Monday, December 08, 2008

The Great Escape

I have worked all morning and yesterday evening trying to get photos uploaded with the following post. I have called Hughes.net since they did not answer my email last week. I spoke with a man from New Delhi. He eventually had me try my browsing, which worked fine. When I tried to upload a photo, I got the same error message. The tech support is sending my request to "advance support" who will call me within two business days. The moral of this story is that you get no photos with the post.

Friday night Toby and I watched "The Great Escape" which I had bought for five dollars – what a deal! We even stayed up and watched the documentary on the making of the movie including the famous motorcycle jump. Saturday morning we had our own great escape. Three of Toby’s chickens had escaped their chicken coop. Of course after watching "The Great Escape" we were reminded of the animated movie, "Chicken Run." If you have never seen it, it is lots of fun and has some very funny bits taken from "The Great Escape" – in one scene, the rooster (voice by Mel Gibson) gets thrown into the cooler where he begins bouncing a baseball. One of my favorite parts is when the farmer comes in and tells his wife, "The chickens are revolting." She agrees because she has never liked the chickens. Of course he meant that the chickens were rebelling and breaking out. My kind of humor!

It was time for the chicken round up. Herding chickens is about like herding cats – neither of which is easy. First thing was to put the dogs in the house except for Rita the cow chicken dog. She is pretty good at herding other animals and stalking birds without causing them to fly. Unfortunately, she doesn’t always push them the way you want them to go. Zoe the Great Dane just wants to chase the chickens and Ranger the Rat Terrier is no help at all. Zoe and Ranger were put in the house. Then Jesse came out to help, and let Zoe out. We had to stop the chicken round up for a few minutes while we had the Dane round up. Jesse brought her camera out and took photos. Toby told her she was not being very helpful, but she was very funny. Maybe it was Toby and I that were funny. How can things not be funny when two grown people are chasing three wild chickens? We finally got them caught and put back in the "chicken condo. Toby did some mending of the wire. Then we headed off to town to pick up the GGs and go to the annual BSA pancake breakfast.

It kind of all reminded me of the time when I was seven months pregnant with Jesse, Bo was not quite three years old, and the pigs that we were raising escaped their pen. I called Toby at work, but we lived 12 miles out of town. Toby told me to keep the pigs off the highway until he got there – yeah right! When he got there, we put Bo up on the propane tank out of the way and told him to stay. He did. He had the best seat in the house for the pig rodeo. We caught one pig in the chicken yard fairly easily. But Toby had to rope the sow and try to drag her back to her pen. You try roping a two hundred-pound hog. It was wild. Bo was so cute cheering us on from his seat on the propane tank. Ah, such was life on the farm.

Saturday night I got out my Christmas dishes along with the new Christmas place mats that Mom bought for me. We put the red candles in the green candleholders for a nice Christmas look. Toby had spent the day putting together our new grill, which the brown truck of happiness brought on Thursday. While he put the grill together (at least three times forgetting some little part each time, but getting better at it with each time) I set out some steaks. Jesse invited one of her coworkers, and we had a very fancy meal. I also baked and apple pie to finish off the evening.

After church on Sunday, Toby worked in his shop, while Jes and I went to see "Australia" at the movies. It was a long movie – sort of an epic type adventure movie. It was a bit silly in parts, but lots of fun, and that Hugh Jackman – woohoo!

6 comments:

Buck said...

"The chickens are revolting." She agrees because she has never liked the chickens.

The chickens sparked yet another memory for me, Lou. TSMP and I were "gifted" about a dozen chickens and a chicken condo when we bought our property outside of OKC. They (the chickens) didn't last long, however, as the coyotes got 'em... one by one... over the course of about two months. Which didn't break my heart, coz the eggs were foul tasting (revolting!) and I imagine the birds probably tasted the same. But maybe not: the coyotes loved 'em.

We also boarded a friend's cow on our back acre once upon a time. Remind me to tell ya about TSMP and I chasing that damned thing ALL over God's Green Earth when it broke through one of our fence lines... ;-)

Bag Blog said...

Buck, that sounds like a city slicker story - can't wait to hear it.

Becky G said...

Lou, that story is so funny! It made me think of some of my cousins. They lived out on the edge of town and always had some sort of animal or other. And I was forever letting them escape!

One of the times was chickens, of course. My cousin Mark managed to herd them back into their pen pretty easily. Makes me think he'd done it before.

Alison said...

The Great Escape is such a classic! I fell in love with Steve McQueen when I first watched that movie. On my bedroom wall, I have a picture of him in is street clothes, riding that bike on a dirt track. I guess he was practicing for the movie. My aunt and uncle rasied chickens, but I don't remember ever being asked to fetch eggs or help clean the coop. The only memory I have is of my aunt chopping a head off, and watching the darn thing run all over the pen without it. I didn't eat chicken for a few years after that.
mmmm.... apple pie... will you bake one for me?

Bag Blog said...

Becky, relatives that came to see us often got the "city cousin" treatment - lots of teasing.

Alison, I think it was "The Great Escape" that made Jesse fall in love with Steve McQueen, too. She kept a picture of him on her blog for a while. Some day when we get together I will bake you an apple pie, or better yet, maybe a pear pie.

The Friendly Neighborhood Piper said...

good stuff there MamaLou... "Bo...propane tank...chicken yard and pig ropin" just reek of country livin'...nice.

Took The Queen to see Australia...my take...good screenplay, nice storyline, shallow, very shallow dialogue followed with large doses of eye candy for chix. You didn't notice the dialogue? Well, OF COURSE you didn't. After the bucket scene, The Queen leans over and whispers, "You know...there's a reason Hugh Jackman was voted People Magazine's Sexiest Man of the Year." My thought...ya know, that scene didn't do much for me but...that dude is RIPPED!

I'm assuming i couldn't replicate that with the 5 gallon bucket i keep around for soakin hickory chips for the smoker