After James and the kids got home from sight seeing in Auxerre last night, they informed me that there was one part of the steer adventure that I left out. When we piled into the cars to drive over to the pasture, James took the five girls in his car (so 6 in the 5 passenger car). Jill asked me to ride with her in her truck and said Ethan could ride in the back and Bernard drove the big truck.
The enclosed bed of Jill's truck is a refrigerator unit that they use for transporting grapes once they've been picked. There are no windows, no seats and she says it is hermetically sealed (meaning no air flow). I didn't really think about this as she asked Ethan to get in the back. I looked in the back and there was some hay on the floor and room for Ethan to sit on a fender. He said he didn't really want to ride back there. I said, oh, it's only for a couple of minutes, hop in. I must be a pretty persuasive mom, because he climbed in. We closed the door. Then I started thinking that it must be really dark in there (I was terrified of the dark as a child and actually only got over my fear when I became a mother). So, I asked through the door if he was okay. He said...not really. So I opened the door and told him he could ride on my lap in the front of the truck. He said...wait...sit on you lap and ride without a seat belt???? OMG...Jill looked at me and I knew she was thinking...you guys are a bunch on pansies!!!! Ethan, James and I are certainly very safety conscious when it comes to cars (well, unless you count the fact that James straps himself into his Miata race car and drives like a banshee at the race track...but other than that....).
On the ride to the pastures, Jill told me her grand kids love to ride in the back. Fast forward to after getting the steer in the truck when we are all leaving the pasture. I need James to take me back to our house, quickly. So, Jill takes all the girls and Ethan. Yep, all 5 of the girls pile into the back of the "hermetically" sealed, windowless, refrigerator truck for the two minute ride back to Jill's house. Here's what they had to say about that ride.
It was dark, it was hot, there was no air, there was no where to sit. Jill drove 50 miles an hour and we were sliding everywhere. Mona hit her head on some part of the truck which made a really LOUD noise. The ride took forever, no way it was only 2 minutes...we're lucky we survived!
It is clear that we do not have country kids. I know that the folks that we are getting to know here in France are getting as big a kick out of us and we are out of them!!
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