Most dads spend Father’s Day with their kids having fun. Maybe fishing or golfing, taking a long drive, going to a ball game, having a cook out, or just relaxing at home. Not Jo’s Dad. His ideal Father’s Day started at 5 am when he woke me and Jo up. Giving us 30 minutes to have coffee or tea, splash water on our faces and collect whatever we needed for a few hours work on the farm. We needed to get out there while we could take advantage of the cool morning.
First up was watering the pawpaws and elderberries.

We haven’t have much rain this month, so we are watering every other day. Have it down to a pretty good system but it still takes time. Was not happy to see that some critter has been eating leaves off my elderberry plants. One of them is looking pretty sad right now. Nothing we can do about it. Personally I will be happy when our little babies have grown up and take care better care of themselves.  Maybe karate lessons? To chase away the deer.
Next fun event was rocking picking. Ron wanted us to walk down the field and yank out the rocks that were sitting on the surface. Sitting as in buried deep with just the tip showing.  Like icebergs. It took us at least 90 minutes to get the first trailer load.

Now we headed across the stream with the rocks. Ron’s plan is to use them to fill in and stabilize his route to and from the mushroom area. He goes down across the small stream and then up again. Every time he drives the 4 wheeler over there, it gets more muddy and the ruts get deeper. Luckily we have “rots of rocks” to use in filling it in.

First load done. Again we really could have used a budding shot putter. And better aim. Lost count of the number of rocks that refused to land on the spot I tossed them toward.
Water and rest break and then back to the field. Ron is waiting for Dick to find the time in his schedule to come out and run his tractor over the field. That will make our job so much easier. Until then, we will continue to plug along.

Second load done. Ron keeps insisting that the main goal of these rocks is to fill in ruts and make it safer for him. Am not buying it. We have at least 4 large piles of lovely rocks sitting on the farm. Ones that someone else sweated over getting out of the ground. Perfectly good rocks that would do the job and be a whole lot less work for us. But, no we cannot use those. They were left there by ancient residents and must remain where they are.

Third and last run, thank goodness. The sun is up higher now and we have lost our shaded work area. Ron gave Jo and me the green light to escape. Didn’t need to say that twice. Collected and put away all the tools and ran for the car.
Happy Father’s Day, Ron.