The Back to School Post

Goodness.  When school starts, it STARTS.  I am beyond exhausted.  David estimated that I drive 90 to 100 miles each day. It’s a bit much.
Sweet Pea was the first to start school. Her school starts a bit earlier than the others around here. She is now in 10th grade.

The rest of us started soon after.

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Handsome Dude started a new middle school and is in 6th.  I am now in my 5th year of teaching.  I am teaching 1st for the 3rd year in a row.  Little Dude is in 5th at the school I teach at.  Although he looks a tad disgruntled in the above photo, he was actually the most excited to start school.  Daisy Mae started a new high school and is in 9th grade.

So, yeah.  45 minute commute to town . . . and then 4 schools between the 5 of us.

After school is full of volleyball, cross country, and basketball practices, youth groups, and church activities.

Handsome Dude was a bit worked up to start middle school.  His new school is big, he doesn’t know many kids that attend there,  and it has a locker with a combination lock.  At open house, his locker was not working and the school promised to have it fixed by the first day of school, but it brought him anxiety because he was nervous he would not be able to open it on the first day.  Plus, he had to ride the bus to my parents’ house after school, and he had never done that before.  And he would be home alone.  This was all like the perfect storm for him.

He arrived safely to my parents’ house and proceeded to contact me, David, my mom, and my dad to let us all know he had made it.  I was still teaching my class at the time, so of course he continued to call me until I could talk.

Me:  Hi, I still have kids in here waiting for buses.  I will call you when I am leaving.

HD:  Ok.

Me when leaving . . .

Me:  Hi, I am leaving.  How was your 1st day?

HD (irritated):  *sigh* Can I just talk to you while we are driving?

Me:  Yup.  I am getting Sweet Pea and then I will get you.

20 minutes later . . .

HD:  WHERE ARE YOU?

Me:  About 10 minutes away.

HD (irritated):  Are you serious?

Me:  Yup.  Be there when I can.

3 minutes later . . .

HD (Beyond irritated and sighing every 2 seconds):  Well since you are taking forever and I am BORED I guess I will talk to you about my day  now.  I picked out a guy who I wanted to be my friend and said hi.  I was hoping he would sit by me at lunch, but he didn’t.  But that’s ok.  After I ate I asked him what field he was going to be on.  He said, “You are with me, buddy.”

Me:  Well, that was nice of him!  What is his name?

HD (sounding like I am a complete idiot):  Well, I have no idea!

So, yeah.  Within about an hour, HD called me about 7 times.  So no cell phones for him for awhile.  No one can handle that nonsense.  I picked him up and he fell asleep in the car immediately.  When we got home, he stumbled to the couch and fell asleep, and continued to sleep until I woke him up at 5:30 the next morning.

Look at him.  He is a giant Handsome Dude now.  And middle school kicked his hiney.  I am happy to report that by the end of week 1, he learned his new friend’s name.

Daisy Mae’s year has gotten off to a crazy start.  High School volleyball is no joke.  Practices or games daily and late late nights when they play away games.  She went to homecoming with some of her girl friends.  Here is a photo snapped by a friend’s mom:

Ha.  I cropped the friends out because I am not sure they want to be in my blog.  But any-who, she looked cute and had fun.

And now we must discuss my 1st grade class.

They are exhausting.  And precious.  But really exhausting.  Here are some cute moments to share with you-

*One day I was wearing a sweatshirt.  A boy came up to me and asked if I was wearing anything underneath it.

*Same boy asked me later on how much my wedding ring cost.

*One boy has a weird obsession with trash.  He keeps trying to save it by stuffing it in his mailbox.  I told him he needs to put it in the trash can.  Later on I found him stuffing the trash into his pants.  No joke.

*While I am literally teaching them a lesson, one boy comes up to me and this was our convo . . .

Boy: Want to come to my birthday party?
Me: Buddy, I need you to sit down. I am teaching right now.
Boy: But I want you to come! It will be at a hotel and we are staying the night!
Me: Oh, wow that sounds fun! But I am so busy with my own kids and I probably cannot make it. Please sit down now.
Boy: Sure you can come! It is on a weekend!

*Another convo . . .

Me:  Honey, did you have an accident?
Girl: No!
(I can smell it. She did)
Me: I think you did. Let’s get that taken care of.
Girl: No, I didn’t!
Me: Ok. I want you to close your eyes and really focus for a minute. Do you feel wet at all in your pants area?
Girl thinking really hard: Well, maybe a little!
Me: Ok. Let’s clean up. And next time, please tell me you need to go potty.

*One day, I just got done going over directions and asked if there were any questions (rookie mistake) . .
Boy: There was a flood in Casper, Wyoming!
Me (remembering I had heard he had just moved to our area a couple weeks ago) Oh, did you live there?
Boy: No! Denver!

Oh, yes.  This is going to be an entertaining group.

******

Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . . .

Just when I thought haying time was over, David found a “sweet deal” on hay on Craigslist.  Our barn is already full, so now he is just stacking hay in the front of our property.

Me:  David.  It is like you do not understand the concept of “curb appeal.”

David:  But you used to get mad because I have a bunch of machinery parts and junk stacked in the front of the property.

Me:  Yup.

David:  Well the hay is blocking that from view now!  And would you rather look at junk or hay?

Me (defeated):  Hay.

Here is the truck with load 3 of 7.  We normally get square bales that are smaller and lighter.  These ones needs to be unloaded with his bobcat.  It is way easier on his body.  I told him I was going to be the boss pants and make him only get these giant round bales from now on.  He told me no, he was still going to get square bales.  So I am not the boss pants.

The cows and horses fight over the hay and we need to separate the hay out over many areas of our pasture to keep the peace.  Here’s a picture of Little Dude driving the 4 wheeler slowly while David drops off sections of hay around.

Ha.  I thought it was a cute picture.  David has no idea I took it.  Like most pictures I take of the farm and ranch.

In my last post, I mentioned that the horses and Stupid Steve were picking on Tiny Tim.  So, we moved Tiny Tim, Bessie the milk cow, and the other bull calf to an empty pig pen.  Things were going better and from my bedroom window I could see Tiny Tim nursing.  (Because everyone longs for a pig pen view from their bedroom window)

One night when I came home from school, Tiny Tim looked dead.  He was laying in poop and mud and would not get up.  I was still in my dress and went to check on him.  David was not home and I was trying to get him to stand up.  It was quite difficult and getting dark outside.  I had to pick him up off the ground, which is not easy.  Plus I was getting pooped smeared all over me.  Which is always pleasant.  He would not get up.  I had HD and Daisy Mae make a bottle and I tried to feed him while he was down because I was worried he was weak and not getting enough food.  He would not drink it.  Finally he stood up and I was able to walk him up to Bessie and the other calf and he went into the shelter and fell asleep.

After that, he seemed to be doing ok, but he was still pretty weak and not really putting on weight.  But I could see him nursing every day.

David wanted to take Bessie to be bred by a bull.  You might recall that Matilda (along with Houdini) and Rosie were off on the field trip for cows to be bred.   Last Sunday, David loaded Bessie, Tiny Tim, and unnamed bull calf and took them over to our friend’s place.  This friend is our farrier and he has the bull that will impregnate all our lady cows.  Everyone needs a friend who is a farrier and owns a bull.  They are quite handy to have around.

I didn’t want him to take Tiny Tim.  But he insisted.  In all honesty, I have no time to take care of Tiny Tim now that school has started.  But I wanted to keep an eye on him.  But, he took them over and then brought back the others and is hopeful the gals are pregnant.

Also, I saw David looking up cow pregnancy tests.  So that was different.

Our farrier friend called David on Thursday to tell him Tiny Tim had died.   I am actually  quite sad about it all, which is silly.  I guess he got really weak and he wouldn’t get up and eat.  Our friend tried to lift him up but he just wouldn’t. I don’t know why.  It was a huge bummer.  I think the most frustrating part about this experience was just that I didn’t know what I was doing.  Maybe if I was more knowledgeable about cows and calves, I would have done a better job?  I do know that I did everything I knew to do and I tried for many, many hours over the summer to help him survive.  I really thought he was going to make it.  He lived about 11 weeks.

Sorry to end on a sad note.  Happy Weekend!