Pancakes, Logs, and Lemon Cakes!

This week has been eventful and today didn't change that at all.

I got up at about 4:25 and drug my butt to town. We set up chairs and such and got things all set out and ready to go for the pancake feed to start at six. Once again, I was nominated the batter mixer woman. Hahaha...it's quite the job. We use a cordless drill with a paint mixer bit on the end of it and mix up the batter in five gallon pails. I think I went though about 12 or so bags of pancake mix which would be about 48 gallons of pancakes. Ya know...just a few. I got batter all over once again, but managed to keep it wiped up most of the time. Since I know most everyone on the fire department now, it was like one bs fest all morning. They would pick on me and I would shove it right back. Merle stayed home and did chores and started cutting some wood this morning so I had to fend for myself. I almost (came really really close) got one guy to drink a cup of syrup- but he wouldn't man up and do it! That was just one of many things that we had going on back there. Chris (the chief) brought one of his sons and we made him the pancake runner from the kitchen to the roaster. It was hillarious, we named him Cookie and Dave (The pancake griller) would yell "Cookie order up!" and he would show up with oven mitts on that could fit over his head. Super funny and cute. So anyway, by the end I was super tired and I stayed and washed dishes and cleaned up until about ten. By that time they were making the beans for the BBQ tomorrow. That's quite the project- 6 roasters full of beans, molasses, brown sugar, ketchup, mustard, and liquid smoke...pretty much amazing. I told them I had to go and help the same cause...just in another way.

So, I took off from there and stopped by Jay's to pick up some loader pins and rake springs and then went home. When I got here Merle had already cut down a dead tree and was just starting to cut it up. I ran inside adn changed clothes and out I went. We were cutting up the wood and loading it on the chain mover for the BBQ pitt. The meat sits there overnight and simmers- yum. Hence, why I said I was goign home to help the same cause. We got the tree loaded up and looked at the mover and it seriously looked like we had done hardly anything. It was a huge tree but didn't supply us with much so we decided to go down to the post pile and load up old posts. Uusally he would cut down more little trees but we only had a couple hours before they needed the wood in town so we just used the posts- they should burn just fine.

We got half the posts loaded and went in for dinner. I ran home and talked to Mary and ate some leftovers- then headed back out. After loading the rest of the pile so that the chain mover was full enough we strapped the load down and moved back to where the original tree was. I grabbed a tractor and moved the big tree trunk onto the mover and added a couple other logs that we couldn't lift alone. Then, Merle took off. I shoved what was left of our project into the creek and then was ordered to go home and take a nap- so I did. And it was good. Mary went out back and practiced with her pistol on some bales. She said it was a blast- funny thing is I don't think I ever woke up to anything so I must have slept liek a rock. After I did get up though I went down and did chores. It was about my turn- I got out of the last three times worth!

After chores Merle called and let me know that I missed a fire call! boo! I told him that he stunk and of course he just rubbed it in more and said he knew I would say that. It was just a shed on fire in town adn they got it out right away- I must have turned the pager down and then slept through it going off- that's always good....:s

So, after chores I came home and tried to put some Malathion on my flowers becuase enough grasshoppers are back that they are starting to eat them again. It's really funny because they always eat the light colored purple ones but not the dark colored purple ones. Random. So, then I ran in and showered and headed off to town. Mary opted to stay and I don't blame her.

So, I'm headed to town to check out the cake auction and the exhibits at teh fair. Merle calls me on the way there and asks if I will bid on this one kid's cake. I said ok, no problem, I'll call you when he's up. Well, that was interesting. I think there were like 55 cakes total and they ranged in price from 75 dollars to 625 dollars! I had to wait quite a while for this little guys cake but when he came up he was so darn cute that the cake went for like 325 or something crazy liek that! I bid on a couple more for him and finally got one for 175. It's a lemon beach cake and it's super cute. Afterward, I got in the wrong line twice and made the check out wrong but I finally go the darn thing payed for and then had to have a ltitle girl help me find the cake because I didn't even get to look at it while it was selling. I could hardly hear Merle on the phone and the auctioneer was hard to understand through teh microphone. But, we finally found it so I grabbed it and stopped by the fire hall to get some chairs for dinner tomorrow and then headed home.

When I got home I opened the door and looked at the cute turtle on the cake to find that he was totally dismantled! I did some reconstructive surgery and he now once again looks like a turtle and is just a tish worse for the wear! I bet he still tastes good though:)

But, now I'm home and I'm tired and going to bed. Tomorrow is the big steer round up- will be very challenging I think but hopefully we find a bunch of em.

Good night!