Random funny memories from when I was a kid

For those of you who don't know, I grew up on a small family farm.  A lot happens on a farm some sad, some funny and some gross.  I was just thinking about being a kid the other day as I was digging in the yard and my neighbor called over the fence "Wow!  You've used a shovel before!  I haven't seen anyone attack the ground with a shovel like that in a long time." It's true, I have used a shovel before.  My parents bought an old 1920s farm house when I was going into 3rd grade and fixed it up.  I remember one VERY rainy day being outside with my dad digging out a foundation so we could add on to the house.  We were drenched and we were digging.  I was in 4th grade.  The cement truck was coming in the morning and we needed to dig down x amount of feet and across x amount of feet.  We had started the day before but the cows had gotten out so we had to round them up and mend the fence.
Another time I remember using a shovel was when we were digging out the porch.  The porch that was on the origional house was crap.  So dad was going to build a covered porch that went the length of the house.  So there we were again.  Mom, dad Tyler and myself digging out another foundation for a porch.  I was in 7th grade.  Tyler was really pissing me off and it just so happened that he walked behind me as I was throwing a shovel full of dirt behind me.  The blade of the shovel hit his eye and cut it open.  Work stopped while a trip to the Urgent Care was taken.
That wasn't the only time Tyler walked by me while I was shoveling and regretted it.  He and I were cleaning out the hog barn one Saturday morning when I was in 7th or 8th grade (he was in 4th or 5th).  I reached back and got a heaping pile of pig poop and swung back around to hurl it out of the barn and down the hill.  At that very moment Tyler walked in front of me and saw that I was in the process of hurling the shovel.  He opened his mouth to yell at me to wait and a big pile of pig poop went right in his mouth.  While he ran to the house crying like a little girl I continued to shovel the poop all while laughing my head off.
There was another time when I was a sophomore in high school that I went with my dad to get a couple cows.  One of the cows was PISSED and did not want to go in the trailer.  How we corralled him in there is a mystery to me but we got him in and he thrashed around in that trailer the whole way home (about 40 minutes from the place we got him to the pasture).  As soon as we opened the trailer door that cow barreled out and went right through the high voltage electric fence and down the road.  Un. Believable.  So dad yells at me "Don't lose sight of that blankity blank cow!" So I take off running after the cow who is by now making his way into the woods.  Dad unhitched the trailer, grabbed his gun and drove after me.  I stopped at the edge of the tree line and waited for dad.  He got out of the truck with his gun and we went looking for the cow.  We found him and dad held his hand up for me to back off a bit.  So I took a couple steps back while dad took aim and shot that stupid cow dead.  Now we had a dilemma.  How to get that cow out of the woods.  The truck had 4 wheel drive luckily so dad blazed a trail through the woods and got as close to the cow as possible.  Great.  Now what?  We tied a rope around the cow and tried to pull it up.  We got it about 10 feet to a tree and stopped.  Then dad called his buddy who came with a come along and pulley system.  They set up the pulley on the tree branch and lifted the cow up into the air. Dad backed the truck up under the cow and the cow was lowered into the truck.  The thing was so long that we couldn't shut the tailgate.  So then dad and I were off to the butchers (in downtown) so he could skin and cut up the meat.  The cows tongue was hanging out of his mouth and blood was dripping from the bed of the truck as we pulled up to the butchers store.  I was mortified! I'm pretty sure I hid my head the whole way there.  Never mind that the truck we were driving there was the truck I drove around and to school with and if anyone I knew saw it they would've known it was me.
Some other funny memories I have are of my dad sticking his shot gun out the kitchen window and blasting the crows that were eating the corn out of the garden.  Every once in a while I would come down the stairs to dad, shot gun in hand  trying ever so carefully to open the kitchen window without making a sound.  (The screen on that window was just left off for such an occasion).    Then he would whip his gun out the window and BAM!  A couple crows would fall while about 20 others would scatter and fly away.  He would do the same thing off the dining room window with the barn rats.  If you've never seen a barn rat you are missing out.  These things are the size of a cat.  I remember being out back playing with my brothers and coming across a dead barn rat that was missing a head.  Tyler and I would look at each other and shake our heads and laugh looking towards the dining room window.
I always joke around about how much my life sucked as a kid because I could never go out and do what I wanted to but you know what?  It's okay because if I had done whatever I wanted I wouldn't have these stories to share with you.  Theses are only a few of the stories that come to mind but I have many many more and as they surface I will be sure to write them down and share them.  I look back on these stories and it makes me laugh.  I had a great childhood.  It may not have been ideal to me at the time but now looking back I wouldn't have it any other way.

Stuff

Linnea has started talking a lot more lately.  I love it!  I am not the type of mom who really enjoys the baby phase.  I love how silly they are and how snuggly they are but I can't stand the not knowing what they want thing.  And this phase that Linnea is in is exciting and frustrating because I can understand most of what she is saying but when I don't understand her she can get pretty ticked.  She is usually very patient with me but sometimes that Swedish blood runs strong through her veins. Linnea's sense of humor cracks me up!  She is so goofy.  We went to the circus about a month ago and she laughed her head off during the clown act.  I was relieved that one of my kids gets that kind of humor.  (Emma didn't find it funny at all).  Linnea is for the most part a very happy little girl.  She stands up for herself and has been known to make Emma cry from pushing her off of the piano bench.  How my little Linnea does that to her big sister is beyond me.  She's a feisty one.  It's been hard trying to figure out the right way to discipline her because what works for Emma doesn't work for Linnea. 

Emma is getting to be such a big girl!  She has lost 2 teeth already and looks so cute with her toothless smile.  She is getting really good at cutting things.  The other morning when I was teaching preschool we did a review on shapes.  I had them cut out a bunch of different shapes and glue them on a paper and then I put clear contact paper over them to make place mats.  One of the shapes was a star and most of the kids butchered it but Emma cut it out perfectly!  I was way impressed/shocked that she did it.  Jacob has also been going outside with her when he gets home and throwing pitches to her and she's been hitting them with her baseball bat.  She is a very loving big sister and friend and a great helper to her mommy.  Emma is my rule follower.  If anything happens that isn't supposed to she freaks out. (Not really a good thing if you ask me).  Before I close the door at night to the girl's room she asks me what we are going to do when we wake up.  So I tell her and then she asks what we are going to do after that and after that and after that. The girl wants to know exactly what is going to happen in her life.  I've tried to break her of that cycle because I know down the road it's going to cause some serious problems.