Today was a wonderfully successful day. I woke up at a decent hour and got all of my house chores done before 10! My mother was fairly impressed, and, frankly, so was I. Mom and Dad have reinstated our summer chore list, so now it is an all-year-round-chore-list. I actually like this idea, we are doing the chores that we normally do, except with the list, we get paid weekly for the chores that were completed. Mom and Dad also came up with a "Phone Chore", this chore has to be done by the end of the week, or your cell phone is taken away and put into the depths of Momma's desk drawer. My "Phone Chore" is to clean out my car every week. At first I thought this was going to be really easy because I am usually pretty good about keeping my areas clean. Wrong. I'm not the only one who drives my car, so when Mom and Dad have custody of my car, they don't treat it very nicely. They leave their fast food trash all over, throw their empty cans and water bottles on the floor, and leave all of their stuff in it. Not to mention that Dad and Rudy are notorious for emitting bodily functious stenches every where they sit, so not only does my car look dirty, it smells dirty.
So this morning I pulled the car into the yard, right in front of the laundry room door, and started the daunting task. I vacuumed the entire interior and also wiped it down with a pretty strong cleaner spray. That car's interior looked brand spanking new. Next, the exterior, I went inside and changed into a pair of shorts and a cut-off and pulled the car up next to the barn. I hosed the entire thing down. The gravel roads near our house are pretty sketchy, so there was dirt caked everywhere... and I mean EVERYWHERE. As I was wrapping up the hose a thought popped into my head: it is the middle of January, and I am outside in shorts and a cut-off hosing my car down. It felt wonderful.
Later, I decided to go for a jog since it was so nice out. I even got to wear my new running capris! I thought about running on the road, but I fall easily on gravel, so I decided against it. So I walked out past our barn and machine shed and just started running through the corn field. It was wonderfull. Our farm is one of the highest points in the area, so you can see for miles. I ran until the end of the corn field, and started walking when I reached the tall grass area for fear of rolling my ankle in a badger hole. I used to know our land like the back of my hand, but when we moved back, I didn't go down there as much, so I kind of forgot what it looked like. Over the next hill, I came upon the pond, this is also where I broke my arm the summer before seventh grade. I went to the exact place where the wreck had happened. It was an 8-9 foot drop, almost straight down. It looked different. I can still remember exactly how I felt when that 4-wheeler went down that very drop, it's an unexplainable feeling really. I let myself slide down that drop and when I reached the bottom, I saw the tree that I had hit my head on during the wreck. It all looked so different.
Next, I walked up another hill to the old sod house. Apparently, during the pony-express times, one of the riders would come to our land and to rest. When the railroad came along and this guy was out of his job, he homesteaded our property and built a sod house; he claimed it was his favorite piece of land. Now, all that remains is the foundation of the house. It's a really neat place. Rudy and I used to go down there all the time and mess around. We have so many memories of the silly things we would do down there. The only problem was that there were always a lot of wasps around, so we constantly were stung. Once, I was stung in a place that receives a lot of sitting time, if you know what I mean, but that is a long, embarrassing story.
I kept walking until I reached the alfalfa field (aka: "the bottom ground"), then I turned around to head to the house. And when I got to the corn field, I started running again. Those terraces are killer when you are running up hill. After I passed the shop and garage, I was met in the yard by a jackwagon on a 4-wheeler, and an over excited dog. Home sweet home. Today was absolutely wonderful.
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