Birthday celebrations are highly overrated

Tomorrow I'll be sixty-seven years old.  Hold the applause and the cards, please.  
I was on the phone with my husband's St. Louis sister and she said, "So, what are you guys going to do for your birthday?"  
"Well, Cliff is talking about going up to Iowa to a Farmall tractor museum."  
"That isn't for YOU!!!!  What are you doing for YOUR birthday?"  
I guess she didn't hear the word "going".  Whenever I hear any form of the word "go", I'm ready.  Believe it or not, old tractors do interest me.  I think it's amazing that a one hundred-year-old machine can be restored and painted so that it works and looks better than it did when it was new.  Amazing.  
Besides, Cliff agreed to veer off the beaten track a few miles and take me to Guss, Iowa, population zero.  I spent some of my happiest childhood years there.  I went there several years back with my nephew, his wife, and my mom.  I just want to see it one more time.  
Unfortunately, the air conditioning in our car has decided not to work properly, and this is the hottest time of year.  So we won't be driving two hundred miles for my birthday; that'll have to wait until the A/C works.  
Cliff plans to take the car to a mechanic's shop tonight so the guy can work on it tomorrow.  He mentioned that maybe we should have the son-in-law leave his spare pickup here just so we'd have something to drive.  
"We have a motorcycle, Cliff.  What's wrong with that?"  
"Oh yeah, and it'll be a perfect day for riding!"  
Quite honestly, the only place I've thought of that I'd like to go is Gates Barbecue, the one in Independence.  I like how the ladies who work there yell, "Hi, may I help you?" at everyone who enters.  I know Arthur Bryant's is supposed to be the most famous Kansas City barbecue, but I don't like the way they throw all your stuff together in a sack and expect you to be able to eat it.  It's a mess.  
Cliff told me, "As I recall, Gates isn't the cleanest place we've gone to."  
Neither is my kitchen, but he eats there.  
So anyhow, I have no big birthday plans except for some Kansas City barbecue and maybe a motorcycle ride down 40 highway.  


I'm still off Facebook.  I do miss the little updates I sometimes get from friends and family.  I don't miss Farmville.  I didn't permanently delete Facebook, although I could have.  I'll probably go back, hopefully keeping a lower profile and refraining from reposting the same old recycled stuff that was funny the first time but not-so-funny the fourth.  I suppose I should go back this evening just for the birthday greetings I might get tomorrow.  Yeah, that's the ticket.  

It's a decent birthday

This morning I decided to take a horseback ride down to the river bottom. I didn't go all the way to the Missouri River, though. I simply rode down Old Coal Mine Road....

and over to McGrew Mine Road, which took me back to...

the highway home.


The trouble with those roads to and from the river bottom is that they're shaded, and biting flies of various kinds lurk there. Even though I applied rub-on fly repellent to Blue's head, neck and ears, he still had a terrible time of it, as you can see in this very brief video:




I ate some cereal (with good fresh Jersey milk) before I left on the horse; this was an unfortunate choice, since Cliff, when he got up at 10 o'clock, announced his intention of taking me out for breakfast. Oh well, there's always pizza for lunch.

Cliff is glad to go the extra mile for my birthday. He even bought me two sets of rusty wheel weights for my Oliver tractor; of course, he'll be painting them for me eventually. I know this because I was with him when he bought the paint. That's his brother Phil on the left; he picked the weights up for Cliff, since he was at Cook's Tractor in Clinton yesterday anyhow. Phil's friend, on the right, asked Cliff, "What do you need the weights for?"

I had to laugh out loud at the question, since he could have just as easily asked, "What do you need the tractor for?"

Cliff's answer was, "Because the tractor looks better with wheel weights on it."

Haaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! That's some good, sound reasoning.

Then we were off to Higginsville to the tractor dealer who sells Oliver parts. Yes friends, Cliff spares no expense on my birthday: He wants my Oliver to look good.

That's a piece of plastic he's holding in his hand.

It's the first item listed on this bill: "strip.... $150." Seriously!

I'm pretty sure I over heard the proprietor and his wife making plans to visit Hawaii after Cliff made his purchases.

By the way, this is all written tongue-in-cheek; I am the first one to tell Cliff, "If you want it, get it; you only live on this earth once."

Thanks to all the wonderful birthday greetings from my readers and my Facebook friends.

I found a wonderful cooking blog!

If you're always on the search for new recipes, or variations of old favorites, you'll enjoy Val's Cooking Blog. I've been reading her other blog for some time, but only just took the time to check this one out. Hers are simple, down-to-earth recipes that anyone can use. Mostly what I'd call good old country cookin'.

Son-in-law Kevin, master of the barbecue grill

Yesterday we had a family barbecue in honor of my husband's youngest sister's birthday (she turned 50 this week) and I was desperately looking for the Pineapple Upside-down cake recipe that used crushed pineapple rather than pineapple rings. Had I searched on Val's cooking blog, I'd have found it. Alas, I opted for carrot cake instead. Oh well, there'll be cake needed at other events.

After eating, Cliff and the grandkids, as well as some neighbor boys, enjoyed his sister's four-wheeler.

Cliff's older sister (Rena), the one moving into our old house, spent the whole day (with immense help from younger sister Charlene) unpacking boxes that have been stored in Cliff's shop all week. Cliff will soon have his shop back!

I have to tell you, for a group of siblings who come from as dysfunctional family as you'll ever see, these people pull together and help one another like nobody I know.