Ruby

Well, there's a big old hole in our family that used to be filled with a silly red dog. We had Ruby put down on Wednesday, and it's been a lonesome time here in the Pluhar home. And especially in the pickup.

Wayland and I first saw Ruby when we went to a Christmas party at a neighbor's house. We pulled up in the yard and saw this beautiful young Setter under the deck, looking a little out of place with the cowdogs. We were, and still are, absolutely dog-crazy, and couldn't stop looking at her and petting her. It turned out she belonged to the daughter of this neighbor, and her roommate, and they had bought Ruby to breed for money for college, but didn't have time or room to do so. Ruby was left alone a lot, and even though the girls liked her, they were just too busy to have a dog.

The day after the party, we got a call from one of the girls, wondering if we'd be able to give Ruby a home. Well, yes! We were SO excited to welcome her! We'd been married only a short time, and with no kids, we had a lot of time for her.

It turned out that Ruby was the sweetest dog, and beautiful, but not known for her intelligence. We called her the Prom Queen....she'd have lots of dates to the dance, but you'd never see her on the honor roll. What she lacked in brains, however, she made up for in loyalty. She chose Wayland as the love of her life, and wherever you'd see him, there'd be a red shadow.

After we'd had her about a year, she developed a terrible cough, and started losing weight, so we took her to our vet in Miles City, and began an adventure that would eventually take us to Bozeman, requiring two surgeries removing 2/3's of one of her lungs to remove infected, dead tissue from a needle and thread grass. We poured a lot of money into her that year, but we met some incredible veterinarians who are now good friends that we wouldn't trade for all that money. The surgeries cause such stress to Ruby's system, however, that it caused her to develop perianal fistula that would never be cured.

This condition was eventually what brought us to the decision to put her down. She was in constant distress and pain, and it wasn't responding to any treatment. Ruby was still a pretty young dog, 8 1/2 years old, but she was miserable, and we couldn't stand to see her going through that.

In our hearts and memories, we'll always see her running through the grass, red coat turning amber in the sun. We'll look for her each time we get into the pickup. We'll think of her when we come across a "lovey" stuffed animal that she packed outside without our knowledge. We'll miss her on the couch, her soft ears flopped over her paws. We'll miss seeing her bark at a dangerous sagebrush, while Molly and the rabbit 10 feet away try to figure out what she's doing. Yes, there's surely a big hole in our family, now.

We buried her under the sandbanks, here at the house, where she used to go and look for rabbits and varmints. Oddly enough, I noticed some wild roses on either end of her grave. How appropriate, I think; the roses are tough and tenacious, they bloom for a short time each year, and while they bloom, they are delicate and sweet, like our little dog that lived with such fullness for a brief season in our life.

Books and Brisket

Last night was our last "official" bookclub of the year, at Traci's house. And because it has been such a wild week, we all limped in, flopped down at her kitchen bar, and commenced eating. It was very quiet, right at first, because until we had a little protein, no one had the energy to talk. Can you believe that? Women who were too tired to talk? I'm serious!

Here's the funny part about having bookclub with a bunch of country girls:

1. There will be meat.

2. You may have entertainment, featuring a cow.


We were about halfway through our first glass of wine or cucumber water, when Traci looks out the kitchen window and exclaims, "Hey! I think that blind cow is calving!"
Several of us rush to the window to assess the situation, and Karen G. asks for field glasses. The cow is turned the wrong way for us to see anything, and the binoculars were unavailable, so we went back to our wine and clam dip, but occasionally, one of us would look out to see if anything was progressing. No calf, so I think she was messing with us.

Then, we lined up, plates in hand, to partake of the spread. Here's what we had, besides the appetizers:
Beef brisket, beef ribs, 3 different kinds of BBQ sauce, potato salad, beer bread, beans with bacon, chocolate cake and cookies n cream ice cream. No vegetable or fruit to be found! Well, there was cucumber slices floating in the water, pickles in the potato salad, and green onions in the crab dip, but that was it. And we ate until it hurt, and laughed a lot. Then we rolled to the living room to discuss the book.

Oh, yes, there was a book, and eventually we got around to talking about it. In April we read Riding on the Bus With My Sister and it was really interesting, and provoked conversation about living with divorce, family members with special needs, government, societal views, faith and public transportation. It was heavy food for thought.

Our summer book, chosen by Karen G. , is Sophie's Choice; many have seen the movie (not me, sadly) but none have read the book. So it should be great! Summer is a long, lonely time for our bookclubbers, so we are planning a field trip to Big Fork in July, because it's cooler there, and Celestia has the room for us to flop around on the deck, drink tea, discuss the mysteries of life (men) and paint our toenails, and watch the kids shivering in the wading pool. I love these women!

This is the way we go to town

On Monday, I decided to dash to Jordan to visit the new greenhouse and get some milk at the grocery store. And I made the mistake of telling my husband the plan. He promptly turned around and informed his dad, who called and asked if I could pick up branding supplies. It was an evil intervention, and I'm sure Wayland knew EXACTLY what he was doing, thinking he could save me from sure verdant destruction, and preserve his checkbook.

Here's the deal: if a rancher finds out ANYONE is going to town, for ANY reason, they have a list of parts and cogs and gears and vaccine and other sundry items as long as your arm. And all of them are most urgently needed, within the next 10 hours, or the place will fall to pieces. Even though, 10 minutes ago, before they knew you were going to town, they were going to make it work, somehow. It's true. And every ranch wife reading this is nodding her head, laughing and saying, "Amen, sister! Preach on!".

So, back to the branding supplies. It sounded innocent enough. "They are all ready to go," says he. "Just pick them up...you don't have to worry about a list," says he. "But could you also get another 25 red Z eartags for calves? " Sure! No problem! (He lulled me with that whole no-list-to-keep-track-of thing.)

So I get to town with two crabby kids who fell asleep on the way and had 15 minutes of nap. Just enough to turn them into badgers with a toothache. There's no reasoning with them. So as long as they are strapped into the carseats, all they can do is snarl and chew on their paws. Good enough.

First stop, the feed store, to pick up milk replacer. So far, so good...I put it on the floor of the front seat. PLENTY of room for plants.

Next stop, Main Hardware, for the branding supplies. (I thought I was being so clever, getting them before flowers, so I could just have a nice, level bed of supplies on which to put the darling geraniums...) My first mistake was in not taking a cooler to put the vaccine in. So we had to pack it all in an insulated box with ice packs. A BIG insulated box with icepacks. But now, I'm on the clock. I have approximately 30 minutes to shop, and 30 minutes to drive home in. Then Leslie tells me the pour-on is in the shed around back. Pour-on! I forgot all about THAT branding supply! Mistake #2.

So I pull the Trailblazer around back, to load the last of the branding supplies, and we completely and totally fill the back end of that outfit up with boxes of pour-on. Completely. Totally. There's about 6 inches of room on top of them to put boxes of plants. Short plants. Maybe 4 short plants.

And we haven't even gone to the grocery store yet! But that's next on the list, because we have to get water and milk. So 5 gallons of water, 2 gallons of milk, 2 lollipops later, we are back in the car, going to the greenhouse. The badgers have been appeased with sugar, because I'm thinking they may have to hold plants, and I want them to do as little damage as possible.

So we get to the greenhouse, finally, and explode into the place. Yes, that's right, we had 15 minutes to do our stuff. It reminded me of one of those shopping shows, where the contestants get a cart and 6 minutes to fill it. Only I had sticky badger speed bumps.

AMAZINGLY, I had made a list of what I needed for my pots, three days ago, and even more astoundingly, had remembered to bring the list!!! (Those who know me, are picking their jaws up out of their cold coffee, after reading that...) So I blew through that greenhouse, in 15 minutes, gathering 5 boxes of plants and leaving petunias bending from the force of the trip! Got the kids loaded, and had plants stuck in every open 4 inch space. All I could do, backing out of there, was pray that we didn't have a flat tire on the way home. That would've been ugly.

But we made it, intact, sticky and filthy; plants, kids, branding supplies, milk and milk replacer. In 2 hours,counting travel time.

Today, I'm going to Miles City, with my husband...the BIG town....and he has another list. I wanted to go to the greenhouse there, but it's not looking good. We ARE taking a trailer, though, so if I get creative, I might get another geranium or two home...