It Could Have Been Worse!

 What could have been worse? The farming? The ducking hunting? The pheasant hunting? Actually, none of the above and all of the above. Farming went great! When I arrived, there were 1,450 acres of chickpeas still in the field. 

I was not out of the truck 15 minutes, and they put me to work. If I remember correctly, we got there about 11am and I still got over 8 hours in that day. Honestly, it is all a blur and being almost two weeks ago that memory has left the building. 

What I do remember is that we got it all done with 3-4 days of harvesting. And guess what? I did not screw up once! I did not hit anything, I did not break anything, I did not spill any grain! So, it could have been a lot worse!

I cannot say the same for everyone however as someone (who will remain nameless) left the trap open on a truck and when I emptied from the cart into the truck, it went straight through onto the ground. Now, some might argue that it is the cart driver's responsibility to make sure the trap is closed. (Usually, the person claiming that is the one who left it open in the first place, however and they hold no credibility whatsoever.)

The chickpeas went from the field straight into a bin. Actually, several different bins. You ever tried to back up a 100' auger so the chute hits a 2' diameter hole on the top of a bin? I know a few of you have, but it takes some practice for sure. Much easier with two people. The tractor driver can line up the left to right, the person on the ground does the front to back.  Although I have done both, I prefer being the ground guy. 

We went well into the night a couple nights. The full moon was amazing; it was so big it looked surreal. We often leave the lights on in the trucks as some of these fields are over a mile wide or long and it is pretty easy to lose track of where the truck is at any given time.  

It took us about a week to get all that done. It was not all harvesting though, there were a couple of rain days in there where we worked in the yard. Barb even got in on the action by helping to clean up the yard, cleaning up the office and mowing. It has been over a dozen years since she has been on a mower! 

But it was not all work, the real reason we came back up was the hunting! Duck season opened first. Not a very good year for ducks actually. Many of the local birds had left and the northern birds have not flown down yet. But, we do not come for the numbers of birds we got; we come for the joy of hunting and the comradery. I am guessing, but I think this is the like 47th season that Bob and I have hunted together (+/- a year). We were also joined this year by Bob's brother Kerry and two of his friends Jack and Vern. I have not hunted with either of them in years!

While it is hard to get out of bed at 5:30 in the morning to face the elements, once you get out in the field it is totally worth it.  Each day brought a different view, a different sunrise and new memories. 

While duck hunting was not great, we got birds every day and I guess it could have been worse. My highlight was shooting my first ever Ross's Goose. One of the prettiest and smallest birds in the goose family. 

Ember was the dog of choice for the duck blind. She is young, energetic and eager to retrieve the birds. 

Poor Dakota has the mindset (when Barb is with), but, at 11, her body is just not holding up. She struggles to walk in the field and swim in the mud. We did get her out three times though. Once for ducks and two times for pheasant and partridge.  When she gets on a bird you can still see that spark of youth in her eyes that makes you smile and cry all at the same time. 

Barb even brought Zoey on one outing, never to be repeated again. That dog is crazed I tell you!

The next time out, it was just Barb, Dakota and me. We went to a local pothole, put out some decoys and waited for a few ducks to come in. You could tell Dakota was in "her happy place" out in the field with Barb (and no Zoey). 

She ended up retrieving 3 ducks and was a happy, muddy mess by the end of the hunt!

Pheasant hunting opened this past Saturday and holy crap were there a lot of birds. The first day we got our 11-man limit of 33 birds with a few Hungarian partridge and Sharpies thrown in for good measure. 

I do not know how accurate Jack's measuring device was, but it said we walked 12 miles one day and a little less the next. Way too much for all of us over 60 somethings!

Back at the ranch (so to speak) Kerry and Bob cooked all the meals, Barb made several (5) pans of apple crisp throughout the week. 

Holly gave Chris a haircut and a boatload of kittens were born in the pontoon boat!

We made it out to supper with Farmer Bob and DeAnne one time (no pictures), Barb and Holly went to a crafting event in Minot another evening, getting home after 11:00. We were a little suspicious that the event went that late. 

So, what was I alluding to earlier when I said it could have been worse? Well, that event took place almost two weeks ago when we were just an hour into our journey. We were cruising through Rapid City when all of a sudden there was a bang behind us and a loud scrapping sound. Our enclosed trailer had come unattached and was dragging behind us on the safety chains! The scrapping noise was the jack dragging along the asphalt. 1luckily we were going under 30mph, not the 60+ we had been going minutes earlier. I pulled over and stopped the truck. The trailer stopped when it slammed into the back of the truck. 

We both got out and surveyed the damage and thought "Now what?". We had to get the trailer back on the ball as we were still in a lane of traffic. We quickly moved everything in the trailer to the backside to distribute the weight to the back. We then lifted the hitch back onto the ball. It was at that point that I noticed we had the wrong ball on. My fault, Barb hooked up the trailer, but I should have made sure we had the right ball on. 

We limped the trailer to Menards where I bought the right sized ball, a huge crescent wrench and a pipe wrench hoping to swap out balls. Do you think I could budge that ball that was on the hitch? Nope! So back into Menards I went to get some penetrating oil and a 4' pipe to use as leverage. That did the trick and an hour later we were back on the road. 

A little worse for wear but had we been going any fast and that trailer got away from us, it could definitely could have been a lot worse!