June 28, 2012 - This was our first moving day from Crowley to Bayou Jacque. We had the horse trailer loaded down with most of our belongings. David is hauling the trailer with his Dodge and I am following with the kids in my truck. It was smooth sailing on I10 to I49 right up until we neared Opelousas. At about that time David had a blow out on one of his rear truck tires. He pulls into the Opelousas Walmart parking lot to buy another tire and have it changed. After much waiting in the June heat in vehicles loaded, he became a little impatient and ended up rolling the tire out to his truck and changing it himself. I've often wondered if that was a sign of things to come.....
October 2012 - We actually began working on the house on September 1, 2012 and knew there were several things that we couldn't do ourselves like a new roof and AC. We asked Stafford if he could install our new tin roof. We had to remove the old roof ourselves. With the help of Todd, Heath, and Wyatt the old roof was cut into 6 large pieces then hooked to a boom that David built and welded to the front of his tractor. He lifted each piece and hauled it away from the house. The boom only malfunctioned once while carrying a piece of the roof and luckily no one was underneath or around it when it fell about 30 ft from the house. It took a day to remove the old roof and it was getting dark by the time we finished.
January 2013 - Rain, rain, and more rain caused flooding of up to 3 feet on Lebeau Church Rd. Our first attempt to get to the house was quite a time consuming ordeal. David and Allie drove the Dodge to the house to get the 4 wheelers while Sara, Wyatt, and I waited at the end of the road for them. After many attempts to navigate the 4 wheelers through the water to get to us, both flooded and died. They were able to get one of them running again long enough to pull the other one back to the house. Soaking wet they eventually came to get us in his truck. Thankfully none of our property was flooded except the low lying areas along the bayou. We spent the remainder of that day working on the house. It took about a week for the water to recede. Several of our friends even braved the river like road to help us with the house.
There are also mishaps and adventures that I don't have specific dates for like the time David called me around 6:30 in the morning in the fall of 2012 on his way to Midland to tell me that he just had a near death experience. Now, understand we have been married for 20 years and I have personally witnessed many crazy things that seem to only happen to David. So, when he tells me that his brakes went out in the curve right before the train tracks at Lebeau which caused him to fly over the tracks at about 20 mph or more causing this near death experience, my first thought which I spoke was, "Were you driving too fast?" He was very offended and hurt by my question and explained that he was not and that due to his power steering going out he barely made it across the tracks and into the right lane onto 71. I did feel bad and then began to worry for his safety! If I remember correctly, I went to pick him up, came back to Sam's to drop me off, and then he took my truck to work. I don't remember if it was that afternoon or another day that we were finally able to bring his truck home. I followed him and somewhere along the way the brake caliber fell off and I ran over it. After getting his brakes fixed, he drove it without that brake caliber for a long time and possibly didn't ever change it.
There was another time when he called me this spring at about 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning on his way to the welding shop. His truck had died on the side of the road and he needed me to come pull him to Sam's. I pulled up in front of him, he hooked up his truck and I took off headed north to a turn around in the road. After successfully getting turned around, I pulled him to Sam's going a little faster than I should have under the circumstances and prayed that no one would pull out in front of me. He took my truck to work that day too. After work he managed to figure out and fix his truck. It wasn't long after that we traded in the Dodge on my suburban. He inherited my truck and it didn't take long for him to get comfortable in it! Yes, I think there are a few chicken bones on the floor.
Another time David, Todd, Shane, and Nicole took off in a caravan of several trucks hauling trailers headed to Crowley to pick up hay. After only 10 minutes into the trip David runs out of diesel in the Dodge. Without missing a beat Todd pulls in front of him with my truck, they hook his to mine and were off to the gas station. Once in Crowley, they discover that the hay David thought would still be in the field was gone. There was some hay left at the other field so all was not lost because they were able to haul a piece of equipment home along with the few bales that were left.
One of the most unconventional things he did was build a ladder to put in the remaining collar braces. It was made of treated lumber (very heavy, very long and slightly dangerous)! That is definitely me in the third pic. I had a moment of temporary insanity!!
February 2013 - On ladders on scaffolding to install tongue and groove boards to install ceiling fans with a 9 foot extension pipe. Nothing at all dangerous about this. Just remember kids Safety First!! Actually David's motto is Safety Sucks!
There have been numerous times the cows and horses have gotten out of the fence. Just a couple of weeks ago the horses went about 2 miles across a bean field and ended up on Hwy 71.
Oh I almost forgot about the time David was hauling his tractor here from Crowley and he had a little problem with the trailer he had built to haul it with. Nate to the rescue which meant leaving the trailer on the side of the road. It was never seen again. It was either picked up by someone in need of a trailer or the police....
I'm sure there are many more but my memory fails me at the moment!
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