The Antique Tractor Games: may the odds be ever in your favor.

There are many reasons that I love my lifestyle and growing up in a rural community. One of them is the annual tractor games at the local Tavern. Yes. Tractor games. Tractor fishing! Tractor basketball! Tractor balance beam! Tractor Plinko! Tractor drag the chain into a metal box faster than everyone else! Tractor poker run! The list goes on and on. 

Tractor Basketball!

Tractor Balance Beam!

The games are a blast, and it is great to see all the old tractors actually being used. It's even better to see the older guys passing on the love of their equipment  to the younger generation. 

There were countless boys and girls of all ages competing - many of them on tractors that had been purchased new by their great-grandparents.

It was at one of these shows that my grandpa's got into an argument over whether it was better to plow with mules or with horses. Those are moments that are precious to me.

They are almost as precious as watching my grandpa's face as I drove by on the Massey Harris #30 that my great-grandfather bought new in 1950. His smile lit up the park I tell you. Just like my late grandpa's did when I used his Case SC a few years ago.

It definitely makes up for how much I suck at tractor basketball. And yes. I managed to miss the basket even when I could literally touch the hoop. I have skills.

Reduce, reuse, and recy - play yard pong!

A few months ago a friend and I decided that we wanted to have a Cinco de May-O (spelled that way because we were going for a redneck theme) party. Because who doesn't want to celebrate a Mexican holiday with beer in a water trough? That party was on last Saturday, and I am pleased to say that it went very well.

One good and bad thing about hosting a get together is that it motivates you to get all of your little projects done. Like installing new laminate flooring and learning how to miter quarter round so that you can put a bed in your newly remodeled back bedroom two days before you are going to have guests staying in it and you also have to get all of the herbs planted that you bought at the botanical garden and mulch them in so that your yard doesn’t look like you held up a garden supply center at gun point.

Which is kind of what mine looked like at the start of last week. I hadn’t mown, there was a large pile of brush that I had earmarked for a bonfire along with a bunch of extra newspaper and empty cereal/cat litter boxes that I had saved for fire starters, I had probably close to thirty or forty plants laying around, ten bags of mulch in my back seat (Mercury Milans are surprisingly spacious. I can fit about four straw bales in there at once too.) and I had laminate scraps and the carpet I had ripped out laying around the yard. Actually, given the theme of the party I probably should have left it. Though redneck and white trash aren’t exactly identical…

Long story short, I was a little stressed but it all came together with the help of my friends from out of town. They took to helping me set up, cut trees, and cook with the kind of enthusiasm that makes me want to cry tears of joy. They even helped me put a stallion out on pasture the morning of the party. I have the **BEST** friends.

Having a party like that means that I have been slacking on the blogging front, and I am sorry. But it was a great time, and a fantastic way to develop new games. Like Yard Pong. Which combines the classic drinking game beer pong, with finally finding a use for all of the empty mineral tubs we have laying around. Sustainability and alcohol. It was a great combination.

Yard Pong

2 beach balls

12 empty mineral tubs

Drinks of your choice

Four players

Set the tubs up in a triangle (one, two, three tubs per row) with the tops of the triangle about 10-20 feet apart depending on your athletic ability. Take turns trying to hit the beach balls into the tubs. Use one ball per person on two, two person teams. The scoring is as follows.

If you hit the ball into the tub the opposing team drinks one drink for whichever score it is, first tub = one drink & sixth tub = six drinks.

If you don’t hit any tubs you take one drink.

If you bounce the ball off of a tub the opposing team drinks once for every time the tub is hit, beach balls ricochet well.

Two re-racks are allowed.

Needless to say we had a ball, and I am going to start selling used mineral tubs to college students. That’s one way to recycle and recoup the costs, right? Maybe? There is a whole market here just waiting to be tapped!

Barnyard Exposure aka Games Farm Kids Play That Others Don't

One special thing about growing up on a farm is that you are exposed to a lot that most people in less rural areas don’t get the pleasure of experiencing.

Take for example the classic barnyard game of, “Find the mummified animal in the barn loft!” Maybe you want a rousing round of "Mommy what are those two horses doing?" Or perhaps you want to play “What did the dog drag into the yard now?”

Honestly, I don’t know how kids understand biological sciences without these great teaching experiences. There is nothing like tripping over the crusty remains of a raccoon or possum to teach you about the important part oxygen and heat play in decomposition. And there is nothing like the combination of spring on a farm and tripping over a mystery skull to learn about anatomy, and for bonus points figure out what animal the bones came from. Deer? Cow? What kind of femur is that anyway?

I. Am. So. Lucky. <- trace amounts of sarcasm mixed with actual gratitude

The really strange thing is that growing up with this you become used to it. It doesn’t seem strange. You walk around the dog knawing on some sort of hide. You learn to not panic seeing a dried snake baled into the straw. I  honestly never thought anything of it until I brought my city born and raised best friend and roommate home with me for the first time about six years ago.

I will never forget the look of horror on her face the first time she stepped out of the car.

J, horrified: “Lauren, what is that?”  The look of revulsion in her eyes startled me. I followed her pointing finger expecting to see a decapitated kitten, or something similarly tragic. Instead I saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Me, blasé: “Oh, that? That’s a spine. Looks like a deer I think. Come on in.”

Honestly, it is a miracle that she ever came back.