After four kids, ten moves and nearly two decades, we are still blissfully in love (most of the time) and I found myself back in the state I was born and raised in. It has definitely been a journey. In fact, on our 18th anniversary we pulled the last of our stuff up over the pass and into Montana, leaving our surprise love, Idaho, behind. But Montana is a great place. The last best place according to some. And we fully intend to explore as much of it as we can! Join us on our continued adventure through life, love and other stuff that comes with it.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Way out here--It's about John Deere and daddy's girls

We've lived in the sticks for roughly the last eight or nine years.  It's pretty nice, really.  No, we don't hide.  We just like to be loud and obnoxious and not irritate the neighbors.  And we have a horse, dog, chickens and a cat.  And four really loud kids.

This last week I've been sick.  So sick that I really haven't done much other than walk from the bed to the bathroom to the medicine cabinet to the chair and back to bed.  It's a nice circle.  But it really does suck to be this sick.  My mom doesn't even want to talk to me on the phone because she feels like I'm going to give it to her via fiber optics.

Anyway, I've been listening to a lot of country music because someone turned on the radio and it isn't in my circle to turn it off.  I'm very confused by country music at times.  Some of it I love, and some of it I can definitely do without.  It makes me cry, laugh and cringe, all within three songs--sometimes all within the same song. 

Today I was feeling somewhat better and since it was so nice outside I went out to sit in the sun, briefly.  I lasted probably half an hour.  And then I was wiped out.

Now I will take you back to 2004.  We had the best mowed lawn in the country.  It was their nightly ritual and it worked every time. 


We also didn't have to spend our weekends mowing the lawn.

Soon she was ready to do it herself--in her pink jelly shoes. 


Then she graduated to the REALLY big ones. 


Okay, she wasn't actually driving that one (or the lawn mower for that matter).  It was her grandpa.  My youngest brother graduated from John Deere Tech and the school pulled out their biggest machines and let the graduates and anyone else who knew how to drive a tractor have a go at it.  Talk about a good time.  This is one of my very favorite pictures of her with grandpa.

But today, roughly seven years after her first introduction to John Deere, she is big enough that the safety feature on the seat isn't triggered to shut the mower down and she can actually mow the lawn.


And she did. The whole back yard.  (Very slowly under daddy's very close supervision.)


And she was thrilled.


Don't mess with country girls.  Even if they wear pink hats and purple flip flops.

In the words of Josh Thompson and proof that I have really listened to too much country music:

If it's our backwoods way of livin' you're concerned with
You can leave us alone
We're about John Wayne, Johnny Cash and John Deere
Way out here

No, we don't fry everything.  But the dog does run loose. 

No comments: