Way Down Yonder in the Indian Nation

As I've mentioned about forty dozen times in previous posts, my girls went to my folks for Spring Break.  And my dad brought them with him to the lake when it was time to meet up for them to come home.  Brent and I brought hot dogs and chips and we all had a nice time just sitting at the lake chatting and enjoying that sense of calm that seems to descend when one is at a place where there really isn't a schedule.  

Unless one is fishing.  Which I'm usually not.

I prefer to sit on the shore and day dream or read, or go garage sale-ing if it's Fall Break. 

For fishermen it's OGF (Operation Get Fish.)  And yes, I just made up OGF, but it seems rather catchy don't ya think?  I think all four of my readers should start flinging this acronym around whenever the opportunity arises.  I'm pretty sure that it's going to go viral.  And then you can say, "I remember when an obscure blogger brazenly threw out that phrase.  It was a rare moment of genius and I was privileged to be a part of it."

Feel free to adjust the script to suit your needs.

Anyway, David and his son went out to put out jug lines, and Dad stayed on shore to chat with us while the girls (after exuberantly greeting us, then moving on to bigger and better things) ran around like wild Indians...

Which was imminently appropriate as we were in the Caddo Indian Nation at the time.

I was quite happy to realize I was wearing the appropriate foot wear when I looked down and saw I was standing on actual hieroglyphs as I shot pictures of an Oklahoma sunset.

Even if my Minnetonkas were actually made in China...

The sentiment was there and I was pretty sure I could hear the distant beat of a tom tom in the background.

Either that, or a boat wasn't running as smoothly as one would hope...

P.S.  Is anyone singing "Way Down Yonder in the Indian Nation" right now?  Well, I promise if you click  this link you will be happily humming for the rest of the live long day.
Your welcome.

Farm Ponds

My dad has been trying to get a pond he built to silt in and hold water for several years. Earlier this summer I was riding the horse and noticed that it was doing better than I'd ever seen it. Now, I'm totally astounded to see the size it's grown to. It went from a mere puddle, to a small pond, to a good sized pond that can actually be putted around on in a john boat, and fished out of! Apparently, my youngest nephew does not trust his 11 year old big brother steering the john boat around the pond. Apparently, turns are a little abrupt with him at the helm. Needless to say, Dad's new pet project gets stocked with fish every time the family gets together and fishes at the creek on our land.


My sisters, my brother in law, and my niece Molly jumped in the pickup for a little field trip to admire Dad's newest attraction.


We all properly ooh'd and ahh'd, and then we got to wandering around....



This pickup was the very first pickup my dad ever bought. Doesn't Molly make a great pinup model? With more clothes on, of course!

Molly, being young and carefree, and having a sister who walks around with a camera permanently attached to her neck is always willing to let you snap a photo!



Hey! Here's a drastic subject change for you:

The summer of 2007 it seemed to rain every weekend. One weekend we were at the lake with our friends Wayne & Jennifer from Arlington. We were their official vacation spot when we lived near San Antonio. We could see a storm coming, but we played until the last possible moment, and headed to the shore with 3-4 ft swells crashing over our little fish & ski hull...

Wayne & I held the boat over to the side at the dock while Studmuffin ran to get the pickup and trailer. Jennifer had rounded up the 5 kids and was waiting in her van with them. By now the rain was there, and we were getting poured on...Suddenly, a little john boat with a 5 horse motor comes putting up to us. Two young guys, maybe 18 or 20 years old crawled out of it on shaking legs...

"Were you guys out there in THAT in this storm?"

"Yeah," they agreed with nervous laughs.

"Where are your life jackets?"

Avoiding eye contact: "We didn't have any. We were tied onto the wall fishing, and suddenly all of the boats just took off."

I couldn't believe it. All of the bigger boats took one look at the storm coming, and left these poor kids behind. And, several boats buzzed right past them, never checking if they were going to be okay in their little boat in those big waves....

Of course, Studmuffin gets frustrated with having to stop at every accident we drive by so I can make sure nobody's injured. I just don't understand how people can drive by something like that. Of course the tale of driving backwards down I35 south of Fort Worth, and stopping to help a lady in anaphylactic shock will have to come another day...

This post is too long already...

S'mores, Carnies, and Ticks

We went camping last night. We had a lovely camp site on a local lake. There were lots of trees. There were lots of ticks. Scads and scads of ticks. I'm talkin' ticks crawling all over our tent as we were setting it up. Little itty bitty deer ticks. Smaller than a pin head. I promptly soaked the whole tent in insect repellent. I sprayed down all of us. The problem was, the tricks were dropping out of the trees onto our stuff... Yes, I appreciate the shudders of horror I know you are all having right now. Seriously, the only place I felt safe was on the water.

Remember our lovely campsite? Well, it was very entertaining. We had a very, shall I say, eclectic group of people at the next sight over. There was a gentleman who could juggle fire. He had a baton thingy with torches on either end that he would ignite and use two stick dealies to juggle it back and forth, throw it up in the air and occasionally nearly drop it on his foot. Also, he had a fascination with lighter fluid. It seems they forgot to bring fire wood. The group went around and gathered up sticks and branches off of the ground. The wood was too green to burn. Their fire kept nearly going out, but every time it did, fire starter dude would come up with his lighter fluid and squirt the flames until they were up to bonfire height. When his can of lighter fluid was nearly empty he held the can OVER the flames and squeezed it dry. No exaggeration, those flames were licking up around his can when he finally had it empty. I was praying, "Please God, keep him safe. Please God, don't let him get burned. Please God, I really don't want to deal with 3rd degree burns tonight." I literally said a prayer of thanks when God kept the idiot safe. The group (it was very large) was a family reunion. They had no conception of the quiet hours posted. They stayed up yelling and laughing until after 1 am, and they were back up, yelling and laughing some more by 5 am. I was ready to kill them.

Originally, we had planned on staying 2 nights. However, I'm driving the girls to meet a friend from South Texas on Monday. That group was still there this afternoon with no signs of slowing down. I wanted the girls to be rested up to go visit their friends next week. So, based on the loud hillbilly carnie folk next door and the ticks, we packed up and came home this afternoon.

I know it may not sound like it, but we had a great time. We fished and boated. It was too windy for skiing or tubing. We found a little cove to swim in, and we had the beach to ourselves for 2 hours solid before anyone even came near us. Then, we headed to the Nature Center where the girls got to learn about local animals and make plaster casts of animal tracks. Last night they spent forever chasing and catching lightning bugs...

Oh!

And who could forget.....

S'MORES!!!!!

Post Note: I realize that one may gather that I have something against people who work in carnivals...This is completely untrue...Unless they decide to camp next to me and party all night long with kids screaming and yelling, and shouting profanities...Well, in that case...I wish they would just shut up, and shut their little yapping dog up, and GO TO BED!!

The End.

Yes, I'm laughing at Studmuffin's expense....

Studmuffin graciously read my post this evening...and he promptly asked "You didn't mention me falling off of the boat?"

What?

What is wrong with me?! I completely forgot to share his humiliation...AHA!!! Payback for the beating from the tube ride...Christian virtues, out the window, prepare to laugh at someone other than me...

So, we pulled into a lovely little cove to eat our noon meal. The scene was idyllic, no other boats around, nice break from the wind....

"Hand me the anchors, Babe."

"Sure thing Studmuffin!" I tremblingly (hey, a new word) hefted them out from the cargo space under the front seats. He threw the first one in off of the back and secured it. I began preparing our lovely meal of premade sandwiches, apple slices and Nacho Cheese Doritos...

SPLASH!!!

Man, that anchor sure mad a loud splash, I thought to myself. I continued about my Proverbs 31 duties...Her children fear no hunger...

"MOM!!! DAD FELL IN THE LAKE!"

"What?!" And I looked behind me, and sure enough, he was gone....And he wasn't coming up....So, I waited.

And waited.

Started to get a tad concerned....

At last he surfaced, HOLDING THE BLOODY 15 POUND ANCHOR IN HIS HANDS!!!!!!!

It seems that he accidentally fell in when a passing boat's wake knocked him off balance. He was afraid of losing his $12 anchor, so he held on for dear life and swam to the surface....

Gentle Reader...He has increased his ranking as the King of Cheap....

He would rather drown than lose a $12 anchor....

His obituary would have read, "He was found on the bottom of the lake clinging to an anchor. His wife reported that she heard a loud splash but was too busy preparing lunch to take note of her husband's unfortunate plummet."

You wanna know what's sad? He was in 7 foot of water....The anchor had a 30 foot NYLON rope attached. I suspect it may have floated to the top even without his help. It seems that was a risk he wasn't willing to take.

More on Studmuffin's tendency to fall out of the boat:

2 years ago he bought a casting net. He had never used one before. He went to neatly toss it out, and fell in right behind it. The water was so shallow he landed on his butt on the bottom of the lake. His buddies with him said, "So, did you see any shad down there?"

The second time he fell in was a whopping 10 minutes later....casting the net again.

So, it seems he has mastered falling out of the boat!

Summer Fun

We made our first trip of the summer to the lake yesterday. You know you're getting old when you jump on the tube from the boat so you don't have to attempt to clamor on from the lake, look like a fool, give up, then swim back to the boat to get on the easy way. This year as I stood on the boat preparing to seat drop onto the tube I gave my list of instructions: "Not to fast. Be nice. Remember I'm going to pull you next, so think of paybacks. Be nice. I want to have fun, but not TOO much fun. Remember to be nice. Did I say be nice?" Studmuffin just smiled in his sly, devious way, and handed me the rope to let out as he slowly eased forward to take up slack.

And we were off. Okay, so he held up his end of the bargain, on "not too fast," but he immediately started a zig zag pattern designed to make me fly over the wake again and again and again. I started screaming at him and shaking my head, and screaming at him some more. I was hanging on for dear life, so I couldn't do the universal thumbs up for speed up, down for slow down, or palm out flat for stop. He just kept looking back and saying "I can't hear you," and Bookworm kept holding her arms up in the universal shrug of "I have no idea what you're saying." But did anyone think to stop and ask me what I needed? Noooooo.

And this is how I know I must be getting old. I was too scared to let go and skip across the water to end the torment because I knew that would really hurt too. So, I just held on for dear life, and suffered the whiplash of a roller coaster, only not the fun smooth coasters, think the old wooden coasters that dare you to walk again after you finally get off of them.

When we finally stopped, he asked what I wanted. I explained the beating I was taking jumping those wakes. He laughed and said, "Oh no, now it's time for revenge." But, I decided to show the mercy of my Lord, and I was very gentle with him. Yes, my Christian virtues are astounding, aren't they? Amen.

When we lived in Texas we could go boating on water as smooth as glass, there was so little wind. That is not possible here. There is always a little bit of chop, and if there isn't white caps on the lake, well it's ski worthy. But I've noticed that flying around at high speeds on the tube is a lot more terrifying because it's an endless barrage of beatings, not the occasional, "oh no, there's a big wake and he's about to send me flying over it."

So, after the girls had enough abuse from tubing themselves, we busted out the skis. Okay, so I'm not sure if I can hardly move due to the skiing or the tubing. I'm pretty stable on my skis, but it was a beautiful day and there were tons of people out. That makes for more wakes you have to maneuver over on your skis, and plus we had the standard Oklahoma chop to contend with. Then, one time Studmuffin said "I'm going to turn around as soon as you get up, because there's too much traffic this way."

I agreed, and I noticed he had the prop turned a little to the right, but I figured, "I'm a strong skier, I can hack it." I was barely up and he took a hard right to avoid a boat that came up on us unexpectedly. The rope got so much slack it was in the water. I tried to rally and hunker down. Unfortunately that just lead to me doing a giant face plant in the water with both skis flying off in opposite directions....

So, when we got home last night my pinkie toe was kind of hurting. The only thing I can think is that it got hurt when my skis flew off... Then it woke me up, it was throbbing so bad. I took some ibuprofen, and it continued to ache. I'm limping around today, and my arms and shoulders are sore from the beating from the tube and hanging on to the ski rope.

I'm telling you, I think I'm getting old. Just a few summers ago, I would race back and forth on the skis, jumping the wake the whole time, and if I took a spill, no biggy, I'd shake it off and continue on. I would usually end up with bruises on my shins that I wouldn't really know where they came from, and I would hurt from head to toe, but be ready to go back at it as soon as possible. Yesterday my neck was hurting before I even stepped into skies, so I pretty much played it safe the whole time. The good news was I didn't fall even one time (excluding the previously mentioned face plant that was totally not my fault), and I even kept a fishing hat on the whole time, so my scalp didn't burn!

The hat really ticked Studmuffin off. He said it looked like I was showing off....like I was so confident in my abilities that I wouldn't even lose a hat. Okay, I got the hat at Walmart when I was pregnant with Bookworm. Really, there was no tragedy if I lost it....

Which I didn't....

Because I am awesome....

Or because I played it safe and didn't let him pull me over about 25 mph....