Cows = Endless Spring Work

But at least they're amusing...to ME.

Here are some pictures of what my mornings look like and who I have coffee hours with (complete with "cake").

Could it be the world's most beautiful cow?!?!

Indeed!  It's Miss Daisy-ma'am, who is nearly always 2nd or 3rd in line for the feed.

The Farmer told me that sometimes when he tags a calf, she'll come running over to check it out and he feared that she may be open (not pregnant) this spring.  I reminded him that she was a little peculiar and that last summer when my bums bawled, she'd hustle over, too.  

Waiting and hoping for a heifer calf from her this spring...

Do you SEE THIS?!?!
This gal got on the bad side of a grumpy porcupine!
Astoundingly, she doesn't seem to have any infection, but man, does it look painful!

Yelling at the kid...

They make me laugh, when they bawl with their WHOLE body!

Snitching goodies before everyone else gets there.
#824 in the Fishing Hole pasture eats cake pellets out of my hand!  She'll re-a-c-h her neck out, then re-a-c-h her tongue out and when she feels the pellet, she curls her tongue around it and BOOP! it's gone!  The other cows scrutinize the whole scene, envious but suspicious.  They're certain it's a trap and that 824 is the bait cow.  Every once in a while, she puts her nose in the open window of the pickup and smells me with her big, slobbery nose.  Cow kisses are not nearly as charming as they might sound...

Here are the cows, trailing in to feed from the hills; some with babies, some solo (having hid their babies in a sagebrush "nest").  Those aren't blue mountains in the distance...just clouds.

This picture delights me!  These old ladies are chewing and smiling, pleased with the way the morning has turned out...
Cows never complain about what I feed them, only about the quantity of the grub.  There's never enough.

Close-up of a baby who couldn't figure out what in the world I was doing with a camera.  I'm certain that calves are born with eyelashes as long as they'll ever be.

More happiness...

My Saturday Sidekick, Speed (bump).
His specialty is horn honking and snack distribution (and elimination).
I was recently informed that he has been banned from the jockey box of the pickup because he has a tendency to re-arrange everything, sometimes losing important tools and such.  (Note the TTU cap; very proud of that...)

He's always telling the cows some sort of crazy story, like about cow-eating LEGO guys or something.  They don't pay him any attention...

So, that's what my mornings are like...

Stay tuned for more thrilling posts from 

The Farmer's Wife!

*rolling of eyes*

Easter in Bigfork Part II

On Easter afternoon, we all went to Susan's house for a ridiculously wonderful feast and egg hunt.  I have no idea what Susan's last name is or what prompted her to start the Great Easter Party, but I'm so grateful she includes us!  She fills and hides about 300 plastic Easter eggs in her yard, invites friends and family to a huge potluck meal/picnic, then turns the kids loose to find the eggs.  It's chilly, relaxed, happy, generous and great fun!

This is Susan, lining the kids out just before the hunt...

Angus had three desserts, chips and token strawberries for dinner.  It was glorious!  Do you like the hat?  That was his Easter basket this year, filled with funny little treats.

Three of my favorite people!  Jasper, Sara and Quinn-the-man...

Quinnie and his pal, playing in the dirt...

I have no idea what this gentleman's name is, just that he makes me laugh with his delightful sense of humor!

This picture pretty much sums up the party...

This is one of the more challenging egg hidey holes, if you can imagine!

I thought Grandma C. was going to tear out and find eggs, too, but she managed to restrain herself.  :)

They empty the candy out of the eggs, then Susan can re-use them for next year! Very serious business, this egg emptying project...

Easter in Bigfork Part I

A few pictures from our weekend at Jasper's...

Maggie and Grandma Celestia, playing a duet at the piano.

The tree house lost a major supporting tree, so everything had to be redone.  This was distressing at first, but then thrilling as it became a major renovation project!

The rule at Grandma and Grandpa's house is: Ice cream MUST be eaten before bed. It's a great rule.

Grandpa Jasper took us for a walk by Flathead Lake, which was very low and had all sorts of wonderful sand and rocks exposed that we never get to see in the summer!

This is the most perfect sign for my little speed bump in blue!

He insisted that THIS was the biggest pine cone.  Period.  No amount of fact could dissuade him from the idea.

Toby is the neighborhood dog!  He travels from house to house, eating and visiting, catching up on all the gossip...

This is Captain Goody Two Shoes (I'm NOT KIDDING...he named himself that!) and his crew in the Whisper Go!  I got to paint her name on, finally, and now she's officially Thistle 2721 Whisper Go!

Not many planes out and about this weekend, but this one came and went several times while we were there.

Houdini, sunning himself...

Pinwheels work best with airport air!

FWP 911

There's been a pair of bald eagles living just up the road from our mailbox for the last week or so.  I've been watching them as I sit waiting for the school bus, admiring how graceful and HUGE they are.  Today as the bus driver dropped Maggie off, she said she thought one of them might be hurt, that it was in the ditch off the road, so I said I'd go take a look.  I grabbed my camera, then the kids and I went up to check the situation out.  

Sure enough, the eagle was sitting in an odd position on the side of the road, partway down in the ditch.  I thought it would try to flap or hobble away when I stopped the car, but it just sat there, exhausted I think.  I wanted it to move so I could see what had happened, but no matter how close I got, it just sat there, watching me warily.  At one point I was within 2 1/2 feet, walked all around it and still could not tell what the injury was, although it must have been a wicked one to keep the bird there with all that examination.  

When I got home, I called the Fish, Wildlife and Parks guy I know in Miles City to report the hurt eagle.  He discussed with me what could happen to it, depending on the severity of the injury.  If the eagle could be transported to Miles City, a raptor specialist there would examine it and either send it on to Bozeman for rehabilitation or euthanize it.  The Bozeman facility happens to be where a friend of ours, Gordon Hardaway, is a vet, so we'd be able to keep close track of it!  Once the eagle is healthy, it would be returned back here and released.  I got the number of the local game warden, gave him the information I had and he was headed right out.  

Ranchers are typically not very sympathetic to eagles, simply because they prey on young livestock...it's truly awful to see the results of that...but I couldn't stand the thought of this one dying on the side of the road.

Here are some of the photos I took...

Still astonished that I could get that close!

Queen of the Two Furrow

Here's the story:
Once upon a time, there was a regular old ranch wife with ordinary brown hair, mom jeans and second-hand wardrobe, living in a trailer house on the Two Furrow Road of Cohagen, Montana.  She had the same hamburger in her deep freeze, the same Walmart tupperware in her cupboards and same black Muck boots as every other woman on the Two Furrow.  She was rich in friends (obscenely weathly, if you want to know the truth), blessed with family she was both born into and chose, and lacked for nothing at all.
There was, however, another who was utterly and ridiculously jealous of the ranch wife; so much so that it was humorous to all who beheld it.  One of the other residents of the land jokingly teased the ranch wife about being "The Queen of the Two Furrow" and she embraced the idea.  After all, isn't it better to laugh than to fume?

And so the Queen came to be.  She was destined to be queen, as all her friends knew, because she already had a tiara on the tea pot above her royal sink!  How handy was THAT?  She had a cattle sorting stick that made a dandy scepter, a Trailblazer carriage, and a silk scarf for her cloak.  Everyone knew where the Queen of the Two Furrow lived because of the pink flamingos at the royal mail box...no one else dared put something so tacky, so out of place along the road for all the world to see!  The Queen wore scarlet heels to make coffee, earrings to work cows and cheap sunglasses. (Because, it must be said here; the Queen was as absent minded as she was eccentric, so any shades that cost more than $10 were pointless.  And temporary.)

It's early in her queenhood, but a few things have already been established:

• All women in the land should own at least one pair of mom-jeans.  There's a Mom Jean day, you know, that's celebrated in Cohagen on April 1st!  
• Her motto, which shall be on a banner, forthwith, is: Peace, Love and Cows.  Learn it, LIVE IT!
• Pie is legal for breakfast.  Encouraged, in fact.
• Cauliflower is to be banished. *shudder*
• Royal wave is a "guns up", which the Queen shall offer to the public but they're not required to respond in kind.  :)
• Cowboy boots are cool...even with yoga pants, old cut off corduroy pants, skirts...everything.

And so the tale goes...

Check back with the Chronicles for royal events and news! 

Peace, Love and Cows

It never, ever gets old...

Watched this baby's birth this morning, and I realized that I could live to watch 60 more years of calving and every spring it would take my breath away with the miracle of it. The first picture is of the heifer's first look at her baby...

It was a frosty, misty morning, so the pictures are sort of hazy looking.  One of the most amazing things, to me, is that it was only about 20 minutes from the first breath to standing!

And that's what's been going on here in Cohagen for the last week or so...ordinary miracles, daily.

You know it's spring in Eastern Montana when...

...all the guys have "calving hair"curling out from under their caps, almost to "hippie" length.

...you have to look closely to be able to pick out your SUV from the other six in front of Ryan's grocery store, all with mud up to mid-side window.

...three products at the store are consistently sold out: Copenhagen, Spray'n'wash, and Folgers coffee.

...you need three layers of clothes for the day: snow storm weight, shirt sleeve weight and waterproofed wade-on-in weight.

...there's an eagle on each fence post for a mile and a half stretch of county road.

...the March Madness talk at the post office isn't about college basketball, it's in reference to calving and lambing.

...your dad hears the first meadowlark two days ahead of you, even though you get the information rather suspiciously after you tell him about YOUR first meadowlark. Every year, my friends...EVERY year...

...the local paper has more pages of bull sale ads than commissioner's meeting minutes.

...crockpot recipes are used as currency among neighbor women. ("I'll trade you my Creamy Beef Stroganoff recipe for your Honey-lime Chicken and the two-ingredient cookie recipe.")

...the UPS and Schwan delivery guys call from town to check on the road moisture/quality.

...you could start seed tomatoes and peppers in the mud in your porch.

...running with skunks becomes a fitness hazard.

*Feel free to add more in the sticky notes on the fridge door!

Under Construction...

Apologies for the big mess on the Chronicles!  Spring always makes me want to freshen everything up, including my poor, neglected blog...but true to character, I can't seem to change anything without first completely wrecking it.  

Hopefully the Chronicles will have a new look by Wednesday; one that doesn't make you want to bang your head on your computer keyboard when attempting to read it.  

(I'll be doing PLENTY of that in the meantime...)

A-maze-ing

This is a picture of the memorial labyrinth garden in Lewistown, Montana.  I'm not certain who actually designed and constructed it, but I know that it's maintained by volunteers who take sections to weed and nurture.  The grass pathway is about three feet wide and is bordered with flowerbeds of the same width; along the edge of the path one walks are memorial stones, with names of friends and family; one can walk slowly, read the names and have a quiet time of memory and prayer.  It's one of the most peaceful, happy public places I've ever encountered....the park can be filled with kids running and playing, people sprawled out on blankets, screaming from the nearby pool, and when I enter the labyrinth, it all sort of blurs out.

Do you see the statue? She holds secrets.
Here's a closer look:

When I stay in Lewistown, I try to go for a run in the mornings on the running path from the Yogo that goes to the park.  I'm sure there are other great places to run, but this is close to the B & B where I stay and it's more private to me than running the streets.  Later in the morning, there are a lot of people who use it, but dark-early in the morning, it's pretty quiet and gorgeously frosty-mistlike.  When I get to the labyrinth, I run through it carefully, sometimes twice, then head back...it's a fun place to turn around and the little curves sort of wake me up!  

One weekend a couple years ago, I was in Lewistown with Celestia for my birthday...a HUGE treat, because we went to live music at Lola's, stayed in The Calvert Hotel and had Mad Housewife wine before bed to toast the day.  The next morning I ran the path and the labyrinth, but on a whim, paused and peeked in the watering can the girl of the statue is holding.  

There was a letter!  

I didn't take it out, didn't look at the writing on the envelope, but have wondered, wondered ever since who might have left it there and what the story was.  (I later emailed a friend who lived in Lewistown and asked him to go down and check, to see if the letter had been picked up, but I don't think he ever did.)  Was it a break up letter?  An I-want-to-meet-later-xoxoxo-letter?  A letter of apology? A birthday wish?  I don't know.  I've always hoped it was a letter between lovers, something that both of them smile about when they think of it.  And I've always hoped that whoever it was intended for got it!  I've never looked in the watering can since then...it seems too private, even though it's in a public garden.  

I've been thinking of making a prairie labyrinth, here near my house.  Nothing complicated or fancy....certainly nothing as breathtaking as the one in Lewistown.  Perhaps just mowing the crested wheat grass in the pasture beyond my yard into a place I can pace and contemplate.  Here's a pattern that seems completely do-able:

Of course, by the time I'm finished, it will probably be less than calming and more along the lines of confusing, but still...

Would you come walk my labyrinth and have a glass of tea afterward under the pergola? I think I'll leave a watering can at the beginning point, just because it seems right.  You can tuck notes, recipes, flowers in it as surprises for the nosy soul that peeks!