It was a dad-type of day

Thanks to Christopher Columbus, Monday was a holiday for me and the kiddos.  When Jay is working a turnaround,  a day off comes once every 20 days and he has a few more before that will happen.  This past weekend was youth shotgun deer season, and both of our kids decided to go.  Although I had offered to take them out, they went Monday morning with the Quackdaddy.  (I'll have another post about that.)  Apparently they think mom's can't go hunting...

After helping gut the deer and then taking it to the locker for processing, Quackmamma and I drove straight to my brother's house to get my kids.  We were just in time to help transfer equipment.  I got in a grain truck and headed over to a field by my house.  On my way over, I got a call from the vet telling me he could be at our house in 30 minutes to fix the rectal prolapse on a baby pig, would I be home to help...sure.

I dropped the grain truck off, got back into my truck with Madolyn and went to our house to unload our stuff.  As soon as I finished that, the vet showed up.  He took a look at Madolyn and said, "We'll probably need her help too."  Let me digress...when Jay asked me earlier if I would be around when the vet came by to look at that pig, I said sure.  I can show him the pig and write the check, no problem.  Jay did not mention 'helping' in the process.  Here we go.

I'm standing there watching the vet 'suit' up, wondering if I too should be changing my clothes or covering myself a little better.  But there was no time.  We follow the doc into the pen, I show him the suffering piglet (poor pig), and he tells us to hold the pig down while he does his thing.  (Have you ever held down a pig?)   He points me to the front of the pig and Madolyn to the rear and I jump on.  Yeah, almost literally. 

I tell Madolyn here is her chance to see some veterinary medicine in action (she is thinking she would like to do that) and the doc mentions something about the procedure, and I say, "We just gutted a deer" to which he replied, "Oh, well, you should be all right then."  Uh-huh, we'll be all right.  I used every ounce of energy and strength I had, but that little fella didn't get up.  He finished the procedure and told us we had to keep him segregated for a week.  More fun, trying to get the three free-roaming baby boys back into the other pen.  They are trained to go in THAT pen, not the one we wanted them in.  Ahhh.

I went inside for the first time since I jumped out of bed for the deer and hand-washed a TON of dishes (dishwasher was malfunctioning).  Headed out to drive the grain truck.  Combine needed tweaking so I helped the Quacks with the feed wagon, ran out of gas on the mule (not the animal, obviously) and drove to town with gas cans.

I ate lunch at the Quackers and head to elevator with a load of soybeans.  That was successful, minus some helpful hints from Cody at the elevator, and I returned to the field.  It was time to relocate equipment, so I drove the grain truck on to another field and came back home just in time to take the kids back out to the woods hunting.  Lane tagged the deer that the two of them shot, so Madolyn could still tag a deer and so could my three nieces.

Over the river and through the woods to Grandma Great's house we go.  We found our positions in the woods and waited.  Shots were fired but no deer taken (and honestly, I'm not sure I had it in me to deal with another deer).  At dark, we loaded up the crew and headed home.  I was exhausted and filthy.  I was still wearing the old blue jeans and sweatshirt I had put on first thing that morning...There was blood on me from the deer, poo and goo from the pig and the smell of gasoline permeated around me.  I needed a shower before anything else occurred. 

As I reflected on my day, I decided maybe being a dad is a little tougher than I thought.  If Jay had been around, I might have been able to knit all day ;)  We sure missed him and we know that he would have rather been with us than at work, but that is just how it goes sometimes.

Dad got an earful when he got home...hearing about our day.  Within minutes of me complaining about the dishwasher not working, he had repaired a loose connection and it was fixed.  He is definitely my hero.