Spaghetti....Doh!

Sand Springs School, 1978

(L to R) Mary Dutton, Kimberly, Pamela, and Ed Kreider, Teresa Nanini

This picture was taken in September, I think. You can tell because we're all still smiling and it looks like we'd had a little sun.  The winter of 1978 was horrific, even for a second grader like I was in this picture. What I remember most about it, though, is spaghetti.

We had spaghetti for lunch today and as I was putting away leftovers, I thought about that winter and all the spaghetti noodles I had eaten then.
Not spaghetti with sauce....just noodles.
And butter. Sometimes salt and pepper on it.
It was my first taste of "batchelor food", being snowed in with my teacher for at least a week.  Maybe it just FELT like a week, but I'm pretty sure it was. I'm certain it felt much, much longer for her.

There was so much snow and so much wind that the highway was closed, I think. Even if it had not been closed, my parents were spending all their days trying to get the cows fed and had no time to spend transporting me to and from school that week.  My teacher, Miss Nanini, and her German Shepherd, Hobo, lived in a tiny little two room "teacherage" (with a bathroom, too...ooo!) right next to the school. The Kreiders lived just across the highway from the school so they were able to go home without too much effort on their folks' part, but my family lived over 40 miles away and it was flat impossible to get me educated AND the cows fed in that sort of weather.

Staying with your teacher in her house sounds really great when you're eight years old. We were never allowed in her house (she had to have SOME privacy) and always wanted to see her secret lair, her den, where she hung her broom! It turns out, though, that teachers aren't nearly as interesting at home as one imagines them to be. It didn't matter that she didn't have a television...we didn't have one at home, either, and I was a reader even then.  She had an 8 track player and about five Dave and Sugar albums that we played over and over and over and....
To this day, I can sing "Queen of the Silver Dollar" to you from start to finish, never missing a word.
I would bet my moonboots that Miss Nanini can, too.

The little house was wicked cold (I'm sure it had little or no insulation), only about a foot out from the propane heater was warm.  The rest of the house SMELLED like propane, but didn't benefit from the heat.  The only real warmth would have been in the kitchen, had she cooked at all, but alas...
The only thing Miss Nanini could and would cook was spaghetti.  Just the noodles. Topped with the butter and "spices". She was more of an outdoorsy person and I really don't think she'd ever HAD to cook for herself or anyone else. The burden of three squares probably floored her, on top of being responsible for this child 24 hours a day for 5 or 6 days.
So, we ate spaghetti noodles for lunch and supper.
Breakfast was white toast, with butter.
AND jam!

Bless her heart, anyway.
What an experience for everyone!
Looking back, I don't really understand why I didn't stay down the hill at Uncle Joe and Aunt Daisy's house. I'm sure there were good reasons and surely no one anticipated my stay being that extended.

Now, whenever I make spaghetti and have a little bite of the ones I'm putting away, I think of that week and wonder where Miss Nanini ended up.
And if she ever learned to cook anything else.

Feed Cows?

When Angus was quite little (maybe three years old), he'd inquire conversationally of his father over every lunch, "So...how was your day? Feed cows?".  I think he got tired of just asking what his dad had done that morning (and it was ALWAYS "fed cows") so he just took care of business right away. Even now, when the kids get off the bus in the afternoon, I'll ask them how their day was and "Feed cows?" which is our code for "Everything pretty much the same thing?"

This winter, I've been given a little bunch of cows to feed every morning!  They're last year's first calving heifers, only now they're really big girls....coming threes!  

I put the kids on the bus first thing, then go over to the Big House to get my wretched white feed pickup that no one else wants to drive.  It's a six speed never-in-the-right-gear diesel machine with no emergency brake so if I park on any sort of slope at all (in neutral, of course) it rolls away.  This means that in order to open the gate on the hay corral, I have to put it in Granny, then shut it completely off so it doesn't merrily take off down the hill. (Granny is the slowest, lowest gear...at least that's what my dad called it.)  

The Beast has a good radio (for which I'm eternally grateful) and I can get KGHL on AM which is the radio station my Dad always listened to when he fed and I rode along. "Tradio" is on while I'm feeding...a radio show where people can phone in if they have something to sell or are looking for something to buy.  Usually it's guns, household items, the random puppies, but this morning there was a free fresh deer hide for anyone who wanted it, AND the opportunity to get (also free) old hens if you were willing to go catch them.  KGHL plays classic old country music, so when it's not Tradio, it's Ray Price and Patsy Cline as the soundtrack to my morning.

Here's my good help:

Here's why she loves to go feediing cows:

Bunnies live at the haystack.

Really DUMB bunnies.

And they run deliciously fast and sneaky like!

The Beast has a hydraulic bale bed on it, so I can lift the bale onto the back of the pickup without having to have a tractor.  (Please note the fact that the arms are almost perfectly centered in on an imperfectly round bale. If they AREN'T centered, the bale won't unroll well and the feeder person will end up pushing it down a hill by hand.  I'm thrilled to have this placement documented for all the world to see, because I have to run controls inside the pickup, looking in the mirrors and over my shoulder out the back window to get it placed and loaded. This was a fine moment for me!)
(And yes, I had to shut the pickup off to take this picture so it wouldn't roll.)
(Like my father-in-law's eyes if he sees this particular blog post, bless his heart...)

 Often times, when I lift a bale I end up exposing a hidden, dumb bunny which results in happy yipping and a good chase while I close the gate.

 Here are my girls:

 This happens to be the bunch with my heifer Rosie and Maggie's heifer Lucky who you will see in the following picture.

We noticed a funny thing about the cow named Lucky....the sum of the numbers on her tag (223) ends up being lucky 7!  She's easy to pick out of this herd because she's the only one with a white beard, as Maggie says.

This is what the bale looks like when it's all unrolled.

(They're suspicious of me taking all these pictures. Something's up, but they don't know what...)

I also check their water every day to make sure it's not frozen over and look to see if they have plenty of salt'n'minral (sic). 

Then I return the Beast to the main house and resume my day if they don't need me to feed any other bunches that day. 

This day went pretty quickly because I didn't have to fight a lot of snow or mud, and the water wasn't frozen over necessitating me chopping and scooping ice out of the tank. 

It's a pretty good way to start the day! If you want to come ride along, I'd love the company...

Spring Tromp

This is EXACTLY how Tessie looks the whole time we go for runs or tromps...pure joy and energy, radiating from her little body! And she never stops moving....

This is pretty much top speed for Twilla...

She likes going for walks.  WALKS.  Let's not break a sweat, though. 

All that bouncing and panting is undignified, and quite unnecessary, really.

They saw geese!

Even Twilla-bee got a little excited....

These are NOT the geese they saw, but a bigger bunch flying low and north bound. 

I love their funny honks, but the ones I REALLY love are the cranes when they go over.  Cranes are a lot less organized.  They're sort of the right brain migratory birds...they swirl and catch updrafts of wind, looking like a mess of confused avians. Geese, of course, are very orderly and straightforward.  They probably alphabetize their eggs.  And cranes have a chirry-purry sound that makes me smile...it's hard to describe, but when cranes are flying overhead, they sound happy, not urgent like the geese.  Geese sound like they mean business.  And they probably do. 

This is Figaro.  He's pretending to be a wild lion, hunting on the Serengeti.

He's mad, because our tromp disrupted his stalk, so now he's just going to follow us and yell loudly for us to slow down and pet him.

Cats are such whiners when things don't go their way.

Still...

Seriously happy.

She was like this ALL DAY!

We all felt that way, though, because the sun was out and so were we. 

Today is all grey and misty and cold....typical March in Cohagen.

January

It's like the trees are waving to the clouds...

And the fences have fur...

Cows at the "cow-feteria"...

 Some days, this is the most color we see here!

PURE HAPPINESS!  There's nothing like taking a Brittany pup for a tromp.  Really.  

(Used the "sports/action" setting on the camera to catch this shot.)

Layers of ice over the grass...

The edge you see here has a layer of air underneath it.  The ice is rather like layers of flaky pastry in a croissant, if you can imagine.  Each layer is distinct and separate which is interesting to look at, but cuts the cows' feet a little after a while.  When they come in to feed, you can tell they're tender and very careful about where they choose to walk.

At the end of the day, it's good to have a pal to hang out with!

First Snow

...but first, it rained, so everything looks as though it's glass; sharp and sparkly.

(I just liked the lines in this picture. I get all distracted by lines; they're mesmerizing to me, in a way.)

SIGNS

By Wallace McRae

It's not the crying Vs of geese

A-flying overhead.

Nor the inconspicuous buckbrush 

Suddenly, strident red.

It's not the horses hairing-up,

The creek a-turning brown.

Or the ash tree getting gussied up

In her saffron dressing gown.

It's not the blue-tinged frosty morn, 

The coyote getting bolder, 

The faint ache in my steel-pinned leg

Reminding me I'm older.

It's not the spring-green grasses, 

Now a tannish monochrome.

I know that fall's upon us-

Our cats are coming home.

But, it's just make up!

Because she won't tell you herself, unless you accidentally trip over some of her pink and black boxes, my sister is now officially selling Mary Kay.  Yes!

And Saturday evening she had what the invitation termed as an open house, but what she referred to as her "coming out of the closet" get-together. It was a big deal for her, as well it should be, and she'd cleaned and baked and fluffed and prepped all day for the shindig; as the day went, though, friends started calling and cancelling.  Su much so that when I talked with Jen at 1:30 p.m., she sounded sort of frantic and begged me to come so she wouldn't get skunked.  Please?

Well, what's a sister to do?! I had to go.  I know how it feels to have a party that no one can make it to.  And I didn't want her sitting there in her pretty dress, in her clean house, looking all sad and drowning her sorrows by eating the whole Double Chocolate Bailey's Irish Cream cake by herself.  I mean, if she's goona be sad and eat cake, I should be there to join in and support her in any way I can.

The weather was AWFUL.  The morning was just cold, but it started snowing that afternoon and just wasn't going to let up.  I thought it wouldn't be so bad, because I'd get in to Miles when it was relatively light and evaluate whether to risk the roads after the party.  I told Wayland that I'd turn around if the roads got too bad...no big deal.  And took off, thinking of all the times Jen had come through for me. 

As far as the road went, they were alright, except for the last 70 miles.  Those were white-knuckle, tense shoulder, 40 mph, blowing and melting and freezing sorts of miles.  I kept thinking I'd run out of it.  By the time I decided to turn around, I was closer to Miles than home, so may as well plow on in...

It took 1 1/2 hours to get there. 
Yeah.

I was 15 minutes late, missed the big shpiel, had to hurry up with the interview card, and was all twitchy from the trip and the football game I could hear on in the next room.  This is love: that I would miss the biggest college football game of the year to apply moisturizer and make-up with the girls.

It turned out that a couple of friends who thought they couldn't come, did, and Mom was there, too, so there were five of us.  Yay!  We Mary Kay-ed from 6:30-10.  I'll admit, I did sneak off and watch the equivilant of one quarter of the LSU-ALA game, while everyone was eating chocolate cake and drinking chai. 

I decided to spend the night, which really was no choice at all, considering what I'd driven through to get there, so Jen and I visited and laughed, went through all her products after everyone had left, planned and plotted.  We were counting on the time change to buy us an hour.  Then we blew right through that hour and kept going....I think it was 1:30 by the time we finally called it quits and went to bed. 

I came home the next morning with all sorts of little trial sized lotions and potions, some new colors for my face, and a happy heart from having sister time. 

And this morning, I'm moisturized and spackled up, ready for whatever the world might toss my way!

If you need Mary Kay, contact Jennifer Pitcher at 406  853-5901.  You can tell her I sentcha!

Soggy doggies

The accumulation of rain, as of yesterday afternoon around 3 p.m.:

(It went on to rain more, bringing the total, this morning to 3 inches and 1 tenth...inconceivable!)

Everything is wet.

And grumpy.

Twilla, complaining about having to stay in the porch...

 Lily and Willie, unimpressed with this turn of events....if they go out of the shed, they get wet.  If they stay in the shed, it's loud.

Figaro, yelling at me about the wet grass! (Like I can change it or something...)

Note the prissy paws....

The only things that seem to enjoy this relentless moisture are the flowers.

Angus "saved" some worms.  These have been handled and mauled and loved to death...literally. At least they didn't die a lonely death, right?

And neither will this child, who it would appear went out the door, threw himself in a puddle, rolled around until he could stand it no longer and returned to the house requesting a hot bath and some cocoa if it wouldn't be too much trouble...(Those socks WERE white, when he left.)

I think today....because it's STILL rainy....we'll make key lime pie and listen to Kenny Chesney and Jimmy Buffett and wear shorts and put little umbrellas in our orange juice and pretend like we're someplace sunny!

Weed it and weep...

I know.
That title has a distinct Elmer Fudd feel to it. 
And I apologize for all the gardening posts in a row, but it has been raining non-stop here and I've been escaping the madness of the house for the relative solitude of the flowerbeds, so this is what's on my mind.  I have wet dog pictures, too, but I'll save that for later today.  Gives you something to look forward to, right?  (In the top 100 worst blog post teasers, "Stay tuned for wet dog pictures" has got to be in the top 30!)

This is perfect weather to weed in, because like all other living things, weeds lose the will to fight after three days of rain.  And it's SO gratifying to pull a world record dandelion out by the root and hold it up like a trophy from a great and noble battle!  Then, after admiring the 8 inch root on that sucker, to throw it on the pile with the rest of the victims, cackling with satisfaction.

The tricky thing I've found, about weeding, is what to do with the volunteer flowers that are growing where I don't want them.  Starting my flowerbeds from nothing, for the first couple of years I found it charming and encouraging.  "Oh, look!" I'd exclaim to myself. "Flax!  Poppies! and I didn't even have to plant them!" 

Self-sowing annuals are the passive aggressive garden inhabitants.  They take full advantage of their flower-ness and quietly scatter where they will, invading the bed like Huns in China.  They KNOW it kills a gardener to have to yank them out, because they really are lovely little plants that we had to pay good money for seed just a year ago.  And they KNOW we can be beguiled by their lovely blossoms, which turn into gazillions of seeds which turn into a veritable carpet of whatever they are. 

Take flax.
Really.  Take all of it you want; it's engulfing my beds.
I want some  flax, because it's a lovely sky blue that is hard to find in the plant world, and it has an ephemeral feel to it.  I planted some seeds, it came up and charmed me, and then moved in like a homeless relative, sprawling all over insouciently, elbowing out my aquilegia and thumbing its nose at me.  It took me a long time to be able to yank it out with no twinge of "what if I eliminate it and it never grows back" feelings. 

Poppies are the same way.
AND....the worst part is that just as I wade into the bed, sleeves rolled up, mouth pursed, heart full of determination, they have the nerve to bloom.  OH...drats!  How to yank up clouds of sky blue flowers, when nothing else is blooming? (Nothing else is blooming, I reflect later, because the flax has engulfed it!) 

I'm developing a hard heart where some of these plants are concerned.  Here's my list of plants that look like friends but are really bullies in the garden.  Think Moe, in Calvin and Hobbes.

• Flax
• Poppies (The California kind....they invade Montana just like the residents of the state from which they originate.)
• Yarrow (Public enemy #1, here in my yard.)
• Salvia (I'm still wrestling for control, but I think I have it disciplined.)
• Hollyhocks (They are the WORST!  And there's always, always guilt associated with yanking them out because they're such sentimental flowers!  It's like slamming the door in your grandma's face or something.)
• Malva (Hollyhock's close cousin...smaller and less well known.  I think of it as sort of a shirttail cousin twice removed and don't have nearly the guilt eliminating these.)
• Did I mention yarrow?

My mantra, that I say over and over as I wade and weed is, "Just because it wants to grow there, doesn't mean it should be allowed to grow there!"  The other thing I say is, "DIE, yarrow!!! DIE!!!" 

Gardening is a brutal, blood sport and not for the weak of heart. 

Wet dog pictures to follow....ALSO not for the weak of heart.

Raindrops on roses...

and whiskers on kittens. 
(You'll be singing that song all day, now, won't you?  You're welcome!)

It's a little wet, here in Cohagen.
A lot wet, actually.
It rained all day yesterday, for the most part, and it's looking rather promising to do the same thing today.

True to odd form, I'm not a "cozy-in-and-bake-cookies-and-play-parcheesi" sort of person when it rains, especially in the spring.  Rainy days are my favorite time to be out in the garden, playing in the dirt.

For one thing, it's very solitary and peaceful....no dogs or cats or kids hanging all over me, jealously demanding attention.  It's just me and the earthworms and the crabby sparrows.  The occasional disgruntled spider scuttles under the plants when I disturb his nice, dry cubbyhole.  But other than that, it's just the sound of rain on my hood.

Plants look brighter and healthier in the rain.  And it changes depth and form for me.  For some reason, the rain water causes certain leaves to stand out that I miss on sunny days.  I find long forgotten perennials, fighting to make a come-back, just by glimpsing their distinctive foliage against the black dirt.  I spy stealthy weeds the same way. 

And the dirt smells sweet and good, on rainy days.  When a bed is in good shape, with the proper balance of soil, amendments of fertilizer and mulch, the dirt isn't sticky or clumpy on a rainy day.  It's more...soggy, but still friable, in a live way.  It DOES feel alive, if your hands are bare and handling it.

I garden with bare hands; dirty, rough, cold hands.  I can't do that for very long when I'm working out in the drizzly day...it necessitates frequent warming with a cup of tea or coffee, then back out for more.  I know I really should wear gloves.  I can hear my Aunt Bert telling me the importance of keeping my hands looking nice and neat, because they're the first thing people notice about you, but I can't feel the different textures of the plants, the health of the soil, the clean smoothness of the earthworms when I do. 

I love being able to easily dig out and move plants on rainy days.  They are much happier being shuffled from bed to bed on cool rainy days.  One day that little volunteer aquilegia is rubbing shoulders with the gruff old Russian sage and the next day, in the rain, being introduced to the rather humble patch of cranesbill.  It seems to be less traumatic for everyone.  By the time the rain has stopped, they've all settled their roots and commence to contentedly growing, more or less.

I usually don't attempt to plant seeds, because the envelope gets soggy and they refuse to come out, or the wind is blowing enough that they scatter a little too freely and instead of a neat row of lettuce ruffles in a couple weeks, I have a tossed salad.  The exception being fat seeds, like beans and peas.

When I'm all cold and wet to the bone, I give it up and reluctantly slog back inside.  But then, it's a treat to be in the warm house!  My nose and cheeks are bright pink and my hair is all frowzledy from the hood and wet, my hands dirt stained and stiff.  It's time for gingersnaps and tea, and to drag out my garden books to make big plans for the next bout out. I look out the window...the dirty, paw-and-nose print smeared window....and see potential puttering.

Then the phone rings and I'm summoned away to write on field maps for FSA crop certification.

You thought this was going to end all cozy and dear, didn't you?  :)   

Spring?

People who write songs about Montana seldom have anything to say about March. There's a good reason for that.  While the rest of the world is singing tra-la-la about spring and getting pedicures for sandal season, we in Eastern Montana are still...STILL...plodding through snow and ice.

The only thing that keeps us going, at all, is the new babies.  And really strong coffee. And the banker breathing down our backs. 

Other than that, we really have no motivation for staying here.

(Oddly enough, we don't get much company this time of year, either....My friend Susie K. is coming from the Boston area in a couple weeks and she's the only brave soul I know of who actually PLANNED to see our ranch in the depths of the spring gunk.  Although, after viewing these pictures, she may send condolences and a nice cheese tray, begging a tight schedule and no appropriate wardrobe.  I'd completely understand.)

Following the chuck wagon....behind the tractor is a trailer that holds two round bales, so we can transport a lot of feed in one trip.  The Farmer's family is one of the most intelligent, innovative bunch of ranchers I've ever been around and we have all sorts of things like this that they've designed and made.  I was going to say they saved time and labor, but I can't type that with a straight face...

I absolutely love this picture.  The cow looking, the calf skiting, the tractor in the background....it's the perfect picture for this topic.  I should've stopped there, because it captures everything I'll try to write from here on out...

A chilly pair, headed for the tractor, with all of the prairie and sagebrush ahead of them....

The Farmer drives around in his Honda, looking for new calves to tag and if they're chilled down, he brings them back to me in the pickup.

These are older calves, obviously....pushing each other around and rough housing.  You can't see the cow very well, but she's rolling her eyes at them and saying, "Shape up, now.  Stop that nonsense!  Someone's going to get hurt and I won't feel a bit bad..."  They don't care...go ahead and fuss, Mama Cow....it won't do any good....

More of beautiful Eastern Montana. Can you see why we get SO hungry for color, in the winter?

You can't see it very well, but the Farmer is tagging a calf here.  See the cow's mouth open, warning him?  She's not happy.

Done! She briskly gathered up her baby and trotted off toward the feed.

This bin holds the cake pellets and when Vern turns a switch, they trickle out onto the hay.

See the milk froth?  His breakfast was interrupted and he's a little miffed.

You can tell it's a bull calf because the tag is in the right ear....heifers get tagged in the left ear. 

Calve belonging to mean cows get tagged however it gets done....

Here's a REALLY new baby.  He wandered around the feed ground, completely bewildered by the commotion and his poor little mama followed him, worriedly, trying to grab a bite of hay and cake as she went.  Of course, he's the cutest calf there and every cow wants to make him thiers (she thinks), so it's very stressful.

 I don't care what you say, cows are just beautiful.  Aren't they? Especially black Angus cows. 

She can't figure out what all the fuss is, with the dry old hay.  But she tried some!

 Very elegant ensemble, here.  You can't see the insulated gold hand-me-down coveralls...

You can, however, see the wrinkles. 

Darn.

Another favorite picture!  I like mirror shots of scenery, because you get all sorts of perspectives...

If there was a magazine called Cute Cows, she'd be the cover girl...
Look at that perfect little hoof!

STILL adorable...

Look at that little forhead, cleaned within an inch of it's life by a mama who cares...

Did someone say, "Maaaaaaa!"  ?

Same cover girl....different pose...

Why DOES the hay on the wagon taste better than the hay rolled out by the tractor?

We put out straw, too, for bedding and this baby found the perfect nest, right in the middle of the action.

No, they are NOT Betty and Claude, two wannabe farm criminals of some sort!  Dixie and the Farmer, posing for me.  I think they're smiling.  Who knows?

Frozen calf, on the floorboard of the pickup with the heater blasting as hot as we can get it.  He was in very bad shape...glassy eyes, mouth open and shallow breathing, crying as I drove him in.  (He was and I was.) We put him in the hot box in the shop and when I asked at lunch time how he was, there was not much hope.

We give them colostrum in paste form, and had to warm it up on the dashboard.  He didn't get any...it's expensive and we need to see if he's going to be close enough to living before he gets any. 

And that's what our mornings look like, here.  Then I gather up the kid(s) at Grandma's, run home and make lunch and pick up the pieces from our mad dash out the door that morning.

When people talk about March Madness....this is what I think of.  Not basketball!