Concealed weapons

During rounds this week:

Me:    Mr. A, is there anything else I can get for you today?

Mr. A:   A gun would be nice if you have one.

  

Making it to first base

On our trip South we decided to stop at my little brother's.  He's in flight school and stationed at a base on the way.  My grandparents had loaned us a GPS since the fiasco of a trip my brother had when he first headed to the base.  Apparently cell reception is a wee bit spotty in the Deep South and his iPhone lost Google Map capabilities.  It only added a couple hours to his trip, but wandering around in the backwoods of the Deep South can be a bit more intimidating than wandering around in the backwoods of the South.  My cousin, Lily, and I were not interested in random encounters with shotgun-toting, moonshine-chugging, gator-wrestling gentlemen so we were using the GPS.

Even with the GPS, we were a little leery of the surroundings.  The base was a ways out - far enough out that we were pretty sure that a serial killer had hacked into our system and was luring us to our premature death.

We evaded capture by our imaginary serial killer, made it to base, and pulled into the Korean Baptist Church outside the gates.

There are three things you need to make it onto a military base: identification, registration, and proof of current insurance. Normally I would have all three.  This time we had two of the three.  I had apparently tucked the registration somewhere in our file cabinet.  Which was safely in our packing truck.  Waiting for us at our new house.  Five hours away.

After he flat out denied us access to the base, the nice guard told us we could park our car in the guard lot overnight and ride in with my sister-in-law.  Our little car was packed with everything that was too important or too breakable to go in the moving truck so I was a little leery about leaving it out of eyesight. I thought I should double check the safety of our shoes and KitchenAid being left unsupervised.

"Mr. Guard, sir, will our car be safe here?  No one is going to steal our plants, are they?"

He peered at us over the beam of his flashlight.

"No ma'am.  We have Berettas.  Guns tend to deter thieves."

Shades of grey

I adore my brother. He’s a pilot in the military stationed a few states away and with a schedule as busy as mine, so I don’t get to see him very often.  I was able to spend about an hour with him last week before he had to go to flight class and I had to head east. I laughed more in that hour than I had in weeks. We don’t always agree, but I adore the man.  

Me: Do you know what I like about you?  

Little Brother:  That I’m so good looking?  

Me: Obviously, but I like how you see things in black and white.  You never see any grey areas.  

Little Brother:  Grey is for liberals. 

On the farm

I had an unexpected layover in the Midwest secondary to my encounter with the deer.  I am one of those very lucky people who have a set of in-laws they actually enjoy, so I didn’t mind.  A little farm work is excellent at taking one’s mind off unpleasant things like car accidents.

This weekend the guys were putting up a grain bin.  Before I met DH, I had no idea what a grain bin was.  I called every tall shiny round building on a farm a silo and left it at that.  They are not all silos.  Some are grain bins.  

This is a finished grain bin.  

This is a silo.  

If they look the same to you, don’t worry.  I still haven’t figured out the difference.  I just memorized which building is where on the farm so I didn’t make a total fool of myself when talking to the guys. 

The grain bin we were putting up that weekend was ten rings high.  It is supposed to hold 35,000 bushels or something, which is approximately a gazillion soybeans and a bazillion corn kernels.  Each ring is put on one at a time. Huge hydraulic jacks raise the installed rings and roof so the next ring can be attached.  

This is the central thing for the jacks.  

You should not mess with the hoses.  People get upset when you mess with the hoses.

If you are ever building a grain bin, I have some advice for you.  First, do not put one of the jacks where you plan on putting your door/platform/ladder.  If you do, then you will be installing the platform and ladder not on the ground level where it is nice and safe and not high, but in the air from a shaky ladder and loader bucket where it is windy and not terribly safe and very high. Then when you look down it will look like this.  This is scary.

Second, wear earplugs.  Four impact wrenches going at once will give you a heck of a headache. 

Third, do not take the jacks out, anchor the bin down, and then realize you left a stepladder inside the grain bin that doesn’t fit out the door.  Apparently, that will frustrate farmers.

Finally, hire my brother-in-law to run things. He’s a born leader, and he’s part Spiderman.

Buh-bye Mr. Jeep

I have had three car wrecks in my life.  Last week, I had my fourth.  

DH and I were headed to his family farm for Memorial Day.  The plan was for him to golf with his uncles in a scramble and for me to have a brief stopover on my way south.  We were late heading out because our house closing was delayed by a couple of hours, and thus we were passing through Iowa around midnight.  It was a full moon, and the deer were really excited about it.  One of them was so excited that it ran right in front of my Jeep which-was-going-seventy-miles-an-hour-and-no-faster-as-I-am-a-law-abiding-citizen.  

This did not go well for the deer.  

This did also not go well for the Jeep.  

Poor Jeep.  He lived a good life.  He saw a lot of riverbanks, a lot of lakeshores, and a lot of forests. He took me safely through a blizzard that closed all the major highways.  He carefully conveyed DH, our friends, and I  through a nasty storm up by Canada that turned the road to ice.  He survived the treacherous trip back North when we saw 106 cars in the ditch.  He was adventurous, that Jeep of ours, but he was no match for a corn-fed venison steak jaywalking across the interstate.  Now he’s in the big garage in the sky where wheels never rust and his oil will get changed every 3,000 miles.  I’ll miss the little guy.