The flag I immediately hung outside my front door. You can tell it was there quite a long time – ragged and bleached.
The day began like any other and ended with confusion, fear and…a sense of being united.
9/11/01 will forever be a memory in my brain. A day in which the events will never be questioned by what I was doing and where I was at.
While sitting at an intersection waiting for a vehicle, I HAD to try to record the sun as it was coming up over the east horizon. Unfortunately, this doesn’t do justice for the beauty of the moment – especially through a dirty bus window.
The weekend started for me on Friday morning. Jim was caught up with dry corn and had been spending some much-needed time on combine and corn head maintenance. On Friday morning, he asked me if I wanted to ride along to Cornlea (Nebraska) to get parts for the corn head. Jenna thought that was quite funny…going to Cornlea for the corn head – appropriate. Cornlea was about 2 ½ hours from home. I thought…what the heck?! Before we could go, though, I had to sub for a driver on the morning bus route.
I had the opportunity to meet Trent Loos at the U.S. Custom Harvesters, Inc. convention last March. Trent is a true American, a cowboy and a fellow Nebraskan. The school lunch program and its requirements have been in the news lately. Trent’s interview with Secretary Of Ag, Tom Vilsack, was very interesting to me. Thank you, Trent, for asking the hard questions and challenging the Secretary with the USDA’s requirements and nonsense regulations! The recorded conversation can be found here: http://www.rodeoattitude.com/facesofag/2012/08/20/vegan-culture-alive-and-well-at-usda-secretary-vilsack-answers-question/
Our final night with the Graham’s a year ago.
Just a brief note to update you on our whereabouts. Still in Lusk…but not for long!
The girls and I made it to the mountains! Jim opted to stay back and work on equipment. This gave us some great mom/daughter time to hang out and have fun. And…have fun we did!
I left off one place on my list of “Where We’ve Been on the Fourth of July” – Hobbs, NM. How in the world could I have forgotten that place? Maybe because it’s a memory I choose to block? 🙂
Jenna and Taylor made it back just about 4:00 on the afternoon of the Fourth. It was so good to see them!! When Jenna walked into the cottage, she said it felt weird not walking into our “old” trailer. The other thing she said she expected to see when she drove up was Jordan – our dog. Guess those two pieces of harvest have remained in her brain. This is the second summer Jenna hasn’t been with us. Jamie hasn’t been with us since 2004.
Jenna explaining something about one of her excursions
I had most of the food preparations completed when they got here so I didn’t have to feel like I had to cook when they walked in. The only question left was, “Are you going to make your Rice Krispie flag, Jen?” She smiled and said, “Of course! And I’ve even brought my own supplies” – which she did. Every detail was covered even down to a pan.
So we had our traditional meal ready to go: grilled hamburgers, hotdogs, pasta salad, beans, chips, cherry pie and Jenna’s Krispie flag.
Leon and Jada Bulgin had finished cutting their wheat and decided since they’d worked so hard, they were going to take a few days off while they were in Colorado. Their crew headed to Denver the afternoon of the 4th and they decided they’d rather stay in Limon. So, we gathered our food and added it to theirs and had quite the smorgasbord! The only thing missing were the fireworks. ABSOLUTELY NO fireworks were allowed in this state. I’m sure there were displays in Denver and the surrounding communities but none in Limon. It was the quietest holiday celebration ever. If Jordan were still alive, she would have loved it.
Jada had bought some party poppers and I bought some light sticks with an American flag on the end. So, we did have something fun to make it feel like a party. Happy 236th Birthday, America!
Yesterday, the girls and I went to Flagler for a couple of hours. They have a couple of fun antique/thrift stores to browse through. Jenna found an old Flamingo brand ice cooler for $5. Taylor found a couple of DVD’s she thought we should add to our collection.
It was a fairly uneventful day which was made complete with a supper engagement with one of our farmers, Steve, and his wife, Kathy. We had a wonderful evening! They have become great friends and I will really miss working with/for them. Things change but I feel confident these people will remain in our lives – somehow.
The next couple of days, we’re going to become tourists. We’re going to pack our tent and necessities and head for the mountains for a couple of days. Jenna will have to head home on Sunday and then we’ll have to start making the trek northward. And…the weather forecast is calling for rain in the mountains. Oh well. Ya gotta make the best of it!
(Callie took this picture yesterday. I thought it was so pretty – I wanted to share .)
So today we went back to the Limon, CO pre-cutting status – vacation.
Somewhere between Limon, CO and Salina, KS
I did something yesterday that under any other circumstances I would not do…I left Jim without help in the field.
I’m almost embarrassed to sit here tonight and say again that NOTHING has gone on in this camp. One more day of staring at each other and wondering what we could do next. Its days like this you wish there was a little more to do than that! We’ve now completed our 12th day of not being in the field. Our farmer has completed the dry land wheat. He wants us to cut the irrigated because he has a “stripper” head and doesn’t want that much straw left on the field. The Deerfield stop is not going to be one to write home about! Ah…but look at all this great family time! I’ve learned a long time ago that no two summers are EVER the same and weather is not reliable…EVER!
