Pajama Day

Yesterday (and the day before that, and the day before that, and the day before that) was a hurry-up-get-your-things-and-get-going-Buttercup day.  Angus seems to be able to roll with it, but Maggie's "easy does it" way to begin the morning was seriously disrupted.  HRH does NOT like to be rushed, especially in the morning. She gets all fluffed and frazzled, and sincerely grumpy.  Then we throw her on the bus, and I end up calling her teacher and apologizing.  It's not pretty.

So, yesterday, while she was all weepy about missing the shipping and the company, and feeling all disgruntled about the fourth frazzly, harried morning, I promised that we could stay in our pajamas until noon on Saturday.  Wayland was going to be gone, helping the neighbors ship, so we'd just relax and regroup.  Maggie was thrilled!  Yes!  And was I going to stay in MY pajamas, too, please?!  Well, sure.

It's now 9:30 a.m. and I'm about to go crazy.  I'm NOT a stay-in-my-pajamas sort of person.  I went ahead and did my hair and makeup, because I couldn't stand it.  Now I'm trying to do chores in my pajamas and I'm about to ask her for a get-out-of-jail-free pass. 

For the last few years, I've made a real point of getting ready in the morning for whatever the day might bring.  Always do hair and makeup, always get into "real" clothes...the lounge-y stuff isn't allowed until after 5 p.m.  And it's not sweats, when it does come out.  This has been a good strategy.  The kids no longer ask if we're going somewhere when I do my makeup and come out in nice clothes.  (Not "goin' to church" nice, but everyday nice.)  I can get a call from W. to run to Miles City for parts and voila!  I'm already ready! 

I only have 2 1/2 hours to go, on Slob-out Saturday. 
It's killin' me.

The kids are completely happy, playing and rolling around, and now snuggling down on the couch to watch a movie.  It has been essential for them to have a Slob-out Saturday and they're pleased that I'm participating, so I'll finish it out.  Who knew it would be so stressful?!  And yes, I know....crazy. 

Here's a picture from after the Halloween party at school, when we all came home and crawled into our pajamas, sat on the couch and watched A Snoodle's Tale.  It's pretty much what we look like today, only well rested. 

Today was shipping day on our ranch! 
As Angus says (and he really DOES say this, by the way), "Huz-zah!!"
The steer calves are G-O-N-E, GONE.

In a brief summary of the day....

The Highlights  :) 

• The steers weighed EXACTLY 625 pounds, average, which happens to be the EXACT weight we contracted them at. 
• The day was perfect.  And when I say perfect, I mean: sunshine, light breeze, 57 degrees F., no precipitation.  Perfect!  Yesterday, we read predictions of snow, wind, ugliness.  Today we saw...perfect.  (And I said, "Thank you, God!")
• We had a terrific, experienced crew that all showed up AND no one got hurt.
• The food turned out and the crew ate it!  Okay, my mother-in-law's food is always great...ALWAYS....but I worry every year that the coffee refreshments (my responsibility) will bomb. 
• My father-in-law didn't have a heart attack, stroke, panic attack or any other sort of awful medical emergency caused by stress.  And this was without the aid of the Valium we threaten to drop in his orange juice, the morning of.
• It was payday, rancher-ly speaking...we now have money to buy feed for the cows to get them through the winter to do it all over again next year. 
• The Farmer and I are still speaking.  This is BIG. I got yelled at for legitimately messing up, but I didn't cry or yell back.  (I quietly plotted what to put in his meal, later, to create gastric distress.  She laughs best who studies herbal properties and applies them, last....)
• Angus had a friend to play with all morning!  Jackson, the scale man's son, came and spent all morning with him, chasing around and having fun while the rest of us worked.  We love Jackson; he loves us.  Too bad we only see him once a year!

The Lowlights  :(

• Heifer calf #704 may be ruined for life on trailer loading.  It's not for lack of trying, that's for sure.  She is our new poster-girl for the term "bullheaded", closely followed by a picture of the Farmer, who was certain we could just shove her on there because...well....he wanted her to go on THAT trailer. 
• I screwed up.  A lot.  But they won't can me, because I bring the breakfast burritos and the cinnamon rolls. 
• Speaking of breakfast burritos, it was pointed out to me SEVERAL TIMES that the cattle buyer and the scale man really and truly were hoping for Scottish eggs.  They looked everywhere for them and even though they each ate a pile of breakfast burritos, the lack of Scottish eggs was a sincere disappointment.  To the point that I'm not sure we'll get that great a price on our calves next year unless this is figured into the negotiations. 
• My bum calves, Lily and Willie, had a really traumatic day (much like the buyer and scale man).  They were separated, loaded, hustled, mixed with strange calves, run around, re-hustled....it was awful.  The minute they were reunited, they went together like two sides of a sandwich and were completely content.  The heartache of bums....my inability to emotionally detach.  
•  Maggie had to go to school, missing all the excitement...the thrills, the chills.  She has made it her life's ambition to get a horse.  Several of the neighbors helping us today HAVE horses.  This was a monumental missed opportunity. (They don't bring their horses, mind you; she just shmoozes and bats her eyes in the hopes they remember her when they retire a good horse.   So far, nothin'.  But she's no quitter...)

It really was a perfect day!  Now the heifer calves are being weaned at the Big House and the next week or so will be fraught with anxiety about them breaking out and running amok.  I'll keep ya posted. 

From a page on FB called The Bliss Sisters.

Montana Ranch Glossary

For Joni C., who keeps telling me I'm talking in a foreign language, even though SHE'S the one with the accent. Go figure, huh?

Pairs- noun, pl.- A cow and her calf is considered a pair, more than one of these such groupings would constitute pairs and that's what we're gathering today.

Ship- verb- To send away from the ranch by truck, selling and procurring just enough money to keep the rest of the cows alive, fed and producing calves, in order to do it all over again.  Tomorrow, we ship the steer calves, which is the reason we're gathering pairs today.

Wean- verb- To remove the calf part of the pair equation from the cow part of the pair equation so that the calf will become independently sustainable and the cow will plod through the winter to produce another calf in the spring, thereby restoring the pair equation.  We will wean the heifer calves, tomorrow, as opposed to shipping them.


Cattle buyer- noun- Not the actual purchaser of the calves, as one might presume from the title, but the middle man who cuts the deal between the rancher and the actual purchaser; an agent, of sorts, who gets a commission from facilitating this transaction. Our cattle buyer, Toby Larson, will be here tomorrow to sort the calves and eat cinnamon rolls.

Sort- verb- The act of separating the cows from the calves, then the steers from the heifers, then the heavy steers from the light steers, weighing them, shaking one's head, separating steers again, etc.  It's where I generally make some memorable, monumental screw-up, thereby causing the neighbors to mention it every time they come back to help. We, the ranchers, sort the cows off of the calves and the steers from the heifers, then our cattle buyer sorts them by big and little. 

Portable panels- noun, pl.- Beautiful inventions of steel, basically light fence panels that can create pens or alleys where there had been none before.  They are also considered appropriate "Oh, are you hung over? What a shame. And we have to set up panels all day, too" disciplinary devices on some ranches or arenas.  We have portable panels set up south of our house, in the lot, to sort this little bunch of pairs.

Neighbors- noun, pl.- This should be common knowledge, but in Eastern Montana, neighbors can be people living as far away as 25 miles.  These are the guys that come help gather, sort and haul the cows and calves; in exchange, we help the neighbors gather, sort and haul THEIR pairs when the time comes for them to ship. They also bring interesting stories to the dinnertable at noon, compliment your cooking, make your kids feel 10 feet tall, say nice things about your cows and so forth.  Good neighbors are gifts from God and not to be taken for granted.  Our neighbors will come help, tomorrow, and one of them is a brand inspector.

Brand inspector- noun- The person liscenced by the state whose signature we have to get on many pieces of paper stating that he's looked at all the livestock we're shipping and certifies that yes, indeed, they are all ours because they all have our brand on them.  We call our brand inspector Mike Green, and he's also, very conveniently, our neighbor.

That's all the time I have for this little glossary; I have to start the cinnamon rolls for tomorrow.
Hope that helps, Joni C.!

Taps

I don't know how many people actually know the lyrics to the melody called Taps; I do, because I was a Girl Scout, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and we'd sing it in the evenings before going to bed in a really dusty, spider-y cabin or a sweaty tent in the middle of a cactus-land-mine campground. 

Taps wasn't played at the funeral today...there were other, more fitting songs really.  The obituary said that Tim was an Eagle scout, no small accomplishment, and I think he'd have know the lyrics.  They keep running through my head this evening, so I'm going to "release" them here.

Day is done, gone the sun



From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky


All is well, safely rest


God is nigh.


Fading light dims the sight


And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright


From afar, drawing near


Falls the night.


Thanks and praise for our days


Neath the sun, neath the stars, neath the sky


As we go, this we know


God is nigh.







Tomorrow is a long day on the four wheeler, gathering pairs, getting ready to ship on Friday!  Such a crazy week...
Thanks for your kind words and prayers this week! 

You just never know....

A week ago, to the hour, I was flying around the kitchen trying to come up with breakfast for two friends who were coming to my house for breakfast, having called from mile marker 67 saying they were on their way.  That gave me approximately 15 minutes to make a plan and start the eggs. 

The Farmer had just spent two days with these guys in Miles City at the fire hall and diving, getting some EMT time in and going over wet/dry suit checks.  He'd called from Miles Sunday afternoon, asking if I might be up to cooking breakfast and I said it would cost them, jokingly. I'd cooked for them the year before and charged them a bottle of rum, which had never materialized and which I didn't care if it ever did, really.  They're great guys and we just like having them around, you know?

The Farmer had said they'd call if they were coming out, this last Monday, but we hadn't heard from them until mile marker 67.  Turns out, they thought the plan was to call if plans changed.  Man communication.  :)

Well, by the time Tim and Tyson got here, there were breakfast burritos going and hot coffee, and the kids were all over them.  They laughed and played good/bad guys with Angus, held Mags on their laps and discussed hunting with my husband.  As harried as I felt, it was good to have the company around the table and I remember thinking so as I was getting ready fly out the door with Angus to preschool. 

It was a cold, cold day...raining and blowy....and when the great white hunters got back that evening for bean soup and rolls, we had another cozy visit.  The guys talked about a book on the psychology of war and fear, took apart a pistol right there in the middle of the bowls and plates, and the kids climbed all over Tim and Tyson.  When they left to go back to Miles, there was teasing about how they now owed me a much more expensive bottle and invitations to stop at the firehall with the kids any time. 

And life moved on; the week went by and everything was normal.

Friday morning, The Farmer had to leave early to help a neighbor ship, and once again, the morning was sort of jumbly. I got a call from Traci and her voice was really weird; she said she had bad news, and I thought it was about their young friend Liam, who'd died from leukemia the night before.  But no.  She told me that our friend Tim McGlothlin had died in an accident that night, Thursday night.  Our friend who had been sitting at my table telling me that he loved breakfast burritos, that I'd read his mind that Monday morning.  My husband's dive partner and "I've got your back, man" friend.  The kids' fireman hero.  Just like that....in a mountain bike accident of all things...he was gone. 

And this morning is so very hard.

It was a really awful weekend, not only for our family but Scott and Traci's, too.  Harder for them, because they're coping with two losses.  I've read the obituary, we've talked it out, but it's still so surreal, you know?

I know the Lord has Tim in His hands, and that's a comfort...a great comfort.  We who miss him, though, struggle with the "why?".  At least I do.  No matter how old I get, how much life I live and how near I crawl to God for answers, that "why?" question will always be there.  Why this person, Lord?  A big hearted man whose life work was to help others? Why the kind, funny, talented one?  Why now, at age 39?  All these "why?"s rattle around in my head, even though my heart knows everything is in God's hands, that He has a plan and that He loves us, always. 

In a few minutes, I'll make the pancakes for my little family and we'll head out to work, school and CUPS, just like we do every week on Mondays.  And on Wednesday, we'll go honor Tim's life at his funeral in Miles City.  And life will move on. 

It's Rotten

Confession:  I used to have this friend who USED to belong to a Rotary Club, USA that served absolutely hideous meals every Monday which (and not without much coaxing and pleading on my part) my friend photographed with a smart phone and relayed the images to me those afternoons, along with a funny (and often painful) description of the cuisine. 

I was sworn to secrecy, having ALSO begged to be able to use these as a Monday feature on the Chronicles.  Really, something this grotesque should be shared, you know?  Sort of like People of Walmart pictures, only of food.  But no, the only way I'd get the images was if I promised not to publish.  So I kept the secret, looking forward to Mondays like you can't imagine, knowing that no matter how completely rough the week was going at least around 1:30 p.m. I'd have this wonderful, horrible treat in my email to gag and laugh over.

Last week, without warning me, my friend quit Rotary and sent the last photo with a little note jokingly saying that the hope was that we could still be friends. 

Let's just say that I didn't take it well....

And I thought we could still be friends, but here it is, Monday morning and I'm faced with the cold, hard reality that there will be no more Rotary Rot forever.  Forever!  I'm just not sure we CAN remain friends.  Friends don't take friends' reason to get up on Mondays away so coldly and cruelly. 

So this is my therapy session, my way of dealing with the hurt:  I'm going to share some of the Rot with you along with my friend's descriptions. Am I going to be in trouble? Maybe. I can live with that risk.
I'm going to slap a warning label on here, though.
If you have a weak stomach, you'd do well to leave the Chronicles this minute.
If you're on a diet, you may want to print some of these pictures out and put them on your fridge!
Just sayin'...

How many ways can you think of to serve soggy beef fat?  Today we tried it sliced.  Actually, I didn’t try it—I saw it, snapped a quick picture, suppressed my gag reflex (which came on surprisingly strong and fast), and went to the salad bar.  Now I’m wondering how in the world a spinach salad, bowl of soup, and a mound of cottage cheese is going to hold me over until tonight.

It also bears mentioning that the Rotary Board met today at 11, and the agenda is attached.  Note the agenda item to make lunch an optional cost (right now, it’s mandatory part of the dues.  You pay for lunches, whether you come and eat them or not).  I thought it was a great idea—it would save me about $350 a year.  Moose liked it too.  Unfortunately, the rest of the Board nixed it for reasons I can’t explain. Rats.

Most of the time, people puke after they eat.  At the ----------, they prefer if you puke right in the serving trays.  Saves money on gravy…

Nasty, nasty.


I had salad bar. And even that was disgusting. Fortunately, my appetite was ruined, so I’m not hungry.

Dainty “PLEASE NO” Moore stew…
(Auto-correct changed it from "Dinty" to "Dainty", I was told.)

I don’t know what this is. I don’t even know what it was supposed to be. I even asked someone who ate it, and he didn’t know either. No one knows. I had Moose hold it up so you could get a better look at it. If you figure out what it is, let me know.

Actually, don’t.


Even the salad bar was nasty today. The sign said the soup was tomato, but turns out it was actually watered-down spaghetti gone bad. It even had foot-long spaghetti noodles swimming around in it.


Yuck.

…in some kind of red sauce, then cooked in hell’s oven until it is completely stuck to the pan…and served up as Rotary Rot.

*There was no description for this one.  The email title said, "Parts is parts" and the image title was "Foul".

I should say so!

I saved the best for last...

Or maybe it's the worst.

Turns out bacon doesn’t make everything better after all. Take the -------’s World Famous Cat Vomit, for example. Still looked and smelled like cat vomit, regardless of how much raw bacon they stacked on top of it.

Maybe if they’d have cooked the bacon. Yeah…maybe THAT would’ve helped.


Look how many pieces of bacon got picked off and left to fend for themselves in the puddle of greasy yellow stomach bile at the bottom of the pan…


Now THAT’s gross…

Today’s offering was the -------’s very own incinerator-lasagna. The ------- didn’t want to serve obviously burned food—they have a reputation to protect, after all—so they did the noble thing: sprinkled a little more cheese on top of the blackened heap and threw it back in hell’s cauldron. After all, why stop at one scorching if you can have two?? And who’s gonna notice?

* Editor’s note: That mangled, nasty looking piece on the upper left that no one wanted? Yeah—THAT one…?? Well, Moose ate it…


But wait! There’s…



 More!

It’s an unprecedented Rot-ary two-fer!


If it the pot-shot wasn’t enough for you, maybe an pic of the greasy aftermath clinging to a white plate will send your stomach into full convulsions…

This is sort of an appropriate place to end the post, even though I have other images that are dear to my heart.  You can see how my Monday afternoons will be sad and empty.  *sigh*

Party, party, party!

I told you I'd post about the Cohagen School Halloween Party, and so I will...

One thing you need to know, before I get rolling, here, is that our new teacher Mrs. Carroll came from a school system where the kids and teachers weren't allowed to dress up in costume for Halloween.  She was SO tickled, to see all the kids in their various costumes that we could've just dressed 'em up and walked them around the gym, and it would've been a big deal for her. 

Really, that's pretty much all the kids needed, too. 

Here they are, in all their glory, completely unimpressed with the idea of a group picture. 

This one makes me smile, because I think only one child is actually looking at the camera, and the cow is making a break for it! Also, please note Batman.  Batman KILLS me.  He's the most cherubic little super-hero, ever.  I see that we're missing the little devil, too....you'll catch her later in the post. 

The mummy contest, in which one child is the mummy and the other kids on the team attempt to swath him/her in cheap, one-ply toilet paper as fast and completely as possible.  This game is a particular favorite, because the kids can't believe their good fortune in being able to totally WASTE an ENTIRE roll of toilet paper!  And no one yells at them!  In fact, parents are cheering.  This is craziness...
(See the pumpkin in the background, with a ramp?  That was for Pumpkin Mini-Golf.  Traci made a hole-in-one, lefthandedly.  This is a huge accomplishment and needs to be acknowledged in a public forum.  Please congratulate her if you see her out and about....and no, she didn't get a big old prize for it, nor did she make a little kid cry....)

I don't think they actually WON the mummy contest, but they did get points for having a gen-u-ine Egyptian princess on their team.
The mummy does look a little worse for wear, but she recovered nicely and went on to play...

...Smoosh the Wart on the Witch.

(I was NOT the witch.  I painted the witch.  Let's just get that straight here and now.)

Here's Traci, giving each little contestant their multi-colored wart and instructing them carefully on the goal of the game. 

Ah, THERE'S the little devil!  I can't think of a more unlikely costume for this particular child, but she was so darned cute!  The "big kids" (ages 7-8), waiting their turn at the witch game....

We think he MAY have cheated. 

Here's the rogue cow, corralled for a couple minutes.  Honestly, I couldn't look at this baby without laughing!  Even in this picture, you can see the bright little eyes and ambition; my Gramps would've said, "She's a caution..."  and in a good way. 

FOOD!  You can't see, but there's another table with more food.  One thing about Cohagen: everyone feels very strongly about making sure people at a potluck get fed, and fed WELL.  We're talking fried chicken, pickles and cream cheese rolled up in ham, gooey butter cakes, homemade sugar cookies, brownies, and more.  Yum!

Jack o'lanterns!

I'd think one could tell by the name tacked on the punkins, but did you know Halloween basically started in Ireland? A holiday full of teasing/pranks, candy and big stories....yeah, that would be Celtic, alright.

(I like the fangs, on the big one.)

The crazed cat, Guns Up Jack (Sparrow) o'lantern, and friends, looking zany and completely at ease!

Nothing but bones and grins...I think Weight Watchers is working, don't you? 

And Mrs. Carroll sent home goody bags full of TERRIBLE, WICKED junk to make a parent want to weep.

Things like fake, rubber witch's fingers that Angus promptly discovered would keep his REAL fingers clean when he picked his nose, eliminating that pesky "Gross! Go wash your hands!" admonition.

I was trying to come up with some sort of retribution, but then realized that she gets the kids on Tuesday.  You know.  The kids with the sugar hangovers from the night before...

It goes around, it comes around...

She packed up her potential...

I found these images a few weeks ago, when I was feeling very uncertain....ironic, hm?

I saved them, wrote down the website, intending to write to the author/artist and tell her how much I liked her work, how it made me smile and looked just like the stuff in my head. 

The little slip of paper got tossed, I'm sure, because it was written on the back of an envelope; it makes me sad, because I can't credit her, here or write to her, either. 

I'm hoping I find her website again, and then will do so.

In the meantime....

Carving it up!

Our school had a Halloween party on Friday (more on that in another post) and the party organizer extraordinaire (not me...I'd the the party organizer franticlinaire or something like that) told us there'd be a jack o'lantern contest.

You saw the word "contest", didn't you?

Or, as Maggie and I prefer to call it, "We've Gotta Win Opportunity".

I KNOW.

I know!!!!

I'm going to get all sorts of scoldings and tut-tuttings about competitiveness and how some things are just for fun and that not everything in life is a contest.

Of course.

But this WAS a contest.

It was billed as such!

If it's going to be an exhibition, then it needs to be called that.

(And the party organizer extraordinaire, who reads this blog, is now rolling her eyes and laughing at us....)

Now.

Maggie had picked up a Better Homes and Gardens Halloween magazine about a month ago, with all sorts of ideas for the holiday, including decorating one's entire house in the theme of the Mad Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland, and 10-12 full size skeletons posed in various odd situations, like golfing on the front lawn or offering treats off a tray.  (I tell you this so you will realize that I'm NOT as over-the-top crazy as you may first think. I fall in the moderately crazy range.)

In this magazine, there were carved pumpkins of every description, ranging from your basic, traditional triangle eyes and nose, to professionally done real-life portraiture.  She fell in love with the black cat...a simple, very cool and untraditional jack o'lantern.

We were going to do it, anyway, because we both liked the idea, but the "contest" really gave us the push.

There was spray paint involved, so I had to go to the hardware store.

There was tagboard involved so it looked like I was going to have to go to....gulp....Walmart, but fortunately I found it at the grocery store.  Yes!

There were cottonballs and drill-bits involved.

I'm telling you....we were INTO this!

You may be wondering about Angus....

Well. 

He just wanted a scary face pumpkin. 

I thought I was going to do a witch pumpkin, myself, and found a little old used witch's hat at the second hand store, plopped it on a plain pumpkin and was trying to think about the face.

He saw THAT and immediately wanted a PIRATE jack o'lantern!  (I'm sure you didn't see THAT coming...)

What follows is the documentary of the 2011 jack o'lanterns:

Zee blank gourd...

We didn't turn the kids loose with the knives....BUT they DID have to get the pumpkin guts out.

It was a deliciously hideous experience.

Some folks can't take the slime, so they use tools. They also use persuasive big, green eyes when they tire of the tools and toil....

So, Maggie wanted to taste the raw pumpkin, because she is a full-sensory sort of girl.  If she's going to experience something, there's no halfway with this child.  She tasted the flesh, she tasted the slime and then decided the seeds would probably be much the same so she passed on them. 

She was also the one who squealed with the awfulness of it all, then went back for more.  Because she's just dying to hunt something, we told her that when she started hunting, she'd have to gut out her own animals, just like gutting the pumpkin.  This was a startling thought.  You mean....take all the smooshy, icky, slimy stuff out of their tummies? Yup.  Hmmmm......
After thinking it through, she decided that she could do that, but was grateful it wouldn't have to happen for a few years.

There's a gap in the process, because my hands were covered in pumpkin goo, too. 

Here's the basic cat face, after 40 minutes of intense, precise carving:

It looks pretty simple, but I wanted it exquisitely smooth and clean.

In the meanwhile, the boys pulled together a Jack (Sparrow) O'Lantern, acceptably scary and....is that a TTU symbol on the eyepatch? The double T was too much, but this is the look they're going for...
(Incidentally, when Angus got up the next morning, he came running out and looked his pumpkin in the face, sweetly saying, "Guns up, Pirate Punkin!"  That's my boy...)

The black cat, after two coats of spray paint and tagboard accessories.  Maggie tried to hug it, and introduced all the real live cats to their new friend.  They were decidedly unimpressed. (Figaro, however, snuck onto the table in the middle of the night and chewed the ends of the Pumpkin Cat's ears!  I think he felt a little more threatened than he let on during the introductions....)

After ear repairs, the jack o'lanterns were hauled to the school party, where they rahther stood out....
(You'll see more in the party post....)

Did they win?

Well, every pumpkin won in different categories, because it's not really a cut-throat sort of contest, you know.  Maggie was SO hoping for a cut-throat contest, but was satisfied with the acknowledgement of a scary design. (Scary? Loony, maybe...)

The good thing is that everyone was pleased, the pumpkins met expectations, we had family time in the production of them, and they're considered members of the family for another couple days.