In the meantime...


Here are a couple of pictures to illustrate what happened to our yard in Missouri after 2 months of no rain and temps between 90 and 100+ degrees. 

Here's Ellen in early May; out helping me garden.  Looks like we are behind on the mowing and weedeating chores a wee tad.


Here's Ellen in the first weekend in August; dressed up to go to a family reunion.  No need to mow here.

A little randomness: 

Bet you have never tried to tow a road grader with a bulldozer, have you?

I have.

It was quite the adventure. 

Hubby got himself a newer road grader this summer.  The place he bought it from loaded it with some kind of crane-jobber-thingy-mabobber; which meant that the blade on the grader was cocked at a weird angle.  (Keep the blade angle in mind.)

So anyway.  The grader is on the trailer.  Said grader cannot be started unless it is towed.  Hmmmm...  Thusly grader must be unloaded from trailer by brute force. 
Have you any idea how heavy a road grader is?
Me either; let's just agree that it's mighty heavy and can't be manually pushed off.

Hubby has a large bulldozer and a handy wife he taught how to drive it forward and backward. 

So there we are in our respective machines, and I am told to keep an eye on the grader blade...though I can't see it from where I am sitting.  But I go backward in the dozer; no movement.  I put a little more power to it. 

BAM!

The chain breaks. 

If you have never broken a heavy-duty chain by trying to tow a grader with a dozer; you haven't lived life on the edge.  There's no feeling like your heart in your throat. 

We try again. 

BAM!

This happens THREE times!

Finally, though, we get a chain that is stout enough to do the job.  We are moving forward...well, the grader is moving forward whilst I am moving backward. 

Suddenly it's moving sideways!  Faster than it takes to read this. 

OOPS.  Did you forget the blade position?

Yep, it caught on the side of the trailer and pulled the front end of the grader off of the tracks. 

So hubby had to use the dozer to lift the grader BACK onto the tracks.  THEN he advised me he wasn't sure if the brakes worked on the grader, so brace myself.

The end of the matter was that we got it unloaded and towed to where it needed to be.  And the emergency brakes worked, so I do not have whiplash. 

A happy ending to a summer adventure.

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