She's my first Jew...

Not everyone finds this as hilarious as we do....

But I laugh everytime I think of this! 

Sue and I have been writing back and forth, asking questions about each other's lives because we live on different planets, really.

One time, after asking a particularly dumb question (I'm sure) about being Jewish, I told her she was my first Jew and she cheerfully said I was her first rancher.  I said, "We should get tshirts!"

And so she did.

I love it! And we both laughed!

And that's how we started Sue's visit....crazy t-shirts, t-bone steaks, blueberry pie, and Red Sox gifts.

That's right.

We've not had a baseball team in this family, being completely underexposed to that sport, but NOW we're part of Red Sox Nation! 

Witness the gear, on the family:

Mags is holding the team mascot, Wallie.

The kids wore their tshirts to bed, even!  And Angus has not taken the cap off in three days...

We picked Maggie up in Cohagen, so Sue could see the little school and meet Maggie's teacher.

Then we went back to the ranch and fed my bum calves, Lily and Sweet William.

(All my bums get flower names, so we thought Lil and Will would be fun this year.)

It's mucky, ucky around the corrals and calves tend to be quite slobbery, especially when they're hungry, so Sue got to wear my very glamorous covies and Muck boots. 

Sue fed Will, because he's gentler on the food source.  Lily will almost take you down for the bottle and shows no mercy when you run out of milk.  More on those two, later...

 

Here's Lil, looking to rough up someone for more food...

 Brand spanking new calf on the other side of the barn...

We went home after that and checked email, watched Red Sox youtubes, watched Mags dress up in costume after costume, talked about life and so forth.

When the Farmer got home, Sue asked if she could see his guns.

After he picked his jaw up off the floor (we're usually telling him to put his guns AWAY), he started hauling firearms out for show-n-tell! 

First time she ever shot a gun!  I think she's hooked....

It's a fair trade: Sue started the Red Sox obsession, we gave her gun fever. 

 A little souvenir from Eastern Montana...

We tried to send home kittens, but she seemed to think she'd have a hard time getting them on the plane.

Excuses, excuses...

And the next day, we went out for a while to tag calves and look at the cows.

It was such a good visit!

I wish I'd been able to make it to Sue's book reading and signing, but the Farmer had EMT testing so I stayed to "help" Vern with the cows.

(I think I may be more of a hindrance, but even bad help is better than no help, right?)

If you have the opportunity to read

You can read a synopsis at Nebraska Press.

It's a true story about the Smith Mine disaster in Bearcreek, MT and every time I read it, I see something new.  Two coffee cups up! (The thumbs have been done...)

Voila!

It's here!
And it's so me!
(Dixie Pierson can't look directly at it...or won't. Which indicates to me that it's PERFECT for a Garfield County shake up accessory....)

(The shades were Angus' Christmas present to me.  I thought this was the post to showcase them, too.)

I love the color.

I love the funky chains.

I love the tarp strap grommets.

I'm going to have you all choose my new purse every time!

Creamy Seafood Enchiladas....

for Thelma G., who needs fish recipes for Fridays through Lent! 

1/4 c. butter
1/4 c. flour
1 cup chicken broth
1 can cream of chicken soup, undiluted
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup salsa
1/8 tsp. salt (How do you measure THAT?  Couple good shakes, I'd think...)
1 cup small curd cottage cheese (This is where I improvised....use 1/2 cup cottage cheese, 1 8 oz cream cheese.)
1 pound small cooked shrimp, peeled and deveined (I use frozen shrimp, thawed.)
1 cup canned or fresh crab meat
1 1/2 cup shredded Monterrey Jack cheese
1 can chopped green chilis
1 T. cilantro (dried or fresh)
12 flour tortillas

1.) In a saucepan over low heat, melt butter; stir in flour until smooth.  Gradually stir in broth and soup until blended.

2.) Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until slightly thickened.  Remove from the heat.  Stir in sour cream, salsa and salt; set aside.

3.) Place cottage cheese (and cream cheese) in a blender; cover and process until smooth.  Transfer to a bowl; add the shrimp, crab, cheese, chilis and cilantro.

4.) Spread one cup of the reserved sauce in a greased 9x13 baking dish.  Place about 1/3 cup seafood mixture in each tortilla and roll up, placing enchiladas seam side down in the baking dish.  Top enchiladas with remaining sauce.

5.) Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until heated through. Serve with additional salsa.

There you go! 
I've made these for our bookclub a couple times and we all love 'em.  (Of course, there are no men there, so it could just be a girl thing...)

Do you remember....

The Man From Snowy River?

Of course you do! 

(And all the guys roll their eyes and all the girls sigh wistfully....)

I found it at a second hand store in Miles City, last week, and was so excited!  I don't think I've seen the movie since it first came out....can it be at least 20 years ago?  

(Little note, here:  I watch MAYBE 3 new movies a year.  Maybe.  I've seen probably only 175 movies in my lifetime, most of them made before 1960. So if I talk about a movie, here, it's rather a big deal.  Most of the time...I've read the book and shunned the movie.  I know.  Purists are lonely people...)

So Sunday night, I plugged 'er into the VCR and Maggie and I watched it. 

Oh, my goodness...it was JUST as good as I'd remembered! Except Jim, the hero, was about 19 years old.  I don't remember him being THAT young.  At all.  The music was as familiar to me as Sunday school songs, because I had worn out a tape of the soundtrack and bought sheet music for Jessica's Theme, playing it, I'm sure, until my mom wanted to weep...way back when it first came out. 

Did you remember that Michael Douglas was in this one?  And played brothers? 

Did you notice that the stud who led the wild horses was a half brother to the expensive colt that the rancher bought?  The stud was the first colt out of the mare and the colt was the last one.  I didn't remember that full circle at all! 

Did you know that the movie was based on a poem, written by A.B. Banjo Paterson?  I don't know if any of you have read the poem, but it's a GREAT one; check it out!  The Man From Snowy River

Maggie told me that every horse was the most beautiful horse she'd ever seen.  There were a lot of horses.  She said it a lot of times.  And when Jim goes bailing off the cliff, I lectured her on how completely stupid that was!  (The child is fearless, I tell you! I never take that for granted...)

If you haven't seen this movie for 20 years, like me, find it QUICK and watch it! 

(And now that I'm older...I think Clancy is cute.  What do you think?)

Caution! Weird Recipe to follow...

When the Farmer is away, we eat odd things.  And for no other reason than we feel like we're being silly and impetuous and no one will be around to know. 

So, Saturday, when he had to play Deputy Dog in town because of the prom, we had Funfetti Pancakes and sausage!  A couple months ago, my cousin Luci posted a link to CakeSpy, a website that exalts all things sweet, cakes in particular.  She had found a recipe for pancakes made from funfetti cake mix, and I glommed onto it, thinking this would be...well....fun! 

Here's the recipe:

1/2 box Funfetti cake mix (or cherry chip, as we had no funfetti, having used it up on the 500th post party cake)

1 cup milk

1/2 cup flour, sifted

1 egg

Mix it all together until smooth and cook it just like regular old pancakes, making sure to grease your frying pan VERY well between each new pouring.  (It's always good to have a lovely assistant for the stirring part.)

See? Smooth!

Toothless smile, just because I like it.

 We make big pancakes.  The Farmer once complained that I made dainty, silver dollar pancakes, so I enlarged them to a full skillet.  Now they're too big.  Tough.

These pancakes have a LOT of sugar, so they burn easily AND they really don't require syrup.  At all.

The critic....

 We have a winner, folks!

These are sweet, sweet, sweet.  And they are fun!

What about the bulls?

It was brought to my attention this weekend that in the spring, all the attention is on the cows and calves.  But what about the bulls?  Does anyone think of them? 

Of course we think about them...this is bull sale season!
The bulls are showcased, with EPD (estimated progeny data), bloodlines, photos and measurements.  (Yes, it's not uncommon to know scrotal measurements.  Every little detail counts.)
Bull sales are great places to hang out, because the sellers shmooze the buyers, hoping hospitality will make a difference in the amount of money they spend on the bulls.  And also because it's just good advertising, if people talk about your bull sale hospitality...it attracts other people.  People like me, who would just go for the food and libations, but who the boss doesn't give the checkbook to. 

I'm not allowed to buy bulls. I can buy vaccine, eartags, gloves, baling wrap, sandwich supplies and fanbelts. But not bulls.  I'd buy GREAT bulls! And that's the problem. I'd pay too much and be seduced by the auctioneer's flowery words of flattery. It's not considered cool to be on the front page of the Western Ag Reporter weekly paper for being the top spender at the 2011 Currant Creek Angus Bull Sale....

In lieu of bull sale pictures, you just get bull pictures.  They are in the pasture next to the house and hang out by the yard fence, rubbing on posts, trash talking, fighting, pooping and eating.  That's all they do. 

See?

And because she's a jealous little thing...

Maggie hustled around and fetched up her farm picture.  She was a little miffed that her scene hadn't gone in first, but that's how it goes...
She also wanted everyone to know that the sun WAS colored, but with a highlighter and it didn't show up on the scan. 
Now you know.
This is our house and farming and a black cow and calf.  And clouds that made her want to pull her hair out, because they weren't....cloudy enough.  (I told her that they didn't have to be cumulonimbus, that stratus clouds looked like that, but it was unsatisfactory...)

French Sun

Angus drew this for me...a sun with a beret and glasses....because we were listening to French music on Pandora.  Isn't it the happiest Frenchman you've ever seen? 

Spring?

People who write songs about Montana seldom have anything to say about March. There's a good reason for that.  While the rest of the world is singing tra-la-la about spring and getting pedicures for sandal season, we in Eastern Montana are still...STILL...plodding through snow and ice.

The only thing that keeps us going, at all, is the new babies.  And really strong coffee. And the banker breathing down our backs. 

Other than that, we really have no motivation for staying here.

(Oddly enough, we don't get much company this time of year, either....My friend Susie K. is coming from the Boston area in a couple weeks and she's the only brave soul I know of who actually PLANNED to see our ranch in the depths of the spring gunk.  Although, after viewing these pictures, she may send condolences and a nice cheese tray, begging a tight schedule and no appropriate wardrobe.  I'd completely understand.)

Following the chuck wagon....behind the tractor is a trailer that holds two round bales, so we can transport a lot of feed in one trip.  The Farmer's family is one of the most intelligent, innovative bunch of ranchers I've ever been around and we have all sorts of things like this that they've designed and made.  I was going to say they saved time and labor, but I can't type that with a straight face...

I absolutely love this picture.  The cow looking, the calf skiting, the tractor in the background....it's the perfect picture for this topic.  I should've stopped there, because it captures everything I'll try to write from here on out...

A chilly pair, headed for the tractor, with all of the prairie and sagebrush ahead of them....

The Farmer drives around in his Honda, looking for new calves to tag and if they're chilled down, he brings them back to me in the pickup.

These are older calves, obviously....pushing each other around and rough housing.  You can't see the cow very well, but she's rolling her eyes at them and saying, "Shape up, now.  Stop that nonsense!  Someone's going to get hurt and I won't feel a bit bad..."  They don't care...go ahead and fuss, Mama Cow....it won't do any good....

More of beautiful Eastern Montana. Can you see why we get SO hungry for color, in the winter?

You can't see it very well, but the Farmer is tagging a calf here.  See the cow's mouth open, warning him?  She's not happy.

Done! She briskly gathered up her baby and trotted off toward the feed.

This bin holds the cake pellets and when Vern turns a switch, they trickle out onto the hay.

See the milk froth?  His breakfast was interrupted and he's a little miffed.

You can tell it's a bull calf because the tag is in the right ear....heifers get tagged in the left ear. 

Calve belonging to mean cows get tagged however it gets done....

Here's a REALLY new baby.  He wandered around the feed ground, completely bewildered by the commotion and his poor little mama followed him, worriedly, trying to grab a bite of hay and cake as she went.  Of course, he's the cutest calf there and every cow wants to make him thiers (she thinks), so it's very stressful.

 I don't care what you say, cows are just beautiful.  Aren't they? Especially black Angus cows. 

She can't figure out what all the fuss is, with the dry old hay.  But she tried some!

 Very elegant ensemble, here.  You can't see the insulated gold hand-me-down coveralls...

You can, however, see the wrinkles. 

Darn.

Another favorite picture!  I like mirror shots of scenery, because you get all sorts of perspectives...

If there was a magazine called Cute Cows, she'd be the cover girl...
Look at that perfect little hoof!

STILL adorable...

Look at that little forhead, cleaned within an inch of it's life by a mama who cares...

Did someone say, "Maaaaaaa!"  ?

Same cover girl....different pose...

Why DOES the hay on the wagon taste better than the hay rolled out by the tractor?

We put out straw, too, for bedding and this baby found the perfect nest, right in the middle of the action.

No, they are NOT Betty and Claude, two wannabe farm criminals of some sort!  Dixie and the Farmer, posing for me.  I think they're smiling.  Who knows?

Frozen calf, on the floorboard of the pickup with the heater blasting as hot as we can get it.  He was in very bad shape...glassy eyes, mouth open and shallow breathing, crying as I drove him in.  (He was and I was.) We put him in the hot box in the shop and when I asked at lunch time how he was, there was not much hope.

We give them colostrum in paste form, and had to warm it up on the dashboard.  He didn't get any...it's expensive and we need to see if he's going to be close enough to living before he gets any. 

And that's what our mornings look like, here.  Then I gather up the kid(s) at Grandma's, run home and make lunch and pick up the pieces from our mad dash out the door that morning.

When people talk about March Madness....this is what I think of.  Not basketball!

And the winner is....

Purse #2! 

It has been ordered and should be winging its way to Cohagen in a couple of days.

I'm going to tell you one of the reasons I decided to order this purse, anyway...besides the fact that it won.

A friend of mine sent me an email saying she couldn't vote for it because she looked at it and thought about the OB chains they use to pull calves and the grommets on grain tarps.  If THAT doesn't just holler "The Farmer's Wife", I don't know what does.

Another friend (blogging friend) told me that she positively identified me in Walmart because she knew my crazy purse.  This will completely give her a frame of reference, don't you think?

So, there you have it.

Thanks for voting and commenting!
(And I really never could look at Purse #1 without thinking "kidney bean" after that.  Darn it, anyway, Anonymous!)

Time to vote....

...for a new purse for the Farmer's Wife!  (Remember Madame Serengeti?)

Keep in mind that no matter which one you vote for, I'll buy it in red!
I bought a purse last year that I've been living with, but not happily.  It says, "This is your mother's purse..." and I want something that says "Oh, yeah....That's Mary's purse, alright!"

It's a very serious thing, this choosing of the purse. 

Consider all the occasions and scenarios this purse will have to accompany me to....
Consider the books/makeup/children's junk I'll have to haul, stylishly.
Consider that I don't want a purse that looks like I'm smack dab in the middle of my retirement years.

THEN vote.

:)



Purse #1



Purse #2

Vote on the poll to the top right of this page!
Thanks for your input.

Chivaree!

The Farmer and I were visiting, yesterday, about a friend of ours that is planning on getting married and he tossed out, "Well, he'll probably run off to Vegas and get married, anyway."

"Then we can chivaree them!", I said, happily!

"We don't do that, here."

"Never? You all never chivaree?"

"Nope."

"Have you been to a chivaree? Ever?"

"I told you.  We don't do that here."

Proof that you can grow up in the same county, 50 miles apart, and live totally different cultures.

Chivaree...pronounced "shiv-uh-REE"....is the American spelling of the French word "charivari", which means, in it's literal translation, "rough music".  You can Google the whole history of it which, quite frankly, has mean origins.  But where I grew up....just across the county...it was done with good humor and the best of intentions.

When a couple snuck off and got married, without allowing the community to properly celebrate with them, they got chivareed.  The friends and community members would secretly plan a middle-of-the-night party, where all would gather at the newlyweds' house, bringing food, beverages (alcoholic and otherwise) a wheelbarrow, pots and pans to clang, rice to put in the bed as the bride was being hauled around in that wheelbarrow, and all other manner of nonsense and revelry.  Sort of a raucous reception to celebrate the union and show the couple that a party WOULD be had, whether they wanted it or not. 

The only one I really remember was when I was very young...maybe 5 or 6?...for Bill and Jackie Brown.  I remember thinking the grownups had lost their minds, but being very impressed at the party in the middle of the night.  I'm sure we didn't stay long, Mom and us kids, but it was something that stuck in my head, for sure!  It was loud and happy and good-natured, and so very strange, to have this big old celebration with no warning. 

So they don't chivaree, here. 
If our friend goes to Vegas, I do believe I might have to start something....

*For all you locals, reading the Chronicles: I'm sure you know who our "friend" is and if you happen inform him that this could occur, we may need to do a practice run at your house.  To celebrate 7 or 21 or 30 years of wedded bliss or something...

Crazy Mary

More questions for Crazy Mary!
I don't know what's more disturbing, really; that someone actually wonders about these things or that I'm taking the time to answer them. 

In no particular order of importance:

1. Do you read magazines from front to back or another way?

I usually just open it up in the middle and look for something interesting.  I almost always scan to the back, from there, then scan to the front from the middle.  EXCEPT in Bon Appetit, where I read the back page first, every time.  And Shape magazine, where I read the success stories first.

2. On what side of your mouth do you chew most of your food?

The inside.  Next question?

3. What was your favorite thing to do at recess, as a kid?

I went to country schools from Kindergarten through eighth grade, so this answer is not going to be a "stock" one....

When I went to Sand Springs school, there were still outhouses that we used as forts.  Isn't that great?! I mean, talk about the perfect dungeon for captured enemies! We left notes in them...love AND hate notes...and did capture prisoners or trick them into joining our camp.  Usually, it was Boys vs. Girls, but a couple years there, there weren't a lot of boys, so there was sometimes a mercy trade.  I'm not sure how merciful it was, to either side, but it sort of evened things up.  As I type this, I'm laughing that we really did that!  I know the teachers, bless their frazzled old hearts, were just happy we were outside and out of their hair so they could have a nip at the bottle and call another country school teacher for moral support....

At Big Dry, we didn't have playground equipment for the longest time, so we played "horses".  What country school kids DON'T? We'd thread a jump rope through the back belt loop on our jeans and another kid would take the reins.  This game came to a screeching halt when all the mothers started comparing notes and they put the kaibosh on this most lively of sports, because ALL our Wranglers had broken belt loops.  Our good Wranglers. 

The other really, really fun game that we played at both schools was Annie-I-Over.  Do you all know that one?  The kids split up into two teams (and you want the fast kids, here) and each team takes a side of the house...the long side.  The designated thrower on the one side throws the ball over the roof while hollering "Annie-I-Over!!!".  If the ball doesn't clear the roof, the thrower hollers "Pigtails!" and tries again.  If the ball DOES clear, the other team has to have a fair catch (not on a bounce) and the whole catching team comes blazing around the end of the building, with the catcher trying to tag someone on the opposing team.  If they tag 'em, they get to keep them on their team.  And thus sides are exchanged and starts all over.  The point of the game is to capture everyone on a team.  This can go on for DAYS, because there's always a sizzlingly fast kid that can't be captured, but he can capture plenty, exchanging slow kids back and forth, back and forth. 

At Sand Springs, we played it over the teacherage, and that was the perfect building!  At Big Dry, we played it over the actual school building and broke a window, eliminating the game from our choices until the next year when we got a new, innocent teacher fresh out of college and started it all over again.  By the end of the year, she'd have found someone to marry to escape the profession, or started chainsmoking and applying to schools in Alaska, so we never usually had to worry about losing the game for more than a few months.

4. What one thing did you decide not to buy that you really wish you would have?

Besides a winning Lotto ticket? 
Honestly, I'm not really a "thing" sort of person.  But I AM an "experience" sort of person and wish that I had spent the money to do some really fun things when I could.  Everytime I did, I didn't regret spending the money, because I'd live for a long time on ramen noodles and peanut butter to have the memory of whitewater rafting or midnight golf, you know? 
I can't really think of any one thing.  This is the blessing of being impulsive and crazy, to an extent!  No regrets until you get to age 70 and have to work at Walmart as a greeter because you spent your retirement  funds on a 15 day fly-fishing expedition in Canada....

5. Describe your life in six words.

Blessed. Rural. Surprising. Evolving. Yummy. Full.

Had you asked that question a month ago, before the sun came out and when things were at their tensest, here, it would've probably included words like:  Dreary. Medicated. Stuck.



The other question that was posed had to do with my favorite childhood television show and I answered that with the Waltons post, BEFORE the question was asked!

There you go.  Send Crazy Mary questions anytime!