Did you know that there are upwards of 40 million sheep in New Zealand? That's 12 sheep for every ONE person. Wild! We saw muddy sheep, baby sheep, fat sheep, pink sheep, blue sheep, (serious, they spray paint them for fun), and only a very few clean white sheep. FYI, the baby sheep are A-dorable. Also in New Zealand are tons of dairy cows, and a few goats. Farm animals galore!
I fear my luggage bag is not big enough. Did I tell y'all that my last bag ripped a one foot seam on the trans-Pacific flight to Japan? Serious. Luckily my clothes were in those giant Ziploc bags (so that if the bag were to get rained on, the clothes wouldn't get wet. Also so the chances would go down of a security agent fondling my garments with his grubby hands.) and nothing fell out. So I bought a new one, though I'm not sure it's big enough. But the ones that are big enough are huge and I don't want a huge bag. Ugh. Whatever. I'm leaving the country! Woo-hoo!
Anyway.
This is a picture from when the fam was down here for the fourth. My uncle took my nephew for a four-wheeler ride and apparently went through the muddy creek bed. And mud got all over the nephew. He loved it.
Yes, yes, I know. It's almost been two months. An excuse, you say? Um. Just been blah about the blog world lately. But I have some new material for you. I'll start with the pictures here, and then perhaps later on down the road I'll fill you in on: the time I almost got hit by lightning the week I acquired 7 bruises why I hate chlorine why sunscreen is bad for you and my trip to New Zealand....AND Australia. Be jealous. :)
So, it's been awhile since I've reported on my dad doing something completely ridiculous. Usually there's an everyday display of his outstanding mental capabilities, but this one, ladies and gents, takes the cake.
He called me out of a deep sleep to come take a picture of something. "Bring your camera!" Knowing his track record I asked, "Did you find a snake?" In a bashful little voice he goes, "Quit asking questions and get out here!" As I walked out my eyes were still trying to focus, so I wasn't sure what I was seeing, but when they finally did focus, I found this:
We're building a new shed out back for which we needed to rent a bobcat. Dad figured while the builders weren't using it he might as well get some long awaited work done, aka, pulling fence posts that have been in the ground 30 years. Only, the fence post didn't want to budge for the bobcat, so as he was trying to pull up, the wheels slid back and he came within a few feet of being on his face...Excellent!
These are from Easter. There's a new baby calf we're (and by "we", I mean Dad) taking care of over at the barn. We took the kids over to check him out. Little niece didn't want to touch it, but little nephew didn't mind. I haven't named him yet, I usually always name the babies we take care of...Got any suggestions?
Dad and I were moving a rock pile the other day when, once again, he stuck his hand within 5 inches of a rattlesnake. Luckily when he tried to move the rock he kept his hands on the side of it and didn't grab underneath. And luckily, the snake was napping under the rock. Unaware of its fateful dismal end. I told Dad to wait while I ran to get the camera, because that's what I do. When I ran in the house, Mom was all confused to my haste and I informed her of the quasi-excitement and she decided to be a part of the action. You'll see what happened next in the video posted below:
Laying unaware...
Oh. SNAP. The best part is at 1:05 when the actual decapitation happens. The snake flips out and, as you can probably imagine, is not at ALL happy about having a hoe attack its head.
I'm not entirely sure if it's still alive in this shot, but he was still squirming, still showing his fangs to me, so... Yeah.
Now I ask you, where else on the internet can you go from cute Easter niece pictures to gross decapitated rattlesnake heads?
Don't answer that.
Author's Note 4/16/10: You may have noticed that the video was disabled by YouTube due to "inappropriate content". I received a slap on the wrist, y'all. Apparently YouTube didn't find my "depiction of cruel behaviour" without "educational merit" appropriate for viewing. Okay, pansies. This is Texas. Where I come from, you get the rattlesnake before it gets you. Lesson. Learned.
So, it rained last week. I suppose the uncle thought the ground looked dry enough to drive the tractor across. And the ground was dry. On top. But once you put a 10,000 pound tractor set up on saturated ground, it kind of sinks until it finds the mud.
Oh yes, it sinks. Up. To. The. Axle.
The AXLE.
Two foot hole? Anyone?
Post dig out. They had to go get the 8 ton tractor to get the 5 ton one out.
