There Might Be A Dead Quail In The House.

We are having lots of stress over here, Reader.  Everything is broken and everything is costing money.  All the farm machines are down.  David’s truck has to go to the mechanic every 5 weeks because it is so high maintenance.  Everything is getting a flat tire.  My car needs to go to the mechanic for reasons I do not understand nor care to learn about.

You know what is never good?  When David says this sentence:

“I need to talk to you about a couple of things tonight.”

Those are the conversations where I find out that broken down skidsteers need engines that cost TWELVE THOUSAND DOLLARS.

But, I digress.

Let’s talk about yesterday.

We got a new layer of fresh snow the night before.  We are at the point of winter where we are in denial and no longer care.  In Novemeber, everyone is all, “how are the roads” “did it snow”  “is it slick”  “I should leave early.”

We are over it now and nonchalant.  And it is probably not a good thing.  Now it is more like,

“Everyone get in the car!  Oh, shoot!  We got more snow!  Somebody go clear off the car!”

Yesterday was one such day.

The three Maliblahblah children left before me.  As I was finishing up getting ready, LD sends me these exact three texts in rapid succession.

“We going to be late.”

“The heater is working.”

“We can’t see out the windshield.”

?

So, I call him and he has the phone on speaker and Hadley is shout/panicking.

Me:  Where are you?

Hadley: DRIVING DOWN THE BIG HILL.  NOTHING IS WORKING.  LIKE HEAT AND DEFROST.

Me:  Ok.  Are you pulled over or still able to drive?

Hadley:  I CAN DRIVE.

Me:  Ok, just take it slow and I will call your school and explain you will be late.

And I do just that.

Meanwhile, it is time for me, myself, to go and get my rig ready for the drive to town.  And, Reader.  Would you like to know what I did?

I started my car.  And then I locked myself out of my car.

Rookie mistake.

The only other vehicle option is David’s gigantic truck, but the stock trailer is hitched to it.  And guess who doesn’t know how to remove a fifth wheel trailer hitch thing?

I call David.  David is always emotionally stable, unlike myself, and it is a comfort when things are dicey.

Me:  Yeah.  My car is running and I am locked out.  I need to take the truck, but the stock trailer is hitched to it.

David (unphased):  Alright.  I will need to talk you through unhitching it.  You are going to need mud boots and gloves.

See?  Cool as a cucumber.  Weird-O.

He tells me to go start the truck to warm it up.  This was our first mistake.  I cannot hear well, and I especially cannot hear when a diesel engine is roaring in the background.

Reader, I tried.  I really did.  I completed a few steps with proficiency, but everytime I had to do something, I put the phone down so I could use both hands.  My phone began to get displeased at this because I kept putting it in fresh snow.  In order to accomplish the necessary tasks of unhitching, I had to climb up into the flat bed and got my pants all soaked.

And I am sure David was making complete sense to peoples that know about these things, but to me, he was sounding like an insane, crazy person.

David:  Do you see a metal handle?

Me:  Yes!

David:  The handle has a pin and you need to remove the pin and pull up and put a pin in the hole and remove a pin and put a pin over there and then secure a pin.

Me:  OK!  I HAVE TO PUT THE PHONE DOWN.

I try to do lots of activities involving pins.  I only see one pin.  And then I see the handle, but I am not strong enough to make the handle budge.

Me:  David!  I am unable to move the handle!

David:  Ok.  You are going to need a sledgehammer.

So, I try sledgehammering and I am covered in mud and snow. Even with a sledgehammer, I am still weak and useless and made no progress on handles and pins and pins and handles and pins.  My phone shuts down due to potential water damage and it is now the point in the morning where I have to accept defeat and get my wet hiney inside to write emergency sub plans. And, also, I cried out of frustration.

David was able to come home about 3 hours later.  Surprisingly, my car was still running and had not run out of gas.  David knows how to break into vehicles, which is always a fine quality to have in a spouse, and he got my car open in about 2 minutes.  And then I toodled off to school with dry pants and a crying headache.

My students were a bit out of sorts from the surprise emergency sub, and I was trying to complete a required, yet difficult, universal assessment.

And Poor Mack did not handle things well.

Mack loves everything about school and is always 100% in.  This assessment was too much for him and I think he got a bit frustrated, which was totally understandable.  He started to come up to me and tell me his head hurt.  Mack never says he isn’t feeling well.  In fact, one day, I could tell he was out of sorts and I felt his head.  He had a fever and was upset and did not want to leave.  So, for Mack to tell me his head hurt was pretty out of character.

I checked his temp and he wasn’t sick. He wouldn’t stop complaining about his head, so out of desperation, I put my coat down on the floor and said he should try to lay down and rest his eyes for a minute.

And he fell asleep.  Right there on the floor.  Precious pumpkin.  I think the assessment was too much for him and he got overwhelmed.

About 20 minutes later, he sits up and loudly announces to everyone:

“Yay!  My head is better!”

And then he and I played ball at recess.  I love him.

After school, I had to get the boys and get them to-you guessed it-a basketball game.  I call David to touch base and he says this sentence:

“Yeah.  We had a huge debacle with Hadley’s car.”

Ok.  Two things.

1.  Let us be impressed with David’s use of the word debacle.
2. How does David stay so calm with ALL THE BROKEN THINGS?  And still work as an electrician?

I don’t know.  I just cannot even keep up.  Somehow he was able to help her arrange getting her heater/defrost working and get to her basketball game on time.  And then he had to help me get my car to the mechanic and I am excited to find out how much that will cost.

We got home late-maybe 10pm.  The dogs were bouncing off the walls because they missed us and David still needed to feed some cows.   He opened up a grain sack and a bunch of quail flew out and the dogs went all nuts and murdered two of them and then dropped them on the front porch as a gift.

When David came inside, he brought the dead quail and put them in our kitchen trash can.

?

Charlie, the dog, discovered this and pulled the quail out.  So there was a dead quail on the living room floor.  At 10 pm.

Me:  Why did you bring the dead quails inside?

David:  Where else am I supposed to put them?

And, reader.  I didn’t have an answer for him, but there are lots of disgusting things that happen over here and he doesn’t bring everything in the house and I don’t know anymore, but I do know that yesterday was like the longest day ever.

I should have probably taken a nap at the same time as Mack did.

So.  Right before I started to write this blog post this morning, David called me.

David:  Yeah.  Charlie wasn’t put in her kennel last night and when I woke up, she had gotten into the garbage again.  And I didn’t see it anywhere, but there’s a good chance there’s a dead quail somewhere in the house.”

Here’s to hoping today goes a bit more smoothly.