In which we do all kinds of redneck stuff.

Late this morning we went out and towed my dad‘s RV out of the ditch where he’d gotten it stuck on his arrival Friday night. It was pretty exciting, really – his rig is huge and the road was about three inches deep in nasty, sticky, clay-like Iowa mud.

If you don’t know about Iowa mud, let me tell you. It’s not like any other mud you’ve ever seen. It’s gooey and sticky and unforgiving, and it will coat your tires in three inches of clay so that you get absolutely no traction. It’s terrible stuff. And my dad’s RV weighs about a bajillion tons and has street tires on it with no tread. Furthermore, the rig was perilously close to sliding into a very, very, very deep ditch. (Like, maybe 20 feet deep. Although the trees probably would have stopped it from actually making it all the way to the bottom if it had gone in.)

Brett hooked a tow chain to the RV’s frame and got in his truck. Dad got in the RV. I stood freezing on the side of the road, charged with screaming like mad if the “ass end of that thing starts heading toward the ditch!”

Brett’s truck was spinning all four tires at first, but he got the RV pulled out. Yay! Then he traffic-copped my dad for a bit as he backed the thing up the road and back onto gravel. Work done, we drove back to the house.

Dad’s rolling home is now safe (and level!) up top, plugged into power and everything. He feels so much better. (Having your home stuck in mud about fifteen inches from a giant ditch is probably a little nerve-wracking.)

Brett and Jim

After a bit of self-congratulation we went out into our woods, where Brett and Dad chopped down three dead trees and cut them into pieces. Then the three of us loaded the pieces into the back of the truck while the dogs ran around chewing on logs and rolling in dirt and munching the last of the grass of the season.

Happy dogs

We’ve unloaded the wood into a big pile next to the garage and are inside warming back up. We’re thinking about some kind of football/cocktail excursion for the remainder of the afternoon.