A Rainy Afternoon

It's Wednesday. It's the last full day of school for the older two Heathens - and my last day of relative peace until August returns them to school. :) I'm thrilled to have them for the summer.

Today it's rainy and foggy. I'm just sort of sitting around and wasting the day. I have one cat in my lap and purring like a well-oiled engine. A second cat is visible out the window where she is skulking in the flower beds. A third cat is walking around my feet and winding her way around my legs. Who knows where the other feline is at the moment - my guess is close to the food dish. The Duchess is around the Zoo somewhere as well. She's easier to find - simply say her name, and she appears. Instantly.

The younger two Heathens are playing nicely in the basement. I told Heathen #2 to head out the door for the bus this morning. He said okay and I quit paying attention at that point. This was at 8:15 this morning. At 10:30, he walked into my bedroom and announced that he had missed the bus!!! Apparently, he stayed in front of the morning cartoons and never headed to the bus stop.

If I was a "good" mother - I would have taken him to school as soon as I discovered that he was still home. But, what could he possibly be missing on the second to last day of school? So, he's home with Heathen #3. Thank goodness I never applied for that "good mother" title!

This past Saturday, I woke up and laid in bed thinking that it was going to be a regular Saturday at the Zoo. We were going to get up, go to the soccer field for Heathen #2's game, and then spend the day working in the yard. Wow, was I wrong.

After the Asst. Zookeeper got home from work, he borrowed his father's backhoe to help one of our neighbors. They brought it down to the house and parked it in front. He then jumped into the van and drove down to the neighbors to check somethings before he took the backhoe down. During all of this, I was mowing the grass at the Zoo. Our Heathens and the neighbor's three kids are all in our yard playing.

And then this happened:

While parked, the backhoe popped out of gear, and then drifted across the road (in front of a VERY surprised Cable truck) and rolled over the hill and into the creek across the street!

I'd like to say that I watched this very calmly, but I didn't. I shrieked and started counting children. Thankfully, none of them were anywhere near it and everyone was okay!

So, I called the Asst. Zookeeper and his father both and explained what had happened. They both arrived in a few minutes and decided that they couldn't drive it out. So they called for a wrecker. Moxham Mobile's wrecker arrived about an hour later - but couldn't budge it. In fact, one of the tow cables snapped in the attempts. After about an hour of trying with no success, Moxham Mobile left.

During all of this, I was collecting neighborhood men and children in front of my house. The longer it went on, the more people we collected.

Our neighbor's son, Jake, directed traffic for us!


Then the wrecker arrived from Cernic's - the one used for big rigs. They hooked onto the backhoe and LIFTED it out of the creek as though it really didn't weigh much of anything!