Almost a year ago I am at buddies ranch. Just two of us to shoot guns and drink some beer and going to be hottest day of the year, 103 or so. By lunch we notice house isn't getting any cooler, just warmer. Compressor isn't kicking on. He calls an AC guy who is 60 miles away and still has a job left. We try the styrofoam swamp ice cooler we use in the blind but at 90 degrees we abandoned the house for barn. Guy and his young daughter who was learning to drive showed up few hours later. He said it was good highway and rural road experience for her. I joked we should have just kicked it. Well turned out that would have fixed it. Ants got in the capacitor connections! $90 to blow them out thank you... Dude lived in Weatherford and does rural work on weekends since those guys don't work then normally and he can drive a long way and charge a premium. Guy was in Albany before us. Not sure why I didn't kick it. Works 25% of the time on stuff.

Kick it, shake it, slap it! Great story

Are things ever supposed to go right? I can't remember a single trip to the lease where I didn't have to fix something.

This spring, I thought I would show off the countryside to some friends from China. When we got there, I cranked up the generator and opened the trailer. Then I taught them to shoot.

Now that they were ready to try a hog, I gave one a ride in my Ranger to the pond where it promptly ran out of gas.

We walked back to camp and hauled a gas can back to the Ranger. Now we were ready to go to the back of the property where we were going to hunt. The Ranger died.

Another (much longer) walk back to camp and got my car to pull the Ranger back to camp where I could load it on the trailer and bring it home.

It started raining.

So I back the trailer up to the Ranger and use the winch to pull it up. The battery died.

I carried a small generator from camp with a battery charger and charge the battery.

Ready now, I tried winching the Ranger up the rest of the way. The winch froze up.

Then I used a come-along to finish pulling the Ranger up on the trailer. It started raining harder.

We loaded the car and pulled the trailer, Ranger and all, through the mud to the front gate.

The drive home was uneventful.

My friends were optimistic about the events. They said they learned how to do many things that they will never use again.

I offered to take one of them on another trip to the country.

They declined the offer.

A new fuel pump revived my Ranger.

We got a saying where we hunt. “Gotta pay your taxes” something is always gonna break and cost you money.

Lease trip = blood, bleeding for me, every trip. Every time.

Building cottonseed feeders and driving the first tpost with much vigor. Hit the bump on the tpost and whacked myself on top of the head with the tpost driver. I bit my tongue but not off, no broken teeth head bleeding like crazy. We are an hour from a medical facility and thank God I didn’t need stitches.

You win!

Seen that before and it sucks. This is what a finger looks like after a 12v spinner plate goes off unexpectedly (glued back together at this point)

Same here. I hate when I have to trim Mesquite trees. I always end up sticking my hand or fingers with the thorns.

My brother jokes that "ranch" is an old Indian work for "something is broke"
I think this can be applied to "deer lease"
A weekend is always full of chores, and a list for next time.

My dad used to say that we weren't working at the lease until someone was bleeding.

I love it. My wife never could understand how when I returned from a lease trip why I was bruised, bloody and completely wiped out. We sent the kids to the grandparents and I took her for a work weekend with just her and I. After building 2 feeder pens, setting up two feeders, setting up and hauling 300 gallons of water for a water station on top of putting out 3/4 ton of feed she finally understood. I haven’t heard a word about me being tired when I get home since then.

Last Sunday, buddy didn't lock the tongue on the ball. Drove his atv on the trailer and it popped off and smashed my license plate... He walked in and said he made my truck look like a real truck now... I scratched his trailer making it look like a real trailer...

That looks more painful than beating myself in the head with the tpost driver.