Introducing Horse to Branding Pen

Riding the Ruby

I've started blogs a couple of times in the past 2 months, but keep getting sidetracked. Here's a taste of what we've been up to, and the country we've seen.

Strangers in the Night

Fortunately, Ray warned me about this sight when we went to bed. This is the first thing I saw when I opened my groggy eyes at 5:30 a.m. Sunday morning. Even with the warning it still startled me.

When my Mom was 17, she lived alone with her mother in a little house in town. She talked about that life sometimes, and some of the stories made a big impression on me. One in particular was how she could always see the shadow of tree limbs on her bedroom wall.

One night, a man's hat appeared in those shadows. That young girl kept her wits about her, and after the first wave of silent panic, she yelled, "Mom! Get the gun!" The hat disappeared.

My wits are no where to be found when I'm groggy. We went to a roping in Leadore when Clayton was 3 months old. We had a half-cab camper to stay in, but the ranch owner graciously encouraged us to stay in a vacant house with beds and a bathroom where we would have more room. As a nursing mother with diapers to change, I wasn't about to let my favorite cowboy turn down that offer.

It was dark when we got there. We found a bedroom that had another little room on the side, where the baby could sleep. We left the bedroom doors open. A tall piano sat endwise to our door. Across the living room from the piano was the main picture window. Ray carefully set his cowboy hat up on top of that piano.

In the middle of the night, I had to get up to take care of the baby. There was enough moonlight coming in that I didn't bother turning on any lights. I got the baby fed, changed, and back to sleep, and headed back to bed.

Coming around the corner into our room, I came face to face with a dark, shadowy man standing in the doorway across the room. I wish I could say I did the motherly thing and ran back to protect my child. But no, I followed my first instinct of self-preservation, let out a blood-curdling scream, and dived under the covers to put my hero between me and that man.

Poor Ray. I about gave him a heart attack. I definitely woke him up and got his blood pumping. He had enough sense to turn the light on before getting caught up in my panic.

I got him again just a few years ago. We were five miles from the nearest neighbor, and there were NO lights in our viewshed. I never hung curtains in our bedroom because we were on the second floor. The attached garage was just off the end of that upstairs room, and beneath, there was a wrap around porch where you approached the front door. There was a motion-activated light on the front of the garage.

That light came on one night as I was just getting to bed. I went over to the window just in time to see the shadow of a tall, hunched-over figure walking quickly and smoothly to the front step. I didn't have my glasses on, but I could also see something heaped in the middle of the driveway--like a backpack or something.

This time I didn't scream even though my heart was in my throat. I woke Ray up, and ran around in the dark locking all the doors. Ray couldn't see anything, but he gave me the benefit of the doubt, and dutifully got his gun and a flashlight, and went outside. He couldn't find anything except the little propane tank he'd set out in the driveway so he wouldn't forget to take it down to get it refilled.

Backpack theory shot down.

As we stood on the porch trying to figure out exactly what I'd seen, Dixie, my cat, walked across the garage entrance to come see what was up. The light hit her in a way that blew her shadow up to gigantic proportions, and the tall figure I'd seen approaching the front step was nothing more than the shadow of the silly cat's upright tail!

Oh dear. It's a good thing I'm too young to be senile. I remember my dear, hardworking grandmother as she approached her 90's. She would see men out by the gas tank. She would invite me for lunch, and then boil two packages of home-grown frozen peas. Yum. Then she'd forget to turn off the burner.

My dear children--and me--are already praying that the Rapture comes before they have to deal with me should I live that long. And still, my favorite threat to Clayton is that I'm going to come live with him when I get old. Scares him to death!

Maybe I'll learn to behave before then. In the meantime, I think I'll just take it one day at a time.

"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Matthew 6:34

My favorite cowboy taking out the boogey-man
 

Boyd & Ray making sure we didn't bring in any duds

 

 

Change of Life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh no! We overslept! Get up!

 

Give me a break--since when has 5:45 A.M. been known as "sleeping in"? My favorite cowboy ignores me when I whine like that. In case you haven't guessed, I am NOT.NOT.NOT a morning person. I am a night-owl. I think he's getting even for all the times I stayed up until the wee hours working on our website.

 

We are living in a cow camp again. Only this time we have the luxury of electricity. We were pleasantly surprised to open the door to this tiny little old cabin to find nice carpet and lino, a full bath, full kitchen, and a washer and dryer. We had to hire help for this job, so thankfully there was a little twin bed in the living room. A vacuum stood at the ready to suck up dead flies and mouse droppings.

 

The first night I stripped the used bedding off the lumpy mattress on the bedroom floor, and threw the sheets and pillowcases into the washmachine. It stalled after the wash cycle. I forced it to the rinse cycle, and it rinsed. Then stopped again. This time there was no forcing. The sopping bedding sat in a basket on the front step until Ray and I could wring it out the next day. The dryer works fine. Good thing. There is a clothesline out back, but no clothespins. The bedding would have ended up in Madison County.

 

We were warned about the wind when taking on this heat-detecting and A.I. job. But we're used to that. Right. I don't think I will ever get used to wind. It was OK the first couple of days since the temperature was in the 30's and 40's. But then an icy blast roared in from the North Pole, and stuck around for a few days. I told Ray it was pretty bad when you were dressed the same for April 30th as you were for November 30th. I figured my flannel-lined jeans and wool socks were overkill, and foolishly left them home--along with my scotchcap.

 

Yesterday, May 1, it was a frigid 11 degrees with an icy breeze coming off the top of the snow-capped peaks as we saddled our horses at 6 a.m. I led Flash for about a half-mile before I loosened up enough to climb aboard. She was still pretty tight so I already knew that if any of those hair-brained hot cows wanted to get in a horse-race, they could have at it. By themselves.

 

It was just Ray and I yesterday. One of the cows we brought in had no intention of getting in a horse race. She simply crawled through the fence. Then crawled back in after we rode around to get her. Then, as we approached the gate into the trap, she crawled through the trap fence. Once she realized she was in a trap, she trotted over and crawled through the fence again. We managed to get a little gate straight into the pole corral open about 4 feet, and went after her again, and actually hit the gate this time.

 

Ray spent the next hour fixing fence while I brought in hot cows.

 

We are only a couple miles from this tiny town. I'm glad I brought my laptop because the tiny cafe offers wireless internet. I try to at least have a grilled cheese sandwich. Their sign is clever, but sadly true for tiny rural towns:

 

"Wi-fi - If you don't stop we'll both starve."

 

Psalms 118:24 - This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Ta-Da!

Finally! I got it. And not a day too soon. Ray pretty much had to handle the first batch of A.I. by himself because I've been trying to finish our new website before things REALLY get busy. Like tomorrow.

Well, more like today since it's 3:56 a.m. right now.

My favorite cowboy will be happy to have his bride back. I made him a fantastic B-B-Q beef brisket today so he'd remember that I can still cook.

The site's not perfect. But it ain't bad either.

Check it out:  http://ranchserviceswest.com

Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

The new way to make a photo album: photo books by Shutterfly.

Cabin Fever

When we were homeschooling, I always told Clayton that if he would spend half the time working that he did trying to get around it, he'd be done by lunch. Unfortunately, I'm afraid he got that gene from his mother.

This is my absolute least favorite time of year. There are so many things that need my attention--with taxes at the top of the list, and letters to loved ones a close second. Looking back at the other 2 blogs from this time of year, I see that it is a recurring disorder.

Symptoms:  I find all these computer-related projects during winter downtime, then crawl into my computer until spring arrives. Or until tax deadline approaches.

I am determined to be done this week--so Mom & Dad, maybe the first half of March...

I gave one of my pressing projects a lick and a promise yesterday. I skimmed the top off all but my wedding photos from the past year and a half, and tumbled them into a 7 minute video that I can use to update my blog and my site for the time being--despite the fact that half of them are family photos. Families...ranching. The two kind of go hand in hand, so don't look for strictly punchy stuff.

Clayton's www.farmranchpersonnel.com site is going gangbusters, and it's needing pretty frequent maintenance. I plan on building another site for Ray. We've looked at so many different avenues since November, and it's looking more and more like we need to just stay put and keep busy on an independent basis--just stepped up into a longer season.

The neighbor's been calving across the road, and Ray's been helping another neighbor with some sorting. We'll be doing some AI before too long, and probably help at the Leadore Angus bull sale coming up right quick. By then things should be taking on a tinge of green, and breathing life back into the brown landscape.

I enjoyed putting this little video together. I think it's God's way of reminding me that summer is coming, and I need to get back to my mile hikes more than once or twice a week.