The Dukes of Hazard song

A pair of boots that fits like a glove

First bite of a really good dessert

The first campfire of the year

Aggie Bonfire

Enjoying my kids sports

Bluebonnets in the spring

Driving tractor

Sunsets

Family cabin up north

Fishing the same cut in POC, that I grew up fishing with my Grampa and Dad, and taking my wife and kids there now to continue the tradition.
An October sunset in the same cut (see image below for a glimpse)
Running our Majek Illusion through about 12-14 inches of water puckered up!!!!
(let's be honest, running that boat anywhere after wanting one for a long time, has my soul singing!!!)
The massive blowup of a fat 28 inch speckled trout on a topwater
Next, by mere inches, is the hammering thump of a 27 inch speckled trout in winter down deep
Christmas with my family gathered around - About 10 years ago before we lost anyone
A slice of warm lemon chess pie fresh from the oven
Texas Rangers finally winning the world series (while I am still living)
The roar of my Silverado RST when I use remote start and am standing near the exhaust

I could go on and on. I have had some significant loss over the last 5 years, including Grampa, Grandma, and Dad. The Lord has taught me to enjoy the small pleasures in life, when they present themselves. I am getting better at looking and appreciating them. And also getting better at making time to enjoy them.

I think we should put these up weekly, as an affirmation of how blessed we are.

A good rain on a wheat or grazer crop you just got planted.

A topwater blow up.

When the ducks/cranes decoy perfectly.

Watching newborn goats/lambs run around and play.

Selling all of my ewe lambs each year.

My kids laughing/giggling.

Making our annual batch of sausage and the whiskey drinking & family shenanigans that comes with it.

Shooting guns you got from your grandparents/great grandparents that you grew up watching them shoot.

Hearing my 4-year-old Grandson repeat a wise crack that he learned from me!

Watching deer graze in the food plot. Makes it worth the effort.

Dogs.

Geese migrating overhead. Especially on a crisp evening in late Fall.

5:00 on a Friday when I don't have to work on the weekend.

A full tank of gas- freedom and possibilities!

CrossTimbersW said:

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agfan2013 said:

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Watching cattle peacefully grazing across a pasture.

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Yuppies will never get this one but I'll be damned if it ain't the truest thing ever. I'll pull up under a shade tree and sit for hours in the Jeep or on the tailgate.

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+1, and will add watching a new calf discover their legs by running circles around their mama

Shooting a watermelon with a 12 gauge slug

The smells of newly turned earth mixing with diesel in the spring.

The sight of spiderwort when the sun is hitting it just right as I'm out on my bike on a country road

A heavy dew on a good stand of coastal

Sunset from my hot tub with a nice scotch in hand

Not irrational: Meme's, my family, my wife, nature, photography, adventures, my friends, God, my dad being cancer free. So many things to be blessed with and I am blessed by.

Irrational: smell of gas, fresh cut grass, books, spent casings. Watching animals in the stand. Rain. Cold air on my face after a blazing summer. Packing a lip every now and then. Rubbing my hands with dirt (gladiator style). Hat collecting. Meeting new people.

My life is great, and I am incredibly thankful.

Maybe an odd thing, but I love to see Orion hanging out over my driveway when I'm heading out early in the morning.

Funky Winkerbean said:

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Fishing for trout and reds in the fall and winter
A dozen oysters, boiled shrimp, and an ice cold longneck
Seeing my kids succeed

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I knocked these two off last week. The kids had a great week at school, and I celebrated my bday on Saturday with a dozen oysters and some campechana for dinner with cold beer. I forgot how good a simple dinner can be. Been craving more ever since we left the restaurant.

1. Seeing my kids smile and watching them succeed and do good things.
2. waking up early for (golf, fishing, hunting, etc) and enjoying a good cup of coffee and watching the sun rise
3. enjoying a beer outside in the mountains
4. waking up every morning blessed to be alive (battled cancer in my 20's) and knowing I have a great wife and great kids.

• Sitting under the giant oak at camp on a beautiful day and just listenting to the wind blow the branches in the trees
• The sound of geese flying overhead, probably my favorite sound in the world
• The sound of elk bugling while you are chasing them, probably my second favorite sound
• Sitting on the dock on a summer night just listening to the water, wind and smelling the salt air
• That first hot AF dove hunt in the fall, and the first sip of ice cold beer on the tailgate (during or after, doesn't matter)
• Watching pintails cupping as they line up to land in your spread and knowing you are about to jump and start shooting
• Seeing my girl's smile when they hunt with me
• Inspecting a round after going through the effort to set my dies up correctly and it comes out absolutely perfect
• When my old lab lays his head on my lap in the evenings and I know he is absolutely content in life just getting his ears scratched
• Sitting back at the end of the day after shredding on the tractor and being able to see your work, and having a hell for solid buzz because it's required to drink beer while doing said work
• When i get a random phone call from one or both of my daughters telling me about something that they did that made them proud of themselves

• Volunteering at church
• Seeing my kids and wife happy/accomplishing a goal they set out to conquer
• Mountains - something about them makes me feel closer to god
• The sound of snow falling when nobody else is around
• Campfires and beverages
• Meat on the smoker
• The sight and smell of a fresh cut lawn
• Fishing, not just catching...like Larry Fleet says...That day out on the water, when the fish just wouldn't bite
  I put my pole down, I floated around, was just so quiet
  And I could hear my old man sayin' "Son, just be still
  'Cause you can't find peace like this in a bottle or a pill"

A litter of eight week old lab puppies.

Watching my grandson play in the surf knowing he'll have a rod in his hand in a couple of years.

When Saint Arnold's brings back their Summer Pilsner in the spring! What a time to be alive!

The whole process of making hay (excluding the inevitable breakdowns). From the beginning of spraying and fertilizing to the actual cutting. Then raking and bailing. There's just something I enjoy about sitting in a clean hay field full of freshly baled hay as the sun sets knowing I just "did something". I can't truly explain it.

Yup. Considering they can be the most cantankerous, hard headed, sorriest, bags of leather on four hooves, it's hard not to just sit there and enjoy.

Riding a horse.

Which only happens once every several years now.

That first sunrise sitting out on opening morning, so quiet ! The first bite of a fresh batch of summer sausage, still hot from the smoker, thinking, man! nailed this batch! My miniature schnauzer girl jumping up in my lap when I come in, having to check my breath to see if I've had anything to eat without her. Grandkids. Great grandkids.

A really sharp knife

A lot of posts are listing rational things but since you asked for irrational...


I'll go with a nice ice cold coke (Coke Zero) served in a Tervis tumbler with a cup of nice clear ice with the right texture (currently liking QT ice the best). Caffeine perfection. Together with a 100-grand bar will put a smile on my face.

That's a good one. I enjoy the hay process as well.

Since my first post was rational, I will have to add the random irrational ones:

The smell of boat exhaust

A good days work in crisp fall weather with everything working like it should. Tractors crank, chainsaws start with one pull, no flat tires, etc and nothing breaks before you finish the job.

Making a pretty girl smile

Floating the river in July or August

My dog: when he points and holds, how excited he is to see me after work, watching him try to work with the cow dogs on a herd, when he yawns and lays his head down on me.

Laughing with my brothers

Quote:

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The smell of boat exhaust

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Good one.

I'll add the smell of a 60s/70s muscle car.

AggieT said:

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Quote:

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The smell of boat exhaust

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Good one.

I'll add the smell of a 60s/70s muscle car.

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The smell of a 2 stroke on the water just turns me into a 13 year old kid on lake LBJ.

-Hearing outboards ramp up leaving port
-catching horny toads
-drag ripping off a reel
-bang flops
-this guy:

The smell of new leather
Watching my kids succeed
My wife's sourdough
Planning guys trips
A decade long text string with my Aggie buddies
When my iPhone shares a memory that I had forgotten
Asking for and witnessing miracles
Watching a slip cork go under
Turkeys gobbling, geese honking and elk bugling
The sound of a clear mountain stream
A perfectly ripe mango

Lots of folks commenting on smells. I've read that smell is one of the most intense memory triggers, and I believe it. Among the smells that trigger happiness:

The land after a rain.

Fresh plowed earth.

The interior of a car from the 50s or 60s.

As a low time, inactive private pilot, the interior of a small plane.

Starting a diesel tractor, combine, or stripper on a frosty morning. This, so much.

Mostly retired now, but when I farmed full time, harvest season was the payoff. Especially in a good year. When we dreamed of a White Christmas, we were dreaming of cotton fields loaded with bolls, and lots of pretty white modules sitting on the turnrow. It meant that bills would be paid, new equipment bought, and we could spoil the wife and kids a little this Christmas.

Whether grain or cotton, mornings were for filling up the fuel tanks, greasing what needed greasing, tightening belts, replacing worn or broken parts from the previous day. When the equipment was ready, you loaded your lunch and drinks on the machine, and mentally prepared for the next 12 hours of constant work.

Somewhere around nine or ten in the morning, the humidity would be down enough to run.

Dad would say, "Let's go."

All the equipment would be started, the diesel smoke hanging low in the cool morning air. Doors would close, machinery engaged, and you'd pull into the field.

It might be 12 hours before you quit for the night, you'd be exhausted, but deep down, it was so, so, satisfying.


A whiff of diesel on a cool morning, and I'm right there once again.

Bass fishing with a frog and it sounds like a toilet flushed. Never gets old!

Watching someone take a cart back to the cart area at the grocery store.
The look in my grandparents eyes when they see my kids
Pulling up to our farm on the weekend of my annual birdhunt with old friends
Following my old high school football team and see that they continue to have success
Starting a round of golf in the mountains
Just getting in a deer blind. Doesn't happen much anymore
Driving through my old hometown
Boarding a flight for a family vacation

Cooking 200 lbs of the best crawfish you will ever eat!