Oh Deer

I was born the first child and only daughter to one of the best hunters and fisherman in St. Clair county and dare I say state of Missouri. He's the kind that spends weeks and months preparing for whatever season is next, stays up all night preparing for opening morning, is out in the stand or boat or blind or whatever before dawn and is so dedicated and determined to kill (and eat) whatever game it is he has prepared months for. He takes it seriously, like it's business. 

In the fall of 1989, he was graced with a nine pound baby girl, dark brown hair, dark eyes, pretty smile, a mouth the size of Texas that started talking before exiting the womb, and the attention span of a fruit fly. All of these qualities add up to be a parents nightmare, the reason copious amounts of sleep are lost and the worst hunting or fishing partner in the world. I mean worst. Poor guy, he tried to take me, I tried to go, I tried to like it but I JUST could not sit still or stop talking. I asked too many questions that may or may not have been pertinent to the outdoor sport at hand, was sure to speak in my loudest whispering voice when telling him there was a deer in front of us that he could shoot, and hung up too many fishing lines on stumps in the Sac River. Besides, there is just something about getting up at 3:30 or 4:00 am to go set in the dark in freezing temperatures with so many clothes on that I can't move to shoot a deer that I am just NOT crazy about. But my Dad, he loves it. 

For the first 22 years of my life it was very common to have deer, fish, ducks, geese, or turkey at least twice a week for dinner at our house. Dad killed it, Mom cooked it and it's just what we ate. I knew when Dad hunted or fished all day he would come home, clean, and cut up whatever his kill of the day was, package it, and put it in the freezer. When Mom or I were ready to cook dinner, we would go get the game out of the freezer and cook it, no big deal. Notice, nowhere in this process does it say Mom or I cleaned, cut up, or packaged the game, not our job. We cooked it, we ate it, and we enjoyed every bite of it. 

Then I married Andy Dawson at age 22. He's not the avid outdoorsman that my Dad is but he does like to kill deer during firearm season so we have it in our freezer. The first year we were married Andy and other members of his family killed five deer, all to be processed in ONE night with an all hands on deck approach. My job was putting the meat in the grinder for hamburger and putting it in freezer bags. No big deal. 

Last year, I luckily got out of most of the process and only had to package the meat that was already ground. 

This year, this year on the other hand, I made up for it. Same story, the family killed five deer all to be processed on the same night. 

Side note: I wear black pants, dresses, and high heels on a daily basis. I wear gloves when things are gross and I wear an apron when I cook. 

Okay, back to deer. Unfortunately I was to be home the night the deer processing was to take place and was reluctantly conned into helping. I show up and Andy hands me a front quarter of a deer leg and he says "start cutting." My only response is "Where do I even start?" Andy, always so casual and nonchalant about everything repeats himself, so I "start cutting." I'm mortified, literally disliking every second of it and sincerely hoping my Dad walks through that garage door at any time to replace my spot and take over my portion of the "cutting." So about thirty minutes into it, my father in law tells me I can cut up a front leg quarter better than anyone he's every seen, at first I think it's just rookies luck and then I'm thinking that obviously I come by it naturally. So I'm good at this, still disliking it but at least I'm good at something I passionately dislike doing. There is just something about cutting muscle away from ligaments and bones that just turns my stomach over. But I did it, I cut up about five front legs, and I must say the cut of meat was beautiful and I was proud of it. I was proud that Andy killed it and proud that I was able to help process it and it would be a source of protein for us for the next few months. 

It would be completely fine with me if I never have to cut up another deer ever, ever, ever, again. It would also be completely fine if I cooked it for everybody in exchange for never having to cut up another one again. I'd do about anything basically. 

However, I do know that it's great to have free food in the freezer for supper and proud that Andy had the ambition to get it and I was able to help get it to the freezer. 

Two Years!

On Sunday, Andy and I will have been married two years!! Wow, where has the time gone? I have no idea.




I'm still laughing at the people who thought the only reason we were getting married was because I was pregnant. HAHA!!

BTW I'm not pregnant and never have been.

The last two years might have been the most trying two years of my (our) life, particularly the first year. Prior to being married, Andy and I did not live together so everything was an adjustment. Looking back at how far we have came in the last two years,  I don't think I could appreciate our marriage now had we not had those difficult few months to begin with.

I'm stubborn, he is stubborn and together we are double stubborn. I didn't back down and neither did he. The way I see it, one of two things can come out of being double stubborn: it can get the best of you or you can persevere, be greater than your problems and become fearless. That's what we did.

I grew up in a very "typical" family, Mom got home about 5 every day and Dad got home shortly after, she made dinner, and we ate about seven and were calmed down and in bed by 9 or 10.

WELL...

That is not how our life works. I remember being so mad because Andy wasn't home to eat dinner (at 7 p.m.), well he was in the field or working and it just didn't work like that so I learned to cook dinner around when he would be home, even if that meant 9, 10, 11, midnight or 1 a.m.

Did I mention we got married in the summer? If your significant other farms, consider summer THE ABSOLUTE WORST time of the year to get married. Don't question that statement, just don't do it.

He is busy, he works for a living, he makes his own paycheck so you do whatcha gotta do. If that means staying in the field or the shop all night, missing or being late to family get togethers or dinners, or spending your first anniversary planting corn; you just do it.

This use to really bother me, but I've learned that it shouldn't. There are far worse things I could get upset about and I know he is able to do what he loves to provide for us and, seriously....how could I argue with that? I can't, but I did, and now I don't. It's not worth it, and why should I?

I've learned lots of important lessons in the last two years...

No place is too far, no conditions are too bad. We have truck, will travel. 

Need a combine hauled from western Kansas in the middle of January? No problem, we'll get it.

One Friday night (middle of January), Andy and I packed up the 1991 Kenworth Semi with blankets, CD's, gloves, hats, boots, soda, the Rand McNally, hooked up the Lowboy and with his parents behind us also pulling a trailer, set off for Ness City Kansas to pick up a combine and header that one of our friends had purchased. Off we went and back we came.

Is your wife stuck at her work place (30+) miles away in a snow, rain, sleet, or wind storm? No problem, I'll be there as soon as I can get there.

Does your wife have a flat tire (also at work) in the pouring down rain that she needs fixed? No problem, I'll be there in an hour.

Need alf-alfa from Michigan in the middle of August? Okay let's  load up the semi and go. While we're up there, we spot a combine header while on the trip and make a second trip two weeks later to retrieve it.

No. Big. Deal.

If you don't want to be stuck doing something for the rest of your life, don't prove competent. 

Prior to marrying Andy, my main source of transportation had been an automatic, front wheel drive sedan (see previous posts for my experiences driving manuals). I had driven my Dad's truck a few times but mostly my car. I had never driven a tractor, or combine, pulled a trailer, pulled a hay flipper trailer, mowed hay, raked hay, stacked hay, hauled hay, or disced a field. In fact, I'm confident most people in my family thought I would never be capable of doing those things. But, guess what? I CAN and I am pretty dang good at it!!

While sometimes these tasks seem like boring "chores" I am so thankful my husband and his dad had enough patience to teach me and have enough confidence in me to let me do these things on a regular basis, without supervision.

However, they may never ask me to stack hay again and I'm okay with that.

The other day I backed a 28ft trailer in it's "spot" correctly, THE FIRST TIME. I came out of the truck screaming with excitement.

Speaking of trucks and other things that have air conditioning....

Duct tape doesn't fix these things, Freon does. Whoever said duct tape fixes everything, obviously never had their air conditioning quit on them in their tractor in the middle of a hayfield, without cell phone service, on a Sunday evening in July. I have news for them, duct tape doesn't fix that. Freon does! No place in El Dorado Springs sells Freon at 6 p.m. on a Sunday night in the middle of July, they sell duct tape but NOT Freon and their air will NOT blow cold just by "putting some duct tape on it."

Chances are if your home air conditioning isn't "blowing cold," Freon will cure that too. Yep, been down that hot, humid, and sweaty road too.

Freon was not in my vocabulary prior to being a Dawson, I had no idea what it was. Actually I still don't really know what it is, but I DO know it makes your air blow cold and it is vital to any successful marriage.

While we are still on the subject of trucks...

A truck is a truck, is a truck, is a truck.....right? Wrong.

There ARE differences. An F-150 is not the same as an F-250 which is also not the same as an F-350 and well, we are only interested in F-350's. Did you also know there are differences in tonnage? A 1/2 ton pickup is not the same as 3/4 ton which is also not the same as a 1 ton and we are only interested in a 1 ton.

To break it down for you:

F-150 = 1/2 ton = not capable of holding a generator, two tool boxes, welder, a 100 gallon fuel barrel, AND pulling a gooseneck trailer.

F-250 = 3/4 ton = capable of holding a generator, two tool boxes, welder, a 100 gallon fuel barrel but NOT capable of pulling a gooseneck trailer at the same time.

F-350 = 1 ton = capable of doing all of the above things simultaneously! BINGO!!

AND if we are in the market for the above F-350 we will exhaust all search engines, truck dealerships on this side of the Mississippi, and craigslist searches within 500 miles. However 501 miles is NOT out of the question either.

Seek and we will find.

But if we drive to Girard, KS on a Sunday night to look at a promising Craigslist option and it turns out to be a flop, that's okay. That just means we get to waste another Saturday night, road tripping to new places, and giving us an excuse to locate the nearest Dairy Queen.

BTW did you know that Dairy Queen, Sonic, and McDonald's will give free ice cream cups to your four-legged friends traveling with you? They do, it's tried and true.

While we are still on the subject of trucks and anything else mechanical...

My husband is a genius!

He can diagnose a mechanical issue over the phone. He crawls up inside combines. He splits tractors into two pieces like it's his job, AND puts them back together into one piece. It's amazing.

Need a tractor started that hasn't ran in ten years? No problem, give him a 12 pack of Coke (not beer) and a roll of Copenhagen and $45 an hour and he will have it going in NO time.

He can also put Freon in your air conditioner.

When purchasing something from your local parts store, ALWAYS have your husband specify unit of purchase...

I've always paid someone to change my oil, it's not my thing and it's just easier.

The first time I had Andy change my oil (because it's more his thing than my thing), he told me to go to O'Reilly's and get oil and a oil filter. Easy enough, right? Wrong.

When you go to O'Reilly's to get oil to replenish what has been changed, you will need more than one quart. Chances are, you will need 4-5 quarts and you will get a strange look and a laugh from your significant other when you show up with one quart of oil and a oil filter and say "Okay, I'm ready to have my oil changed."

Chances are, you will be making another trip into town to buy another 3-4 quarts of oil.

By that time you will have driven 60 miles back and fourth to town purchasing oil and oil filters (costing about $25 + mileage) and it would have just been easier to have someone else do it.

However, I never question his intentions because I know he just wanted to change my oil.

AND when your husband or significant other is trying to "grease up" any tractor or combine prior to hay season or harvest time and they send you to town for red Mystik grease tubes, he doesn't mean one, red, Mystik grease tube, he means a case. You can also expect to receive the same strange look and laugh you received when purchasing the one quart of oil to have your oil changed.

I believe in this picture, he is greasing Straw-Walkers (?).

Be on good term's with the local parts store..

In the summer time they will be your best friend and if you are nice to them, they will go above and beyond to get you to spend a small fortune with them.

Which sounds awful but knowing the parts and equipment salesman at your local John Deere dealership will come in handy when you have to go pickup a fuel solenoid for a tractor at 4:50 on a Friday afternoon that your husband desperately needs to get out of the field before it starts raining at midnight. It's amazing the lengths they will go too. They will even put the parts in their mailbox on the side of 7 highway or in a bucket on the west side of their building for you to pickup after they have closed. OR they will get on their phone with your husband to further clarify what it is he is needing to see that you get everything the first time.

One would think that if you come home with the wrong part the first time, they won't send you back a second time to exchange it. Wrong. YOU will make as many trips as necessary for your husband to have the right parts to keep him from leaving the field and you will enjoy every bit of that radio reception on each of the 90 mile round trips.

Lastly,

Your home is what you make it...

The first year of our marriage we lived in a pretty nice rental house with lots of room, but still a house. Since that year, we have bought a single wide mobile home to put on our land after our rental house sold.

We live in  trailer, I call em' how I see em', it is what it is. We live in a trailer.

This is the day they moved it in. 

At first, that was so hard for me to fathom. I would never call this anything but a mobile home, but it's a trailer.

Who really cares what I call it? It's my home, it's our home, this is where we live. This is where I love to come home to every night, this is where I cook dinner, clean house, this is where I keep things that are important to me. This is our home.

Now, it is nothing fancy. We don't have a front porch, but we do have a back door and back porch, one of which anyone is welcome to come into.

We don't have fancy landscaping, in fact our yard might have more rocks in it than the gravel road that runs in front of it but I don't care.

I feel like we have worked our whole lives to live in this trailer. We own it and the land that it sits on and we worked our tails off for both.

I remember the night we moved the house onto the land, we ( Andy, I, my parents, his parents, and friends) worked until 11 p.m. trying to get the electricity hooked up. I remember how excited I was to see that first light flicker, I remember how accomplished I felt, how prideful I was of that one flickering light in our dining room. Prior to that light flicker, there had not been electricity on that land since we had owned it. That flickering light was a sign of a goal we had accomplished.

This is the first light flicker.

The day they drilled the well on our farm. 

This is the pond that sets right behind our house. 

I feel like we have accomplished so much in the last two years but have so much more to accomplish. Andy and I are always putting our heads together and coming up with more stuff we would like to do and figuring out what we have to do to accomplish it, it's so fun but so humbling and gratifying when we do.

The best part about accomplishing goals is seeing all of the hard work, late nights, emotional episodes, missed family dinners, and disagreements pay off. It's a feeling hard to describe.

"Country Girl"

When someone asks me what my husband does, I proudly tell them "He's self employed and farms." Their next question is almost always "OH so you must be a country girl?" IF there is one term I hate more in the world it would be "country girl."

When I think of a country girl, I see a pink camouflage wearing, bow hunting, deer shooting, bull testicle eating, double fisting, beer drinking, 4 wheel driving, mudding, dirty girl. That's not me, and that's a far cry from what I am.   The term country girl does nothing to represent what a farmer wife actually is and the roll we play in supporting our husband and contributing to the daily operation of a farm. If anything, I'd like to redefine that term.

 I've always wanted to be a farmers wife, it looked traditional, classy, and fun. It did not look hard, tiring, exhausting, or draining. Guess what? It's all of the above; traditional, classy, fun, hard, tiring, exhausting, and draining.

I don't hunt, I hate to hunt. There is nothing fun about getting up at 4 a.m., setting in the cold, in the dark, waiting for an animal to cross my path for me to shoot. It's cold, it's dark, I have to keep quiet and I don't wanna go. However, I will proudly support my husband shooting as many deer as the law will allow and eating every last one of them. I'll cook it and I'll eat it but while he is out hunting I'd rather be baking a pie, cleaning the house, or thrift store shopping. Hunted animals are free food and I like free.

A country girl should be able to drive a manual transmission through any mud hole without killing the transmission, right? Wrong. I can't drive a manual transmission, maybe I could to save my life but you will never find me willingly driving one because I can't. If you ever see me on  the side of a road in an old ford pickup with what appears to be car problems, just drive on by. I'm just trying to get a five speed started and it typically takes me more than one try or five tries for that matter. Smile and wave, smile and wave, but don't expect me to wave back because by this point I've been standing on my left leg for so long trying to keep the clutch down and I'm trying to move the gear shifter thing from neutral to first gear while on the phone with Andy typically in the tractor in front of me and I have NO free hands. I'll smile and wave in my head.

Dirty, I'm not a fan of willingly being dirty. I like to be clean, have brushed teeth, semi brushed hair and a bra on before going out in public. However, sometimes duty calls. Sometimes your husband is miles away and there are cows out on 82 highway and you are still in your nighty pajamas and it is now your responsibility to go contain the cattle. What does one do? One quickly throws on whatever clothes they can find and go find the cows in my little (automatic) Ford Focus.. For me, that typically means sweatpants from the dirty laundry, old cowboy boots, a shirt with no bra and the best looking hairdo do you will find on this side of the Mississippi (insert sarcasm). My father in law finds it to be quite hilarious when he seems me in these types of circumstances, specifically on the side of 82 highway in a culvert trying to keep a cow out of the road and patiently waiting for help to arrive to graciously put her back where she belongs. If you ever see me on the side of the road with a mortified look on my face and clothes that make me look homeless, just remember; duty probably called and my husband/father in law are on their way and things will return to normal soon. Smile and wave and I'll wave back.

Patience as mentioned in the above paragraph, that has never been a virtue for me until I became a Dawson. These people are the most patient, carefree people I have ever met and I am very thankful my husband exhibits that quality as well. I'm learning, this has been one of the hardest lessons for me as a newly married girl and farmers wife. Sometimes there are times when we have plans and were suppose to be someplace fifteen minutes ago and I have yet to see my husband who will need to shower and I'm pacing through the living room waiting on him. OR I've had dinner ready for an hour and Andy was suppose to be home an hour ago and he had to pull a calf and is getting ready to walk through the door at any time smelling like he just got out of a sewer. It's just what we do, we wait, and we are patient because some things are just out of your control and the end result is better than the alternative.

No, a farmers wife is not the glamorous life style one would imagine or the lifestyle I thought it would be before I got into it. If I'm a farmers wife who must be a country girl, then yes I am. I am my own version of that. I'm a wild game chef, a homeless looking girl on the side of 82 highway, automatic vehicle driver by choice and a manual driver without choice, a patient individual, a lover of this country lifestyle I've adopted and of a husband who has the most important job, feeding the world.

"ERAN, I have a calf for you!!!"

It's been very, very, cold lately. On top of the cold, we are also calving. Calving in the winter time usually means we end up having to bottle feed some of them, or we have to find a way to keep them warm after they have been born. In this case, it was warmth.

My cousin Cody works for us after school and this night happened to be helping Andy check the cows. Cody was ever so proud of himself for finding this newborn calf and rescuing it. If he had not found it, it probably wouldn't have made it through the night. A calf lost is money lost.










Cody has the same ambition that Andy does and is always so happy when he has done the right thing and a good thing. This particular night I had gotten home from work early and was fixing supper when I hear Andy and Cody pull up to the house in the gator and I didn't think much of it until the back door opens and I hear Cody proudly yell, "ERAN, I HAVE A CALF FOR YOU." A year ago this would have been no problem, we had a garage with a cement floor and had options for housing a newborn calf. This year, we've moved into a mobile home with no porch, garage, or extra space, BUT it does have a very large garden tub that hasn't been used since we've lived there. Immediately that was Andy's suggestion. Cody, with the biggest grin on his face, happily carries this newborn calf into our bathroom to sleep in the bathtub for the night. 

My Yorkie, Phoebe immediately wanted to keep him company. 

After we got him into the house, Andy was not sure if he had had his colostrum yet so we mixed it up and fed it to him in the bathtub. 

He made many attempts to get out of the bathtub but was unsuccessful due to his unsteady legs and slick surface. 

Thankfully he was only a house guest for one night and his mom was very happy to take him back the next day. 

Sometimes the only thing you can do is laugh at the little, ironic, things life throws at you. 

Why so fearless?

I wouldn't ever call myself a fearless person, I'm more of a worry wort. I worry about things that have never happened, could happen, I think may happen if something else were to happen or happened to someone else, blah, blah, blah...I just worry. I don't "go out on limbs". 

Then I met my husband, or should I say, started dating my husband. We "met" when we were about five and went to school together but didn't start dating until we were in our early twenties. On our second date, he introduced me to his women, aka, The Fearless Fifty. No, he didn't have fifty women per say but he did have fifty head of black cows all getting ready to have babies that he referred to as his women. I was fifty one. When he purchased these cows, they were old, broken mouth, crazy, and ugly. After having them for about two years, the women started coming around, their black coats were prettier, they were fat, and not quite as crazy. You couldn't kill them if you tried. Hence, fearless. 

Fearless...

Andy is very smart and an excellent mechanic, when we first started dating he was working as a field mechanic for John Deere and had been there for two years. With more ambition than most 22 year olds, his dream was to be self employed and farm for a living. In March of that year, he quit his steady, good, well-paying job to be self employed, run his bulldozer, farm, and mechanic for a living. It's pretty easy to have a comfortable life when you know you are going to have a paycheck every week from someone else, it takes a little bit more courage to willingly give-up that comfort and start writing your own pay check. Talk about a leap of faith. 

After Andy and I had been dating about 6 months, we found out I had to have brain surgery. It was a long summer, I was hateful, I was in pain, I screamed at him because I hurt so bad, I was working full-time and going to school full-time, I could barely drive, I could barely read, I couldn't feel my arms or legs, I couldn't eat, the only thing I ever wanted was complete silence and a Coke from Sonic, it was my drug of choice. Scared to death and without any other options, I had brain surgery in August. I was awful to him, I was mean, I was in pain and he was the last person I wanted to see during the first two hours after surgery, I came around and he patiently waited until I felt better, was nicer, and liked having him around (luckily that didn't take to long). I was off work and school for the next four months and we spent most every day together while I was recovering. 

Fearless...

I moved back to school in Columbia in January to finish my last semester of college, Andy had been self employed almost a year, we were living two hours away from each other and  anticipated getting married...soon. He called me one night at school and said "I think I'm going to buy Randy's land, 191 acres." Here we are 22 & 21 years old about to owe more money than we had ever made in our life.  Determined to make it work and not settling for mediocrity, we bought another 45 women to put on the land. 

Fast-forward two years, we've been married almost two years and just bought another 230 acres and another 35 women. Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall, you will find Andy (us) taking risks, leaps of faith, and demonstrating a "you don't know 'til you try" attitude.