Birthday wish comes true!

Maggie got to spend a couple days with Cowboy PopPop and Grammy Karen for her birthday.  Her heart's desire was to get to ride, and even though this is one of the busiest times of the year, my Dad stopped everything and saddled Little Joe for her.  Angus, of course, got to ride too.

You need this little story, though, too.  When Maggie was riding in the corral, she came over on her horse to talk to me a little.  I told her that this was a pretty big birthday gift, meaning the riding, and she said, "You mean I get to KEEP him?"

Ah, no.  You don't get the HORSE as a gift, sweetie...just the afternoon of riding.

She was still cool with that.

On Grammy's circular staircase. (The Farmer made this...I still don't understand the engineering, but it's cool.)

Dad, trying to instruct Maggie how to turn Joe.  Maggie is incredibly literal, so when he said, "Take your left hand and pull it out to the side," that's exactly what she did.  This picture makes me laugh!

She finally got the hang of turning.

Details...I love detail photos.

She's very serious about this. 

PopPop, watching her go. 

He was so incredibly patient with both kids, yesterday.

Now it's the boy's turn.  Hold the reins like this, now.

More detail.  See how tiny that saddle is?

And he's off!

Karen and I were both a little nervous right at first, about Angus riding alone, but he did just fine.

Joe is putting up with a lot of nonsense....

I noticed by these pictures that Dad and I stand exactly the same; one leg planted, the other sorta kicked out to the side.

Some black and whites, for you purists.

B &W is by far my favorite type of picture....

Howdy! (He actually said that.)

Getting off.

Maggie's turn again!

Don't you love the corral?

The girl is all hair and eyeballs.

I like the little saddle horn.

When they got done, Joe got a little treat. Or 6.

This is the first time either child has ridden alone and it was a big day.  When we got home, Maggie said, "It was the BEST birthday EVER."

Six years ago today...

...at about 4:48 in the afternoon, Dr. Mick Covlin proclaimed, "And it's...a girl!"

He then handed me a bright eyed baby girl, told me to cut the cord, and my world changed forever, in the most amazing way.

The child was born with her eyes wide open, looking at the world around her with curiosity even then. All her newborn pictures from that afternoon have her looking at whoever is holding her, very attentively. She really looks as though she's sizing us up, in the photos!

This was a miracle baby. A long prayed for, barely possible gift from God.  All babies are a gift from God, of course. We'd been trying for a long time to have a baby and this was our last chance...15% success rate if both parents were perfectly healthy and age 22-25.  I was a long shot, at age 31 and had quite a few health strikes against me.  After Maggie was born, Dr. Covlin's nurse Merri would usher us in to my follow-up appointments by announcing to the other staff, "Here's our miracle baby! This is Maggie Isabella...come look!" Then the other nurses would have to gather around and hear the story. Bless their hearts, they cooed appreciatively every time...  (Dr. Covlin and Merri made more appointments than necessary for us, I found out later. We loved them, they loved us...)

Everyday with Maggie is an adventure waiting to happen! As you know, if you've been reading the Chronicles for any time at all, she's not afraid of much and wants to try everything.  She loves unlovable things, like lizards, and mothers and nests daily.  Maggie is a perfectionist who sees Rembrandt paintings in her head and is often frustrated by the pictures and projects she produces.  She is stubborn, energetic, funny, precocious, tough and imaginitive. She chooses broccoli over chocolate, carrots over cookies. (I don't know where that comes from. Certainly not the Duttons.) If there's something hard to do, she's in the middle of it, usually ramrodding the show. If there's someone within a 2 foot radius of her being, she's visiting them and hugging them, if she can get her hands on them. 

 We're so blessed and challenged by her!

Happy Birthday, little sundrop!

Annual Author's Cookout

I say "Annual" because we've had Homer and Frank here for a cookout two years in a row.  But we're hoping they are able to come every year they return to Jordan to look for dinosaurs.

This year my Dad and Karen joined us, as well as Vern and Naomi....in ten years, we'll have to move it to the Cohagen Gym.

*Please note the extraordinarily neat house.  The books are straightened, the teapots dusted...we went all out.

For those menu people (and you know who you are), here's what we had:

Grilled hamburgers and all the trimmings on Wheat Montana buns

Macaroni salad, from Naomi

Fruit salad, from Karen

Baked beans and potato chips

Angelfood cake with strawberries and real whipped cream

Corona for the beerly inclined, Cabernet for the wine imbibers, Coca-Cola for Naomi and Big Spring water for everyone else

Here's a picture of the Farmer and his mom, talking about oceanic things with Homer.

Angus has some very important part of phone paraphenilia that he's not supposed to have...

You can tell he thought he was in trouble, being caught on camera and everything.

Karen cutting up strawberries for the angelfood cake.

(See the tiara on my teapot? I'll getcha a close up...it's so sweet!)

I TOLD you it was cute....almost coquettish.

Eating and visiting...the tablecloth is an old fashioned oil cloth style that I thought would look great with the 1950's table, but actually nearly caused seizures when you looked at it too long.  Drats. But it cleans up nicely and if everyone stares at it during conversation, there's listing and tilting of heads. 

That's funny.

Angus, trying to eat as fast as he possibly can because he wants CAKE.

When he ate as much as he deemed necessary, he started making the rounds to everyone asking if they were done, too.  At one point, he offered to take Homer's plate into the kitchen, saying "NOW, we're ready for cake, right?"

We were not ready just yet, but it was a good attempt.

Naomi, discussing retirement villages in Tennessee...

Since we had two sets of grandparents and friends, and Maggie's birthday is Tuesday, we decided to sing Happy Birthday to her.  (Just practice, we assured her...JUST PRACTICE....because she forgot to make a wish.)

Consumption of the cake...

Frank reading Maggie a pirate story.  The kids love him and he's very kind to them, taking hugs and reading stories. 

Here's The Dinosaur Hunter, its author and an adoring fan. (Who, by the way, is wearing a really beautiful pendant made by Linda Hickam. I'll try to get a close up tomorrow.  They are stunning! Fused glass.)

I didn't realize I was looking so frazzled until this picture...got up at 4 a.m. (and it wasn't even to go fishing, if you can imagine) so by the time we hit supper, I wasn't at my best.  But my house was!

Good enough.

I love this picture! The Princess and her Dinosaur Hunter...

Homer brought us all gifts and here's Maggie with her NASA t-shirt and Space Camp bear. She wants to go to Space Camp when she turns 12 and I think it would be a great experience.

An AquaRocket!

(More to come on this nifty little invention...)

Watching the Farmer putting the rest of the rocket together....which includes filling a compartment with water. That looked like trouble.

Homer is not at all remorseful for all the mayhem this may cause.  In fact, I think he looks a bit gleeful. What do you think?

You put it on this little pumper thingee....

....then pump it 11 times. (Got that, son?) (Yeah. I'm not sure he can count to 11, but what the heck...)

Then you push this little button....

...and WHOOSH!!! The rocket flies high into the sky!

("Fill it again, Daddy!" "My turn!")

We had such a fun evening, visiting and laughing and eating.

Hope Homer and Frank have a successful dinosaur hunt, with good weather, and we look forward to seeing them on the deck again next summer. With Linda, too!

Homer's bio and book information is at http://www.homerhickam.com/ 

And look for The Dinosaur Hunter in bookstores November 9th!

The librarian, I think, is a masterful work of fiction. 

What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.


-- Jane Austen

Shakin'

Please tell me that we're not the only family that looks at each other around 6 p.m. on a sweltery July evening and decides that the only possible thing we manage for supper would be milkshakes.

And not the good-for-you kind with fruit and frozen yogurt and bran....otherwise known as smoothies.  We wanted big, ugly, thick chocolate milkshakes.  The kind where the blender protests and grinds, even at the end of the mixing.  The kind that you get out a spoon and a straw...the straw mostly for effect.  With embarrassing amounts of chocolate syrup mixed in, and perhaps a little drizzle on top to make it fancy. (Even though you intend on covering that up with whipped cream.)

Angus was enraptured....drinkable ice cream! He's probably only seen a milkshake twice in his life. (He IS only almost 4. So don't be scolding me about depriving my children....) And he couldn't believe his good fortune; he didn't have to eat any vegetables or meat before working the milkshake over with gusto.  Maggie is nearly 6...she's seen a few milkshakes in her day and commenced to sucking her little cheeks in with the effort of getting it up the straw, then stopping to comment knowledgeably about the ingredients to her brother who didn't even know she was in the room.  He had milkshake love. 

Both my babies were born in July, a hellish month to be pregnant.  When I was pregnant with Maggie, I was working in town and even though I packed my lunch, that last month I usually didn't eat it. I'd get a blueberry milkshake almost every day, if you can imagine, from the Tastee Freeze or whatever the name of the drive in was at that time.  My doctor had been quite strict about my weight, so I'd been on the straight and narrow, fretting about each visit and the big weigh in.  But that June and July, I felt like a hippo with a glandular problem and I just went ahead and had milkshakes.  It was glorious!

I think in July, the blender should probably sit out on the counter, ready for action.  Not just for milkshakes, but also for those wretched smoothies and the occasional dacquari. The rest of the year, my blender languishes, forgotten, in the cupboard...but in July, that baby is coming out!

My favorite milkshakes are actually not chocolate, although I can bravely work my way through one if the occasion requires me to.  I adore pinapple shakes, any sort of berry shake (blueberry being my absolute favorite, STILL) and shakes with crazy ingredients that make you go, "hmmmm...." e.g. caramel banana nut, which sounds hideous but is really quite good.

What about you? Do you shake it up in July? And what is your favorite milkshake?

Meet me on the deck about 6:30.  We can gnosh and slurp, throwing our flip flops over the railing and calories to the wind....

More garden dirt...

Gardening makes people weird. Or weird people garden.

Either way....

And I think vegetable gardening must bring out the most eccentricities.  Particularly raising tomatos. I have seven remaining tomato plants that I'm nurturing along, pouring rainwater carefully on their tender little roots.  They get only the best tomato food, worked into the soil, balanced with the perfect mix of nitrogen and phosphorus to help them flourish.  They've been dusted with Sevin, like so many little tea cakes, to keep the grasshoppers away.  When the weather looks a little inclement, they get covered and guarded. 

There are three little tomatos, so far.  I coo over them and measure their growth daily.  Sometimes twice a day.  They are firm and healthy, and I have pictures of B.L.T.s dancing in my head.

Something about the smell of tomato leaves just oozes summer, doesn't it? Especially in the mid part of the day, when they are all warmed up, soaking up the sun.  I'll walk past them on my way to weed another flower bed and run my hands over the tops of them to release that smell. Then, as an added joy, I pet the basil and rosemary.  I can see why cats love to roll in herbs.

The grasshoppers are eating everything but the tomatos.  The leaves on most of my plants, flowers and vegetables, are lacy and drying.  The hoppers prefer hollyhocks and beans, so far, and steer clear of peas and lettuce.  That's odd to me, but maybe they are just having appetizers before the main course...

How does YOUR garden grow?

At last....

(Is that song running through your head, now?)

The advance reader's copy of Homer Hickam's new novel, set in Fillmore County, MT is HERE!!!

It's not available to buy in bookstores, hardback, until November 9th, so if you run right out to Barnes and Noble, all you can do is pre-order it. And I highly recommend you do so.

(Because the librarian is noteworthy....extremely fictionalized, but noteworthy.)

Homer graciously allowed me to read the manuscript last winter, editing the ranch stuff. I was sworn to secrecy about everything, and the Farmer didn't even get to look at the manuscript while I was working on it.  Some of the edits were taken into advisement, I see, but there wasn't a lot to work on because Homer did great research.

I'm going to reread the whole thing tonight.

Yes. The whole book. I can hardly wait!

So exciting!!! 

Beauty Forecast

I checked Weather dot com this evening, to see what sorts of surprises lay in store for us this week.  In Montana in July, it could be anything from snow to 100+ degrees; or both in the same week.  As I was waiting for the page to load, I looked at the little blurb of choices at the bottom and honest to goodness, cross my heart, here was one of the choices:

NEW! Beauty Forecast!

You have GOT to be kidding me.

Have we gotten so dependent on the computer to tell us everything that we can't do simple deductions from the weather forecast? For example:

Winds gusting 10-20 mph = bad hair
70% chance of precipitation = runny mascara AND bad hair
Humidity 60% = deodorant failure
High temperature -20 F = hat head and blue extremities (not just your eye shadow, girls)
Tornado warning = who CARES what you look like, get into a basement with your curling iron and makeup bag, for heaven's sake!

The other thing that came to mind is that there is no way to forecast personal contingencies beyond the basic weather.  e.g.:

Colicky baby = black bags under eyes that no concealer can touch
Branding = farmer's tan (not attractive with a tank top the next day)
Overflowing tank in farm truck = muddy high heels, grrrrrrrr
Broken dryer = damp, slightly wrinkled apparel

And so forth...

I can pretty much fortell this stuff on my own, without the help of the Weather Channel. The beauty forecast is usually pretty dismal before I've had my coffee and a shower....

Changing Gears

At one of our bookclubs, we had the rare privilege of hosting the author of our selection that month, John Moore.  He's a rancher that writes or a writer that ranches....I'm not sure which.  Anyway, we asked him if ranching hindered his writing process and he explained that actually he did most of his writing horseback, in his head, hurrying home after the work was done to get it down on paper.

I have to say I can completely relate to this.  I write blog posts by the bucketful when I ride my 4-wheeler, moving cows. I write letters that never get sent. I change recipes and write cookbooks. I make "to-do" lists that are quite grandiose.  And I revisit memories, hitting the re-wind button in my brain; enjoying some and cringing at others, of course. 

The other day, when we were moving the yearlings...the coming twos....I recalled my first "ranch" date with the Farmer and the guys of Pluhar ranch. 

I grew up where we rode horses to gather cows and work, and my dad made fun of motorcycles and wheelers. I'd truly never sat on a 4 wheeler until I started dating the Farmer....golf carts, yes, but never a wheeler. And it had been some time since I'd moved cows at all.   

The guys were going to move yearlings from Grants, where our house now sits, to across the road and I guess they thought it couldn't hurt to let "the girl" come along.  I got a crash course (not literally) in riding my own 4-wheeler. It sounded something like this: "Here's the start button. Shift up with your foot like this, shift down with your foot like this, here's the brake, let's go."

 And they took off, going at what seemed to me to be 50 mph, but in reality was more like 25 mph.  Pluhars are great guys, but they don't baby girls along very much, so I finally figured out the shifting up thing and caught up.  Sort of.  By the time I was getting to cruising speed, they were shifting down to turn.  (How do I shift down?!!! Think, think, think. Think faster!)

I've told you about moving yearlings, how they are the hardest bunches of cows to manuver, because they are flighty and silly, like junior high girls.  Yeah.  And me on a wheeler.  I don't mind telling you that I was a little nervous.  But I really wanted to prove that I could do it, so I followed along and went where they told me, feeling like I'd tip over the wheeler on any little incline, fighting the gear thing the whole way.

Looking back, I give the guys huge credit for their patience and willingness to even let me go.  Or perhaps they just wanted something funny to watch for awhile. 

The one little instruction they neglected to impart was how to put the wheeler in reverse. 

On a horse, you pull back the reins and pivot.  It's pretty intuitive and quick and you don't even really think about it. 

On a wheeler, you have to shift all the stinking way back down to neutral, push down a little red button on the left handle by the brake and pull back, shift the gear down into reverse, THEN hit the gas to go flying backward after letting go of the brake you've been holding on the left-hand handle.  Who the heck is going to figure THAT out on their own?  Especially someone as mechanically impaired as me.

Pulling back on the handles does nothing. And believe me, I tried that.

I got a little heifer into a corner, and there we sat.....she didn't want to leave and I couldn't.  I couldn't go forward, I couldn't go backward, I couldn't turn.  She finally tossed her pretty little head and left me sitting there, MAD.  Mostly because I could hear at least two of the guys (one was the man I was dating) laughing. What I wouldn't have given for one of my Dad's horses right that moment....

Finally, after pulling himself together, the Farmer (risking life and limb) came over and showed me the complex system by which one puts a wheeler in reverse. Is that all? He politely backed my wheeler out of the corner and got me readjusted, headed the right direction.

I was finally able to rejoin the guys and the herd and follow them across the road to the next pasture. Vern very kindly told me he liked that I didn't get all excited when moving cows, waving my arms and hollering.  Well, yeah.  I was pretty much immobilized in the corner during most of the project.  But let me tell you, it was getting pretty close to the waving and yelling stage.....

I didn't realize at the time that it was a pretty big deal to go with the guys.  Pluhars have always had ample male help and sort of discouraged women around the cows, because as my father-in-law told the Farmer one time, "Cows just work harder with women in the corral."

But that's another story....

Boots

Some kids start out with teeny-tiny tennis shoes, others with sandals, a few with tiny hiking boots. All of Bill Dutton's kids started out with little cowboy boots. 


I don't remember what my first pair looked like, but I DO remember my favorite pair, right down to the stitching.  I think I must've been about 4 when I got red cowboy boots with black tips.  I remember looking at them when I was riding the fattest old kids horse, thinking they were surely the most beautiful boots in the world.  I ALSO remember looking at them on my sister when I outgrew them and had to hand them down, wishing the new brown pair I wore were red. (I'm not sure she was ever as infatuated with them as I was; after all, they had been worn pretty hard by the time she put them on her little feet.)

I wore boots constantly as a kid.  They are the perfect footwear.  Easy and fast on, lots of support, great clatter on floors, anything dropped on them bounces off with no real harm done.  Also, (and I still am this way) I was scared to death of snakes and Dad had told us boots would be the best protection against those creatures. (Along with rapid movement out of the area. But here's the tricky thing: there's no real traction in cowboy boots.  So you can really be kicking up a dust and not get anywhere....most snakes probably left in the clatter and screaming....)

One time, when I was in sixth or seventh grade, my sister and I were walking to the grocery store in our boots, probably from the library; I really don't remember.  A smart aleck town kid on a bike rode past us laughing and hollered, "It's Cattle Annie and Little Britches!"  I think that was the first time it occurred to me that cowboy boots may not be the only footwear in the world.  We had other shoes, of course, for church and sports, but I always grabbed my boots first. 

When I went to college, I took my boots and even dared wear them on campus.  Fortunately, Garth Brooks had just made cowboy boots sort of popular again, so I didn't get beat up or anything....
I had a work-study job at the campus library and the very first day I "checked in", I shocked my supervisor with the boots.  I don't know how to politely say this, but I had never in my life seen anyone so blatantly gay and he'd never laid eyes on such a hick.  We stood there gaping at one another.  Honestly.  I will never forget it.  Roger and I ended up getting along quite well, but I still laugh to myself when I think of it...

I feel confident and most myself in cowboy boots.  They make my legs feel long, and since I'm a big girl anyway, they lend another inch or so....intimidation factor when I'm unsure about the crowd.  There's really no place in Montana you can go and not wear them appropriately....weddings, funerals, clerk conventions.  I wore them last Tuesday for the dental appointment that I was sure I wouldn't live through.  They helped me feel brave.  And the lack of traction, again, ensured that I wouldn't be able to get out of the office before I was drilled and filled.

I have ranch work boots:

You'll notice that they are big and ugly and covered in fresh manure.  We've been working cows the last couple days, so that's a nice touch for the picture. Lends authenticity.  These were boots the Farmer ordered for himself and when they were too small, gave to me. (Too bad they weren't red with black tips, huh.) They are too big for me, but I wear bulky socks and they work.  They weigh three pounds, each, I swear, and more when they have muddy manure clinging to them.  I like to think they are helping make my legs shapely, but so far I really haven't seen any evidence of that.  They HAVE saved my feet from serious injury several times, so I'm sorta fond of them and lug them around with resignation.

I have dress boots:

These are the prettiest boots I've owned since the little red boots! I love the scallop on top that no one sees but me, with all the blue stitching.  I like the square toes.  Whoever decided to bring back the squared toes on cowboy boots has my eternal gratitude...they are classic.  I also like the heel that's a little taller, but not dude-tall.  There's a fine line, there, and I shudder when I see boots with Hollywood heels.  You can see they are getting a little scuffed on the toe, despite my cleaning and polish. (Yes, Dad, I do use leather cleaner and boot polish from the saddlery! I love the smell.)

In the porch, alongside my boots, is a little pair of boots that have travelled a lot of miles, through three or four kids, mine being the last cousins to wear them.

  I think they are adorable and I think I'm going to hang on to them, putting them in the baby box for my grandkids.

Wow! Willow Creek Winter Wheat

Big Chief Crabby Pants

Hay bottoms just north of our house...

See the little tiny dot on the horizon? That's A tree, Jason Harold!! We're so proud of it.

Twillabie running like the wind!

Willow Creek winter wheat is a variety we grow for forage (hay) and also some to sell the seed.  I'll include a link at the bottom of this post from MSU about the variety and there will be bar graphs and everything! But one thing I find remarkable is that it will grow as much as 3/4 an inch per day.  So if you stood out in the field for a couple hours, you could probably actually see it happening. 

This wheat floors me, every year, with its freakish height.

Some pictures for you from this morning, in one of the fields we rogued on Tuesday.

Keep in mind that the Farmer and I are both about 5'8" tall, and wearing boots....

Willow Creek is an awnless variety, which just means that it has no "beards"; a nice, neat head which is part of the reason it's so palatable for livestock.

She's SO happy for the little adventure! I love the pleased look on her face.

For more stats on the Willow Creek, go to: http://animalrangeextension.montana.edu/articles/forage/2007_willowcreek.pdf

It's amazing!

True Confession #297 (Or have I done that one already?)

I must preface this confession with another....

For the longest time, I actually thought I was a fairly practical person.  In the last fifteen years or so, I've learned that I'm a repressed romantic.  That's right.  I have to be practical most of the time, just by token of where I live and my occupation...ranchwife, parent and school clerk.  But deep down inside, I'm entirely frivolous. I'm sure you'd already guessed that....

So here's the confession:

With all my heart, I long for a clawfoot tub.

Outside.

Of course there would be privacy drapings all around it and plants and all that nonsense; maybe some deep glass candle holders....

And I realize I live in Montana where the wind blows 362 days a year, generally carrying weeds and dirt.

Whatever.

I adore clawfoot tubs, just for their elegance and graceful lines.  Being a tallish sort of girl, I also adore that they hold enough water to cover me to my chin, like no frugal, save-the-earth-by-using-less-water, modern tubs.  No knees sticking out!  I adore the hardware for the faucets, handles and drain....so richly styled, so heavy and substanitive.

I can think of no greater luxury than to have a deep, hot bubble bath and glass of wine under the stars, listening to the country put itself to sleep. Or a cool bath in the late afternoon of summer, after weeding all 8 flower beds.  Aaahhhh....

I found a picture in Sunset magazine when Wayland and I were first married, of a tub such as this, but I'm quite sure it was in Portland or Seattle or some other civilized place.  I clipped it out and filed it, but couldn't find it to scan for this post.  It's quite possibly filed under something like "European Notions" or "Easy Summer Projects". Somewhere very logical....

Isn't that the most impractical thing? 

Isn't it a wonderful thought?

Someday, maybe....