Big Surprise for Wifey !

I will be posting this from my cell phone with voice to text recognition. I blame any and all punctuation and grammar errors on the phone. Lol.

I was talking to a coworker a few days ago and telling her that this coming Friday was my wife's birthday. This was going to be the first time in our 15 years of marriage that we have been apart on her birthday.

I had picked up no extra shifts the rest of the week as most of the vacations have begun to die down. My coworker mentioned that I could switch a shift with someone else creating an extended period of time off. That got the wheels in my brain turning.

I text another coworker to see if she was interested in switching shifts. My usual work week is Monday Tuesday Thursday. Normally that would give me Wednesday Friday Saturday Sunday off. My coworker was willing to take on my Thursday and in turn I would cover her Friday next week. This would give me Wednesday thru Sunday off. Thats 5 days! With no income lost.

One of my uncles owns a car dealership nearby. My dad is the used car manager. And another uncle is the service manager. I make it a point to never ask for anything as I was raised a man takes care of himself. But now that I've been away from my family for 6 weeks and my wifes birthday was approaching I swallowed my pride and made a request.

To my delight my uncles and father have loaned me a rental car that gets almost three times the miles per gallon that my Jeep gets me. By my calculations I should be able to drive to Arizona for around $100.

I am truly blessed to have such a loving family and I am excited to be on my way home to see my wife and daughters. It will be about a 16 hour drive if I don't waste too much time.

A quick stop for some drinks and I'm on my way now. Its about 1 o'clock in the afternoon Arizona time. I should get home just in time to take the girls to school and surprise my entire family with a visit.

I have asked wifey not to read the blog for a few days as it would spoil her surprise birthday present. She thinks I am putting something together for her and some girl friends from church. My third oldest daughter got her braces off today and her smile looks beautiful. I can't wait to see her in person.

Thank you to everyone who made donations . Wifey would not be getting this birthday surprise if it weren't for you.
No word yet on a trailer or a rental house. The loan officer at the trailer dealership send me a text about 30 minutes ago letting me know he would be going on  vacation.  He assured me that someone else would be contacting me soon and that I was in good hands. We'll see about that.

I made half a dozen or more calls on rental houses and was unsuccessful 100 percent. Some were already rented , some where already sold, and one denied me because I have a German Shepherd. I asked him why and he said the owners don't allow vicious dogs like pit bulls Dobermans and German shepherds. I was rather shocked at this comment. I told the man, you do know  german
shepherds are police dogs right?

Whatever. I'll keep looking.

Severe Thunderstorm Warning in Progress

News Channel 9 Live Weather Imaging

I'll hop on here real quick just to give an update. I've been successful at posting almost daily and I missed a day. I'm now in the middle of a Severe Thunderstorm that keeps knocking my power out. I'm taking some video to upload to YouTube later.

For now, since I don't have any surge protector strips for my electronics, I'm going to leave my laptop and things unplugged. I've been trying to cook bacon for the last hour as the power comes and goes on my two burner electric grill. My Coleman propane lantern has been turned on about four times. I finally just decided to use the light on my cell phone since the power comes back on usually within ten minutes or so.

Argh. It just went out again. Man, it gets REAL quiet out here with no power on. Anyway, my last few strips of bacon are sizzling. Gonna throw them on some bread with some mayo and call it a night. It's a little after midnight and I have to report to work at 8am for a few hours. Wonder how much sleep I'm going to get with the loud thunder crashes and flickering of lights (including the powerful "Mercury light" outside the farmhouse).

Wifey's birthday is this Friday. Gotta figure out what I'm going to do. I've never been away before on her birthday in the 15 years we've been married. We were driving back to Arizona from the recent Oklahoma funeral on my birthday in May. Not a memorable year for birthdays apparently...

For those of you kind souls who have donated to our PayPal account...it is very much appreciated. You may have just enabled me to pay Wifey a surprise visit for her birthday...but don't tell her! It'll be a surprise!

~OJD

Shoot Them in the HAUNCHES!

Wranglerstar posted a contest a few days back. He had a flashlight company (ThruNite) offer to send him several flashlights (is that one word or two?). Anyway, he decided to give them away in a contest. To enter, you had to make a video response to the contest and post it by Sunday night (tonight) to be eligible.

I wasn't going to enter at first since I am still learning the ropes on video editing (as evidenced by my submission) but I couldn't go to sleep so I gave it a whirl. I chose his action-packed (chuckle!) YouTube video where he described a coyote attack on his property and how he responded.

Not only did he shoot the critter AND find the blood trail to follow, he attempted to find the wounded carnivore in the dense brush ON camera. So, I did what any other guy would do...I turned it into an action movie preview voiced over by Don LaFontaine.



I laugh every time I watch it. I hope you do to. Happy Sunday everyone.

~OJD

Farmers' Depression Linked to Weedkiller Chemicals

Can't get this to post on my Facebook page,  so I'll link to it here.

I'm not surprised by the results of this study,  are you?

Weedkillers tied to depression in farmers - Yahoo! News Canada http://ca.news.yahoo.com/weedkillers-tied-depression-farmers-193011410.html

Slight Change of Plans

Change is one of the few things guaranteed in this life.

When Wifey and I originally talked out our plan of moving to the country, we pretty much agreed that it would take about two months of me living in Oklahoma to set things in motion before I could move everyone else out there with me from Arizona. Easier said than done.

Staying as positive as I could, and I'm a pretty optimistic person, I slowly began inching that deadline shorter and shorter. The more days I was away from my family, the more I missed them and wanted to go pick them up sooner. I made it a goal to go back and get them within one month's time.

In retrospect I can see that this caused me more stress than I was already under. Every time I thought I had a homesteading plan in place (doublewide, rental house in town, etc) and it would slip away for one reason or another, I would become increasingly frustrated until one day my optimism turned into pessimism and I posted a negative blog post.

Boy did I get the wrath of the readers that day. I was a little shocked at all the "tough love" I was receiving...until...

MysticMud.blogspot.com

A reader suggested that I go take a look at the blog of Mystic Mud. Some of you are fully aware of MM's trials and tribulations but I was blissfully unaware. Then I read her blog from the beginning. OMG. I guess I AM being a bit soft.  Due to sudden hardships (of which I'm still not quite certain as to what exactly happened) she, her husband and TEN KIDS all had to leave their home. They relocated to the country on four acres and started over with a 600 sq ft cabin. 600 SQUARE FOOT CABIN!

That is the size of the farm house I am staying in right now. Yes, we could all fit (of course, my family of eight seems small compared to her 12) but it sure wouldn't be easy. Nonetheless, MM proves it CAN be done and she even blogs about random happiness during the whole thing. Now I've only read the first couple of months of her ordeal, and she has been at it now for about 18 months it looks like, but things are coming together for her and her family. They've added a trailer house to their livable buildings and have a large outdoor garden growing.

So I shared this blog with Wifey and it renewed our faith. With family together, anything is possible. I can't get a home loan for a doublewide trailer without $10,000 down. But I am now working on a deal to get a "bumper pull" trailer that will sleep all eight of us for $3,000 down. We figure we can pull it up next to the farm house and utilize both structures for six months to a year until we save enough money for a down payment on something we want to live in forever. Call me soft for these plans if you want but I'm sure MM would have taken this option had it been available to her at the time.

So thanks to everyone who comments and reads this blog because you are an integral part in helping us figure things out along the way on this crazy journey. After a few requests for a Donation button, I finally put one up to see what would happen. To our surprise, someone made a generous donation that will help us get down the road a little further. We'll just call him Saint Paul. When I offered to repay he simply said "Pay it forward."

I shared with Wifey that it will take me a few more weeks to come get them and it was obvious we were both disappointed. In her own loving way, she responded "Well, at least I have a few more weeks to pack up our stuff." We both shared a laugh and began recanting what all we were thankful for in our lives.

God Bless you All,

~OJD

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New Farm Rules

22) if you are buying a replacement part because something broke, buy more than one...because it probably will break again! (thanks to the commenter on my How to Replace a Sediment Bowl video who said "You did buy more than one, right?" My response: "Doh!")

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Back Home Report

School has started back in Arizona and some of our girls had shoes with holes in them. Wifey took them to Ross and picked out some affordable but cute shoes.