Old Horsethief Moon...

Well, the calves are gone! We sorted the heifer calves this afternoon, sixteen different ways, and the sale heifers are contemplating thier fate in the lot. They don't get out much, so they have no idea what the truck ride means. I don't know if you've ever seen the movie "Chicken Run", but the stooge on there warns the mean villainess that "Them chicken's is organised, like." I'm hoping our cows never get organised.

And did you see the moon, tonight?!! We were putting the replacement heifers back in the pasture, and on the way back I couldn't take my eyes off that moon!

I was thinking of an Ian Tyson song, Horsethief Moon. He describes it as being "gold and shiny, like a Spanish doubloon...". Just the name, Horsethief Moon, conjures up all sorts of pictures in my head. I'm so tired, I can barely stand it, but it would be so much fun to cross country ski tonight, with the snow all glossy and blue and the moon throbbing it's light.

I guess that's as far as I'm going to get; wish and a promise. Tomorrow is bookclub and I'm only halfway through "A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains" with miles to go before morning! What a great way to end the week...calves sold, calves sorted, bookclub and friends.

Voila! C'est perfectione!

As I type, I'm sipping a cup of coffee made in the new French press coffee pot my friend Traci gave me for Christmas. It is DIVINE!! She said it is supposed to make some of the best coffee in the world. She was wrong. It absolutely, without contest, makes the best coffee in the world. (And if you challenge that comment, I propose we make a world coffee tour and find out. Maybe I should anyway.)

It's odd that I've not owned a French press before, because I love all things French. I know that's about as un-American as not ordering garden seeds from Gurney's, but it's true. I love that the French plant flowers and vegetables together in a big, voluptuous jumble. I love the slow, elaborate recipes that require you to all but raise the chicken from the egg, to ensure zee pairfect flavoure. I think Pepe Le'Pew is the bomb. I've never been to France, obviously, but I think I'll hit it on my world coffee tour.

Excuse me, time for a coffee break...

Okay, I'm back. The only thing not wonderful or perfect about this cup of coffee is the absence of a friendly face across the old 1950's kitchen table, someone to rave with about the aroma and complexity of the blend. I have books to share, knitting to do while we visit, Audrey Hepburn movies to watch and sigh over.....won't you join me? The kids are napping, so we won't have to have the same soundtrack in the background. I've got jazz! Come on over!

Geranium Wishes and Salvia Dreams, Dahling!

The seed and plant catalogs flooded my mailbox, today. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Is it just me, or are they sending them earlier and earlier every year? I'm thinking these companies sense that gardeners may have gotten cash for Christmas and they hit us when we are most vulnerable...in the dead of winter.

I will tell you right now that the best gardens I've ever grown were virtual gardens, planted in the fertile soil of my imagination with wanton disregard for my actual zone, soil and water situation. I've raised absolutely stunning lavender in huge clumps, with dinnerplate dahlias and rambling roses....in my imaginary garden.

In my REAL garden, the only stunning huge clumps are white yarrow, which I despise, and saucer sized dandelions, and rambling virginia creeper. (Would anyone like some yarrow, by the way? Free! I'll throw in a kitten, too.)

And here's a painful confession: (as most confessions turn out to be) I am a seed catalog snob. There, now you know. I don't know if it was Mrs. Greenthumbs and her books, or the Master Gardener program with Bob Gough, or Barbara Damrosch and her Garden Primer....it's hard to say. But I wouldn't be caught dead with a Gurney's catalog in my house. (I'm SO SORRY! I know lots of my friends adore Gurney's. I hope we can still be friends, after all this.) I drool over Cook's Garden, WhiteFlower Farms, John Scheeper's, High Country Gardens. There are actual wrinkled spots in the catalog that I blame on my kids spilling milk. It's me. I have to have the Latin names, the snooty descriptions, the hand-drawn seed packets. It's a curse, I tell you!

What's worse is that I'm not really that great a gardener! I love plants, love gardening, love garden shopping, love greenhouses and for all that, I'm a pretty average gardener. With really cool catalogs, and an inordinately wide botanical Latin vocabulary. Even if you call it Hemerocallis, it's still a daylily. And you can describe it how you will, it's still orange.

Well, I'll save some garden thoughts for later. The picture included here is one of my planters on the deck last summer. Actual, unretouched photo! It makes my heart ache for June! But I have lots of snooty garden catalogs to get through this week, and thousands of miles of flower and vegetable beds to plant in my head.

What catalogs do you like? (Or, for those WhiteFlower Farms girls, catalogues...)

Hallelujah! The Calves Sold!

I'm going to warn you beforehand, this is a total ranchwife post, so if you are allergic to anything rural, you'd better go find another blog to read today!

My father-in-law just called to tell me that we sold our calves today!!! This is a huge, huge answer to about 3 long months of anxious prayer. December, in particular, was very stressful, as these beautiful calves that we poured ourselves into, started getting sick. We lost at least 4, and it was so hard to watch! In explanation, they were getting the human equivilant of kidney stones, because they weren't watering often enough, due to the extreme cold and wind.

So we sold our calves; they go on Friday. And 60 head of bred two year old heifers are consigned for next Tuesday, at Miles City Livestock. Please pray with me that they will sell well. I'm getting a little teary, here, so it's tough to type.

I don't know how to express how personal it is, raising cattle, to me. I know some people can separate themselves from the process, but I can't. Typical girl, right? When we calve in the spring, it's great to see those cows mother the little black babies...since having kids, I empathize with them. All summer, we watch them grow and (hopefully) thrive. Since we have Angus cattle, there's nothing prettier to me than shiny black cows in the pasture. In the fall, it's such a great feeling to see how big and healthy they are, and to put them on trucks and to get ready for the next round. All winter, we feed them and anticipate the calves in the spring.

We really get to know each bunch, and a lot of the individual cows, too. I used to think it was crazy, when I was a kid, how my dad could look at a bunch of cows and tell me how that one was the one that always raised the biggest calf or how this one lost her calf in a washout last year, but this calf looks good this year. Now I understand. Now it's personal to me, too.

Anyway, we are going to get our paycheck this month! If you know anyone who wants some really good bred heifers, steer them to Miles City next Tuesday and tell them to look for the ones from Lang's Fork, Inc. If those old girls bring a good price, and there's happy hollering from a crazy lady in the sale barn, you can send another prayer of thanksgiving up for that, too.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to blow my nose and get busy baking cinnamon rolls for the truckers and cattle buyer on Friday!