That reminds me of a country song...

After spending a couple more days at Sierra's, and traumatizing a few more of her friends, I took her to the the airport at an insane hour of the morning & then headed in the direction of the farm at which Gracie pretends to work. Gracie was nice enough not to inform her sister & brother-in-law that I was coming until about 5 minutes before I showed up. How considerate.

Nathan & Ellen own a grass-fed meat farm, and are just getting started in dairy cows, this part of the operation being Gracie's job. So, I helped her milk cows. All 8 of them. Everyday. With a bucket milker that was made from parts of several kinds of milkers.

So everyday we completely took apart the milker & washed all the parts twice. I washed them first in one sink & then handed them to her to wash in another sink. I don't know why, but for some reason I am unable to wash anything in a sink without getting soaked myself. There were a couple days when I thought Gracie looked like she needed washed as well, and took appropriate measures. I do not know why she was not impressed with my initiative. After washing, we went cow chasing. The fence was rigged about like the bucket milker, so everyday we rounded up the cows from the neighbor's. We attempted to fix the fence & ended up just putting a gate in it so we could get the cows back easier.

Research has proven that cows milk best when you play music, particularly classical, but country ranks as second best. Since we only got one station in the barn & it's country, we played it while we milked. And I swear, we heard the same 20 songs every day. The station liked to brag that we found the one station that plays the best & most music, so I yelled at the radio that we found the one station...PERIOD. And, it is true, folks: there is a country song for any situation in life.

For example: I was really missing my bike, but it was "stuck in colder weather, maybe tomorrow will be better..."
Actually, the whole reason for mentioning this is so that when Gracie reads this, she can "have that song in her head all day, yeah."

We spent a couple days fixing fence on the main farm with Ellen, during which Gracie managed to get burned to a crisp, while I managed to get a tan. She also tried to cut off her finger; she is quite talented. I suggested that I stitch it back in place, but she turned me down, preferring instead to complain about it constantly.

As mentioned before, I was missing my bike. Gracie, however just bought one, but it was 2 hours away. We were nice enough to wait until Lauren the Sister was available for abducting so we could bring her to the farm, too. We drove the two hours on Saturday night after milking, during which we listened to anything but country, yelled at drivers going way under the speed limit, and called the cops on a herd of jaywalking horses. We arrived without further incident however & I ate ice cream, licked out the bowl, and decorated the ceiling fan, to mention a few things. Ceiling fans are so boring with out appropriate streamers, don't you think? Apparently, Lauren didn't think so, she removed them. Lame.

The next day dawned perfectly frigid with periods of rain. Of course. We headed back to the farm in the afternoon; Lauren & I took the car while Gracie froze solid on the bike. Poor thing looked like a statue in black leather when we pulled over at a gas station to watch her warm up. And then, it stayed cold for a few days afterward, simply to spite us. By the way, Gracie got a bigger bike than mine, but you should know that I have handled this with utmost maturity.

Anyways, despite the fact that we were convinced that a freak, indefinite ice age had occurred, it did eventually warm up. And when it did, we went riding; it was downright amazing. She even let me ride it. It was amazing. For...like...a whole hour. Did I mention it was amazing? The weather was perfect and I discovered that Gracie has friends that are good at buying food. Three cheers for responsible, generous people with normal jobs!

So, speaking of food...apparently, I have lived a deprived life. I mean...I had never even heard of a hushpuppie, much less eaten one! Shock. And...I had never had real Tex-Mex food! Gasp. How could I have made it this far alive?!? Well, folks, just so you can sleep tonight, I've been properly introduced to these as well as green tomato relish, elk chili, sweet tea from a mason jar & other stuff not necessarily particular to the South.

Speaking of green tomato relish, everyday we drove past a graveyard on our way to the dairy. Everyday I thought about sleeping in it. I love sleeping in random, weird places, and graveyards are one of my favorites. I mentioned the idea to Gracie & she thought it was a good idea, of course. We never actually got around to doing it, but here is what I'm sure would have happened, given our luck: We would have fallen fast asleep. The next morning, we would have been suddenly awakened by a little, old, southern lady with flowers in hand, coming to grieve at her husband's grave, which happens to be the one we are sleeping next to. Yep. Or, it would have poured down rain in the middle of the night. I'm sure of it.

Anyways, I left TX with the promise of a couple-day -job in MS & plans for heading home-ward. After all, "I have a gypsy soul to blame, and I was born for leaving..."

Shopping Carts & Studs

I left AR. Well, actually, I was bribed into going to TX. Yeah, I like chocolate covered cherries. And, I was promised a ticket to the Houston Rodeo Finals.

So we went to the rodeo. Our sole purpose was to find a Cowboy for Sierra and a Stud for Gracie, via our respective mother’s requests. We went through traffic at decent speeds though Sierra never saw the speedometer past 40. Grace decided that she needed a loud speaker for the top of her stupid car so that she could yell at the other drivers and tell them how to drive correctly. Sara sat in the back seat and held onto her coffin with a death grip. We passed a, what appeared to be, one car wreck, however it needed about half a million tow trucks to tow it. We then payed 10 dollars parking, convinced the nice man that the mud caked car did not want a bath for 12 dollars, and then headed toward the rodeo. We forced Sierra to jay run across the rather busy intersection, safely, I might add, but I won't. Mostly, she screamed, she’s rather good at this occupation. We then continued sedately on to the rodeo venue. After passing a Toys-R-Us shopping cart we, collectively, I’m sure, decided that Gracie should push Sara at haphazard speeds to the rodeo. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the time.

We walked up to a gate labeled VIP, Very Idiotic Personages, and assumed that this was our gate. We were wrong. The nice lady directing person, directed us to the far side of the building. Apparently, we looked like we needed exercise. After taking a hike around the entire building we got directed by the nice man directing person, who pointed us in the direction of several flights of escalators, which in case you wanted to know, one should never run up. Don’t you know how many accidents this could cause? Sara was kind enough to find this information out for us.

After hiking to the very top of the building, going up the elevator, where Gracie gave a speech, and past the dragon lady, we arrived at our seats. Which were the seats located at the very top of the nose bleed section. Sara was excited about this occurrence because this meant she could stand on her seat without a person yelling, “Um, ma’am please sit down.” Instead she got a frown, a “Sit down, that’s not safe,” and a shaking finger. Sara and Sierra were determined that Gracie buy them blinky lights, and/or cotton candy. She did neither, and they unsystematicly disowned her. RUDE.

Then all three of us cheered and booed the contestants and picked out various studs and cowboys based on their winnings. Sara even decided she might need one, seeing as he made so much money. Sara left at one point, and her guy kissed someone, it remains a mystery as to who, we couldn’t see her very well, and Sara refrains from commenting. However, she has not come up exorbitantly richer yet. Which means, one, it wasn't her, or two, Gracie still has time to become her best friend and only beneficiary of her will.

The chuck wagons came out to race, and we were instructed to make friendly bets. As we always, without fail, do what we are told, Sara and Gracie bet their doritos against Sierra buying supper. Sierra won, not just once, but twice, in a row. TWICE. We, collectively, think she bribed the chuck wagon dudes, with her cute face and sweet talk. Then, we watched the mutton busting contest. We have no idea why people think merry-go-rounds are dangerous, then put their 5 year old kids on the back of sheep and hope they hold on. Either way, the winner was a little boy and they interviewed him afterwards. They asked him how he practiced to get so good and he replied, “Well...I’ve been doing it for...twenty-three...years.” Now we know.

Immediately after the rodeo was a Brad Paisley concert. Sara cannot sit down during a concert, so we all stood...and yelled...and sang loudly and off key...and clapped...and waved our hands in the air...and jumped up and down...and just mostly had fun. We are not sure what all the rest of the sedate people who just sat there and watched where thinking but it doesn’t matter. At the end, Sierra and Sara's voices were shot, so Gracie laughed and made fun of them. As time went on, though, their voices got better, but Gracie began to sound like a teenage boy.

About this time, we realized we were starved half to death because nothing at the rodeo cost less than highway robbery. Actually, Gracie realized she was starving halfway through the rodeo, but we refused to be robbed. Since we were going to spend the night with nice, hospitable friends of Sierra who had no idea what they were getting into, we decided to meet up with them and go find food. The meeting place was in front of the ferris wheel. We arrived there and found a mob of people, but no friends yet. While we sat there waiting, Gracie and Sara discussed the fact that they still had not found a stud for Gracie. And of course, they could not possibly disappoint Gracie’s mom. So, they started looking for a stud with the necessary requirements: tall enough, no girl, etc. Finally, they hit the jackpot when they found 4 dudes standing there, just chilling. So, since Gracie can somehow convince anyone to do anything, we walked up and she tapped the closest one and asked in her most manipulative (despite sounding like a teenage boy) voice, “Um, excuse me. Um, my mom wants a picture of me with a guy, and I was wondering if you would mind.” We do not know why she changed it from stud to guy, but either way, you would think from the dude’s expression that we had offered him a hundred bucks and a free trip to Vegas. We got the necessary picture and walked away celebrating our success, while the dudes celebrated...well, we’re not sure what.

We then met up with the afore mentioned friends, spent the night at their house, and traumatized them to appropriate measures. We then returned to Sierra’s, and had a rather normal birthday celebration. Sara and Gracie are officially bad for one another. Officially. If you would like to see the document, well, um, we probably got hungry and ate it.