It was the Underwood ND country fair going on and being in a small town that is news.  Not much goes on so when there is an event seems that everyone attends.  From carnival rides, cotton candy, the smell of foot long hotdogs and even car races one can get ahold of if you have the mind to do so.  Darren had been working down at the ranch on whatever had presented itself for the day. There is always something that needs doing it seems.  Like the other day when the baler darn near caught fire.  The year had been bad for baring’s going out on the baler and being just shy of 100 degrees some days didn’t help either.  Gramps and Darren both had trouble with Gramps the winner on how bad the repair was.  With net wrap wound so tight around the roller bar as the baring was going out it created almost a cast like wrap around the bar with the net entwined and melted to everything.  That was a two day fixer an then when Darren was at the helm he noticed something not right, stopped the tractor and opened the side panel and here it was smoldering hot and burnt along the baring edge..so what did he do?  He dug out the smoldering hay and peed on it as he was out of water, to put that hot hay out and calls in desperation for 5 gals jugs of water. Now being a girl I have to imagine what I would have done in that situation if you know what I mean. I jumped in the car and headed down to the ranch where I found MC chatting on the phone (not the time to be on the phone MC) but I did the hand signal thing and with understanding she said the words take the Tahoe.  Off I went to the shop, filled me up 3 5 gal buckets of water and headed to the hay field which was only minutes away.  By the time I had gotten there, water had flopped out of a couple of the buckets and it was a bit damp.  Darren pops open the back door, grabs a bucket and gave the dirt a good douse of water along with the baring.  All was well but things like that happen all the time here.

Doing some work in the house I took a look at the time and saw it was getting close to chore time.  We still had the horses in the little barbed wire corral eating out some of the tall weeds and grass.  Darren had come up and gave me a nod and wanted to know if I would go and help as Shelby was out and about.  “Why not, sure of course you can wait on supper..right.”  So off we went in the car and as I got closer to the ranch, I could smell this horrid smell, kinda like there was some rotten eggs nearby.  What in tarnation is that wretched smell, worse then hogs breath if you ask me smell.  Darren jumps out by the horse pen and as I drove by I spied some movement in the bushes.  Took note to what that was and slowed down only to see two ole people standing with knee high muck boots on in the tall grass.  Oh Heavenly days what is MC and Gramps up to now.

Putting the car in park I headed off to find out the doings of MC and Gramps.  “So whatcha all up to” and the reply was “standing in the sewer, what’s it look like” pretty much figured that one out by the looks of things.  Here they were knee deep in sewer mud trying to shovel out the years of fill that had clogged the drain field. Being an open drainage field and with the years of grass, trees and other depree it had over grown and plugged up the pipe where the water came out.  MC says “drains in the house are backed up” called the septic man and he’s off to the lake for the weekend and will call if he has a mind to do so and or if he decides to not do lake time, which is highly unlikely.  Gramps was at the shovel, then MC they both looked like the swamp monsters mucking around in there, black and full of the remnants of years past.  At one point I thought of offering my help but then Darren showed up in the nick of time and goes “whats is going on”  and proceeded to go into the cave of darkness looming with bugs and branches, almost like a tropical forest.  By the time of his arrival MC and Gramps had about had their fill of the situation and decided to just sit and take a break.  Off to the garage and parked their butts on lawn chairs.  I said to them “would you like a beer” and the answer came with a most defiantly YES.  Dirt, grim, sewer mud was no concern when it comes to drinking a cold one on a hot summer day.  Gramps pops the top open with his mud ridden hands and sits back with a scratch on top of his head and says “this is good” and MC just sighed “MIGHTY TASTY”. After a fashion we discovered a new septic person who just so happened to be at the Underwood Country fair and said he would be right by to help out.  Septic’s pumped, beer in hand, God is good and life is great on the ranch.