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• Blogs I Like

  • Chickens in the Road
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  • The Cotton Wife
  • The Country Doctor’s Wife
  • The Daily Coyote
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• Tennessee Walking Horse Links

  • Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders & Exhibitor’s Association
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Ahh, Corn Maze. It is one of my favorite events. As my college career quickly comes to a close, I can’t help but to get nostalgic about things, and Corn Maze is no exception.

I remember back to freshman year, when I traipsed across a muddy pasture (You have not seen a muddy pasture until you’ve seen a Missouri muddy pasture. I nearly dislocated my hip trying to pull my foot out.) with two of my sorority sisters, through a barbed wire fence to the wooded acreage next to the university farm. There we felled a few small saplings, dragged them back across the pasture and made some wooden crosses for our graveyard scene.
The first night of the maze started out perfectly, weather-wise: a full moon was partially obstructed by clouds that were being pushed by the same breeze that constantly rustled the corn so no one could hear you walk through it. Thunder rumbled in the distance for most of the night until it started raining. Then it started POURING, and all of us workers ran to the classroom building. Or we tried to, at least. Finding your way through a dark corn maze is hard enough, let alone with cheap Halloween makeup running into your eyes.

Sophomore year must have been pretty boring, as I don’t remember it much at all.

Junior year found me and the president at the time climbing through the maze at 7PM on opening night, the time at which it opens, trying desperately to run electrical cords from the single generator to all of the scenes. It was dark, we were carrying hundreds of feet worth of electrical cords and we had people lined up, waiting to get on the hay ride for the journey down. That’s when our last 100-foot cord, the one we desperately needed, got hopelessly tangled. Talk about stress!

Speaking of stress, senior year, as you can read in this blog, involved me being in charge of the maze since the president of our sorority was out of town. The maze also happened to be during homecoming weekend, when we had a parade and other such activities to coordinate as well. I happened to come down with a terrible case of bronchitis that very week. Good times.

This year, as I said, was the best yet. Everything got done early, we were well-prepared, we advertised a great deal, and we had the largest crowd come through yet.

People screamed, people jumped, people fell down, people peed themselves, people cried and people got hopelessly lost in the maze. I’m going to miss it.

I hope you all had a great Halloween.

I was in my sorority’s annual haunted corn maze, which is the best it’s ever been, I think. We’ve had 900-some people come through in the first two days. Yesterday we had over 200 in the first hour. Our theme this year is “Are You Afraid of Zombies?” and the maze is incredibly hard to get through and filled with all sorts of spooky stuff (zombies, two guys with chain saws, clowns, etc).

I dressed up like a zombie and uttered a bloodcurdling scream any time a patron walks past the part of the field where I’m hiding. I’ve received lots of compliments on my scream from the people I scare. I have to say I’m pretty proud of it.

This is Casual Zombie Time, when I was hanging out with my newest little sis (who had the good sense not to put fake blood all over her face, as that stuff stains, which is why those of us with it on didn’t bother washing it off before going out together) after the maze. Normally I’m dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt with the hood up and a black graduation robe over it to blend in with the corn a little better.

So far my favorite scare has been a group of three high school or college -aged kids who came through. They walked into the little L-shaped dead end where I was hiding after I screamed at them. I walked out to meet them, as people get scared when you just stare at them. One of my sorority sisters, dressed as Jigsaw from the Saw movies, followed them in, so they were stuck between us. One of their group had to tie his shoe, so while waiting for him to do that, the other two tried to make some small talk with us zombies. This evidently covered up the crackling sound of corn stalks, because they were none the wiser that one of our Agros was right behind them with the chain saw until he revved it up. They screamed and jumped, falling over the guy tying his shoe.

I’m going to miss Corn Maze.

I was driving home on Friday and mulling over the future. More specifically, I was worrying over how the heck I’m going to get started in the cattle world after I graduate. Land seems to be particularly expensive in the area around home. Given the fact I’ll be working for my dad, I have to stay within a reasonable radius of the office location.

Besides that, I love the area I grew up in and I WANT to live there.

I don’t so much love that most farm land seems to be going for just under $8,000/acre.

So there I was, wondering how the heck I was going to pull this off when I looked over and saw this:

Is that a good omen or what?

I just hope it isn’t implying that black cattle are the way to go, because I’m not listening to that part.

Tell me about a time in your life when you received the right sign at the right time.

We all remember this entry, right? Where some anonymous trickster took a pro-Hereford statement of Doc’s out of context and put it on a poster? Yes, we remember.

I walked into my animal nutrition class the other day a minute late and was just getting settled into my seat as Doc discussed the upcoming test.

“This one’s known to be tough,” he said. No doubt referring to the myriad of chemical processes and relationship we need to know. “People have a really hard time with it. So I was going to take it easy on you, but then I saw THIS on my door,” and he whipped out the poster. He continued on to explain how terrible the test was going to be, and how organic chemistry, a notoriously painful class, would seem like a walk in the park in comparison.

Doc’s motto of “I don’t get mad, I get even,” suddenly popped into my head, along with the fact that he never followed through on his threats after Operation: Shetland Valentine.

Perhaps I should have waited until after the test to make the poster.

So now I’m studying for this exam, and wishing for useful things like Glycolysis for Dummies. But hey, I did just learn after my entire college career that it is actually the Krebs Cycle and not the Kreps Cycle as I’d always believed. This test is going to go well, I can feel it!

WHO would do this?

WHO would latch onto this quote the moment it left Doc’s lips?

WHO would take it out of context and painstakingly scrawl it onto a large piece of poster board?

WHO would attach said poster to Doc’s door the night before Tuesday, when he has no classes, in hopes of him coming in late and lots of students seeing it right on his door?

I don’t know. It is impossible to tell.

I don’t think we’ll ever know who did it.

I don’t think we should even try to figure it out.

Huckleberry Finn has become my (fuzzy, spastic) shadow as of late. He is much nicer this semester and has decided that he rather quite likes me. Mostly he likes it when I play with him, which usually involves me tickling his belly and him running away and then coming back to loiter nonchalantly by my feet, acting as though he is just casually strolling by but does NOT want a belly tickle. This process repeats endlessly.

When I walk from room to room I hear the sounds of a little weasel galloping along behind me.

I appreciate this new-found affection a lot more than I appreciated his previous habit of nipping toes.
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The problems with my blog are now fixed! You can now see individual entries, make comments, etc.

Many thanks to the nice folks at Start Logic, the hosting company I use, for taking the time to figure out what the heck I was babbling on about. Turns out it was a simple fix, but one that would have taken me ages to figure out on my own.

Also, turns out I probably caused it in the first place. That’s how I roll.
____________________________

Homecoming Weekend has officially started! Tomorrow morning is an early one, as I’m going to the university farm to help prepare the annual Homecoming Breakfast for current students and alumni.

I leave from there to go to the parade, in which our sorority has a float along with the ag fraternity.

After that is our sorority’s softball game with our alumni against the ag fraternity.

And after THAT is a dinner with sorority alumni.
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I realized that in the last entry it looked like Bradley’s old bed was an old towel and his new bed was the navy dog bed underneath. In reality, the navy bed underneath is the old one and there is ANOTHER dog bed (a GREEN one, which I explained to him in hopes of some appreciation, but to no avail) under there. He nearly has it matted down to an acceptable condition.

I enjoyed reading The Cotton Wife’s recent post about their soybean fields.

Because, first of all, does anyone remember how much I love soybeans?

But it also reminded me of pictures I took this past weekend.

Pseudo Fall is gone and Real Fall is here. In the background of this picture, you can see the bright gold soybean field and in the distance is… anyone? Anyone have any guesses? Yes! Corn.

Ah, soybeans. And corn, of course.

They’re getting pretty dang near ready to harvest.

I don’t only take pictures of soybeans, of course. “Don’t rest on your laurels,” that’s what I always say. You’ve got to mix it up… keep it fresh!

I bet you weren’t expecting this twist, eh? Kalin taking pictures of horses? Unheard of! It’s my goal to keep you on your toes.

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  Kalin is twenty-two years old.
  Contrary to popular belief, she's not bilingual (though after 4.5 years of Spanish you'd think she'd know more than she does).
  She loves Herefords and Tennessee Walkers. . . [READ MORE]
  
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