Crazy Monday With Fairchild Farmgirl - The Shitzman Chronicles

Okay, I was too busy to find a guest for today's blog since this past week was crazy here.  We figured we hauled about 2,500 TONS of manure out of the feedlot. 

Yes, 2,500 tons of it.  That's a lot of Shitz-man. =)

So, the story I tell today will delight even the hardest of hearts...

It's about myself and my lovely husband.

And shitz. 

In the feedlot. 

=)

One day while I was out to here ----- with baby, (of course I was, I've had 6 pregnancies in six years...gulp...no wonder why I have to hold my mid section up with drainage ditch pipe.) 

I kid.

Anyway, my story begins with Big D feverishly working in the feedlots to clean them. ( I laugh now because we used to haul poop with one or two 5-6 ton spreaders and be at it for weeks!  Today should be the last day of hauling and it took 5 days.  Thank you 1 pay loader, 1 bobcat, 3 side dumps, 1 spreader truck, 2 15 ton spreaders and 1 11 ton spreader.) 

Amen!

Back to story time.  So on this particularly nice afternoon, I had the kids napping and I was in the house probably sitting back with a lemonade doing nothing...(again, I kid)  when the phone rang.  It was D.

"Can you bring your 4 wheeler down to the west pen and chase up some cows so I can get started on it?"
"Sure I'll be right down."  I said as I slipped on my new Ropers, I was going to be on the wheeler and they were quick to just slip on.  When will I ever learn?

So I buzzed down there on my 4 wheeler that let me tell you, I had bought in my crazy non-farming days.  It was a racing one, super light, super fast, super sucky in a feedlot situation.  It really was not built for that I'm telling ya.  I get to the gate where Big D is waiting for me and I quickly size up the situation.

"I'm not going in there." I said to him matter-a-factly.  "It must be 4 feet deep!"  In our defense, we NEVER let our lots get that bad, but we had a monsoon spring and early summer.  It literally rained so much we couldn't get in there to even bed. 

Each lot is split in two and we were on the lower end looking at the mess in front of us.  The cows would usually hang up front where we had control of the situation, but not that day. 

"You're gonna be fine!" He said...(by the way, that's husband code for 'I'm not gonna do it so you're going to') "You're not going to get stuck if you just ride the bottom ridge of the mound don't get off it and don't try to ride through the middle up top and you'll be just fine.  Now get those cattle up there, I can't get in there with the bobcat, so I'll just start right here at the gate loading. 

I was apprehensive. 

I plotted my way and slowly made it to the mound via the small path that he made for me with the skid steer.  I could hear D in the back of me telling me to hurry up and move the cows, but I pretended not to listen.  I was too fascinated watching an old Charolais building what looked like a raft to make it to the front of the pen.  It was belly deep. 

Not serious about the raft, serious about the deepness. 

As I got to the mound, I was spinning and starting to kick back slop (which by the way was covering my back, back of my neck and hair).

I trudged on.  As I got to the cows, they started making their way up to the front of the lot.   I kept my eyes mostly on the soft clay beneath me.  I "hipped" the cows, (Hip girls!! Get up there! Come on!) D yelled at me, "Hurry up!  The tractors gonna be back any minute!"

Again, I paid no attention.  That by the way is wife speak for 'I choose not to listen because I'll say something I may regret.'

I rounded the mound and came to a part that I COULDN'T make it through. 

Of course a handful of cows stayed right in the corner and watched me.  I think they were daring me to get off the wheeler to go get them.  I muttered to myself that I don't get paid enough to do that so I wouldn't. 

"Can't get through up here," I yelled back to D.  Trying to figure out how I was going to get turned around.
"Chain the dang gate!" Was all he yelled back.
"I C-A-N-T get to I-T!" I yelled back.
"Get up there or else they'll start coming back down here!"  He hollered.  "There's a stand of rocks, go up a little further and you'll see it." 

"There is so NOT a rock pile in this mess or we'd all be standing on it"  I heard a red cow whisper to her neighbor. 

"I'm not even going to try!" I yelled back as a cow that was watching me from the corner crossed my path and was belly deep. 
By this time, D and I were both mad and yelling at each other (which happens like once a year) and the cows were all watching as if to say, we just spent twenty minutes getting through that mess, we're not even that stupid to go out there again!"

After I heard shut the gate one more time, I thought, 'FINE! I'm going to get stuck and your gonna get me out...some how."  I gunned it.  I sped over each of those 4 feet before I sank like a rock.

 I was stuck on Polaris Island (aka my sunk 4 wheeler).

"Now what?" I yelled at the cows.  They didn't have an answer.

Just as I'm conversing with the cows on what my next move would be, here comes my smarty pants husband in the bobcat, using the bucket as an arm to pull himself through the muck. 

"What the ____ am I gonna do now?" I yelled at him as he was safely in the cab of the skid steer.
"Get off and walk." He said through giggles, as he got up on the rocks that were a good ten feet from my sunken spot and got out of the bobcat...and chained the gate.

"GET OFF AND WALK????"

So he left me there. 

THEN when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it did.

I did the only thing I could do and stepped into the poop that was up over my knees and promptly...lost my shoes.  My new Ropers.  They were swallowed up in seconds, never to be found again.  (Seriously, nobody even found them on their fields.)

So I waded through the bottom lot, then crawled over the gate and through a pen of 100 head to get to the driveway.  With bare feet.

Do you believe in miracles? 

I do too.  My miracle is I'm still married to this funny man.

Sincerely,
Fairchild "Squelch, Squerch" Farmgirl

PS. When all said and done, he dug my four wheeler out with the bobcat, hauled it up to the house and cleaned it so well it looked like it came from a show room and I didn't even demand it. LOL.  Then he bought me a pair of Ariat Fat Babys that I drooled over every time we went to Runnings.  So when he's not laughing at me, he's pretty sweet. =)