I've been a bit hesitant on posting anything here since the website got hacked, but I think I should share with you some of my most recent experiences. I've been on my grandpa Lyle's childhood farm for the last 2 weeks. He lives near me, so we drove up here together. My grandpa's brother, Delton, lives here with his wife, Donnell. It's a decent farm; the neighbor plants and plows our fields for us, and another neighbor has some cows on our main 800 acre pasture, AKA the cricklands. Delton is a full-time trucker, and his wife is a full-time artist, so there's hardly any time for them to farm. While almost nothing typically happens on this farm, almost too much has happened since we got here. This will be a long bunch of stories, since well, this trip has been a long trip in not the best ways. But, my grandpa said that hell's a writer's paradise, and I ought to take back some stories. And boy, do I have stories! And before I continue further, keep in mind that I actually had some fun, and I'm glad I went on this trip.

I spent a good 2 months and over $300 on my dirtbike to get it in optimal condition for this specific trip. I got it registered with the government so I can ride legally on public trails and land. I replaced both tire tubes, several spark plugs, took off the expansion chamber pipe and shot fire through it to burn out any and all the excess oil (really, really bad idea in hindsight, but it worked), dumped 1.5 gallons of too-rich gas in the gas tank down my dad's warehouse's toilet (my dad's idea, not mine), replaced the muffler, tightened and replaced a few screws, and rode it through the toughest conditions to test it several times. So, you can probably imagine my reaction when grandpa and I were manhandling the dirtbike off the back hitch, only to hear the front tire pop and watch it go flat. To say I was pissed is an understatement. I didn't blatantly show it, but I just isolated myself in the bedroom I was given for the rest of the night because I didn't want to snap on anyone. 

The next day, while grandpa and Delton drove around all day in search of a new tire tube, I just sat in my bedroom and played video games and watched youtube. I checked the weather, and felt my heart go into my throat when I saw "TORNADO WATCH" in big, bold letters at the top of my screen. Turns out, we were in for a few nights of terrible weather, and I wasn't very happy about this, at all. I ended up moving my stuff from the nice, air-conditioned manufactured home Delton and his wife live in, into the not-so-cold, dusty little farmhouse with a basement, located several yards from the new house. The farmhouse is actually very nice and cozy, and it's been recently renovated while still keeping its 1960s look and feel. It just lacks a few decorations, but we're getting there.

My grandpa and Delton returned with a new inflated tire tube in the tire, just as the first few drops of rain were falling. I figured I'd go for a ride just to make sure my dirtbike was working as it should. I went to the small pasture out back, and rode up the second hill facing the west. The color drained from my face when I saw the storm front. It was just a massive purple-green shelf cloud hanging over a wall of near pitch-dark sky, and it was coming towards us at record speeds. I hit 4th gear pinned over the last hill, and hit the ground in a wheelie I was going so fast. Not very much scares me, but I know what a bad storm looks like when I see it. I parked my dirtbike in the old farmhouse's garage, and stayed there for the rest of the night. The worst of the storm missed us by about 5 miles, but we still got a little bit of wind, some quarter-sized hail, and a rotating wall cloud above our farm, which actually made me stand by the basement door and watch it from a nearby window. 

My grandpa woke me up the next morning, asking if I wanted to go fishing. I excitedly agreed, and jumped into his car with my breakfast still in my hand. We went to town to get our licenses and fishing bait, then headed to the mouth of the Missouri river to fish. We were hoping to fish off the tailrace dock at the Garrison dam, but to our surprise and amazement, the dam had the emergency floodgates open, which has never happened in its 80 year history, so the tailrace dock was closed and wet. Lake Sakakawea is extremely full because the snow didn't start melting off the Rockies in Montana until just now, and the snow-melt is so rapid that it's filling up the lake several feet per day, even with Garrison's emergency floodgates and main floodgates wide open. We instead went down to the mouth of the Knife river, where there were lots of catfish and northern pike. I didn't get a nibble, and neither did my grandpa. But, I was walking on wet rocks, and I ended up slipping on a rock and plunging into the freezing water below. I immediately got back to shore and started emptying my pockets. My phone, which had been playing music in my back pocket, was done for, I almost lost my favorite knife but thankfully found it on the rocks just below the water's surface, and my 10-day fishing license paper was nearly ruined. I just threw my stuff in the car and sat shivering and soaked in it until we left. My grandpa kinda just patted me on the back but said nothing. What can you say to someone who has had the worst luck in the last year or so? In all honesty, I wasn't very mad at that point. I was kind of expecting it, in a way, since my luck had been horrible lately. 

My plan to stay in the farmhouse with my phone for the nightly storms was kind of ruined, as was my plan to ride out to the cricklands on my own with my dirtbike (which is something I'd only do if I had instant access to my phone if something went wrong), but my grandpa came to the rescue, and let me use an old phone of his to tether my laptop on the wifi, but I wasn't about to take it with me on my adventures since it didn't have a protective case. When it came to the storms, my grandpa tried to tell me that the news just liked to sensationalize things, and chances were we'd be just fine and I could safely stay in the new house, but I refused. I just knew something big was coming. My grandpa shrugged his shoulders and went to bed, leaving me in the main room of the old farmhouse with the old phone and my laptop.

At about midnight (Thursday into Friday), as I was listening to some Youtube podcasts and playing World of Warcraft, the power flickered then went dark. Suddenly, the curtains just behind me slapped me pretty hard in the back of the head, and I jumped up so high I nearly smashed my knees below the table. I pulled that window down so hard and fast I thought I shattered it for a second, but no wind was getting through so it was fine. This sudden gust also woke my grandpa up, who rushed into the kitchen to close the windows in there. I met him there, and asked what the hell was happening. It sounded like a jet airplane was hovering above our house. My grandpa just shot me a look, which was a look of fear and amazement; a face I've never seen him make. The lightning was nearly constant, so I didn't even need a flashlight to see. Outside, I saw the huge trees bending so low I was convinced they would snap. Whatever wasn't tied down or heavier than 40 pounds was now flying past the window at 80 miles an hour, and I ended up opening the basement door and was about to go in it, but my grandpa stopped me and asked me to run around the house and unplug everything I could, since nothing except my laptop had a surge protector. I thought he was insane, and even said that, but he convinced me that it was just wind and the house was fine. So, I did.

The wind was hitting the western side of the house, and sounded much worse than the eastern side of the house where I was at with my laptop. It literally sounded just like the window seat next to the wing on a cruising airplane, only worse because tree branches were falling and stuff was hitting the house. I actually stood and listened to it for a few seconds, cowering and shivering in fear. I wanted to go to the basement, but my grandpa wanted me to watch it with him in the kitchen, and if anything happened, the basement was three steps behind us. I just stood in the middle of the kitchen, cowering, while grandpa stared out the windows and made some comments about how awesome and neat the storm was. I thought he was crazy, and he thought I was just being a wuss. Grandpa went back to his room and laid down with his door open, and told me if I needed anything to come wake him up, and if anything happened to meet him in the basement.

I just trotted back to my laptop, moved around so I was away from and facing the window, and since my laptop was fully charged as was the phone, I still had full wifi, so I just continued to play WoW and listen to youtube. I contemplated putting on my motocross helmet (which I actually did do later that night), just because I had a lot of what-ifs running through my head, one of those being, "What if a brick went through this window and knocked me out?". Of course, I didn't want my grandpa to see me wear that thing in the house, because then I'd really be made fun of. 

I was too scared to check the weather online. I didn't need a radar or a warning to tell me it was apocalyptic. The ceiling kept making some peculiar creaking and growling noises when the wind increased an extra two miles an hour, and the front door (which was closed and locked and behind a glass storm door, that was also shut and locked), would move in and out with each passing gust, like someone was desperately trying to get in. After several gusts, I actually got worried that perhaps there was a poor soul out there that was trying to find shelter, so I cautiously got up and walked towards the front door. I looked through the window in the door, and saw no one's head, but what I did see equally scared the hell out of me. I could see the tractor shed standing firmly in the storm. On the eastern side, just below the inch of roof that jutted out, the rain was swirling under that and shooting upwards. I've never seen rain spin like that except behind pickup trucks on wet highways, and I've certainly never seen it rain upwards! As I was watching this, something else caught my eye. One of the far trees by the road split in two, and the eastern half fell into the ditch! Plus, the wheat crops that had been standing straight that day, were laying down flat and not even moving anymore. At this point, I had enough, and gathered my things and went to tell grandpa where I was going. He was up too, but said to just stay in the main room and everything would be fine. He didn't want me in the basement unless we absolutely had to. A pipe flooded again, and he had dumped 4 gallons of bleach on the floor to keep it clean for me, so the smell of bleach would be overwhelming and bad for my lungs. I sort of growled and went back to where I was sitting originally, since I had used two cans of Febreeze down there, and the smell was gone. 

I shut down World of Warcraft, and finally checked the weather radar. We were in the thick of it! The storm was 100 miles wide and 400 miles long, and it bowed too, which meant it was very severe. There were tornado warnings, severe thunderstorm warnings, high wind warnings, and flood warnings posted all around. We were in all 4 warning zones, but I knew what to look for as far as tornadoes on the radar, and that was just east of us. I got curious and started reading each warning. Basically, we were in for golf ball sized hail, 90 mph winds with 120 mph gusts, 5 inches of rain, and a possible strong tornado. I think I just went numb when I saw there was a 125 mph wind gust at the Garrison dam, which meant that gust likely passed over us. I kinda figured if the house was still standing after that tree-splitting wind gust, then it should be fine for the rest of the storm (bad idea, I know, but it was 1 AM at that point, I wasn't thinking straight, and I was just too scared to put much thought into it).

At about 2 AM, we only had another 30 miles of storm to go, and the house was still standing, so I gently shut the door between the main room and the kitchen, brought my stuff to the coffee table, put on my motocross helmet and gear, plugged myself into my earbuds playing a Hank Williams youtube playlist, and fell asleep to Hank Williams' Lost Highway. I woke up at about 4 AM to the lamp and fan back on, Hank Williams' I Saw the Light  (which I think was an interesting coincidence), as well as a couple mosquitoes on my cheek. I slapped the mosquitoes, and removed my helmet with a huge sigh of relief. I was soaked in a cold sweat and breathing very rapidly. I could still hear the trees shaking a bit, but the airplane that was apparently balancing on the roof was gone. I put a hoodie over my head to keep the mosquitoes off my face, and went back to sleep until my grandpa shook me awake at 9 AM. 

I followed him back to the new house for breakfast, which was surprisingly undamaged and still standing. Donnell told us all about it! She said she heard a freight train for 2 hours that night, but her house didn't even creak. I guess its frame is built from steel, its walls are 7 inches thick, and it's anchored down in 8 different places by 12 foot spikes, jackhammered 20 feet into the ground. She said she just laid in bed and prayed, and my grandpa admitted to doing the same thing. They both admitted that they were scared, and grandpa said he should've brought us down to the basement. But my little brother was sleeping in the old farmhouse with grandpa, and he didn't want to wake him up and alarm him. Apparently, it wasn't the bleach, but my brother that kept us up on the main floor. I got a little angry, and asked why my grandpa said I needed to stop cowering like a wuss. Grandpa apologized, and thought that a little bit of my humor thrown back at me would calm my fear. It usually does, but not when 125 mph winds are trying to destroy our house with us in it for 2 straight hours! Grandpa then said he was actually impressed by my bravery. I was silent, compliant, and even fell asleep, or at least tried to. Grandpa checked in on me at 3 AM, but said nothing about the helmet or the rest of my gear. He just said I was having a hard time breathing because my nostrils were flared and I was breathing very fast, but he figured I was just anxious and fully awake, but didn't know he was there. He didn't want to scare me anymore by shaking me to ask if I was ok, so he went back to his room and prayed for me. Grandpa Lyle also saw my playlist, and thought it was interesting I was listening to Hank Williams singing about The Pale Horse and His Rider, while trying to sleep during a bad storm that was actually a deadly storm. 

Donnell's daughter called her crying an hour into our breakfast conversation. One of her good friends, Jerry Kellar, was killed in the storm. He was camping at the lake when the storm came up. He left his camper, some saying he was trying to flee, others saying he was trying to tie stuff down. Either way, his camper was picked up and thrown on top of him, dragging him down to the lake with it. Park officers found him the next morning, drowned in the lake with his camper scattered all around him. 

And just 3 miles south of us, a roof was torn off a farmhouse with a family inside. While the mother struggled to free her 3 month old son from the debris, and the older son was in the house and ok, the dad took a shotgun and blasted a hole in the basement door so it would open. The pressure difference made it impossible for him to keep the door open otherwise, and he was able to get his family into the basement with only minor injuries. All of this happened in a span of 2 minutes, and the house was destroyed by the morning. 

I realized then just how quickly things could've gone terribly for us. As I mentioned earlier, the front door was violently shaking in the frame, and I was ready for it to get sucked out, and the ceiling was making creaking and groaning sounds, and I swear I saw it shift a couple times. If a storm like that came again, grandpa promised to not even hesitate about going underground. It doesn't need to a tornado to be just as bad, and in some ways, what we went through that night was worse than a tornado. But we were extremely lucky, and some even could say God had His hand over the farm that night. Our crops sprung right back up almost as soon as the sun hit them. We spent less than 10 minutes cleaning up tree branches and debris, and we relocated our undamaged lawn chairs in the ditch by the road. The hail missed us by a half mile, and the ditch didn't flood. The telephone poles that were snapped weren't ours, and our houses didn't even lose a shingle. 

I thought as far as storms, we were out of the woods, but I quickly realized storms weren't the only danger. 

A few days before the family reunion, after several more unsuccessful fishing trips, Delton and my grandpa were cleaning Delton's tractor shed (AKA the shop). They had removed several hundred pounds of scrap metal and rotting wooden shelves, and decided to use the tractor to bring these things to the junk piles in the back pasture. My grandpa summoned me to do the driving, and he'd sit on the wheel fender just behind me to shout directions, and get on and off to move the junk around. I was having a really good time. I felt useful again, and I enjoy long hours in the tractor. The tractor ran well for about an hour and half, until we had the last claw full of junk, and were nearing the last junk pile at the far end of the pasture. 

For some reason, I couldn't get the tractor out of fourth gear into first gear. I couldn't even get it into neutral, and I was using all my strength on the gear stick. I slammed my boots on the clutch and brake, and glanced back at my grandpa for help. My grandpa reached over my shoulder and tried to shake the gear stick into first, but couldn't do it either. 

"Switch spots!" my grandpa shouted. 

"What?! No!" I shouted back, "If I take my boots off these pedals, we're either going backwards down the hill into the creek, or we're going forward into the junk pile!" 

My grandpa pondered this for a second then yelled, "We'll just have to be fast then!" 

I thought he was joking, but then I felt him pushing me off my seat. I felt a wave of panic shoot through me, but then I had to react since I was more than halfway off my seat. I grabbed the fender with both arms, and felt the tractor lurch forward when I took my feet off the pedals. At the time, it didn't really register, but my left leg was dangling five inches from the moving back tire when I was nearly bucked off by the sudden lurching movement. Luckily, I held on, and grandpa had the tractor stopped just in time!

My grandpa continued to struggle with the gears, and the tractor lurched forward several more times before grandpa somehow got the thing into neutral (which was a miracle, for reasons you'll soon find out. I didn't know he got it into neutral at the time, but it stopped lurching forward). As soon as he did this, I was in panic mode and jumped off the back fender of the tractor. I landed on my hands and knees in a bush of ragweed and hogweed (two things I'm severely allergic to), and ran away, mostly on all fours. I stopped after dashing 20 feet, and turned around to tell my grandpa not to move an inch. I was getting Delton! Grandpa said he already had Delton on the phone, and he was staying put. As much as I wanted to go home and get out of the wind, which was full of grass, dust, and pollen, I stayed with my grandpa until Delton came up the hill in his golf cart, smiling widely and holding a huge wrench in his free hand. I started sprinting back to the farm through the waist high grass and weeds. I stopped at the final hill before the farm, and got up on a large laying log to see what the men were up to. I watched Delton doing something to the tractor with that wrench as I caught my breath. Delton got off, and my grandpa got back on. Delton took out the junk, and my grandpa had the tractor backing out of the junk pile and turning around, and then he followed Delton back to the farm. Delton drove by pretty fast, and as grandpa passed me, he signaled me to follow, which I did. 

I met the guys in the tractor shed, and Delton came up to me with an ornery smile, grabbed me firmly by the shoulder and shouted, "Sie hat die hande eines ochsen!" to my grandpa who laughed at this. (My family has kept our german roots alive and well). I asked what this meant, and Delton says again in english, "She's got hands of an ox!" 

I again asked what he meant by this, and apparently I'm too strong to drive the tractor. I accidentally ripped the gear stick out of the gearbox. The only other person that has ever managed to do this was an old farmhand we had who was built like a bear. Delton and grandpa made some more jokes about this, and in the end said it was an easy fix and I ought to be proud of my strength. So, I guess I've since regained the strength I lost while I was sick and then some, and only found that out after nearly killing myself (or at least suffering the same injuries as my uncle Wade) and almost flipping the 7-ton tractor over on the junk pile. After that, when grandpa offered to let me drive the tractor again the next day to move it somewhere, I strictly declined. 

But, this story doesn't end there. I followed the guys into the house when Donnell called us in for a late lunch of cold smoked sausage, homemade pickles, and baked potatoes. As I was eating, I noticed my hands were starting to itch and hurt a lot. I looked down at them and they were red, swollen, and full of hives and open sores. I shoved the last bit of sausage into my mouth and told everyone that I was gonna take an immediate shower in the old farmhouse. As soon as I was out of sight, I started sprinting like a cougar was on my tail. I got into the farmhouse, jumped into the shower when it was still freezing, and for the next 20 minutes I was scrubbing my hands furiously with a half bottle of shampoo and the roughest washcloth I could find. They eventually got so hurt and bloody that I had to stop messing with them and held them outside of the water for the rest of my shower. When I got out, and ever so carefully dried off and dressed, I took a roll of toilet paper and wrapped my hands in a few layers of paper, held my toothbrush between my teeth, and poured rubbing alcohol on my hands. I was alone in the house, so I was able to cuss aloud without anyone hearing me. I walked back to the new house with tears in my eyes and told them what happened. Delton proceeded to laugh at me, and grandpa looked over my soaked swollen hands. I got on my laptop and googled every toxic plant and solution to my problems. Turns out, ragweed was what caused the swelling and the hogweed caused the sores. The internet said to keep my hands wrapped up in disinfected cloth or whatever, and only go to the hospital if it got worse and not better. For the rest of the day and all that night, I kept a roll of toilet paper and bottle of rubbing alcohol nearby, and the next morning my hands were still a bit swollen and scabbed, but were useful again. 

Around this time, I'm thinking things can't get worse than this. Oh, I was wrong. So very, very wrong. 

Fast forward to two nights ago (the night before the reunion). All of my great aunts and uncles were around, and I thought it would be the perfect night to ride my dirtbike. It was calm, cool, and the ground was dry. So, I got my helmet and gloves on and began riding around the lawn, driving by the BBQ every few minutes to see if it was ready. For a half hour, I was riding around, practicing short wheelies and stoppies, leaning the bike down as low as I could, and jumping the ditch. My great uncle Delton stayed by the BBQ and would urge me on by making a throttle motion with his fist. Delton rode dirtbikes when he was my age and into his late 30s. He enjoys the two stroke smoke and sound as much as I do. It's perfume to his nose and music to his ears! 

So of course, as the minutes pass I get a little more brazen. Eventually, I'm doing second gear long wheelies on the front lawns of both houses. As I was doing one of these wheelies on the farmhouse lawn, I leaned back too far. I felt the back fender grinding the ground and I was starting to lean too far to the right. In an attempt to save myself, I try to lean left and pull myself forward. I pulled most of my weight using my right arm, AKA the throttle hand. Well, the next thing I know, I'm 6 feet in the air, moving at 20 miles an hour, and my dirtbike is riding ahead of me without a rider. I saw my dirtbike's empty saddle below me and my American flag cowboy boots ahead of me, and then I saw the evening orange sky and hit the ground hard on my left side. It's hard to put together what actually happened, but I know I skidded on the overgrown gravel for a good 20 feet, 10 of those were on my shoulder, a little less than 10 was on my forearms, and whatever few feet remaining was on my helmet. Maybe I landed on my head first, but I don't know. All I know is that I got up as soon as I stopped skidding (no,no number one), started sprinting towards the farmhouse, laughing (yes, laughing) hysterically about how I broke my shoulder (no,no number two), began to move my shoulder around in its socket (no, no number three), and started bleeding all over the floor in the farmhouse kitchen (no, no number four), while trying to explain to my 3 great aunts (who are all certified nurses), that I was fine and bragging about my incident (no,no number five) even though they urged me to sit on the couch so they could make sure I was actually ok (listen to your nurses please). I did eventually end up on the couch, and the three ladies started checking me out. I was severely bruised but could move my shoulder very well, and my eyes reacted as normal when they ran some tests, such as having me identify the number of fingers they were holding up, following a pen with just my eyes, and having them shine a flashlight into them to make sure my pupils reacted normally. I was ok, just in a lot of shock and a major adrenaline high. My great aunt Wanda helped me to painfully pick gravel out of my forearms and pour rubbing alcohol on them, while my great aunt Sharon cleaned up my blood. My grandpa picked up my dirtbike and pulled huge chunks of sod out of its right side (which I'll need to power-wash the excess stuff off it later), and parked it into the garage for me. My great aunt Shirley noticed I still had my helmet on my head, and carefully removed it. I picked a mixture of sod and gravel out of the nose guard and where it had been stuffed under my sun visor. 

I followed my aunts and grandpa to the porch of the new house to have dinner, and all of my great uncles were up there, laughing hysterically at me as I showed off my injuries. We talked about my incident for a good hour, and then Delton started sharing some stories for another three hours. Delton said that every dirtbike rider will have their crash. It doesn't matter how cautious or bright you are, you will crash in one way or another. He said that I was lucky my shoulder didn't appear to be broken, and even luckier that my ribs were ok. He told me to take lots of Advil, and sleep with some ice packs, so I did. 

The next morning, I woke up and didn't want to move at all. I started at the ceiling for a good hour as I felt the stinging pain of road rash and the throbbing pain of multiple severe bruises. But, I eventually forced myself up, spent about 10 minutes getting dressed, and got up to have breakfast. I more or less shuffled into Donnell's kitchen, looking absolutely crippled, and shook violently as I sat down to eat. My great aunt Shirley was up, and she kindly got me some painkillers and the rest of my pills, so I didn't have to get up to get them. This was the day of the family reunion, and I was about as excited as a mean cat at the vet. I took my time eating, medicating, and getting at least 2.5 mountain dews in my system to wake myself up and numb the pain. And then I made my way to the shop to meet up with the whole family for lunch. Everyone asked what had happened, so I told my story about 50 times in the course of an hour. After that hour, I got too hot and was sweating, which meant my arms felt like I had entire hives of bees on them, so I went to my bedroom and stayed there for most of the day. 

Today is basically a repeat of the rest of yesterday after lunch. I can move my shoulder a bit better now, but it still hurts, and a few more bruises have showed up since, including one on my left knee that is causing me to limp. My road rash still stings, and I got a little scraped up on my left side so that stings too. Earlier, after lunch, I accidentally smashed my left hip against a door knob and went into a fetal position on my bedroom floor, silently cursing myself for being so damn careless. I've since moved to the bed, where I've been at for 4 hours, in the same fetal position and in a lot of pain. I think I'll just sleep in my jeans tonight, so that way when we leave at 5 AM tomorrow, I don't have to hold up the carpool by taking so long to get dressed. Then, when I finally get home, maybe things will turn to normal... Maybe... Maybe.