of the washer still dirty to wear today.
I put some ribs and sauce in the crockpot for supper, made us lunch and we headed out to feed cows first.
Before we pulled into the house, from the road we could see the electric fence was down and trampled by the cows. 🙄😬 They were filling their precious bellies with silage from the big pile that’s supposed to be covered with the tarp they trampled.
Summer’s dog, Arora, helping us get the cows back. ;)
After fixing the fence and feeding the cows, Tyrel took the tire off the old wheel and on the new one. That was always something that amazed me. I still remember the time when we were dating that I learned that they mounted their own tires. Haha! I was like, “I thought that was only for a tire specialist to do!” Well this was a huge bulky tire and of course he did it! 😊 I think I have the best, most capable man out there! 😘😉
We’re in Lewisburg now, about to get the bolts that we can hopefully mount the tire with. And maybe no more surprises today?! ;)
And for the record... a selfie.
-MarLeahJoy
