Pico, Pasta Salad and 'Pologies

My kitchen has new counter tops. In my joy of having the command center back, I took the time to make Pico and some rocking pasta salad. Since the kids are in a summer program and I had the house to myself, I cranked up the Beach Boys and let my fingers fly.
Pico for me is an easy thing. Chop, chop chop, mix, set.
Pasta salad, too, is a time tested tradition. While I chopped and sorted, scraped and cut, my thoughts flit from place to place. By the time I had set the pasta to cooking, my thoughts drifted back to my father.
You see, yesterday, he came out to inspect the tile. It met with his approval, which is a strange thing to say, considering it is my house, but I respect and value his opinion. Then he gave me a "dad-look" and said that he heard I wrote about him on my blog. He didn't mention if he had read it or not, or had merely heard about it from someone else. My blog apparently gets around.
I went back while the pasta boiled (may I suggest fiori pastas the next time you make salad, they are really pretty for summer) and re-read my blog.
So I am writing an apology. This story wasn't really about my Dad asking for help. It was about my father and I learning together and mastering a new task. I love my father beyond measure, warts and all.
He is often not an easy man to get along with. But never have you met a more generous person. He will open his house, his tool box and his wallet. He will give you help and oh, yes, his opinion.
He makes a mule look biddable, but an ox look under worked. He has never been one to shirk. He worked longer hours and more days ( except for maybe Steve and there are a lot of similarities there!).
Now in his retirement (which he still grumbles about) he is not above learning. And learning, as he will tell you, learning is a life long process. He plays golf and dotes on his grandchildren.
So my previous blog was meant to show that Dad and I both learned this new chore. We both brought something to it. I didn't work with Dad much in the office (ask Jennifer) but I have been my Dad's side kick on so many other projects.
From my Dad's side, I learned to paint and wall paper. I learned how to transplant trees in the fall. I learned out to use a hose to get PVC pipe under a sidewalk. I learned about changing tires, loading moving vans, household chemicals, how to conduct yourself in an interview, the nature of softly treating animals, how to play tennis and how to love.
I saw him love my mother (still does). Not with overt displays, but sometimes with extreme subtly. I have seen him love my sister and myself. We were everything to him and he worked hard to make it so. But he still coached soccer and helped hold horses at shows.

So as my pasta has now come to full al dente (another Dad thing), I leave you with this.











My father, flawed as he is, is a great Dad, Pop-pop and man. He has imperfections, and as we know, there are NO perfect people. Dad had no sons. He had two daughters. He couldn't have been happier.
I am a lot like my Dad. And that is just fine by me.





And how was your day?

Practice Practice Practice

This is a tale about patience. This is a tale about knowing when you are wrong and can't go any further. And above all of admitting when you need some help.

The enemy:




A very simple and valuable thing. A round bale of wheat hay. An item of importance to most people who own large herbivores. An item that stand over six feet tall and weighs about 1200 pounds. This item cannot be picked up and tossed into the bed of a pickup truck.



This is the tool. A simple and very creative trailer/hauler. The hauler is backed up to the bale, the forks are slid under the bale. A hand crank pulls the bale up into a semi reclining position. The bale is driven to where it is needed. The hand crank lowers the bale in place. The trailer is pulled forward about three feet. The crank is used to lift the forks, flipping the bale onto it's flat surface. The end.
Or so it should be.

Enter my father. My father is an intelligent man who took up hobby farming in his golden years. He, with the help of a knowledgeable friend, grew wheat on his 40 acre plot. That is a postage stamp in these parts.
Good snow. Good sun. Good rain. Good wheat.
Cutting. Curing. Baling.
Hungry horses.
Borrow a hay hauler.
Dad has an older tractor, hence forth be known as Gertrude, that is almost as old as him. It has grumpy gears that don't like to catch, a halfway clutch (won't engage until halfway or better) and a very reluctant fuel gauge.,
Dad had me come out to the field while he drove Gertrude. He had me sit and watch as he tried over and over to line up the trailer with the bale. Gertrude turned left, Gertrude pulled forward, Gertrude turned right, Gertrude backed up. Miss, miss, miss, miss. I sat on the little lawn tractor, which I used to get out in the field because Dad doesn't allow hitchhikers, texting and playing sudoku on my phone.
Finally Dad reluctantly agrees that no, he can not line this up. I casually mentioned that I loaded the last one, with the truck when I couldn't see the trailer. Steam slowly seeped from his ears.
He climbed down (a feat in it's self, considering his bum hip) and grumbled about the nature of poor Gertrude. A tractor has no safeties, a tractor is raw power, it will kill you. Then he was angry that I was "doing the gears wrong and it was scaring him". I tried to not breathe fire back and calmly mentioned that this was my first time with Gertrude and that maybe if he would explain the gears, then maybe I would know them.
More steam, head shaking and some mild stomping. I know there were a host of swear words waiting expectantly at the gate, but my Dad has always been a gentleman about not swearing in front of the ladies of the family. Steve has informed me that he knows enough words and phrases to make a drunk marine blush.
Swearing aside, I take ten minutes to undo his line up and to catch the bale. It is cranked up. I am dismissed from Gertrude with a jerk of the thumb and remanded to my lawn tractor.
He takes the bale out of the field and down to the turn out for his horses. He moved Gertrude along the fence, turning the corner and I am beginning to wonder if he is just going to keep circling.
Through hand signs and yelling over Gertrude's cranky roar, I learn that he wants to back the bale into a corner. I sigh. Two and a half hours have passed since he needed my help in this. It was past 6:30 and I had four kids that were starving for dinner because all of the yummy but nutritionally vague snacks my mother provided were not filling the void that only whining to mom can fill.
Tack is gone, subtly has flown the coop. I yell back to him, "We just spent 45 minutes proving you can't back up!"
He gave me the patented "dad look" that said my complete lack of respect had been noted. He did, however, put Gertrude in park and we went to lower the bale. I leaned on the crank, and the lock didn't budge. I leaned harder and lifted both feet off the ground. The lock didn't budge.
Because I know when I am up against the wall, I called out, "I don't have enough mass to unlock the gears!"
Dad yells back, "That's a first". Lovely.
He climbs down, once again, a long procedure and we fix the locking mechanism. I lower the bale as he starts the process of climbing back up. I then ask him to pull forward three feet. He fights Gertrude into gear and pulls up six, lurches back one and motions for me to lever up the forks to tip the bale over. Crank, crank, crank, slip. Too far forward and the forks don't have any leverage and the bale rocks on it's rim. He makes a face and I think I see a thought bubble above his head, mixed symbols floating, #@$%$%^. Maybe I was wrong.
We both take up the task of pushing and leaning on the upper edge and manage to heave and push the bale over. Hay slivers and chafe filter into my hair, my eyes and worse, my bra.
Dad then announces that the round bale holder needs moved into place.
I loose my patience and inform him that I have four hungry kids waiting in his backyard and a husband who has contacted me twice, wondering where I was. I was granted mercy.

The following day, I get the phone call. I can have a bale of hay. Yipee! I have to help again. Yikes.

Dad pauses and yells, which way should I turn?
Angels trumpeted from the heavens, planets previously lost, found alignment, millions saw the face of God in the clouds.
We managed to load the bale in record time.  We haul it to my house, the horses welcome it with fast and happy teeth.
We off  load the bale and manage the flip, prefect.  Dad never had to dismount.  He cranked Gertrude into high gear and sped her home at an amazing ten miles per hour.

In the end, Dad has learned to ask and accept help.  I learned to have patience with him.  In  the end, I think we both should practice more so we can get our time down even better!

Practice, Practice, Practice.

And how was your day?

Wrack Winds......

It is almost impossible to describe the winds on the High Plains.  They are ever present, no day is perfectly calm.  Some days they flirt about, toppling a chair or moving errant scraps of paper along their journeys.  Other days the wind is very much alive.  Seemingly self aware, it coils around your legs, pressing with force against your body.  It has a deep throaty sound and has weight that pushes back against your chest, eager to capture your own breath.  It roars through the landscape, scraping the earth, throwing up clouds of sand and grit.  The tumbleweeds are helpless in its grasp, sailing and floating to land miles from their birth.

The wind is vicious, tearing at your hair, tugging your clothing, desperate to have your attention.  There is no ignoring it.  There is no pretending it isn't there.  It howls defiantly, crowing it's territory, laying the few courageous flowers  sideways, and giving trees a permanent sculptured image.
The wind flows through the smallest cracks and holes.  It breaks from being the large entity and fingers it's way into the most secure of homes with small puffs of the whole.  The dust is dropped with glee around the tightest windows.
Birds have learned to hunker down, deep into the strongest of the plants they can find.  Those that venture out are clutched and tossed, their only hope is to stay low.  I am sure that birds pray on days like this.  I am sure they ask their Maker for  safe passage, for a passing of the terrible beast that claims their skies.
Even now, it has knocked over well supported garden structures, it has moved metal objects, it has relocated pounds and pounds of topsoil.  It is still angry, I can still here is groan and mutter.
But I am safe within my walls, and when I crouch and go forth, I hold tightly to my son's hand, urging him to keep his eyes closed.  I stand against the wind, but only long enough to find safety, not unlike the birds.
It is a beast.  It has a voice.  And there is none that can slay it.

Conner's Last Day of PreK

Pictures say it all....

And how was your day?

Aint' Nothing but a Twin Thing

So the twins were recently on a field trip.  They had a wonderful time but I noticed something in my pictures.
While the boys both had different trip buddies, that they stuck with very well, they still have the unconscious need to touch.
The first picture is each twin sticking with their buddy.  The second photo I caught a subtle touch, a reassurance of each other, one hand grazing the other.
Sigh, life is beautiful.

So how was your day?