Survivor VBS 2014

We just wrapped up a week of Community Vacation Bible School in Jordan. (Technically, it's only four days worth, but for some of us those four days are the culmination of several months of preparation and prayer. I should just say, "We wrapped up the 2014 VBS season" as though it was NFL or NBA or something.)

This year's theme was Wilderness Escape about the journey Moses and the Israelites took after leaving Egypt, how they had to trust God for everything. We broke into tribes of about ten kids per leader and helper, each tribe having a different color and name.  My tribe was Simeon and we were orange....as in "Orange you glad you're in Tribe Simeon?!?!" "YES!!!".  (This was the first year I was not a station person, so I was very worried I'd get a tribe of delinquent Israelites and would spend my whole time dragging them around by their precious little ears, fiercely (but lovingly, right?) whispering threats of desert torture.  I'm not going to lie, I hit my knees hard, begging God for mercy in this area.)

He WAS merciful.
I ended up with the sweetest group of big eyed, kind hearted, funny kids...
I mean, look at them!

If you think I spent all week hugging them and telling them how glad I was that they were MY tribe, you'd be right.  One little girl only came on Day One...I don't know if we scared her or if she had a family vacation or what, but we were then a tribe of nine.  I took THIS picture on the last day and we were eight, because a teeny little soul decided she was defecting to her big sister's tribe.  

I had a pair of helpers that tag teamed during the week.  We'd leave a station with one and by the time we got to the next station, it would be the other.  I seldom saw them do the hand off, so it was kind of startling to find a new helper at the end of our raggedy line.  

On the last day, we went to the Snack station first:

It was Ten Commandment Tablet cookies and water.

I don't know about the other tribes, but mine was hungry ALL THE TIME.

Including me.

On Tuesday, we had quail (Peeps) and manna (Frosted Flakes) during the Bible story time, above and beyond snack time. I think it was THE most effective lesson of the week, partly because it saved our (real) starving lives. 

Part of the reason VBS is so high energy is because of the sugar that's regularly applied throughout the morning.  

The next station was crafts, where we wrapped up a three day weaving project on cardboard looms with recycled tshirt strips. 

You'll note the brilliant example of boy-child bedhead on my little friend at the front of the picture. 

I'd look over at him throughout the morning and just grin...it didn't hurt that he was beaming right back at me with his hair waving.

On to Moses' Tent, where we had the dramatization of the day's Bible story.

Seriously.

Don't you just want to squeeze each of these precious things?

They were such good kids.

I'd look at other tribes with sincere pity, all week.

I noticed that there was some coveting of my kids, too, but it was in vain.

Team Simeon was tight.

We left Moses and eased down the hall to the missionary room which was all about water...our offerings taken daily were to help families who had no clean water to get it for a year. Only $2.50 would do that!

Each time the kids gave an offering, they got to put a blue balloon "water drop" in the tank.

They gave so much that the station leaders ran out of blue balloons on Day Three.

That's cool. 

Our last station was fun and games....literally.

Every day, we had an injury.

Sometimes it was a head to head crash, sometimes it was a sliver or cut...nothing serious, but just enough that I ended up finishing out the session with a tired little body on my lap, anxiously looking for some sign of blood. 

We never did find blood, except for the red paint of the sacrificial lamb of Passover from Moses' Tent.

After all this, we'd tromp back down the hill in the middle of the street to the Assembly of God church for the finale, which consisted of much singing, bouncing, loud memory verse recitation and so forth.

There's a core group of us that have been doing this VBS gig for about 7 or 8 years, I think. We started with no money (save our own), no solid curriculum, about 20 kids (including our own) and lots of determination fueled by prayer. 

This year, we were blessed with enough money from donations and fund raising to be able to buy necessary supplies and even some we considered "luxury" that in years past we'd make ourselves. (Luxury meaning posters that were purchased, the bandannas for each kid, etc.)  We ended up with about 45 kids solid for four days, and an enviable staff of volunteers that helped make things like snacks/games/missionary themes happen. 

Sometimes I forget that not ALL missions are overseas or inner city, you know?  The best part of this is that I will be able to keep in touch with these kids throughout the year, visit with their parents and keep track of their little lives long term.  They're going to be prayed for every week...my tribe and ALL the kids...because the folks who "produce" VBS have them in their hearts and on their minds year round.  

Tessie Lou, Brittany Supermodel

I'm horribly biased, but I think Brittanies are the prettiest, classiest dogs in the canine world.  Especially the females, with their flouncy feathered legs and perky triangle ears....not to mention the bright eyes that notice EVERYTHING.

Here's Tessie at 9 months...
Ready for a centerfold spread in Gun Dog magazine.

Here is the bird who has built a raggedy old next in one of our spruce trees and who swoops and cusses at the glamour girl for getting too close.

Fierce looking little thing, isn't he?  

I know this is the daddy bird because he did a horrible job swooping and cussing.  The mama bird returned a few minutes after I finished taking the photos and took him to task over his relaxed attitude toward property protection. 

I think she was secretly pleased that we said disparaging things about the nest because she herself had not thought it up to snuff and so was validated in her criticism. 

Crazy Cukes

This is going to seem ridiculous in its simplicity, and you'll wonder why I'm even posting such a recipe because surely I'll remember it until I die, but I wanted to share it.  Kind of like a dumb joke that you can't keep to yourself.  Or something.  

I started making this when I tried a recipe for Korean Tacos made from beef short ribs, which I always have an overabundance of and no real inspiration for using them.  The tacos were amazing (yes, I'll post that recipe later) but the cucumbers were what we couldn't keep out of!  

Paper thin slices of 1 cucumber mixed with paper thin slices of red onion, a good splash of sweet-and-tangy rice vinegar, salt and pepper to taste...shazaam!...fresh pickles you'll be hiding from your family and lying about the existence of.  And you won't even be ashamed of it.  

For those of you needing more specific measurements, let's say:

1 cup of paper thin sliced cucumber

1/2 cup of paper thin sliced red onion

1/8 cup of sweet and tangy rice vinegar

1/2 tsp salt

Four grinds of fresh ground pepper (or more to taste)

Toss in bowl and let sit for 5 minute if you can bear waiting that long. 

These are exceptionally good on roast beef sandwiches.

And if the bowl empties in 10 minutes, just add more cukes and onions to the brine...no problemo!

The Gift

There's an Ian Tyson song about Charlie Russell's gift of being able to capture the wild beauty of Montana and her inhabitants, to the extent of God telling Russell that he was in charge of painting the sunsets from heaven because "I can't paint them quite as good as you".  (It sounds irreverent, but it's not, really.)
If you click on the bright red words above, you can listen to the song and it will make more sense.

Russell and God were in fine form this week, so I'm posting some pictures of their work for you to ooh-and-aah over. (These were all taken from my deck or yard, and are unedited.  Those are the true, real colors.)  I grew up with this richness and still find it stunning, never becoming blase' about the sky here in Eastern Montana.  
By way of understanding scale, in the fourth picture you'll notice a little round ball on the bottom left side...that would be a tree on the hill to the north of our house by the county road.

This post is especially for Myron and Ada Pentz in Perth, Australia who sent me a stunning little book by a woman rancher who takes photos of the color around her in the Outback.  

Thank you for the additional inspiration! 

This is Montana...

Where you and your daughter will drive 80 miles to attend a 40 horse parade in the rain with friends  who drove 40 miles themselves to join you.

A friend who will bring two books about women ranchers in the West who write. A friend who still has your kids' clothing from a 120 mile sleepover with her four and your two kids five months ago. You'll visit as hard as you can with her while the kids "drink cocoa" in a local sandwich shop.  The decision will be made to feed them at McDonalds and the visit will continue, with french fries and stories of brandings.

 You'll then load up and drive another 78 miles, narrowly avoiding a speeding ticket, to go to a baby shower in a bar for a friend you've only actually seen in person one other time.

The other time was a seven day blind friend-date in another state with a concert and fauhncy dinners scheduled...the binding interests being (among other things) wine, Pat Green, and an Eastern Montana upbringing. A friend who understands the idea of deep roots and a restless heart.  A friend who subscribes to Bon Appetit magazine so you can both try kohlrabi salad, two states apart.   

The baby shower in the Blue Room (which is actually red) will be filled with complete strangers to you....but only for about 15 minutes because after that, connections will be made in a manner such as this: "Do you know the Greens? My Aunt Bev is a Green.  Here...Aunt Bev, this is Mary Pluhar from Cohagen.  She knows Mike and Thelma." "Now, what Pluhar are you married to?" and so forth.  You're not a stranger in Montana very long, no matter where you're from.

Now that you've driven nearly 160 miles and have made at least 5-10 new friends in the area, you decide to stay for the After Shower Festivities (which is where everything REALLY happens, as most Eastern Montanans know.).  But that gathering is to be held at the ranch where the guest of honor was raised... 

Which ALSO happens to be the ranch of your father-in-law's friend from college in the 1960's, a friendship that has lasted for nearly 50 years.  Completely random circumstance, as it happens.  

Let's say you and your daughter load up the flowers and leftover cheesecake to follow your friend to her folks' place after she and her mom pick up a pizza "just around the corner" (it's actually the OTHER direction than that they were indicating with their nods and hand gestures...tricky).   The ranch will be 30 miles from the Blue Room (yes, still red) in the bar around the OTHER corner from the pizza joint, through gorgeous Montana breaks country.  

There will have been a little drama involving cars that were borrowed and a wedding that no one really wanted to go to but had to, in the car that was borrowed and currently 70 miles to the north.  Pizza will be consumed, hair curled, drivers and replacement cars designated and dispatched.  

Which would leave a smallish party of the new mama, baby, new grandpa and the guests from Cohagen, who ended up discussing mutual acquaintances and areas....some with surprising connections. Although it's not REALLY that surprising because Montana, after all, is one big small town. 

At some point, you'll have to leave because even though this IS Montana, sleep-over baby showers are not in vogue unless it rains 3 inches and there's a gumbo road.  It will be hard, because the day has been so happy and besides, you might not see these friends for another couple years...when the baby is running and climbing trees.  

You and your daughter will take a shorter alternate route which may lead you to the highway or Ashland, depending on the accuracy of your turns. But you'll make all the right turns, pausing for cows on the road and buck deer in the velvet crossing the gravel road in front of you. 

You'll find the highway and drive north for 65 miles in a stunning summer evening, where the sun is setting like it's made for a movie, listening to your daughter name horses she'll never own.  And you'll wave at every car, thinking that one of them is the car returning to your friend's dad's ranch.  

There'll be a street dance on Main Street, so you'll turn on Ian Tyson cowboy songs in support of the festivities for the last 80 miles home, thinking over how amazing that life is to joined these people by way of a humble blog started by a lonely ranch wife in the depths of winter.  

It will smell of rain and you'll pray for a torrential downpour as you pull into your driveway and shut the rig down, gather up your books, camera, daughter and new memories...walk past the moths beating on the porch light...

Better get to bed.  Tomorrow you'll move cows.  You'll hope it's in the mud.

Antelope Tag

The antelope love my puppy.

I don't know if they think she's a strange little antelope fawn or she smells good to them, but they LOVE her.

She's the same color they are and has a fluffy white rear end that must look a lot like theirs when they are alarmed....perhaps that's it.

Last week, I was watching a movie with the kids when I noticed this group of antelope circling our yard.  They weren't trying to get in, I could tell, but they were behaving very oddly, so I went outside to see what was going on.

They were trying to play with Tessie!

Almost a game of antelope tag or something...

Here she is, wary and unsure...

They'd get as close as they could to the barb wire fence (completely unafraid of me)...

...then run in a small circle...

...and then return to try to get Tessie to join them.  See the buck's head down?  He's not alarmed at all.  That's a friendly look for them.

She feels threatened, though, and is protective of me...curled lip, ready to bark if they get closer.

And they tried on the other side of the yard with the same tactic; tease, tight circle run, return to tease.
It was fascinating and charming!

When the kids and I got home from the school field trip this Friday, the Farmer told us that he'd found twin antelope fawns in the fields by our house, so new that they were still wet.  I'm guessing that the games are finished, now, for the rest of the summer!

May Day in Montana...Cohagen Style

The Farmer and the Boss are still planting, so I was reluctantly appointed to put out salt'n'minral.  I was a sure bet to mess the job up, but they were "in a real tight spot", the job needed done on one of the only nice days we were going to have, so they took their chances.  

And I took my camera.

Here's the trough, made out of an old tire turned inside out and nailed to a loggishly heavy chunk of wood.  Salt'n'minral troughs are generally situated close to a source of water, like a well or a creek...they're easy to locate to re-fill and the cows can have a good drink after their "snack". 

These are big tractor tires that have been used to hold chopped hay for feed.  And this is the babysitter cow, who drew the short straw somehow that morning and is stuck with all the calves until their mamas wander back that afternoon.  Babysitter cows always look weary and hassled, much like daycare workers.  

This baby sitter is in denial.  She's pretending to sun herself in the pasture while the young hooligans cavort by the rocks.  It's probably Day Two for her and she's plotting how to sneak off in the morning, leaving some other stooge to watch the rascals.

Watering in the creek....

Look at her eyelashes!  And beautiful star design in the hair on her face!  

And this one has dreamy eyes and a perfect little nose!

Oh!  The World's Most Beautiful Cow was hanging out by the salt'n'minral troughs, as if she knew I was coming!  We had a little chat and she posed for another glamour shot.  If I ever do a Cow-lendar, she'll be the cover girl.  

But you probably already suspected that.

I'm fascinated by the sworls of hair that the cows rub off on barb wire! It must feel so good to get all that winter hair off, and it's funny to see a furry gate.  

Who doesn't love a windmill?!

We find pieces of the lives of the people who lived here before us, being slowly digested by the prairie...

I always wonder why they chose, say, to leave their wagon on top of the highest hill in the pasture.  Did they want to make a monument?  Is that just where it finally broke for good?  Did they think they'd be back and want to be able to find it?  A hundred ponders in a little pile of iron and rotting wood....

I noticed this about the yucca yesterday:  you can tell pastures that have been grazed, because there are no seed pods on the spiky plants....cows love them like a kid loves cotton candy!  But I was driving to Cohagen through a pasture that's been in CRP and no cows...all the pods were intact.  

The first flowers on the prairie are almost alpine.  They grow on foliage that's more carpet-like than vertical, and their blossoms are minuscule.

I swapped out the Honda side-by-side for the Kawasaki Mule (think Flintstone car) so I could clean out my flower beds in the next couple days.  On my way up our road, I came across these girls who were spoiling for a race.  (It was a sure thing on their part because the Mule tops out at maybe 8 MPH, if you floor the accelerator and are going downhill.)  I think they'd been grazing and napping all day, and were bored. Right after I took this picture, they got organized and started a lazy run parallel to the road...

You can tell they're just trying to get me all fired up for a really good run.  (See how young most of them are? Last year's fawns with a couple does.)  The lead doe is about to kick it in the next gear, though....

I was just holding the camera up and hitting the shutter when we really got going.  They're still not "all out", but won with the easy run, crossing the road just in front of the Mule and circling to a stop on the other side.  It was hardly a challenge and they seemed happy, but not ecstatic like they are when it's a really fast, close race.

Today it's raining...YES!...and that's why I'm catching up on bloggery.  As soon as the weather straightens up, we'll start branding and you'll get even MORE cow pictures, along with dubious philosophical diatribes.

Dear High School Graduating Seniors,

Yes, you....the bright, promising baby-adults who are putting on those long coveted, overpriced cardboard caps and crepe paper gowns this spring.  You're going to get lots of towels, gift cards and $20 bills, along with Hallmark greetings that wish you success, fruition of your dreams, and congratulations for a job well done.  And it won't really mean a whole lot at the moment. (Except for the $20 bills.  Those mean a lot, any time.)  One of those cards will be from my family, and I haven't decided on the $20 or towels, but I DO know what my wish for you is.

I hope you suffer a little in college and/or those first few years out on your own.  

Not big hurts or devastating setbacks or anything like that, but just enough discomfort to give you good stories to tell later in life.  

I hope you eat a lot of ramen noodles.  Nothing makes you appreciate good food like running out of food points on your card in the middle of the semester and having to rely on the 10-for-$2 specials on ramen noodles.  

I hope you get a roommate or co-worker that drives you a little nuts with their weird breathing or obsession with Luke Bryan or wet towels on your bed.  It sort of makes you look at your family in a different light.  All of a sudden, that really annoying brother or mother that you couldn't wait to get away from seems downright charming.  

I hope you get a really crummy job for a while....it might be work study, it might be your first job since you didn't go to college, but I hope it's something like shoveling beer cans for a recycling center in the summer or re-shelving scientific periodicals in the school library.  Every hour will seem like three.  And you'll spend every miserable minute planning a life that's better...and it WILL be, because this is such a motivating time in your life.  Don't ever forget it.  

I hope you live in the old dorm or the old apartment that is drafty, has odd plumbing issues and where everyone who lives there knows (and fights for) the one good spot on the sproing-y couch.  You might spend one whole night on that couch with snow shovels and a (root) beer, waiting to kill the poisoned mice that stagger out of the laundry room.  You'll have AWESOME stories, and what's more, the day you get into a newer, nicer apartment will be the day you hug a refrigerator and gloat at the richness of the joint.  

I hope you're lonely once in a while.  Not the despairing "no one likes me and I want to die" lonely, but the "Gosh, it's just me and...well,...myself.  NOW what?!" kind of lonely.  It will give you time to think of a new way to prepare ramen noodles (with or without store brand ketchup) and to call home without having to act all cool and grown up.  Or take a shower to wash the stale beer smell off from your miserable (but temporary) job.  Or reset the mousetraps.  

And I hope in twenty years or so, you'll be telling whipper-snapper high school graduates that they need to suffer a little to have great stories like yours, that they'll learn more about accomplishment in adult life by having a little discomfort right at the get-go.  

Congratulations!  You rock!  

Sincerely, 

The Farmer's Wife