The Dung-Patch Road

Howdy, All, this is Mom (aka Therese/Aunt Therese/Mimi/Princess-to Tim/T)

Sorry there's no picture so you'll have to just picture this one in your mind, which, after you learn the particulars you may not want to have a picture.

This day, Sunday, March 28, I took a road trip with Mike and Kathy's stock trailer to pick up some baby Jersey calves. I didn't end up getting the calves which calls for another story, so never mind that point. The point is I was on my way back to drop the trailer off at MK's when the thought occurred to me to fix a bad part of the road near their house using the OKDOT (OK Dept. of Trans.) road rock supply piled beside the road I'd be passing. So, I shoveled a small pile into the back of the trailer and proceeded to the location.

This part of the road I planned to repair is in the middle of a long straight stretch. The potholes are on both sides of this wide one-lane road so in order to avoid driving into these holes, a driver drives at an angle or swerves a great deal. Yes, I'm speaking from experience. Neither method is very successful, but you tend to avoid holes in attempt to avoid beating up your tires more than necessary.

So, after I stopped, put on my emergency lights, and made a good-sized pile of the manure that's in the trailer (the Cousins use this trailer for their cow Bella to get in out of the rain), I began shoveling first manure, then some road rock into the deep potholes. There were plenty of holes to choose from, but I concentrated on an area where bad holes are on both sides of the road. A few cars passed slowly by, waved "Hi", etc. One neighbor I knew asked, "What are you filling these up with?" I smiled and said, "Manure, but I do have a little rock too." If I thought fast enough, I could have just said, "Just adding to it's rightful name," but I didn't think of that then.

Then a car driving the same direction as my car is pointed approached. My back was to the car and as I quickly finished patting down a hole on the opposide side of the road, I turned towards the coming car, and directed them to go. Well, low and behold, the two in the car are Angela and Michael Snyman -- good friends who live down the road. They were busting-up laughing and told me that as they were approaching this trailer in the road (the trailer blocked the sight of the pulling vehicle) and watching a lady throw manure into potholes, they said aloud together, "That looks like something Aunt Therese would do. See a hole, and fill it." Then as they were getting closer, said, "It's kinda funny; she even looks a little like Aunt Therese." But still not even thinking it could be me, (after all, I don't live down this road--I hardly ever visit the Cousins, etc.), when I turned around to give the go ahead (they had stopped about forty feet away), they burst into laughter and drove up to me.

After I got home, I told this story to the Katie, Ree, Thomas and Daniel (John was asleep) and they burst into laughter too. That's when we began creating new names for the road because "I dun ripparred it." So, now we'll call it the Dung-Patch Road.

Believe it or not, there's more on this subject. After our laughter died down, I told the kids that there was something else that happened while repairing the road. I explained that one guy driving a beautiful clean pickup truck came from the opposite direction... Katie immediately interrupted me and said, "Let me guess! You accidentally threw the manure into the air, covering his truck as he passed!!" Well, just the thought of this made all the kids burst loud into laughing fits again, so much so that when I finally said, "No, I didn't throw it all over his truck," and to egg-on their imaginations more, I continued, "but his window was open," extreme peals of laughter resounded because of the thought that my laughing now confirmed at least some of Katie's assumption (which wasn't true but this was just too much fun to stop just yet). Anyway, what really happened was that as I was shoveling from the trailer to a hole across the street, this particular truck startled me, so I stopped my throwing motion for a second, then realized his s-l-o-w speed and at the last second, threw the pile into the hole. I didn't hit the truck but it could have looked like I was trying to. Well, it took us all quite awhile to stop laughing again.

Anyway, just a typical day here at the ETMF Ranch. Hope you can join us soon!!!

Love Ya'll
Therese