Battle Stations!

I’ve talked before about how chasing steers is fraught with peril.  This is still a true statement, but I’ve come to realize that there is something worse.  Yes, fellow farm ladies...there is something worse than chasing cattle back in.

Sorting cattle.  I’m telling you...it’s worse.  

See, the thing is, if you have cattle that have escaped their pen, everybody involved (except maybe the cattle) know exactly what the game plan is:  get them back into their pen.   

I cannot count the number of times a quiet leisurely evening has been thrown into havoc by the statement, “The steers are out!”

You’ve seen television shows of a firehouse when the alarm goes off, right?  It’s kind of like that.  Everyone scrambles to make sure they have clothes on (although I have chased cattle in my nightgown before), then get some sort of footwear on usually hopping around on one foot trying to put the other shoe on.  Side note here:  flip flops are NOT good cow-chasing footwear.  

Often, clothes and shoes may be getting thrown on as people scramble out the doors to their battle stations.  Yes, battle stations, because my friends, it’s a damn war!  The marching orders are always the same:

• Keep them off the road so a passing car doesn’t hit one
• Keep them out of the field because once they are out there, it’s a whole new ball game and vehicles have to be employed (side note:  ask Molly sometime about the time her school friend was here watching this happen)
• Keep them out of Gramma’s yard or face the wrath!

An overview of our farm looks like this:

The red area is for baby calves; we’ll call that preschool.  The blue areas is for what we’ll call elementary school; calves that are not on milk anymore but not on full corn.  The pink area is high school; cattle that aren’t quite big enough for the adult world yet.  And the yellow area...that’s college.  Where the cattle hang out until they are big enough to fulfill their life’s destiny of becoming food.  

Oh, and that blue dot...that’s our house.  By that you can sort of gauge the size of and distance to the other points on the map.

In the event the college “kids” make a run for it, the battle stations (as you look at the map above) are in the grass between the steer yard and the house; between the garage and barn right near the light pole, and between the barn and the steer yard to keep them from running through OTHER fences.  

If battle stations can be manned before the errant animals get too far, a triangle is formed and the corners thereof keep moving inward until the steers are herded back where they belong.  

I won’t go into Stage II of the battle plan (fixing the fence) because that’s a whole different level of fresh hell.  

My point is...in that situation, everybody knows where to go, what to do, and when to do it.  We are a well-oiled machine (practice makes perfect, right?).

Now, sorting cattle on the other hand is nothing but a practical experiment in bad communication.

For reference, a larger image of the elementary school yard looks like this.  The two red arrows are the battle stations should this group decide to take a field trip.  This is actually the easiest of the battles because (if they are noticed in time), there really isn’t anywhere for them to go except back in their pen.

However, when animals need to be moved between the two pens in this area, someone must man the gate, which is that horizontal dividing line.  The gates are hinged on the outside perimeter and chained together in the middle.  They are each 8 feet long and weigh...well, more than I do.

So, enter the players:  Captain and me.  I get the gate job because Captain is the one who knows which ones need to be moved around.  As he meanders in and amongst a dozen or more riled up 300-pound calves, now kicking up their heels, he is most likely facing away from me.  I hear him say something, but given the noise level and Captain’s naturally quiet voice...I have no idea what he said, so I just stand there waiting for verification.

Turns out I was supposed to get out of the way to let this, that, or the other calf through the gate.  Well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me for not hearing you, dude!  Start over.

The next time, he is facing me which is extremely helpful when he says, “Let the black one out.”  Folks, these are Holsteins.  They are black and white and many times mostly black.  Buddy, WHICH black one?!

The one facing you!

There are three of them looking at me, all more than 50% black.  Can you be more [insert string of swear words] specific?

The one in the middle!

Okay, I can handle that, and we shoo him to the other pen.  

Repeat this scenario times three or four or six...depending on how many animals he wants to move around.  You can see why sometimes we are not on speaking terms, or if we are, there are death threats are being tossed about.  And just for the record:  no jury of my farm wife peers would convict me on that one.    

Do NOT get me started on trying to move the high school kids to college because that is an epic disaster nine times out of ten.  If you have a burning desire to hear about it, I’ll tell you in person someday.  It’s just too much to describe in words.  Besides, you get the idea.  

I guess I need to be grateful that we have livestock to take care of and are able-bodied enough still to do so, even when I’d rather do just about anything else.

Happy Trails!

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Do-Be, Do-Be, Do

I need to take a moment here to clear up some misinformation that I have been perpetuating for my entire married life.

The last movie Captain saw in a theater was NOT Rocky IV in 1985 as I have been saying for 30 years.  It was Youngblood in 1986.

Whew...glad we cleared that up!

This particular tidbit of information came up in conversation over the weekend when I told Captain that when Hidden Figures comes out on Netflix, I want him to watch it with me because I really think he would appreciate the historical content of it.  I saw it in the theater with some gal pals but would totally enjoy watching it again (and again and again).  

I promised him that I would give him the cast list, plot line, and backstory before we attempted to watch it so that he would not go through his usual litany of questions during the first 15 minutes of the film.  

His response to this?  “I don’t do that.”

Dude...I beg to differ.  In fact, I begged to differ so much that I bet some of my hard earned money that I could call one of both of our children and ask them “What happens when your dad watches a movie?” and both of them would give me the exact same verbiage.  

Captain took my bet and ran with it.  First he called Molly, and put her on speaker phone to ask her “What do I do when I watch a movie?”

Her answer was loud and clear, “You ask ‘Who is that?  Why are they doing that?  What is the point?  I don’t get it.’ and then you get up and walk away.”

As I was doing a happy dance around the kitchen shouting BOO-YAH, Captain told Molly she was crazy and hung up the phone.  I continued my victory boogie while Captain called Young Man.  The call went right to voicemail the first time, but rang through the second time.  

When Young Man answered the phone, Captain repeated his question and got this answer:  “You ask ‘Who is that?  Why are they doing that?  What is the point?  I don’t get it.’ and then you get up and walk away.”

Folks, there was absolutely no containing my glory.  Both fists pumped into the air with a shout of “Those are my kids!!” and I continued to bee-bop around the kitchen and dining room while Captain just shook his head and tried to stifle the chuckles.  

The thing is, Captain just doesn’t get why people spend two hours (waste two hours in his mind) sitting around watching fiction; it makes no sense to him.  Now, if it was a documentary...that’s another story.  He’s all about that.  More, though, he is about DOING things.  

Hence all of our rambles on Sunday afternoons.  To Captain, it’s much better to be out experiencing the world and all its glory than to just observe someone else’s experiences.  I can respect that.

Due to his aversion to all things cinematic, I have--by association--missed out on many movies.  I have never seen:

Ghostbusters

The Blues Brothers

Schindlers List

Caddyshack

Groundhog Day

Silence of the Lambs

But that’s okay because I have seen waterfalls, wildflowers, eagles, barges, veteran’s memorials, and many side and back roads around our region.  I may tease Captain for his anti-film philosophy, but I have to be grateful that because of it we have spent many enjoyable hours together exploring the world around us.  

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Amazing Women

Molly asked me the other night why I hadn’t blogged in so long.  I could have given her the pompous, egotistical answer and said I just wasn’t feeling it lately, but I gave her the honest answer which was that Captain hadn’t provided me any new material for awhile.  

She suggested I write about my wonderful daughter to which I replied “Good daughters come from great mamas.”  She told me that was an excellent blog topic and to get cracking.

That’s what I admire about Molly.  She has a fierce determination to accomplish her goals.  When she sets her mind on something, she goes after it with everything she’s got.  

When she decided she wanted to pursue a career in dental assisting, she studied hard, passed her practical exams, studied hard some more, and then passed her licensing exams.  When she decided she wanted to buy a house, she followed the steps.  She had appointments with her bank’s loan officer, she met with realtors, and she filled out paperwork.  She negotiated the terms of her purchase contract and made a good bargain on her house.  She had always said if she wasn’t married by 22, she was going to buy her own house and she did.  She possesses a strong will and an abundance of self-confidence.  I want to be her when I grow up.

Then I got to thinking about the other women in my life that I admire.

My mom is one of the most creative people I know.  She can sew like nobody’s business, and when she patched my kids jeans or snow pants they were the envy of the playground because she used a snowman shape or a baseball bat and ball instead of just a square or rectangle.  She made heirloom quilts for each of her children for their wedding.  When her first grandchild got married, she made a quilt for him too.  She is meticulous and exacting in everything she does.  There is none of this “that’s good enough” stuff for her!  It’s either done right the first time, or it’s redone until it’s right.  That kind of dedication is so admirable.  Beyond that, she has steadfast faith in God that is remarkable.  I want to be her when I grow up.

My daughter-in-law amazes me with her work ethic.  She holds down a full-time job and not one but two part-time jobs!  All this on top of being a wife and mother.  I’m pretty sure there isn’t a cookie recipe that she couldn’t master, she’s that kind of whiz in the kitchen.  Most of all, I love her sense of humor.  She always has a stash of witty one-liners ready to lighten up any gathering.  I want to be her when I grow up.

My mother-in-law is the epitome of strength.  She has experienced hardships that no mother should have to endure.  She held her family together during lean years by gardening, canning, and pitching in with chores.  She has an impeccable sense of style that I can never hope to emulate.  She is fiercely devoted to her family but makes room for a broad group of friends who mean the world to her.  I want to be her when I grow up.  

My granddaughter is the light of my life.  She has a well-developed sense of humor even at 2 years old.  She finds joy in the simple things whether it is petting Chewy or spinning in circles until she falls down.  She has a highly developed sense of compassion and empathy for someone so young.  She is aware of when someone is sad, and she does her best to make it “all better.”  I want to be her when I grow up.

I realize that I am surrounded by amazing women that I don’t think I have valued enough.  That stops now!  I will be grateful every day that each of these women is a part of my life, and I will continue to try and mimic those stellar qualities in them that I admire.  

My love and admiration to each and every one of them!!

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Gossip Girls

Do you remember the game Telephone from when you were a kid?  You know the one I mean where there is a line of, say, ten kids.  The first kid makes up something to whisper in the second kid’s ear like, “Susie spilled pink lemonade.”  The second kid whispers this in the third kid’s ear, and so on down the line.  It always ends up, somehow, that by the time the tenth kid hears it, the original statement has morphed into something like, “Stupid people drink gasoline.”  

The game is often used to illustrate to kids how rumors get started.  If you are hearing something secondhand or more, you can’t really trust it to be true.  This is also why hearsay is not allowed in a court of law.  

Captain can play this game all by himself and have the same result, sheet you knot!  What I say, what he hears, and what he repeats are three different things!

F’rinstance, I can make a casual, off-hand comment, “I’m going to your mom’s after work to help her order photo reprints online.”  I go through my day thinking nothing of it, but when I get to his mom’s house after work, I find her in a state of nerves because Captain told her, “Jude is tired of helping you with your computer stuff.”  And he told her this because when I said I was doing this, he heard “Your mom is helpless and expects me to fix things for her.”  

I ask you, friends, how does ONE person get from point A to point C on that???

Before you think that I’m being overly critical of Captain--which has been known to happen--this is not a one-off deal.  It’s habitual enough that Young Man and Molly are loathe to give him a message for me; they’ll come to me directly.

This whole rumor/gossip thing is pertinent because we have, at various points in our life, been a hot topic on the grapevine.  I’m here to testify that finding yourself in that position is not pleasant.  

However, sometimes misconstrued or misrepresented information can be humorous.  

You remember we met Big Brother, and his wife, Annie, for dinner and drinks during our weekend in Stillwater.  This resulted in a hangover on my part, which I promptly relayed to Annie via text.  Lo and behold, the text I got back said I wasn’t alone in my misery; she’d suffered ill-effects as well.  We both got a chuckle out of it.

Later in the day, during the course of a separate conversation with Baby Brother’s wife, Mae, I joked about Annie’s and my experience.  Mae decided to do some teasing about it and texted Annie:  “So I hear you got so plastered when you were out with the Brogans that you threw up at the restaurant and got kicked out!”

Now, Annie’s sense of humor is a good match for Mae’s, so the response to this good-natured ribbing was, “Nooooooo!  This is how rumors spread!  All I did was kick over a bar table, punch the waiter, stole the veil off the bachelorette party girl, and THEN they kicked me out.  But I did NOT throw up at the bar...no way.”

I ask you, how lucky am I to have two such fun-spirited ladies as my sisters?!  The fact that no one threw up just adds to my illustration that rumors, misinformation,and  gossip all spread like wildfire even when there is no basis in fact.  And, sadly, sometimes the misinformation is perpetuated not in good humor and fun like Mae and Annie did.  No, more often, it is done out of spite and a general mean-spirited nature.

I’ll close with something I remember reading in young adult book series.  The girl who was the center of the story told a fib about someone.  The fib took on a life of its own and ended up damaging the reputation of the person she’d fibbed about.  

Her mother came to her with a dandelion that was all fluff, and she told her daughter to blow the fluff into the wind.  Once the fluff was floating away to all corners of the earth, the mother told her daughter, “Now go gather up all the fluff and bring it back.”

Obviously, this was an impossible task, which the daughter pointed out.  The mother told her daughter, “Lies are like the dandelion fluff.  Once it is spread, you can’t get it back.  So don’t spread it in the first place.”

I realize there are whole TV stations/shows dedicated to gossip, innuendo, and speculation.  However, as a civilized society, I challenge us to dedicate ourselves to being harbingers of truth instead.  

On that note, I will close with a quote from Mark Twain.  “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

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Action and Reaction

They say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  I take that to mean you should head off potential problems at the pass before they become actual problems.

Captain takes this to mean that some guy who maybe smoked a little too much weed had way too much time on his hands and made up a stupid saying that would give his--Captain’s--wife some ammunition for nagging him.

In our world, I am the impulsive/proactive one and Captain is the methodical/reactive one.  That seems sort of mutually exclusive, doesn’t it?  

Let me expound.

I am the one who goes to the grocery store and just throws crap in the cart so I can get the hell out of dodge.  That’s impulsive.  Captain is the one who compares the price per unit, nutrition label, and sale prices.  That’s methodical.

Yet, I am the one who will want to get new tires on the truck when the tread gets worn down to a certain level.  That’s proactive.  Captain will wait to get new tires after he has had a flat tire.  Three times.  In the same tire.  That’s reactive.

I don’t know if this is a guy thing or just a farmer thing or even just a Captain thing.  All I know is, sometimes it is annoying.  Captain’s most famous comeback for anything is “It’ll be fine.”  I’m thinking of having his headstone engraved with “Well, it’s not fine, is it?”

Conversely, Captain is also the one who goes into instant crisis mode over inconsequential things like spilling some milk on the counter.  We all know what they say about spilled milk, right?  Captain doesn’t just cry over it, there is much wailing, gnashing of teeth, and self-degradation involved.

Dude, cut the prima dona act and just wipe up the freaking milk and move on with your life.  

If Captain is present and you get a paper cut, he will try and convince you to go to the emergency room for a tetanus shot because you could die.  If you are with Captain and you get a major gash on your shin because you miscalculated and walked right into the hitch on the back of the truck...he will tell you one of two things:  (1) It’s a long way from your heart or (2) It will be better by the time you get married.  But he will try and convince you to go to the doctor for a tetanus shot anyway.  

He’s like Jekyll and Hyde, and we are never quite certain who will show up for the party on any given day.  Keeps life interesting.

If he happens to walk past my home office door and I am mumbling under my breath about anything, nine times out of ten he will say “Do you want me to call someone and reprimand them?”  

Sure, call Bill Gates and tell him Excel isn’t always a user-friendly program and it makes my life miserable sometimes.  You get right on that and let me know how it works for you.  

In deference to fair play, I will say that people don’t always know which Mrs. Captain will show up to the party, either, but I blame that on menopause.  Such a handy catch-all for bad behavior!

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Re-rax, Raggy!

It was so nice to get away this past weekend!  We really needed some R&R and exploration time.

We were on the road Saturday morning by 10:30 heading north.  We were keeping a close eye on the Facebook page for the Hudson Hot Air Affair to see if they would be launching the balloons at 3 p.m. as scheduled.

In the meantime, though, we thought we’d cross another state park off our bucket list, so we found Ft. Snelling state park right underneath the Mendota Bridge!  I’ve been over that bridge hundreds of times in my life and never knew there was a state park down there.

We poked around the visitor center for awhile reading about the Dakota (Sioux) Indians that were held there after the 1862 U.S.-Dakota conflict.  We learned some interesting, if disturbing, tidbits of Minnesota history.  

We wanted to walk on the trails for a bit since the sun was out and it wasn’t horrible cold, but they were all closed due to compacted snow on top of ice making dangerous walking conditions.  

Instead, we wound our way around and over to Minnehaha Falls.  Apparently we weren’t the only ones who thought this would be a grand way to spend a Saturday afternoon as parking was at a premium and there were people everywhere!  I had to kick myself for forgetting to bring my camera, but I got some decent shots with my phone.  

From Minnehaha Falls, we headed east toward Stillwater and our hotel.  It was too

early to check in yet, so we meandered down into Stillwater and had lunch at a little cafe on the southern edge of town called The Oasis.  The billboard outside announced they had “the best burgers in Stillwater,” and I have to say I’d agree with that!  

While we were there, we checked the Facebook page for the latest scoop on the balloon launch and were disappointed, but not surprised, that they were not launching due to high surface wind speeds.  

With full and happy tummies, we continued on into Stillwater to pick up some flavored olive oil for a friend at the Stillwater Oil & Vinegar store.  By that time, it was time to check into the hotel.  

We got checked in and headed to room and realized that a traveling girls’ hockey team was also staying there, so it was a bit noisy, but kids will be kids.  We opted to stay in the room and fat-ass it watching HGTV.  I know, nerds through and through, aren’t we?

We got ready and went to meet Big Brother and his wife at Nacho Mamas in Stillwater.  We’d eaten there a few years ago and had great food.  I guess word got around because the wait for a table was over an hour.  We opted to go to a bar/grill across the street called Rafters--due to being on the second floor of an old brick building.  

We found a table in a back room where nobody else was seated and proceeded to visit over dinner and drinks for over three hours!  When the waiter came to tell us they were closing that section of the restaurant, we simply moved to a different table out in the bar area and visited for another hour and a half.  I think we solved most of the world’s problems that night!

By the time we got back to the hotel, I was more than ready for my jammies and my bed.  I don’t sleep well in hotels because Captain likes to go to sleep with the TV on, which not only makes it hard for me to go to sleep, it wakes me up later in the night.  In fact, I got up twice to turn the stupid TV off as Captain snored away in bed.  Still, I did manage to get some sleep.

When I rolled out of bed Sunday morning, I looked at Captain and told him I must have slept funny because I had a monster headache.  He informed me I was hungover.  Bite your tongue, buddy!  I haven’t had a hangover in more than ten years, how dare you say such a thing.  Turns out he was right, but Advil, coffee, and a blistering hot shower did the trick.

We got packed up and checked out and then headed into Stillwater again just to drive through the town and by the river.  We always like to take little detours off the beaten path like that.  There were so many beautiful old homes on the side streets of Stillwater.  Some had big wraparound porches, some had towers, and one had a widow’s walk.  Cool!

From there we headed south toward Hastings and made a stop at Afton state park, so we got two checked off the list this trip.  We did some more “hiking” on the trails which was really more slipping and sliding, but it was so darn nice to be outside in the fresh air and sunshine.  I’d been starting to feel like a mole person after the gloomy weather in January.  

We stopped for lunch in Hasting and then kept heading east to Ellsworth for cheese curds before heading home.  We stopped in at Young Man and Mama Bears to share a bag of cheese curds and get our Cubby fix for the week.  

All in all we weren’t gone 36 hours, but we packed a lot of fun into that time.  We’ve never been ones for one- or two-week vacations; we’d get bored.  But short bursts of R&R close to home does the trick for us!

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Lamentations

Part of the concept I have for my book is to include a scripture verse with each chapter, so I asked two of my peeps to search and find appropriate and relevant verses for each chapter.

One of my scripture seekers entered the actual verse as well as the chapter:verse reference in a shared document, and one of them wrote down the chapter:verse references and gave them to me.

I'm ashamed to say, I haven’t looked up bible verses since my confirmation days, so the first step was to find our bible.  Once I laid my hands on it, I got down to work looking up verses.  I found out that it doesn’t take long to remember what I learned in Sunday School, and soon I was reciting the books of the bible in order in my head as I looked up verses.

Then I came to one reference for a book I didn’t remember:  Lamentations.  I had to consult the table of contents for this one, then flipped through the Old Testament to find it between Jeremiah and Ezekiel.  

As I scanned through the chapters of Lamentations, I realized that this particular book of the bible could have been written for Captain, who is the champion of gloom and doom in our world.  Seriously, he is a cross between Eyeore, Piglet, and Oscar the Grouch.  Instead of a tur-duck-en, he is an Eye-pig-car.  

Take, for instance Lamentations 1:20, “See, O Lord, how distressed I am!”  Or one verse later, “People have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me.”  For Eye-pig-car, it would be more like, “That’s okay, take the last pork chop.  I’ve been hungry before, I’ll be hungry again.”  

At this time of year with the excitement of Christmas long gone and the dark, dreary days of January upon us with nothing to look forward to until St. Patrick’s Day, it’s easy to fall into a routine of complaining; lamenting, if you want to be biblical about it.  That's why you haven't seen a blog post for nearly a month. Nothing I was coming up with was remotely uplifting, humorous, or thought-provoking. Nope, it was all whine, bitch, complain--lamentations! So I spared you that and waited out the crabbies.

For many years, we have tried to it make a tradition to get away for a weekend in late January or early February.  It seems to break up the monotony and gloom of winter so we can survive until spring.  We are never gone more than 24 hours, and oftentimes less than that, but somehow it is enough to recharge and rejuvenate.

A couple of years ago, we went to A Hot Air Affair in Hudson, Wisconsin.  We stood and waited in the chilly afternoon for the hot air balloons to launch, but the weather was not cooperating.  We thought we’d try it again this year, but if the weather forecast is anywhere near accurate, we will once again not see the balloons launch.  

That doesn’t mean we won’t have things to do, mind you.  We might visit the Minnesota History Center if it’s too unpleasant to be outdoors, or we might visit Minnehaha Falls if the weather cooperates.  We are for sure going to 4:00 mass at the cathedral in St. Paul and then meeting Big Brother and his wife for dinner and drinks.

Either way, we will be doing something fun without the daily routine of work and chores getting in the way which just makes me happy!

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