We go for a big walk...

Before you see the photos from the walk, you MUST watch this little clip from Looney Tunes.  Then and only then will you have an idea of what Twilla and Tessie are like when they're together...

Chester and Spike

"Let's go find a bird, Twill! You wanna find a bird, Twill? We could find a bird, Twill!"

(This is moments after the "Aaaaahhhh, shuddup..."  You'll notice the contrite ears on Tessie...)

Somehow, she got behind and is hurrying as fast as her little legs can carry her to hassle Spike again.  I mean, Twilla.

"Want to run in the grass, Twill? We could run in the grass, Twill! You'd like to run in the grass, Twill!"

Finally...worn down by all that exuberance....they go for a run in the grass, to Tessie's absolute complete delight! I love the ears.

Occasionally, she pulls a really elegant, poised look, an a-l-m-o-s-t point...
Isn't she pretty?!

A-a-a-a-a-n-d then we break to this.
In fact, almost 1 out of 10 pictures of Tessie has this "action shot" sort of feel.

This is a rare, special moment where no one is getting chewed on, scratched, barked/meowed at, etc.  It won't last long.  You can see it in her eyes.

Finally, when she can take it no more, she collapses into a snoring puppy pile in Maggie's lap!

That's the puppy report for this week!

Book Report!

Okay, so it's not REALLY a book report, because I'm still reading it and no one assigned it.  (Although, if someone had told me 20 years ago that I'd be reading this sort of book voluntarily, I'd have laughed!)

Our book club is doing cookbooks this year as a genre.
I KNOW....how odd is that?
We've been in the book club business for 14 years, now, if you can imagine, and some years are trickier than others.  We nearly folded this year because there was rumbling about how no one had time to finish the book before the next month, no one had time to meet once a month, etc.  But because everyone in our group loves to eat and are wonderful cooks, we decided to do cookbooks so there's no plot to follow and they're useful long after the meeting.

I was looking for something interesting, even though my turn isn't until February, and stumbled across....

It's not a cookbook, but it has a couple recipes in the back.  It's basically just about how Thomas Jefferson went to France after the American Revolution and before the French Revolution to drum up money for the new United States (since France was a key ally in helping us gain our independence from Britain), and dug around through the French culture to see what was useful to bring back to America.  

The book talks about the culture of the colonies at the time (austere and proud of it), the culture of France at the time (excessive and not ashamed of it), slavery (illegal in France), cuisine (see descriptions of the cultures), fashion (see descriptions of the cultures), personalities of the Founding Fathers (Ben Franklin was fond of kissing everyone in France, John Adams not so much) and so forth.  I can only read a little at a time because I don't HAVE time to sit down and read right through.  It's a little dry...no John Grisham here, folks...but since I just finished a novel about Marie Antoinette, it ties together rather nicely and I'm already there in my head, setting-wise.

(Every time I read it, I think of my friend Sara Hagedorn Calvert...)

Now then...

Any ideas for cookbooks?  Leave them in the comments!  So far, we've done a self-published Montana Silversmiths cookbook, Gooseberry Patch, and a Southern Living "Off the Eaten Path".  I was thinking of maybe doing a cocktail party in February, a la Breakfast at Tiffany's, which would mean canapes and cock/mocktails...what do you think?  

Tessie Lou

 

She's VERY busy.

First morning, she had a lovely point...on the pink flamingos in the yard.  Today, she gave them a good talking to, when they wouldn't play with her.

Alice-the-Cat has reservations about puppies.

And with good reason!
The funny thing about Alice is that she doesn't use claws, just sound effects and a good strong right hookless hook.  Tessie didn't use her teeth, just licked her.
Today, they're pretty good pals.
Jack Sparrow-cat. now, makes a big honkin' scene and acts as though he's facing the Big Bad Wolf, which makes chasing him very fun.

Very busy, very important puppy coming through...

This is how she looks when I'm unloading the dishwasher or stirring something on the stove.  She's always about a foot away from me.  Even now, as I type, she's snoozing on the floor under my chair.  Maggie looked over and smiled and said, "Just like Molly..."
It's bittersweet.

Gotta be a bird around here, SOMEWHERE!

Maggie and Tessie are really good friends!  Mags has been so good about playing with her and walking her around the yard...and snuggling her on the couch.  That's a pretty tough job, but someone has to do it...

Twilla and Tessie.
It's not going smashingly, but it's not going awfully, either.
As long as Tessie doesn't try to get in her face or on her couch, Twilla is cool.  She growls, but has only snapped once.  Tessie can't understand; doesn't EVERYONE want to be her friend?!?

You see a theme going, here.
Maggie really thought it was important that Miss Tessie wore the team colors and had a team bowl.  It's appropriate and poignant since THIS is the year that THE RED SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!

It's so wonderful to have a Brittie-ful house, again...

Halloweeny Stuff

Here are my little hobgoblins!

Maggie THOUGHT she was a leopard, but after watching a big cat show on the Discovery Channel, she discovered that she was a jaguar. Either way, she was fast and elegant, even with her pink Bogg boots. The best part of the costume, she informed me, was the detachable tail.  

Angus, now, was some Star Wars guy called General Grievous.  That's about all I know about his costume. He and his buddy Ben are SERIOUSLY into Star Wars: The Clone Wars, so that's where he got the idea.  Everyone asked him what he was dressed up as.  He very patiently told them and explained it, but by the end of the evening, I think he was kind of wishing he'd gone as a pirate or something just as transparently identifiable....

And here are the pumpkins they painted at school!  Maggie did the cat pumpkin and Angus did the....
Okay, YOU get to guess what it is, because I got it completely wrong.

Angus's pumpkin is:
A. A cow
B. The moon
C. Dalmation dog
D. Ghost

We went trick-or-treating around Cohagen and it was so much fun!  There's only three families who trick-or-treat in Cohagen; the rest go to Miles City or Jordan, which makes total sense because the folks don't have to drive 60 miles to hit 10 houses.  But we really like seeing the neighbors and I dearly love Helen Green's popcorn balls.

The answer to the pumpkin quiz is (B), by the way.  I thought it was an adorable cow pumpkin and told him so, which rather insulted the little artist because it's OBVIOUSLY a moon...any fool can see that!

The Not-So-Great Pumpkin

My friend Susie K. hates mums.  Apparently, in New England, the minute the calendar says "First Day of Fall", buckets and pots of mums cover every porch, table and mailbox in Massachusetts.

It's not charming, it's monotonous.

I feel the same way about the crazy autumn pumpkin mania that sweeps the entire nation.

Starbucks has a pumpkin spice latte, IHOP has pumpkin pancakes, Italian restaurants have pumpkin gnocchi, risotto, spaghetti.  All the recipes on the internet and in magazines are for pumpkin-themed foods.  The seasonal candles are pumpkin spice.  

And there are so many other cozy fall flavors that could be celebrated!  

Maple.

Apple.

Rum.

Butterscotch.

Toffee.

It's not just the barrage of pumpkin products that drives me a little crazy, but also the insistence that I embrace it.  

Example:

(Coffee shop)

(NOT the one in Jordan)

"Hi! I'd like a short triple breve' with caramel flavoring, please."

"Sure.  We have Pumpkin-palooza, too..."

"REALLY? (little sarcastically said, maybe) I think I'll stick with the caramel, thanks."

"Do you want to try Pumpkin-palooza WITH the caramel?"

"No...I really just want the caramel.  No pumpkin anything in my coffee."

(And here's where the tone turns frantically insistant...)

"But Pumpkin-palooza is only here for a LIMITED TIME!!"

Thanks be to God.

Shipping 2013

The neighbors show up bright and early with their trailers and wheelers.

We reward them with coffee, rolls and breakfast burritos or sandwiches; I think guys that have had a little something warm to eat and good conversation to start the day out are happier and friendlier to work with. 

First bunch is in and ready to sort.  We sort the calves off of the cows, then sort the heifers from the steers.  The steers are the only ones who get to go for a ride on the trucks.  The heifers are weaned in our corrals, then wintered here on the ranch.

So, SO cold and frosty the morning we shipped! This plow is gorgeous in the frost, though...I always stop and admire the curves and angles of this particular one.

We have a bunch of pairs that we sort at a different set of corrals, then haul to the main place to be weighed and loaded on the trucks.  It was bright and sunny, there...same morning!  I don't have time to take pictures of the actual sorting and loading process because I'm part of it, but afterward, I took a couple pictures of the mama cows looking quite concerned that their babies were no where to be found.  (This is Daisy's bunch.)

I love how the old barn and corrals look in pictures with the cows, but to actually use them is sort of a pain.  The guys have been replacing gates and pens gradually, so that has taken some of the sport out of the whole thing...in a GOOD way!

Confession: Maggie stayed home from school for the morning so she could be part of shipping.  She ate about three cinnamon rolls, drank as many cups of cocoa, chatted with the neighbors and truck drivers, helped sort cows down at Jacobson's, froze her toes, then went back to school for the afternoon.

Here are some of the steer calves, yelling for "M-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-h!".  Aren't they stunningly full and even?  653 pounds was the final pay weight.  Every year, they seem to shrink before my eyes the week before shipping until I wake up on shipping morning just hoping beyond hope that they'll break 600 pounds.  Every year, though, they somehow manage to fill back out just in time for shipping day!

Another group of mamas...you can just FEEL how cold it is by looking at the color of the sky, can't you?

The Boss...
I think he must have had a Valium cocktail for breakfast because he was pretty cool on shipping day! Either that or he was like me, up at 4 a.m., and was so tired he couldn't work up the energy to be frantic....

Neighbors who are telling great, gossipy stories...I just KNOW it...but the minute I get close, they get all proper and discuss the weather.  Some year, I'm going to do a "Mic'd Up on Shipping Day" with Dennis Green and that will be some serious entertainment, folks.

Trucks, on time for once, ready to be loaded with prime beef...

Zee Local Brand Inspector and Scale Guy, running a bunch to the portable scale to weigh.

Here's the scale that we rent for the morning.  A guy brings it out from Miles City, backs it up to the loading dock and we weigh the calves.  The benefit of having the scale right here on shipping day is that the calves won't "shrink" (lose water and manure weight due to stress) by being hauled 10 miles to the next nearest scale.  3-5 pounds of shrink can make a big difference some years!

See?  It's certified by the great State of Montana to be all legal and everything!

She doesn't trust paparazzi...

This picture is crazy and typical to me, all at once.  We live in a black and white world almost all winter, with little patches of accidental color to feed our eyes and souls.  Even this tiny piece of blue sky feels like a treat on such a grey day...

Frost on my mother-in-law's tree...

Frost on the barb wire....

After lunch, when everyone else went home, the Boss, the Farmer and I worked our tails off setting things up, tearing things down, fixing fence and fighting stubborn cows who insisted on breaking through gates and fences to get back to their calves.  

It's always such a good feeling, though, to have the steers on their way and be buttoning up the fall!

A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

*ahem*
(Patricia Hunter, look away...this may be too painful for you.)

THE RED SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES AT HOME IN FENWAY PARK LAST NIGHT!!!
Fenway is 101 years old this year, and the last time the Red Sox won a World Series there was in 1918.

And I wanted to party like it was 1918 last night, but we had shipped calves and fought cows all day, so it was all I could do to stay awake for the end of the game....
But I DID, and sat on my sad little couch and cried tears of joy and exhaustion when Uehara threw that final strike.

I agree with my friend Emily (Patricia's daughter who sadly inherited the Yankee gene) that sports can be a distraction from the hard things in life, that we watch sports to be able to "get away" from the issues in our lives, in the world, that are too big for us.  I know I do.  This fall, my family has very graciously and generously gifted me the television for the World Series.  Apparently, they figured it was easier to join me than fight the passion.

And speaking of the passion for the Red Sox...
(Did I mention that they WON THE WORLD SERIES?!?!?)

There's a Dropkick Murphy's song about the Red Sox and Fenway, called "Tessie".  It's one of Angus's favorite songs, mostly because it sounds a lot like shouting and if you sing it in the car with the windows rolled down, you won't get in trouble for making lots of noise and being unruly.  That's the point of the song, really.

We are getting our own Tessie this Sunday.
It's really fortuitous, since THE RED SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES LAST NIGHT AT HOME IN FENWAY PARK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 95 YEARS!

Here she is:

She already has a Boston Red Sox collar and food dish and everything.  

That little white spot on her head looks sort of like a heart, but we suspect it may actually be a baseball diamond.  

Either way, we can't wait!

It's a good year to be a Red Sox fan.

Because, you know...

THEY'RE THE WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS!!!

(Incidentally, I'm wearing my tiara for a week in celebration of this momentous occasion! Everyone thinks I'm nuts anyway, but what no one realizes is that it was gifted to me from a St. Louis Cardinals fan.  That's right.  The team that the Red Sox beat four times out of six to WIN THE WORLD SERIES!!!)

(Not that it's a big deal or anything...)

And if you're interested in hearing the "Tessie" song, go HERE.

You've heard the saying, "Big fish in a small pond"?

Garfield County is a small, small...SMALL...pond.  

And the "fish" here aren't big, but they have no boundaries. 

They're pretty nice, for the most part, you know?  They're not malicious or devious.  They just don't see anything wrong with asking you what you're doing in town on a Sunday afternoon without children, why you're buying cumin for goodness sake, and who was that with you last week when you stopped in the store all dressed up on a Wednesday.  And they don't hint around.  They'll just come right out and ask!  Nothin' subtle about finding out your business, now...don't skirt the issue.  Inquiring minds want to know.  

Yesterday afternoon, I ran to Jordan to get some groceries.  Thought I might slide in under the radar, with church crowds gone and hunters not knowing who I am (or caring).  

Right.

At least four people asked me what I was doing in town, and three of them wanted to know where the kids were.  One person went so far as to ask why I didn't come in to the bar, ever, and tear it up on Saturday nights....AFTER getting the goods on my Sunday outing.  

And I listened to two or three other people stating their business after being asked directly.  (There's always that moment of panic and you can see it on the face of the person who has to "reveal all"...what if this isn't a valid reason for being in the grocery store at 2:30 p.m?!?)

I've got to tell you...

It really brings out the worst in me.  

I find myself wanting to make up something outrageous to tell them....something horrific, that would cause their jaws to drop, an involuntary step back in shock.  

You know.  

Something like:

"Oh, I'm just getting a few things for the ritual wiccan blood offering ceremony tonight at Cohagen.  Full moon and all..."

or

"Off to my first PETA meeting in Missoula!"

or

"I'd love to stay and chat, but my pole dancing class starts in a few minutes and I have to get changed into something more comfortable...."

Isn't that terrible?!

You'd think I'd be used to it, having grown up here, but it still sort of bothers me.  I don't have anything to hide and I'm NEVER doing anything spectacular or sinister (darn it!), but at the same time, it's just...nosy.

NOW, if I want to tell the world here on the Chronicles, that's quite another thing!

:)

Stayed tuned for the next post on how I REALLY feel about pumpkin everything in the fall...

October...

...is hunting season, and the Farmer's BFF has returned Buck Fever to our house.  Here's a picture of  A.C. with his first antelope, EVER, and the two brilliant guides he managed to "hire".  

We're teasing him a little about the hamburger load in his gun...

Maggie was thrilled to be included and is all about eating antelope heart.  Her camera now has pictures of gut piles which she shows to anyone who will look.  

We're so proud....

And actually, this is REALLY a good buck.

(Even before it was photoshopped...)

We've been watching the Red Sox make their run to the World Series, and due to the lucky shirts and crossed fingers, they're IN!!!  YES!  A-a-a-a-n-d there goes a week of evenings, starting tomorrow, while they play the St. Louis Cardinals.  First couple games at Fenway, folks...tune in to see greatness and the Green Monster!

When our kids go on field trips, it's literal.  We haul them out to a field, throw them together with all the other country schools and let them dig in the dirt for dinosaurs. 

(Maggie and Angus are on the far left.)

Other parts of the country have trees for fall color...we just have great sunsets and bored cows.  I don't know this one, personally, but she's grown fond of grazing near our yard in the evenings.  When I went out to try to take a picture of the golden hills, she assumed the "gorgeous cow" pose and worked it.

There you go...
A condensed version of a small life in a big pasture.

(It's the best I could do, Steve Brock!)

Tuck in to this...

"Tucking" is one of my favorite words.  

It's cozy, isn't it? 

 

This morning I was having coffee and digging through Psalms, looking for a word in the Word, when I found a note from a friend that I had tucked between the pages of my red Emmaus Bible.  It wasn't anything profound or sentimental, really; just a little jot on a piece of spiral bound paper that said she was glad we got to see each other that day and that I'm loved.  I have a habit of sticking letters and lists in books, then finding them much later. It's a sweet surprise when I find them...like getting the letter again!  

Tucking is good. 

It's delightful to me to read a recipe that tells the cook to tuck an ingredient into another part of the food. You just KNOW it's going to be a happy outcome when a Reeses peanut butter cup is folded into a cookie.  Or meat and potatoes are encased in pastie dough.

Tucking is good. 

And THEN, you get to tuck into the meal!

With a napkin tucked under your chin...

Tucking is very good. 

When you're sewing, you take a little tuck to make things fit better.  It's amazing how a garment can go from being baggish to fine with just a few stitches. (I think this is where the phrase "nip and tuck" came from, but I don't know for sure.)

Tucking is good.

Moms are all about tucking.

There's "Tuck in your shirt; you look like a hobo, for goodness sake!" 

And "Did you tuck the sheets in, when you made the bed, or just throw the blanket up?"

Or "I'll be in, in a minute, to tuck you in and you'd better have brushed your teeth, child..."

Which brings us to the very best tuck...

There is absolutely nothing better in this old world than being tucked into bed.  

Stop for a minute and think of how that feels...

I'm sure there are some of my readers who haven't been tucked into bed since they were itty-bitty, and for that I'm sad because I come from a long line of great tucker-inners, Even now, even as old and grown up as I am, with kids of my own, I get tucked in once in a while. 

To have someone sit on the edge of the bed and pull the covers up under your chin, brush your hair back from your forehead so they can kiss you in blessing, tell you good night and sweet dreams....

I think God tucks His children in, in Heaven.

Tucking is so, so good...

September Shots

Bokah!  That funny light that's so hard to capture...

Clothespins in the rain at Jaspers.

On my way home from Bigfork last week, there was an amazing fog rolling off Swan Lake.  I forgot I had the camera set to black and white, but as it turns out, it would have looked much the same in color.  It looks like the lake is sighing...

I forgot I planted these funny sunflowers! Gardener's amnesia often results in delightful surprises...

Rose hips on my Jodi-rose bush...
The blooms are shockingly bright pink, but the hips are this gentle autumn color that makes me swoon.

Yellow grape tomatoes...see the little blossom fingers curling back from the fruit?  They're about to let go, so I need to hustle up and harvest!

Tomatoes are just as pretty to look at as they are delicious to eat...this is an un-edited photo; you can't make that red color up.

Eastern Montana in September...

Even the thistles are sort of attractive in their own way, aren't they?

Monday Sundries

The bad news:

• Maggie's only little cow, Poppy, that she raised as a bum and poured her heart into tested UNbred today and will be shipped...*gulp* and lots of tears.
• My crockpot beef stroganoff is rahther....juicy.  Paula Deen swears on her dear old southern-fried heart that it will thicken, but I don't have two days and I'm out of cream-of-whatchacallits to add to it.
• No less than 30 flies have been killed since we got home; I'm starting to think that for every fly I manage to kill, three pop up out of the carcass. (Do dead flies have carcasses?  If not, then what?)
• I'm out of wine. 
• I don't get the word study homework the kids are bringing home!  FIRST GRADE word study has me flummoxed. Whatever happened to good old spelling books, that's what I want to know???  
• My fantasy football teams are pathetic because....get this....
• San Francisco all of a sudden forgot they were the best team in the NFL and are playing like Montana Class D kids. (The worst part of that is that there IS no Class D in Montana.)
• I'm out of wine.

The good news:

• My heifer, Rosie, (Daisy's second calf) IS bred so the OC herd grew exponentially today. (Which is easy, when there are only two or three cows in the herd.)
• I remembered to put food in the crockpot and I'm pretty sure I can flesh out the beef stroganoff with fat noodles.  Or not.  But, hey...it's cooked and smells like beef!
• DID YOU SEE THAT I KILLED 30 FLIES?!?!  Maggie told me that they must be some seriously stupid flies, because I'm not known for my eye-hand coordination.  Whatever.  They're dead and I did it!!!
• Found a beer-garita in the bottom of the fridge.  It was that or Marsala cooking wine.  SCORE!
• Homework is finished.  And so is the laundry, because...
• When I can't stand to watch my team(s) lose, I do other things rather angrily. It was a busy afternoon yesterday.
• TTU Red Raiders are 4-0 and the polls grudgingly put them up in the top 25...with two walk on freshman quarterbacks, mind you.  Guns up!
• I get the first shower! 

And so goes our Monday...