DOOFUS OF THE MONTH WINNER !!!

Miniature Horse Talk Forums

Help Support Miniature Horse Talk Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Marty

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2002
Messages
13,596
Reaction score
521
Location
Tennessee
WOW! Another year has passed with a whole load of Doofuses on board! The entrees keep getting bigger and bigger each month and it warms my heart that you can just stop and take a moment, to laugh at yourself, and then be brave enough to share your moment. No matter how many ups and downs you go through, you can always find a little giggle by paying a visit to the Doofus page to lighten up your day. So don't forget it's there, any time you need a good barnyard chuckle in your life.

www.lilbeginnings.com/doofus

You guys are just all so funny and I'm sorry, I can only have one winner per month. For those of you that send in and don't win, PLEASE keep trying! You are all hilarious and you all going to win eventually!
aktion033.gif


Our Doofus Award Winner for December 2005 is Suzanne, who we know here as "KEEPEROFTHEHORSES" from Eclipse Farm, Star Idaho.
aktion033.gif
aktion033.gif
aktion033.gif


PLEASE HELP ME CONGRATULATE HER ON HER SURVIVAL!
biggrin.gif
This one is very lengthy, but my goodness gracious, it's a miracle how this California Girl is thriving in freezing Idaho. Guys, you are going to need a nice cup of hot tea for this one!

And Suzanne, please pm me with your home address for your little award. I have just the perfect little gift to send you all picked out already in my fun box!!!!

Here's Suzanne's story:



Hello, my name is Suzanne and I am a Doofus. This could be sub-titled "Why California girls should NOT move to Idaho".

The entire month of December has been pretty doofy, but I had a couple of real wizzbang days earlier this month, one night in particular. It was back when we were in our deep freeze and before I had the water heater installed in the barn. Our lows had been in the single digits (throw in the wind chill and it was absolute insanity) and our highs were in the balmy teens. I got home from work late one night and it was already dark by the time I started night-time chores.

On my way out to the barn I thought to myself "That's some sheet of ice there in front of the barn." Then I flip on the barn lights one at a time so I can see what I'm doing. When I flip on the spots over Ripple's and Sassy's stalls, everything goes dark. Even the mercury lights outside.

Now we own probably five flashlights. What we don't own are any fresh batteries. So I stumble, trip and slide around turning off the light switches and head into the tackroom to play with the breaker box. I figure I'll just flip the little levers back and forth until I can see again. Well, I can't feel anything with my gloves on, so I take them off. It took about 30 seconds for my hands to get so cold that they hurt. Flip, flip, flip... about 5 minutes later, the mercury lights flicker on. Cool!

Have you ever seen Apollo 13? Where he says in the beginning "Looks like we've had our glitch for this mission"? That's kind of how things went from there on out.

The cold has now made it's way through the 40 layers of clothes I'm wearing. So I reglove and restart... turn all the lights back on. Apparently I had brain freeze because to my shock, the same thing happened again! Pitch black in the barn. By this time, big mare is kicking her stall walls in disapproval. So gloves off, flip, flip, flip... lights! OK, I can do this with minimal lighting. Flip on one light. It stays on so I'm good to go.

I go get hay from the now-dark hay barn, throw hay (gotta get the big mare to settle down before she tears down the barn) and load up the buckets with beet pulp shreds and head to the house. Remember the above-mentioned sheet of ice? Slip-slide #1. I didn't fall, but had to refill two buckets. We are now well into the first hour of this endless evening.

The front bathroom has become the feed mixing room. There's beet pulp on the floor, splattered on the walls, a mixing spoon resting on the sink. I would be horrified if someone showed up and needed to use the restroom. I put the buckets in the bathtub and start soaking them in hot water. I enjoy a few minutes of central heat. Back out to the barn. It seems even colder now.

Slip-slide #2. This time, I wrench a muscle in my, uh, gluteus maximus. How appropriate.

Now I start mixing their cereal. My hands are really hurting from the cold. The pellets are frozen. A couple of kicks to loosen it before my glut reminds me of it's previous strain. I'm starting to not enjoy myself. Get cereal fed. Forgot the salt. Go back and distribute salt.

Time for water. The ponies all had bucket heaters at this point, but not the horses. I'd been running around all week looking for new ones, but everyone was sold out. I check the tubs in the big horse stalls. Frozen on the top and the sides. Crud. Fine, go get my ice-busting pole and start chipping away. Scoop out the ice with my fish net. The fish net freezes solid within a minute and starts to tear. Yikes! It now feels like it's dropped 20 degrees in 10 minutes.

Now, I've always been dysfunctional with hoses. It's a running joke around here. It's like wrestling an Anaconda for me. Apparently the previous evening, there was a kink in the hose when I drained it. So it didn't really drain. Frozen solid. At this point, I have to take a few moments to compose myself. It's so danged cold! I can't feel my hands. The condensation from my breath has frozen on my scarf. I want to cry, but am afraid that my eyes will freeze shut and the one barn light that is working won't do me any good. I envision hubby finding a Suzie-cicle out in the barn. I decide to skip ahead to beet pulp and come back to the water later. This was probably the only good decision I made that night.

Back to the house... Take note of the #$%! ice sheet and go around this time. First the pony buckets, they are easy, light. But there are three of them and I really want this night to be over, so I try to carry all three at once. This was my first encounter with getting wet that night. I got just enough beet pulp in my boot to be really uncomfortable. It was warm and squishy at first, but that didn't last. It was around this point that I realized that I may be Doofus material. I give the ponies their mash, which upsets big mare enough that she resumes kicking the stall walls. Back to the house for the big buckets, again remembering to go around the ice sheet.

My big horses get copious amounts of beet pulp, and it's heavy. Again, wanted to get chores finished, I take both buckets at once. I have to stop three times between the house and the barn to put the buckets down and rest. Both legs are now wet below my knees from splashing beet pulp. My fingers and toes are numb. My strained butt muscle is cramping. I haven't even started goat chores. I'm now considering moving back to California. And guess what I do? Slip-slide #3? 4? I've lost count. This time I loose my legs, but catch myself on a bucket, smashing my fingers between the rim and the handle. It's OK, though, they are numb and I can't feel much. Splash out more wet beet pulp on my legs and now my arms. So my feet are spread out, my hands on the bucket rims and my, uh pulled muscle is my tallest point. Do women have groins? I think I pulled my groin muscle. My sweet little Ripple pony nickers at me. "Hi mommy". Big mare kicks the stall. Don't cry, don't cry... cowgirls don't cry. So I let out one of those primal

screams. "Ahhhhhhhggggghhh". Big mare settles down and looks worried.

I manage to get the beet pulp fed, most of it. Some of it was out on the ice, some of it was on me. Now I have to go back and finish water. The hose is frozen, so I'll have to use buckets. I hang a bucket on a frost-free faucet outside of the barn. The snow and subsequent ice has frozen the handle. I just sort of stare for a while. Maybe I can stare so hard, a lazer beam will shoot out of my eyes and melt it. OK OK. I'll use the frost-free inside the barn, but it's positioned such that you can't hang the bucket from it, you have to hold it up against the stall wall, balance it on one knee right under the spickot or it will splash into Guy's stall.

We are nearly through hour 2 by this point.

Now, I saw the grand finale coming. I thought to myself, "This has the potential of being bad." But I thought that I'd be careful, focus and just get the watering done. I got the bucket filled twice, enough to top off Guy's tub. Now the big mare. I'm holding the bucket up against the wall, it's full, so I go to shut off the faucet. The bucket slips, flips and drenches me from the waist down. The first couple of minutes are excruciating. I spook the horses screaming. I don't think I've ever been so cold. But, and this is interesting, once my snow pants froze, they started holding heat again. But my socks.... not good.

So I get the horses and ponies watered while wearing my frozen pants and soggy socks.

An encore you say?

Well, it's the goat's turn. I run hay and cereal out to the goats (actually I shuffled due to the various strains caused by my ice skating performances earlier). They are griping because we are getting close to 3 hours and they have been waiting!!! and I'm late!!! They head butt the cereal scoops and goat pellets go flying. Fine, whatever, throw the hay. Oh crud. Their water is frozen too. I fill & haul yet another bucket from the barn out to the goat house. Eyeball the ice sheet on the way and say a few choice words. Kick the goat tub to break the ice (owwweee, cold feet), but it's solid. I pour the water on top of their ice without breaking it first, because let's face it, I just need to be done with this stupid night. Well the water hits the ice and splashes up on my frozen pants, thawing them and further filling my boots.

I don't care! I'm finished! And I've survived! My dignity is long gone, but I did it!

I come into the house shivering, shuffling and cursing. My dearly beloved looks up at me from his cozy recliner and says, "Wow, that took a long time! How are the ponies? Why are you all wet?"

A week later, I had a tooth pulled and dearly beloved had to do those chores all by himself. That weekend, I had a hot water heater installed in the barn, three new stock tank heaters. and the barn was re-wired! Hooooraaayyyy! But I will never forget that night.

THE END
risa_suelos.gif
risa_suelos.gif
risa_suelos.gif
 
Congrats. I haven't had a doofus moment yet. Now that I said that I probably will have 5.

Christy
 
OMG!!! I laughed. I am so sorry you had to go through all of that, but how funny from an outside perspective. LOL

Glad you thawed enough to type it all out!
laugh.gif
 
Living in Iowa where it gets a bit cold, I feel your pain.
yes.gif


You truly do deserve SOMETHING for what you went through that night!
aktion033.gif
 
Oh cool!!! Thank you Marty!!!
biggrin.gif


Yes, that was a night to remember. And this makes it all worth it. Not that I would ever want to repeat that little fiasco...
rolleyes.gif
This is my 10th winter in Idaho, and it doesn't seem to get any easier. Every year I think of something new, or have a new kind of wreck that gives me an idea of how to make things better next year. Eventually, I'll figure it out or give up and move south.

Thank you again.
saludando.gif
 
Although at the time I'm sure it wasn't funny -it certainly is now. I had to read it outloud to my children who laughed hysterically.....

Thanks so much for sharing that! And congratulations on your award!

Hope your...um....muscles are healing.
biggrin.gif
 
May I nominate this winner for Doofus of 2005?

This is probably the best written hard luck story ever, while I cried at your pain I admit to laughing out loud at all of your trials. Hubby in the warm house waiting..I'm mean I woulda screamed for him to get out here NOW! Glad he got a taste of it and should you need some more "big" heated buckets I have 3 or 4 I do not use you can buy?

Congratualtions!
 
Brrrrrrrr...made me cold just reading this doofus! I was waiting to see how she got out of her frozen socks and boots!
 
its just came to me,if i create an ice sheet,fill my boots with beet, pour frezzing water down my trousers,and stay in the barn for 3 hours,i might get a new water boiler?????
rolleyes.gif
im going to try it tomorrow
wink.gif
on second thoughts CONGRATULATIONS YOU DESERVE THE DOFFUS AWARD!!!
aktion033.gif
aktion033.gif
aktion033.gif
aktion033.gif
aktion033.gif
aktion033.gif
 
Well, it turned out to be worth it in the end- I think you need to be ill a little more often!!!
smile.gif
 
What a story! Well-written so that it's easy to visualize.

I LOVED how when hubby had to do the chores, miraculously, things you had been asking for no doubt, suddenly became top on the priority list.

Congratulations on this "well-deserved" award.
aktion033.gif
aktion033.gif
aktion033.gif
 
Well for sure congradulations are in order for the best of the bunch . I suggest taking the other half to the barn more often so he can appreciate your total dedication. Who knows what the next upgrade will be ??
 

Latest posts

Back
Top