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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Who needs a guard dog when you've got 20-somethings with paintball guns?

There's an elderly couple that lives down the road from me. They're 82 (him) and 75 (her) years old, and they'll never let you forget it, because they're still farming. Bad ass, I say. I wanna be that awesome when I'm old. He's deafer than a doornail, and walks slower now, the product of a hip and knee replacement, and if she doesn't have osteoporosis, I'm a monkey's uncle, but they still run their own darn farm. Epic.

They've had a strawberry patch for my entire life, and you'll never have better berries in your life. They're a hard to find variety, and they're grown with no chemicals or artificial fertilizers. I look forward to them every year. The patch has gotten smaller as they grow older, and its just them picking now, instead of the U Pick they used to offer, but they still let me pick berries any time I want to. They're the type of people that would give you the shirt off their back, if you needed it.

Recently, they've had problems with theft from their garden. Its becoming increasingly obvious that it is human theft, and not animal snacking, because plants are yanked out of the ground, and footprints are in the mud. They mentioned it while a friend and I were out picking berries today, and told me to watch my garden too. Theirs is far enough from their house that you could be out there with a flashlight and they wouldn't notice it.

The thought of someone stealing from the cute little old couple made me angry. Irrationally angry. Sometimes I hate humanity. But instead of sitting home being angry, my friend and I devised a plan. We gathered two more friends, and loaded up 4 paintball guns. With permission from my lovely elderly friends, we sat underneath the evergreens that line their garden and waited. Sure enough, two bodies come creeping...not from the driveway but from the trees, flashlights guiding their way. We waited until they were reaching for the berry plants and opened fire.

In seconds, our friendly neighbourhood thieves were covered head to toe in paint and what it sure to be paintball welts, because all 4 of us are country kids that have deadly aim with weapons. After a few yelps and some swearing, and us shining OUR flashlights in their faces, they ran very quickly to leave the property. It felt fantastic to bust them, because that business does not go down out here. Not in my backyard, baby.

And somehow, I doubt they'll be back. Win one for the good guys.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

It's That Time Of The Year

Well, folks...it's that time of the year. Summer in the life of the rural folks means work, sleep, work, sleep, rinse, repeat (weather dependent, of course). If the sun is shining and its not raining, I'm outside and on the go from about 6 in the morning until 9 or 10 at night. It's long days, but it's the life that the farm community lives at this time of year, particularly those who grow their own crops AND have a summer job in agriculture. (Hi, that'd be me. No, I'm not insane, why do you ask?)

Anyway, if my absence from Twitter/my blog/e-mail/cyberspace in general is noticed, I promise I am fine. I'm just really busy and once I finally end up in my house at the end of a 14 or 15 hour work day...I want to sleep, plain and simple. At that point, sleep almost always trumps blogging, reading blogs or catching up on Twitter. And Twittering while driving tractor...well, its like texting while driving a car multiplied about about 362362 stupid points.

Anyway, the point is sorry for what is sure to be an MIA me, don't take it personally.

It's me, not you.