Dams, skunks and Syd's Memorial Mud hole

Hello again,

So we'll start with the dam story. This was quite a while ago, but still a pretty good one. I get home from work one day and Blinn says we need to build a dam.........well I know nothing about dam building but I told him I would help. As you can see in the picture below, we were actually just building a diversion dam to send some of the water from the creek (pronounced crick) down the irrigation ditch so we could water the lower fields. Without tipping the tractor into the creek I helped him guide that long telephone pole in and then my job came in. The water was too deep for Mindy and I to stand in, in only muck boots so we slid across multiple times on our rear ends (without getting any slivers) to wedge those boards in and send some of the water down the ditch. You would have thought we were olympic gymnasts with our awesome balancing skills. 

Look at this awesome bull moose we saw one day: 

Just a little guy but he still looks cool.

He distracted me so much that not too soon after that I buried the truck in a mud hole. Of course I think I can make it if I punch the gas real hard, instead I just rammed the front of the truck into a mud bar and sent the front tires spinning in water. In the end my boss came and towed us out cause we weren't too far from the office. And luckily I was with my awesome coworker and not some of my relatives, and I didn't even get teased or yelled at. 

After we got the truck unstuck and were casually eating lunch we turned and saw these clouds coming over the mountains as the thunder started to roll. We jumped in the truck and Amadeus took off hell bent for election as the road started to turn into a river and the rain started to come down as hail and literally lightening was striking on both sides. I was totally calm as I death gripped the door handle and waited for our backend to slide into some unsuspecting tree. 

Then, of course, our skunk count has increased to 5! This one somehow found itself in a foot trap meant for rock chucks. By the time I got there it had died of stress but it had made sure to leave it's mark in the air. It takes a lot to make me gag, but trying to get that guy out of the foot trap sure was disgusting. 

Then one day Marcy and I saw one running through an alfalfa field we were checking and started shooting at it, from about 60 yards with my little .22 pistol. We thought we might have hit it after it raised it's tail at us a few times so we decided to go in after it. Cause we are geniuses, obviously. Marcy says to me she won't go if she doesn't have a gun, and we had only brought the one so I took that C-clamp for protection...you know... to throw at it if need be. Luckily we didn't find it. Mindy let us back into the house to sleep for the night. 

 Pretty much have to check my pockets for bullets every time I wash my pants.

One day we were walking up over a little hill after checking on some nestlings and a mother ruffed grouse started attacking us! Why, you ask? Because we had stumbled upon her recently hatched chicks. You couldn't really see them through the tall grass, but we did count 8 broken egg shells in the little nest under a small pine tree.

Well, there is the attempt at catching up. Our next adventures involve a broken underground pipe, some awesome bucks and going to church with my uncle for his first time in 15+ years. Families are awesome!

We'll end with another cute nestling photo: