Bomb, you were a dear

Someone took Mater's favorite toy.

With apologies for destroying your illusions, little ranch work is done on horseback anymore. Most of it is done with four-wheelers. We have a few here; Jack's favorite was an ancient Bombadier workhorse. As soon as he heard it start, Mater was on the scene and clambering on. He rode and rode and rode, chasing cows, irrigating, checking heifers - whatever. He sat or laid on the back as happy as could be.

It was always parked in this spot, just outside our door. When we got home one afternoon last week it was simply gone. Someone had come up the long driveway, removed the toolboxes (aka milk crates) from the back and driven away. We're perplexed. If only Mater were a bloodhound.

And the worst news is that the one Jack rides now doesn't have room for Mater.

Ambitions of gardening grandeur

I wasn't going to have a garden this year. In October, when I officially gave up on harvesting a single pepper from four plants, accepted that a lone cucumber would be it from six plants and dug out the four inch posts that had been my corn stalks, I threw up my hands.

"Fine, grasshoppah; you win," I said.They were a plague. Every shape and size. Mandibles of steel devouring nearly everything in sight. (Including the alfalfa, but that's another story.) I grabbed a handful of dirt and declared, "As God as my witness, I will not garden again!"

Famous last words.

Garden 2010 was a nice, tight little number. She was about 17x40, had a couple of winter squash and pumpkin plants, a few zucchini and summer squash, a smattering of tomato plants, four cabbages, the aforementioned peppers and cucumbers. Nothing fancy. The Ford Taurus of gardens. 

If you looked at our yard this year, you'd think Verizon was pushing an upgrade. Jack and Colonel got all excited with their plow and new fence and I got a bit overzealous with my seedlings.

The new space is more than double last year's. We've gone from approximately 680 square feet to around 1700. I have 16 winter squash and pumpkin plants, 86 potato plants, 400 onions, 35 tomato plants, 16 cabbage plants, Brussel sprouts, Swiss chard, beets, pole beans, eight or 10 zucchini plants... you get the picture.

This was partially strategic. The more I plant, the more likely the grasshoppers will leave something for us to eat. Right?

The Deluge

Last week all conversations began with "You got your ark built yet?" 

We live in the High Desert, where we get to enjoy bright sunny skies nearly every day. Our average annual rainfall is about 7 inches, the same amount of rain that fell on us while vacationing in Maine for a week.

More moisture falls in May than any other month - normally about 1.5 inches - but this year was a doozy. We got over 3 inches out of this storm! 

 Irrigating during the monsoon. Oops.

 Skip's food bowl filled up very quickly.

 A rare and glorious sight.

 I didn't think anyone even owned umbrellas here, but this one came in handy!

 Yep, snow. On the blossoming trees.

Fourteen hours = 2.5 inches of water

Calving out heifers

First, let me say that both the word "calving" and the word "heifer" are new additions to my vocabulary. Calf, I knew. Turning it into a verb seemed a bit of a stretch of proper grammar. In case you, too, are new to this vernacular, let me help.

Heifer: a female bovine who has yet to have a calf.
To calve: Giving birth, or assisting in the labor.

I have no I idea why it is called calving out heifers. It just is. I'd say I don't ask, but I do. I'm a librarian. I ask a lot of questions, but they don't all have answers.

Calving heifers is Jack's absolute favorite thing in the world. Better than German chocolate cake, even. He spends every Spring babysitting them every hour all night and checking them all day, pulling, nursing and doctoring as needed. And need is the word. The cows (after they've calved once they get promoted) are left to calve on their own out in the big pasture, but these girls would never make it.

For some, nature kicks in and they instinctively nurture and care for their young. For an alarming number, however, they are stunned at what is happening to them and not at all sure how or interested in caring for their babies. Jack convinces them being a mom is a good idea. He is the perfect midwife; he knows when they need help and when they just need to be left alone.

 I just like to watch all the babies.

The wicked stepmother

It was an out of body moment, really.

It was our first official date. I knew he had been married before and had children, but the details were fuzzy. When I got them and did the math I was suddenly on the hood of the truck looking back in at myself.

This man, with whom I was so enamored I drove over a thousand miles for a date, had five children? And two of them were older than me? That's a lot for a girl to digest. (And even more so for the children!)

Fast forward a few years. Everyone seems to have adapted remarkably well to this sitcom scenario in which we live. Before we got married, Jack asked all of his children how they felt about it.

Most responded along the lines of "we just want you to be happy, and she makes you happy." One smiled in mock relief that she was off the hook for taking care of him when he got old. The youngest declared she was the youngest of his children and preferred to stay that way.

I agreed with the latter request, but told the other one that as soon as he got old I was shipping him to live with her!

This family is full of humor and good nature and they accepted this Yankee in with open-arms. We just got back from visiting them and I am again awed by how gracious and welcoming they are to me. The situation is strange - at least outside of Hollywood - but somehow it works. This last week I was struck by how the bond I have with Jack shapes the bonds I have to his family.

Two of Jack's five children might be older than I am, but with all of them my feelings are colored by the way he treasures them. His need for them to be happy and successful is catching. On paper, I am the stepmother to a woman nearly six years older than I am.

It is ridiculous and inappropriate to assign "mother" in any way to such a relationship, but it perhaps not incorrect. I want to be a person on whom they can rely. A resource in their journey, to help in any way I can.

I am not their mother. I am not their sister or cousin. None of us has a template for how to navigate this relationship. We do not have a shared history. But for me there is a sense of responsibility that defies explanation. I feel the urge the mother hen has to nudge the chick in the right direction, to where he can gain traction. Who am I to presume I know better than they? Good question. I told you - it's odd!

There is a lot of discussion about how fractured family trees have become and indeed, they are certainly pruned in new ways, but as long as we are open to relationships our trees will blossom.

What I do know is that watching my husband puff with pride when his chicks gather fills my heart and make me love him - and them - all the more.

Why did the bull cross the road?

One side of the highway we have cows and calves. On the other side, the bulls. 

On my way home the other night I encountered this:

Luckily, right behind was this:

And this is what ensued:

Turns out, Jack can move a bull with just about anything, including a F350.

Gives new meaning to the word "Drover" (DROVER: One who drives cattle or sheep ), don't you think?

At least one car had pulled up behind me and this was all happening on the slope of a hill where drivers coming at 70 mph down the hill would not be expecting a bull nor an oddly placed truck. The Highway Patrol came to help.

Jack knew exactly where to steer this errant youngun.

He went back in the way he came out, under the wire stretching across a ditch.

But he is NOT happy about it.

Ten minutes later, Jack caught him sneaking under AGAIN and had to stretch more wire across that span. 

Sorry, Bud, no cows for you yet!

If only there were a picture

It is a good thing the crazy white cat (CWC) keeps up her end of the bargain, because living with her is always an adventure. There was the morning I woke to find her playing with something on the floor. Eventually, between stumbles to the coffee maker, I realized the sound and heft were not like those of her official, sanctioned toys. I looked down and yes, it was a mouse head. Nothing left but the head. I don't think I need to describe what happened next. Suffice it to say Jack did not wake naturally. 

Most of the CWC stories center around her talent for opening the sliding glass door whenever she has tired of mingling with the masses. She simply hooks a claw into the wood frame and says 'Open Sesameow.'

During calving season, Jack often gets up in the middle of the night to check the heifers. In between he naps in the recliner. One night last week he woke up to find CWC and her brothers and sisters (who live in the barn) cavorting about the kitchen. She was having a sleepover!

When inclined, she is a better guard dog than the actual canines in our house. When we get home, she
comes running and is there to greet us on the stairs, often making it long before the dogs do (if they make the effort at all). The other day Jack got home, opened the door and there she was, curled up on the stairs. There was one notable exception, however. It was not a Corgi, nor a Lab beside her. Instead, a fluffy Sussex hen looked up, stretched and slowly walked out the door behind my astonished husband. A chicken! IN the house!

Green Acres is the life for me?

One-man team

We are big fans of NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me news-quiz program. A few weeks ago, they talked about a German girl whose parents refused to get her something as impractical as a horse. They compromised and bought her a cow, which she promptly turned into a hunter-jumper and with which she began touring the show circuit.

I identified with the girl; I have recently begun launching myself over fences and my horse isn't up to the task. What's a girl to do? Then I looked out my window I saw the two ox steers. Aha!

When I looked, Reddy, the older, larger one, had finished his own feed, pushed Set off of his and was now munching contentedly. Good thing I only need one to ride.

"I can still eat you!" I yelled out the door to the bullying bovine.

Jack is working on getting them lead, so every morning he halters them and walks them down to the barn for breakfast. 

Sometimes following a rooster.

 Chickens are really bad at hide and seek. (But really good at it for their eggs!)

 You can practically see the yoke, they are paired so well.

 On Sunday, I asked for a turn. Remember how well they lined up and led for him? Well, this is what I got:

Think they can read my mind?

Drama, drama, drama

Sunday afternoon I was scheduled to pick up a speaker for the college at our tiny airport. Flying on prop planes into small airports is always dicey and usually leads to a story for dinner parties, but even my frequent-flyer speaker said he'd never been through anything like this before.

We arrived on time to find two Bureau of Indian Affairs officials in the waiting area along with a man with his small children and mother in law waiting for his wife, flowers in hand. The kids gave us regular updates:

"There it is! There's the plane! Momma's home!"
and then,
"Dad, why is the plane going around and around?"
"Here it comes again. Yay!"
"Wait, why did it go by again? Is that her plane?"

Pretty soon, even they bored of monitoring the hour of circling the plane did overhead. Clearly something was wrong. About 40 minutes later, we were evacuated from the airport.

"Sorry, folks; would you all please head over to that white building? We will notify you when you may return."

No explanation, just directions to spend our afternoon out in the frigid wind.

Jack and I headed for the car and drove to the white building. Pretty soon, emergency vehicles began to arrive.

The poor travelers scheduled to depart on this plane were left standing around catching cold.

We watched and waited. Rumors began to arrive as fast as the six ambulances, eight fire trucks and dozen BIA police cars (plus two mobile police stations and an incident command center): Ken Salazar, Secretary for the Interior, was on the plane. It had no brakes. They were circling to run out of fuel. Crews were preparing to foam the runway to lubricate the landing and prevent sparks.

Suddenly I was driven to call everyone I know. Jack was calmly assessing the situation and making informed judgments (he used to be a pilot). I was riding the drama wave and determined to spread it out like frosting on a cake. Finally, I reasoned that I had to at least call my friend the editor of a local newspaper. She was enjoying her clawfoot tub time. Oops. She said she'd call me back from the office where she could hear scanner traffic.

"It's true; they have no brakes and are waiting to run out of fuel."

We stayed on the line and made the occasional relevant comment in between all the "Ohmygawds".

"They're coming down. They're ready to come down!"

I craned my neck, but could see nothing in the sky. All I could think about were those two little kids watching for their Mom. Suddenly a small plane cruised by on the runway like a Cadillac on Main Street. Fire trucks followed it, but soon came back, unnecessary. Can trucks look dejected? They seemed to say, "I got all dressed up for this?"

The rest of us were exhausted with relief. No ball of flames. Prayers answered. A safe landing. What could have been a front-page splash across national newspapers would barely make a story now. Phew.

As quickly as the fire trucks retreated, out scooted your standard black Suburban on to the tarmac, up to the stairs descending from the side of the baby plane. Maybe it wasn't Salazar (my trusty phone dialed in his schedule. There was no way he was on that plane and would still make a lunch meeting in Mexico City the next day.), but someone was on that flight.Well, about a dozen someones, but you get the point.

I saw the BIA official who had been waiting when we arrived put his arm around the last man off the plane and put him into the Suburban.

And now for ... the rest of the story. We went our merry way. I found my speaker. The pilot told them first that it was too windy to land so they needed to circle for a while, then that an emergency landing gear gauge was not working properly and that is why they might see some precautionary emergency vehicles on the ground. Nothing to worry about. A smooth landing was expected.

"And we did. I couldn't even tell when we touched the ground."

Jack returned to the ranch and the speaker and I went to dinner. I left him at his hotel and headed back again on the highway, only to encounter this:

I called Jack: "You are not going to believe this! I'm stuck in a traffic stop. One of those mobile police stations that was at the airport is in the middle of the road and there's cop cars on both sides. They're stopping everyone in both directions and here comes a dog!"

The dog sniffed every car; I kept waiting for him to sit by one and cops to swarm in from every direction. Of course I know there is nothing untoward in my car but still. My heart stopped a second when the German Shepherd walked on by.

When I got to the front of the line and rolled down my window a nice police officer informed me they were just checking to make sure everyone was wearing their seatbelts.

Uh -huh. Right. Since when do dogs verify seat belt usage?

And lookie here - a big black Suburban parked just off the highway, two officials standing nearby in neon vests observing the proceedings. How many official black Suburbans can there be in the middle of Wyoming?

The following day the rumor was now that the Suburbanite was Larry EchoHawk, Assistant Secretary of the Interior. Based on fervent Googling and my glimpse from half a mile away I was betting on Michael Black, Director of the BIA. When the paper came out Wednesday they revealed the law enforcement big wig was Darren Cruzan, EchoHawk's recent appointee as the new Director of the BIA Office of Justice Services.

Clearly, Cruzan was here for some kind of special sting operation. Since it is the BIA, however, we'll probably never know the details. They're pretty closed mouthed about their operations. I'm betting, however, that it is related to the public safety initiative in Indian Country.