What a wild and crazy weekend we had around here! On Friday, just before I was getting ready to clock out from work, Captain called and said I needed to go to the John Deere dealer in Northfield to get a part that he needed RIGHT NOW! All rightie then, guess I'll do that.
I had no idea where this place was so I plugged the address into the GPS on my phone and headed out. I had to stop at the elevator in Pine Island to pick up a check first, so I chatted with Mama Bear for a couple of minutes while I was there.
It was a beautiful fall day for a drive and I had my road trip classic rock CD turned up and was just cruising. I got just past Cannon Falls and in the silence between tracks on the CD, I almost jumped out of my skin when Miss GPS told me get ready to run left. Geez louise...forgot that was on!!
Found the dealership and got the part, no problem. I took a different route home that made Miss GPS all snippy and snarky and kept telling me to make the next legal U-turn, but I successfully ignored her and found my own way back to my neck of the woods. I figured I had just enough time, if I hurried, to get to FSA to file some paperwork before they closed, and I made it with six minutes to spare!
I was just pulling back onto Highway 14 headed for Byron when Captain calls wondering where the heck his part is? Dude, don't get your jockeys in a jumble, I'm coming as fast as I can with it. He was standing in the driveway waiting when I pulled in, and I didn't even get the truck in park before he flung open the back door to grab the part.
Then he says the words that strike dread into every farm wife in the nation. "This isn't the right part."
Buddy, you called ahead and told them what to give me, and I took what you told them to give me. This is NOT my fault. Argh! On to plan B to take the old part to the neighbor's for him to weld/fabricate something that would work.
I left them to that and got back in the truck to head to the elevator in Byron, stopped and picked up beer for the neighbor doing the welding, dropped that off, and headed home to collapse. Whoda thunk that sitting on your butt driving for three or four hours would be exhausting?!
I had about an hour to unwind before heading to babysit Cubby while Young Man and Mama Bear went out with some friends. Had me some awesome Gramma time but didn't get home until midnight!
On Saturday, Princess and her significant other, Rudy, came by to change the oil in her car. Rudy was hoping to help out with the corn, but the crew had gotten side tracked by soybeans, so he missed out that day. I had Cubby all day, but only had to make a bank run to Plainview so not nearly so much time in the truck. Captain and Blaine finished up the soybeans on the county line and got back here to start making a high moisture corn pile. Young Man got done working in time to help. With all the corn dust flying around, Young Man got to drive the combine so he wasn't breathing all that in. They worked until after dark on it.
Cubby played dress up and was quite the little fashion plate with an old scarf of mine. When Mama Bear got done work and stopped to get her, they both rode in the combine with Young Man for a bit before heading home. We were all tired by the time they called it quits for the night.
I had just gotten all the groceries in the house but not put away when Captain came in and said "Do you want to go to John Deere in Wanamingo?" This is actually a rhetorical question because what it really means is, "I absolutely need you to go to John Deere in Wanamingo right now." So off I go.
That was a shorter trip than the Northfield trip, and it was the right part this time. I finished putting groceries away and had just started to get stuff together to make bourbon balls when Princess and Rudy drove in. Rudy went up to see what the guys were up to and Princess came in the house. I had picked up frozen pizzas for lunch, so I sent her up to the shop to find out what time I should start cooking them. She came running back in the house, "MOM! Dad split his head open!" Well crap.
On a good day, I move slower than a constipated turtle, but I beat Princess in the 100 yard dash to the shop yesterday. There is Captain in a chair with a shop towel pressed to his head. Young Man is giving him instructions on keeping pressure on the wound, while Blaine and Rudy were hovering. I took a look and decided it needed medical attention. Captain was still giving last minute instructions to the guys as we loaded him in my truck to head to the ER.
Let me just say here that I am so thankful that we live so close to one of the greatest medical centers in the world. However, I will follow that by saying that there are serious flaws in the Emergency Department triage plans. We sat in the lobby for FOUR hours waiting to be seen. The poor man next to us (we had the nicest conversation with him and his wife) had come in just after we did. He thought he probably had cellulitis in his leg, and I would bet his leg doubled in size during the four hours we had to wait. Another poor little elderly woman with a nose bleed had to sit with a pillow case of ice pressed to her face while she waited to be seen.
Granted, there had been a pile up somewhere on a highway, and three ambulances came in during out wait, but still, that was almost an unbearable wait in the lobby. Okay, now that I have probably gotten myself fired....moving on.
We finally got called back to an exam room where they determined that Captain needed staples in his wound. Everyone's first comment when they looked at his cut was, "Wow, you have a lot of hair!"
Captain says the worst of it was when they had to inject Xylocaine into the skin surrounding the wound. I let him grip my hand during that, and now I think I know what he went through when I had a hold of his hand during labor and delivery! Yowza!
But...he is all put back together now and doing fine. Prophylactic antibiotics and a five-day return visit to get the staples removed, and he will be good as new. He was so good when we got home, in fact, that he and Young Man finished up the high moisture corn pile.
Seeing as we are only five days into harvest, I am sure that we will have many more interesting adventures before we close the door on this year's crop. And you, my friends, will be along for the ride! Hang on!!
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