It must be Spring~

~On the eighth day of blogging, my conscience said to me,

"Wow, what a sunburn!

You've got to hurry,

Post something practical...

You--are--so--blessed!

Will you share God's peace?

Can you share God's joy?

Are you waisting time,

And can you blog-and do it hum-bl-y?"

Yes, yesterday I received my first sunburn of the year. I didn't think that the sun was so powerful yet, but obviously it is!

I promised a few details about our sale adventures yesterday, so I'll fill you in now.

The lady who was having the auction sale (Shirley) has been a good friend to us for the last 10 years. She and her (now late) husband let me rent their pasture last year for some of my heifers. They were both an encouragement to me as I tried to get my herd going. Then, last summer, Shirley's husband, Harris, died in a tragic farm accident. It was so sad and Shirley was not only left with much grief, but with crops to harvest and cattle to care for. We prayed a lot for her and helped her when we could. Thankfully, she had support from her neighbors and church friends too.

So, we really wanted to go to her sale, to show support emotionally and a little bit financially. Jacob had his eye on Harris's old pickup, a 77 green Dodge Power Wagon from Texas. This is where the adventure comes in... My parents have made it a family tradition to give each of us children an old vehicle for our 15th birthday. As Jacob liked this certain pickup so much, Dad bid on it and got it. "They" said that it had been running earlier, but wouldn't start now, so it was either out of gas or the battery was dead or something. Well, after the sale was over and we had paid for our purchases and hauled some things to the "New" pickup, Andrew hopped in and tried to start the old thing. No luck.

The guys looked under the hood for problems, (and elsewhere),

and finally figured it must be the battery. We went in search of some jumper cables, but to no avail. Then a nice man came with a tractor and offered to pull the pickup 'til it started. Dad got in and the two were off--slipping and sliding in the mud. After about a minute, the pickup started with a rumble. We thanked the nice man; loaded up a couple of Ritchie fountains that Dad got a really good deal on; and were off--Andrew & Jacob leading in the Power Wagon and Dad & I following in the van. All went well until we made the turn onto Hwy. 34. The pickup had killed, but it started again, so we kept going....for about a mile. Andrew suddenly slowed down and coasted into the driveway of a farm that "Happened" to be there. The pickup had been making a loud clanking noise, and wouldn't start up again, so we're thinking the motor may have died! That, or else it could be something wrong with the clutch--ah, something-or-other. Thankfully, the farmer there let us borrow his brand new tow-rope so that we could get the pickup home. Now, we need to return the rope today sometime. It is so nice to have a powerful van! (We've been teased that we must have a Hemi in there.) We had to stop at Napoleon so that Dad could take the semi (which he'd left at the elevator that morning) home, so I got to pull Andrew the rest of the way to our farm. We all made it safe and sound at last--and just in time for chicken and rice dressing too!