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Posts Tagged ‘dogs’

The littlest cow dog.

Posted in Pets, Ranch Life, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 14, 2013 | 14 Comments »

Meet Juno, Pops’ new cow dog.

Aren’t you just dying. She’s so fllllufffffaaaayyyyaaaa!!!

Ahem.

Ok, look beyond her absolute cuteness and you will see one of the most important elements in our ranching operation when spring comes. Every rancher has to have a good dog made to help get cattle out of a brush patch, move them through a gate or push them along to different pastures and Juno is a little mix of some of the best cattle breeds out there.

Take a look at the white markings around her neck and you will see a bit of border collie.  Her little brown eyebrows and fluffy fur is the Australian Shepherd in her.  Mix that with the speckled feet she got from blue heeler blood and it looks like Juno has all the makings of a great ranch hand.

Errrr, she’s so darn cute!

When I was growing up we always had a female border collie ranch dog. Usually we would have that female bred and keep one of her pups to learn from her momma so that when the momma was too old to work, the pup was at her prime.

Pops’ current working dog, Pudge, was a hand-me-down dog looking for a good home. She is one of the best dogs we’ve ever had on the place;  loyal, sweet and always willing to go along on the longest and most grueling of rides. Her only weakness is a thunderstorm.

And time.

See, we’re not sure how old this lady is, but she’s definitely slowing down. We needed to bring Juno home so that Pudge had a chance to teach her some things about life on the Veeder Ranch come spring.

I’m a little concerned that Pudge may not make it that long, but she’s got a lot of spirit and a heated bed, so the chances are good.

In the meantime we will just love on them this winter, feed them up, scratch their bellies and let them know that this ranch is a good place for a dog.




Even worthless pugs who pee on your Uggs.

Yeah, that’s right, I know what you did…

Ah, Juno, you don’t know what you’ve got ahead of you little girl. It’s a good thing you have big paws and a fluffy coat, because there are going to be adventures, cows for you to chase, mud to slop in, grass to roll in and poop to sniff.

It looks a little cold out there now, but trust me, you were made for this stuff.

Welcome to your new life little girl!

And whatever you do, don’t listen to that one…

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Next Year.

Posted in Musings, Ranch Life, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 31, 2012 | 13 Comments »

It’s been a hell of a year at the Veeder Ranch and it looks like it’s going to go out with quite the chill in the air. I’ll tell you in advance, if you can’t find me after midnight tonight it’s because I’ll be laying face down in a carpeted corner somewhere, exhausted and finally giving in after a wonderful week spent wrapping and unwrapping, decorating and celebrating, laughing and baking and eating everything, driving and visiting friends, singing for my supper and trying every holiday cocktail concoction possible.

Staring down a new year has always been bittersweet for me. I get a little panicky feeling in the pit of my stomach that’s directly correlated to the tasks I thought I might get done and the potential of a brand new chance to get things right.

See I try to be a person who looks back only occasionally to catch a good memory, remember a lesson learned or laugh at something that was damn hilarious.

I’ve been known to leave the awkward, tough and uncomfortable situations that occurred throughout my life in the dust where I think they belong, but the anticipation of January 1st always has me looking back on the little things that I could have done better; like taking deep breaths whenever I found my husband on a tall ladder,

the pug packing his nap-sack for another runaway attempt,

or the cat dangling painfully from the tips of my fingers. 

Deep breaths.

It works on the little things and it worked as we could do nothing but watch the volunteer firefighters try to save the little farmhouse we called home this summer.

Breathing, sometimes in this life that’s all we can do.

Sometimes that’s all I want to do as I sit on the hilltops on the back of my horse and watch as the wind bends the grasses, rustles the trees and tangles my hair, but in all of the moments I’ve set up for myself throughout the year sometimes breathing is the hardest.

And the most important thing.

This year I wrote it all down.

This year I sang it out loud and sent it out into the world.

This year I cried a little and sucked it up.

This year I was scared. Really nervous. This year I did it anyway.

This year I made dessert for breakfast, mistakes that looked like reasons and music that sounded a little more like me.

This year I rode a little harder I think. I drank too much coffee and too much tequila, ate too much pasta and maybe didn’t make as much time for that breathing thing as I should have.

Or sit-ups.

But I laughed. A lot. I got my oxygen that way I think. I laughed hard as I rode off into the sunset on a horse working his hardest to get rid of me.

I laughed as we stuck it out. I laughed as I forgot to put it in drive while pushing the gas pedal and wondering why the hell I wasn’t moving.

I laughed as our whole life was strung out on the lawn outside of my parents house. I laughed at the idea that we had all of this stuff, all of this space and no place to put it.

I laughed at the annoying things–the twisted ankles, the slippery roads, the runaway dogs and messes I never get around to cleaning up–I laughed because we were all still alive and loving each other, knowing that those things are a long way from our hearts.

Because this year I helped build us a house,  jumped out of a damn plane, landed safely on the ground and ate the best fish taco I’ve ever had in my life next to the best friends they make.

This year the ranch, my home got, clean, fresh, bought and paid for water, I got a newspaper column, finished that album,
kept some promises and saw my world from the clouds.

This year I loved as much as I possibly could.

And next year I intend on opening that heart up even more.

I do.

Next year I will learn all of the words to Rocky Top. I’ll get practicing tomorrow.

Next year I will master meal planning, organization and the mandolin.

Next year I will play the harmonica on my new deck next to my garden busy growing tomatoes and basil and pumpkins I think.

Next year I will be 30.

 

Next year I’ll be ok with that.

Next year I’ll do sit-ups. And maybe some lunges.

Next year I’ll bake more bread, visit more friends, spend more time listening and saying the things that need to be said.

Next year I’ll walk to more hilltops just to sit for a while.

Next year I’ll drink too much coffee and red wine. Next year I’ll still love peanut butter

I’ll still love this.

And I’ll still love him.

I’ll always love him.

And at the end of any day, at the end of any year, that’s the most important thing anyway, no matter who’s climbing ladders, what catches fire or how many wild dreams (or wild dogs) we are chasing.

Thanks for hanging in there with us. Cheers to an adventure filled 2013.

And cheers to more laughter.

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Delusions.

Posted in Pets, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on October 9, 2012 | 3 Comments »

I’ve been meaning to tell you some things about the pug. You’re all so supportive of him, the dog who, despite his sins and misadventures, still somehow finds a way to sleep on the couch.

Anyway, I figured you might be wondering how he’s been adjusting to this new life in his new home over the hill.

I’ll tell you, at times, it hasn’t been pretty…

And sometimes, his ear does this.

I’m guessing it’s probably due to the wind whipping through his fur as his short, stubby legs take his barrel shaped body across the pasture to try his luck at hunting down this guy:

Nope, not much has changed. Despite the new four walls the pudgy canine is still shitting on floors, hitchhiking to the nearest oil sites to see what’s cooking, working on taming the new feline in his life and exercising his delusions of grandeur.

And every year those delusions get, well, grander.

Don’t tell him he’s not a horse. He won’t believe you.

He will also not accept that he is not a cat.

Or a 110 pound cow dog.

Which is working out really well, now that Husband is on board with the idea that this dog could actually become something… well…helpful.

And so Husband has decided to work on it, you know, making the pug the best cow dog on our place. Which I realize doesn’t say much for the other dogs at the Veeder Ranch, but based on what we have to choose from, I’ll tell you, it could be true.

But it’s definitely weird.

Because the pug’s newly-honed talent has allowed for a fat little pug-shaped space in the corner of my husband’s heart.

A bond 4 years in the making…

Now I wasn’t aware this new role and relationship was occurring until I witnessed the pug stare down a small herd of cattle that had found their way to our front yard, pleasantly munching on what was left of the green grass poking out from under the fallen oak leaves and acorns.

Anticipating that damn dog’s next move, I hollered his name.
I hollered “no.”
I hollered “get back here!”

The pug turned his good eye toward me in confusion while Husband came up behind me, scolding me for yelling at the pooch.

What?

He then proceeded to inform me that lately he had been working with the pug on the whole cow-chasing thing, because, well he seemed he was brave enough, and when told to “sick ‘em”  the lab just runs for the first big stick.

So it’s either Husband or the pug who is destined to perform the task of getting those cows out of the yard.

And it seems the pair have found their common ground.

Delusion.

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Weird.

Posted in Music, Photos, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 13, 2012 | 14 Comments »

Life out here is beautiful.

Life out here is peaceful and dirty and busy and windy and full of long “to-do” lists staring us in the face.

And life out here can be weird.

My first example: Last Sunday night when we arrived home from a trip to see Husband’s family, I was working on unloading the groceries and figuring out the jig-saw puzzle that has become my refrigerator while talking to a friend on the phone when my dearly beloved husband sauntered into the kitchen with a hammer in his hand and declared:

“There was a bat in the bedroom.” And then he nonchalantly walked over to the fridge to free up some space by grabbing a beer.

My mouth dropped and so did the package of celery that was working it’s way into a nook of drawer space as I screamed into the phone:

“HERE! In the NEW house! Why? How? Whyyyy?”

Husband cracked open his beer and walked over to the cupboard in the entryway to replace the hammer.

I stood there with my mouth open, looking up, over my shoulders, scanning the walls and then up at  the ceiling again, scoping out any signs of additional intruders as he walked over to me, took a sip and said,

“Don’t worry. I got him with the hammer.”

What?

I have combined this little episode with the fact that I’ve  had a golfball sized crack in the driver’s side of my windshield since the beginning of May and a companion chip that showed up around mid June. I’m worried that we might soon be getting a call to pose for the cover of  the “Rednecks of America” magazine because I refuse to fix them. Because out here when you have a thirty mile drive to town behind gravel trucks and pickups that go too fast, I have convinced myself that installing a new windshield is like asking for another giant rock chip.

And so I will not take the risk. Instead, I’m somehow comforted knowing that I already have two giant rock chips and am okay with watching my world fly by this way. Because I know they’re there. Apparently I’m not comfortable with the invented and preconceived rock chip that is certain to appear once I spend money on my already ruined windshield.

That is ridiculous.

Which reminds me of another behavior that I cannot explain and certainly have no laid out plans to change. The dogs. When left to their own devices they continue to flee to the nearest drilling rig in search of leftover lunches, t-bone steaks, enchiladas and a rig hand willing to play fetch for hours and let them sleep in their camper. Each time we decide to trust the hooligans to be on their own unsupervised in the great outdoors we find ourselves scouring the countryside for the misguided pets only to find them miles away in doggy heaven.

And each time we go and look for them.

We can’t seem to take a hint. Feed them t-bones, let them sleep in our bed and keep them forever.

Dry dog food and a spot on the floor? When will we realize that ain’t cutting it?

And when will we get it together and build a damn fence already?

Which leads me to the weirdest thing of all. With all of the trouble we have keeping the dogs we have raised and fed for their entire canine lives at home, we have now discovered that a stray puppy is living in our grain bins and seeking refuge in the culvert underneath our road.  We have tried and failed to capture the little guy, who is more like a wild coyote now than a dog, skeptical and resourceful, but a bit intrigued by the humans who poke their heads in on him to fill his food bowl. And now our dinner conversations have been centered around how that poor pup got their in the first place.

And how we might tame him.

That stray puppy is strange and intriguing and sad mixed in with a twinge of that feeling of childhood wonder and hope that we might save this thing…

Yes, out here, no matter how predictable we think our lives have become, whether or not we expect the daily visit from the cattle to graze and shit in the short grass outside our unfenced yard despite the fact that there are acres to shit upon, we seem to always be a little in awe…

About how the dogs always run away and how we never learn. By the sudden startle of a horse, a swarm of unwelcome wasps, and this pan that has been sitting on this hill for longer than I have been alive and I have no idea why.

Yes, life out here is wonderful, broken, dusty, shitty, beautiful, predictably unpredictable…and just weird sometimes.










Yup.

Weird.

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Pug: For Giveaway

Posted in Pets, Ranch Life, tagged , , , , , , on June 28, 2012 | 9 Comments »

When I’m out and about in the world–working, shopping, grabbing a drink with friends–there’s  a common question people from all corners of my life make sure they stop to ask me. It isn’t “how ’bout that weather,” or “how’s the new house coming along?” (the answer is “slow” in case you’re wondering). No, it’s not even “why’s your hair weird?” or “where’s your husband?”

It’s “How’s the pug?”

Followed by “Any more run-ins with porcupines?”

And then “Does he still think he’s a cat?”

“Has he peed in your husband’s boot lately?”

“Is he still wandering around the countryside?”

And finally “Oh that dog, he makes me laugh.”

The damn pug. Everyone just loves him.

These days, as his behavior has moved further away from domestic lap dog and closer to wild hound I’m trying to figure out, despite all of the reasons I shouldn’t, why I don’t send that damn dog packing.

Because as I run through the answers to the questions it’s pretty evident that’s exactly what I should do.

I should just let him run away like the wild wind he thinks he is, tell him that the next time he hits the road, curly tail in the air, nose to the ground sniffing out which oil rig or neighbor has steaks on the grill, I should just leave him there to fend for himself.

Yeah.
I should.

I had this discussion with myself yesterday when a friend I work with in town popped in my office to tell me she had received a phone call.

About the pug.

See I hadn’t seen him ever since I pried him off of the couch a few days earlier and shoved him out the door to find a spot to poop.

Well apparently he likes a little privacy to do his business away from the house…like far away.

And apparently it takes him a while…or maybe he just gets distracted by things like butterflies, wandering coyotes, the herd of cattle up the road and, well, life in general.

Each time he goes missing I imagine him sitting shotgun in a big rig finally fulfilling his dream of traveling the country by highway, front paws up on the edge of the open window as he leans into the wind, letting it blow through is floppy ears sending the drool trailing off with the dust of the 18-wheels. I think of him looking over at the truck driver with the white beard, bald head and Harley Davidson t-shirt, and saying something like “Hey, thanks for picking me up man. I’ve been trying to get out of here for years. Life on the road…now this is livin’”

In my imagination the pug’s voice sounds like one that would come out of the lungs of a middle-aged biker who’s been smoking cigars and Marlboro Reds his entire life.

Anyway…it’d been a few days since I’d seen the damn dog,  but I wasn’t concerned. Aside from the one recent episode where my momma was on her way home from a trip to the city and spotted a black dot out in the middle of our neighbor’s pasture nearly four miles away from home, the dog has generally been making his regular rounds. When I decide it might be time to get him back on his diet, I’ll get in the pickup and start my searching ritual: up to the oil site south of the house, then the one across the road. If he’s not there, I’ll check mom and dad’s. If he’s still MIA,  he’s usually at the rig near the highway.

It’s getting ridiculous, but each time I arrive to load his fat ass into the pickup I have to spend a good ten to fifteen minutes talking to the guys about how awesome he is, how bad-ass he looks with one eye, how much fun they had with him and how they fed him T-bones and let him sleep in their campers with them that night.

No wonder the little bastard won’t stay home.

How can I compete with T-bones?


Anyway…back to yesterday. The pug was missing and I was starting to get a little concerned because he wasn’t in any of his usual locations. And the lab was home.

When the lab is home and the pug is not, that’s when things get hairy. The pug, left to his own devices, has the potential to go rogue and stay that way until someone comes looking for him. And he never calls to tell us how late he’ll be out.

But I decided I had reached an all-time low when I got a phone call about the bandit AT WORK!

This electrician who had been working on a site on the highway tracked me down to let me know that  the little shithead had been hanging around the site for days (shithead might have been my word and not his) and I suddenly felt like a mother who’s kid had been sent to the principal’s office.

And I would have never thought to check there. The pug would have been missing forever, because Lord knows he wouldn’t have made his way home until he was certain there were no more steak dinners coming out of those campers.

So on my way home from work I got to make a pit stop to pick up the pug who pretended like he didn’t hear me when I called his name across the muddy field.

But when our eyes finally met he did do me the service of at least acting happy to see me. Like he suddenly remembered he had a previous life away from this construction site. A life that maybe wasn’t so bad after all…I mean, I do occasionally let him sleep on my favorite blanket and feed him leftover dinner scraps. Come on buddy, what more do you want from me?

But I guess I’ll keep him…

tied up in the yard with a “For Giveaway” sign tied around his neck.

You love him?  Come get him!

Shit.

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I might as well grow fur.

Posted in Pets, Ranch Life, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 27, 2012 | 9 Comments »

I live in a barnyard.

Literally.

I can walk out my door and, if I forget to look down, I will more than likely step in horse poop.

I can watch the steers graze from my bathroom window while I brush my teeth.


There’s more gravel and mud in my entryway than there is out in the corrals.

Somedays I think I am literally growing fur just to fit in.

But then I remember it’s been three weeks since I shaved my legs.

Civilized women shave their legs.

But what’s the point? Really? I mean I’ve been back  home at the ranch nearly two years and it seems that whatever refinement I picked up while I was away living along city streets has slowly dissolved out here where the racoons help themselves to the cat food and pets show up at your door missing eyeballs.

I mean surrounded by characters like these, it’s only a matter of time until I start taking on their behavior and characteristics.

I’m afraid it’s already happening.

Because I’ve been known to show up to the hair salon or shopping mall with woodticks stuck to my head, find cockleburs in my bed and arrive at the office with horse hair on my jacket and mud on my fancy shoes. I’m afraid if I already smell like my barnyard friends, I might as well start rolling around in the grass…

chewing on sticks…

sneaking up on mice…

and howling in the kitchen….

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A life (couple days) without dogs…

Posted in Pets, Ranch Life, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 15, 2012 | 9 Comments »

Some days I’m not sure why I bother. Some days I wonder why the things that are supposed to be simple, things that other human people seem to manage properly without much sweat or confusion, don’t come the same kind of easy for me. Some days I wonder how most put-together people go through most put-together days without worry or lost sleep, without poop on the floor, panicked hollers in the night, slow drives down a country road at dusk with binoculars, worried phone calls to neighbors or a wrestling match on the kitchen floor with your husband and that stupid black dog with a smooshy face and one eyeball that at one time three years ago you decided was a good idea.

No. Simple has never been a word in a vocabulary dominated by the words “where the hell are the dogs?”

Some days.

Today was one of them.

Today is the day that I ask myself what my life would be like without the two stinky fur balls who have taken over my yard, my kitchen, my couch and my life. Today is the day I ask myself who I would be without them, what I would do with the extra time I would be gifted by not having to pick off their ticks, pluck porcupine quills from their noses, rescue them from the cows and drive over to my mom and pop’s to pick them up after their daily jaunts to visit their girlfriends.

Today is the day I contemplate this scenario because, well, I was nearly granted it.

A dog-free life.

Can you imagine?!

Maybe I should start from the beginning. See, its been on my radar for a while, the idea that these dogs of mine need to lead a much more civilized life. And by civilized I mean locked up behind bars in order to keep them from going wherever they have been going to snack on something rotten enough to cause gas emulsions that force husband and I out of our own home.

So when I received a call last week from a voice on the other end of the line telling me that two overly-friendly dogs had wandered three miles up the hill to an oil drilling site I did not hesitate to believe my ears. One whistle out the door revealed there were no dogs in site, so I pulled on my muck boots over the skinny jeans I wore to work and squished a beanie on my puffy town hair and drove my pissed off ass up to that site to retrieve them.

Now, a girl in skinny jeans and oversized boots with a Bozo-esque hairstyle in giant (but glamorous) sunglasses pulling onto a rig site is not a glimpse into womanhood these hard-hat wearing men see every day…nor was it a pretty glimpse. And if the outfit didn’t label me crazy, questioning these men in the middle of their work day about the whereabouts of a wandering one-eyed pug a giant brown lab sealed the deal.

Especially since not one of them knew what the hell I was talking about.

Shit.

It wasn’t until I made my way back down the hill that I realized I should have probably checked mom and pops’ place for the dogs before subjecting myself to a situation in which I could be labeled “crazy lady” in bar room conversations. Hindsight was a clear 20/20 as I pulled into their drive to find that sure as shit they were there. And judging by the relocation of pops’ work boot collection on the front lawn, they had been there all day.

Flash forward to yesterday when I came home to discover the dogs were again missing in action.

“Typical hooligan behavior, low life, vagabond rascals, curse word, curse word, curse word,” I muttered to myself as I got back in my car and drove down the pink road to mom and pops’ to retrieve their wandering, misbehaving, rebel-dog asses. But when I pulled into the drive something seemed fishy. All of pops’ boots were in place, his two dogs were laying lazily out in the sun and my dogs? Well, they didn’t come running out of the trees to greet me.

I stopped cursing and then I said “What the hell?” (Ok, I stopped cursing for a second.)

Gone.

The dogs were gone.

Shit.

I headed back home slowly, windows open, whistling into the wind, hollering their names, squinting into the hills and the trees, waiting for them to come flying out of wherever that smelly dead thing they like so much is lying.

Nothing.

I parked in our driveway to find Husband home and soon my string of cursing blended in harmony with his.

But we weren’t worried yet. We were just pissed. There was still time for them to climb out of whatever stinky hole they had found themselves in on purpose and make an appearance.

So we had supper, whistled for them a bit more, called my pops to check the status, wandered around the yard and then went to bed.

I asked husband if I should worry. He told me it would be a waste to worry about two dogs who have stupidly escaped a life of luxury to roll around in cow shit, munch on rotting rabbits, dig giant holes, and chase innocent deer over miles of rolling landscape.

Husband told me that we could worry tomorrow if they don’t show up.

So we went to bed pissed.

And I woke up worried.

Because when I opened the door to the morning air there were no dogs waiting on my stoop. Just three hungry cats meowing for food when they should be mousing.

So I drove to work slowly with the windows open, whistling into the frosty air and stopping into mom and pops’ place just to be sure they didn’t shack up with their girlfriends’ last night.

Nope.

No dogs.

I said a little prayer for the wanderers and went to work.

And when I got home the results were the same. No dogs and a pissed husband who hadn’t started worrying yet, but decided it might be time to go looking for them.

We got in the pickup and chose a direction, the first guess being a place where a pair of mis-fit dogs might wander in search of the affection and table scraps they have so unfortunately been denied in the home we’ve created for them.

So we headed to the drilling rig site a half mile from our house, a place I was fooled into thinking they were smart enough to avoid (But this time I wore a less ridiculous outfit, and brought a man with me.) When we pulled onto the site husband rolled down the window and asked one of the men if they have happened to see a couple canines roaming around.

I held my breath, certain I was going to get the same look I got last week when I asked the same question about the same damn dogs.

But I was pleasantly surprised when the man smiled and said something like “Oh, that round little black thing and a lab? Yeah? They’re around here somewhere. They’ve been here for a couple days. We’ve been feeding them. They should be over there….”

He pointed in the direction of three men working the platform of a giant piece of drilling equipment and our eyes followed the tip of his finger and settled angrily on the two banes of our existence who were staring up at the workers, tails wagging, ears perked, waiting for one of them to drop a piece of jerky or something.

Husband called out their names.

Nothing.

He moved closer, yelling a little louder.

Their stares were affixed.

He stormed toward them whistling.

The lab turned his head in acknowledgement.

Husband screamed their names.

The pug didn’t move.

He stomped his feet and clapped his hands.

The lab turned his head back toward the anticipated jerky….

And so you understand now, I hope, why I have been daydreaming about a simpler existence. An existence where I am not responsible for Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dumb and their appetite for adventure and tasty treats, but one where I am a proud owner of the more appealing and lower maintenance goldfish,  small monkey or circus elephant.

But in my self-assessment about why and how I get myself into these situations when I am certain dog ownership isn’t as much of a debacle for regular human people as it is for me, I have come up with a solution that I am certain no regular human person would come up with.

Doggie prison.

And I’m open for business if anyone needs a rehab facility for their canines. There’s two overly friendly dogs waiting there to hand them their matching orange jumpsuits.

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Multiple Personality March

Posted in Ranch Life, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 7, 2012 | 6 Comments »

Ahhh, March. You bring us one month closer to the promise of spring with your wild and unpredictable snow storms, your extreme warmth, your puddles and mud, little bit of rain, thawed out cow plops, cloudy and sunny and then cloudy again skies. All of your personalities keep us on our toes and undecided about appropriate footwear and jackets and I like that about you.

I like that you bring on the wind and the mud, the fifty-degree temperatures and the blinding blizzards, the rain and the ice.

Yes March you’re a little ambitious. You get up a little earlier and go to bed a little later. And that suits you fine, all of that light reminding us that soon we will be able to stay outside until 10 pm and wake up with you at 6.

Soon our days will be full of warm sunshine and green grass sprinkled with flowers…

I am looking forward to it, I am. But truthfully March, right now, it doesn’t appear that all of us are on the same page. You know, the page we turn to take us from hibernation, head under the covers, groggy, snugly evenings that meld into dark and lazy, robe wearing mornings spent shuffling around the kitchen with our eyes barely open to the place where we crack open our windows and let the warm breeze sing us to sleep after a day spent under the soul-refreshing spring sky only to be wakened by the sliver of sun peeking through the window in the early morning hours, prompting us to pop out of bed and greet the chirping birds and fresh green grass poking through the earth…

Nope.

Some of us are not quite there yet.

Some of us are caught in limbo, the place between holding on to our winter coats and throwing caution and our fur, to the March wind.

Some of us are still sleepy.

Some of us aren’t quite ready to trade in our flannel p.j.s for nothing but the sheets.

Some of us haven’t shaved our legs for months.

Some of us wouldn’t mind another extra hour or so to finish up that reoccurring dream about Ryan Renolds.

Some of us need three to six cups of coffee before the day can start.

So March, don’t take this the wrong way. Realize it’s still early, the pug’s still snoring and I have yet to change out of my robe. March, I appreciate the little glimmers of hope you create and I expect that whole “Lion/Lamb” thing. I appreciate your puddles and the way you warm the hilltops. I like the vibe you’re throwing this week and what you’re promising for the weekend: 50+ degrees and a chance to ride some horses.

But I know your good mood won’t last. It never does.

And that’s why I haven’t packed up my furry vest and slippers that might as well be boots.

Nope.

I don’t trust you.

And neither do these guys.


They’ve been burned before.


So we’ve come to an agreement to milk it. To call it winter and sleep in. To lay down in your sunshine and put on another pot of coffee just in case.

We love your face March. We do.

But you can’t trick us. We’ve learned and we’re going to stay tired for a while longer.

So we aren’t moving, we aren’t shaving, we aren’t opening these windows, packing up the down coats, or looking for our short sleeves until at least mid April.

Yeah…when April gets it together, maybe we will too.

Maybe

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If you give a pug a home…

Posted in Pets, tagged , , , , , , , on March 2, 2012 | 7 Comments »

If you give a pug a home he will probably want full reign of your couch to go with it. So you will move over to clear the area for that smooshy nosed,  squishy, cuddly animal to lie down next to you. When you’ve helped him to his spot and sufficiently scratched his ears, he will circle and sniff and roll around to get comfortable. And when he finally finds an adequate spot under your arm, sprawled out along your body, nose three inches from your face, he will sigh, blink and ask you for a blanket.


Slowly, so as not to disturb his rest, you will move off of the couch to fetch your favorite fluffy blanket from the closet. As you close the closet door you will turn around to find him staring up at you from the floor with those adorable eyes. He will ask you, since you are up, if you happen to have a hamburger or a steak  or something in the meat family in the house. He could really use a snack after that rest.

As you dig in the refrigerator to find some leftover sausage or some sandwich meat to satisfy him you will offer him a piece of jerky and notice then that you have a little refrigerator cleaning to accomplish. While your pet enjoys his snack you will decide to take a look at the contents of an unidentifiable specimen that is growing in a Tupperware in the back of the fridge. You will pull off the lid and promptly fling the container across the room, an understandable reaction to the stench of decaying meat.

The pug, who has remained in the kitchen, not quite satisfied by the slice of dry jerky he inhaled, will investigate the stench coming from the steaming brown splatters on the floor. And while you’re gagging and writhing and scrubbing your hands in the sink, your back will be turned to the pet who has decided that the contents of the smelly Tupperware are really quite satisfying.

Pug

Hearing the snorting and slurping behind you, you will turn around, horrified at the thought of your adorable pet consuming the poison that somehow developed over time as a result of your refrigerator negligence. To keep him away from the danger you’ve created, you will place his fat little body outside.

Still hungry and with the taste of rotting meat on his tongue, the pug will decide to go on a mission for more stinky culinary experiences, following his nose to a nearby coulee where an unfortunate deer lost his life in the cold snap of the previous month and is now thawing out nice and fast and stinky in the unseasonably warm late winter weather. Catching sight of his small and weird-looking companion and wind of the stench coming from the direction he’s heading, the big brown dog who lives outside will follow in his friend’s path.

Meanwhile, inside the house, you will pull out your best mop to clean up the mess you made on the floor. While you are mopping you will decide that you might as well scrub the cupboards. And once the cupboards are clean, you will notice that your oven might as well get a polishing. And if you’re going to clean the oven, you ought to do the stove and the microwave. It’s been a while since they have seen a good disinfectant spray. Speaking of ovens and microwaves, you will decide that you had better put supper on the stove, but not before you clean out that ghastly refrigerator that sent you on this mission in the first place.

You will open the fridge and remember the pug.

Realizing he’s been away for hours, you will step outside and call his name.

You will hear silence and then catch sight of big brown dog running towards you from over the hill. You will stand in the doorway, waiting for the black dot of a dog to come running on his trail. And as the big brown dog get’s closer you will notice that he has something large and furry in his mouth.

A rabbit?

No.

A cat?

No.

A giant furry hat?

No.

The brown dog will come closer with no sign of the pug behind him. Bringing the mystery item toward you he will drop it at your feet. You will screech as you identify his proud find as nothing other than the head of a deer, ears flapping, eyeballs missing.

A familiar gag reflex will again be engaged as you run inside the house for the bathroom.

And while you collect yourself, again scrubbing your hands under the sink, you will light your favorite lovely smelling candle to help cleanse your palate and your husband will walk through the door. His presence will remind you about the supper that didn’t quite make it to the now-shiney stove. So you will ask for his assistance in the process and the two of you will whip up something that resembles a noodle hot-dish that needs to bake in the oven for a good hour.

When you pull the hot dish out of the oven you will be reminded of the pug again and you will inform your husband about the missing pet.

He will suggest that the pug more than likely made his way over to his girlfriend’s house down the road at my mom’s and pops and that since it is so late he is certain they won’t mind keeping him overnight.

Meanwhile, at mom’s and pop’s, the pug, who indeed did make his way to his girlfriend’s house down the road, will be  jostled out of his snoring sleep on the fluffy dog pillow under the heat lamp in my parent’s garage by the howling of a nearby pack of coyotes. Not to be outdone by their wild calls into the night, the pug will feel compelled to throw his head back and take a shot at the howling thing. After a weak start, the pug will get his rhythm and be so pleased with his performance that he will have no intentions of letting those coyotes take the solo.

The obnoxious whining and screeching coming from the garage will awake your pops who had been sleeping soundly on the couch inside of the house. Curious about the creature responsible for the chaos, your pops will open the door of the house to find your pet putting on his best performance. Realizing that the ruckus was not about to end as long as the pug can hear the competition, your pops will let him in the house to spend the night.

Once in the house the pug will spot the couch. Understanding that this is not his home and getting the vibe that he might not be welcome on the furniture, the pug will wait until your pops starts snoring and then assume his position under his arm, sprawled out along his body, nose three inches from his face. The pug will sigh, close his eyes and ask him for a blanket.

At the sight of that adorable smooshy face, your pops will decide that he likes the company and slowly, so as not to disturb his new companion, he will move off of the couch to fetch his favorite fluffy blanket from the closet. As he closes the closet door he will turn around to find that the pug (who suddenly realized his mighty dead deer feast may not have been the best food choice) mid-squat, mid-diarrhea, squirting shit in the middle of my momma’s favorite leather rug.

And that’s what happens if you give a pug a home.

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The animals of winter…

Posted in Ranch Life, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 27, 2012 | 12 Comments »

Well the wind blew winter in this weekend and I breathed in the frozen air, a kind of sigh of relief that the season didn’t skip us altogether. Nope, the snow and the cold made it just in time to keep us wondering if there will be lions or lambs trotting in for the grand opening of March.

Oh, it doesn’t really matter much anyway. Around here we can’t trust in spring until the first weeks of June no matter how easy the winter season was on us. But on Sunday morning I was reminded of how much I missed winter all of these months when it was supposed to be snowing. The months I have come to call the extended fall…the early spring…

But we had winter yesterday and I couldn’t wait to get out in it. I squeezed into my long underwear, pulled on layers, tied my scarf around my neck, made sure my wool cap covered my ears and zipped my coat to my chin. The snow was fresh and the wind was blowing it in sparkly swirls around the barnyard. The hay bales were adequately frosted in neatly stacked white drifts, remnants of the small blizzard that blew through the ranch in the evening and was lingering into the late morning hours.

I stuck out my tongue to taste the snowflakes and snuggled down into the collar of my coat like a turtle as I walked toward the horses munching on hay below the barn.

I wished I had their fur coats, thick and wooly and brave against the wind.I wished I had their manes, wild and tangled and smelling of dust and autumn leaves, summer heat and ice. They keep it all in there, all of the seasons.

They nudged and kicked at one another, digging their noses deeper in the stack of hay, remembering green grass and fields, tasting warmer weather in their snack. I lingered there with them, noticing how the ice stuck on their eyelashes and clung to the long hair on their backs.

I scratched their ears and pulled some burs out of their manes and imagined what grove of trees they picked to wait out the storm last night, standing close and breathing on one another’s back. A herd.

I followed them out of the protection of the barnyard and into the pasture where the frozen wind found my cheeks and the dogs cut footprints in the fluffy snow in front of my steps. They played and barked and jumped and sniffed and rolled in the white stuff, like children on a snow day.

I found the top of the hill and  remembered that I hadn’t felt this cold for months.

I had forgotten how my cheeks can go numb, how my fingertips ache, now my eyelashes stick together at the close of a blink and how the wind finds its way through the layers of clothing and freezes my skin. I forgot that sometimes it doesn’t matter that you took care to wear wool socks and three pairs of pants, we are never as prepared as the animals. Sometimes the weather just wins.

I wished I had fur on my ears, tufts on my feet, whiskers to catch the snow.


I wished I had hard hooves to anchor me in the snow, my own herd to lean against, to protect me from the wind.

I wished I was part of a pack, chasing and jumping and rolling through the drifts.


Oh, I would have stayed out longer if I had these things. I would have explored how the creek had froze, stuck my nose in the snow, walked along the banks of the coulee, leaned against the buttes and followed the indecisive sun.

But my scarf wasn’t thick enough, there was snow in my boots and my skin is fragile and thin. No, my body’s not wooly and my nose is not fuzzy. In fact, I wasn’t sure if my nose was still attached to my face. And my fingers? Well, I decided then as I turned my body back toward the house with a billowing chimney that there was a reason for those fingers I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep. Yes, those fingers knit sweaters and sew together blankets, our hands build fires and houses to protect us, our arms wrap around one another, our feet propel us toward shelter or sun and our brains invent things like warm, spicy soup and hot coffee and buttery buns.

No, we might not have fur coats, but we have opposable thumbs.

I pointed my frozen feet toward the house and flung open the door, stripped off my layers and stood over the heater vent, happy to have experienced winter, happy for my warm house and man-made blankets.

And happier still for a promise of spring that isn’t too far away on this winter day…


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