Tales from Sumner Road, by Lisa

2004.05.28—Toad Barn

Say Hello to my little friend!! We take good care of our visitors who come to the house. This is ‘Weis’, he brothers ‘Bud’ and ‘Er’ are taking a dip in the pool. We put this toad barn next to our fish pond for our froggy friends…

Lord of the Rings

I am currently reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I have made it through the Hobbit which was actually a pretty good read and now I’m two thirds of the way through the Fellowship of the Ring. They are very good books but I have one complaint. What is up with all these names I have no idea how to pronounce?!?!?! The first third of the book was relatively easy but then you hit the Council of Elrond chapter. WOW. I think it would be easier if they would include how to pronounce each word in parentheses or include some kind of pen scanner that you could run over the word to pronounce it for you. Of course seeing the movie helped a ton but there is a lot more in the book than in the movie. Was Tom Bombadil even in the movie???? Hummmm……

2004.05.28—Rednecks

If anyone traveled down Sumner Road on the evening of the 25th, you might have noticed 5 vehicles pulled off the side of the road and three tractors surrounded by… for lack of a better word, REDNECKS, then you were witnessed to the biggest event of the year for Sumner. My father purchased a small John Deere 4x4 tractor that he uses to brush hog our small pasture field. The key term in that last sentence was “4x4”. Dad”s definition of 4x4 is “can drive through anything.” It never fails; dad gets hung up at least once a year. Well, last night it happened. He had the tractor buried up to the axle in mud and the brush hog was dug in. My suggestion was to call the neighbors to bring up a tractor. Well, it just so happens my uncles International tractor was in the barn so we pulled out the John Deere with the International… no problem… but, the brush hog was still stuck in the mud so, my dad decides to back the International tractor (which is only 2 Wheel drive) into the same area where the John Deere was trapped. Brilliant! Now we have a much larger tractor stuck in the mud. Not to mention it was stuck between gears. About this time, the neighbors come driving down the road and stops. Out of pure neighborly kindness, he offers to bring his tractor in to pull out the latest causality (remember, that was my idea in the first place). Following them was the farmer’s brother who pulled over to help out and a mechanic who found the sight pretty humorous. Now, we have two pickups and a small car pulled off the road. A family friend also stopped to see what was wrong and another mechanic showed up. Now we have added two more cars and pretty much had all of Sumner at a stand still. Of course, if anything happens on Sumner my Grandma is gonna be there. But she couldn’t find a place to pull off so she did about 5 laps, turning around in driveways to see what was going on. Too much avail, she decided just to pull her van into her front yard on top of the hill and watch the chaos from there. Now it starts to rain. Thunder and lightning didn’t stop the troop from repairing the tractor and finally dislodging it from the mud. The excitement was over and the crowd dispersed after three hours. It was an event to remember. The moral of the story is: 4x4’s can’t go everywhere and be kind to your neighbors, because they will be kind to you.