Category: My Columns
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Power Trip
Most guys like muscle cars, but cowboys like muscle pickups four-wheel drives with Cummins, Duramax, or Powerstroke engines. I just like throwing around power. It’s seldom that I get to drive our souped-up pickup; a black Dodge diesel dually. The rare times I do drive it, the trailer’s hooked on to haul kids to rodeos…
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On The Road Again
Being on the road again makes me weary. I might enjoy it if it were to go somewhere fun, but driving errant cows on back roads at a resistant cow’s pace is tiresome. Our cows have been through enough routine pasture moves that they’re trained to know which back roads, shortcuts, and trails we use…
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Give ‘Im A Boot
I would rather my son step on my toes than walk in my shoes. His feet are almost the same size as mine now, and he’s taken an interest in my cowboy boots. A few years ago, I loaned him a pair of old grey ropers I’d had since high school, thinking he could wear…
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Dress Her Drawers
If you check a cowboy’s drawers, you’re likely to find a pile of silk scarves and bandanas in at least one of them. Cowboys keep their neck warm with silk scarves and use bandanas as hankies or rags. My cowboy gets both types of these simple fabric squares as gifts a lot because they are…
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Keep An Eye On the Ball
Blue Heeler dogs are common on ranches because of their desire to have a job to do. Our dog Pepper is no exception. She loves to fetch. Pepper is a Blue Heeler/Border Collie tennis ball fetcher. Baseballs and softballs aren’t chewy enough and footballs, basketballs, and soccer balls are hard to retrieve. Our dog makes…
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Spouses In Translation
Some days I wish I was a cow. Then maybe I could communicate with my husband better and get the same attention our cows do. I recently read Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin, about decoding animal behavior in hopes of finding out what a cow’s got over me with my husband’s attention. Cows seem…
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Fixes and Kisses
My kids know better than to come to me with their broken toys or equipment. The best I can do, is give them a sympathetic hug or a kiss, but neither have been successful repair tools. My approach doesn’t fix it, or do much to make the kids feel better, but my husband delights in…
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Roads Less Traveled
On the road trip my daughter and I took while my son was at camp, I experienced some lost and found moments. My daughter and I spent our time getting lost and making discoveries. I intentionally picked rural routes to travel on in order to get acquainted with other farm and ranch communities in South…
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Fair Enough
Participating in our county fair is fun but sometimes I can turn into the Wicked Witch of the Fair when it gets down to the wire. The weeks prior to Achievement Days, I have to look at or walk around posters and displays propped up on unused spaces during their varied stages of completion. It…