New Wheels...

Before I start this post I will give you a little background on what you are about to see! As you will see in our "About Us" column on the side of this blog, my husband is an Archaeologist. He is self-employed and has been for about a year now. However, for a reason unknown to us (perhaps a weak economy), it hasn't been quite as lucrative as we had hoped. So, being the responsible, hardworking husband & father that he is, he has taken on a second profession... "Straw Man" (as in PINE STRAW). In the north y'all use bark chips to fill your flower beds; in the south we use pine straw. In a nutshell, he hires crews to rake and bail pine plantations (& occasionally he will attempt to assist with such duties to only be put to shame by them). He rakes on family land, his friend Neal's land and he has several rented "fields" of Slash Pine. It has proven to be rather profitable for him and he thoroughly enjoys his work. I am growing to appreciate it because it does pay the bills. It does take him from home more than I'd like but "no pain, no gain". He also supplies a TON of local landscapers with straw... which in turn we are able to trade for our personal yard services. This is a treat we never thought we would be able to have but trading is beneficial to both. If he could only find a "housekeeper" who needed straw and we could trade with her... hmm, maybe one day.

With that said, I will show you his new truck. He's so excited he could hardly sleep the first night he got it. I really felt like he had turned into a 7 year old on Christmas Eve. His truck (a 2002 Ford F-150) was struggling to pull a full load of pine straw and eating up his gas... so he decided he needed something bigger (F-350 dually {as in dual rear wheels}), louder (diesel), older (1996), and with more miles (288,000) and he is in love. He called me yesterday on his way home and because it's so big (50 ft long with the trailer) it doesn't fit in our driveway. He asked if the girls and I wanted to come see it up close parked out front. How could I break his heart and say "no"? So out we went and here's what transpired. Sorry it's in 4 parts... I can't figure out how to keep it small enough for YouTube so they're all under a minute.

In the first video Justin refers to Turtle Man. If you haven't seen it and are up for a little entertainment I suggest you watch.


We accompanied Justin on his "straw" delivery and had a great time. When we got to the neighborhood I was quite surprised at the response of all the neighbors. These people came out of the woodwork to buy pine straw. You really would have thought we were driving an ice cream truck with all the bells & whistles! We came home with a lot less bails and had a great time while we were there. The same event transpired this morning when we made a delivery to another cul-de-sac. The lady we delivered to made a few calls to all her neighbors and Justin had a lot of unloading to do! It's fun to see him in action!

Justin in action with his #1 helper by his side

Our little outing put a dent in the trailer load

It's late and I'm absolutely exhausted. Hope everyone has a very restful and blessed Sunday!