Jersey Cowgirl

Last week before my new job orientation I stopped at my friend Sam's house to hang out. While we were sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee- I suggested he buy a donkey so he could ride into town. After we talked about donkeys and how cool and pretty they are, Sam suggested that he should just ride his cow, Wanda, into town. yes. He offered to give me a demonstration on the rideability of Wanda.

He grabbed a loaf of day old bread to reward her, and we slogged out to the field. Wanda was looking particularly golden and glorious on this day, and she ran over to greet Sam and I. Sam gave her a little nibble of the bread and then legged up. He then gave me the bun to taunt her along so she could get used to following bread, so he could eventually rig up a system to string her along.

Since he didn't have the proper tools, it was up to me to taunt Wanda with the bread and lead her along the field. Within about 5 seconds she was eating the whole loaf of bread and I was geeking out because she licked my hand.

Next it was my turn to cowgirl up. I had to flop up on Wanda's back and then swing my leg up. It took a few attempts, and it wasn't pretty. Then Sam decided to lead her towards the house... She watched him walk away for a bit and then TOOK OFF! She was running through the cow shit filled field and it was scary. I was thinking over and over again how I was going to fall off and re-break my arm or have to go to my job orientation covered in cow poo. After I let my initial fears go, I was still scared but the thrill of riding a Jersey cow set in. It was super fun... and when I showed up at my job orientation covered in cow hair and with cow shit on my boots, I think it went unnoticed because of my excited glow that one can only get from riding a half-ton animal bareback.




Wanda.

Onion Plantin' Fool.

Actually this machine is quite the opposite of hillbilly-ism. It is pretty cush as far as transplanting goes. When you are planting about 100,000 onions- it makes a difference. trust me.

I spent about 7 hours on one of them there contraptions yesterday planting kale, lettuce, artichokes, chard, broccoli and onions. lots of crybabies that will be coming to a supermarket near you in a few months.

Nothing really funny or interesting of note happened. But I liked this picture, and if you can imagine my head on that mulleted mans body, you can picture what I looked like yesterday- and that's kind of fun.

Turkey Listening.

Last week I took a journey back to the heartland, my hometown- Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Along with me on this journey was my neighbor, Niko. Niko is from Southern California, and although he has some hillbilly street cred, I wanted to take him ATV'n, mushroom pickin, and turkey huntin'. It was raining to beat all hell almost the entire time we were there, but we managed to get some shootin' and huntin' in nonetheless.

After some practice with the shotgun, a practice run with the turkey dome, getting our gear ready, (which included Niko putting his foot in a boot that contained a maggot ridden chipmunk carcass) and setting our alarm- we were all set to go turkey hunting the next morning.

My dad roused Niko and I from a too short slumber, and we meandered downstairs where I ate a cheese and pepper deer stick for breakfast, washed down by black coffee. We drove silently to the duck marsh where my pappy had scouted out a turkey roost the week before. Silently trudging through fields and wetlands, we scared deer from their grass beds, caused owls to implore and also somehow managed to piss off a beaver who responded by slapping his tail.

We set up the turkey dome, positioned the turkey decoys and sat down to wait. Every turkey gobble caused us to silently freak out at each other. Laughing and general looks of excitement caused the morning to be even more magical.

Eventually we heard them come down from their roost, which unfortunately was on the other side of the creek. After trying to coax them over to our side with pro turkey calling techniques, we heard them getting farther and farther away. We were out-turkeyed on the killing front, but I think we still came out ahead. We were up at animal time- listening to all of the birds singing, beaver tails slapping, and dew being put away.

To console ourselves, we went to the local diner for breakfast. Even though we were the only customers clad head to toe in camo- we hardly got a second look. Thanks Iowa for letting my hillbilly heart sing.