For those that don’t know, my backyard is a gravel pit. It seriously is a hill of nothing but a little bit of dirt and a ton of rocks. So, since Royal and I moved in we’ve been contemplating how we are going to dig out a backyard and plant some grass so that hopefully by next summer, Jayden will have somewhere to play (other than the street of course )

So, the first step was to cut down a bunch of trees in the backyard. Royal was excited about this. He would get to knock things over and play with chain saws. So, Royal calls his brother, Gabe, and his dad, whose nickname is Fireball (a whole ‘nother story is associated with that). I was a little nervous about how the Lovingfoss’ do projects like these (not always a lot of thinking involved. Royal once dropped his mattresses over a 2nd story balcony because he didn’t think they would fit down the stairs. When I saw the first once go over, I ran upstairs and was like, ‘Dude, they’ll fit down the stairs, how do you think you got them up here?’ Luckily he saw my logic before he threw the box spring over the balcony as well) Anyways, I called my dad and brother Willie to come and help reign in the Lovingfoss men and hopefully keep the trees from falling on our house. Early Saturday morning, Fireball and Gabe arrive in Fireball’s big diesel dodge truck with a winch on the front. To help keep the trees falling in the right direction, someone would climb up the tree, wrap the winch line around the trunk and when the tree started to fall someone would pull it with the truck. Not a bad plan I thought….smash his truck and not the house. Things are going great and then the Lovingfoss moment happens. They begin cutting down one of the trees that is closest to the house, so I start watching from the window. Let me set the stage for you. Royal climbs the tree and wraps the line around it. Gabe is in the truck ready to pull the tree should it start going the wrong way. Fireball is at the base of the tree with his chainsaw cutting into it. Everything seems to be going normal, when all of the sudden Fireball yells, “I’m outta gas!” Meaning his chainsaw was low on fuel and about to die, but with all the noise from the chainsaw and the diesel truck, Royal, my dad, and Willie hear something different and they yell to Gabe whose waiting in the truck, “Hit the gas!” So, Gabe takes off in reverse to pull the tree over. Fireball, a little shocked, but sees whats happening ditches his chainsaw and goes running away. Luckily, nothing disastrous happens, the tree ends up splintering and falls down (or really gets pulled down) and Fireball comes back to the scene laughing saying, “What the hell are you guys doing?” and Gabes like, “Well, you said hit the gas” Needless to say, they all came in for a round of beers and some food after that to rehash what had just happened. I’m not sure beer was the best thing for them to be drinking at the moment…

But the trees all came down and nothing happened to the house. The next step was to start digging out all the rock. Royal and I had talked about having someone come in with a tractor and do it since neither of us knew how to run one. One day, Royal comes downstairs into the family room looking all proud and I’m like, “what’s up?”. Royal goes, “I’ve got us a tractor” I’m like, “sweet, whose gonna come do it?” and Royal says, “Well I am.” A wave of panic runs through my body as I starting thinking of all the things that could happen with Royal behind the wheel of a tractor, but then I start thinking, well maybe it’s just a small tractor. Royal says, “they’re gonna drop it off Friday around 5, because it’s too big for me to go get with the truck” I say, “just how big is this tractor?” and Royal responds, “well I’m not real sure, but they have to bring it in with a semi!!!” (oh crap ran through my mind) I’m like, “whose gonna run this thing?” and Royal says, “oh, they’ll show me how when they drop it off” So, I’m like “OK, if you think you can do it, fine with me”

So, Friday rolls around, it’s almost 5 and I get a call from Royal. He says he’s stuck in traffic, he’s gone about 10 miles in the last hour and a half and he’s not gonna make it home in time for the tractor drop off and I’m gonna have to learn how to run it. I’m thinking, “yea right, like they’re gonna show a girl holding a baby how to run this monster….’oh here, man covered in grease, hold my baby while I figure out how to run this backhoe’… uh huh sure” Then I hear this big noise coming down the street and it’s our tractor. I get off the phone with Royal in time to answer the door (holding Jayden of course) and I am met by a man (he did have grease and dirt all over) and he looks at me with his eyebrows raised and said, “uh, you wanted a tractor?” To help clarify, I say, “oh, yea, my husband wants it” I’m not sure this made him feel any better, but I signed for the thing, he drove it back to our gravel pit, handed me the keys, and took off. I immediately got on the phone and called Willie. Willie had a little experience with tractors, which is more than what Royal had, so he became my expert. I leave Willie a message saying, ‘You had better be coming over tomorrow because they just dropped off the tractor and Royal wasn’t here to learn how to run it’ Luckily, Willie wasn’t doing much, so he came over Friday nite so he could get an early start with Royal on Saturday.

Saturday morning…. of course Fireball comes up to join in the fun as well… I hear them start up the tractor, so I get out of bed and start watching out the window. Royal’s behind the wheel and he’s managed to get the thing over to the area they are going to start digging in. I watch as Royal lowers the leveler things and starts trying to run the backhoe. Willie is on the ground yelling at Royal on what he should try and do. Royal starts moving the backhoe and gets it to dig a little dirt, but not much, so he goes to try again, but since he doesn’t know how the gears really work yet, pushes them in the wrong direction and ends up pushing the backhoe bucket into the ground and lifts the tractor off the ground. I’m watching thinking, “oh crap, here we go.” and Willie is trying to tell Royal to go the other way slowly. Well, Royal does manage to go the other way, just not slowly and there is this loud BOOM! Royal has just totally dropped the tractor. Willie is cracking up and Royal climbs out of the tractor and tells Willie to get in a show him how to do it. So, Willie gets in, manages to do a couple digs (without leaving the ground) and I hear Royal say, “sweet, you know what you are doing, you’re driving!” Hallelujah!!! Well Willie ended up having a great time with that tractor, my guess is he now wants one of his own, because he would hardly get out of the bucket to come inside for lunch. When he finally managed to tear himself away from the machine, he comes inside and the first thing he says is, “Rach, this is awesome, there is even a cup holder in there!” He scarfs down his food and rummages through the cupboard and finds himself our biggest coffee thermos (which really isn’t that big, both Royal and I hate coffee) fills it full of coffee, and heads out the door, holding his coffee up in the air he proclaims, “well, I’m back to work!” Thank goodness for tractors with cup holders!!