I B Dozin

I yet again find myself overdue for an update.  Where does the time go?  Since my last post I have celebrated Father's Day, been to Texas and back, and, of course, have made some progress on a few projects.

The highlight of Father's Day weekend was a family get-together.  While the annual family reunion is nice, it seems in recent years that attendance by the cousins that I grew up with has fallen off.  Most of the relatives that do make it regularly are the ones that I know mostly from, well, seeing them at the reunion.  This one was nice because it was only the relatives that I grew up with, and it was pretty well attended by that group.  Like all family events, I spent too much time chasing/entertaining the boys and not enough visiting with family, but it was still a very enjoyable event.  I hope it is an event that we can repeat on at least a somewhat regular basis.

The weekend was somewhat bittersweet because I knew I was leaving the next day for a work trip.  I like to travel and see fun places, but don't like leaving C, N & L.  This trip was nice because it was only a few days, and it was to San Antonio, not to the edge of civilization somewhere.  The first two days of the trip were hot, and the third day, it rained for the first time down there in 6 months.  They were all happy for the rain, but it hampered our efforts a little bit.  Still, we were able to get done what we needed to get done, and I made it home on schedule. 

While I was gone we got a torrential rain.  Fortunately the only ill-effects we suffered was a considerable amount of dirt washing out of the field behind us into the water way.  This light, loose silt was the perfect excuse to try out the blade on the front of Johnny.  I tried to do it on Saturday but my efforts were mostly in vain due to insufficient traction, both from lack of weight on the tractor, and it still being too muddy.  I decided to hold off until things dried out a little more.  My second chance came this week, and allowing adequate time for drying made all the difference.  I leveled the dirt with the blade, and then finished it with the disc.  It was a little painful to use the recently repainted disc, but I got it to use it, not to just look at it. 

L was disappointed that he couldn't ride for the dozing, but that is definitely a two hand task.  He did get to ride along for the discing part.  He is also figuring out more how to drive on his own.  He is getting the starting and stopping down pretty good, but is still only part of the way there on steering.  Still, that's progress from where he was only a few weeks ago.