The Milk Mobile

This is what we affectionately call it. Since our truck is in the shop, again, Dante needed a way to transport the milk, whey, and clabber that is for the pigs, the 1/2 mile down our driveway. It sure wasn't gonna be in the back of my little Honda! Have you ever tried to drive with an open 5 gallon bucket of clabbered milk? Well if you have, I trust you wouldn't do it again! We usually just fill the buckets 1/2 full and drive slowly with them on the back of the truck. But it is still a messy prospect at best. I don't know what cracks me up more about the lawn mower a.k.a. " milk mobile" Every time you shut it off it backfires LOUDLY a couple times like a gunshot. Cinder, our dog, is terrified of guns, and jumps on us, crawls under the car, you know the drill, pretty much wigs out. Problem is he weighs almost 150lbs! Veda, 5, and Ayla, 3, think it is wildly entertaining and can't wait for Dante to cut the engine, so they can cover their ears and run off screaming when it backfires.
Yesterday, it was really idling funny, and kept revving up and down. We all stood around, not quite knowing what would happen when he shut it off this time. Surprisingly it didn't backfire. We all went back to our business, I resumed milking Happy, when Zoie walks up and says in that nonchalant way of hers, " Um, why is the lawnmower smoking, with flames shooting out the front?" " What? It really is on fire!" I yell, running to turn on the garden hose which Dante already has and is spraying it down. It stood there smoldering for a few minutes, and then we fired it up again 20 minutes later, and took the pigs their milk.
The only thing that possibly brings a bigger smile to my face, is the thought of Dante's serious, deadpan expression as he trevails the 1 mile roundtrip journey. He is all business. When our eyes meet,as we pass on the road, he going one way on a temperamental lawnmower, and I going the other way, with 4 cows---I just stare back with an equally expressionless look, until I pass him. Then it's all smiles!