Grubby hubby, dirty Daddy

"wha, ha...."
Yesterday as I gazed so fondly out the window at the tractor making its rounds, I forgot about summer laundry.  As my husband entered the house yesterday unrecognizable, covered in grease and dirt, I couldn't help but stutter gibberish as summer laundry came flooding back to me.
For those of you who have clean husbands, this may all seem exaggerated, but really it's what comes walking into my laundry room all summer long.
We married in June so washing his summer laundry became my duty right after returning from our honeymoon.  Welcome home, honey!!
The first week I did all our laundry I had some serious ranch wife reality therapy.  I sorted through his pile appalled at the sight of motor grease stains from thigh to knee, grass stains, cow manure, blood, and any variety of things found on a ranch.  I truly thought they were ruined; I'd never in my life seen something so disgusting.  I piled them up and planned to take them out to the burn barrel.  I didn't know how we were going to afford getting him so many new clothes if he kept this up.  That evening as I carried a loaded black bag to the burn barrel, Brian stopped me and asked if I had snakes in the bag based on the way I was holding it out in front of me.  When I explained I planned on burning his clothes, he almost rolled on the floor in laughter.  He told me that was how his clothes always looked in the summer while he was working on equipment, taking care of cows, and plowing fields.  In fact, he use to tease his mother that he only  returned home to the ranch from college in the summer to make sure she still knew how to remove stains.  He suggested I call her.
The woman is magic....I took the clothes up and watched her spray the jeans and t-shirts with Shout until they were sopping, let them sit for 20 minutes (during this time I proceeded to swear up and down that this was never going to work and she had to just go in and buy new jeans and t-shirts and tell people she'd gotten the old ones clean), put them in warm water to soak for a while, and then finally put them on the longest wash cycle.  Poof....unbelievable but they came out not only not ruined but clean.  Shout really does get EVERYTHING out!
I now by Shout buy the gallon, put on some tunes, and get to spraying.  It's become a summer ritual of the life I've been blessed to have.

Welcome

"He just takes the tractor another round

And pulls the plow across the ground

And sends up another prayer

He says Lord I never complain I never ask why

But please don't let my dream run dry"

That Jason Aldean song popped into my head this morning as I stood at the kitchen sink washing bottles and gazing out at my husband on the tractor in the already 90 degree Kansas heat.  This is the life he was born into, and the life I have chosen.  Our ranch is small, but it's ours and completely family run.  My husband's great-great grandfather settled this land and history abounds from both the land and the people.  The Kidder Massacre (one of George Custer's men) occurred on our land; the buffalo roamed, Native American's camped, and Beaver Creek once flowed through with clear water, sandy bottoms, and rainbowed trout.  The place is alive with a colorful history and even more colorful people.  

My husband's family has farmed this land since his great-great grandfather, and I married into the lifestyle three years ago.  They've made it through droughts of the worst kind, downturns in the cattle markets and wheat markets, through pests, disease, and floods (yes, the now irragated dry Beaver does still flood).  There are parts I don't understand and may never, parts that frustrate the bazonkers out of me, but most of all I want to share our love of the land, each other, and the grace the Lord has given us.