Tag Archives: Cowboy

Fall

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“You have to come see the sunrise,” the Cowboy said to me earlier this morning ..

I had already been out, after the bus came to pick up our oldest for school, in my pajamas. With a steaming cup of coffee.

Sunrise

It is the second full day of fall 2013.

The morning could not be more perfect here in South Dakota. The sun is rising, the colors across the horizon are absolutely stunning and it’s about 60 degrees. One of the best morning’s to go for a ride ..

Nightmare

.. or a run. Or even just hang out on the porch with a cup of coffee and soak it all in. We all know, days like this are numbered.

………………

For about as long as I can remember, fall has been my favorite season. When I was a kid, I loved that it meant the start of another school year, cross country season, football games, crisp cool nights, the smell of campfires, leaves crunching underfoot as we would run through miles and miles of woods behind our house and the holidays once again around the corner.

While it still means many of these same things and I still have a very genuine love for the season .. I found myself yesterday, for the first time I ever I believe, not wanting summer to end. Not wanting to feel the cool breeze of fall or see the leaves turn. I realized after really allowing myself time yesterday to think about why .. it’s because it means another year is about to end. But, not just another year – another season of life. And the seasons, the years anymore, seem to be passing us by so fast.

Cliche, I know. But how very true.

I was helping my daughter with her homework the other night and as I looked over at her, all I could do was wonder where the first 12 years have gone. I looked later that night at the Cowboy who’s been sick for weeks now, fighting some sort of lung infection and all I could do was wonder how many more years of good health and life we might be blessed with. It has been a year of incredibly joys but also great sadness, aging family members have suffered major health complications, a few within just the past few weeks. Several family members and close family friends have recently passed away.

I do my best to never take a day or a moment for granted. Sometimes that means I, and many others like me, often go 500 miles an hour and throw ourselves into everything life, family, community and each day have to offer (often to the dismay of the more laid back around us). But it is also why we can appreciate the opportunity to slow down, reflect and spend time doing nothing but, say..

Soak up a beautiful sunrise.

Hope you are able to get out and enjoy all this fall and this beautiful season of life have to offer. Off to run ..

Minimum Maintenance

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“I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve been on these roads,” the Cowboy says to me as we were being rerouted recently on a trip to a friends place. Road construction had completely shut the two lane highway we were on, down. There were only dirt roads in either direction and it was a crapshoot which direction might get us where we were going faster.

“Getting a detour out here isn’t fun,” he said. “You never know where you’ll end up.”

Casey

We were driving through rural, remote Central South Dakota where the roads don’t run quite the way they do in Eastern South Dakota. At least in Eastern South Dakota, there is an intersection with drive-able roads in any direction, just about every square mile. Even if it is a gravel road. It’s tough to get lost. And your GPS works (most places).

Not where we were that day.

South Dakota Backroads

South Dakota Backroads

It wasn’t long ago .. okay, it was actually a long time ago, I was a little kid .. when I couldn’t fathom being in a place like this. I sincerely thought on the family trips we used to take out west, that if we were ever in a place like this, our car would quit, the prairie dogs would eat us alive and no one would ever know. Because, well .. because it really is in the middle of nowhere.

But there is a strange beauty and peacefulness in the fact roads like this, places like this still exist. I would challenge any one of you that might not see yourself being comfortable anywhere but in the middle of a city, immersed in chaos and around tons of people, to make time for such a drive. Detour or otherwise. There are still so many places like this that exist. Places and people and a lifestyle that truly are minimum maintenance. It could be an incredibly rewarding trip.

……………..

Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere. And in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself. – Unknown

Tuko

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I received a package in the mail this week. I can’t wait to tell you about it. Seriously. What arrived is like the best thing since sliced bread. Especially for those of you with animals. That might ever mark in the house. Or on things that aren’t the lawn or the litter box.

But it’s too nice today in South Dakota (and a lot of other places it seems) to sit inside and write or work any longer. I’ve done it most of the day, working for others and I’m ready to get outside. I did want to share though, the following because it’s had me laughing all week.

We’ve got this awesome donkey, Tuko.

Tuko

Tuko

Tuko has been figuring a way out of the field we typically have him in, all week. None of the others in the herd have tried or found a way. He has. There is an abundance of water, shelter and food in this particular field. He’s preferred to sneak out and go hide in the barn. In the shade. Away from the heat.

When he’s rested up, he comes out and either finds me or hangs out close to the house and waits until I come out. He then follows me (or anyone else that might be here) around as long as I’ll let him. Like he’s one of the dogs.

Tuko 2

The Cowboy just laughs. “Leave him out, he doesn’t go anywhere,” he says to me. “As long as he has some water, he can eat the grass.”

I keep putting him back in. Because I don’t want him heading down the road or getting lost for days in the corn fields. Like say, our cattle might have done a week or so ago. Maybe.

While it’s been frustrating and we think we know where he’s escaping, it’s also been incredibly entertaining. And the dogs this week, I do believe, feel like they’ve gained a new bud.

Dogs

Alongside The Road ..

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“A weed is but an unloved flower.” ― Ella Wheeler Wilcox

………….

“They’re just weeds,” the Cowboy replied on our drive back from Wall again this weekend. I was asking him if he’s ever paid much attention to the flowers lining almost every roadway in South Dakota this time of year.

Small Roadside Flower

I’ve noticed these beautiful mini-sunflower like blooms the past couple of years in my time back and forth between South Dakota and Wisconsin. But now living here, I’ve been able to enjoy the full season of weeds. Wildflowers. Sunflowers. Whatever you care to call them.

Millions fill the medians of major highways in this state, line thousands of miles of gravel roads and seem to sneak in just about everywhere else in-between. Almost every state boasts something seasonal like this.

Roadside FlowersIt amazes me though, how many drive by wherever they may live, not often noticing. The weeds. Is it because they’re just there, every year .. and we grow accustomed to them? The colors. Their proliferation. Or, is it that far too often, we are too wrapped up in the business of our day-to-day to notice?

Enjoy the weeds while we have them. Their passing means if nothing else, our summer days are numbered.

What I Love About Sunday

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We had wanted to go to church this morning .. but the Cowboy needed to get on the road before we would have been able to return from town. He was leaving to get to a rally for a man he’s grown rather fond of, a man quite honestly we now consider a friend, who is entering officially today the race for U.S Senate.

We stayed home instead, sat down to coffee and breakfast together and logged onto last week’s service from my home church in Madison, Wisconsin. It was a poignant message for us ..

While I still feel incredibly connected to my home church of Blackhawk, a church where upwards of five thousand people attend each Sunday, where it could feel easy to get lost but I’m not sure anyone does, where there is this incredible team of pastors that I miss terribly because their message each week is somehow spot on and where the music just moves you .. finding a new home church here in South Dakota has been heartwarming. Our Sundays, when we are home, have become a mix of attending a nearby contemporary Christian church .. and this wonderful small church in Flandreau that reminds me so much of the church I grew up in back home.

I miss Blackhawk.

But there is just something about a small town church .. and Sundays here on our little acreage, that I love having dearly again in my life.

What I Love About Sunday

What I Love About Sunday

What I Love About Sunday – Craig Morgan

Raymond’s in his Sunday best,

He’s usually up to his chest in oil an’ grease.
There’s the Martin’s walkin’ in,
With that mean little freckle-faced kid,
Who broke a window last week.
Sweet Miss Betty likes to sing off key in the pew behind me.

That’s what I love about Sunday:
Sing along as the choir sways;
Every verse of Amazin’ Grace,
An’ then we shake the Preacher’s hand.
Go home, into your blue jeans;
Have some chicken an’ some baked beans.
Pick a back yard football team,
Not do much of anything:
That’s what I love about Sunday.

I stroll to the end of the drive,
Pick up the Sunday Times, grab my coffee cup.
It looks like Sally an’ Ron, finally tied the knot,
Well, it’s about time.
It’s 35 cents off a ground round,
Baby, cut that coupon out!

That’s what I love about Sunday:
Cat-napping on the porch swing;
You curled up next to me,
The smell of jasmine wakes us up.
Take a walk down a back road,
Tackle box and a cane pole;
Carve our names in that white oak,
steal a kiss as the sun fades,
That’s what I love about Sunday,
Oh, yeah.

Ooh, new believers gettin’ baptized,
Momma’s hands raised up high,
Havin’ a Hallelujah good time
A smile on everybody’s face.
That’s what I love about Sunday,
Oh, yeah.

That’s what I love about Sunday,
Oh, yeah.

Sunset

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The view from my in-laws house to the west each night is truly amazing.

Sunset from Randy and DarlasThere is little to get in the way of soaking up an entire sky of sunset. A much needed grounding for us this evening ..

As we gathered up the kids after a long day, a long week, family coming to town for the Cowboy’s grandmother’s funeral and an unfortunate situation we all had the opportunity to discuss before heading for home, the above scene was a reminder of how small some things are .. and that the God given big picture is almost always, incredibly beautiful.

The Old Barn

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It was a week ago today. A Wednesday. We were browsing through someone’s Facebook page after learning they were involved in an ‘incident’ we had also been a part of earlier that evening …

Among perhaps a half dozen updates this woman had made that day:

“Happy hump day!” 

Sitting around the dining room table talking about what we had stumbled upon that night, we all absolutely bust out laughing.

………….

It was a perfect summer night, that Wednesday night here in eastern South Dakota. Not too hot. The sun was coming down in the sky. We couldn’t have had a better evening to take senior photos for a truly wonderful young man.

Tucker 25

His mother had picked some spots around the family farm she felt would work well and that would be meaningful to them. We had a few more spots to hit and we were trying to decide which we would tackle next when the boy’s mother said, “I really want to show you this old barn. It’s a friend of ours place and we were over there just a few hours ago to look at it. I think getting his picture taken in the doorway of this barn would just be so cool. Is it okay if I take you up there?”

barn doorWe all piled in the truck. Mom, her soon-to-be senior, the Cowboy and I. We talked about the place all the way over there, about how it was abandoned and no one ever goes here and how its a shame according to the mom, because this is the most beautiful barn. We came across the neighbor who’s place it was on the way, he was picking up another load of hay bales from alongside the road. He reassured us, we could go wherever we wanted for pictures and to have fun.

About two miles further up the road, we turned into the drive. I spotted them immediately. There, far enough back off the road you wouldn’t ever really see them in simply passing by, sat two very clean, pricey and pretty cars in an area of mostly dirt roads. As we pulled further down the drive, I said to the mom, “I thought no one was ever here.”

“There shouldn’t be,” she answered. We continue to approach both the cars and the coveted barn. “See, that’s the barn,” she says to me.

I wasn’t sure if she was going to shut the truck off and get out but I didn’t give her a chance. I had been glancing around between the house and the other buildings for either any sign of life or the barrel of a shotgun pointed in our direction. My mind was thinking perhaps we were walking into any number of situations we do not want to be a part of. At all.

“I’m not getting out of the truck,” I told her. “I’m sorry .. I’ve just covered too many stories over the years where situations like this didn’t turn out well. Whoever is here obviously doesn’t want to be seen and they clearly aren’t showing themselves right now.”

I believe I may have been the only one overly concerned about it being something of that magnitude, but everyone stayed in the truck, mom turned it around and we dialed the owners number as we pulled back out toward the road. “Wait a minute,” the mom said and she backed up. “Grab the plate numbers and we’ll find out who they belong to and if there is cause for concern or if we’re just coming upon two people who are here and probably shouldn’t be ..”

“I think they’re in there hooking up,” said the Cowboy, in-between laughs, from the back seat.

……………

The property owner met us about 15 minutes later. We had the names of the people the plates were registered to and we were relatively sure it wasn’t a meth lab we were busting up by going back to the farm. Wearing a fairly big grin, the owner stepped into the barn, listened for a moment and then said to the voices he heard above, they needed to come down. The voices stopped. There was no answer. He went in again a few minutes later, letting them know there was an employee of that particular County Sheriff’s office on the property and if necessary we’d get them a police escort.

A few minutes later, a man and a woman walked out, wide-eyed, apologizing and trying to act somewhat oblivious they might have been tresspassing.

“We just wanted to look around,” the two of them said sheepishly. “We’re sorry. We didn’t realize we shouldn’t be here.” They should have quit talking at that point and left as no one was trying to keep them there.

“I think we should call this place the No-Tell Motel,” the Cowboy said, as the two were driving off in their separate cars. We all bust out laughing ..

………………

While there are many other details of the story that would be entertaining to share, they’re not important. Besides, I don’t want to get anyone in trouble nor am I here to judge. Point is, our senior has quite a story to tell his friends when he heads back to school in a couple of weeks about that evening. And my 12-year-old now understands, I believe, what the word hump might mean besides the fact ‘hump’ combined with the word ‘day’ means it’s Wednesday and you’re halfway through the workweek.  We are still all laughing over that post.

Including our senior. And the smile on his face for the photos at that barn, will forever be priceless.

Spurs

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We were sitting on the back porch of a friends home last night catching up. Every time someone got out of their chair to go grab something to eat, drink or whatever the reason .. there it was.

The jingling of spurs.

Spurs

Never knew how comforting a sound that would be ..

…………….

I didn’t know much about spurs until I met the Cowboy. Never spent much time around any horse people that wore them. Perhaps a couple. I didn’t understand the value in them, especially when working with a stubborn horse. Not until recently, anyway. I often go to the arena to ride without them because I like to think that I can get a horse to mind because, well just because I want to be nice. And because I know they are good horses. The cowboy informed me the other night am to wear them whenever I ride, regardless. It came as I was increasingly frustrated one of the newest horses to the herd was definitely not going to do what I was asking her to do. And the Cowboy was frustrated with me.

“How many times have I told you to always have your spurs on,” he said .. in a stern tone of voice as the horse reared.

“You’ve got to wear them to help get their attention sometimes,” he says to me today, knowing this is today’s post. “You’ve got to have something to make them respect your legs or your leg cues. Horses often become desensitized to someone sitting on them for any length of time. They do what they want and often do as little as they have to when they can get away with it. It’s like a kid. if there’s no consequence to any of their behavior, ever .. pretty soon they’re always pushing boundaries and going their own way versus the way you want. And a 1200 pound horse pushing boundaries can be dangerous. Most horses don’t behave well just because they want to please you. That’s a rarity.”

My spurs now live on my riding boots. Right alongside the entire family’s ..

…………..

I’ve also learned that the piece that fell off my daughter’s spur earlier this summer that needs replacing .. is called a rowel. A much more technical term than the ‘back of the spur’ as I’ve been calling it until recently. Go ahead and laugh all you veteran cowboys out there. At least I’m trying. And admitting how much I know I have yet to understand about this life and lifestyle.

So far .. despite the setbacks, falls and challenges, it’s been a lovely ride.

220px-SpurDiagram.svg

The parts of a spur include (via Wikepedia):

  • The “yoke”, “branch”, or “heel band”, which wraps around the heel of the boot.
  • The “shank” or “neck”, which extends from the back of the yoke and is the area that touches the horse.
  • The rowel, seen on some spurs, a revolving wheel or disk with radiating “points” at the end attached to the shank.

Habits That Steal Precious Moments ..

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The Cowboy and I were lying in bed, talking. It had been a very long past week and a half in Wisconsin and I was back in South Dakota. I grabbed one of the books I keep on the nightstand, a book I reference often but not every night.

Not anymore anyways, I had been through it page by page years ago.

Book

The entry for that night, July 30th, was “Habits that Steal Precious Moments”:

Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever. – Horace Mann

………….

I really dislike fighting, in any form. Ever. I feel like there is always a better way to work through anything. To talk it out. To compromise. To truly look at the goal for whatever the issue may be and find a better way to get there.

It has been years though of fighting in some capacity, too many years with the father of my daughter. My first husband. Everything it seemed even from the get-go for us was and still is a challenge to work through together. To be on the same page. We try, we have the best of intentions. But it always seems a challenge. Last week, the time in Wisconsin was about taking care of final details of how our lives will all look going forward. I’m glad its over. I pray everyday we find some peace and create change for a better, more workable future and that in whatever strange way possible, our families can come back together. At our core is one little girl we all love with our entire beings. And I believe it is possible to still be friends.

The Cowboy and I also had a rough week while I was gone. It’s tough being apart from someone you want to be with so very much. And while we did it for the better part of two years while dating and even at the beginning of our marriage, it is different now that we are technically under one roof. There are issues I believe come up with many couples when one travels and the other is left home alone to take care of the day to day. It gets old, frustrating, questions arise that never would otherwise and the Cowboy sincerely had a tough time getting any work done with three children to care for and a demanding schedule. We needed to have some tough conversations in person now that I was home again.

Some of the partners I have in business right now are struggling to find a good working relationship, if they continue to work together at all.

It has been an emotionally exhausting past couple weeks. I don’t like to fight. Not because I can’t handle the content. I’m okay to hit tough issues head on. Take criticism. Discuss obvious problems versus ignore. But exhausting because I think there is always a better way to talk and think things through and move on.

I ground myself every God given day in the fact that we don’t get time back.  And in ever perpetuating a fight versus healthy conflict resolution, versus defining a goal and a reason for having the conversation/fight to begin with and getting quickly to the bottom of it and a solution, I believe fully in the final words of that post from the July 30th entry:

“..we only steal from our potential.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach

Out of bug spray.

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We stopped by a few stores on our way home yesterday. “Do you have any bug spray left, or After Bite?” I asked.

“No, we’ve been out for days and we’re not sure when more will be coming in. Everyone is out,” the woman I spoke with last yesterday said, shaking her head. She added, “I know a lot of the municipalities here, at least in the eastern part of South Dakota, are spraying right now to try and get it under control but nothing seems to be working. It’s just a really bad year.”

Arena Lights

It’s okay, I thought to myself. We had just stopped by the grocery store and I grabbed another bottle of vanilla.

……………….

A conversation about how bad the gnats are this year – not the flies or mosquitos – has temporarily replaced ‘how’s the weather’ it seems at just about every gas station, grocery store, softball game, pool visit or backyard party. At least for now. I’m not writing to complain about them or the fact I’m covered in bites and that the swelling still hasn’t gone down in my one eye after three gnats attacked a few days ago. Neither has the little neighbor girls who got bit in her eye yesterday too. (It seems the face and behind the ears is a delicacy for the little buggers.)

I’m simply writing to relay the two totally old school solutions everyone seems to swear by, because nothing else seems to be working.

1. Vanilla http://tinyurl.com/nr3j8dj

2. Dryer sheets http://tinyurl.com/cscayqo 

One of the neighbors says he knows quite a few famers in the area that put a dryer sheet under their hat each day before they hit the fields. Do either of them work? Far fewer bites last night after working for a few moments in the garden and being out all night with company and the horses. Our little neighbor said she loved it, no bites and she couldn’t believe how good it smelled. The smile on her face was priceless as she talked about it.

No guarantees, but perhaps the next time you’re under attack, one or the other might be worth a try.  And both seem to smell much better than the alternative.