Shoo Fly

Everette and I have been looking for some dry firewood all summer. Mostly it has been Everette telling me to look for some and me forgetting.

We acquired some wood from my dad when a gianormous storm knocked down a tree in his yard (we don't have any trees so we don't ever have to worry about that). But it was still pretty wet and smoky.

Everette found some people on craigslist selling firewood for $40 a pickup truckload, on Colfax.
We had forty bucks and we had a pick-up truck. It was a match made in heaven.
So Thursday we loaded ourselves into the truck and headed south. After first stopping at Dog N Suds for dinner. I begged Everette to have mercy and not to make me cook, after I was shackled all day to the kitchen. More on that later.

So filled, happily to the brim with root beer we struck out down US52. After some stellar navigating by me (hey-it's my blog, I write it like I see it), we arrived at the house.
The owner led us back into this pasture, where to our surprise, there were three horses.
The owner started to tell us all about his horses, but we quickly told him that we were ignorant in the ways of horses and his breath would be wasted. And we just wanted to know if they were related to Seabiscuit. When he said no, I was going to ask if they could talk like Mr. Ed, but the owner let out a big despondent sigh, so I decided to let it go.

We left Jonathan eating cheerios in his car seat with the windows rolled down, while I jumped in the back of the truck and started stacking the wood Everette dumped on the tailgate.
Oops.
I forgot that my son is big ole scaredey cat when it comes to enourmous work animals.
He is terrified of the donkeys that live near our house. He cries when we go to the zoo to pet the llama. The only animal he isn't afraid of is the miniature donkey and the pygmy goats at the zoo. I assume because they are the exact same size as Max.

No sooner had I laid out the first layer of wood did Jonathan let out a loud shriek. Followed by sevearl other loud cries. We looked up to find a horse had wandered over near the window of the truck.
Everette ran around to get him out.
Knowing how long it takes my son to befriend strange animals I suggested he put him in the back of the truck with me.
Everette thought he could take him up to see the horse and then they would be bestest buddies.
While I have my doubts, this plan may have worked if not at that exact moment a GIANT horsefly landed on the horses back.
I am talking Gigantic. Like When Jeff Goldbloom turned into one in "THE FLY".
Yes, it was a human sized horsefly.
The horse, understandably started prancing around and bucking trying to get the fly off his back.
This of course escalated Jonathan's fear level from terror to nuclear fallout. I seriously started looking for things falling from the sky.
Unfortunately, the horse's prancing had positioned him between Everette with Jonathan and me in the truck. Trapping Everette and terrifying Jonathan even more.
This went on for several minutes until the fly found someone else to bother, and the owner could call the horse away.
The rest of the trip was uneventful as Jonathan was happy in the back of the truck with me, ironically, "neighing" at the horses.
Until we were trying to leave. The owner's wife was holding the gate open for us when all of a sudden the horses, led by Horsefly Hiney himself were right on our tail (ha). They were trying to slip out the gate with us.
So we had to stay there while the wife tried to shoo them away. Horses are not quite as good at being shooed as horseflies are apparently. The owner had to come over and pull the horses away.

We made it out, and even received a nice email from the lady, telling how much she appreciated our promptness (she may have been trying to smooth over the fact that she whacked our bumper with the gate while we were pulling out).

We do however have a 12 foot by 12 foot pile of firewood if anybody finds themselves in need.