Well, maybe not the backwoods, but I had that song in my mind when I started typing.
Wooster came home for the afternoon on Saturday. It was a pleasant surprise. We haven’t spent that much time around each other doing nothing since…oh…before The Decision ’11 was made. All these months have been busy getting things ready for The Move, moving, settling in and working. It was nice just to sit and look at each other. He timed it well. He came home just as R is in her peak of “goodness”. Then she went down for her nap an hour later. Then we had THREE whole hours together uninterrupted. No phone calls, no playing kid in the background, no irrigation emergencies, no hurrying to get back to the shop. We didn’t even unpack a box or move anything around in the house. It felt like old times….but in Kansas and with a kid…but nevertheless. Did I mention that it was nice?
After R ate in the evening, she and I got to ride along during the fertilizer checks. Fertilizer checks=stirring around fluid in 1500 to 1850 gallon tanks with a big stick in the middle of a 167 acre field. Sounds boring, but it ain’t. There is always some type of adventure or new things to see. We also get to ride down roads I’m too chicken to take Red (Wooster’s 1970 2 Wheeled Drive Red Ford truck) down/up. I have my camera with me ALL the time now.
There are always a plethora of pheasants to see. When I think of pheasants, I think of nice birds painted on chinaware or in a beautiful painting. I know now why I’ve rarely seen pictures of them. The little boogers are really fast. Not only do they fly, but they run. When I say run, it’s not with their head up or at a nice pace. The little fellas duck down and run erratically through the weeds, wheat, corn stalks and bushes. So, it’s really hard to get a good picture of one. Just when you think they will stop, or are standing nicely, they move again. These pictures below are the best that I could do under the circumstances. (Also…these are not pictures of the same pheasant)
They really are pretty when they are flying.
We also saw turkeys, a few other pheasants and my little neighbor ducks. The little ducks live at a ditch ½ mile east of the house. There is always standing water in the ditch. The ducks are always there. They too are tricky to get on film. They startle so easily and I’m usually moving at a steady pace, therefore, no pictures of the ducks yet. I believe they are mallards.
Leviathans are our next subject. Actually it is one particular leviathan. However, this leviathan did not have scales. He was HUGE though.
Yes! It is a bullfrog! Most commonly known as: Lithobates catesbeianus .I never got a full body shot. But Wooster said that he’s seen his whole body and he’s about dinner plate size.
That is what it would have looked like if I had gotten a body shot of it.
This big guy is hanging out in a mud puddle in a pivot driveway. We had a big rain on Thursday and Friday of this week. Wooster said that the big guy appeared after the rain. I have to look it up, but I guess he hangs out under the soil until enough moisture is above ground for him to come out. I suppose he will go back under the ground when the puddle dries. I was wondering what all the raccoons eat around here besides the corn and wheat in the fields. I see their little paw prints around the pivot centers. Now I suppose they look for bullfrogs as well.
This is just a small sample of the MANY pictures I took of the bullfrog. It was fascinating to me. I was trying to get a good shot of the bullfrog’s body when Wooster was driving through the mud puddle, but the frog wouldn’t cooperate. If R was big enough, we would have had a grand ole time trying to catch the bullfrog. That will have to wait though…maybe next year…when she’s had all her shots…maybe…
Next to the field that the bullfrog was in, this was going on:
These farmers were wrangling cattle to put on the semi. These guys are not part of the farm that Wooster works on. So, no friendly up close pictures were taken.
Here, most farmers sell the cattle to feed lots, and this is how they transport them. They wrangle them up with four wheelers to a make-shift pen. Then they load them through the shoot, off they go to the feedlot and then to the processor. The pen is taken down and moved to a different field where they will use it again for the next sell.
The evening ended with Wooster stopping and picking some nice wildflowers. I think they are one of the types of Kansas wild sunflowers that are on all the signs around here. I have to look that up too.
We came back home and had our traditional Saturday night pancakes.
I like days like these. They help us refocus and are nice to think back on when the days get hectic and mundane. That Wooster is one nice fella…I think I’ll keep him for a few more years.
