Strange but true happenings from the ranch
…and other places
Locked Up
Have you ever been moseying through a remote car lot located in a city 60 miles from your rural home, around closing time, looking at used RV’s get ready to leave the premise and realize you’ve been padlocked inside the lot? I did yesterday. Brad and I had been eyeing a couple of early model RVs with low mileage…not too pretty but just what we needed for our large family. While I was in town I thought I would drop by and check the prices again. After realizing I was locked in I walked over to the make shift office (actually a trailer house) and called all the numbers listed on the window. I left messages explaining my predicament. No answer. So I walked back to the RV’s and looked for phone numbers. I made calls to those numbers, left messages again explaining my predicament. No answer. Then I started thinking my Memorial Day weekend may be spent RVing…just not at the lake. Finally I went to the back side of the lot and found a scruffy looking neighboring businessman washing down used lawnmowers. He helped me escape. We lifted a cord which ran through a dilapidated fence and I was on my way. His Eye Is On The Sparrow…and any of us who seem to be “predicament magnets”…HE always answers when I leave messages.
There She Goes…boogyda boogyda
This didn’t happen to me but read it in a woman’s magazine while waiting for car repairs. The writer said she was hugely pregnant and had gone into her bathroom to take a soak in her tub. While soaking she heard something rustling around in the adjacent closest. Within seconds a man appeared from behind her closet door, standing at the foot of her tub staring her in the face. It seems her husband had hired a repairman to do some work on their closet without letting her know. That story hit too close to home. It sounds like something that could have happened to me…or maybe, was it my mom??….
Yes, it was my mom. It was the story about the time she greeted our postman wearing only a robe over her birthday suit. (she’s going to kill me)
LeRoy would always drive to the door and honk to deliver packages that were too large for the mailbox.
One cold, icy, December morning my mom was in the tub. She heard a honk, and another, and yet another. It was LeRoy. She grabbed her robe which was missing its buttons and hurried down the all, out the door…right smack dab onto the icy, slick sidewalk. Slipping and sliding she tried desperately to stay vertical holding her robe shut with one hand as the other rotated frantically to keep her balance But gravity won and LeRoy got flashed. She said it all seemed like slow motion. LeRoy’s head followed every move as she skated precariously from side to side before hitting the sidewalk. With his head stretched out the window he watched the grand finale as she slid gracefully under his car. (my mom’s going to kill me)
Stupid Human Tricks
This could have been far from funny, but we can look back and laugh now.
One hot summer afternoon my folks took my brother and I to the Little Sahara Sand Dunes, an area covered with acres and acres of sand used for recreational purposes. In the 60′s the dunes didn’t have much there. Today it’s covered with dune buggies and thousands of people…I still haven’t figured that out–what draws a person to want to get hot and sandy in the middle of the summer. Anyway, that day 40 plus years ago, my folks met another couple there and we had a picnic. This couple had no children and we soon became bored. The picnic area was a good distance from where the car was parked. After lunch we headed back to the car. The car was new and we were infatuated with its new unique gadget. We thought we’d go experiment with it. The push button trunk opener was one of the most amazing things we had seen. Being bored kids we weren’t satisfied just popping it and shutting it, and popping it and shutting it, and popping it and shutting it. We decided to take turns getting into the trunk. I got in first. He shut the trunk and popped it. Out I came. Now it was his turn. He got in, I shut the trunk, pushed the button…nothing……..nothing at all. I pushed and pushed. We had popped it one too many times. In a muffled voice he said, “Aren’t you going to let me out?’ I said, “Mont, it won’t open.” He frantically piped, “don’t tease me.” I told him I wasn’t teasing. He began to scream, and kick and scream. That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, leave him yelling and screaming locked in that sweltering trunk and run to get help. Today we both are claustrophobic.
A Christmas Story
I had worked since mid November. The house was gleaming. The stockings were hung on the chimney with care…Falalalala…in hopes…lalalala…(I reallllly love Christmas) and I was realllly excited to have town’s people come out to the country to visit.
A “Christmas Parade of Homes” was organized by our town’s Chamber and I was on the list of stops. I love to entertain and I don’t get to do a lot of it out here on the ranch.
Excitement was building as I waited for the large activity bus to pull into our yard.
Did I mention we have a hunting club here on the ranch? Did I mention we have Old English Sheepdogs? During the festive holiday season those two don’t really mix.
I stepped outside to check for lights. Yes! I could see the lights of the bus…about a mile away. I was soooo excited. THEN I SAW IT.
On the sidewalk steps that led to the front door of my home -the steps that within minutes the town guest would be walking up- the steps which only minutes earlier I had envisioned them strolling along, sighing with delight at the quaint beauty of our home—a slimy deer carcass the size of a small television set blocked their entry.
I looked at it in disbelief, looked into the darkness with the lights of the bus gaining intensity, then fast…ran inside, grabbed a broom and somehow got the nasty piece of yuk balanced on the broom handle then ran…in the dark… out to the dumpster and disposed of it—and the broom.
I raced back to the front door. Guest poured out of the bus. As I breathlessly greeted each visitor, Christmas music emanating from inside, I heard them sigh and comment on the quaint beauty of my country home while I silently thought, “ I guess what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”
I still thank the Lord that I went to check for bus lights.
From The Mouth of One of My Babes
This weekend was spent in eastern Oklahoma pregnancy checking cows and loading calves to bring home. A Chinese restaurant was our last stop on our way home. I helped my four year old grandson fill his plate which ended up piled with cantaloupe. While we were eating I was commenting to his folks that he sure liked cantaloupe. Wesley seriously stated, ‘The Chinese must shoot a lot of tantaloupe.” (hunting is part of our family’s business.)
Enter At Your Own Risk
Grandad Lenard built the house we live in, around 1930. Brad’s convinced he got up one morning, stepped it off and built it- absent a tape measurer. Nothing is level. This has never bothered me, but he’s more of a perfectionist when it comes to which way spilled milk flows. We’re always working on it. On doors, on stools, on leaky ceilings, etc. etc. etc. It’s always something. But we love it.
A beautiful purple glass knob graced the door of one our bathrooms…most of the time. There was a certain way to open and close that door or the handle would fall apart leaving you stuck in the bathroom with one piece in your hand and the other on the floor outside the door. You pretty much had to be a family member to know the combination.
This booby trap bathroom was located in a remote area of our house. If you became trapped and everyone moved on to the north end of the house out of ear reach, you were pretty much on your own until someone noticed you were missing.
The Schwan’s man didn’t know the combination. Late one afternoon while fixing supper for a houseful of kids; my four and several friends and cousins, he made the mistake of asking to use the restroom. Dodging kids, noise level a low roar, I absent mindedly nod towards the hallway. That was the last I saw of him… I forgot all about him. We all moved into the north side of the house, far, far away from the remote bathroom location. Coming back into the kitchen about twenty minutes later to check on supper, I heard a faint knock coming from the hallway. I was stricken. I was so embarrassed I couldn’t go get him out. I can’t remember which kid released him, but he escaped unharmed. I said I never saw him again. I literally didn’t. He never came back.
..this could have been the day
Generation-Communication Gap
My husband, Brad is a little detached from the present a lot of times. He’s a deep thinker and sometimes misses out on current affairs; such as what’s going on around him. He may be contemplating how to build a spray coup out of bicycle wheels and old wheel barrows, figuring break evens on loads of cattle, calculating how much fertilizer to spread or designing an elaborate loading chute out of tin cans. In reality he is a genius when it comes to designing, but he does miss out on a lot of day to day interaction with family members and others due to intense thinking. An example went something like this: We were traveling to Amarillo for a rodeo. I was driving. As we traveled down a farm to market road we had taken to stay off the interstate we passed a large pumpkin patch. When we drove by he matter of fact asked, ” Do you want to stop? “Stop?” I ask. “Stop for what?” “The pumpkins,” he answers. “Why?” I say. “For the the smashing.” he says. “What smashing?” I ask. “For your pumpkin smashing.” ” What in the world are you talking about?” I asked. “It’s on your calendar.” he says. “I was looking at the calendar and you are having a pumpkin smashing thing on Nov 20th.” Smashing Pumpkins. I had to explain that it wasn’t my pumpkin thing, but our high school age son’s; he was wanting to go to their concert.
Dream Girl
My second grandson loves to farm. That is pretty much all he can talk about. He reads “Tractor House” like a good novel. He reminds me a lot of my Grandad Lenard. In Grandad’s later years the guys gave him the pet name, “Lenard- Combine- Grease Gun -Chain.” I believe this name could be used to describe this guy as well. Last year he wanted Santa to bring him a grease gun for Christmas. And his “dream girl” at age 7: “I want a combine driving- truck driving woman just like Matt when I grow up.” Our neighbor Matt and his beautiful young wife had helped us cut wheat. Besides being a knock out she could operate any type of machinery. It’s innate…
“Got Fuel?”
Glamor On The Farm? Forget It
Mud, dogs, dog poop, cats, cat poop, more dogs, neighbor’s dogs, horse manure, cow manure, wet dogs. Ranch life pleasures are innumerable, but these things are sometimes hard to appreciate.
It had finally gone on sale. The cute little floral print dress I’d been eying, in my favorite clothing catalog for the past six months was on sale. Visions of wearing it to town…away from dogs and other varmints, mud and excretions, danced in my head. I quickly called in my order knowing that if I waited too long my size might be gone. I had a small problem, my husband and I would be leaving on Saturday to visit our daughter and son-in-law and wouldn’t be back for several days. I wanted that dress. I placed the order, relieved that the order taker promised a three day arrival…Friday. That would work. Friday arrived, no dress. No problem. I’ll leave the UPS man a great big note on our back door with great big explicit directions to leave the box inside our unlocked house. Neighbors, kids, family and friends were alerted to watch for the cargo.
When I returned home, I anxiously looked for the UPS box. I searched the back porch, the back entry hall, the pantry, kitchen…nothing. I called all alertees inquiring about the package. They had seen nothing. I called the company. It had gone out as planned and I should have received it by now. Several weeks went by, and the dress fetish relinquished..
One cold afternoon with temperatures in the teens and snow blowing, I pulled out of our driveway to go to town. As I drove out I noticed a lifeless, frozen, snow covered heap in my front yard. I stopped and made my way to the middle of the yard. Brushing the fresh snow away revealed a box covered not only with frozen snow, but frozen poop as well. Stuck like super glue to the ground was a box. It wouldn’t budge. I kicked it hard prying it loose. The return address: J.Jill Inc. My dress! So much for the UPS man’s direction taking. After some questioning I found out he had left the package on a bench under our carport. Lilly, our Old English Sheepdog thought he’d left it for her. The company sent a new dress, free of charge. Lilly would end up destroying that one too. Washing instructions recommended; hand washable, line dry. So I hung it on the line…for her amusement she thought. I would later find it ripped and tattered…once again in the yard. Glamor on the farm? I’m having trouble finding it.
A Typical Day
Today was a typical day on the ranch. Got up walked over to our headquarters…the office…which is in my yard. My yard also houses two silos, a 90 year old brick mule barn, a machine shed, an 80 year old sheep shed that’s in dire need of repair and which houses debris from any remodeling job that no one has the heart to part with; a round top shed that houses old machinery, new machinery several outdated bathtubs, two clothes dryers and several old washing machines; several horse trailers, a semi truck, and a three story grain elevator moved in from the neighboring town around the turn of the century which houses nothing. It’s all in my yard.
Today at the office I worked on fire losses. It has been 5 months and we are still working on the fire. My fire file is 6 inches thick and today was the deadline for turning in losses.
And today we worked on another project.. Remember this is a typical day. So this is typical. After counting fence losses, cattle losses, new lease amounts from three different locations in two different states, fuel and trucking expenses etc. etc. Linda, our secretary-my best friend, and I had one more problem to solve. A mystery… the Dish Network Mystery. During bill paying we encountered a charge that no one could seem to explain. Subscription to the Dish network in the office is used only for Superior Livestock Auction viewing ( a live auction where cattle can be purchased without leaving the comforts of home) Last month someone wanted to watch more than the livestock auction. We’re still searching for the renter of ” Easy Spring Break Chicks”.
Oh, we’ll find them…we’re both part Nancy Drew.