Country Kid for a Day

One of the down sides of living out here, in my opinion, is that my kids will never have the experiences of a kid living in the country. These experiences include, but are not limited to, playing in large dirt piles, being around livestock, throwing cow pie frisbees, and swimming in cow tanks. Sometimes I become afraid that my kids will lack that certain character that comes from getting snagged on barbed wire or blowing up something with a homemade bomb. Hopefully they will turn out all right, despite the lack of manure. Anyway, we got to spend an afternoon out at the home of my childhood friend, Meg. She and her husband and kids recently bought and fixed up a cute place outside of town. When they purchased it, the owner threw in about 10 tons of sheep sh...tuff, FREE. Apparently, instead of shoveling out the barn, when the manure became so high the sheep could mosey out the window, they merely nailed boards across the window. When the fence became obscured with scat, they reinstalled the fence on top of the pile. Thanks to the previous owners, Meg and Ryan are now the proud owners of a large pile of crap. While we were there, James got to experience riding a horse. He was excited first, then scared, but he warmed up. Ryan rode with James first to get him used to it, then led him around the round pen by himself. What fun! Even more fun for the boys was the blowing up of their satellite dish. Ryan had some sort of explosives which require a shot by a high-powered rifle to ignite. In the next few days I'll put up a video of that. It was pretty entertaining. It was such fun just to hang out and let James pretend he was a country kid, if only for a day.

James riding with Ryan

James digging in the dirt (note the manure in the background)

James running with glee

'All by my own self!'

The hole in the satellite dish made by an explosive (How do you like the view?)