Country Scents

Son-of-a-Heatgun!

2011-10-24T18:23:00.000-07:00

I bought a small shrink wrap machine set-up for a friend of ours who is starting out a Hand Made Soap business. She will pick it up in a couple of days but... well, you know Lucy...I had to try it out. Actually I've been looking at everything that doesn't move and wondering how it would look shrink-wrapped.The problem is it is a small set up and will only work on things 5 inches wide or less which means most of the household objects are safe for the time being.

Anyway to make a long story even longer, the friend I bought the set-up for gave us a couple bars of soap as a thank you gift for helping her out, so I decided to shrink wrap them. After all, if you are going to do a test run on something then doing it on the actual item makes sense.

I don't know if you've ever used shrink wrap equipment, so I'll give you a quick review . First you put the object you want to shrink wrap in a special plastic bag then you put it on a machine with a heat tape to seal the bag. Once you have done that then you then use a hot air gun to shrink the plastic bag firmly around the object.

Now, here's the thing (and this is kind of important) They call them heat guns for a reason. They get hot. Really really hot. Hot enough in fact, to peel paint off a wall or varnish off furniture. As a further point of fact, if a heat gun is aimed at anything longer than about 3 seconds the result can be a spontaneous combustible flaming inferno. As in POOF instant fire. Don't ask me how I figured that out, but suffice it to say I firmly believe that those kitchen sink sprayer attachments really should come with a longer hose...what were the manufacturers thinking by making them so short that they only spray the sink and immediate area?

But I digress, I should have begun this tale by explaining first about the sealer. You see, a shrink-wrap sealer is a unique thing that looks like a gigantic stapler. It even sort of works like a stapler. You lay the plastic bag with the object in it on the heat tape then depress the lever ..not rocket science. It is actually quite simple and straight forward. One only has to look at the equipment to understand it's simplicity.

Ahhh, yes. So here is what happened:

I plugged the incredible heat sealer in and then, seeing the heat regulating dial went from 1 to 6, I wisely chose the #2 heat setting which seemed to be a good starting point for the test. Believing I had made a sound judgement call, I sat back and waited. Nothing happened. The heat tape did not get hot. It didn't even get warm. I know this because I kept testing it with my fingers. Before long, I moved the dial to the #4 setting. Still nothing happened. Again, I know this because I used the old-fashioned lick the finger and see if it sizzles it on the heat tape routine. If it sizzles, the tape is hot, if it doesn't then the tape is still cold. When my finger didn't sizzle so I deduced the heat tape was still cold, so I moved the dial to #6 and went though the routine again. Still nothing.

Saddened that I had bought a faulty shrink wrap set up for my friend I decided to take immediate action. I found the phone number of the crook that sold the equipment to me and gave him a call. I haughtily told him I was not happy because he sold me a bad machine. A really really bad machine because it didn't get hot.

He patiently asked how long I had it plugged in and I told him it was about 10 or so minutes which, in my opinion, was plenty long for the contraption to heat up. He remained calm and apologized saying that he sold the machine to me "Brand New" as described. He added that he hadn't tested it, but he had never had problems in the past with them. He added that he would happily refund my money if I returned the machine.

As we were about to end the conversation he asked if I still had it plugged in. I said I did. He said "So let me go over this again...you are telling me that when you put the plastic in the sealer and depress the lever nothing happens?" I sighed and said "Look mister, I didn't even get that far because the tape never did get hot." There was silence on the other end of the connection for a couple of beats then he said "Did you read the instructions?" I said "No but that is irrelevant because the heat tape never did get hot."

He said "Ok, well one of two things...either I can tell you what you are doing wrong or you can read the instructions." I said " Fine, why don't you tell me what magic will make it this defunct machine work?" I can't be certain, but I thought I could sense him smiling and that really upset me Fortunately for him, I held my temper and listened while he said "If you read the instructions you will find the machine has a safety feature. The tape only, I repeat only, heats up when you put the plastic in and depress the lever, otherwise it remains cold."

There was silence on the phone again for a couple of beats, but this time it was me being silent... then quietly I said "So you are telling me that when the lever is up the tape does not heat up and that it is only when it is depressed onto the plastic it does?" I sensed another grin from him as he said "You got it" "Excuse me" I said Could you please hold on a minute ?"

Setting the phone down, I put a piece of plastic in the sealer machine and depressed the lever and son-of-heatgun it worked." There was nothing left for me to do except apologize profusely and disconnect. So I did.

Having successfully sealed the bar of soap in the bag, I next used the heat gun portion of the set up to shrink the plastic around it. This brings me back to the portion of this tale where I began . Really I'm serious about this; manufacturers should defiantly put longer hoses on kitchen sink sprayers. You know...just in case a person wanted to put out small fire or something.

The Case of the Thwarted Prowler

2010-10-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

Our entire ranch is encompassed by a six foot high livestock fence. Most of that fence has 2 strands of electric wire running along it. At night the gates are closed and locked, and we have a motion sensor alarms that let us know when a vehicle comes up our drive and when something is moving around on our property. We also have 2 dogs that patrol the area Well, ok maybe we can't really count on the dogs for security because they mostly wander about looking for small rodents or grasshoppers to chase.

Still, it would be pretty difficult for someone or something to prowl around unnoticed. Amazingly however, last night as my husband, Bruce, and I settled in for the evening our front motion sensor alarm sounded indicating someone or something had come up the driveway.

Since it was nearly 10pm we were startled and a bit concerned. I got up from the couch and looked out the window toward the driveway. If a vehicle had approached it would have been forced to stop at the gate that crosses the driveway about 40 feet from the house.

It was dark and I couldn't tell if there was a vehicle there or not, but there were no headlights shinning up toward the house . While Bruce slipped on his shoes I flicked on the porch light which did nothing to illuminate the drive way.

I grabbed a flashlight and shone it down toward the gate. I still saw nothing, nor could I detect any movement inside the gate.

Now that Bruce had his shoes on , he walked a few steps out the door and shone a large hand-held battery operated flood light down toward the gate.
"I don't see anything" he reported as he swept the front area with the light.

"It must have been the neighbors cat" he suggested, knowing full well that she locks her cat in the house at night. He does things like that so that I won't stress about things prowling around in the dark at night. I may be a farm girl, but I still worry when unidentified things go "bump" in the night.

We settled back down and watched t.v. for about half an hour, and I was just beginning to relax when the same motion alarm once again annoyingly indicated someone or something was in the driveway area.

I had the flashlight handy and my shoes on so I was the first to jump up, flick on the porch light and bolt out the door. I was determined to catch whatever or whoever was skulking about. Bruce followed with the larger brighter light. Nothing.

Our driveway makes a complete loop around the house, and allows vehicle access to the barns, coops and pens. We went into stealth mode and walked some distance together before we decided to split up. The plan was for each of us to loop in the opposite direction . I opted to take the right side of the drive (which by mere coincidence just happens to be the most open and well lit side) and told Bruce to take the left (which by contrast is the darkest and most obscured side.

Bruce walked slowly shining his light back and forth in a slow but steady sweeping motion. I walked more rapidly and mostly shone the light behind me to be sure nothing was creeping up on me.

We eventually met face to face on the back side of the loop. Neither of us had seen anything. As we waked back toward the house we heard the motion sensor sound again. Bruce ran toward the front where the sensor is located and I followed quickly, while managing to keep a safe distance behind.

When we reached the front area neither of us saw anything. "Ok that's it" Bruce said "The sensor is obviously malfunctioning...I'm going in." As he turned and walked toward the front door I started to follow, but instead lingered behind just a little. I may be a coward of sorts, but I have never let one mystery go unsolved in my life.

As Bruce closed the door behind him, I squatted down behind a shrub which offered good cover, but also allowed me to see the sensor. When something trips the sensor it sounds an alarm inside the house, but it also has a small red light on it that blinks to let us know it's working.

I waited nervously wondering if whatever was out there would come from the direction directly in front of me or from my left. Of course there was also the possibility it could scamper across the lawn toward my right or it could even approach from behind me.

I didn't have long to wait. After about 10 minutes the small red light blinked on the sensor and I knew I had the intruder. I quickly flicked on my flash light and shown it toward the sensor, then back toward the gate, then toward the house, then slowly, every so slowly I turned around and shone it behind me....nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Chuckling, I decided that Bruce was right the sensor was obviously malfunctioning. Either that or it was so high tech that it was picking up ghosts. It could be shut off from inside the house of course, but I decided it might be best to deactivate it outside, right then and there.

I bent down and shown my light directly onto the face of the sensor and to my surprise, there in full illumination stood our prowler. A tiny garden variety spider had decided to weave her web on the sensors case. Each time she spun her sparking threads of silver webbing across the sensors lens she inadvertently activated it.

I can't help but wonder if it was the blinking red light that was the deal breaker for her decision as to where to spin her web. As I looked closely I saw the web crossed the lens multiple times.

Isn't nature amazing!

Tatt's All Folks!

2010-08-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

My husband, Bruce, and I were invited to a friends house for a barbecue this past weekend. It was a small informal get together, but still I wanted to look my best, so I slipped into a nice pair of jeans and a T-shirt. To complement my sporting outfit I chose one of my favorite pairs of earrings.

Although my ears were pierced more than 20 years ago, I've always had problems with my left ear. The cosmetologist who did the work must have been having a bad day because the back side of the hole in that ear doesn't match with the front side. Putting an earring in it is next to impossible. I always end up in a rather unique contorted wrestling match with myself. In the end, without fail, I always have to ask Bruce for help.

Bruce doesn't mind helping, but he's always afraid he will hurt me, so the procedure takes longer than it should and wears on both of us. My ear was particularly resistant that day, so after struggling with me and the earring for about 20 minutes, Bruce decided we should maybe try to reopen and align the hole with a darning needle.

Bruce was about to start his armchair surgery, when a couple of friends that we had made arrangements to go the barbecue with arrived. Seeing my dilemma they did what any good friends would do...they joined Bruce and alternately took turns poking, prodding, pulling and pushing a very large needle though my ear.

In the end, we managed to open the hole and insert the earring, but I arrived at the party with a very large, unsightly, red and swollen left earlobe .

After we had eaten Diane, one of our friends, abruptly stood, grabbed my arm and announced that she and I were leaving for a little while in my vehicle because we "had an errand to run." I didn't know where we were headed until she directed me to pull into the parking lot of one of our local "Bottle Shops" that sold beer, wine and liqueur.

I couldn't imagine why we were there since neither of us drink . When I asked what we were up to she grinned and said "Get out..you'll see"

As soon as my feet hit the ground she grasped my upper arm firmly and said "Come on, we're going up there" I followed her hand gesture toward a fairly steep set of stairs that led above the Bottle Shop to one of our many local Tattoo parlors.

Now, state of California pays ex-felons for their rehabilitation when they are released from prison. I honestly can't say how many vocational choices they are given, but from the number of shops in the area I'm guessing maybe there are only two. Harley motorcycle repair shops and Tattoo Shops.

Interestingly enough you can always tell the shop owners and employees by the way they dress. The Harley shop owners and employees regardless of the season always dress in black leathers and have an obsessive fondness for silver. Silver earrings, silver chains, silver belt buckles, silver everything. They glisten in the warm California sun.

Tattoo parlor owners and employees dress in as few articles of clothing as possible and have an obsessive fondness for displaying their wearable artwork. They are covered from head to toe in brilliant graphics. They too glisten in the warm California sun as it reflects off their numerous body piercings.

When I questioned Diane's motives she smiled coyly and said "Come on..you'll see." Although I was slightly apprehensive I concluded that she wanted to get tiny tattoo on her left ankle to match the one on her right. Diane is impulsive but at the same time very conservative.

As I followed her up the stairs we passed a multitude of young people leaving the shop. As they passed they each in turn showed us their new works of art. One girl stuck out her tongue and said something like " oook I jus gop ma tun possed " I smiled and said "Ahh, very nice. Congratulations!" I wondered why anyone would want to do such a thing. I'm not judgmental, just a coward. It looked like it hurt.

As Diane opened the door to the Tattoo parlor we were nearly knocked down by the ear shattering rap music that engulfed us along with a billowing cloud of incense. I gave her a look that I hope implied "Girl are you out of your mind?" I concluded she was when she slipped behind me and shoved me though the door.

From somewhere behind a beaded curtain a deep baritone voice bellowed "Park your butts Dudes I'm inkin' " Diane plopped comfortably into one of the two vacant chairs that somewhat resembled barber chairs and motioned for me to take the other, "Aww come on" she pleaded "lighten up, relax this is all good." It didn't feel or look good to me, but I slipped onto the edge of the chair.

In a couple of minutes a burly bald man whom I guessed to be 8 feet 94 inches tall tossed back the beaded curtain spread his arms and said "'Sup Dudes ? Look at you!" I assume he was surprised to see two over the hill ladies sitting in his victims chairs. "Aaaah right" he continued "who am I inkin' first?"

To my absolute horror Diane leaped from her chair and shoved me all the way back info mine and said "We are going to re-pierce her ears!" The chair must have had suction cups attached to it because before I could pull my self up and out of it, the moving art show pressed one of his big hands gently but firmly just below my throat and looked at first one ear and the other. My heart raced in terror.

I must have passed out from fright at that point, because the next thing I remember Diane was leading me back down the steep stairs. I had a serious headache and both of my ears felt like someone had taken a blowtorch to them. The throbbing pain caused tears to truckle down my cheeks.

As we drove out of the parking lot I glanced longingly back at the "Bottle Shop." I secretly wished I could imbibe just a little . Diane is a good friend, and neither of us drink, but at that very moment I considered dumping a friend and taking up drinking as a new hobby.

Mrs. Magoo and the Friendly Fawn

2010-08-18T08:06:00.000-07:00

The cartoon character Mr. Magoo has been around since long before I was old enough to see him on the big screen in movie theaters. While most people find him amusing and endearing, I've always had somewhat of a standoffish attitude toward him. Even as a young child I always thought that no one could be so crotchety or so nearsighted that he'd get himself into the outrageous fixes that Quincy Magoo did. Yesterday, however, I developed a rather sudden fondness for the old coot.

Here's what happened:

Early yesterday afternoon I had an appointment with a retina specialist for an evaluation of an on-going annoying problem in my left eye. I've had many eye examinations over the years, but I've never gone though such an evasive one as I did yesterday. I don't know what they used to dilate my eyes, but it had to be some powerful stuff. Within minutes everything went fuzzy.

After the doctor did a brief first glance he asked his assistant to add some different drops to my eyes. Those drops were followed up with a dye compound and another dose of drops. By the time I walked out of his office I felt like I was maneuvering in a dense fog. I seriously have never had such obscured vision.

Since the back office nurse told me the effect would quickly wear off, I made my way out the door and attempted to find my vehicle. I knew I wasn't seeing well enough to drive, but I thought I could sit awhile and listen to the radio until the blurriness cleared.

After stumbling around the parking lot for an undetermined amount of time and setting of a wild crescendo of numerous car alarms while trying to insert my key into various vehicles that I mistook for mine, I was escorted by some unknown person or persons back to the waiting room.

A disjointed female voice came out of nowhere and said "We thought you were here with a caretaker who could drive you home... who can we call for you?" Well it's true my husband, Bruce, was with me at the onset of my appointment. He had taken an extended lunch hour to sit in on my exam however he had to leave and return to work long before the intense exam was finished. No one told me they were going to send me out into the world completely blind, otherwise he would have made other arrangements and stayed with me.

I had them call a friend who, by the way, is still giggling over the ruckus I caused in the parking lot while trying to find my vehicle.

Once I was safely deposited in the confines of my home I wandered around aimlessly trying to find something to entertain myself until the effects of the drops wore off. That gave me a new appreciation for blind people. How do they do it? Since I still couldn't see more than about a foot in front of my face I decided to listen to the television.

That idea was short lived. As soon as I settled myself in front of the t.v. with a cold Pepsi, I heard a loud fracas coming from the chickens in the pen out back. I tried to ignore it, but it grew in intensity as the ducks, geese turkeys, and guinea hens joined in. I knew something was terribly wrong..but what to do?

Finally I decided that since I had made the trip out to the pens a multitude of times in the dark of night it wouldn't be that difficult or different with my current visual impairment. I was right. I followed the path out back with relative ease. The only problem was that I couldn't see what was causing the commotion with the birds.

I opened the gate to the "free range chicken park" and felt my way along the wire fencing toward the back. I heard several branches snap in the woods beyond the pen, but I couldn't see a thing. It was like trying to drive in a blinding white-out snow storm. Everything beyond a few feet was a consumed in a complete fog-like blur.

When I heard another branch snap I knew the intruder was fairly large. I surmised it was a deer snacking on the blackberries that grow wild on bushes in the forest on 2 sides of our property. Since the birds were still in an uproar I thought I should do something to scare the deer away. I bent down and felt around on the ground until I was able to find a few rocks and short twigs which I tossed toward the sound in the woods.

Satisfied that I had frightened the deer away I returned to the house via the same path. However, as I settled back down in front of the t.v. the birds once again became hysterical. Silly birds, I thought, afraid of a deer...how ridiculous is that! Unable to ignore the bedlam, which continued to grow in intensity I once again felt my way to the back of the pen.

By now the drops had begun to wear off slightly and I was able to see something brown about 15 feet beyond the boundaries of the "chicken park." Once again I grappled around for things to throw at the deer, which I now decided was a young fawn because it showed no fear of me.

When poor little thing continued to show reluctance to leave, I accompanied my projectiles with a loud "GRRRR Get out of here! Go on..Get!" The fawn stood its ground for quite sometime while I continued to yell and toss bits of rocks and twigs at it. At one point, it moved a bit closer to me so I jumped up and down and waved my arms while I shouted in an attempt to look more menacing . At last it nonchalantly turned and walked unhurriedly deeper into the woods.

Bruce came home about an hour later and I told him the chickens and other birds were driving me nuts by over reacting to a fawn in the woods behind their pen. I asked him to handle it if they started up again.

Within twenty minutes the birds once again sounded a shrill alarm and Bruce went out to take a look. We had decided that maybe the fawn was injured or abandoned since it was so reluctant to move off when I tried to intimidate it.

Within minutes Bruce breathlessly returned to the house and loudly announced "Jodi we have a problem!" As I stood and felt my way blindly toward where he stood panting I asked "What's going on? Is it injured?"

"No" he huffed "But it's a wonder YOU aren't! .... It's NOT a FAWN Magoo it's a big Black BEAR!"

In the words of Quincy Magoo..."Ohhhh Lucy Magoo, you've done it again! "

Just Like a Man !

2010-08-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

Now there are a lot of good things about living in the country. There are also a lot of things that are not so good about living in the country. One thing is the country scents ( ironically, and justly so, the title of my blog.)

Since we live in the country and our property backs up to woods on two sides we have an ongoing problem with skunks who wander onto our ranch. This time of year, the wandering of skunks is actually more like a mass pilgrimage . You see , although skunks are pretty much solitary animals, they always return to the den in which they were born to hole up for the winter. They also birth their young in these dens. It works like this... 5 or 6 skunks enter their communal den in late summer or early autumn, and in the spring 20 or 30 skunks emerge.

At some point back in the annals of time a few pilgrim skunks decided to hole up under where one of our small barns is now located. Needless to say our balmy country evenings more often than not waft noxious perfumes through our open windows.

Since this particular den of skunks has most likely been here since the time when cavemen roamed these hills you'd think that some men would learn to give them a wide berth. Perhaps I should narrow that down a bit and say that I should think one man in particular would learn to give them a wide berth. That man, of course would my husband, Bruce.

For the last week we have noticed an increase in acrid scents mixed in with the usual sweet perfumes of night blooming Jasmine and Nicotina. Now some say that women are smarter than men. I can't say for sure if that is an accurate statement or not, however once I noticed the obvious signs of our winter resident skunks were returning to their den I did my best to avoid crossing their path. The man in this house did not.

Let me give you an example as to why the saying: Women are smarter than men may have some merit.

Late Friday afternoon just as the sun was bidding us adieu I settled into our lawn swing to watch it slip behind the tall oak trees in the forest. I tried to coax Bruce to come and sit with me but being the self-appointed advocate of lawn care, he decided instead to mow the lawn. So off into the sunset he rode on his mower.

Being the perceptive person that I am, I immediately noticed that he had riled at least one skunk during his first orbit around the lawn. Amazingly, it took Bruce about three and a half laps before he finally stopped the mower and walked back toward me.

As he approached I slipped off the lawn swing and told him I was going inside...(and here is where the possible difference in intelligence comes into play.) Bruce looked around for a minute and then said "I think it must be under the dog house in the vegetable garden."

I agreed and suggested we make a fast retreat to the interior of our own house. When Bruce made no sign of moving I said "Are you coming?" When he didn't answer I knew he was going to have to satisfy his curious mind.

"Seriously, I think we need to go in now." I said as Bruce continued to use his nose and eyes to scan the area. When he turned and headed toward the vegetable garden I knew we were in for an interesting evening.

"What's your plan?" I asked with a knowing grin on my face. "I'm just going to see where it's hanging out so we can set a trap out a bit later" he replied. I grabbed my camera.

A few steps later we were both standing in the vegetable garden looking at the old abandoned dog house our ranch dog used when he was a puppy. I wisely stood about 15 feet back from it while Bruce cautiously approached. I did my best to discourage him from getting too close... really I did. Looking back at the whole thing, it's possible that maybe I didn't speak loud enough for him to hear me. But seriously did he really need me to tell him not to lift the dog house to see if a skunk was under it?

The obvious answer is yes, he apparently did need for me to shout "NO! STOP! DON'T LIFT THE DOG HOUSE UP... THERE IS A SKUNK UNDER IT!" because before I knew it (although I stood camera in hand and ready) he muttered something that sounded like "I don't think it's under here" and lifted the dog house.

Are women smarter than men? Well, at least one was on that particular evening.

Things not to say in the presence of a detective

2010-07-27T09:14:00.000-07:00

I suppose detectives by the very nature of their profession have to quickly correlate and analyze everything they see and hear. Years of training and self-discipline have taught them that things are not always what they appear to be. That's all well and good when solving a case, but it can be quite disconcerting to an innocent person who doesn't happen to have the best motor skills when it comes to controlling her mind and mouth.

My husband, Bruce, and I recently visited the office of a local attorney who specializes in estate planning. This attorney also just just happens to share office space with a private detective.

Their offices are in an old building that was formerly a gold essay office in our downtown area. When walked into the empty reception area it was like being transported back in time 100 years. The wooden floor planks creaked beneath our feet as we ventured deeper into the somewhat disheveled but completely vacant area.

Looking behind a barred counter that looked like an old bank tellers window we expected to find a receptionist/secretary. Instead we saw a massive oak roll top desk that was cluttered with file folders and long ago abandoned coffee mugs. It looked as though someone had been there as recently as 10 or so years ago, but there were no signs of recent activity.

Behind the desk stood a mammoth sized coal-black antique safe that looked like a prop out of an old western movie. It was at least 7 feet tall and 6 feet wide. Fading gold filigree lettering adorned it's double doors.

Bruce was more interested in our meeting with the attorney so while I checked out the safe, he wandered a bit down the empty corridor that was lined on both sides with a multitude of opened office doors, and called out "Hello?"

In the dead stillness that followed I said "Wow, it would take several sticks of dynamite to blow that safe! Maybe even C-4 ." (Please believe me when I say my only experience with cracking safes is what I've learned from watching t.v.)

As my words echoed down the hallway we heard a quick movement that sounded like someone abruptly siding back a chair on the wooden floor. The sound was followed by short quick steps and suddenly a small heavy set man charged up the dimly lit hallway.

Bruce extended his hand to the man and said "Hi, we are the McDonald's are you Mr. Talbert?" In response the middle-aged baling man ignored Bruce's, outstretched hand and pointed his pen toward me and gruffly said "What's your full name and who's she?"

As Bruce told him the man made hasty notes on a yellow legal sized pad. "unhuh, is that your truck out front?" He asked. When Bruce acknowledged that it was the man pushed his glasses up with one finger, moved to the window and apparently jotted down the make and license number.

"Umm," Bruce said hesitantly "We are here to see Mr. Talbert, is that you?" The man spun around looked at me and said "So what's your interest in our safe?" Before I could answer we heard the flush of a toilet from somewhere in the depths of the old building and a second man hurried down the hall toward us. Ironically the second man looked enough like the first to be his older brother.

As he approached he outstretched his hand and said "Hi you must be the McDonald's, I'm Jimmy Talbert, that paranoid man by the window is my partner Mike Ferrell , my office is down this way."

As Bruce and I followed him down the hallway, I noticed that the paranoid Mr. Ferrell was quick on our heels.

Once we were seated in Mr. Talbert's office, and because I'm apparently a bit dim witted I said "That is a very interesting safe in the reception area, I'll be it has an colorful history." Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mr. Ferrell's head give a quick jerk in my direction as he snapped to attention "I asked a minute ago what your interest was in it." he said taking in every aspect of my features.

Before I could answer Mr Talbert waved him off with the back of his hand and said "I've got this Mike, Please excuse us."

When he'd left the room Mr. Talbert explained that Mike Ferrell was a close friend and private detective sharing his office. He also informed us that the safe in the reception area was apparently of great interest to many unsavory locals who had recently attempted to crack it.

He went on to explain that in the past 7 months the office had been broken into 7 times. "Someone actually took a torch to it." he said "they scorched the floor pretty badly, it's a wonder they didn't burn the whole building down..funny thing is that there hasn't been anything in the safe in over 3 years and the real kicker is that it hasn't been locked in all that time."

He continued "Another person or, maybe the same persons drilled the tumblers out. I guess no one has actually broken in and just pulled on the handle because as I said it hasn't been locked in ages. "

Last Tuesday we came in and found the office door jimmied and the safe door standing wide open. So you can see how everyone that comes into the office falls under Mikes suspicion" He picked up his pen and continued " I'm sorry for Mikes interrogation, now what can I do for you."

We discussed our business for about an hour and when we had finished we requested copies of some of the legal papers. When Mr. Talbert took the file across the hall we saw an elephant sized antiquated copy machine just inside the doorway. As he attempted to make copies the old machine squeaked, groaned and made numerous other indescribable sounds. It jammed, whined, sputtered, coughed and shook with such violence the floor vibrated.

In a flash Mr. Ferrell was on the scene trying to assist. Meanwhile as Bruce and I waited we began to discuss the last time we visited a probate attorneys office a few years earlier. It had been to settle the estate of a recently deceased relative. The relative had been involved in a particularity difficult marriage to an incredibly controlling and manipulative wife. As Bruce and I talked I said that I thought it was the marriage that killed him and not the illness. I said something like "If I ever see her again I'd like to walk up to her and say : Well YOU are the one who killed him.!"

Now you know it's a funny thing about machines, they always do the wrong thing at the wrong time. I'd raised my voice so Bruce could hear me over the din of the copy machine, but just as the machine shut off the last part of my sentence "Well YOU are the one who killed him." echoed though the silent building.

Trust me when I say that got Mr. Ferrell's attention. I think we explained it all sufficiency, but I'm still a bit suspicious the A-1 Pool Cleaning Service truck that has been parked out in front of the house for the past 2 days. We don't have a pool, and neither to any of our neighbors.

The Discounted Camel

2010-07-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

Someone once said that the art of communication is the ability of a person to transmit a message so that the person receiving it could replicate it in his or her mind. It was also said that it is the responsibility of the receiver to be sure that the message is received correctly by the use of creative and artful questions. That's a pretty good definition.

Webster defines communication as: "sending, giving, or exchanging information and ideas, which are often expressed non-verbally and verbally.

Here's the thing; Do we really need to define communication? We all do it every day. Someone talks and another person listens. Simple.

Maybe not. We are all guilty of either not giving our full attention to the person speaking or of not speaking clearly enough to get our message across. This is especially true when it comes to communication between husbands and wives.

Let me give you an example.

Not to long ago I received a phone call from my husband, Bruce, while he was at work. What I thought he said was "Hey we just got in a damaged camel do we want it?"

Bruce works a a major hardware store and they carry a wide assortment of things besides hardware including household items, yard and garden art and so forth. So when he called about a month ago and said they had received a damaged camel in that days shipment, the image of a cute little ceramic camel came to mind.

I thought it might look great on our coffee table so I said "Sure, how much is it?"

I heard him shift the phone to his other ear and shuffle some papers before he said "With my employee discount it comes to four-fifty."

"Sure" I said "That sounds good, go for it. How big is it?"

"It's a 10 footer" he replied

My mind flipped from a little $4.50 ceramic camel to the image of a $450.00 ten foot camel. Now that might seem like a strange place for my mind to go, but we had recently both admired a life sized horse sculpted out of scrap metal at one of our local feed stores. A 10 foot camel didn't seem overly outrageous as the image drifted though my mind.

"Wow" I said "Ten feet? is it metal?"

There was a pause while my words flashed some sort of image in his mind and he said "Of course it's metal what did you think it was made of plastic?"

Before I could respond he added " The thing is, where would we put it?"

I immediately thought of our neighbors reaction upon waking up one morning and seeing a 10 foot metal camel in our front yard so I said "Well how about out back in the vegetable garden?"

There was a brief pause while he must have been trying to imagine it in our garden, then he said "In the Vegetable garden? Wouldn't it be better to put it out back in the chicken pen?"

Now that made no sense to me. We can't even see the chicken pen from any spot in our yard, what was the point of putting a 10 foot metal camel out in the chicken yard where we couldn't enjoy seeing it?

Instead of addressing the issue of location I said "Well in reality I guess we shouldn't spend $450.00 on yard art anyway, we need other things more. Let's think about it and talk it over tonight."

"Yard Art?" he said a bit harshly "Why would you consider it yard art? I think they are kind of obtrusive so putting it in the chicken yard makes total sense to me!"

At this point I wondered why on earth he would want to bring home a very expensive 10 foot metal camel that was ugly and obtrusive, so I asked "Obtrusive? How damaged is it?"

"Not bad" he said "There is a tweak on one side is all, I might be able to pound it out."

"Well, ok" I said "let's talk it over tonight when you get home."

"Ok" he sighed, "but if we don't want it Jimmy wants to take it home for his dog."

I tried to imagine Bruce's co-workers Labrador puppy playing with a 10 foot metal camel. "What would Jimmy's dog do with it? " I asked "Spending $450.00 on a fake companion for his dog is a bit eccentric don't you think?"

Bruce let out an audible sigh and said "What are you talking about? What fake companion?"

"What are you talking about?" I asked "I'm getting confused! You just said Jimmy wanted to take home the 10' metal camel for his dog"

There was a very long long pause in which Bruce said nothing, so I finally said "Well? isn't that what you just said?"

"Wait" Bruce said "Repeat what you just said"

"What do you mean repeat what I just said...I said I don't understand why Jimmy would want to take a 10 foot metal camel home to keep his dog company. It doesn't make any sense."

"A 10 foot what?" Bruce asked

"A 10 foot camel" I answered " isn't that what we've been talking about?"

I could hear a hint of a laughter in his voice when he said "Ok, I'm going to say a sentence and you fill in the blank word ok?"

Sighing I said "Whatever Bruce, I'm getting very confused."

"Ok here goes are you ready?

"YES I'm ready" I answered

"Ok we received a 10 foot damaged ? _________" I waited to see if that was the blank pause I was supposed to fill in. When he didn't continue I said "Camel."

Bruce laughed and said "Would you spell that for me please?"

"Bruce this is getting crazy and we are both busy" I said

"Come on, just humor me, spell that last word" he said

Sighing I irritatedly spelled C A M E L

Bruce broke into a laugh

"OK" he said " I we have a communications problem here, I'm talking about a 10 foot by 10 foot by 6 foot high damaged DOG KENNEL That's spelled K E N N E L, aren't we looking for one to house the peacocks in?"

So there you have it! A lesson in the art of communication, and that's spelled : c o m m u n i c a t i o n.

Anna Graham

2010-07-12T20:01:00.000-07:00

One of my daughters Mia Grain gained unwanted fame in one of my earlier posts "Primer on Toilet Training Tots." To keep things fair she feels I should write something about her sister, whom I shall call Anna Graham (anagram) because she seldom means what she says or says what she means.

A side note for those of you who are a bit fuzzy about what an anagram is, let me explain that it is a word or phrase that can be arranged to reveal a hidden message. For example the word anagram can be rearranged into nag a ram.

Now, don't misunderstand Anna Graham is incredibly intelligent, it's just that words sometimes tend to tumble out of her mouth in random order. When this happens if you listen closely you can generally grasp the hidden message. Sometimes it's a bit like going on a verbal treasure hunt.

This story dates back to when the girls were both tweeny-boppers, that amazing age between adolescence and teens. At that time I was working at a Chiropractors office as a physio-therapist.

It wasn't easy juggling between the girls and my job, but it pretty much worked out. I timed my day so that I generally arrived home about the same time the girls did. On occasion however, if traffic was gnarled or I had a difficult patient I ran a few minutes late.

On the rare occasions when I was running late I didn't worry too much. The girls were very responsible and adhered to a strict set of rules such as:

1: Do not answer to door to anyone that is not a close personal friend of mine no matter what they say or do.

2: Limit phone conversations to 3 minutes or less in case I'm trying to call.

3: Check in with our neighbor Mrs. Worth and let her know I'm running late and you will be in the house alone for a very short time.

4: (And this is really the only relevant one here) In case of fire, do not hesitate, run out of the house, do not stop for anything, not even the pets and get to Mrs. Worth's house then call 911.

There were a few other rules, but they are tedious and number 4 is really the only one you need to be made aware of at this time...you may want to back up for a minute and re-read it.

Now let me tell you about the fateful evening in mid December that aged me about a hundred years.

I was running about 20 minutes behind schedule that evening. As I rushed about the office picking up odds and ends and wiggling into my coat the phone rang. I was tempted to neglect it, but because of the lateness of the hour I thought it might be the girls calling to check on me even though I had called them a bit earlier to let them know I was running late.

I hastily snatched up the phone but even before it came in contact with my ear I heard Anna Grahams shrill voice reverberate in my ear "MOM MOM THE HOUSE..IT JUST BLEW UP!"

Trust me when I say those are not words anyone, especially a mother of two home alone preteen daughters, wants to hear.

My heart raced and my throat immediately went dry but I managed to find enough courage to croak out "Are you both ok? Where are you?"

Anna Grahams voice sounded small against the cacophony of wailing sirens in the background "We are ok mom, we are at Mrs. Worth's house.. but MOM.. the house..It just BLEW UP!"

Relieved that my children were alright, but sickened that I had just lost our home I reached for the back of a chair to steady myself before I said "Put Mrs. Worth on the phone."

There was a moment of silence then Anna Graham tearfully told me that our little silver miniature Schnauzer "Dolly" didn't make it out of the house.

Dolly was an intricate part of our family in fact I called her my DOGter, and the news hit me hard, but I managed to say "oh.. ahhh..." before I ran out of words.

Anna Graham, now crying harder said "MOM...maybe I should go back and try and get her."

"NO NO!" I shouted "Absolutely not! Do Not go back to the house. I'll be home in just a while, it will be ok."

I heard more sirens blaring in the background and Anna Graham said "Mom the police just got here, should I have them get Dolly for us?"

"NO" I shouted "Absolutely not you both stay put!" I calmed myself a bit and added "Put Mrs. Worth on the phone."

After a minutes hesitation while she cleared her sobs, Anna Graham informed me that Mrs. Worth was out back talking to the firemen.

"OK , ok " I said.."Promise me you will stay put do NOT go outside, do NOT try to get back in the house... I'll be right there!

With that I hung up the phone, raced to my car and peeled out of the parking lot. I broke every speed limit and violated every driving law on the book..I know this because about 2/3rds of the way home I picked up a Highway Patrol car hot on my tail with his lights flashing and his siren wailing . I glanced in my rear view mirror, but decided I just couldn't take the time to stop. I kept imagining Anna Graham trying to rescue Dolly. I sped on...Nothing was going to keep me from my burning home and frightened children...nothing.

Very shortly a second and then a third Highway Patrol joined the high speed parade. I broke into a sweat and fought back nausea. It was all too much for my delicate nervous system. My sense of justice tole me I should stop but my sense of motherhood made me drive faster and faster. Surely once we arrived at my destroyed house the police would understand.

Cresting a small hill about 5 blocks from my house I saw billows of black smoke pushing against the darkening sky. Every nerve in my body was so on edge that my teeth were chattering. Tears flooded my eyes and washed down my cheeks soaking the front of my coat. This was the absolute worst tragedy of my life.

Finally I flew around the corner on my block with my tires squealing and caught the first gimps of my home... To my uncomprehending eyes there it stood...completely in tact just as I had left it that morning.

I slid sideways into my driveway and slammed the car into park. It took me a minute to comprehend it was NOT my house that was on fire, it was the house directly BEHIND mine. As the police piled out of their vehicles Anna Grahams voice rewound and played again and again in my ear "MOM MOM THE HOUSE..IT JUST BLEW UP!"

THE house, she hadn't said OUR house. Everything began to spin violently around me. I remember reaching for the car door handle and then everything went black.

I awoke with my daughters and Mrs. Worth peering wide eyed at me through the double doors at the back of an ambulance. My next awareness was of the ambulance attendant asking me if I knew my name , what day it was and what the name of the president was.. I had no idea.

They treated me for shock. I think I still suffer from Post Traumatic Syndrome. Raising two daughters that I feel free to call Mia Grain and Anna Graham has taken a serious toll on me.

Ok..so the bottom line is I went to court to fight the more than eight hundred dollars worth of traffic tickets. When I explained my long winding tale to the judge everyone in the court room had a good laugh.

Apparently the judge had no sense of humor and obviously didn't have pre-teen children, because he said "Having Anna Graham for a daughter and speeding home to a house that did NOT blow up is not a legitimate excuse for endangering your life and the lives of others, it's bad judgment on your behalf. The fines stand, you may pay the bailiff on your way out."

I remember thinking that he should live with Anna Graham for a few years and see how it affected HIS judgment!

A Baaaad Mooove

2010-07-09T17:42:00.000-07:00

The pasture area on our little ranch is divided into 4 sections. There are 2 sections to the left of our driveway and 2 sections on the right. In order to keep the pasture from getting overly grazed we occasionally rotate our livestock from one section to another.

To do this we place two heavy green livestock panels at about midpoint on the driveway and chain them together. This blocks the lower portion of the driveway and keeps the stock from running out onto the road. There is a metal gate at the top of the driveway closest to the house that we close. With both ends blocked, it creates a sort of alleyway for the stock to use during their transition from one side to the other.

Once the driveway is blocked at both ends we simply open the gate on one of the pasture sections and then open another gate on the opposite side. Since our livestock adhere to the old adage "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence," things generally go very smoothly.

Unfortunately here is what happened last night.

We have five new lambs on pasture with our young bull. Since the lambs are new to the ranch we knew they wouldn't know how to rotate pastures smoothly, but we hoped that they would follow the bull, who is a veteran at playing the game of pasture rotation.

That was not entirely a wrong assumption. The problem was that one of us (and I'm not owning up to anything here) neglected to shut the upper gate. I spotted the error about the same time the bull did. Why he chose to run up the driveway instead of crossing the alleyway to the new pasture is a mystery to me...but that is what he did.

Before I had a chance to react he ran as fast as he could up the driveway toward the house. He was bellowing and kicking his heels in the air and I knew the game was afoot. Now he is not an overly aggressive bull, but when dealing with large animals with horns and hormones it always a good idea to heed to caution.

Bruce and I had been tucked safely behind the panels at the lower end of the driveway but I managed to squeeze around them. I was thinking I could get to the gate and swing it shut before the bull got to it. Now I know from past experience that I can't outrun that bull, so what made me think I could was pure insanity. By the time I was neck and neck with the bull I realized that I had made yet another dumb move. Fortunately he was more intent on getting through the forbidden gate than he was on slamming me to the ground so he just gave a few shakes of his head in my direction and kept running.

He of course made it to the gate ahead of me, but I kept going thinking I could at least close it before the five lambs reached it . That too was a thought gone totally astray. My good intentions were unfortunately about five lambs too slow. Suddenly a billowing cloud of baaahing dust past me and charged though the gate.

In less than a blink of an eye we had a bull and five lambs running ramped across our manicured lawn and munching on my prize roses, day lilies, sweet Williams and a vast buffet of other floral delicacies.

By the time I reached the gate my husband, Bruce was by my side. As I stood with my hands on my hips he calmly walked up and said "now what?" Now he knows all my plans have a way of sliding sideways, and yet he always turns to me to come up with a solid plan.

When I turned around the 6 renegades mowing machines were scattering in all directions. On the bright side the upper area around the house is contained behind 6' wire fencing so we knew they couldn't go anyplace else. On the not so bright side there is a gravel driveway that completely encompasses our house like a race track. One lap around it equals 1/8th of a mile.

As we tried to herd the sheep and bull back toward the alleyway, they discovered the unique round-about driveway that could be considered the poor mans Churchill Downs Race Track. So you do the math. If one lap around equals 1/8th of a mile, then 6 laps must equal close to 100 miles..well, ok but that could be a slight exaggeration, but that is what it felt like.

One of us would get them running around the house on the track while the other stood near the gate to try and divert them back into the alleyway. The running around the house part worked well, it was the turning them down the drive into the alleyway that became problematic.

Every time we would get them near the gate they would either run right past it and the person waving their arms, or turn completely around and run another lap in the opposite direction. Finally we got so hot and tired we gave up , sat down on the cool lawn and watched as the ran laps around and around on their own.

Finally in frustration we called our dog, IsHe out. Now, he is a Schnauzer not a herding dog, but since he does round up stray chickens for us, we thought it would be worth a shot. It wasn't.

The first lap around the house with IsHe doing his best did go fairly well. We almost got the stock to turn at the gate and go into the alleyway, but just as they reached the gate, IsHe turned them around and they were off in the opposite direction on yet another lap around the house.

In a last ditch effort, Bruce and I stood side by side in the driveway by the gate waving our arms in an effort to divert them and run them back into the alleyway. We will never know if that would have worked because as the 7 of them with IsHe in the lead approached us at a full out dead run, we quickly lost our nerve and stepped out of the way allowing them to thunder by.

We gave up again and sat back down on the lawn trying to come up with another plan. Bruce kept saying "They have to be getting tired..they will stop soon." They didn't.

We finally decided that if we called IsHe off, and blocked their racetrack and the lawn with both vehicles, the stock trailer and the utility trailer they would have to turn down the drive.

Tired and overly heated, we drug ourselves off the lawn and trudged to the house to get the keys to the vehicle. Once inside we looked at each other and then out the window as the animals raced past. It was like sitting in box seats at Hialeah Race Track...all that was missing was the announcer and a tall drink with an umbrella in it. On that lap he bull was back in the lead with the five sheep close on his heels. IsHe was trotting slowly behind them with his tongue hanging out.

We stayed in the house just long enough to get a drink of water then we headed back out to move the vehicles in place. It was then that we realized the competitors had not come by in several minutes. Bruce looked at me and said "Oh oh, where did they go?"

We cautiously walked around to the front of the house. When we looked down the alleyway we saw the bull, 6 sheep and IsHe laying together panting under a large Cedar tree in the pasture we had been trying to get them into for the past 2 hours.

Bruce looked at me and laughing said "Now THAT'S funny they did it all by themselves!" I didn't laugh.

Relocating Small Kitchen Appliances

2010-06-14T09:16:00.000-07:00

Let me begin by saying that our house was built in the mid 1930's. It's a small 2 story farm house that's been added on to over the years. In it's 75 years of existence, we are only the third owners. My husband's folks bought this ranch in the 1940's right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

My mother-in-law was a saint. How she managed to raise 4 children, work a ranch and entertain copious amounts of over-night guests in this house I'll never know. The kitchen is the size of a postage stamp..maybe a tad smaller. There is no counter space and very few cupboards.

The house has gone trough some minor remodeling over the years, most of it since we took over the ranch 15 years ago. Even so, the kitchen has always been a source of frustration for me.

When the house was designed, its purpose was to be a place for the folks to come in from after a hard day of ranch work, slurp down a bowl of stew and plop into bed. Comfort was not a big issue. Smaller kitchens were acceptable back then because folks didn't have all the modern appliances that we use today. There were no electric coffee makers, no electric toasters, no electric blenders, and no microwaves.

Every time I prepare a meal I have to move things around on the counter in order to eek out a foot or two of working space. It makes me crazy! and as the result, last Thursday I went a little off the deep end .

Here's what happened:

I decided to bake some cookies, but when I tried to put the electric mixer on the counter the toaster was in the way so I set it on top of the stove and tried to wedge the mixer in the corner. I grabbed a bag of flour and having no place to set it while I measured out the right amount, I had to set it on the stove as well. Suddenly I decided I'd lived with the inconvenience long enough.

I stood there looking around and decided something had to be done. The logical thing was find another spot for the toaster, microwave and coffee maker. Unfortunately there was no other place I could put them, after struggling for space for 15 years, I already knew that. Then in a totally "Lucille Ball" moment I knew what I had to do. The solution was simple. All I had to do was remove the corner floor to ceiling cabinet, and I'd have at least 2 more feet of counter space.
Simply genius if I do say so myself!

My husband, Bruce, was at work, which I decided was a good thing because if he had been home he would have come up with at least 20 reasons why taking out that one little ol' cupboard was a bad idea. I figured what he didn't know while he was as work couldn't stress him...much. With a joyous heart I removed all the items from the cupboard. Next I triumphantly marched out to his work shop, retrieved his sledge hammer and crowbar and set to work. Although I'd never demolished anything it was remarkably easy. I was a one-woman explosion of mass destruction!

The more I worked the more I liked the idea, and the next thing I knew I had removed not one but two cupboards. Then it was three. Next I went to work on the base cabinets. AhHah! Now I had a whole vacant wall to work with... a blank canvas with which to create a whole new kitchen!

About that time Bruce came home and stood in stunned silence . I was covered in debris and grinning wildly. I held a sledge hammer in one hand and a crowbar in the other. His head swiveled back and forth between me, the blank wall and the pile of demolished cupboards. When he was finally able to speak all he could say was " What the ... What the...?"

By way of explanation I said "I needed to move the toaster, microwave and coffee maker." By then he must have drifted into deep shock because his only response was a barely audible "ok" as he turned and walked into the living room and plunked down in a chair.

I followed him and told him that I had it all under control and that I planned on going to the Habit For Humanity second hand building materials store the next day to find cupboards that "would suit my needs."

We spent a very quiet evening.

The next morning after Bruce left for work, I measured the wall and headed out to find new cabinets. Surprise! None of them would fit into the space I had opened up. Apparently older houses have a problem with room sizes and wall dimensions being much different than those in standard modern homes.

Seriously...Who knew?

From the Habitat for Humanity second hand store, I went to two local stores that carry new cabinets. They both gave me the same bad news. Either I would have to leave a lot of unused space or tear out a wall to make new cabinets work. One store did say that there were older style cabinets available, but they were only sold on the east coast, and I would have to pay an exorbitant shipping cost and in addition there would be no way to return them if they didn't work out.

When home I got on the phone and called every store on the west coast that sold cabinets. Every one of them told me the same story. They all suggested I call a cabinet maker. By day's end, I wasn't feeling too good about my remodeling job.

Bruce came home that evening expecting to see a truck load of second hand cabinets, instead he found me trying to figure out how to fit the pieces of the cabinets I tore apart back together. He laughed. I cried. Then he assured me we'd figure something out.

The next day I was busy on the computer trying to figure out what to do with the blank wall, and low and behold I discovered Home Depot carries a line of inexpensive small unfinished cupboards in various sizes that seemed like they would work. I measured the wall, and phoned the 3 closest Home Depot stores. Amazingly between the 3 stores, they had all the cabinets in stock that I needed. I breathed easier.

Early the next morning I hit the road and collected all the cabinets . When Bruce got home I beamed with pride. I told him I'd pulled together a brand new functional kitchen for under $500.00. He was impressed....that is until he checked my measurements and told me I was 3/16ths of an inch off or some other silly little measurement. He said he was sure the main cabinet, the one I wanted the most, would not fit.

The next day was Bruce's day off work, so we started mounting the cabinets that we knew would fit. Although I'd been in denial, it soon became evident that Bruce was right, one of the cabinets wouldn't work...actually when it was all said and done, it was two. He did a great job of holding his frustration back, but I spent most of the day feeling ill. By late afternoon I was battling a migraine. I suddenly loathed all toasters, microwaves and coffee makers!

The next morning, we measured, remeasured, drew more diagrams, argued over what would and would not work. Then we measured, remeasured, drew more diagrams and...well, it went on that way for nearly 2 hours. Finally we came up with a plan that would work. We returned the two cabinets to Home Depot and picked up spacers, fillers, composite floor board, caulking, pine boards, and three different cabinets. Through it all Bruce was stoic and unwaveringly clam. On the drive home he quietly said "so what do you figure the final cost is now Lucy?"

The kitchen is pretty much back together now, and yesterday I was able to relocate the toaster, microwave, and coffee pot which left me with 3 new feet of counter space. I suppose there must be an easier way to relocate small appliances, but I'm really happy with my new kitchen. When I ask Bruce if he likes it he just quietly nods his head. I think he will like it more once the initial shock wears off.

As an interesting side note: The sledge hammer and crowbar have gone missing along with most of the smaller power tools. Bruce thinks maybe someone stole them, but oddly he doesn't seem too upset. I'm not sure what to think...strangely enough I can't even find a hammer.

Green Eggs and Sam

2010-06-02T08:52:00.000-07:00

Someone once asked me to name the foremost thing that I like best about living in the country. Without hesitation I said it was the ability to raise most of our own food. What a joy to fix a meal that contains almost all, if not all, of meats and produce raised right here on our ranch.

There is nothing like sitting down at breakfast and savoring the flavor of farm fresh chicken eggs. We have a variety of different breeds of chickens that free range our property by day. Among them is one specific breed I am rather fond of: Araucana. These chickens lay eggs that range in color from pale blue to a nice rich green.

I think it's great fun finding a green or blue egg mixed in with the standard brown ones that the other breeds of chickens on our ranch lay. It's even more fun to see the expression on the faces of children who, for the most part, delight in seeing naturally colored green eggs.

Because we have an abundance of eggs at the end of each day, we either give away or sell the excess to local folks who are not lucky enough to raise their own chickens. Often times we donate the overflow to the local food bank. No egg is wasted.

Which brings me to Green Eggs and Sam:

Not to long ago while I was in one of our local grocery stores I happened to pull my shopping cart along side a young mother with several children in tow. I was waiting patiently for her to make her selection of eggs so I could reach in and grab a pound of unsalted cooking butter.

Without provocation she turned to me and said "I can't believe the price of a dozen eggs can you?" Before I could answer she added "I really try to feed the kids good food, but the cost of eggs is making it difficult to give them a good nutritional breakfast."

I smiled, reached into my purse and handed her one of our business cards and said "Well, maybe we can help each other out. We live on a ranch about 4 miles from here and we always have more eggs than we know what to do with. I'd be happy to share some with you."

She hesitated and I could tell that a bit of pride was holding her back so I added "Really, you'd be doing me a favor. I hate to waste food. We get several dozen eggs every day and we simply can't use that many."

She said she would take some but only if she could pay for them. I told her that generally we just gave them away but if she felt better she could pay me $1.00 per dozen, which I added, was the standard price when we did sell them. She brightened and said she'd stop by in a day or so.

A few days later an unfamiliar vehicle slowly crept up our drive. It was pouring rain and the wipers on the car were going at full speed. Before long a young boy of about 8 climbed out of one of the rear doors and ran up to the door.

When I opened it he handed me our business card and said "Mom said you could sell us some eggs. She wants to know if you have some."

I told him I did and asked him to come in while I got them out of the refrigerator. "No ma'am" he said "I can't go into strangers houses. We don't know if you are a bad person or not." Then he turned and pointed to the car and added "And don't you worry, my mom is watching." I smiled and told him he was right and that he should remain on the porch."

Noting he had 3 one dollar bills clutched in his hand I quickly grabbed 3 cartons of eggs from the refrigerator and returned to the half drowned little boy on my porch. In his presence I carefully opened each carton to inspect for broken or cracked eggs. The nice assortment of green and brown eggs looked fine to me so I started to set them in a shopping bag.

The boy suddenly had a horrified look on his face "Stop!" he said firmly "I can't take those eggs!" When I asked why he said "Well, my mom won't like it if you sell her eggs that aint' ripe yet."

I asked him what he meant by eggs that were not ripe yet. He beamed and said "Sometimes you have to really watch what people sell you so you don't come home with stuff that isn't ripe is what I mean."

I tried to assure him the eggs were fine, but he reached down into the bag, pulled out a carton, opened it and said "Look here!" he pointed at a green Araucana egg and spouted "Do it look ripe to you? It's green as it can be lady, don't you have more ripe ones in there?"

I nearly laughed out loud, but I could see the little guy was dead serious. When I couldn't convince him that the eggs really were ripe and that different types of chickens laid different colored eggs I gave in and got several more cartons of eggs from the refrigerator and substituted brown eggs for the green Araucana ones.

When I finished he thrust $3.00 toward me and said "Lady if you want to keep selling your eggs to people you'd best not try that one again."

When I closed the door I burst out laughing.

Much later when the weather cleared and I was able to talk to his mother I told her the story. She laughed and said that since their dad left them Sam felt he was responsible for the family's well being. Apparently right after her newest baby was born, she sent Sam into a store to buy a bunch of bananas while she stayed in the car outside. When Sam returned with green bananas she tried to explain the difference between green ones and ripe ones. Obviously, he took the lesson seriously.

No green eggs for Sam!

Oh Honey !

2010-06-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

A worker honey bee has a very short life span. In fact the average honey bee lives an average of 28 days, which means the hive is constantly hatching new ones to replace the ones that expire.

When old worker bees die, their hive mates carry them to entrance of the hive and drop them out. I suppose it's more or less the bee's version of a "burial at sea."

The make up of a bee colony is incredibly interesting, but the couple of facts I've already mentioned here will give you some idea how my creative mind got me into the following situation.

Here's what happened:

When we went out to check our hives after a pretty severe rainstorm a few days ago, I noticed a rather large amount of bees laying on the ground. A half dozen or so is not uncommon, but on that particular day there were at least a dozen or more outside each hive.

As I bent down to examine the expired bees I noticed that quite a few of them still had pollen attached to their legs. That is not typical, but I surmised that they were caught in the heavy rain and hail and just didn't quite make it all the way into the hives before succumbing to the severe weather.

It only took me a minute to realize the potential. I wondered how many people had ever had the opportunity of seeing a honey bee laden with pollen up close and personal.

Being an educator and a wanna-be entrepreneur I immediately seized on what I perceived to be a brilliant opportunity to fill both goals. I carefully gathered all the deceased bees that were carrying pollen and took them into the house.

The bees were soaking wet from the storm, so I placed them on paper towels and laid them on the hearth in front of the wood stove to dry. Meanwhile I contemplated the best way to mount and display the bees in shadow boxes.

I imagined rocketing sales on E-bay as teachers brutally outbid each other in order to obtain my wonderful specimens.

After about half an hour I checked to see how well the bees were drying on the hearth. To my surprise one of the bees was wobbling feebly on her feet. I was elated! One was actually still alive.

I quickly rushed into the kitchen and retrieved a pint jar to put her in until she finished recovering. I wasn't able to locate a lid for the jar but I figured since the little bee was so weak I'd have plenty of time to locate some cheesecloth or similar material to stretch over the mouth of the jar after I got her into it.

When I returned from the kitchen with the jar I noticed a second one was now trying to get to it's feet. I yelled for my husband, Bruce, to come and help me get them both into the jar.

By the time Bruce came to my aid 4 of the bees had revived and were stumbling off in various directions. He held the jar while I tried to scoop each of them up with a small piece of cardboard and drop them into the jar.

The job was made more difficult because he was laughing so hysterically that he kept jiggling the jar.

Suddenly the recovery effort came to a critical point. All the bees, who had apparently been suffering from hypothermia, were snapping back to life faster than I could catch them.

Bruce was getting concerned because he was covering the mouth of the jar with his bare hand and the three or four bees already in the jar were quite apparently becoming angry. I had no choice but to stop catching the ones on the hearth and find something to cover the jar with.

I was somewhat relieved when I was finally able to secure the cheese cloth to the top of the jar. My relief was short lived however, because upon returning to the hearth there were only a couple of bees still struggling on the paper towel. The others, whose numbers were close to 20, had gone missing.

For the next two hours the house reverberated with the sound of angry bees buzzing from room to room mingled with Bruce's uproarious laughter and my frantically high-pitched calls of "Here!..Quick..Over here..I found one!"

Eventually we captured all of them but by then it was too late to put them back outside so I placed the jar in the laundry room. Bruce questioned the move and suggested that the laundry room might be too cold for them. I rebutted with "Well I don't want them to chew through the cheesecloth and get out again."

When we went to bed I wasn't able to sleep because Bruce's words haunted me. Finally about 1 AM I quietly slipped out of bed and checked on the jar of bees in the laundry room. Sure enough, they had gotten too cold. They were laying on their sides in the jar. Feeling guilty I brought the jar into the house, placed it in the bathroom and rigged a trouble light over it for warmth. Within minutes the bees had once again recovered.

It was then that I noticed I had inadvertently pulled one corner of the cheesecloth loose while moving the jar into the house. I quickly tried to tuck it back under the rubber band that had been securing it. SNAP! The rubber band broke and the cheesecloth went sailing into the air. It took me over an hour to recapture them again.

The moral of this story? Oh honey...never trust a dead bee!

Wild Wild Hogs!

2010-05-27T13:32:00.000-07:00

Here a while back, brief but fierce storm passed though our area bringing lightening, thunder, hail, wind and rain.It was the kind of day when you think that nothing in the world could make you leave the comfort of a cozy fire burning in the wood stove.

With a glowing fire cracking in the next room, I had just settled down in the office to do some paper work when the phone rang. I can't explain it, but I personally find phones a major waste of time. I shutter when mine rings. The caller I.D. said it was a friend and neighbor from down the road a little way. I sighed heavily because I knew I would be hooked into a long conversation that I didn't want to participate in.

I gingerly pushed the talk button but even before I could say hello I heard Kathy's voice shouting "He's Gone! In this storm! He's Gone! I don't know how he got out, but he's gone!"
When I calmed her down a bit, Kathy was able to tell me that her beloved little pet pot bellied pig "Rooter" had somehow escaped from his stall during the storm.

Referring to the place where Rooter lives as a stall it's a bit like down-playing the Taj mahal . He has an automatic watering bowl (warmed I might add. ) His plush habitat is lined with cushy rubber mats that feel more like a down filled mattress. He sleeps in a raised bed with foam mattress and a hand sewn quilt comforter. There is also a light hanging in his palace that comes on at 6am and goes off at 8pm. His high-end piggy condo is also rigged with an automatic feeder that dispensed a handful of food every 4 hours like clockwork. He also has access to a large pen in the outside world via an automatic door that opens both from the inside and out. In order to activate the door, he merely has to step on the door mat, and wallah!

This pampered pig gets brushed two times a day and a bath every other day, weather permitting. After his bath he is dried off with a towel and a blow drier and is fed a half of a banana, a slice of apple and 1 mini-marshmallow (his favorite.) I would be remiss if I failed to mention he also has classic music piped into his suite. Soft soothing compositions by Johann Strauss , Frederic Chopin, and Johannes Brahms (his favorite being Brahms) float lazily into his day dreams. Why this spoiled little ham hock would wander off is beyond my comprehension. I'd happily trade places with him any time.

Unless the preceding paragraphs haven't made it completely clear, let me put it another way; Kathy adores the little porker. When her frantic call came I knew I'd soon be trudging through the soggy countryside looking for the spoiled little ham-hock!

So,before long with a strong wind blowing rain sideways and stinging my face I tromped up and down, back and forth though the woods calling "Rooter, Here Rooter." Kathy's calls echoed a few feet away. After an hour and a half we had not seen any trace of him so we decided to dry off a bit and briefly regroup. During the regrouping session, Kathy reminded me that the last time he had run off he'd gone "up the hill."

The "hill" that Kathy was referring to is actually a mountain that is every bit as steep and torturous as Mt. Kilimanjaro. Maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, but seriously it is steep and torturous. At the top there is a small lake and camp ground, which normal people reach via
the road and in a vehicle. We, however would have to climb on foot so as not to overlook the little pork chop.

It was getting dark, so we grabbed flash lights and were about to start our climb when my husband, Bruce, showed up. He had gotten off work and found my note telling him where I'd be. He reluctantly volunteered to join in on the hunt. (Actually I pleaded.)

We spread out about 20 feet apart and started slowly making our way up the "hill." Each of us shouting loudly into the encompassing darkness "Rooter! Rooter! Rooter!" Nothing. No piggy.

We eventually made our way to the top where we checked in with the park host and told him to be on the look out for a tiny black pot bellied pig named Rooter.

The park host took pity on us and drove us down the hill and dropped us off at Kathy's house. A quick check of the stall and grounds reveled no signs of the pig. We hugged Kathy and came home to dry off and eat dinner.

About 2am the phone jolted Bruce and I bolt upright in bed. I stumbled for the phone dislodging unknown objects as I picked it up. Kathy's piercing screech blew the sleep out of my ears with "The cops are going to shoot Rooter! come quick!" then the line went dead.

I relayed the message to Bruce who really did not want to participate in any game in the middle of the night, but he begrudgingly hoisted himself out of bed. We quickly dressed, jumped in the truck and sped to Kathy's home.

She was standing in her driveway holding a flashlight. Bruce opened the truck door and started to get out, but before he could, Kathy jumped in and said "They have Rooter cornered at the campground. Some stupid camper made a 911 call saying there was a WILD HOG trashing the campground and terrorizing everyone." She sobbed "They said they are trying to SHOOT him!"

We drove at lightening speed to the campground where sure enough there was a crowd of people cowering behind a county sheriffs vehicle...among them, I might add, was the sheriff. The vehicle had both the driver's door and the passenger side door open. I've seen this tactic used on cop shows. They use the doors as a shields against bullets. I have no idea how they thought the impenetrable doors would protect them from a pig so tiny that it could to walk under the door, but there they were.

We came in so quickly and stopped so abruptly that it caused every one to spin toward us. Kathy jumped from the truck with a banana in each hand and ran frantically toward the mob. Apparently in the darkness, the Sheriff thought she was holding a gun in each hand because he spun and pointed his gun at her and shouted "Drop the weapons..Do it NOW!"

Bruce who had just reached into the bed of the pickup truck and retrieved Rooters carrying case went slack jawed and let the carrier fall nosily to the ground. Everyone in the crowd took in a collective gasp and backed away from our truck.

While all this was going on I was reaching under the front seat for a bigger flashlight. I have no idea what the Sheriff or the crowd of frightened campers thought was going on, but suddenly everyone seemed to perceive us as a bigger threat than a wild hog on the rampage.

Kathy looked uncomprehendingly at the sheriff and kept moving in the direction she perceived Rooter to be in. The sheriff spun first toward her, then toward Bruce, then as I popped my head up from the front seat of the truck he spun back toward me. I was so very confused. Bruce was so very confused. The poor Sheriff was very confused. Kathy, on the other hand, was totally oblivious to anything but rescuing Rooter.

The sheriff spun back toward Kathy and shouted "I said Drop It NOW!"

Fearing Kathy was about to be shot I shouted "Kathy STOP! DROP YOUR BANANAS! The Sheriff thinks the bananas are weapons..STOP!

The crowds heads were rapidly flipping back and forth like someone watching a tennis match in fast forward. First they focused on Kathy, then the pig, then the sheriff, then on me, then on Bruce. Their heads flitted everywhere.

Finally Kathy stopped and the Sheriff was able to shine his light directly on the bananas Kathy was clutching and he relaxed . "They are for the Pig" I shouted. "The Bananas are for the PIG!"

The sheriff shone his light into my face and said "Lady step away from the truck...you too sir" (meaning Bruce.) Then he added "I don't know what you people think you are doing here, but we apparently have a wild boar terrorizing this campground. It's not safe."

I couldn't help it...I burst out laughing and said "Rooter? Wild? Terrorizing? He's a PET!"

Suddenly Kathy spotted Rooter cowering under one of the campers vehicles and she called "Rooter, Here Rooter... Come.. Bananas" Recognizing her voice he let out a pathetic sequel and as she bent down he rushed into her arms nearly knocking her over.

Quietly Bruce walked over with the carrier and opened it. Rooter grunted softly and walked calmly in.

Kathy apologized for the commotion. The Sheriff said he'd have to file a report, but then he thought about it for awhile and apparently decided how foolish he might look, so he waved us off and told us to drive carefully home.

The Boot Stompin' Boogie!

2010-05-23T09:19:00.001-07:00

Generally we go out just as it is getting dark and lock all our animals in their pens, coops, or stalls respectively to protect them from the weather and predators. Unfortunately we slipped up a bit last night. We could blame the oversight on a lot of things, but my choice for the fall guy is the mailman.

You see, the mailman is the logical choice for scapegoat because yesterday afternoon he dropped off the latest DVD from Netflix. In order to have time to watch it we stopped our normal routine and had dinner a bit early.

After dinner we plopped a large glop of Vanilla Bean ice cream into two bowls, suffocated it with bananas, hot fudge topping and copious amounts of whipped cream and nestled in front of the t.v. to watch the DVD.

It was our intention to watch the DVD for about a half hour then dash out and settle the animals for the evening. However we became completely absorbed in the DVD and didn't realize we had neglected to properly secure the animals until it was over. The title of the DVD was (and it's critical that you remember this) Jane Goodall's When Animals Talk.

It was not until the DVD ended an hour an a half later and I was rinsing the ice cream dishes in the sink that I suddenly remembered we had shirked our evening chores. We were both relaxed and the thought of trudging out in the cold darkness didn't appeal to either of us. None the less, we slipped into our jackets, grabbed flashlights and strolled outside.

To expedite the chores we split the duties. Bruce went off in one direction and I went in the other. My first stop was the Goose coop. Now the Goose coop is a converted horse barn. The back side has a door that is large enough for a standard horse to pass though, and the front has a Dutch Door which can be opened either on the top or the bottom. We generally leave the large door on the back side open for the Geese to come and go as they please and keep the Dutch door closed.

I walked around to the back side of the coop and closed the large door. As I did I detected the unmistakable sent of a skunk. I quickly shined my flashlight around the outside of the coop and was relieved not to spot one.

Next I secured the chickens and then moved on to a second duck and Guinea Hen coop. As I moved about between the coops I carefully directed the beam of the flashlight ahead of me so as not to walk up unsuspectingly on the skunk, whose order was becoming more and more intense.

Bruce finished his chores and came back to where I was and asked where the skunk was. I told him I had no idea but it was obviously very close. We began to backtrack and finally decided the scent was strongest around the Goose Coop.

We walked cautiously around the outside of the coop and saw nothing but the scent continued to grow stronger. Finally I opened the top section of the double Dutch Door on the front side and to my surprise there was the skunk INSIDE the coop, locked in with the geese.

Amazingly the geese didn't seem to be distressed by the presence of a skunk mingling with them. Not surprisingly, I was.

Bruce suggested that I close the top section of the Dutch door and open the bottom and maybe the skunk would simply walk out. Note here that he suggested that I open the door. Meanwhile he backtracked about 10 or so feet.

Other than me being the designated door opener, I couldn't see much wrong with the plan so that is what I did. As Bruce predicted, the skunk casually strolled out the bottom section of the door.... and stopped on my right foot. Amazingly it just stood there perched on my foot sniffing the air. It was one of those moments when you are just positive your head will explode from the rush of adrenalin. I was paralyzed with fear, which I suppose was a good thing because moving would doubtlessly have caused the skunk to spray.

Bruce,who was still about 10 feet away and couldn't see what was going on grew impatient.
"Did it come out yet?" he called.
When I didn't answer he added "Well what's going on? Just leave the door open and come out here with me you don't have to stand there!"

When I still didn't respond Bruce took a few steps forward and shined his flashlight directly in my face. (That helped.) I inclined my head slightly in the direction of my foot but the slight movement went unnoticed so I let out a high pitched whine though clinched lips and teeth. The skunk, still standing on my foot remained totally oblivious to me.

Bruce, who still hadn't spotted the skunk, was obviously becoming irritated with me.
Finally he said "Well, ok just stand there if you want. I'm tired. I'm going to go in and go to bed."

Without moving my lips or any other portion of my body I managed to squeak out "Foot! Look! Foot"

Bruce apparently wasn't able to hear or understand me because his reply was "Ok, well I guess I'll see you in a bit."

"NO" I hissed though clinched teeth "Help Me! FOOT!"

Finally he shone his flashlight down at my foot and burst out laughing. He's always such a big help when I get in these unbelievable predicaments.

"Ahh I see" he smirked "well tell you what" he said " You use the skills you just learned from the Jane Goodall DVD to talk to it while I go get the gun"

I could hear him chuckling as he walked toward the house.

Great, now I had two fears. The first obvious one was being sprayed point blank by the skunk. The second was trying to figure out what on earth Bruce would do when he returned with a gun? Did he actually plan to shoot the skunk off my foot? No thank you!

The more I thought about it the more I decided my chances of survival were better with the skunk than with Bruce trying to blast the little bugger off my foot .

I stood there with the skunk still on my foot and with sweat rolling down my back contemplating my choices. Skunk? Gun? Skunk? Gun?

When I heard Bruce's footfalls crunching on the pathway leading back to the goose coop and I panicked. I jerked my foot out from under the skunk and yelled "Shoo Skunk Go! Get Out Of Here!

Now I really need to know...do skunks take tranquilizers? The reason I ask is because the skunk seemed totally unperturbed at being rousted off my foot. It actually just stood there looking up at me..Again considering my choices between skunk spray and bullet spray, I jumped back about 2 feet and started stomping my feet in the manner of a "Boot Stompin" Boogie."

This seemed to amuse the skunk because it stood there watching me for a few seconds before turning and strolling causally out toward the woods.

When Bruce reached the goose coop he was carrying the .22 rifle . I silently said a prayer thanking the Lord that it wasn't the shotgun.

When he noticed I was free of the skunk he grinned and said "So apparently you and the skunk had an amiable conversation?"

I shut the bottom half of the Dutch Door and said "I told him that if he had any respect at all for human beings he'd leave before you blew my foot off."

Side note: If you haven't seen it yet, take the time to watch: Jane Goodall's When Animals Talk
If you are an animal lover you will gain insight into your animal friends. If you don't like animals watch it anyway. It's an eye opener.

Resurrecting Sasha

2010-05-20T14:01:00.000-07:00

When people find out that we live in the country on a ranch they get a glazed look in their eyes and their mind drifts to some far off imaginary place. They generally say something like "Wow, I've always dreamed of living on a ranch, you are so lucky."

We nod our heads knowingly and smile outwardly while laughing hysterically inwardly. These poor souls have no idea what hands-on ranching is really like. If ranching was a reality show most folks wouldn't last a week.

Now, don't misunderstand, I love our ranch and as hectic and chaotic as my daily life can sometimes be I wouldn't trade it. I just think people should know it's nothing like the Hollywood version.

For example: Yesterday I went about my usual early morning chores (in the pouring rain) of feeding all the animals and turning them out of their pens, coops and stalls so they could free range for the day. Then I rushed into the house took my shower and headed out to pick up a load feed for the animals and some groceries for us.

When I returned home I quickly put the groceries away and rushed out to check on all the animals (in the rain.) At first glance everything seemed to be normal, or as normal as things can be around here. But you see here is what people don't understand, looking after chickens, ducks, sheep, turkeys, guinea hens, geese, cattle and 10 score and 40 more other assorted living souls is a bit like running a day care center for several hundred pre-school human toddlers. They are scattered in all directions running, flying, cackling, mooing, bickering, nickering and playing and it can be utter chaos.

After I gave a precursory inspection and did a quick head count I noticed something out of the ordinary floating in the goose pond. At first I thought it was a twig but upon closer scrutiny I realized it was a chicken. She was bobbing lifeless in the water.

As anyone who knows anything about chickens will tell you they not only can't swim, they generally detest water deeper than a inch. How she wound up in the water I'll never know. My emotions volleyed between sad and angry as I fished her out. Upon closer examination I realized the little hen was one we call Sasha. We have over 40 chickens and most of them start out with names, but as they get older I often forget who is who. Then again maybe it's because I'm getting older that I tend to forget their names, however I will never forget Sasha.

With heavy heart I carried Sasha back toward the barn glancing down at her lifeless body every now and then. Then, out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw her toes uncurl a bit. Was it possible that Sasha wasn't dead?

I rushed to the house where I tried to dry off her limp body with a towel. This is when a crash course in Poultry CPR might have come in handy. I may not be certified in Poultry CPR, but I do know that the first rule in reviving birds is to bring their metabolism up by keeping them warm, so I put Sasha on a dry towel in a cardboard box and rigged a lamp over her for extra warmth.

After half an hour her under feathers were still damp and she was not responding to my EMT treatments, so I tucked a heating pad under her.

When I checked her after an additional 15 minutes she still hadn't come around, and her body still felt damp. I had nothing to lose so I wrapped the towel around her and headed to the master bathroom where I set my blow dryer on low and turned it on her. She still had no real reaction other than an occasional involuntary twitch of her legs every now and then.

Bruce came home and knocked on the bathroom door and asked what I was doing. When I told him he opened the door and was immediately engulfed in a massive cloud of stray feathers. More were stuck on the mirror, the shower door and the walls. I had been concentrating so hard on getting Sasha dry I hadn't notice how many of her feathers were blowing about the bathroom.

I kept the blow dryer on her for about 20 minutes moving it slowly across every inch of her body. In the end, even though she was thoroughly dry she was still unresponsive.

Bruce knows better than to say anything when I'm trying to revive a sick or injured animal, but I saw the hopelessness in his eyes, so I laid Sasha back in her box with the heating pad and heat light and set about fixing dinner.

Every few minutes I checked to see how she was doing. By the time we'd finished dinner she was still laying on her side with her eyes closed.

By the time Bruce and I went to bed I was able to prop Sasha limply against the side of the box. Her head was drooped and her eyes were still closed. I was resigned to the fact she would be dead by morning.

Dead? Did I say she'd be dead by morning? Oh no! Not Sasha!

Around 1 AM I was jolted awake by what sounded like a helicopter landing on the roof of our house . I jumped out of bed dazed and confused and stumbled wildly around the bedroom trying to make sense of the noise. Bruce was sleeping soundly. Bruce always sleeps soundly. Nothing short of a blast from a steam ship whistle can wake him once he falls asleep.

The flapping, fluttering and whirling noise appeared to be coming from the bathroom and it took me a few minutes to remember that Sasha was in there. I opened the bathroom door and was assaulted by a furry of flapping wings and raspy squawking.

In a flash Sasha flapped her way past me and shot like a torpedo onto our bed where Bruce continued to sleep soundly. The commotion woke our 2 dogs, IsHe and WillHe, who immediately thought a new game was afoot. Simultaneously Sasha, the 2 dogs and I landed on the bed. Bruce moaned and rolled over (sometimes I think I should hate him for his ability to sleep so well.) I grabbed for Sasha but IsHe was faster, before I knew it he engulfed her in his mouth, bounded off the bed and ran into my office which is adjacent to the bedroom.

Somehow Sasha managed to escape IsHe's grip and flew onto my desk sending the stapler, calculator, keyboard, desk lamp, assorted pens and papers cascading to the floor. IsHe tried to jump onto the desk, which sent Sasha flying into the living room. There was a blur of dogs and feathers as I tried to catch hold of any part of the three crazed animals. Meanwhile books and magazines slid off the coffee table, a floor lamp went down, and a cushion from the couch flipped into the air.

I caught the cushion mid-air and flung it back toward the couch but missed and knocked over a vase of flowers sending water and flower petals flooding across the floor.

Finally, I managed to grab hold of the littlest dog, WillHe, and quickly tossed him out the back door. Meanwhile Sasha and IsHe bounded their way into the kitchen. By the time I got the back door shot and managed to stumble and fumble my way into the kitchen Sasha was on the table and IsHe was running wildly in circles under it. I grabbed IsHe and pushed him out the kitchen door and turned back toward the table to capture Sasha. She was gone. I finally located her by following the clatter of dinner dishes breaking in the sink.

When I finally had both hands of my hands firmly on Sasha there was a very brief moment in my sleep dazed, half crazed, mental state where wanted to find a very large stew pot and toss her in it. Instead however, I lifted her so I could look here in the eyes and said "So Sasha, you are obviously quite well and alive eh?"

I tucked her under my arm and walked out to the barn where I sentenced her to spend the night in solitary confinement in a small but secure cage. Walking back to the house , barefoot and coat-less (in the drizzling rain I might add) I tried to remember the perks of living in the country on a ranch. Curiously none came to mind.

Opening the back door I was greeted by a discombobulated Bruce holding a shotgun in one hand and the phone in the other. "OH THANK GOD" he shouted. "I woke up and found the house trashed, and you were gone.. I thought we had been robbed and you were taken hostage."

Sure..... after it's all over he wakes up.

The Headless Moose on Isle 9

2010-05-01T12:13:00.000-07:00

I've just returned from an interesting trip to one of our local up-scale grocery stores. Here's why it was interesting:

A couple of our friends more -or-less invited themselves over to our house for a barbecue later this afternoon. Since I was unprepared for guests I asked them what they would like in the way of refreshments. They said "Oh a couple of Moose Head Beers would be great if you have them." I told them that a 6 pack of Moose Head would be in the refrigerator cooling when they arrived. When I hung up the phone I made a quick list of things I needed for their unexpected visit and rushed to the store.

When I parked my car and rambled up the ramp to the front door of the store I was approached by 4 small children dressed in the uniform of our local Catholic School. I guessed them to be in Kindergarten or maybe First Grade. They were selling raffle tickets to benefit there school... Ok, well you might as well know this about me, I'm a sucker for cute little kids selling things, and these little girls were way beyond cute, so I bought a couple of tickets and went into the store.

Things were going pretty well in the store until I hit the beer isle. To my surprise there was only one carton of Moose Head beer in the cooler and it was missing one bottle. Since it was the only pack on the shelf there I put it in my basket.

Things really started going wrong at the checkout stand. When the clerk saw there were only 5 bottles of Moose Head beer in the 6 pack carton she look suspiciously at me and said "Where's the other bottle?" I told her there were only 5 in it when I found it and that it was the only pack on the shelf. She stared me down for a brief moment taking my measure, then quickly slid the 5 pack under her counter and said "Well, I can't sell a broken pack." When I explained that I was expecting company later in the day and they had requested the beer she showed no sympathy and continued to slide my other items across the scanner. "Please" I pleaded "Can we call the manager or someone to help, I really do need to buy a 6 pack or even a 5 pack for our guests."

She stopped scanning, scowled at me and put one hand on her hip. With her other hand she picked up the intercom and said in an irritated yet monotone voice "There is a lady in the express isle who is missing a Moose Head can someone help?"

There was a collective gasp from behind me and when I turned around I saw the 4 tiny tots who sold me my raffle ticket. They each clutched an orange juice carton in their hands. Their mouths were agape and their eyes as large as silver dollars. I smiled and was about to attempt an explanation, but then I thought better of it. I didn't know which would be worse; letting them think I was looking for a missing head from a real moose or that I was buying beer in front of their innocent little eyes. I decided to let it go. Meanwhile the checker stood with both hands on her hips and shouted an apology to the ever growing line behind me. "Sorry folks, this lady needs another Moose Head, it will just be a minute."

The guy behind the little girls saw the humor in the situation and said "I think I saw a headless moose on isle 9 if that helps" I tried to laugh but what came out sounded more like a dog choking on a bone. Meanwhile, the little girls spun in unison, rocketed up on their tiptoes, and tried to see where isle 9 was." The rest of the line just smirked, their interest was obviously only in getting the line moving again.

In a minute, which seemed like an eternity, a young employee came to the check out stand and asked what was going on. The clerk said "This lady only has 5 Moose Heads in this pack " She pointed under the counter. "So go look in the dry pack section to see if there is a warm one there she can buy." He shook his head and said "We don't keep Moose Heads in the dry pack section, just in the cold case, but I'll see what I can find in back."

I looked down at the little girls who were now clutching their orange juice containers close to their chest. They looked deeply disturbed and I really wanted to say something to them, but words failed me. They were deathly silent and wide-eyed . They kept spinning around as though they expected a headless moose to come charging out from one of the isles at any moment. I imagined the horror running rampant in their minds as they imagined me cooking 6 moose heads for dinner... maybe boiled in a witches cauldron. It's likely they will be having nightmares tonight."

Once again the clerk started scanning more of my items and yelled a second apology to the mass of people in line behind me "We're working on getting this lady another Moose Head, it will just be another minute." People pushing carts past the checkout stand stopped and looked in my direction. They too were totally confused. I wanted to yell "It's a brand of Beer, not a real moose head" but embarrassment collected in my throat and was strangling me. I just smiled weakly and turned my back on them.

Suddenly I felt a tug on the back of my T-Shirt. I turned and looked around, then down at one of the little girls who had apparently collected enough courage to speak. She said "Why don't you want the whole moose not just it's head? I like moose's." The girl next to her was apparently fortified by the first girls courage because she added "That's mean!"

About that time the young employee ran up with a bottle of Moose Head and set it on the counter. "OH look" I said to the little girls "You see, it's not a real moose head, it's just a drink by that name...see Moose Head" I pointed to the bottle of beer and hoped they were not old enough to read but...of course they were. When the clerk pulled the 5 pack out from under the counter and plunked the new bottle down into it's slot the girls shouted in loud unison "BEER?" A look of total disgust and admonishment was so prevalent on their little faces that I almost wished they had been a real moose head instead of just beer.

Only Fools Rush In

2010-04-18T10:24:00.000-07:00

As previously mentioned, perhaps more times than necessary, we have a problem every spring with a mass invasion of skunks. Admittedly they are cute and if they would keep their distance I'd be ok with them. Unfortunately they do not keep their distance. Instead they flock to our chicken and small stock pens like a mob of hungry teenagers at a McDonald's fast food restaurant. In a single night they can kill a multitude of birds. When that happens something has to be done, so I set traps.

Ok, I know that will upset some of you. Seriously though, it has to be done. Unless you are a rancher you most likely have no clue how destructive a predator raid on a chicken coops can be. Not only do they kill in mass, they also create the potential for introducing disease and pests.

Hopefully you understand, so I will continue with the story.

One morning, not too long ago I went out to feed the chickens and found a skunk had dug under one of the pens and killed 4 nice laying hens. That evening, in frustration, I set a couple of traps and baited them with the skunks all time favorite food...Sardines.

A little after 5 am the following morning I woke to the unmistakable pungent smell of skunk. I immediately knew I had caught one in a trap. Now my husband, Bruce, is a sound sleeper. The skunk could have been standing on his chest spraying and he would never have awakened. With that in mind, I knew I was on my own, so I got up, slipped on my Jeans and Sweat-Shirt, grabbed a flash light and the .22 rifle and trotted out to look at the trap.

Ahh, well no need for the .22 because the door of the trap had fallen and caught the sunk around the neck. It was dead. With a sense of relief I went back into the house and since it was almost time to get up anyway I started a pot of coffee.

Now tell me why the smell of coffee will wake my husband but the putrid smell of skunk wont. It's one of the great mysteries of my life. At any rate, Bruce stumbled into the kitchen and asked what was going on. I told him about the skunk being killed by the falling trap door. He said he didn't see how something like that could have killed it, but he'd have a look.

I shrugged and sipped my coffee while he slipped into his jacked and headed out the back door. A few minutes later he came in and said "Well, strange as it seems I think you are right...it's dead."

When the sun came up we decided we'd best bury our dearly departed. Walking out back toward the pens, Bruce said "Ok you take it out of the trap while I get the shovel, then we'll bury it in the woods."

As I approached the trap I noticed that the skunk, who had previously been laying on its left side was now laying on its right side. I assumed Bruce had turned it over to check it, but I was curious why he hadn't removed it from the trap in the process. Even though my keen sense of perception told me there was something wrong, I bent down and began to lift the door on the trap.

Just then I though I saw a faint movement in the skunks chest area..did he just take a breath or was it the gentle breeze ruffling though its fur? I took a closer look. HOLY CRUD! It was breathing! It was taking very shallow breaths as if it were in a deep sleep. But.. OH NO..Not DEAD!

In a panic I turned and started to run while calling out a warning to Bruce....Unfortunately I had forgotten there was a small Pine tree directly in my path. That momentary lapse in memory caused me to smack face first into the tree. The force knocked me backward which caused one of my feet to land on one of the skunks hind feet and who, because he was not dead ...sprayed!

As Bruce came around the corner of the barn it didn't take him long to figure out what was going on. At that point he began lavishing me with sympathy. At least that is his version when he tells this story. It sounded like hysterical laughing to me. In all honesty I can't be certain because I was coughing, gagging and staggering around half-blinded with watering eyes and running nose.

I somehow managed to make my way to the laundry room with, I might add, no help from my sympathetic husband who trailed behind at a great distance. Once I had showered, sprayed myself down with Anti-Icky-Poo and put on fresh clothes, Bruce said he though I should be the one to go out and put the skunk out of it's misery. He reasoned that the skunk was mostly likely not only traumatized from my stepping on it, but in all probability had a concussion from the trap door hitting it on its head. I rejected his suggestion, but I did follow him back out toward the trap...at a distance.

Hiding behind the tree that had so viciously attacked me, Bruce aimed the .22 and called "Hey I can't remember..is a head shot or a lung shot the best way to keep them from spraying?"

I yelled back "Not the head!" Unfortunately, being a man, (they all have an incredibly short retention span) all he heard was "Head."

A split second later there was "POP" from the .22 and Bruce came staggering out from behind the tree amidst skunk oil perfumed air. Tears were streaming from his eyes and his nose was running. Even though he was coughing and gagging he managed to wheeze out an angry "Why did you tell me HEAD? Are you insane?"

Trying really hard not to laugh as I backed away from him I shouted " I told you NOT the head!" Ahh well.. I thought, moot point the skunk had the final blow...they always do.

As Bruce staggered back to the laundry room I lavished him with sympathy...or at least that's how it goes when I tell my version of this story. He still swears I was laughing hysterically.

A Primer on Toilet Training Tots

2010-04-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

Gather round young parents and let me tell a tale that will make your hearts grow weak and your flesh grow pale.

This is a brief primer on toilet training young tots...or maybe how not to toilet train young tots. Either way you look at it, it's advice that should be given due consideration.

I'm reaching back many years here, but as with all my tales, this one is completely true. It has taken me this long to share it publicly because only now do I feel I've begun to recover.

This particular story takes place when one of our daughters was still a toddler. I'll insert a fictitious name here to spare her undue embarrassment, even though embarrassing her a little would be fair and reasonable payback for the many embarrassing moments and headaches she's bestowed on me throughout the years. Ahh there you have it! I'll use the name Heda Ache, that's appropriate. Come to think of it, Mya Grain is even better!

Alright, now that I've laid that bit of ground work, let me tell you what happened. My husband and I had recently purchased a small 2 bedroom 1 bath home. It was a nice home but it bordered on being a "Fixer-Upper." The bathroom needed the most attention. The fixtures were not only outdated, they were a gaudy pink. Someone had painted the walls a shocking green that was more of a chartreuse, and the floor covering was yellow and blue floral patterned linoleum The whole affect was dizzying.

We ripped out the linoleum, and painted the walls, but the pink fixtures still left a lot to be desired. The only one who really like them was our daughter Mya Grain. She had learned to talk and walk prematurely but for some reason she could not grasp the idea of "potty training" and yet the bathroom was her favorite room in the house.

We decided to blame her slow comprehension of the process on the pink bathroom fixtures because every time she went in there she would look around nod her head happily and say "Pink. Pink. Pink. " but that was as far as it went. She loved to bathe in her pink tub, and she loved to wash her little hands in the pink wash basin, but the toilet.. well, other than the neat sound it made when it flushed, seemed to be a complete mystery to her.

So we saved our money and one day we went shopping for new fixtures. We'd hit several stores and after a bit I asked Mya Grain if she needed to "go potty." She looked around and said "Pink. Pink. Pink." Several stops at public restrooms only ended in frustration as she repeated her mantra of: "Pink. Pink. Pink."

All in all our trip was informative and it had not been wasted. Our heads were spinning with wonderful remodeling ideas but unfortunately they all outweighed our budget. We decided to make a final stop at a Sears Super Appliance Store that also sold kitchen and bath fixtures.

....and here is why I can't go into a sears appliance store today without flushing with embarrassment.

As parents often do we shared keeping an eye on Mya Grain. One minute she was holding tightly onto my hand and the next she was holding tightly on to her fathers hand. Suddenly I look at my husbands empty hands and said "WHERE is Mya Grain?" He spun around and looked my my empty hands and said "I thought you were holding on to her." I twirled in circles as my heart beat violently in my ears and tears welled up. I didn't see her anywhere.

Our attention was suddenly drawn to a rather large group of people all gathered around one section of fixtures and appliances. They were laughing uproariously. We assumed there was some sort of demonstration going on...and there was!

A few people shifted to one side a bit and as they parted I saw Mya Grain gleefully perched on a display toilet. Her panties were down around her ankles and her feet swung back and forth as she sang through a giggle.... "Pink. Pink. Potty Pink. Potty Pink."

I can not find words to tell you how embarrassed I was. I also can not tell you how embarrassed her father was because he fled out a side door shouting "Get YOUR daughter!"

Well, what to do? Scream? Cry? Flee? Faint? Encourage? Even though it was so very much the wrong place and the wrong time our dear Mya Grain had successfully achieved "potty training."

I did a slow dazed zombie walk toward her. I really did not want to admit she was my daughter but what else could I do. I briefly considered just leaving her there, but I quickly dismissed my need for self-preservation. Still, I envied my cowardice husband and wished I could have followed him out the door. Perspiration dripped from every pore in my body and my face flushed so badly I thought I was going to faint. Never in my life had I been so embarrassed. Seriously never. When she saw me she held her tiny arms open wide and squealed with sheer delight "Momma! Potty! Big Girl!" and clapped her chubby little toddler hands together and giggled! OH how proud she was!

Now, Lean in even closer young parents while I tell you the moral of this tale...Never ever assume the other parent is watching your toddler when you are out in public. This is especially true if you are in a fixture or appliance store. A single split second of distraction can change your life forever..and ever...and ever. Note how red my face is with embarrassment even now.

The Bear Horn

2010-03-31T11:30:00.000-07:00

As I've previously mentioned in: Bears Make Strange Fireside Guests, my husband Bruce and I enjoy backwoods camping. Our little 1976 CJ-7 Jeep has taken us to places few other humans have ever seen...mostly because they don't want to but also because these remote and isolated places are very difficult to get to.

Because we are seasoned campers, trackers, and fond viewers of nature, we always, always take the necessary precautions when we venture into the remote wilderness. By necessary precautions I mean a handgun, rifle, various knives, and hatchets...oh and a first-aid kit. The first aid-kit is there mainly in case we do harm to our own bodies with the handgun, rile, various knives, and hatchets.

Our most important precaution is a survival tool my husband invented, call "The Bear Horn". This handy little gadget is a devise that remotely activates the horn on the Jeep. It's really quite ingenious. One end of a long wire is attached to the Jeeps battery. The other end has a big red button mounted on a short piece of wood. When the big red button is pressed, the horn on the Jeep sounds. At night we string the wire from the Jeep into our tent. If we are ever attacked by a savage Grizzly Bear or a hungry Mountain Lion all we have to do is reach over take hold of "The Bear Horn" and depress the button. The horn on the Jeep responds by beeping loudly and the animal either dies from sudden heart failure or flees in utter terror.

Even though we've never had to actually use it, Bruce always, without fail, consistently, rigs "The Bear Horn" and as a precaution he double checks to make sure it is functioning properly. He never fails. Never!

So, here's what happened one fateful night deep in the backwoods of Northern Montana near the Canadian border.

We had enjoyed a long day of hiking and photographing the surrounding area and when nightfall came we were both beat, so we snuggled deep in our sleeping bags and immediately fell asleep.

Now here is an interesting phenomenon between Bruce and I. I sleep very light throughout the night. I can hear a pin drop or an acorn fall from a tree half a mile away. However, as soon the first hint of daylight begins to break I sleep like a rock. Bruce is just the opposite. He sleeps solid and sound though the night but at the first hint of dawn he sleeps very light.

So on this night, as always I slept light and heard every pine needle fall...but by the dawns early light I slipped deep into sleep. Suddenly I felt a sharp jab in the middle of my back. As I fought for consciousness, there was a brief pause and then another sharper jab to my back. I tried to ask Bruce what he thought he was doing but he roughly clamped one hand over my mouth and in a high-pitched shrieking whisper he hissed "Bear!" Before I could react Bruce wrenched my head around to show me the silhouette of a very large bear reflecting on the side of our tent.

Bears are big. No doubt about it, but when you are laying flat on the ground looking up at ones shadow I have to tell you it is heart attack time! Bruce still had one hand over my mouth and I now noticed he had the other one over his own mouth as well. Through his cold clammy clamped hand I manged to mumble " Bear Horn!" He shook his head and hissed though his teeth "I forgot to set it up last night!"

I reached up and I pulled his hand away from my mouth.."OK "I said in a hissing whisper.." Don't panic. The guns! where's the guns ?" Bruce shook his head and Hissed back "In the jeep with the horn." In a faint voice I squeaked "Knives? hatchet? fingernail clippers?" All Bruce could do was shake his head. We had no way to defend ourselves.

We watched in stunned silence as the bear put one very large paw on the side of the tent about 12 inches from Bruce's face. It pushed gently and apprehensively. We were helpless. We knew we were about to become bear breakfast, and there was nothing we could do about it. We were stupidly trapped in our tent.

Now, we are not novice campers, although we would have been hard pressed to prove it on that fateful trip. We also know a few rules about bears encounters, even though it's always anybody's guess as to whether or not the bears know the rules and abide by them.

Rule 1 is that if you encounter a black bear make noise and scare it off (Ok, that sometimes works. Sometimes it doesn't) Rule 2 is that if you happen upon a Grizzly don't make noise because screaming and yelling only makes them mad...very very mad. So our dilemma here was that we hadn't studied bear silhouettes and therefore couldn't tell if we were dealing with a Black bear or a Grizzly. Then again, you have to seriously ask yourself; If you are about to be eaten by a bear...does it really matter which it is?

The bear switched paws and one again pressed tentatively against the wall of the tent. Apparently it had never seen a big dome shaped object in the middle of its territory before and it was curious. Then it lowered it's paw and pushed hard into the tent with its big nose, sniffed and snorted loudly.

In a flash and without thinking Bruce recoiled his arm, made a fist and smashed it directly into the bears nose. Oh My God! It was the last thing I expected Bruce to do... apparently it was the last thing the bear expected as well because it withdrew a several steps, and let out a deafening roar then fell silent. So very very silent.

We grabbed hold of each other in a tight hug and waited. Nothing happened. Several heartbeats passed and still nothing. Slowly Bruce got to his knees and crawled to the door of the tent. He reached up and quietly inched the door zipper down. "Holy Shit" he hissed through clinched teeth "Grizzly sow!" then with a sharp intake he added "and 2... maybe 3 cubs"

For another minute he didn't say anything more so I whispered "What's happening? What are they doing? Why aren't we dead?" He turned and looked at me..all the color had drained from his face and said "She's taking them away...down the trail we walked yesterday." I got to my knees and joined him peeking out the doorway. Amazingly we saw the back end of 3 bears trotting down the pathway away from our camp.

And now..Part 2: God's Great Sense of Humor!

When our hearts began beating normally and we were totally convinced the bears were long gone we shouted prayers of thanks and popped open a thermos of hot coffee. We were in complete and total awe that we had survived an encounter with a grizzly sow and her cubs... even after Bruce punched her in the nose with all his might. By all accounts we both should be dead. Apparently the sow had never encountered humans or a tent and was totally confused by it all.

But never let it be said that God doesn't have a sense of humor.

Even though I knew the Grizzly sow and her cubs were long gone, I still chose to sit with my back snug against a large Pine tree for protection. As I sipped coffee my thoughts drifted to the part where Bruce punched the sow in the nose. Just thinking about it set my nerves on edge.

Suddenly and silently a very large pine cone broke loose from somewhere high above and fell hitting me squarely on top of my head. It happened so silently and quickly that I didn't realize it was only a Pine Cone. I thought the Grizzly had returned! I let out a blood curdling, heart stopping scream, whirled around and punched the tree as hard as I could. Bruce laughed hysterically and said "Doesn't God have a great sense of humor?" Yeah, right!

Going Whole Hog

2010-03-17T08:39:00.000-07:00

This is somewhat of a primer on how to break into the hog business, or more accurately how not to become a hog farmer. Oh, and let me assure you no animals were harmed during this episode of my life.

It all started a couple of years ago when I went to a livestock auction to pick up a few hen turkeys... and yes, I do know how to tell the difference between a hog and a turkey. However, things turned a bit sideways when by chance I bumped into a neighbor, Fred Carter, who has a cattle ranch a few miles up the road from us. Fred was at the auction looking for a weanling pig to raise for...well, you know.

Fred and I got to talking about the sad state of affairs the American meat industry has gotten itself into, what with all the recalls of tainted products happening every few months. One thing led to another and he said he wanted... and yet didn't want, to raise his own pork. He said he just didn't have the time to put into the effort.

Somehow at the end of our conversation he had smoothly talked me into buying a little weanling pig. The deal was that I would raise it until it was old enough to ...well you know. In exchange he said he'd give me a side of beef.

At the time that sounded like a good deal, but before long things got complicated. Most of the complication revolved around Walter (Yes.. I foolishly named the cute little porker.) That little guy took to me like a Golden Retriever puppy. Every time he caught sight of me on the ranch he squealed and came running with joy.

I really tried to ignore his delightful personality. Really I did. As time passed however, and the more grew, the more his personality grew, and the more he grew on me. Fred stopped by from time to time to ask how close we were to ...well you know what. I'd always say something like "You know Fred, that little guy just doesn't seem to be filling out right."

Six months passed and Fred finally got suspicious and asked to take a look at Walter. He concluded that about another month and it would be time for ...well, you know what. I silently thought that maybe I'd put Walter on a strict diet, but the truth was that Walter ate everything in sight. Grass, bugs, tree bark, acorns, horse feed, cat food, dog food, cattle food, even wild bird seed. No way was he going on a diet.

Another couple of months passed and little Walter has blossomed from the tiny 10 pound weanling piglet to roughly 110 pounds and stood nearly 2 feet tall. His tusks began to develop and even though he was sweet as sugar water, he was looking a bit menacing. To make matters worse he developed a smile that looked like a vicious snarl. Apparently it is customary to have boar hogs tusks removed if you plan on keeping them for pet or breeders. Who knew he would be around so long? I never dreamed he would be ..ok, I'll say it... a pet.

Fred came by again when Walter was 9-10 months old and said "Look here, if you don't take care of matters soon he won't be good for anything but sausage." I nodded and said "One more month Fred..just one more month."

So I was able to play the "just one more month" into 3 more months and Walter grew and grew. He weighed close to 250 pounds and was now about 3 feet tall and roughly 4 feet long. His alarming long tusks curled back and upward toward his ears. To outsiders he was totally scary. To me he was just little Walter.

Finally Fred got the idea that Walter was not going to become...well you know. So he came up with a plan B. He suggested that I go back to the auction and buy a sow and breed her to Walter and then give him a piglet and HE would raise it...our deal would still stand but the exchange was reduced to 1/4 of a beef in exchange for the piglet.

That sounded reasonable so the next time the livestock auction was held I hooked up the horse trailer, grabbed a fist full of cash and headed out. There were some nice sows offered, but I held my bids until I thought I had the hang of bidding. Finally the Auctioneer announced that they were bringing in the final lot of sows. I panicked and bid, and bid and bid. In the end, I thought it a bit seep to pay $500.00 for a sow, but hey...Walter deserved the best.

After paying and collecting my ticket stub, I raced out to the stockyard to claim Freida (yes I had already picked out a name for her.) The stock-men said for me to back my trailer up to the pen and they'd load for me. Great!

Once in place, I opened the tailgate on the trailer and they started herding them in. (Yes, I said them.) "Wait I yelled" pointing to one particularly nice looking black and white sow, " I just bought that one." One of the men looked at my stub again and said "No ma'am you bought yourself a lot of 7 nice sows." SEVEN? SEVEN? I looked frantically around and started yelling "Anyone interested in buying some sows really cheap?" No one did.

So there you have it. I drove 7 sows home to Walter. He was happy. My husband was not. But after we both settled down we decided that it might work out ok. We'd sell the piglets and the sows in the spring. Not such a big deal.

Well it tuned out to be a big deal. Do you have any idea how much 7 large pregnant sows and one humorously large boar can eat? Yikes! We tried to keep focused on how much money the piglets would bring in and we figured it would all balance out.

Spring came and Walter had grown even more. He was now nearly 400 pound, close to 3 1/2 feet tall, and over 5 feet long. His tusks had grown to roughly 14 inches. There wasn't a grown man in the county that would come within 50 feet of him, including our local vet. He was still sweet little Walter but you couldn't convince anyone of that.

Something else that came in the spring... piglets! Alice was the first to farrow, she had 9 adorable little grunting piglets. Hooray 9 ! count them 9! Next it was Felicia's turn. She had 7 ...GREAT 7! That made 16 healthy piglets to sell. We were excited beyond belief. Next Tina proudly produced 10 ... Wow, now we had 26 piglets. Just count that money!

Well I will spare you the blow by blow birthing of 49 squealing, grunting piglets, but I'm here to tell you it can be, and truly was overwhelming! With the barn and pasture overflowing with bouncing piggies, we began to understand why hog farmers take their broods to the auction. Seriously 49 piglets. Just try to imagine the sounds and the feed bill. Wow..who knew!

In the end, Fred got his piglet. We tried to give him 48 more, but he just laughed and got into his truck with 1 squealing weanling pig under his arm. We advertised for 4-H kids to come and get them for free....pleeeeese! Not many did, but then again, there are not 49 4-H kids in this county that want to raise hogs for the fair. In the end we made trip after trip to the auction until we sold all the sows and their broods.

Walter? I'm sure you are wondering what happened to Walter. Well the old boy is still alive and well. On one of the trips to the auction I got to talking to an old hog farmer who had just lost her boar. When I told her about Walter she said she'd like to come and take a look. When she saw him she let out a few choice adjectives , but when the shock of seeing a hippopotamus sized boar with menacing tusks smiling at her wore off, she fell in love with him... and he with her. (or maybe he smelled the sows on her. Maybe he was upset with me for selling off his ladies. I guess I'll never know.) She said "Hi big boy how hard will it be to coax you into my trailer?" He grunted softly and walked right up into her trailer and off they went.

I miss Walter, but from time to time I stop by "Helen's Happy Hog Hollow" and say hello. He acts like he remembers me. He still gives a squeal and runs over to see me. We exchange a few grunts and then he wanders off to his harem, and I swear he's laughing.

Primal Instincts of TheHunters and Gatherers

2010-02-15T08:40:00.000-08:00

Picture the Savannas that lie between the Sahara desert and the rain forests near the equator and the plateaus of East Africa. It is in those fruitful grasslands that all manner of beasts must come to forage for food. It is there that each creature must risk the very life it has come to nourish and sustain in it's quest for food. The meek, though agile, vegetarians must mingle with the vicious and cunning carnivores. This daily struggle matches brain and brawn in a never ending batter for survival Just as the careful and cunning survive on the Savannas, so do the careful and cunning humans survive their hunts in the supermarkets of the world.

There seems to be an unwritten set of rules that apply not only to wildlife foraging on the Savannas, but to human wildlife foraging in supermarkets as well. For example, only a foolish jackal would deliberately cut off a pack of hungry lionesses as they huddle over a fresh kill. So it is at the meat display case in supermarkets. Only the foolish crowed their way into a group of aggressive shopper pawing through the huge stacks of newly packaged meats...it's not so much a matter of courtesy as it is common sense.

The wise meek animals always yield to the more aggressive ones. That rule applies both in the wilderness and in the supermarket. It is an insightful shopper who wheels her shopping cart to one side of the isle and allows a more aggressive shopper to pass. Only those oblivious to the laws of nature crowd out or cut off fierce competitors. Men, oh poor poor men. They have no chance of surviving a trip to the supermarket unscathed. The poor things always have a look of a terrified fawn about to be taken down by a Jaguar. I've seen vicious corporate executives flatten themselves against cans of soup in order to escape being mowed down by an aggressive shopper wielding a lethal shopping cart. Actually, I've been right there beside them at times.

Here, in my own gentle, peaceful, small country community, we have honed our survival skills to the max. We have taken our hunting etiquette to the highest levels of society. It's referred to as "The One-Handed Cart Exchange." It does require a bit of skill and is not for amateurs , but with practice one can execute the relay quite cleverly.

Here's how it works: After a shopper leaves the store with a cart full of carefully hunted bounty, the next step is to agilely transfer the items from the cart to ones vehicle. This act is usually done with one hand because the other hand is needed to steady the cart in order to keep it from rolling away and flattening an innocent little old lady. The very skilled have been observed using both hands to unload the bounty while steadying the cart with one or even both feet (Important Note: This should only be done by the very skilled. It's not for beginners.)

Once the bounty has been transferred to the vehicle you are left standing with an empty cart somewhere in the middle of the parking lot. At this point, and quite within the rules of the skilled hunter/gatherer's, you may choose to do one of three things. You may: leave the cart standing in the middle of the parking lot in reckless abandonment and accept the disdainful glares of other more skilled hunters. You may push the cart into a "cart return" stall which is generally nowhere within a mile of your parked vehicle and hope and pray someone from the medical profession is nearby to administer CPR when you collapse from exhaustion. OR, you may opt for the more common "One Handed Cart Exchange" maneuver."

It works this way: As a fresh new hunter approaches the feedlot, you politely say "Hi would you like to take my cart?" Note here that this move is generally done by gently pushing the cart, using only one hand, to arms length toward the incoming hunter. It may or may not be executed with a slight dainty back thrust of of ones foot. The whole scenario looks a bit like a parking lot ballet. Try to imagine the pageantry of a dozen or more hunters all doing this at one time..I'm telling you it's poetry in motion!

Setting aside the sheer poetry of this maneuver, the whole thing works out quite well. It saves the exiting hungers from an exhausting trip to the cart return stall. It also keeps the incoming hunters from having to risk scraped knuckles and a dislocated shoulder as they attempt to dislodge a cart from the overly compacted rows of them in front of the store.

Ok, so now that you get the picture of supermarket hunting in this area, let me tell you about my experience.

I've lived in this community for a very long time and have witnessed the eloquent One Handed Cart Exchange multiple times. As luck would have it, I've been fortunate enough be on the receiving end of this incredible maneuver countless times. Never though have I been in the right place at the right time to try and execute it from the passer's position. That is, until this weekend.

Here's what happened:

I had just finished some extensive hunting at one of my favorite local grazing spots. It was late in the day. I was overly tired and I had a splitting headache. Both of these factors made me give serious consideration to abandoning the cart in the middle of the parking lot. But, as luck would have it, I happened to see a well dressed woman approaching from further down in the isle of parked cars. "Ahh, it's now or never" I thought "I'll give this One Handed Cart Exchange a try."

As the new huntress approached my vehicle I whirled the cart around with one hand, gave a fanciful little back kick with my left foot and gently pushed the cart out toward her. Next I mustered my best smile and said "Hi, would you like to take my cart? I thought I looked and sounded like an old pro. Apparently not!

The woman whirled on me with a piercing look and said in a truly condescending and disgusting tone "What? For Pete's sake ...Take your own damn cart up...do I look like a cart boy or your servant?" At that moment, I would rather have been a fawn on the Savanna confronting a savage lioness. I have no idea what went so wrong. Maybe I didn't have my arm and leg extended correctly. At any rate, it will be a while before I try the One Handed Cart Exchange maneuver again. Actually I may never try it again. Hunting/shopping..definitely not a sport for the weak at heart.

A Mouse In My Pocket

2010-01-30T10:47:00.000-08:00

In order to convey the feeling of loneliness in his novel: Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck has one of his characters, Lennie, walking around with a pet field mouse in his pocket. Apparently Lennie and his mouse are pretty good friends.

Now, I don't mean to put John Steinbeck down. He was a great novelist. It's just that I have a little different take on the idea of having a mouse in your pocket. Let me explain.

Because our ranch backs up to the forest we have the occasional mouse or two or ten scampering around our barn. We, of course, take the necessary precautions to be sure their numbers don't exceed the number of stars in the universe, however it is an on-going challenge.

A few weeks ago we had an unexpected break in the cold weather, so on that day the jacket I wore out to the barn to feed the livestock was quickly discarded. I don't like wearing jackets anyway because they hinder my movement, so I was delighted to be able to take it off and toss it haphazardly on a bale of hay.

Unfortunately in about an hour or so the clouds rolled back in and the wind picked up, so I reluctantly slipped the jacket back on. It was amazing how quickly the weather turned from warm and sunny to cold and windy. The sudden change made my nose runny so I reached into my pocket to retrieve a Kleenex. It took me a few seconds to realize that Kleenex are not supposed to feel warm and fuzzy. Nor are they supposed to scamper about in your pocket when touched. Sure Kleenex have improved remarkably over the years, but not that much. My keen sense of perception told me there was something not quite right about that Kleenex. A quick peek into the pocket reveled two bulging eyes of a wild field mouse staring back at me.

Shrieking and squealing louder than a frightened piglet, I jerked my hand out of my pocket. I think that normally would have been a good maneuver but the mouse, no doubt fearful of going deaf from my screams, jumped from pocket onto my hand and then ran up the under sleeve of my jacket.

That caused me to do what any woman would do. I started jumping up and down, spinning in circles and screaming even louder. Somewhere in there, a tweak of sanity took over and I realized I needed to get my jacket off in order to free myself and the mouse from our mutual horror. Unfortunately, the jacket zipper had other ideas. It was stuck. I'm telling you... Never trust a zipper to work when you need it the most. They are totally unreliable in emergencies! I think the FDA should put warning labels on them. I can only imagine the horrors that plague men.

I tugged, I screamed, I pulled, I screamed, I jumped up and down, I screamed, I stomped my feet, and I screamed...nothing would work. Finally I tried pulling the jacket up over my head. That not only failed but it gave the mouse the opportunity to slip down the collar of my sweatshirt and lodge itself on my left shoulder. Since the mouse now had access to my bare shoulder under the sweatshirt, I feared it would bite me, which only increased my angst.

I tugged violently at the collars of both my jacket and sweatshirt hoping the mouse would see the light of day though the tiny opening and flee. It didn't. It crawled in deeper . Suddenly I felt it trying to slide down by back, so I began to jump up and down faster as I fanned the bottom of my clothing. At that point, I began to feel oxygen deprived from all the screaming and squealing. I was also feeling a bit queasy and dizzy from all the jumping and spinning in circles. The Whirling Dervish would have been very proud of my performance!

Finally exhausted, I began to lose balance and on one of my rotations I collided with a bale of hay, bounced off it and fell down. Defeated by a tiny mouse in my pocket, I lay completely still and exhausted for a few seconds watching the barn continue to spin around me. I tried to come up with a plan to rid myself of the mouse, but all that came to mind was crying. Well, in all honesty, there was a brief moment when I considered shooting the mouse, but since it was clinging spread-eagle to my shoulder, I knew the outcome wouldn't have been pretty. I envisioned the local newspaper headlines reading "Crazed woman shoots self in shoulder while trying to escape mouse attack" Yeah, that would nave been real good.

It's rare, but I suppose there are times when there is logic in surrendering. In this case, apparently the mouse was relieved that I had stopped my frantic thrashing because with the speed of a flash of lightening, it ran down my limp arm and exited though the cuff on clothing. I continued to lay motionless as I watched it stagger dizzily across the barn floor and vanish under a stall door.

I have to tell you, the whole episode frightened me half out of my mind, but.. in all fairness, I'm not completely without sympathy for the mouse. That poor little thing must have had one insane ride. The image of a bull rider clinging to the back of a crazed bull as it spins and bucks comes to mind.

Nothing personal John Steinbeck, but one day I may rewrite your novel and call it: Of Mice and Hysterical Women.

Guest Speaker Extrodinaire

2010-01-21T10:21:00.000-08:00

Because I recently wrote and published a book on the smallest and most unique quail in the world; Chinese Blue Breasted Quail, I was asked to be the featured guest speaker at a Bird Club.

The town that I was to speak in is about a 4 hour drive from our home. Since we were unfamiliar with the town, the club's representative, Karen, suggested we come a bit early and meet at a local restaurant on the main highway. She said the club would be honored to buy my husband,Bruce and me dinner prior to the meeting.

Locating the restaurant and meeting up with Karen, sounded simple enough. Since since she was in the process of moving she told us to look for a white pick-up with miscellaneous household belongings piled in it. She also said we should look for a "Mutt and Jeff" combination because she was very short and she would be bringing another club member who was very tall. To further simplify things she said the tall woman, named Jane, would be walking with a cane. What could be easier?

Since it was a long trip and we were still a bit shaky about the exact location of the restaurant, we left a bit earlier than needed. Which of course meant we arrived 30 minutes early and found the restaurant without any trouble. That's just the law of nature with things like that. We were to meet the club ladies at 5:30. It was 5pm on the dot.

At 5:15 we saw a solitary tall woman, using a cane,walking toward the door of the restaurant. She was looking around as if she was searching for someone, so we jumped out of the truck and rushed toward her. As we anxiously approached we asked "Are you Jane?." As it turned out, she wasn't Jane, and there was a brief moment when the cane came up off the ground in a manner that suggested she might swing it at us.

We retreated to the safety of our truck and waited, and waited and waited. Finally at 5:50 a white pick up truck struggling under the weight of what appeared to be an entire houseful of boxes and furniture raced madly into the parking lot. A short woman exploded from the drivers side and literally ran toward the restaurant's door. Catching up to her just inside the restaurant we confirmed it was indeed Karen, and introduced ourselves. Jane, the tall lady with the cane, was a no-show.

It was a delightful dinner over which we exchanged pleasantries and talked about various types of birds. After dessert and coffee the water dropped off the bill and Jane presented him with a plastic card. The waiter scrutinized it, shook his head and explained they didn't accept debit cards. Since that was the only card Karen had...we paid for the meal.

Once outside, Karen said we should follow her to the community center where the bird club met and where my speech would be delivered. Now you would think that the deal with the debit card would have been a glaring signal telling us that the rest of the evening was not going to go well, but we laughed it off and started off in pursuit of Karen's truck. By then it was getting dark, so we were tracking her tail lights, and trying to keep her mound of belongings in sight.

Karen, who was obviously used to rush hour driving, wove in and out of traffic like the Tasmanian Devil. I did a fairly good job of keeping up with her until a very large truck cut me off, and we completely lost her. She had given us vague (very vague) directions before leaving the restaurant. Fortunately, by pure blind luck and multiple random turns, we happened upon the community center about 7pm

Karen was inside calmly sipping coffee. Swell. She introduced us to the clubs president and secretary who informed us the power point projector was mysteriously not working, but added that they had called for a back up unit which would arrive well before my talk which was scheduled to begin at 7:30.

By 8:10 the back-up unit had not arrived and people were getting restless. Maybe it was just my nerves, but I was sensing a riot or a massive walk-out. At 8:15 the club president suggested a break for coffee and cookies, and he initiated a raffle. That kept everyone's attention off me for a while longer, but I was growing more and more apprehensive and nervous with every tick of the clock.

Finally at 8:40 the new equipment arrived. It was dropped off by the club presidents son who appeared to be in his early 20's. I felt a brief moment of reprieve until I noticed the young man left without helping to set the equipment in place. In a brief flurry of discussion it became apparent that no one there was familiar with setting the new unit up let alone operating it. A migraine began to nag me and I felt a bit faint. There wasn't enough coffee or water in the whole center to quench the dryness in my mouth.

In a group effort, everyone rallied around the machines and eventually, mostly by luck, they managed to turn it on, and I was handed the microphone. A loud cheer went up from the restless group.

As I began to introduce myself and give a bit of background for my talk, loud stripper music blasted from the speakers and some rather interesting images began to flash on the large screen behind me. Everyone gasped. Mothers covered their childrens eyes. Men hooted. I felt all my blood rushing to my head and I had to grasp hold the podium to keep my legs from buckling. I felt very nauseous and my whole body began to tremble. I managed to croak in a near whisper "That's NOT my C.D. Seriously people, that is not my C.D. Really no, not mine."

Well, naturally the man operating the projector couldn't figure out how to shut it off or open the C.D. drawer until it was too late...much, much too late, so we progressed about 3 minutes into the "show." When he was finally able to open the drawer he ejected a C.D. and jokingly announced it was titled "Factory Girls Raw and Naked" I left the stage and headed to the woman's restroom where I ran cold water over my wrists to keep from fainting and also splashed some on my face to no avail.

Apparently the young man who delivered the projector was watching that CD when he was asked to deliver the equipment to the club. Either he forgot to pull it out, or it was his revenge for having to give up his evenings entertainment. Either way, anyway, anyhow it was the most embarrassing moment in my life...thus far.

At 9.05 they reintroduced me and someone whispered in my ear "I know we scheduled your for an hour but can you cut it to 30 minutes or less?"

The rest is a blur.

Need I say I had a full blown migraine and was completely flustered, flushed, nauseated and faint by then? To top things off the stress caused my asthma to kick in and I could barely breath let along talk. My voice vibrated so bad it sounded like I was trying to talk while roller skating over a washboard sidewalk. Eventually, someone handed me a tiny paper cup of water which I managed to spill over my notes rendering them completely useless.

As for the talk, I have no idea what came out of my mouth. The sensation felt like what people describe when they say they have an out of body experience. I was there, but not really there. I stumbled madly though the disjointed talk and consolidated it down to 18 minutes flat. Maybe the audience didn't realize what I left out, maybe they were just happy it was finally over, or maybe they just felt sorry for me, but when I finished and staggered off the stage in a daze they applauded and thanked me.

Yesterday received a nice e-mail in the form of an apology and a request to speak again in 2 months. But you know what...I'm pretty sure I'm busy that night,when ever it is. My public speaking is pretty much a thing of the past...forever.

The Kidnap and Murder of Modine

2010-01-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

It all started out so innocently when my friend Beth called to ask if I'd help her alter a wedding dress. Now, I'm not by any means an expert seamstress but I at least know how to thread a needle and that puts me miles ahead of Beth.

The biggest problem I saw was that since Beth works nights and sleeps most of the day we would have an awful time getting together for fittings and subsequent alterations. To solve that problem we decided we needed to find a manikin or dress form in size 16, so I could work on the dress at my leisure.

Running thought the phone book listings we soon discovered that buying a new one was way out of her budget range, so we decided to place an ad in the local newspaper. The ad said we were open to buying if the price was right but we'd prefer to borrow one for a few weeks.

The ad harvested only one response. It came from an elderly lady who said had a half manikin half dress form in her attic that she thought was a size 16 and if we'd come get it we could have it for free.

As it happened that call came on a day when Beth was off work. So I telephoned her and told her to get herself up out of bed so we could pick up this strange sounding "maniform/dressikin."

Now that you have a bit of background, here's what happened:

When we arrived at the home of the lady who had called we discovered that she was in a wheel chair, which meant we were the ones that had to climb into the attic and examine the strange "maniform/dressikin" and then subsequently drag her down to the main floor. She was perfect in every way. Her body was soft like a dress form, but her head, legs, and arms were made of a hard composite material. Not only did she look very human-like, she even had a name: Modine .

So far so good... or not, depending on how you look at it. We wanted to sit Modine in the back seat of Beth's car, but Modine was stark naked and no matter what position we sat or laid her in we decided it was grounds for a ticket for lewd behavior in a public place. So we hauled her back into the old lady's house and asked if she had an old sheet or something we could wrap her in. The lady said that there were some old packing/moving pads in the garage and we were welcome to take one of those.

Perfect... or not, depending on your point of view. We wrapped Modine head to toe in the moving/packing pad and with Beth holding her legs and me holding her head and arms we hauled her out to the car again. On a whim, we decided to put Modine in the trunk of the car instead of the back seat.

Now picture if you will; two strange ladies hauling something that looks a lot like a body out of your elderly neighbors house and stuffing it into the trunk of a car... what would you do? Well of course you'd call the police. Someone did.

But it only gets better, because the latch on the trunk of Beth's car doesn't always hold, and it chose this particular day to NOT hold. About halfway home the trunk flew open. Beth was in the center lane and couldn't make it to the right hand lane to pull over, so at the first red stoplight I jumped out to slam it shut.

To my horror the pad had blown partially off exposing Modines upper torso and head. Her hair was askew, her head was flopped back, and one hand dangled precariously into open air. I tried to shove her back into the trunk, but her head wedged between the spare tire and the inside of the trunk. It wouldn't budge, so I grabbed her by the hair and began to push, pull and tug.

I can only imagine how it all looked. The people in cars to either side and behind us were talking adamantly on cell phones and snapping photos of me. I kept shouting "it's ok, she's just a manikin" but no one laughed. As the light turned green a car full of teenage girls slowly drove past...all of them started screaming and pulled out their cell phones in unison. I heard distant sirens closing fast...and yet, you know I just didn't think they were coming for us. Sure it looked bad, but she was just a "maniform/dressikin."

Finally I was able to shove Modine back into position in the trunk, but not before her head came off, slipped though my hands and bounced once on the pavement. I grabbed it by a shank of long black hair and tossed it to the back of the trunk and jumped back in the car. Beth was laughing hysterically, I wasn't.

We'd only driven about 2 blocks when we were surrounded by city police, state police and highway patrol vehicles. They were on both sides of us, behind us and cutting us off in front. A voice boomed from a loud speaker telling the driver (that would be Beth) to roll down her window and show both hands. The passenger (me) was told not to exit the car.

Beth was then told to exit the vehicle with both hands in the air, turn and put her hands on top of the vehicle. Next I was told to follow the same procedure they had just walked Beth through. I'm telling you having a dozen or so weapons pointed at you is nothing like it seems on television. It's down right heart stopping. So much so that Beth fainted! Some friend, checking out when I needed her the most!

With Beth laying stone cold on the pavement while they put handcuffs on her, that left me to try and explain that Modine was a "maniform/dressikin" A statement I now regret making because after being asked several times to repeat "maniform/dressikin" they had me take a breath-alizer test.

When the county coroner arrived and opened the trunk, he pronounced Modine to be a very dead "maniform/dressikin" but no one laughed. Some people just do not have a sense of humor!

The Gourmet Omelet

2010-01-06T09:42:00.000-08:00

We recently had a friend from out of town drop in and spend several nights with us. Now Barb has a good heart, but she has more energy than a Barrel full of Beagle puppies. Spending even one hour with her requires as much energy as competing in a triathlon . She is a "flitterer." Her feet, hands and mouth are always in perpetual motion.

On the bright side you never have to worry about finding something interesting to talk to her about. It's impossible to interject more than a single word or two before she takes the lead and carries the full conversation on her side. It's a bit like trying to talk to a radio that's tuned to non-stop talk shows.

Oh, and she is a "follower." You can't get away from her, wherever you go she is right on your heels chattering away. I've tried escaping and locking myself in the bathroom, but she stands outside the door blabbering like a rapid fire machine gun. It's ok, it's just terribly wearing.

Her perpetual prattling finally stops when we convince her to trot upstairs so we can get some sleep. Because we live on a ranch our days begin at 5:30 am and stop about 10pm. I don't think Barb has an off switch, but after saying "good night" to her 8 or 10 times she finally relents and retreats to her room.

On the other hand, I think her days of perpetual motion do take their toll on her too, because she sleeps in late. She always has. As I said, we get up at 5:30am and start our day. Barb's day starts around 10:30 or 11:00. Because we get up early we eat breakfast early, so Barb misses that meal.

During her last visit, as is my custom I leave food for her in the refrigerator and put on a fresh pot of coffee for her about 10 am. That generally works well. However we apparently crossed wires on the last morning of her visit.

Here's what happened: For some odd reason Barb got up early that morning. She was in the kitchen by about 8am. I told her we had eaten, but that there was plenty of things in the refrigerator for her to make an omelet out of, and then I quickly ran out the door to do some chores.

When I came back in Barb was sitting at the table eating her omelet, so I poured a cup of coffee for myself and joined her. She beamed and said "This is the best omelet I've ever eaten...Thank you!"

After a few minutes I told her I had more chores to do outside (actually I needed to find some peace and quiet) so I stood and took my cup to the sink. Now here is where it gets interesting. To the left of my sink I keep a bowl of scraps from the previous days meals which I feed to the chickens and the hog the next day. As I poured the remains of my coffee in the sink I notice that bowl was empty and sitting in the sink.

I turned slowly to look at Barb who was just downing the last bite of her omelet. As she chewed she again said how incredible it was. She said it was every bit as good as you'd expect to receive at a gourmet restaurant.

I smiled weakly and asked her what all she put in it... when she said she had used the bowl on the counter that held the scraps from OUR omelet I about died. I picked the bowl out of the sink and said "This bowl?" My expression must have given me away because she apologetically said "Oh I hope it was ok to use those... You weren't saving them for yourself were you?"

All I could do was smile and say "No no, not at all, I'm glad you enjoyed it." After all, how do you tell your guest she had just eaten the pigs food ?

The Heimlich Maneuver

2010-01-05T14:35:00.002-08:00

I look at computers pretty much the same way I look at a burp. They are a fact of life, they can be irritating, frustrating and sometimes down right embarrassing. However, both computers and burps have a purpose in my life, and I live with that fact.

Like most people, I have a love/hate relationship with my computer whom I have named "Mr PIBS" Which translates to: Pain In The Butt System!

After endless weeks of nursing the ailing Mr. PIBS along, I threw myself on the mercy of two computer technicians from my husbands office, Mike and Byron.

The two of them huddled over Mr. PIBS and mumbled to each other in a language totally alien to my ears. Occasionally they would look up and ask me questions about his CMOS or DRAMS or EDI...like I know these things?

After seeing my clueless expressions, they pretty much ignored me and began to dissect poor MR PIBS. In a matter of minutes they told me he was "Terminal" (pun intended.) When I explained that we did not have sufficient money to cover purchasing a new unit and that despite my efforts to claim him as a dependent, Mr PIBS was not a rider on our Blue Cross Medical Insurance, they graciously offered to take him on as a hard-ship case.

As they carried him in pieces out my office door they said they would happily donate their time and expertise to rebuild him if my husband and I would cover the cost of parts and maybe throw in a nice dinner for them and their wives. I happily agreed.

After spending nearly two weeks in intensive care, Mr PIBS was able to come home. His transformation was nothing short of miraculous. Although I still call him Mr. PIBS, that now translates to: Pretty Incredibility Built System.

Last night was set aside as the "pay back dinner" for the technicians and their wives. Rather than trying to coordinate a home cooked meal, we all decided it would be more practical and more fun to have everyone meet at one of our local Chinese restaurants.

The meal was going well, and we were enjoying the typical exchange of conversation and bantering that accompanies gatherings of this sort. We touched lightly on politics, world turmoil, and the cost of living, and so forth. Suddenly, focus of the conversation turned to Bruce and me, and Bruce decided to tell a story involving me that I found a bit embarrassing.

In light-hearted jest, I lightly poked him with my elbow and cleared my throat, which was my way of hinting that we should move on to another story.

He was engrossed in the tale and ignored me, (nothing new there) so I jabbed him a bit harder, cleared my throat more violently and even faked a few little coughs to get his attention.

The result was far from what I expected. As I attempted to nudge him for the third time, both of the young men jumped to their feet and rushed toward me. One grabbed the back of my chair and abruptly jerked it away from the table. Then, before I had time to react, the other, in a lightening fast kung fu motion, jerked me out of the chair, pulled me to my feet and began administering the Heimlich maneuver!

Their obvious misinterpretation of my attempt to silence my husband struck me as hilarious and I began to laugh. Unfortunately my laughter came out as gasps and "uuumphs" because of the Heimlich maneuver compressions against my sternum.

Before I knew it our table was surrounded by other restaurant patrons, waters, and even a wide-eyed chef holding a cleaver.

I knew if I could control my laughter and relax a bit everything would be alright, but the more I thought about what was happening, the funnier it became to me.

Finally I was able to take a fairly deep breath, nod my head and squiggle out from under the arms that were clamped tightly around me. The harsh compressions and laughter left me breathless, flushed and teary eyed. My hair was dishevelled and my make-up streamed down my face. What a sight I must have been!

As I sucked in a deep breath of air I heard someone in the crowd say "Oh thank God she's ok, that was close."

I turned to face my "rescuers". I badly wanted to tell them they had made a terrible mistake and that I had not actually ever choked. However, seeing the look of genuine concern and the glint of pride on every one's face. I simply didn't have the heart to tell them I was never in any danger of choking. So Instead I gave each of them a hug and rasped out "Thank You for saving my life."

The restaurant attempted to give us a free meal. When I emphatically refused, they sent me home with a little container of Kung Pau Chicken. I don't think I will ever again be able to eat Kung Pau Chicken with out exploding into uproarious laughter and deep gratitude for the love of friends.

Even though I never actually choked, I had indeed been rescued.

2010-01-05T14:35:00.001-08:00

The Christmas Puppy

2009-12-29T09:28:00.000-08:00

Our good friends, Kathy and Kurtis finally relented to the pleadings of their 7 year old daughter, Terri and decided to give her a puppy for Christmas.

Kathy wanted something tiny and cuddly like a Chihuahua or teacup poodle. Curtis wanted something manly like a St. Bernard. For weeks prior to Christmas they scoured every animal shelter within an hours dive of their home, and also responded to newspaper and on-line ads. After looking at dozens and dozens of puppy they came up empty handed.

A few days before Christmas Curtis came home from work and proudly announced that he found the perfect puppy and that he had made arrangements with the breeder to pick it up on Christmas morning. He said it was a "pretty small guy" and that "the owner said it was the smallest in the litter."

Now Kathy's folks live in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and they had made arrangements some months earlier to fly out for a brief visit with them. They were scheduled to arrive on the 22nd and leave on the afternoon of the 24th. Everything was planned down to the minute.

What wasn't in their plans however was being snowed in at the Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City on the 24th. It looked like they would not make it home in time for Christmas.

In a panic Curtis called me the morning of the 24th and asked if I could pick up their new puppy and care for it until they were able to catch a flight home. A tiny puppy did not fit into my Christmas plans, but what else could I do but agree to "puppy-sit" until they got home. After all, what are friends for ?

We were having guests for dinner that night, but since I had prepared most of the meal ahead of time, and the table was already set I would have plenty of time to dash across town and pick up the puppy. I didn't see how it could be much of a problem.

The "puppy" turned out to be a 4 month old Great Dane mix. It was huge! I mean really huge. It took 2 of us just to pile him into the passenger seat of my truck. It also took 2 of us to pile me into the drivers side because the puppy was all legs, tail and tongue and he used all 3 non-stop and with great exuberance. Granted, he was cute, but he was also a serious driving hazard. He blocked the passenger side window and mirror, dislodged the rear view mirror, fogged up the windows and slobbered over everything.

I managed to get him within about a mile of my home when suddenly he began to frantically pant and whine. I thought he had to go "potty" so I quickly pulled off to the side of the road, snapped the leash onto his collar and tried to pull him out the passenger side door.

Well, as it turns out he didn't have to go "potty" he had to throw up! He apparently couldn't wait another 5 seconds until I could pull him out of the truck, because the contents of his breakfast and quite possibly his dinner from the night before were violently hurled onto me.

I continued to try and coax him out of the truck, but it was obvious that he had done what he needed to do and as such refused to leave the warmth of the vehicle. I was upset, but I live on a ranch and having a very large dog throw up on me wasn't the worst thing that had happened to me, but it was a close second.

Once I got him to my house it took a good 15 minutes for me to get him out of the truck. He tossed his head in the air and planted his feet firmly on the seat. I wondered if he was afraid of heights so I tried to lift him out. Actually it was more of a lift/shove/pull motion. That maneuver finally did the trick, but not without casualty. Mine. Somehow he managed to slam his big head into my right eye.

Finally I hauled him into the house. Apparently he not only dislikes travel, has a fear of heights but he must also have a fear of tile floors. I had to use the push/pull technique again to get him into the laundry room.

Since I had been expecting to bring home a tiny fuzzy semi-helpless little puppy I had arranged a very small but cozy doggie bed in one corner of the laundry room. The "puppy" took one look at it, tossed it up in the air and began to shred it. "N0 No" I yelled while making a grab for it.

Immediately , the "puppy" lost interest in it and managed to slip out the laundry room door. I could hear unidentifiable objects crashing to the floor as he thundered though the house. I flung the shredded doggie bed to one side and ran after him.

He mowed though the house with his tremendously long tail whirling like a helicopter. Everything in it's wake toppled to the floor. Before I could catch him he discovered an edge of the dangling table cloth and gave it a side to side jerking pull. My china, glasses, cups, saucers, silverware and beautiful center piece cascaded off the table in a wild cacophony of clatter as they shattered.

I lunged for the puppy, but as I attempted to grab hold of his collar he backed under the table with my frayed centerpiece in his mouth. His tail wagged gleefully and his eyes sparkled with merriment. He was thoroughly enjoying this insane game.

I crawled on hands and knees under the table and managed to grab hold of his collar but not before cutting my left knee on a broken piece of glass. A head bumped sharply on the underside of the table. It wasn't the puppy's !

I managed to drag him back to the laundry room. However, as I attempted to close the door he sensed my intention and tried to squeeze his bulky body through the narrowing crack. I stopped closing the door to avoid slamming his nose in it. With one hand on the door knob I used the other hand to shove him back into the laundry room. In the process I managed to close the door on my hand. We both began to howl simultaneously.

Once the door closed I slid to the floor. I was exhausted, disheveled, and smelled like dog vomit, but at least I was victorious. I badly needed a shower, I also needed to salvage the dinner table and finish fixing dinner. My guests were scheduled to arrive in approximately 45 minutes.

I hobbled to the bathroom trying to ignore the morbid howling and sounds of mass destruction coming from the laundry room. Glancing in the mirror I saw my right eye black and blue and swollen nearly shut. It matched my left hand which was now throbbing. Strands of my hair were stuck together, my knee was bleeding, and I smelled like I'd spent the night sleeping in a fermenting dumpster.

Sniffling, I turned on the hot water tap in the shower and began to peel off the stiff stinking clothes. Over the howls (mostly mine) and the running water I heard the doorbell ring. Wouldn't you know it? My guests were early!

The Fix-It Clan

2009-12-19T12:33:00.000-08:00

This tale is a continuation of "Dyno-Might." It moves us into the aftermath of that fateful day. As previously mentioned, Tina and Albert's trailer was blown to smithereens when the over use of dynamite failed to dislodge a bolder in front of their house. So intense was the blast that large chunks their mobile home shot into the air and landed over 300 feet away. Most of the debris wound up on, in, or around Albert's parents home.

One item that did considerable damage was the water heater. It rocketed into the air and landed on the roof of Albert's folks front porch. Now his folks, Wanda Jean and Robbie Ray, were very laid back and pretty much took what ever life handed them in stride. However, a flying water heater apparently crossed some thin line and caused quite a commotion amongst the clan.

Now the interesting thing is that apparently it wasn't an issue of the large smoldering hole it left in the roof of the porch that caused the disagreement. I honestly believe that alone would have been acceptable. The crux of the problem was was that the impact caused by both the explosion and the flying water heater left the porch sitting sharply at opposite angles from the house. It canted off so steeply, that it made it impossible for the senior clan dog "Bare Lee" (don't ask, that's a another story for another time) to lay on the porch without rolling off.

Well about a month passed and the porch still hadn't been repaired. No big surprise there. After all, these things take considerable amounts of beer, tobacco, poker playing, and intense contemplation.

But, as with the passing of seasons, all things eventually take on a new light, and "The boys" finally came up with what they thought was a feasible plan. Tearing down the old structure and building a new one was, to them, an unnecessary amount of work. They reasoned that since the basic framework was sound, there was no need to waste valuable drinking time and energy to tear it down and then just to put it back up again.

In all fairness, I suppose I would have to agree that there didn't appear to be structural damage to the posts. The roof was shot, but the posts and deck looked fairly sound. Really, all in all, from an artistic point of view, it pretty much just looked like a hillbilly version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Because "The boys" had become the brunt of some pretty ruthless jokes after they destroyed half the town while attempting to remove the bolder, they decided to keep their current plan under wraps.

To their way of thinking, the simplest way to fix something that was leaning, was to push or pull it back into a non-leaning position. They were big men so brute strength, a couple of beers, a few sledge hammers, a couple of beers, a house jack, a couple of beers, various other implements, and a few more beers should have done the trick. But to their surprise it didn't. So they came up with another plan.

It is conceivable that the second plan may have worked if it hadn't involved another twelve pack of beer, a very long chain, and a truck that lost it's steering column in the infamous explosion.

Here's what happened:

" The boys" wrapped one end of the long chain to one of the foremost posts on the porch and the other end to the back of the ailing pickup truck. One of them (no one will admit who was driving) got into the pickup truck, took up the slack between the post and the truck, and in their own words; "we gave 'er a gentle tug."

Apparently after a lot of creaking and groaning from the porch, and considerable spinning of the trucks tires, the anonymous driver was told to "hit 'er a little harder and pull 'er more to the left" Now instructions like that are always open to interpretation. I suppose it's a mater of just how much harder "a little harder" actually is. Then there is never ending question of who's left is really left. The latter problem can suddenly become an even bigger problem when someone tries to steer a truck that has no steering.

While this ingenious plan was being implemented, rest of the town, Bruce and I included, had no idea what was going on up the hill. Our perception of that balmy spring day was blissful and positive. Until, that is, the 911 line dedicated to Wanda Jean and Robbie Ray shattered our calm.

I answered the line and said "911 what's your emergency?" (I was required to say that because sometimes folks called to check on the weather or to see if we had ripe tomatoes in sock. Answering the phone in a stiff professional manner sent the message that this was a dedicated line for emergency use only...of course ANY call coming on a line belonging to one of the clan members was always an emergency.)

I sucked in a deep breath and listened as Wanda Jean wailed into my ear "Well they done it! The boys done it! I need an Amb-ba-lance and the undertaker "

My right hand reached automatically for a second line that would dispatched the sheriff, the ambulance, and the volunteer fire department. "What's happened?" I asked as calmly as I could while I punched in various codes to alert first emergency responders.

"Well what happened is that they broke my wind chimes! Every single one of them is busted!" My mind went numb. I couldn't recall an emergency dispatch code for broken wind chimes.. was there one? I tried not to panic. I had been trained to remain calm at all times and to get all the information I could, so I moved past the broken wind chimes and asked "What's happened, why do you need an ambulance and the coroner?"

She shouted "Well it ain't quite happened yet 'cause the boys ran off, but I got the shotgun right here, and when I see them if they are lucky they'll just need the am-ba -lance, but if I'm lucky they'll need the undertaker!"

"Wanda Jean" I said " Put the shotgun down and Bruce and I will be right up." I hung up the phone, and canceled the first response teams. After that, Bruce and I locked the store up and went up the hill to what was going on.

We were surprised, although I have no idea why, to see her front porch strewn out over about a 50 foot area. The bumper of the pickup truck was laying in the middle of the road with a long chain twisted around it. The empty truck was laying on its side halfway down an embankment looking like a charred elephant.

We climbed over the debris, something we were becoming quite accustomed to doing, and reached Wanda Jeans house. Still clutching the shotgun, she stood in the middle of a gaping hole where a door used to be. She was crying and pointing to the ground. Apparently the loss of the porch and a considerable portion of her house didn't bother her too much...but the tangled mess of wind chimes that used to adorn her porch was a transgression not soon to be forgiven.

Dyno-Might!

2009-12-17T09:17:00.000-08:00

In addition to ranching, until recently we also operated a small mom and pop General Store in a neighboring town. The store was built in the early 1900's and oozed with country ambiance. It had old hardwood floors that were pock marked from the spikes on loggers boots, and permanently stained black spots from the grime on miners boots. It also had an old 4 foot tall pot belly stove surrounded with antique whitewashed wooden benches.

Our little General Store and it's pot belly stove served as the hub of the community. People sometimes came in just for a cup of coffee and a place to warm their toes. It was around that stove that the problems of the world were discussed and solved in plain simple language.

We knew each of the townsfolk by their first name and also knew more about their personal lives than we had a right to know. Small town talk, small town gossip and small town confessions all took place in front of that stove.

We became very close to one particular family that you'd most likely have to describe as "back hill folks." If you were to meet them you would think that this back hill family, with it's kin more plentiful than the fleas on their hounds, stepped right out of the pages of John Steinbeck's novel: The Grapes of Wrath. They looked and sounded the part, but they were the most sincere, honest and friendliest people we had ever met. They were also a never ending source of entertainment with their "accidental antics." God help us, they are still our friends. (Think National Lampoon's A Christmas Vacation.)

One of the younger clan members, Albert and his wife Tina, lived in a single wide mobile home just up the hill about a quarter of a mile from our store. At the time of this tale, Tina was 7 months pregnant, and looked like she was about to give birth to twin baby hippopotamus. I'd never seen any one's belly swell up so big.

Well, one fateful day Tina stepped out of their mobile home and fell for the ten millionth time over a large boulder that protruded out of the ground just about a foot from the bottom step of their trailer. That boulder had been there forever, and why Albert and his clan pulled the trailer into that exact spot we will never know. It was a death defying obstacle for anyone trying to enter or leave their home.

So on that day, Tina had fallen while carrying a large load of clean laundry out to be hung on the line. Since it had rained the night before the bolder was exceptionally slick. She came up out of the mud kicking and spitting and told Al he had to either move the trailer , move the bolder or she was moving out!

Now, in case you don't know this, it's never wise to challenge a guy from the back woods. He'll think on it a bit and come up with what he thinks is the simplest solution. I'm not saying Al is lazy, I'm just saying that if there is a difficult, albeit right way, of doing something and a seemingly simpler way of doing something ... albeit totally insane, he'll choose the later.

After a 12 pack of beer and a meeting with all the men folk in the clan, an idea was hatched to dig a hole about a foot deep on the back side of the rock and plant a small load of dynamite to dislodge the menace.

We didn't learn of the plan until the men came into the store for two more 12 packs of beer. We tried desperately to talk them out of it, but they wouldn't hear of it. On the up side, were pleased to learn that they at least had the common sense to evacuate the women and children from the immediate area... maybe they sent them away just to shut them up. Either way, it was good.

Several hours passed and the afternoon began to wane into a peaceful spring dusk. Since hours had passed and we hadn't heard any blasting, we assumed the clan had reconsidered the idea of blowing the bolder out of the ground. We joked that perhaps they had thankfully passed out from the beer and were sleeping in heaps atop the bolder.

Suddenly we heard a small explosion. It wasn't big enough to concern us, so my husband and I looked at each other, with raised eyebrows and gave each other a knowing nod that said "Ahh, "The boys" went ahead and blew the rock after all."

I should mention that our store was not only the hub of the town in an ascetic way, it also housed the local 911 emergency switchboard. Our job was to sell merchandise, sooth heartbreaks, burp crying babies, bandage skinned knees, and answer the 911 calls for the town. We were also part of the volunteer fire department, volunteer sheriffs team, and the volunteer search and rescue...oh, and the volunteer animal control.

After the little blast, we turned our attention to the switch board. To our relief it didn't light up. Apparently, and surprisingly, all had gone well.

Before long, night was trying to settle on the sleepy hills of our town. One by one the lights in houses came on. People lit their wood stoves and the crisp night air filled with the delightful scents of dozens of dinners cooking.

After a long day it was time for my husband, Bruce, and I to close the store. I gave a yawn, and reached up to pull down the large antique canvas shades that had covered the front windows of the store for the past 60 years. Just as the first one reached the bottom of the window sill, I heard Bruce say something from further back in the store. I don't quite recall exactly what it was, but I think it had something to do with being thankful "The boys" hadn't blown up the whole town.

The next thing I remember, I was sprawled on the hardwood floor with the front curtains draped over me . Through my ringing ears, I heard the sound of glass breaking, wood shattering and merchandise crashing to the floor throughout the store.

The 911 phone lines on the switchboard somewhere in the debris above me began to shrill with multiple calls coming in. Someone in town (besides us?) needed help. I fought my way out from under the curtains, wood splinters, glass shards and something slimy and gooey that I prayed was canned peaches and not my brains seeping out.

I screamed for Bruce and prayed he was alright. When I finally heard him mumble a response, my heart beat steadied a bit.

When at last was able to free myself from the rest of the rubble and pull myself to my feet I saw Bruce walking zombie like down the dry goods isle covered in what looked like the ingredients for an amazingly large cake. Flour, sugar and maybe even salt...who could tell?

I turned my attention to the 911 switchboard. Not a single line was free. I took the call from Al and Tina's line first, fearing the worst.

I was relieved to hear Tina drawl "hallo ? hallo? " on the other end of the line. All I could say was "Damn it Tina what happened? Do you need an ambulance?" Is everyone ok? The fire department will be up soon! What happened?"

My heart thumped as she sobbed and quietly said "Well The boys blew up that widower making hell rock and I guess they did a fine job of it." Then she wailed "But we ain't got no house no more! Most of it is over at Daddy's place in pieces." ("Daddy" was Al's father who lived about the equivalent of a city block away from them.)

The door of the store was blocked so Bruce and I crawled though the shattered front window and rushed to the scene of the "accident." Once there we surveyed the situation and took reports. It seems that the first try didn't even budge the massive bolder so "The boys" deiced to give it the "full payload" They grinned sheepishly and said "It were the rock or us by then ya know."

The next morning when the dust had settle the town was amazed to see the full extent of damage caused by the "full payload" discharged by "The boys." Not only had it blown the trailer to shreds, it demolished 3 pickup trucks, leveled a wood shed across the street, deafened a stray dog, singed a cat's tail, blew out more than half of the windows in the town, and left a crater large enough to bury 2 full grown elephants in. Ironically, the bolder still sat quietly and defiantly in place.

'Twas The Night Before Calving.

2009-12-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

There is a general consensus that cows are very slow witted. Some folks go as far as to say they are profoundly stupid. I disagree. I think they are extremely smart and have an aloof personality not unlike that of a cat. True, they do what they want, when they want to do it, and they do it on their own terms. I think that puts them in a category of having a pretty high level of intelligence.

We raise a few head of cattle here on the the ranch. To be exact, we have a tiny heard of tiny miniature cows. They average about 40 inches tall. They apparently don't know they are small because they have large attitudes. That is especially true of "Soul Fire", our bull. Like most bulls, he fluctuates between a calm semi- sweet mode and a testosterone driven killer mode. He switches them back and forth like a human bull switches channels on a television.

Because we are never sure how Soul Fire will react in any given situation we always give him a wide berth and move cautiously around him. Did I mention he has a set of full sized horns that add to our need for caution ?

A little while back one of our cows "Twinkle" was getting ready to give birth. As the expected date grew near we watched anxiously for signs of labor. When at last the tell-tell signs appeared we decided it was time to separate her from the bull and rest of the herd and move her the birthing pen. That task is generally easy and creates no problems, however things didn't go quite as planned this time.

For some reason Twinkle, who is generally sweet and cooperative, got it into her head that she did not want to go into the birthing pen. No amount of coaxing, prodding, pleading, trickery, tomfoolery, or copious amounts of hay and grain could get her to change her mind. Fact: She was not going into the pen.

The following are notes I've made in the Calving Journal:

(Note to self: When attempting to lure a pregnant cow into the birthing pen mind where your hind-end is, and do not back into the electric fence wire. Backing into the electric fence wire causes a sudden explosion of energy that catapults a person forward into the metal gate.

Catapulting into the metal gate can cause that person to cut her hand on a sharp corner of latch. Cutting that persons hand on the gate can cause that person to yelp in pain, jump backward and hit the electric fence again.

Result? That person is overcome with an indefinably long period of a numbing sensation from head to toe that can cause that persons feet and mind to go completely numb.

Result? Trying to walk with a numb mind and numb feet can cause that person to trip over a rock and fall face down.

Result? There is a 100% chance the pregnant cow will spook due to all the commotion and run to the opposite side of the pasture.

Result? Numb minded, numb footed, bleeding person will most likely trot after the frightened pregnant cow in an attempt to lure her back to the point of origin and the gate of the birthing pen.

Result? Moving from the shelter of the birthing pen, the bull can now see the numb minded, numb footed, bleeding and let's now add stupid person chasing after the love of his life. This causes him to become irritated and he charges toward them.

Result? Husband of numb minded, numb footed, bleeding, stupid person, hollers to her with a warning that the bull is headed toward her and not looking at all happy with the current situation in his pasture.... Dah!

Result? Stupid, numb minded, numb footed, bleeding, frightened, person trotting after the pregnant cow now realizes there is no way she can outrun the irritated bull and his big horns, so she dives into an outcropping of large over-grown black berry bushes.

Result? Bull show signs of being much smarter than stupid, numb minded, numb footed, bleeding, frightened person hiding in the black berry bushes. He begins to calmly graze on the berry leaves a few feet from her face while blocking any means of escape and waiting patiently for the opportunity to charge her once she moves into the open.

Result? Stupid, numb minded, numb footed, frightened, bleeding person begins to bleed more profusely from being pricked by the thorns of the ancient black berry bushes, nearly pees her pants and screams for help.

Result? Calm husband saves the day by tossing a half bale of hay over the fence on the opposite side of the pasture so stupid, numb minded, numb footed, profusely bleeding, frightened person can rapidly escape over the electric fence.

Result? Once the bull moves from the immediate area, stupid, stupid, stupid, numb minded, numb footed, frightened, and profusely bleeding person lets out a war whoop and dives head first over the electric fence. She most likely looks like a world class high diving champion as she lands safely, albeit painfully, on the rocky ground outside the pasture.

Result? Husband emerges from the barn and yells "OK, the fence if off, you can climb out now... hey...where are you?"

Result? Husband gets an ear full of unique and descriptive adjectives as stupid, numb minded, numb footed, profusely bleeding, frightened, angry person, limps toward him with clinched teeth and fists.

Final result? When husband is reunited with his angry, limping, stupid, numb minded, numb footed, frightened, bleeding wife who, by the way, is still spewing foreign sounding words from her mouth, they notice the pregnant cow is totally missing. She is nowhere in sight. The bull and the rest of the herd are munching cheerfully on their new bounty of hay, but there is no sign of the pregnant cow.

Ahh hah! When finally located it was duly noted that the pregnant cow had miraculously walked up into the birthing pen on her own and was in the early stages of an easy labor.
End Notes to self)

Memo to Self: Never try to outsmart a pregnant cow and her vicious mate.

Bears Make Strange Fireside Guests!

2009-12-15T10:24:00.000-08:00

My husband, Bruce, and I have a deep fondness for nature. We enjoy everything about the outdoors, and in particular camping. Now when I say "camping," I'm not talking about hauling all the necessities of home to an established campsite or R.V. Park. I'm talking about setting up a camp in the middle of untamed wilderness.

We have a good friend whose idea of "Camping" is sleeping with his windows open, and another who drives a 100 thousand dollar giant motor home into a KOA campground and turns his kids loose with skateboards, I-Pods and dirt bikes. So, lose that image of camping and think of our outings as being more like Lewis and Clark...or even Star Trek ("Where no man has ever gone before.")

Alright, well if you have the picture let me tell you about a particular camping trip we had not too terribly long ago. We are, as I have established, seasoned campers. We know all the rules of wilderness camping, and we take the necessary safety precautions. That is...most of the time.

Here's what happened: On this particular outing I was cursed with one of the most piercing migraine headaches that I think any human has ever endured. I kept thinking maybe I had been shot in the head and didn't know it. There were no holes and no blood, but still I kept checking...it was that bad.

This particular night we had followed an old abandoned logging road that wound us up around and though a dense forest. We were fortunate to find a fairly even spot next to a babbling creek that offered an ideal spot to spend the night.

Thinking that maybe a good hot meal would help matters, Bruce lit a campfire and I began to unload the food from two monstrously large ice chests in our trusty old CJ-7 Jeep. We may be fond of wilderness camping, but food is not something we sacrifice in order to participate in the sport. We eat very very well.

While I sizzled 2 steaks over the fire, Bruce set up the tent. While he unloaded the sleeping gear, I nestled a couple of pre-baked potatoes down into the hot coals to heat, and nudged tin-foil wrapped garlic bread next to it. While he secured the jeep and took out our precautionary weapon, I popped open a container of Waldorf Salad (Seriously ...we eat well on these trips.)

When the steaks were ready we hunkered down on a log and ate like royalty. The headache didn't respond to food and I was feeling lousy, so I broke a serious camping rule. The number one golden rule of wilderness camping. Never ever ever keep food or used utensils near the area where you are sleeping.

Now, generally we take the rule to the extreme and suspend our ice chests on a rope from a tree limb. I never wash utensils within 100 yards of the camp. However with my mega headache I thought "what the heck..we never see bears." and I broke that one little rule...just once. I simply tossed the utensils in the creek to deal with the next morning, and I put the ice chests back in the jeep.

Ok...so I'm sure you know by now what is about to happen. If you are squeamish you can stop reading now.

Sometime around 2am, Bruce and I were awakened from a sound sleep by a low guttural growl. Both of us shot up into a sitting position in our sleeping bags. Bruce said "did you hear that? we have a bear close by!" My only response was my chattering teeth. We sat completely motionless and listened. Again there came a low guttural growl, this time a bit closer than the first one we heard.

Bruce slowly unzipped the sleeping bag and crawled to his knees. Barely breathing we listened. We heard silence broken every few minutes by a growl... it headed directly toward our tent. It couldn't have been more than a few hundred yards off.

"The gun" he hissed... "I can't find the gun!" OMG! had I put it back in the jeep in my near coma state because of the headache? I couldn't remember! "OK" he said "we should be fine, there are only black bears in this area..I'm going to go to the jeep and look for the gun." He stood and as he was about to unzip the door flap on the tent he said "It's a good thing you secured the food."

Double OMG! "Wait" I choked out "Actually I didn't." He whirled around in horror and whispered so loudly it sounded like air escaping from a truck tire "YOU WHAT?"

The growling kept inching toward us...what to do? Finally Bruce said "I'll go ahead and unlock the jeep, then you run out and jump in. If things get bad we can always start it and drive away!"

Good plan! Ok...so that is what we did. We both hurled ourselves into the jeep with such force it's a wonder the tires didn't blow out from our sudden impact . We sat and we waited. Occasionally Bruce would roll his window down slightly and listen. When he wasn't listening he was chastising me for my negligence. What could I say except "I know, I know...I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

For the longest time the growling noise circled around us, then finally grew silent. We checked our watches, it was nearly 4am. We had been sitting in the jeep for nearly 3 hours awaiting our fate.

Finally as the sun began to creep over the tops of the trees and filter down into our campsite we decided to leave our metal cocoon and look for paw prints to see how close we came to being a midnight snack for a hungry bear.

With gun in hand we circled the camp, but found no signs of bear. No scat, no clawed trees, no prints.

About an hour later as we sat in the back of the jeep eating beef jerky (the gourmet breakfast was postponed for obvious reasons ) we heard another vehicle coming up the logging road. We assumed it was bear hunters.

To our surprise a beat up old red Ford pick-up truck eventually pulled up next to the jeep and an old wrangler stepped down. "Hey, howdy folks" he said grinning "Don't often see folks up in this part of the woods." He looked around at our campsite and nodded thoughtfully.

Bruce started to tell him about the visitor we'd had during the night but before he got to far into the story...He old guy scrunched up his lips and pushed his hat back a bit and said "I'll jest bet that was old Hank, That's about what he sounds like when he's stressed...I'm up here looking for him."

Well it turns out that "Old Hank" was a 12 year old renegade bovine bull that apparently suffers from Alzheimer's disease and often wanders off from the rest of the herd and gets lost.

Bruce protested and said it sure sounded like a bear to us, but the old guy said "Nope I'll just bet that was Hank, best be after him before he completely looses himself." as he got in his truck we heard him mumble "should just shoot that ol'......"

Later as we were breaking camp, the old wrangler came back by with "Old Hank" tethered in the back of his pick-up as they slowly drove past us the old wrangler tipped his hat and Old Hank give us a familiar growl.

It just isn't right that an old bull can sound like a bear and scare people half to death!

Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer

2009-12-07T17:55:00.000-08:00

It seems that this time every year disc jockeys are overcome by a strange phenomenon that can only be described as ebullient. I'm not talking about the Christmas Spirit. The Christmas Spirit is something entirely different and set wholly apart from this peculiar occurrence. In fact I'd say the Christmas Spirit is actually pretty close to the opposite of what I'm talking about. Actually I think it is a form of what physiologists might call temporary insanity.

It is the obsessive and uncontrollable desire to repeatedly broadcast irritating and annoying Christmas ditties over and over again. Take for instance "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" It's cute and I enjoy it about the first 20 or so times I hear it every year, after that it becomes as irritating as an itch in the middle of your back that you can't reach to scratch.

Tonight however, that particular tune took on a new and almost reverent meaning for me. Here's why:

Being conscientious ranchers my husband, Bruce, and I have a nightly routine that involves what we call "making the rounds." Every night just as the sun slips behind the mountains, we check all the animals on the property to be sure they are settled in safely. This involves shutting the door on the chicken coop after the chickens have gone in to roost, and other similar tasks.

Bruce generally takes care of the animals toward the back of the property and I handle the ones toward the front. Tonight however, Bruce was late getting home from work due to the copious amounts of snow clogging the roadways, so I set out on my own to "make the rounds."

I am quite capable of making solo rounds and, in fact, I do it quite often. Tonight however as the sun began to set the temperature dropped extremely fast causing the 16 or so inches of snow to ice over. I noted the sudden change and dressed appropriately. By the time I left the house I was wearing a shirt, a sweatshirt, a long sleeved jacket, a pair of jeans, a scarf, mittens, a hat, 2 pairs of socks and Bruce's big rubber boots. I could barely walk but I was warm. There are times when making a fashion statement is really not important.

The ground had become a solid sheet of ice by then, so I was taking little baby steps. About half way out to the chicken shed I realized that rubber boots were not the best choice for walking on ice. I was slipping so much that it began to feel like I was on a treadmill going nowhere.
My eyes were focused on my feet and the ground under them as I took each carefully executed step. I have no idea how I thought that might help, but that's where my focus was.

As I rounded the corner of a fenced in area, I reached out to take hold of the corner post. Before my hand was able to connect with the post I heard a loud wheezy snort that came from just around the big wooden post. I jerked my head up so quickly that it caused me feet to slip out from under me.

Now when you meet up with something that snorts at you on a cold dark winters night, you'd like to be able to make some choices as to how you are going to handle the inevitable encounter. Sadly, I wasn't given that freedom of choice. I was flat on my back. The more I struggled under the 100 pounds of excess clothing the more I slipped. I began to gasp, snort and whine.

I knew I was at deaths door. The first thing that came to mind was "bear" because we have been having routine visits from a rather imposing hulk of a black bear. The second thing that came to mind was that our bull must have broken out of his pen. The final thing that came to mind was that I was about to die wearing a hideous outfit, maybe fashion does count.

The snorts continued and seemd to be getting even louder and closer. I could see puffs of hot breath swirling around the corner of the post. Finally I was able to grab hold of the post and roll myself over. That tidy maneuver put me nose to nose with my snorting attacker. It wasn't a bear or a bull, it was very large and very frighted white tailed buck deer. He was monstrously large! From my perspective he looked the size of an elk. I swear his antlers were 10 feet across. You might think is an exaggeration, but he was big and so were his horns. Of course they say that people at the scene of a crime or accident tend to overstate the circumstances. Maybe.

It's fair to say he scared me nearly to death. It's also fair to say I scared him nearly to death. Neither of us could get a good foot hold on the icy surface. His back legs were sprawled out behind him and so were mine. We both flailed , snorted, and grunted.

Finally he was able to get his feet under him and in one big thrust, he flew over the top of me and disappeared into the darkness. After a minute I was able to gain my composure and get to my feet.

About that time Bruce pulled into the driveway and yelled "Hey did you see that giant buck? Wow what a beauty! Amazing ! Awesome! ..Did you see him..Wow!"

It was a guy thing, and I didn't want to spoil the magic of his moment so I shook my head and quietly said "no, was there a buck in here?" Then I walked slowly and carefully back to the house humming "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer."

Oh Star of Wonder!

2009-11-30T09:53:00.000-08:00

For much longer than I have been a McDonald, Bracken Ridge Ranch has mounted a very large star of Bethlehem in the lower pasture closest to the highway. It has been an annual tradition that dates back at least 40 years. This has become such an community involved tradition that if we are late in setting it up, passersby' s stop and ask us why it isn't up yet. So in order to save the stress of pressure from total strangers, we decided to put it up last night.

Mind you, this star is not small. It is about 10 feet from point to point and made of medium weight metal conduit configured to look like a big star. It is illuminated by approximately 50 large clear bulbs, and puts on quite a nice display that can be seen from the highway.

This year instead of mounting it its traditional place in the lower pasture we decided (actually I decided) it might be nice to put it on top of our livestock shed in the upper pasture. Given the season and all, I'm heretofore going to refer to the livestock shed as the "manger."

Now here's what happened: My husband and I wrestled the gigantic star from the barn where it was stored, and with much difficulty and grunting hoisted to the roof of the "manger." With the aid of a very long extension cord we plugged it in, and as you might suspect...most of the lights were burned out. We began twisting and fidgeting with them trying to make them work, but as we did so my husband, Bruce, noticed the wiring was beginning to deteriorate.

Not wanting to electrocute ourselves or burn the "manger" down, we (he) decided that I should go to town to purchase some new strands of traditional lights. For those of you who know Bruce, you most likely know he is somewhat of a perfectionist bordering on an OCD complex. He likes things to be "just right." So he composed a long list of items for me to pick up in town: This particular size, this particular length, this particular watt (what?)

Shopping wasn't that difficult. I quickly filled his order and returned home beaming with confidence and pride. When I pulled into the driveway I noted that he had the star all torn apart and was rebuilding it. To be helpful I unwound the strands of lights and laid them carefully in order on the ground.

It was getting dark and the ground was beginning to freeze making it difficult to work. Within minutes we were both holding flashlights between our teeth and frantically trying to attach the lights. Alas, it grew darker and darker. The challenge: can two very cold people, working on frozen ground in the dark, string semi-frozen strands of lights on a very cold metal star?

Not very well at all...but then I had a brilliant idea. Since about half of the lights were already back on the star, logic said that we should plug it in and use the light from them to work with.

Ahh, but somehow when logic comes from my lips it somehow becomes totally illogical and weird. None-the-less Bruce nodded his head in agreement so I slipped and slid across the yard to the outlet and plugged the lights in. Nothing happened. He yelled "Any time is fine!" (cold makes us all grumpy)

I hollered back that the lights were plugged in. In the darkness I heard him stand, take a few steps and slip on the frozen ground. It made an interesting swooshing/thud sound. He muttered something that I couldn't make out, but there are times when it isn't absolutely necessary to hear what someone else says under their breath, so I wisely didn't ask him to repeat it.

So there we were, 2 new strands of lights that came with a guarantee that if one light goes out the rest stay on. Apparently they lie. I had brought home not one, but two bad strands of lights. How could that be?

The next thing I knew I heard Bruce's heavy footfalls stomping on the frozen ground headed directly toward the outlet....and me. My mind whirled as I wondered if somehow I had plugged the strands in with the fat ground prong seated the wrong slot or I had done something equally as stupid.

Before I could check, he was there plugging and unplugging the strands in the socket. "We blew a fuse then!" he grumbled and stomped off toward the house. I was hot on his heels as we entered the dark house and he flipped the breaker switches up and down, up and down...nothing. He flipped the fuse box cover shut with such a sudden snap that it alerted my keen sense of perception to the fact that he was pretty darn upset and getting more so by the minute. "Must be the other fuse box." he grumbled.

"Right! the other fuse box!" I had forgotten there was a second box outside in the Tank House (someday I'll explain what the Tank House is and what it does, but be rest assured we do not keep military tanks in it.)

Once there he again flipped the breaker switches up and down several times with no results. "Well!" he said so loudly it nearly cracked my frozen face "I have no idea what we did, but we have NO power!" He brushed past me and stomped back to toward the "manger." I was once again hot on his heels, slipping and sliding on the frozen ground. Amazingly his feet gripped the ice with unbelievable precision! I felt like a rag -doll on ice!

Bruce yanked the strands of lights out of the socket and was once again mumbling things under his breath that I had no desire to hear. I glanced up toward the sky and silently sent a up a one word prayer.... "help."

Then in all its splendor there in the sky above me was the REAL star of Bethlehem. It was glorious and brilliant against the dark horizon. ...wait, the dark horizon? Immediately I knew something was not right.

I spun around so quickly I lost my already iffy footing and slid (although I might add, very gracefully) down a slight incline and ended up wedged against Bruce's boots. "umm" I said (very quietly) "Bruce, the power is out" He reached down to pull me to my feet and said "Right, now tell me something I don't know! I pointed across the highway and said "No..I mean the power is out.. everywhere...it's not just us, the whole neighborhoods power is out...look"

We had been so wrapped up in our own immediate problem that we hadn't notice the whole neighborhood was out of power. We learned later that a tree limb somewhere had fallen across the power lines and disrupted the power to about 7,000 homes.

He stared blankly at me for a few seconds and then we burst into a good laugh. After trudging back to the house, we started the generator and had a nice hot bowl of soup.

Tonight the infamous Star albeit over the " manger" will shine brightly...Oh star of wonder!

Skunked...Again

2009-11-01T10:51:00.000-08:00

A lot of things have happened since my last entry. For one thing I no longer entertain the thought of becoming a professional skunk trapper. I'll admit when the UPS driver first delivered my Wiley Coyote Acme Beginners Trapping Kit I had ideas of becoming a world famous skunk trapper. That idea has since passed. I am now considering making my fortune by investing in the "Anti-Icky-Poo" odor removal business.

The Wiley Coyote Acme Trapping Kit was good, as far as it went. I soon realized however, it was to very elementary, so I invested in every type of trap, snare, net, and lure ever invented by man. I even researched the ancient Chinese methods of trapping as well as the early 1700's American Fur trappers methods. I bought, borrowed, and rented every mode of trap I could find. I had so many traps laying around that my husband, Bruce, was terrified to step outside for fear he'd wind up hanging upside down from a tree, or ensnared in a net. He needn't have worried. The traps set empty week after week.

I do have good news though. It is laced with a bit of bad news, but let's deal with the good news first. The good news is that I actually caught a skunk in one of the traps. The bad news is that it managed to get itself caught in one of those very large all wire havaheart traps. The kind, with the 1 inch welded wire mesh on all six sides. Whoever invented that trap had a sick sense of humor. It never occurred to me to question how one manages to remove a captured animal from the trap once it is in there.

As you can imagine the skunk was not happy with its predicament, but then neither was I happy with mine. I circled slowly around the cage at the distance of about 25 feet. With each cautious step the skunk stomped a warning with its front feet and then turned its back to me taking aim. There was no way I was going to get near the cage without getting doused.

Desperately looking for help I called the humane society and asked if they would come out and pick up the trap with the animal in it. That gave them quite a laugh. Apparently they only do mellow purring kitties and slurping kissing puppies. No skunks. I called my friends and neighbors and gave them all a good laugh as well. No one would come to my aid.

Someone suggested I use a large tarp as a shield as I moved toward the cage and when in close enough range, toss the tarp over the cage. I don't know why, but that sounded like a reasonable approach. If I ever remember who made that suggestion I have a few choice words for them. Actually, I'm not being fair. The idea was a good one, and it should have worked. Unfortunately here is what happened:

I thought the plan out carefully. Step one was to choose an old tarp, but not one so old that it had holes in it. (I am sure you can see my reasoning behind that decision.) Step two was to put on a long sleeved shirt (again my reasoning should be obvious.) Step three was to slip into my rubber boots, rain hat and gloves (same reasoning applies here.) I thought I was all set so off I went.
I hoisted the tarp up past my nose so that only my eyes , forehead and my hat was showing, and I moved cautiously one tiny step at a time toward the trapped skunk. At first it looked confused. Apparently it didn't recognize the big flat blue object moving toward it. I grinned behind my shield, this was going to be a piece of cake.

Step by step, inch by inch I closed the gap between us. Ever so cautiously I approached until I was almost within tossing distance. Just a couple more carefully planted steps. Soon I was within 4 feet of the cage. Maybe just one more step would do it. I didn't want the tarp to go askew when I tossed it and leave openings for the skunk to spray though.

Ahh, yes. At last, I was about 3 feet from the cage and all was well. The skunk had remained calm all this time, watching more out of curiosity than out of fear. It hadn't stomped a warning, and it hadn't turned its tail toward me. I just knew this would work! Thus far I hadn't considered what I would do once the tarp was over the cage, but that was something I could consider a bit later.

Carefully I extended the tarp out to arms length, the skunk gave a little bark and stomped. That was ok. I expected that.
What I didn't expect was the big gust of wind that suddenly came up behind me and blew the bottom of the tarp straight out toward the cage with a loud crackling flap, leaving me totally exposed.

Surely I don't need to go into the stinking details here. Skunks being skunks will do what skunks will do. Never have I felt such a close kinship to Wiley Coyote and Lucille Ball!
Oh, and in case you are feeling more sympathy for the skunk than for me...forget it. In the commotion the skunk managed to flip the cage over and set itself free. I on the other hand spend the day soaking in Anti-Icky-Poo!

Those Darling Tree Frogs

2009-09-27T15:23:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of reasons Tree Frogs are a welcome presence around homes. For example they consume mosquito larva and thus keep us free of dreaded diseases such as Yellow Spotted Swamp Fever. Equally important is their sweet melodious song that soothes the tumult of our souls at days end releasing us from mayhem, confusion and disorder.

Or, that was my reasoning when I "adopted" a small handful of the darlings a mere two years ago. As I look back on it, I can relive the exhilaration and pure bliss as I gently and reverently released five of the precious jewels in the upper most portion of our small backyard pond.

Each night as the sun slowly slipped behind the trees and disappeared I held my breath and listened. Finally one night I heard the solo vibrato of a bachelor tree frog in full courtship. That pure heavenly sound brought me such delight . As the nights followed, there was still only one soft soothing voice to sing me to sleep. None-the-less, I savored every note as I drifted sleepily into oblivion.

By the end of summer the single song had grown into a marvelous full symphonic choir. Ahh yes, I finally had achieved my optimal goal. Each night our windows were open to an incredible crescendo of Tree Frog courtship blended with the gentle iambic background rhythm provided by crickets. A true tranquil delight that only Nature could provide.

Last spring held an enchanting surprise as I noted multiple tiny tadpoles swimming my Water Lilly garden, the three birdbaths, the bog garden, and the backyard pond. What Glory! What Wonder!

By mid summer of last year the crescendo had grown to a vast cacophony of such magnitude that we no longer could sleep with our bedroom windows open, nor did we greet the non-never-ending Tree Frog courtship with our original exuberant glee.

Which brings us to the present, and as such, at this point in time that I feel obligated to advise anyone who has ever been tempted to adopt a handful of Tree Frogs to think the matter over thoroughly.

It's not so much the cacophony of thousands of tiny Tree Frogs that I find so unsettling. No, in fact that still somewhat pleases me, although not as much as say, a chorus of five hundred or even one hundred would. What is disquieting is waking up at 4am with one of those cold clammy four legged critters siting on your forehead croaking away.

While that in itself was truly an unnerving experience, I find that my pioneer spirit and nature loving soul did not prepare me for finding several more on the bedroom floor and even more suctioned to the inside of various windows and walls in the house.

Crawling around on my hands and knees at 4 in the morning with a mini-flashlight clamped between my teeth catching Tree Frogs is not my idea of recreational sport. However as I gathered up the remaining stragglers and set them free at the edge of the pond, I had to chuckle ...though only faintly, at the ironic humor of the situation. What's that saying? "Be Careful What You Ask For?"

Returning to the now frog-free house I decided to take a quick shower to wash the froggie "goo" off. Sleepily I trudged to the bathroom where I simultaneously flicked on the light and opened the shower door. To my astonishment I was bombarded by a half dozen more frogs leaping wildly toward me as they vacated the shower stall.

Is there a moral to this story? Indeed there is: Adopting five tiny Tree Frogs can, and generally does, lead to Toadal chaos!

Home Land Security?

2009-09-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

My husbands father was a horse trader and collector of "things." There seemed to be no rhyme nor reason to the vast variety of items that found their way into his possession via trades or scavenges.

He was born during world war I and was a youngster during the Dust Bowl Era, and the Great Depression. He was present in Hawaii during the bombing of Pear Harbor and he also knew the ravages of the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf Wars. Seeing all these things first hand made him become what I would call a frugal man. As such, he collected "things." When we moved back onto the ranch where my husband grew up, we found many interesting "things." Rolls of wire, boxes of rubber bands, tiny balls of string, hundreds if not thousands of nuts, bolts, screws, nails and other miscellaneous hardware.

He was an electrician by trade, and that took him into various homes and businesses in the community on a daily basis. Whenever he came across something someone wasn't using he work out some kind of barter and haul it back to the ranch. If it was something in need of repair, he would repair it and either find a new home for it or store it away for future use.

To this day my husband, Bruce, and I still find "things" tucked in rafters or stowed away in odd places. For the most part we consider them to be amusingly harmless and even practical. However this weekend while moving items that had been stored in the corner of the barn for decades, we came across a not so innocuous item.

Down at the bottom of the pile of odds and ends that we planned to haul to the dump, we uncovered an odd looking and very heavy wooden box with a spring loaded metal lid. The box was about 18 inches square and about 20 inches tall. The writing on the sides of the box had been obscured by age and dampness. It took both my husband and I to wrestle the box a few feet to where the light from a window shone in on it. Even with the added light we had difficulty making out the lettering. We managed to read "Smith" "65 pounds" and "1945."

Bruce tried with all his might to loosen the spring lid. He grunted and twisted. He shifted positions and twisted and grunted. The lid wouldn't budge. After several he-man attempts he sent me across the barn to get a hammer. At the workbench, I had several choices but decided on both a small carpenters hammer and a larger sledge hammer.

The first tool of choice was the more delicate light weight carpenters hammer. Bruce gave the lid several light taps with it, followed by several more harder taps and then finally several sharp blows. A few sparks few as metal hit metal, but the lid remained in place.

After a few minutes of watching Bruce's non-productive labor I tapped him on the shoulder and gave him the larger sledge hammer (which by the way would have been my first tool of choice.) Several grunts, blows with the sledge hammer and sparks later the lid finally gave way slightly. However, it moved with such difficulty that it became necessary to revert back to the smaller carpenters hammer again to coax it open.

By my calculations, it took nearly 20 minutes to open the defiant box. When at last my husband stood, hammer in one hand and the lid in the other, I noticed that his previously flushed and sweating face was now drained to a ghostly white. Curious I looked down into the box. My first thought was that the contents somewhat resembled dirt, but not quite. Looking closer I noticed that whatever it was had a somewhat granular look.

"What the heck is that?" I asked. Slowly, Bruce reached extended arm and gently pushed me back away from the box and said in a very faint whisper "I think... I think.. I think... I think we just opened 65 pounds of 60 year old blasting powder."

My thoughts flashed immediately to the sparks that flew when the metal hammer hit the metal lid. I tried to speak but couldn't. I think I may have uttered something remarkably intelligent like "waaa?" or maybe "buuuu" but I can't be sure. We silently backed slowly out of the barn.

So now the big question is what does one do to safely deal with 65 pounds of 60 year old blasting powder. As it happens there is a retired Police Chief living across the road from us. Over the past years we have become acquainted with him and figured he would know the safest way to deal with our current "situation."

As we walked in stunned silence from the barn to the house my thoughts flew over a mired of scenarios. What if, for example one of those sparks had touched off the powder. What if, there had been a lightening storm and a bolt of lightening had struck the metal barn...there had been hundreds, maybe thousands of storms during the time that stuff had been stored in the barn. What if sparks from Bruce's many electric saws, drills grinders, etc had reached the box. I dizzied myself with "what if's." Had I ever sat on that pile of boxes and junk while talking to Bruce as he worked in the barn?

After composing ourselves we went across the street and talked with our retired resident Police Chief. He listened to our story with a thin amused smile then followed us back to our barn so he could confirm whether or not our box actually contained blasting powder.

Well, he confirmed. The fire marshal confirmed. A representative from the local Bomb Squad (who even knew we had a local bomb squad) confirmed. A representative from the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF) confirmed.

So now we wait. I'm not entirely sure for what. I don't think they will call in Home Land Security but who knows? I actually think we are waiting for a larger Bomb Squad to come in with one of those cute little metal robots to remove it, but I'm not sure. Meanwhile we've been instructed not to try and move it (no worries there folks,) to keep our barn locked and promise not to blow up anyone or anything. (we'll do our best.) Actually the barn looks rather festive with all the streamers of yellow "Crime Scene" tape draped over it .

If Dad was still around it really would be great to ask him why he had 65 pounds of old unstable blasting powder stored in the barn. At any rate, rest assured that the next mysterious box we come across will be handled a bit differently .

A Tale of Pierced Ears and Cats

2009-08-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

So long as I'm on the subject of cats, I may as well confess that a while back I raised purebred Manx cats. They are the ones that have a very short stubby tail and fairly long pointed ears. I like them because they don't have the snooty attitude most cats have, in fact their personality is more like a dogs.I enjoyed raising them, but dealing with the potential new owners often became a bit tedious. Here's what I mean:

I sold a beautiful female orange tabby kitten to an elderly woman who, instead of taking it home with her, asked if she could leave it here at the ranch until she could make an appointment with her vet to have it spayed. I was ok with that idea.

That evening she called and requested that the kitten not be fed for 12 hours prior to pick up, so it would be ready for surgery the next afternoon. I was ok with that idea as well.

The next morning, as was part of my custom when sending a new kitten home, I bathed her and vaccinated her. It went well considering she had not been given any dinner the night before or breakfast that morning. Some cats like water, some don't. She didn't.

At the appointed time, the new owner arrived with a wicker cat carrier looped over one arm. The carrier was quite fancy, and was even furnished with a plush purple velvet pad. In the woman's hand I saw a tiny black velvet box. The kind that very expensive jewelry come in. I was curious but said nothing as we exchanged niceties about the weather.

I then presented her with her new kitten. She bubbled with joy and busted with pride, every thing seemed to be going well.... until she handed the kitten back to me and said "I'd like you to do one more thing for me dear." She paused and flashed a big warm smile "I'd like you to pierce little Mona's right ear and put this diamond earring in it."

With that she flipped open the lid of the mysterious little black box to revel what appeared to be a 1/2 karat stud diamond earring, nestled deep in a silk lining. The sun danced off it and nearly blinded me. I giggled at what I thought was a joke.

"Excuse me?" I asked "You are not serious are you?" She looked at me like I was the village idiot and quipped "Of Course I'm serious!" I studied her face for signs of a joke, but saw none. She was dead on serious.

"Oh, well" I stammered "I think that is a job for your vet, I've never done anything like that before."

"Don't be silly dear" she retorted, "I've done it a thousand times, just take the end of your syringe needle and poke a little hole, clean it with alcohol and pop the earring in...simple!"

Well ok. I'm thinking ' If you've done it a thousand times why don't you do it now. Instead I said, "No seriously, I'm not comfortable with doing this."

She raised her eyebrows and said "There is nothing to it, I'd do it but look at my hands!" I looked at her hands, and saw they were bent with arthritis. My heart softened a bit, but my head kept telling me to run like heck from this deal. The clincher came when she said "If you can't do it then I can't buy Mona!"

That did it. She hit a soft spot, I needed the money. "Alright" I sighed, "But you'll have to walk me though it." She smiled and calmly held the cat while I prepared a fresh needle and sterilized the stud part of the earring with alcohol. When I was ready I took a deep breath and said "Again, I want you to know that I am not a veterinarian. I'm worried about infections and that sort of thing." "Not to worry dear" she smiled "Like I said I've done it a thousand times and I know how to care for healing ears, I won't hold you responsible. Besides nothing can go wrong " (Author's note: remember those words)

I exhaled and said "OK, here we go then, hold her tightly." Her eyes flashed wide open and she said "Oh no..Goodness NO, I couldn't do that! I could never watch you poking a hole in little Mona's ear!"

I crossed my eyes and said "But ..." by then she was halfway out the door "But wait" I called "You said you've done this a thousand times before!" Her voice faded as she fled the room but I heard her say "Good Grief NO! I've never done it to a kitty dear, just children!" My heart stopped beating.

Well, alright, how difficult could it be. (Author's note: remember those words) I had marked a little X where she wanted the piercing done. I mean seriously here. I've given tons of kittens and puppies their vaccinations, how much more difficult could it be to poke one tiny hole in a cats ear.

I think it was about then that the kitten got suspicious. It extended its claws and braced itself on the table. Maybe it was the smell of the alcohol swab that tipped it off. Maybe it was just hungry or maybe it was the smell of my fear...what ever it was, it put the kitten in a guarded sate of mind. Me too.

I gently but firmly grasped the kitten and started to insert the needle. The kitten would have no part of it. She managed to violently squirm out of my grasp. In so doing she tipped over the bottle of alcohol and sent the needle flying.

Plan B: I picked up the bottle of alcohol and placed it on the table, noting that only about 2/3rd was remaining. I opened a new needle and crawled under the table to retrieve the cat. This time I tried a new tactic. I wedged the kitten carefully against the wall with one arm to give me a little better control. No good. The minute she felt the first light prick of the needle she was airborne. The momentum sent the alcohol thudding once again to the floor. The needle however found a new resting place...in my finger.

I called to the owner for assistance but she waved me off and said "You can do it."

Plan C: I picked up the now half empty bottle of alcohol, put a Band-aid on my finger, got another new needle, and looked under the table for the kitten. She was gone. I crawled around on my hands and knees softly calling the traditional "here kitty kitty, here sweet little kitty" but she was nowhere to be seen. How could a person lose a kitten? Well, of course a person couldn't and I eventually found her.

My new plan was to sit in a chair and firmly but gently hold the kitten between my knees giving me use of both hands. Amazingly that plan did work. The needle went nicely into the cats ear at precisely the same time the the cats teeth went into my left knee. It was painful, but at least I was still holding on to her so things were looking up. I ignored the blood running down my leg.

The rest would be easy. All I had to do was pull the needle out, swab the ear again and insert the diamond stud. The kitten didn't seem to be in any pain, she just seemed down-right mad. None-the-less, I was able to take her by the nape of the neck and place her on the table. Next, tried to sooth her a bit before taking the next step.

After a brief calming period for both of us, I reached for the diamond stud. To my horror there was nothing there but an empty black box. The big beautiful and very expensive diamond earring was gone. I broke into a sweat. I felt dizzy and nauseous.

I didn't want to put the kitten down because she still had the needle dangling in her ear, and I didn't want to let the new owner know the diamond was missing. I knew I was in some pretty serious trouble here. Dollar signs began to dance in my eyes as I thought about having to replace the diamond earring..maybe it was just the squiggles that come prior to a fierce migraine. It doesn't matter which, the point is I was seeing stars because I was in a total panic. I did what a lot of women do when they are in total panic. I cried.

I dropped to my knees feeling around with my left hand while dangling the kitten from my right hand. For a fleeting moment I considered carrying the kitten in my mouth the way mother cats do so I could have both hands free to feel around for the earring. I quickly dismissed the idea however, when I remembered the needle dangling from the cats ear. I know lip piercing is in style, but it's just not me.

I think I understand what people mean when they say they were in a blind panic. Nervous sweat was rolling down my forehead, and into my eyes causing me to blink wildly. What a sight it must have been.

Just then my neighbor came in the back door, took one look at me and barked "What in god's name are you doing woman ?" As I explained through my Lucille Ball like sobs, she tossed me a towel, took the kitten, and in a flash spotted the earring on the floor. With her help sweet little Mona soon had her earring in place and was riding down the driveway in the front seat of her new owners car. I waved weakly and pulled out three more Band-aids for my bleeding knee.

Later as I sat and sipped coffee with the neighbor. We considered opening a cat ear-piercing parlor. Who knows it could be a multi-million dollar business...minus the expense of Band-aids.

The Catnipped Birds

2009-08-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

Like other typical ranches, we keep a few cats around . While I find them to be totally useless in protecting me from skunks, I have to admit they do a great job keeping the rodent, gopher, mole and lizard population in check. Their rotund bodies attest to their hunting skills.

I very much like cats, but I have mixed feelings about them because I also raise birds. We have several large outdoor pens that house a variety of birds. We also have a large building about the size of a double car garage that houses some of the more delicate birds. Now I know it's a cats natural instinct to hunt birds as well as rodents and lizards, but I've been very fortunate in that my cats don't seem to bother the birds. Or at least they didn't until yesterday.

Here, to the best of my recollection, is what happened: I periodically spray my birds with pesticide to prevent creepy crawly things from taking up residence on them. Since I have so many birds, I purchase a large quart bottle of pesticide, dilute it to the proper strength then pour it into a small spray bottle for application.

After mixing the pesticide yesterday I couldn't find the little spray bottle I normally use, so I looked around and eventually found another one . I flushed it out several times with water and then added the pesticide. As I was about to begin spraying the birds, a friend dropped by and I was side-tracked with her visit for about half an hour.

When I returned to the bird room to pick up where I left off, the little spray bottle of pesticide wasn't where I thought I had left it. After a few minutes of hunting, I located it and sprayed all the birds.

About that time one of the cats walked by outside the bird room, and I was struck with the brilliant idea that I should also check them for fleas and tick. This is something normally I do on a regular basis and since I was already in an anti-pest mood, the timing seemed right. There is a small multi-purpose utility table in the bird room, that I use for...well, multi-purposes. When I check the cats, I customarily squirt a little catnip on the table and on one of their toys then bring the cats in one at a time and look them over.

Yesterday I followed my usual routine. The first cat up was Gracie. She is a very docile cat and I've never seen her go after any birds, not even the wild ones. I picked her up and set her on the table. Now normally she sniffs the catnip toy and rolls over so I can easily examine her. However yesterday something strange was afoot, because she had no interest in the table, or the toy. Her interest seemed to lie in the caged birds. I had an awful time controlling her long enough to complete my examination.

I didn't think too much of it, I figured I had caught her at a bad time and she wasn't in the mood to be checked. I released her outside and grabbed another cat, Solo. Now Solo can be a handful at times, but generally the catnip distracts her long enough for me to look her over. Yesterday she was more than a handful, she was pretty much down-right ballistic. I couldn't control her at all. She kept squirming away from me, leaping off the table and launching herself at the bird cages. After several attempts that were thwarted by me, she successfully managed d to attached herself to one of the cages with such intensity that I had to literally pry one claw off at a time.

She kept stretching her paws though the cage wire in an attempt to snare one of the birds. I was trying to hold her with with my left arm wrapped under her front legs and my left hand on one of her legs. With my other hand I tried unsuccessfully to pry her claws lose. My two hands were no match for her skilled four paws. The more the birds fluttered the more intense she became. He eyes were dilated and her breath hot. I've never seen such intense determination.

Fortunately, by some amazing miracle I was finally able to wrestle her off the cage and manipulate her writhing body out the door. Unfortunately the minute the door was open Gracie bolted back in and in one amazing acrobatic leap crashed into one of the bird cages and pulled it over. As I turned to see what had happened Solo pushed back past me and executed a similar move.

I knew I had to stop the insanity fast or I'd lose some birds. I glanced quickly around for something to distract the cats with. The only thing I spotted that might work for cat riot control was the bottle of pesticide. I grabbed it and sprayed it in the general direction of both cats.

Amazingly they both stopped dead in their tracks and focused on me with large glassy eyes. It was like something out of a Stephen King Movie. For a fleeting moment, fear crept into me as I imagined my own cats to be demon possessed! None-the-less, I bravely took advantage of the momentary pause in their insanity. Very calmly and carefully I lifted the cats off the cages by the nape of their neck and dropped them outside. I swear they both were grinning.

As I turned to survey the damage and check for injured birds (which I am happy to report there were none) the cats began emitting long mournful wales. I very slowly turned around and saw them both hanging by their claws on the outside of the screen door. Scary!

I was totally baffled, until I started to clean up the mess. It was then that I realized that after my friend's visit I had inadvertently switched bottles. I had sprayed the birds with catnip and the table and cat toys with pesticide.

Does anyone know how long it takes for catnip to wear off birds?

What I Didn't Need to Know About Skunks

2009-08-25T09:53:00.000-07:00

It's always good to know as much about your enemy as you can, so I consulted old Trapper John who gave me a brief rundown on the life and times of skunks. Now Trapper John is a good guy and I really wanted to believe him, but what he was telling me sounded a bit bizarre. Since he had toyed and joked with me in the past I decided to take a run to the local library to double check facts. Now I wish I hadn't.

You see the truth of the matter is that skunks have a territory of about one and a half to two miles that they roam in the spring and summer months. That part is ok, I would very much appreciate it if they stayed that far away from me. Apparently, from March to November (time approx. in our area) they live in small "families" which usually consist of one male and a little harem of one or two females. That's fine, to each his own, live and let live and all that.

However there is more, and this is where things get very interesting; In the winter they resort to communal living. They live in ancient established burrows that are 4 to 6 feet deep and anywhere from 6 to 20 feet long. Often 20 to 40 skunks will pack together and winter over for warmth, protection and ....well, romantic interludes.

In the spring anywhere from 8 to 10 babies are born to every female down in that cozy commune. When spring comes, they are supposed to wander off into the woods to enjoy their "family" lives as mentioned above. If they would just do that, things wouldn't be to bad around here. Regrettably, in my case they wander around the ranch stealing chicken eggs and attacking chickens in the dead of the night, and spraying me. That tends to rile me a bit. When winter comes they snuggle back in the same established warm winter den to sleep and have their romantic interludes and the cycle goes on and on, and apparently on and on some more, generation after generation. (Do you have a calculator?)

So now I know what I have to deal with. I don't have one skunk, I have a whole territorial army of them that wander in droves around the ranch at night. Apparently this ranch has been blessed with very romantically inclined skunks who have established an ancestral den under the chicken shed. Who knows how many decades its been there!
I'm worried, and rightly so. What if I go out some night and they surround me. If the spray from one skunk is noxious what would the spray from 8 or 10 skunks do? I pretty sure it could be fatal. The local newspaper headlines would read "Local woman dies from overdose of skunk inhalation" How embarrassing!

On the other hand I also read that they are timid and shy and generally peace loving little commune dwellers. That helps somewhat, I'm trying to think of them as displaced "hippies" from the 60's and 70's. When you think about it, their little white stripe does look a bit like a "hippie" headband of sorts.

I wonder if I get down on my hands and knees and look under the chicken shed if I would see a bunch of miniature dilapidated V.W. vans with peace symbols and psychedelic flowers painted on them. Do they sit cross legged and strum tiny dulcimers? Do they name their children "Golden Leaf" and "Puffy Cloud?" It's all really very interesting, in a scary kind of way.
Anyway, back to a few more interesting facts. Apparently skunks are members of the weasel family (that figures.) Their Latin name is Mephits, which means noxious gas. (No kidding? What brilliant ancient scholar came up with that name?)

Now for the little detail that sent me scampering to my dresser to check out my perfume bottles. Believe it or not, skunk oil is somehow de-scented and then used in manufacturing the very most expensive perfumes. Yah, that one made my head spin too. Apparently sunk oil has the best holding/staying power of any oil in the universe . I can vouch for that one first hand. Take my word for it skunk oil last and lasts for a very long time. Thank god for the Anti-Icky-Poo company!

The last tid-bit of information I picked up, is that apparently skunk meat is very tasty. You will never get a personal testimony out of me on that one. I don't have even the slightest inclination to taste skunk meat. Which brings me to a curious question: Who was brave enough or desperate enough to be the first to even think about eating one? Maybe it was the brilliant ancient scholar who named them noxious gas? Seriously, if you are serving skunk for dinner tonight, please do not invite me over.

Wiley Coyote & The Acme Kit Company: Part 2

2009-08-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

Wiley Coyote & The Acme Kit Company: Part 2

August 17, 2009

I shouldn't have to tell you how angry I was with that skunk at this point, but I will. All my compassion had drained and my peaceful animal loving soul was tweaked into revenge. That skunk was going to be evicted from the feed room one way or another. I was marching to the tune of a new drummer and it's name was "war."

An interesting side note here before I go on. The Greeks apparently don't hate anyone. While they have five words for love they only have one word they use to describe their dislike of someone or something. That word is miseo which translates into despise. The American/English language has dozens of words that fall into that category. That's ok. I was using all of them as I carefully laid out my next plan of attack. My final plan. The plan to put an end to the 'close encounters' with my enemy.

In my frenzied state of mind, I considered guns, knives, bow and arrows, and machetes. I even briefly considered burning down the feed building. However, after a shower and another dousing of "anti-icky-poo" I mellowed somewhat and decided to use the tool at hand, which was the snare I'd recently obtained in my "Beginners Trapping Kit". It seemed, safe, simple and effective.

By the time I was once again ready to tackle the dastardly antagonist skunk who in my mind had become as large and aggressive as a Grizzly Bear, it was getting dark. Now a person in their right mind would stop long enough to consider that skunks are more active at night. I was not in my right mind.

Armed for "bear" I grabbed a flashlight and the instructions for installing the snare and headed out the door. As I neared the feed room, I flicked on the flashlight and read the instructions: 1. Anchor the snub end of the snare to something secure. Simple enough. Looking around I decided the best place to anchor the snare would be the inside of the feed room door. It was still ajar from my earlier hasty exit, so it would be a simple task. The job called for a few tools, but I was confident I could handle it.

In my husband's workshop I found his cordless drill and some rather long and lethal looking screws. I suppose I should confess that I have absolutely no talent for construction in spite of the fact that my husband is an assistant manager of a well-known hardware chain. But seriously, how much talent is required to anchor a piece of chain to a wall with a screw.

Back at the feed room, I quietly knelt down and positioned the snub end of the snare chain near the bottom of the door. I then tucked the flashlight under one arm, picked up the screw with my left hand and the drill with my right and pulled the trigger of the drill gun. There was an interesting, although rather loud, kind of "Whrrrr" sound and the screw flew into the air causing the chain to clatter to the ground. I peered quietly into the feed room to see to what extend I had disturbed the skunk. There was silence and to my relief no scent.

My second attempt to anchor the snare produced identical results. I decided the problem must be faulty screws or maybe a faulty drill, it couldn't be my lack of coordination. Checking the drill first, I held the flashlight up to it and found it was on R for reverse instead of F for forward. Ahh, problem solved. I flipped the little button to the right position and tried again. This time the momentum of the drill caused the screw to wobble and the screw. chain, and drill slipped and hit the door with a thud and clatter. I couldn't have been making more noise if I tried.

On my third attempt the drill gave a pathetically sad "rhhhhh" and I realized the battery was low. In retrospect, I should have waited for my husband to come home and take over. The job would have been completed in short order. Instead, being the self-sufficient, determined, bull-headed woman that I am, I marched back to his work shop and hunted around until I found his back-up drill. While I was in there, one of our dogs wandered in. Not wanting to take the chance of him getting sprayed by the skunk, I told him to "stay" and returned to the feed room to complete my task.

I set the drill down, picked up the screw and chain and was about to bend down to pick up the flashlight when I heard a muffled rustling behind me. You know, the kind of sneaky sound a disobedient dog makes when he slyly follows you after being told to stay.

I whirled around, stomped my foot and yelled "Stay!" I now regret both the action and the command. It wasn't the dog.

As you may have already guessed it was the resident skunk returning to the feed room after an evening stroll. Actually he most likely had been baited back by the scent of skunk lure on the snare.

In the blink of an eye there was a repeat of the earlier encounter: "Stomp-Stomp-Zing-Pow!"

If you are keeping score it's: Skunk 3, Lucy 0. I need to find a language with more words for "despise."

Wiley Coyote & the Acme Kit Company Part 1-B

2009-08-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

Wiley Coyote & The Acme Kit Company: Part 1-B
August 16, 2009

Before I continue with part 2 of this story I feel the need to remind you that I love animals. I even find skunks endearing in their own way. In fact, let's face it; they are down-right cute with their beady little near-sighted eyes, pointy face, distinct color pattern and busy tail.

I also think it is very kind-hearted of them to warn everyone to stay away by stomping their feet and ruffling their hair before spraying. In other words, I would leave them alone if they left my poultry alone and didn't so freely share their cologne with me.

Let me back up a minute to a word I used in the first paragraph above: Love. I said I love animals. But, here's the deal. In our American/English language we have only one word that describes our varying degrees of love. I admire the Greek language because it has five different words that describe love. I think our lives would be less confusing if we borrowed some of the Greek definitions of love and applied them to our daily lives.

For example, the Greek use Agape to describe pure, ideal, spiritual love. Well, I can tell you right off the bat that I don't have an agape love for skunks.

Then there is the Greek word Eros, which describes a passionate love. Here again, that seriously is not what I would use to describe my feelings for skunks.

Next we have Storge, which in Greek indicates a strong bond such as that between parents and children. I've got to pass on that one too. It is not at all descriptive of my feelings for skunks.

Now we come to Xenia, which is used to describe a feeling of friendship and hospitality. The Greek are very gregarious and treat their guests like royalty. I can assure you that is not the word I would use to describe my relationship with skunks. I don't want to extend my hospitality to them. I want them gone!

Lastly we come to Phila, which is a dispassionate love, really more of an appreciation and acute interest. Now that would be the word I would use to describe my relationship with skunks and most other animals as well. I phila them.

Now that we have that straight, I would also like to add that while my relationship with most animals is phila, they also bring out my compassionate and nurturing side as well. I would rather do anything than physically harm or bring discomfort to any animal ..even skunks.

Having said that, I now need to warn you that I can only be pushed to a certain point before I go a bit off the deep end and go ballistic. The skunk in the feed room had me to that point. So, the next morning after my Acme Beginner Trapping Kit arrived, I decided to set the snare and "dispatch" the little stinker that was taking advantage of my Xenia.

The snare still reeked from the dousing it received from the broken bottle of skunk lure. This was not a problem in my mind. The stronger it smelled the quicker it should attract the unwelcome feed room resident, and the quicker he would be "dispatched" to another life.

However, marching out to the feed room with the snare held out in font of me at arms length, I began to think about the cute little guy. With each step I felt my warrior-like constitution going soft and my mind wandered to Pepe le Pew and Flower of Walt Disney fame.

My aggression further began to deteriorate as I wondered how that skunk came to be trapped in my feed room to begin with. I reasoned that he had plenty of food, but I wondered what he had been doing for water. I decided the poor little prisoner must be close to dehydration, and with that I began to feel sorry for him.

My compassionate side overpowered my warrior side and I set the snare down and filled a bowl with water. Next I quietly and slowly opened the feed room door and slid the bowl of water as far back into the room as I could by using one extended leg and foot.

Stomp-Stomp-Zing-Pow! The next thing I knew I was covered with skunk oil from head to toe. Compassion left my soul faster than a brick dropping to the floor. I would have "dispatched" the blasted little sniper with my bare hands if I could have seen him, but my eyes watered up so badly I could barely see light filtering in from the door behind me. Suddenly my nose was running wildly out of control and so was I.

I blindly ran to the nearest hose and drenched myself with cold water. Unfortunately, I remembered a bit too lat that oil and water don't mix...it beaded up and spread.

Thank goodness Lucy, the manufacturers of Anti-Icky-Poo sell it in gallon size.

Wiley Coyote & The Acme Kit Company Part 1

2009-08-15T11:15:00.000-07:00

Wiley Coyote & The Acme Kit Company Part 1
August 15, 2009

There are many reasons living in the country is incredibly satisfying. Even though our ranch is located on a fairly busy highway, the property itself has a park-like setting that provides privacy, serenity and best of all clean country air.

Unfortunately, sometimes even the freshest of country air can become fouled by a tiny black and white guest commonly known as a "skunk."

So there it is...we have a skunk problem. Our elderly local state trapper has been working with me to help eliminate the problem...or so he says. In truth, Trapper John has a rather acute sense of humor and I'm beginning to realize that some of his so-called advise is purely for his own entertainment.

For example, here a while back one of our odoriferous guests managed to somehow slip into the feed room and take up residence behind multiple sacks of chicken feed. I never saw him, but his presence was obvious by the eye-watering perfumed greeting he gave me every time I opened the feed room door.

Naturally I called Trapper John for help. He said he couldn't make it out for a few days but suggested I try setting off a gopher bomb in the feed room. He advised me to set off the gopher bomb, then run like heck, but leave the feed room door open so the skunk would vacate the premises.

Unfortunately all that came out of that fruitless exercise was a worse smelling feed room. The skunk stayed put and expressed his disdain for the smelly gopher bomb by adding some of his own spray to the mix. I've got to tell you that the combination of gopher bomb and skunk essence is not something you ever want to experience. Seriously.

Several other ill-fated attempts at evicting the skunk failed. Then one day in total desperation, and feeling a bit like Wiley Coyote chasing after the Road Runner, I found a company on the Internet that sold what they called a "Beginner Trappers Kit." The kit included a couple of bottles skunk scent lure, a pair of plastic gloves, a short length of chain, and a snare.

Satisfied that I could handle things on my own without the help of Trapper John and his off-the- wall humor, I ordered the kit and paced impatiently waiting for it to arrive . It seemed to take forever. Meanwhile, every morning when I went into the feed room to get chicken feed I was greeted with a blast of skunk essence.

Happily one day, the kit arrived. Unhappily one of the bottles of skunk lure had broken open in transit, and the whole box smelled like the essence of skunk. For some reason that seemed to upset the UPS driver, who more or less kicked the box out of the back of his truck and fled.

Carefully opening the box in the driveway where it landed, I salvaged what I could. I left the box, the wrappings, and the rest of the mess in the driveway while I took the gloves, snare and the remaining bottle of lure into the laundry room to try and wash off some of the putrid smell.

While I was doing that, our two dogs discovered the stinking box and packing papers in the driveway and rolled in them. Apparently dogs have a very different idea of perfume than humans.

Meanwhile, back in the laundry room I was dealing with an ever growing mess of my own. I soon discovered that skunk lure apparently has a higher concentration of oil and washing with even the strongest of detergents does not cut though it. Think of the old adage; Oil and water don't mix. I had skunk oil in the sink, on my hands, the faucet, and on the front of my shirt. Fortunately some time ago I found a great product called "anti-icky-poo" Seriously, that is the name of the product. It's great for skunk oil as well as other offense smells. Unfortunately the lure oil was super concentrated and I had managed to spread it everywhere. My nose was so confused and congested I couldn't tell if the anti-icky-poo was working or not, so I gave up and went into the house.

The dogs apparently had had enough too, because they soon began to scratch at the door. Oblivious to the idea they may have found the box in the driveway, I let them in, and headed to the shower to douse myself with anti-icky-poo, hot water and soap.

Exiting the shower I noted that for some odd reason the house reeked stronger of skunk than it did before I entered the shower. I was baffled until one of the dogs approached grinning and wagging his tail. The closer he got the stronger the smell. Then I knew. I marched the dogs out to the laundry room and doused them with the anti-icky-poo, burned the boxes in a outdoor incinerator, and then shampooed my carpets with anti-icky-poo.

By then, of course, I once again reeked with the skunk oil, so it was back to the shower for me. My husband came home not too long afterward and sniffing the air said "oh oh, who got skunked?" All I could do was glare, he most likely wouldn't have believed my story anyway, then again, he knows he married a Lucille Ball clone.

The Case of the Prankster Puppies

2009-08-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

The Case of the Prankster Puppies
August 13, 2009

A while back I rescued two mixed-breed puppies from a flea market. I never did figure out what exactly they were mixed with, but if I had to guess I'd say part Tasmanian Devil and part Chimpanzee.

When I first brought them home they were in poor health and it took several trips the veterinarian and some pretty intense care to pull them trough. It was very hard not to become attached to them, but I knew from the beginning that once they recovered, I'd have to find permanent homes for them.

And, recover they did. They soon became exuberant roly-poly balls of 100% pure puppy energy. Except for brief intervals of sleeping, they were in perpetual motion. They ran and jumped and wrestled and rolled.

Then one day the true personality of their Tasmanian devil/chimpanzee cross came out in them and they decided to include me in their antics. Now, some may say this was pure coincidence and that's ok. You can believe what you will, but I'll tell it the way it happened and leave the conclusions up to you.

On that fateful day, I let the puppies out of their kennel as usual, and as usual they took off like a category 5 tornado. Laughing I entered their kenned and began to clean it. Suddenly I noticed they had returned and were ripping the bag of kibbled dog food apart. "No wait" I called and placed the bag on a table near the outside of the kennel.

That apparently didn't set well with them because the minute I went back in the kennel one of the puppies jumped on the outside of the door and slammed it shut with me inside. I wasn't worried because there is a safety latch and puppies will be puppies. But then suddenly the other puppy jumped at the door from another angle causing the safety latch to swing into position virtually locking me inside.

I jiggled the door gently at first. I wasn't quite believing what had just happened. Then I jiggled more frantically. The door wouldn't budge and my hands were too big to slip though the wire to release the safety latch. I was trapped.

Now, here is the interesting part. Both puppies came to within 2 feet of the kennel and sat quietly look at me tilting their heads to one side and then to the other. I swear they were laughing.

I tried to coax them back to the door thinking maybe they could unlatch the safety, but in my heart I knew better. I called and coaxed but they just sat watching me. It's the first time I'd ever seen them awake and not in motion. Then suddenly they bounded off toward the table and began jumping against one leg until the bag of kibbles topped off and fell to the ground.

Did they eat the kibbles? No. What they did was tug the bag over toward the kennel door and leave. That's right, they left. Sweet. There I was hopelessly locked in the kennel. It's good that I wasn't hungry because I couldn't have reached the bag of kibbles if I wanted to. One's mind goes in strange directions when one is faced with undue stress doesn't it?

Bruce was at work, and the neighbors live far enough way that no amount of yelling would alert them to my dilemma. Of course, being a rebel in my own right, I do not carry a cell phone. So there I was.

I rattled the door and hollered then I restored to kicking the door trying to break it loose. Nothing worked so I resorted to the all time sure-fire solution. I cried.

The puppies didn't abandon me all-together though, they came back from time to time to gloat at their prank then quickly bounded off in glee again.

Fortunately my incarceration lasted only two agonizingly long hours. By pure random luck my UPS driver happened to have a package delivery for me that morning. When his truck came in the drive way I shouted and waved my arms frantically He gave a friendly smile,dropped the package off, waved back and started to get in his truck before he realized I was yelling "HELP ME " and not "Hi Steve".

So there you have it. The next day an ad went into the local paper. Missing from their warm fuzzy description was the fact they were part Tasmanian Devil and part Chimpanzee.

His Present Wife

2009-08-12T08:44:00.000-07:00

His Present Wife
August 12, 2009

If the saying "You are what you eat" is true, and I think maybe it is because I'm looking more and more like a can of Pepsi, then there should be a saying that goes something like "Your attitude defines your day."

Take yesterday for example. The day seemed to start without me, which left me scrambling to catch up with it. Nothing overly significant went wrong. It was more like a series of mini-blunders that left me shaking my head and spitting out grumpy mumblings. At this point I could go into a lot of tedious detail and explain just how the day began to deteriorate, but I'll just cut to the chase and get to the point.

I'm not a certified recluse although I do hate leaving the comfort of my home and ranch. I'd say I'm more like a home-body. I'm the opposite of the typical stereotype woman who loves to head to town and shop. In fact, I dread fighting the traffic and the crowds and when I see the price of things, sticker shock nearly stops my heart.

This is where my theory about attitude setting the mood for the day comes into play. There was no way to get out of going to town yesterday. It was a typical run-around errand day with stops that would include the bank, the grocery store, the feed store, the hardware store and on and on.

The first stop was the bank . It was a hot morning, and I was in such a scrambled mind-set that I locked my keys in the truck. Perfect! Just what I needed! Fortunately we live in a small friendly town, so the folks at the bank let me use their phone to call AAA. The dispatcher said they were having a rather busy day and it would be at least half an hour before she could get someone out to help me.

Frustrated, I stomped back to the parking lot, flipped down the tailgate of the truck and with a grumble hoisted my self onto it to wait for the tow company. I was about to boil over with bad attitude, when I saw an elderly man limping along pushing a walker. At first I thought he was headed into the bank, but then I realized he was headed directly toward me. He approached as though he knew me and said "Well hello there, mind if I join you?"

Of course I mind I thought, but instead I gave a flat lipped smile and patted the open space next to me on the tail gate and said "hop up."

We sat for a minute in silence then he pointed to his feet and said "You know I have some fierce bone spurs on both my feet. I spent most of my life working on my feet, and they hurt like the devil."

I seriously wasn't in the mood for conversation, and I was wishing he'd just go about his business and leave me with my miserable attitude, but there he was so I gave a sympathetic smile and said "I'm sorry, it must be awful to try and get around."

He nodded and said "Do you know what my present wife did for me?" before I could ask he went on "Well sir, my present wife cut holes in a couple of those inserts where the spurs hit so they don't hurt quite so bad." I noted the emphasis on the word present when he spoke of his wife.

"Well, that's great" I said "You'd better keep that present wife of yours." I was wishing he'd just leave and let me sulk in peace, but he continued "Oh you don't need to worry about that, my present wife and I will never part."

I nodded my head and said "That's great." Then he suddenly turned sideways on the tailgate so that we were making direct eye contact and said "Do you know why I call her my present wife?"

Well, that's a no-brainer I thought, most likely because she is the latest in a series of wives, but I shook my head and patronizingly said "No, why do you call her your present wife?"

Quietly he slid off the tailgate and positioned himself in his walker and looked at me with pale blue eyes that started to tear and very positively said "Because she was my present to myself fifty-two years ago when I married her!" Without another word he turned and shuffled his walker toward the bank entrance.

My throat swelled and my eyes welled with tears, and I thought of my "present husband" that I gave to myself twenty-seven years ago when we married. That gimpy old man that I really didn't want to share my space with snapped my attitude back into shape in a big hurry and the day just kept getting better and better. Maybe we really do meet angels unaware.

I'm sure we all have a present something-or-another that we can be thankful for. A wife, a husband, a child, a friend. Those we love are indeed presents to ourselves.

My First Ever Electric Dog

2009-08-11T10:29:00.000-07:00

My First Ever Electric Dog
August 11, 2009

Have you ever wanted something so badly that you became obsessed with getting it, then once you have it you wonder what on earth you were thinking?

So it was with "Taboo" our monstrously large, black, hairy dog. Here's what happened:

We had been having problems with prowlers, mostly the four legged kind harassing our livestock, but occasionally the two legged human kind emerged from the woods as well. Because of that, we decided we needed a "super dog" for protection. Hours of library and Internet research turned up several prospects, but at the top of the list came glowing reports of a breed called Bouvier Des Flanders. They were touted for their loyalty, agility, imposing physical stature, and above all else their amazing intelligence. What more could a person want?

After months of obsessively checking the Internet and various newspapers, we found a breeder advertising a litter of pups. Unfortunately when we called there was only one puppy that was not spoken for. The breeder rolled off all the excellent qualities of the breed, emphasizing their amazing intelligence. She gave me a deal-breaker sales pitch, so my husband and I made a three hour trip to meet our prospective new family member and guardian.

Never had I seen such an adorable puppy. She had big black round eyes that were completely encompassed in a massive ball of long black fur. She was loving and playful and took to us immediately. A few hours later the puppy, my husband and I were on the road back home in gleeful bliss. During the long trip we tried to come up with an appropriate name. Bouvier's are French so we wanted something French and feminine, yet bold. A name like "Fifi" wouldn't do for a guard dog. We eventually came up with "Taboo."

Now, I've had occasion to train several puppies, so I felt confident that I could teach her the basics. However, by the time she was four months old, she had only mastered "shake hands." The rest of the basics: Come, sit, stay, down, and heel were not in her vocabulary no matter how much I worked with her. She didn't seem to even recognize her name.

By the time this "incredibly intelligent and loyal" guardian was six months old, she had been to nearly every obedience school in northern California. Still, she had only mastered "shake hands." At one year of age she had been through three professional trainers and still had only mastered "shake hands." Her name was shortened to "Boo Boo" for obvious reasons.

By then she had also seen a battery of Veterinarians to be sure she didn't have any physical deformities such as eyesight or hearing problems. We were told she was healthy in every respect. Each of them said "It's a matter of training" and suggested yet another obedience school or top-notch professional trainer.

One day, a sheriff's deputy friend of ours who worked in the K-9 unit offered to take her for the weekend and run her through their trails and see what he could do with her. When he returned her on Sunday evening he said she had won the "Miss Congeniality" award, but he couldn't do anything with her so far as getting her to understand the basic heel and sit commands. He mentioned that she shook hands beautifully.

Eventually our neighbors started complaining because she barked constantly when we let her out. The complaints were legitimate. Being a big dog, she had a bark that vibrated windows nearly half a mile away. She barked at birds, swaying tree branches, falling leaves and the wind. She barked and she barked.

Ahh, to this point I don't believe I have mentioned that she was afraid of being alone and also of the dark. We had to leave nightlights on in every room of our home to keep her from howling. Our puppy had grown into a very large sissy dog. She possessed none of the attributes of a watch dog. We were hopelessly in love with her, but at the same time she was making us crazy.

One day one of her veterinarians suggested we try an electric shock collar. It took some convincing, but it did seem to be the logical, and perhaps final step in attempting to train her. Graciously he offered to loan us one that he had used to train his hunting dogs.

Both my husband and I read the instructions carefully. My husband even allowed himself to be jolted just to verify that it wouldn't cause "Boo Boo" any unnecessary discomfort. Satisfied, we placed the collar around her neck and let her outside. She immediately ran around barking at "no-seeums."

Now this is the way it was supposed to go. According to directions we were to hide out of her sight. Each time she barked unnecessarily one of us was to firmly shout "NO!" and if she continued to bark we were supposed to hit the button on the remote and give her a short zap. In theory, she would be taken by surprise and eventually associate the shout with the zap and stop barking before we pressed the button.

She barked, I shouted, she barked, I zapped, she yipped. So far so good. Again, she barked, I shouted, she barked, I zapped, she yipped. So it went for nearly twenty minutes, after which she began to make a vague connection and her barking grew less and less frequent. A couple of times just shouting "NO!" silenced her, and the zap was not necessary. Ahh, we were making great progress! So we decided to leave her outside and end the lesson for the day. I set the remote down and moved on to other things.

Suddenly I heard her yip, there was a pause then another yip. "Hey what are you doing" I yelled to my husband who was in another room "She wasn't barking!" To my surprise he hadn't been using the remote, it was lying by itself where I had left it. We both peered out the window at "Boo Boo" to our amazement every few minutes she would take a few steps, yip then shake her head. My husband grabbed the remote and opened it thinking it must be malfunctioning. Meanwhile I crazily called the vet to ask if it was possible to over-do it and cause permanent brain damage or something.

Using his best bedside manner and very obviously trying not to laugh, he assured me that the minimal jolt would not cause any brain damage, permanent or otherwise. He said he had never had a problem with the unit, but to bring both the dog and the unit in and he'd take a look at them (how patronizing.)

Strangely, even after the batteries were taken out of the hand held remote, "Boo Boo" still gave frequent yips and shook her head." I was convinced that I had caused what little brains she had to begin with to be forever scrambled.

As I was clipping "Boo Boo's" leash on to take her to the vet my neighbor drove into our driveway and yelled "Thank god you are home, Frank got a new TV and he's making me nuts flipping through all 269 channels. I had to get out of the house."

Suddenly my husband was laughing and said "Wait...Frank just got a new TV?" I glared at him...just like a man to be thinking of new toys when our dog was brain damaged! Before I could admonish him for his lack of compassion he said "I think I know what's going on. Put the shock collar back on "Boo Boo" and get Frank on the phone. Have him tell us each time he switches channels, I think maybe the collar is on the same frequency as Frank's remote"

Sure enough, that was the problem. Each time Frank hit his remote button to switch channels it not only sent a signal to his new TV, but to "Boo Boo's" collar as well. A quick adjustment of the frequency and the problem was solved, but I never had the heart to use the collar again. I returned it to the vet that same day.

In spite of that, for the next thirteen years of her life, she barked, I yelled "NO!" she yipped, shook her head and grew silent. Great training job Frank!

She was a great dog. She was not, however a great watch dog, or even a mediocre one. We continued to be plagued by prowlers which she greeted with a hand shake. She never won any scholastic awards, but she was by far the most loving dog we have ever had the privilege of sharing our home with.

By the way, in case you are wondering, at the end of her life she had learned only two commands "Shake hands" and "No"... My incredible lovable First Ever Electric Dog!

Country Scents

2009-08-10T09:23:00.000-07:00

August 10, 2009

Well, here I go. I'm a blogger. I'm not really sure what a blogger is, but apparently now I am one. I'm told it's like writing entries in a journal or diary. That sounds simple enough. The difference apparently is that journals and diaries are private and blogs are not. I'll watch myself.

As far back into my life as I can remember those who know me say I must have Lucille Ball Syndrome, or maybe I am a Lucille Ball clone. Things just happen in my daily life that seem to spin hopelessly out of control. While they can be frustrating to me at times, they inevitably make others laugh or reflect. My grandmother said I was put on this earth to entrain folks. That's not such a bad thing, I can think of worse. People need to laugh, especially in these tough times.

So, this blog "Country Scents" is about my daily life. I'm not a kid. I'm not middle aged. I'm pretty much over-the hill and sledding rapidly down the other side. I'm a woman rancher, married and I have grown children. That's really all you need to know about me for now.

The following entries are all true, real life events, but on occasion I may take creative liberties to enhance the stories. I'm a frustrated author, so I think creative liberties are justified.

Lets begin with today: August 10, 2009

I woke this morning with a sinus headache. Not such a great way to start any day, but that is the way it began. After my husband left for work I decided to take a sinus tablet and lay down for a bit to see if I could at least knock the headache down to a dull workable throb. It worked. My head cleared quite nicely. My new problem was that I was hit between the eyes with a pang of guilt for taking time out of my busy day to lay down. So much to do, so little time (sound familiar?)

I jumped up and before my feet even hit the floor they were moving at lightening speed. I was moving so fast that the best race horses in Kentucky couldn't have caught me. I rushed about the house gathering things and straightening things. The house never looks as good as I think it should. I have too many responsibilities. The garden, the animals, running a home-based business and trying to keep the house up. It gets overwhelming. Rushing about trying to make up for lost time, I carried a pad and pencil and jotted down all the great feats I wanted to accomplish before the day slipped away.

As I folded a stack of laundry I jostled the phone between my shoulder and cheek. A business call.

By about 7:30 I was off the phone (Love those folks on the East Coast who never remember there is a time difference between the East and West coasts .) I needed to tackle the things on my "to do" list, but first a quick shower was in order. As I raced though the bedroom on my way to the shower, I realized I had not yet opened the curtains. I quickly reached out and gave the cord a pull, causing the drapes to fly open with a whoosh. I gave the landscape a quick nonchalant glance, noted the undeniable beauty and started to turn away...nothing in this world could deter me from my mission of great accomplishments today.

Ahhh, but there it was. It was the striking brilliant silver sheen that first caught my attention. It screeched my runabout world to a sudden halt as if someone had pulled the emergency cord on a runaway trolley. I moved closer to the window for a better look.

There hanging in brilliant profusion, from the Tulip tree, were nine very delicate strands of what looked like very expensive sterling necklace chains. I knelt on a chair and pressed my face even closer to the window. Each strand was about six feet long and flowed in a funnel shape from a single coupling on a low hanging branch. The opposite end of each stand was attached to our wrought-iron fence giving the whole wonder a "May-Pole" affect. Moisture from the morning dew had collected along the strands and as the sun filtered though them, the tiny droplets danced and sparkled like precious diamonds.

It was then that I knew that no matter what else the day had to offer, I had just been given the greatest treasure one could every expect to discover. A silent sparkling reminder that life's true blessings are fleeting and must be savored as they occur.

I poured a cup of coffee and sat watching as the sun crept slowly across the delicate spider web. I savored every minute. My own labors seemed small and insignificant. While I was laying down with my headache this early morning, a tiny spider wove a trap just a few feet from where I lay.

I suppose an entomologist might see the web from a clinical point of view and say the spider wove the trap to catch its next meal, or perhaps to lay its eggs in...but I will forever argue that the trap was set just for me.

In the midst of my rush-about morning, it caught me completely off guard and pulled me in. It held me hopelessly captive until it had calmed and reassured me. I once again have things in perspective. There is more to life than getting things done. The beauty of our world is precious and fleeting and not to be taken lightly.