Irish Yoga

It surprises me how many people comment about the age of my children. “Only a couple more years and it’ll just be the two of you. You won’t know what to do.” Well, this week was kind of a dry run.

Andie moved to Orlando. Laurel and Varsha are on their way to D.C. The boys have been at Chadron State football camp. Forgive me, I’m a man. I spent the first day of just the two of us for the first time since 2010 thinking, “OHHHHH Yeah!!!”

We got up early and brought the last batch of pairs in from the home pasture. We sorted and hauled most of the day, the cool breeze turning to a hot baked wind by late afternoon. But, I’m a man of focus, and I’m not letting cattle, or weather, or fixing the sprayer and rolling up the last of the wire side track me. I’m headed for the house on a mission, and you can imagine how utterly happy I was when my lovely bride offered me a glass of wine.

Some of you will remember what happened with my last glass of wine over a year and a half ago. I was even less prepared this time. I was so focused on my day that I think I stopped at the house around noon and had a bit of salad. On an empty stomach and most likely dehydrated I smilingly raised my glass and drained it. The next thing I know, I’m laying on the living room floor doing Irish yoga.

I couldn’t feel my teeth and I was singing, “Riunite and it feels so good, Riunite and it’s understood.” I have to tell you, I’m somewhat surprised and embarrassed about how much of that song I know. Sometime, during my serenade, Allison went to bed, but she left me in the living room in the ‘Drunken Dog’ pose. I was on my knees, backside up in the air, arms extended back with palms up, head facing to the right in a little puddle of drool.

That’s the position I was in when my phone woke me. Now, when my phone rings after 9 pm, I freak out a little. No one calls me after 9, except when my kids are scattered to the four corners of the world and it must be an emergency. I’m up and scrambling for my phone, but my arms are asleep, so I just flail them at the phone like pool noodles. I succeed in knocking my phone across the kitchen floor.

If I wasn’t so stubborn and cling to the past so tightly, I’d have a smartphone and could at least have answered it with my nose or face recognition or something, but, noooo, I still have a blasted flip phone. I dive on the floor and start pushing it around trying to bite it or bang it against the cabinets with my head hard enough it might pop open.

For the second time, the phone says “Call from 308…”, I only have about one ring left and it goes to voicemail. I spin around and get hold of it with my toes and pry it open. I desperately throw myself towards the speaker and shout, “What is it?!” A perky voice answers, “Hi! This is Heather. You’ve qualified for a six night stay at the resort of your choice.”

I start SPEAKING IN TONGUES! I have no one to interpret it but the dog, and she must have known what I said because I saw her scooching toward the stairs on her belly.

Stay sober friends, and have a romantic weekend. I’m sleeping on the couch.

Love is, well, …..

Love is in the air. Valentine’s, prom approaching, and the annual spring teenage twitterpation is all gaining momentum. It’s usually accompanied by drama. I’m not good at dating advice. As a parent and coach, my suggestion would be to ban any interaction between the sexes until they’re in their mid-20s. I suppose that’s unrealistic, but it’s seems like a good idea. Since that probably won’t happen, I shall continue to worry about my kids (biological and sports) dating and fret equally about their relationships.

Someone needs to tell them they could wake up in the bed of a truck with a splitting headache and a broken heart, clinging to an empty Mad Dog 20/20 bottle, wondering why they only have one shoe. It’ll only seem worse when you look over the side of the pickup and realize you’re in the middle of nowhere with a dead battery because Randy Travis sang you and your truck to sleep.

You’ll have a lot of time to reflect walking barefoot down the road. You will distract yourself with strange thoughts like.. Why did Roy Orbison die so young? Why did the Cars quit recording? Which album is truly Def Leppard’s best? While concentrating that hard on forgetting someone, it scares the crap out of you when the sheriff asks, “How’s it going?”

After you climb back out of the ditch, you will stand there together, looking out in the field at your pickup. You know there’s a laundry list of offenses he could write you up for, but you spill your guts and there is a good chance he’ll jump your vehicle and give you directions home….. I guess. That’s all purely speculative, but it’s the best advice I have for today’s teens. If Tyler finds himself in this situation, he’s on his own because he’s officially old enough to know better.

Bigfoot?

Well, it’s 6:30 and I’ve had a pot of coffee and a couple hours to think about it. I didn’t sleep that well. Dogs in dogs out. Dreamed I was hauling hay from north of town, one stinking bale at a time. Woke up wondering if the dogs were being jerks because the cows might be out.

Then I heard it. 4am and the strangest yeowlly growly sound is coming from down by the mailbox. It’s getting closer and closer and louder and louder. I got out of bed and opened the curtains and there it was.

I could just make it out in the pale moonlight, a giant ROUS. Those of you that aren’t fans of Princess Bride, an ROUS is a rodent of unusual size. This guy is about two feet tall, pretty long, walking slowly through the front yard.

Like any normal person would do, I put on my muck boots, grabbed my spotlight and ran outside to look at it. I’m standing in the yard, 4am, boxers, muck boots and lamp, thinking, “This is not how I want the authorities to find me.” Went back in, put clothes on. By now Will is up because whatever it is is standing outside of his window making the strange noise. I head out the back door and can’t see it because it rustled out into the trees. I’m so disappointed. I’m sure I’ve found an actual ROUS, or maybe the elusive link between reptile and mammal, after all it walked like an alligator but had hair.

Allison is up by now. She heard the noise and I’ve explained to her what I saw. Now, she’s been sucked into too many of my misadventures (think alien abduction, etc) and lived with the overactive mind of a 6 foot six year old for too many years to believe it was a woolly alligator. She methodically debriefed my morning escapades, and after listening to animal sounds on the computer, I’m sorry and somewhat embarrassed to admit, it was a large porcupine. Dang it anyway.

COFFEE!!

F J

They say addicts don’t even realize when they’re addicted to something until it’s too late. I learned that the hard way this morning. I wasn’t always a coffee drinker. It all started about ten years ago. A cup here, a cup there, always prefering tea or cocoa. But at 5:30 am, there I was, staring at a broken Mr. Coffee.

I went into the textbook stages of grief. Denial-“No, this can’t be happening!” Anger-“Work,Work, WORK, you son of a motherless goat!” Then I started poking the on/off switch. Bargaining- “Please, please, please, please, please.” I sat on the floor holding the lifeless shell, rocking back and forth, caressing it -Depression.

Finally, I decided I didn’t really NEED coffee. It was just a habit, a motion, absolutely unnecessary. I could accept this and move on like a grown up. So I put three tablespoons of coffee grounds on my cereal and started my day.

Decisions, decisions

It’s funny how the mundane can instantly become exciting or terrifying or a combination of both. For example, I was raking hay early, way before the coffee kicked in. It’s hypnotizing watching the hay roll down the V-rakes into a nice big windrow. It’s exciting when the rake picks up a large snake and catapults it toward the operator.

I was looking back and the snake came out of the rake like a 100 mph fastball out of a pitching machine. He was totally stretched out and headed right for me. I was trapped under the steering wheel but I was wide awake and formulating an escape plan.

Thankfully, he fell just short of the tractor. He was squirming around trying to right himself and I was trying to slow my heart rate back down when the rake caught up to him. Here we go again.

The snake was airborne and I felt his chances of getting to my seat were improving. This was not how either of us had planned our day. I figured he was probably sleeping away the morning under a nice cool windrow and now he was flying, being chased by a steel swirling monster, and his only chance of survival was to join the guy that was dancing.

Dancing is a bit of a stretch, but you can drive a tractor standing backward on the hood, steering wheel in one hand balancing with the other. He missed the tractor for the second time, but I made the executive decision to abandon ship if he came at me again.

It was a relief on the third attempt he was towards the end of the rake and didn’t get nearly as close and finally went through. I sat back down in my seat and realized I had performed the entire show fifty feet from I-80. If they didn’t see the snake, I can only imagine what they were thinking.

Bad Bull, No, No!

Dad loved to tell stories. I guess it rubbed off on me a little. In honor of Father’s Day, I will share one of his favorites. To set the stage a bit, Dad and Cal were checking pastures and had arrived at the replacement heifers. They were a beautiful set of registered purebred Angus heifers and Cal’s pride and joy.

The goal with heifers is to breed them to a smooth shouldered, easy calving bull that, come spring, the calf will just fall out when the heifer sneezes. This particular day, standing in the middle of those heifers, was the biggest, ugliest, over-muscled Charolais bull you have ever seen.

It could have been Cal’s vision of C-sectioning all his heifers. It could have been the thought of little white calves trotting around his black cows the following spring. It could have been the empty bag of nibs and Baby Ruth candy bar wrappers, but something snapped.

That Charolais had run the little heifer bull off to the creek, and he wasn’t about to give up his new found harem without a fight. Cal roared up to him with his old green GMC, honking, beating the door, and screaming things I just can’t write. The bull was up for the challenge. He blew snot, threw dirt, and head butted the front bumper. The 350 in that old Jimmy just about crawled out of the hood and Cal started winning the pushing match.

The bull decided to run and the chase was on. Cal would bust that bull right in the backside and send him end over teacups. The bull would right himself, take off on the run, and Cal would get him again. About the third time the bull got rolled, he waded out into the creek.

I will interject a note here. I’ve seen several bulls fight down on the creek, and apparently, the creek is sanctuary. When the bull that is losing wades into the creek, the fight’s over. Not that day.

That ol’ Charolais was standing out in the creek, panting, trying to recover, when Cal jumps out of the pickup and grabs a shovel. Unfortunately for the bull, it wasn’t blind rage, because Cal saw him just fine and brought the shovel down right between the bull’s eyes. The bull dropped like a rock.

Cal got back into the pickup and he and dad watched the bull struggle to his feet and stagger out of the creek and limp towards home. Dad says “You gonna tell ’em?” I can’t put Cal’s response in quotes, but it was along the lines of ‘no, they’ll just think he was in a bull fight’. “Are you kidding?” This was always dad’s favorite story ending…..”It says GMC on his ass, and Sears & Roebuck is stamped on his forehead! Somebody’s gonna notice.”

“Pardon me, I thought you were someone else.”

*WARNING–This post will be a little more PG than usual, but it was funny. I’ve got a bucket calf that spent the spring with the first calf heifers. When I would grain them in the morning it was a supplemental buffet for the calf. He would just walk behind them and help himself to breakfast while they ate. They went to pasture last week and I had put the calf out in the home pasture with some old cows, hoping he could steal a little from them.

He got bored or hungry because he showed up in the yard to help me do chores this morning. I’ve got a set of replacement heifers that get their corn every morning in the bunks like the cows did all spring. The calf perked right up and headed down the line of heifers checking each one out. No bag, no bag, and so on.

Well, Big Mac is in with the heifers and was at the bunk too. He’s just a yearling, so he’s the same size as the heifers. The calf peeked between Big Mac’s legs and the brakes went on. He bowed his neck down and I swear he said “Aha!” I leaned on a post and said to the cat, “This could be interesting.” I formed two hypothesis; 1. The bull is going to kick that calf into next week or 2. That bull is going to tear out a bunch of fence.

The calf squared up and went in with a vengeance. Big Mac’s head came straight up out of the bunk. His eyes were as big as saucers. He stopped chewing and a few kernels of corn fell out of his mouth. He stood stock still except for his ears. They started twitching back and forth to what I can only assume was the rhythm of the suckling calf.

After a few moments the bull looked slowly up and down the line of heifers, and I just know he was asking if anybody else noticed anything different about breakfast this morning. Then he put his head down and started eating again. It wasn’t what I expected, but my scientific conclusion is that the teenage male, no matter the species has only two concerns, sex and food.

Public Safety Announcement

This is a PSA. Be careful out there campers. This morning I went out to tag calves. I grabbed a new baby, threw him down, plopped down on him and reached for the tagger. Next thing I knew, mamma was doing that break dance move where you spin on your head, only she was on my ribs.

After a couple circles I spun out of the pocket to my right, looking for some running room. I thought I was going to make it but the pursuit was hot. She put her head right between my shoulder blades and planted me in not the softest part of the calving lot. She skidded across me and came to a stop about 15 feet away.

I got up on my knees and discovered I had landed right by my calving kit, which was still intact. A quick inventory and I found I was still in one piece. She was standing there huffing at me, but I was feeling kind of cocky for living through that, so I laughed and told her, “HA! You big turd, you didn’t even knock my hat off.” The snot flew and she went 0-60 right now.

I’m going to brag a little, because I hurdled the feed bunks and a four wire barb wire fence, in my coveralls, carrying the calf kit. Sometimes, it’s all about incentive. I thought I could use a little sympathy, so I went in and told my sad story to Allison. She said, “Oh the poor thing, she’s just hormonal. She’ll calm down in a day or two.” What?! She about hormoned me into next week. Sheesh, I feel like Rodney Dangerfield.

Eight Dollar Wine

I’m just not a confrontational person, so when things started heating up last night, I decided to have a cup of tea and watch something funny. While waiting for my water to boil, I eyed a bottle of wine Allison had brought home to use in a recipe. I haven’t partaken of the spirits in years, but I thought about politics, and decided they could drive a man to drink.

Next thing I know, I’m on the couch watching WKRP in Cincinnati with my favorite snowman mug filled to his scarf with ‘Award Winning’ wine. Not sure what the award was for. Maybe, ‘Award winning wines under $8’ or ‘Award winning wines grown with hydroponic grapes in Fargo’ or ‘Award winning wines in aisle 4 at Walmart. Anyway, it seemed nice, with a fruity bouquet and a hint of ‘nuttiness’, but that could have been the porcelain cup.

About six dollars into that bottle, I decided to watch Episode 7, Turkeys away! That, my friends, is arguably the best 25 minutes in television history. I laughed, I cried. It was an emotional roller coaster. When Mr. Carlson said, “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly”, I nearly fell off the couch.

Frosty looked at me, a little purple stain on his carrot nose, and said, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” I said, “You’re right, I’m going to bed.” I forgot the bedroom is 200 yards from the couch, uphill, and slightly tilted. I braced my left arm on the wall and inched upwards. Once in a while, I’d stop and wildly wave my right arm in big circles. Mercifully, I reached the bedroom, but someone replaced my bed with a giant tilt-a-whirl.

I did fall asleep, but Allison must have found the empty bottle and been horribly put out that I drank her ‘Award winning wine’, because based on how I feel, she must have tied me to the pickup and drug me across the pasture.

The lesson-Don’t drink with snowmen on election night. Otherwise, did I miss anything?

It’s Hot!

The snow is beautiful. There’s ten or more inches piled on everything in the yard. Outside of the trees, the thirty mile an hour wind we got with the storm made some impressive drifts. It’s not cold, so it’s not miserable, just slow. Everything takes longer, especially with heavy wet snow.

I got paths scooped to bins and buildings, bunks scooped and everybody fed their grain. Haying was a trick. I drove the loader tractor a ways, then dug it out with my trusty shovel and mutt scraper. It’s not a bad cardio workout. I took the girls on the pivots a couple bales. By the time I had dug the tractor out twice and got to the gate farthest from the pickup, because the drifts were too big to use the close gates, I was getting warm (In more ways than one).

The gate popped right open, but for some reason, after I fed, I lacked about two inches from hook to loop. I didn’t have any tools, and the fence is hot both ways, so the gate was hot and the loop was hot. I hate getting shocked.

I know some of you guys are tougher than me and would have just grabbed it, taken a couple hits, and hooked it up. Not me, I found a little plastic ice scraper in the tractor and tried a dozen different ways to pry, pull, or push the gate close enough to hook. On my last attempt, I had the gate handle in my left hand, and was trying to push the fence loop towards the hook on the scraper handle. I was SO close. I gave it just a little pelvic thrust to get that last fraction of an inch.

I’m standing in a foot of wet snow, sweating bullets, coat, hat and gloves off. I went to ground and I went to ground the last place I wanted to go to ground. NEVER pelvic thrust an electric fence. That Gallegher 30 mile charger sucked the breath and nearly the life out of me. I dropped to my knees and tried to throw the handle. It made two circles around my wrist and the hook caught in the hammer loop of my coveralls. Now I’m basically tied to the fence and every second and a half it’s alternating shocking my hand and leg. I can’t catch my breath to even cry out.

The cows think I’m playing charades. “Oh, Oh, Oh, a fish on the ice!” “No,no,no, he’s doing the worm.” “He’s MC Hammer!!” When I got loose, I noticed I had made the craziest snow angel you’ve ever seen. I staggered to my feet, I didn’t care anymore, I grabbed the fence and hooked it up. I climbed up into the tractor, kind of weak kneed, and sat there thinking I could use a cigarette. I’ve never smoked. Seems odd.