Batmitton

It's almost spring. The snowdrifts are melting, and there is green grass underneath! Yaaaay, I can hardly wait. I must get out the ladder, though, and climb up to block a hole in the eaves of my house. It lets the bats enter my attic, then they sometimes make their way into the house.
I hate those things. I know they are good for the environment, but they're not good for my heartrate. The place was totally infested with them when we moved here. They migrate south in winter, but always return to their same hangout in summer up here in the north. Our house had rough pine lap-board siding on in, which provided an inviting roost for the vermin. It sounded like they were having a convention in there. Smelling worse than rats, they were making a big stink.
One of the first things I had the kids do after we got settled in, was to get up there and remove that siding. We have a walk-out basement on the east side of the house, so my son was up in the tractor bucket and my daughter was running the bucket controls from the seat of the tractor. JD would pull a board off the side of the house and the bats would pour out and swoop down on Jesi, as she swatted at them with her hat. What a fright.
I used to keep a ball cap and a badmitton racket by my bed. Often at night, after the lights went out, I'd hear swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, then I'd grab my hat and racket and take in after the bat. We had found a racket was the best way to get them. One little whack, and down they came. My son said we had invented a new game, Batmitton.
I was glad when we finally got them pretty much flushed out and I sealed up the attic. I killed two of them in the house last summer, however, so I was looking to see where they were getting in and I noticed one little board off the eaves. It doesn't have to be very big. Those darn things can flatten themselves out and go through a hole about a half-inch wide.
They'll be back around about April, so I've got a few weeks.

Crazy Coyote

I think I saw the strangest sight ever. A coyote must have tried to jump the right-of-way fence where my county road intersects the highway. Somehow, he got caught with his front and back leg on one side between the brace post and a tightly stretched wire. It was draped there, on top of the brace post, and you could see where it had rubbed hide off the side where the wire was holding it as it struggled to free itself. It was dead, of course, when I first saw it. It was a grizzly sight then. It was even more grizzly a few days later after the raptors had begun to peck on it. I would have thought someone had put it there, if not for the signs that it had struggled to free itself.

Coyotes don't bother me much, except they do sound eerie sometimes at night. I am, however, frightened of Mountain Lions, which have been spotted in the area. I haven't ever actually seen one, but I have seen tracks, and one of my mares came in all scratched up high on her back one time. I went around the fence to see if she had somehow gotten underneath it, but the scratch marks were pretty unmistakable. At the same time, the old stallion came in all stiff in his back end, like he had probably stood on his hind legs and fought the cat off her.


Sometimes I can just sense the nearness of a Puma by the way the horses are acting. They get all snorty and whirl and run at the slightest provocation, then turn and look with wild eyes.


One of my friends who lives about ten miles away said one night he kept hearing strange noises, so he would go out on the porch and look around, but saw nothing. It had snowed that night and when he went out the next morning, he saw big kitty tracks in the snow right in his front yard. He followed them and saw where the lion had been up on the low overhanging roof of his porch. Probably just waiting to pounce. Gives me chills just to think of it.


Recently, there have been some pictures circulating on the Internet of some mighty big Mountain Lions. One was taken by someone's motion sensor camera and shows a Puma stalking a deer right in the guy's yard. That cat is almost as big as the deer. The title of the email said, "Dead Deer Walking." Here it is.


I felt like I was being stalked by a lion once, which was probably only my imagination. I was putting up hay along the highway right-of-way one evening when my tractor broke down about four miles from home. Being the most sparsely populated area of the least populated county in the least populated state in the nation, the Lance Creek Highway doesn't have much traffic on it anymore, especially right at suppertime. So I started walking home. I decided it would be quicker to just follow the creek bed back to my house, so I hopped the fence. As darkness fell and I was strolling under the banks of Lance Creek, I began to think of the Mountain Lion that had been seen in the area. I began to get real uneasy as I hiked. You can bet I moved out from under that bank. In fact, I moved out from under the trees that grow along the creek, too. Afraid of the dark, no. Afraid of what's in it, maybe!

Solitude

My phone has been out since yesterday sometime. Being in the least populated county of the least populated state in the US, we are not high on the phone company’s list of priorities. Unfortunately, a land-line phone is the only thing that works out here. We are down in a little bowl that the cell phone signals seem to shoot right over. Which is kind of nice if you, like I, hate cell phones. When the land-line goes out, however, I am communications-challenged. That is why I signed up for Satellite Internet. It was the only way to go, especially after living in Cheyenne for five years with high-speed Internet access. I’d go mad if I had to revert to that old slow as a snail dial-up. As my neighbor said when he was checking the weather forecast on dial-up, “The weather could change before this comes up!”
Before I moved to Cheyenne six years ago, the phone company had been out to do a repair. They had to dig up a connection down by the creek and string some wire out on top of the ground for a temporary fix. Well, that “temporary” fix is still there, exposed connections and all. The cows and horses run through it. I reminded the nice phone man who came out to reconnect me when I moved home. “Yeah, we know about it,” he said, “we just haven’t had time to get back out and fix it.” Everytime we get a little moisture, the phone goes out, go figure.
So this is solitude. I just did an article on How to be Happy Despite Solitude for eHow. I thought I was a good candidate to be the expert on that one. I like my solitude most of the time. One of my brothers was teasing me about being afraid of the dark a while back. I told him if I was afraid of the dark, I sure wouldn’t be living out here.
When I was a kid, I was afraid of the dark. Growing up with eleven brothers and sisters would make you afraid of the dark. We had an out-house for a toilet until I was age 12. There were bushes, sheds, and a small irrigation ditch that we had to pass by to get to the out-house. Someone was continually hiding behind these in the dark, or lying down in the ditch, then popping out as us younger kids with a "boo" or a roar, when we were on the way. Lots of times, that made you not have to finish the trip! Just go back to the house and get dry clothes on.
My older sister often got stuck babysitting us younger ones, and she had a knack for telling ghost stories. She’d take us into a dark room and start in. Before you knew it, you were actually seeing the strange lights and hearing the noises she was describing. Sure kept us quiet, though it wasn’t too conductive to sleep. So, Linda, here’s to you, if you’re reading this. I can’t call you. I’m sure not going back outside to check the phone!

Waiting for Spring

I’m getting in trouble with my fans because I haven’t been blogging lately. That’s how some of my family know I’m still alive up here in the frozen north—if there’s a blog entry. I’ve been working on my other Internet writing projects this week. I was offered a 50% raise with my Thompson Gale Writers Project to write articles for Work.com, but the learning curve is steep. I have to adjust to a whole new style. And I get a by-line there, so go to Work.com and look for my articles when you have a minute.
This crazy weather. Today there was rain on top of the snow. I’m thinking our drought is nearly over. That’s very convenient with me moving back to the ranch with my herd of horses. It will be nice to have some grass for a change. I’ve been pitching TONS of hay. I had a truckload, that’s about 20 tons, hauled in after Thanksgiving, and I’m down to about five tons left. That grass can’t come too soon.
An old timer who had lived most of his life in the area told me not to expect to have grass until May. I guess it’s a good idea not to plan on it, but I have a feeling it’s going to be early this year.
A lot of the ranches are getting ready to start calving. I have one cow that is going to calve within a month or so. Then there are the four mares due to begin foaling in May. I can hardly wait. I just love the baby horses. They are addictive.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m being responsible by breeding any horses, the way the market is so overloaded right now. But I’ve waited all these years to begin my breeding program. And I have the best stallion. This will be his first crop of foals, but I have high hopes for them.
PJ (Permalight Junior) is a 16 hand sorrel stallion with the keenest
blaze down his face. It is a perfect diamond at the top, then tapers
between his eyes, then bulges out into another little diamond, then
tapers again to end in another small diamond on his nose. It’s very symmetrical and centered in his head. He has two tall white stockings on his hind legs and none on his front, which draws your eye to his perfect hind quarters. He has a super disposition which he inherited from his sire, and I expect he will also pass it on to his offspring. We shall see about that this spring. Here’s a picture of PJ with my favorite cowboy aboard.

Snake Boots

Speaking of boots and snakes. Another purpose for the high leather of the boot shaft covering the lower leg is probably to prevent snake bites to that area of the person. I remember my dad coming home from irrigating one day with the fangs of a rattlesnake hanging from the folded down top of his boots.
A little old snakebite would not have killed my dad. As a matter of fact, he lived through one once without even going to the doctor. I played a part in this scenario, although unwittingly. As my kids always say, "There was never a dull moment with you around!" I was out riding one afternoon. I used to range the hills and valleys around our place at will, and usually alone. Sometimes my twin brother would ride with me. But that day I had been gone for many hours and my dad got worried about me. He struck out in his very old, dilapidated two-wheel drive pickup looking for me. When I got back home it was nearing dusk, and dad was still gone. My sister and her husband had begun to worry about him. So we jumped in their truck and started to follow his tracks. It was nearly dark when we found him.
His old pickup had quit him not even a mile from home and he was just sitting there by the truck. We gathered him up and went back home because it was too dark to do anything about his pickup by then. Dad was limping and his foot was starting to swell, but he told us he had started to walk home and stepped off in a gopher hole. Sounded plausible, because there were lots of holes in the area where he was.
His ankle swelled up like a football in a matter of hours, but he wouldn't even talk about going to a doctor. He wrapped it with an ace bandage, got a bigger lace-up shoe and went to work the next day. A couple nights later, he asked me to re-wrap it for him, probably because his leg was so swollen, he couldn't bend over! As I was wrapping it, I noticed two neat little puncture wounds just below his ankle bone, spaced about as far apart as those fangs I had seen hanging from his boot a few years earlier.
“You didn't fall in a hole, did you?” I accused.
“No, but shhhh. I don't want to go to the doctor!”
I knew he had been bitten by a rattlesnake. His leg was all purple and yellow by then, but I figured he had lived that long, there was no point in telling on him. He was a tough old bird.
I guess his fear and loathing of doctors supassed his fear of dying from a rattlesnake bite. His phobia went way back to his US Army days when he had to have hernia surgery. They did it with only a local anesthetic, so he was awake and he could see the blood hitting the sheet they had over him.
My dad was a cowboy. He was a good hand with a horse. As a child, he rode a horse to and from school. He had several brothers and they would all ride to school together, playing tricks on each other to see if they could get someone bucked off. He said they had to stop and open a gate and close it, so they all took turns getting off for the gate. Many times, he said, someone would ride over and place a short stick under the tail of the gate person's horse as he was getting back on. That would make the horse buck, and they all thought that was great fun.
My dad liked school so much, and he wanted to go to high school, but there was not one close enough for him to ride his horse to, so he went through the eighth grade twice, to learn all he could. Then he went to breaking horses for the US Cavalry. He lived near Fort Laramie, Wyoming, and they would ride over to Fort Robinson in Nebraska and get unbroken colts from the Regiment there, trail them back to Fort Laramie, break them to ride, then trail them back to Fort Robinson. I think he told me they got $25.00 a horse, but that would buy a lot more back then. Sounds like fun to me.

This Cowboy's Hat

I finally figured out why cowboys wear that scarf around their necks. I had thought it was to keep their necks warm, or just for decoration, like a woman wears a necklace. But most cowboys I know don't care about being warm. They're cold all the time. And they don't care about adorning their bodies. It's to keep the hay from blowing down their shirts!
I've come to realize every part of the cowboy's gear has a very definite purpose. Some serve two or three purposes at once. Like the cowboy hat. It not only keeps the head warm in winter and cool in summer, it serves as an umbrella, keeping rain and sun from beating down on a bare head.
Chaps are to keep the legs warm and to keep the brush from tearing holes in the pants as the cowboy rides through. Cowboy boots not only protect the feet, they also protect most of the lower leg. The heel on the boot keeps the foot from sliding on through the stirrup and remaining there in a wreck, resulting in a man being dragged by a horse.
Lariat ropes are not only for catching things, they can be used for encouraging or discouraging, as the case may be. They can be used to shoo a bull or horse along, and come in handy for killing rattlesnakes, if you know how to use one for that purpose. There is a trick to that.
I learned that trick when we lived in Goshen County, near the river and Old Fort Laramie. The snakes would come down out of their dens in the hills on our ranch in the spring, heading toward the river, so our yard would be full of them. Then, in the fall, they'd make another pass through.
There's two good ways to kill a rattler. The best is with a rifle--a .22 will do. If you hold the barrel of the rifle as far away from you as you can, and as near to the snake's head as you can, they follow the nose of the barrel. All you have to do is pull the trigger, and blam; it takes their heads right off nearly every time. If you're out on a horse without a rifle, but you do have a rope, you can take the knot end of your lariat and play out about ten feet, then whip it up over your shoulder and nearly always land a blow to the snake's head, again because the snake follows the rope with his head, trying to strike at it. The trick is not to jerk the rope back at you in an instant, because the snake may have attached itself to the rope. I've even seen the fangs of a rattler come back on the knot of the rope. Yep, they got caught when the snake struck and it yanked them right out.
And, be careful. If you happen to hit some other part of the snake's body, then you've got a real mad snake on the loose.

Horses or Mules?

My daughter broke a few mules to ride while she was an undergraduate student at Texas A&M. She needed to make some extra money, and this guy had some mules he needed ridden. One of them almost killed her. I have never ridden a mule, but my dad used to have one. That was before my time. He used to swear they were the smoothest riding things one could climb on. Here's a mule story for you.
One day a farmer's donkey fell down a well. The animal brayed piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed shovels and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkeystepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!
Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a stepping stone. We can get out of the deepest holes just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.
Remember the five simple rules to be happy:
Free your heart from hatred - Forgive. Free your mind from worries - Most never happen. Live simply and appreciate what you have. Give more. Expect less. NOW ............Enough of that stuff. The donkey later came back and bit the farmer who had tried to bury him. The gash from the bite got infected and the farmer eventually died in agony from septic shock.
MORAL FROM TODAY'S LESSON: When you do something wrong, and try to cover your ass, it always comes back to bite you.
Boy, is that one ever true. Somebody close the gate.

Daughters and Horses

My daughter used to show horses in 4-H. She showed the grand champion mare at the Wyoming State Fair in 1996, after which, her feet never touched the ground for at least two weeks. A lot of my friends asked me why I worked so hard so that she could have horses. They said she’d get interested in boys and turn her back on the horses. Well, she’s 27 now, still single, and still working with horses. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Texas A&M with a Bachelors in Animal Science with an Equine Emphasis, then went on to get a Master’s degree in Equine Reproduction.

She worked as the brood mare manager for the richest woman in the world, the heiress to the Wal-Mart fortune, but now she’s decided she wants to be a veterinarian, to make the big bucks, so it’s looking like it’s back to school for another three years.

I actually got to meet Miss Walton while my daughter worked for her. I drove to Texas on a Memorial Day Weekend at her invitation. She took us to a fund-raiser for the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Fort Worth. Oh my, did I feel like a fish out of water pulling up to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in my flatbed Chevy truck to be greeted by a valet and walk up the red carpet they had laid out everywhere we were supposed to go. I’d never done valet parking before.

Miss Alice had bought a table for ten for $10,000 for dinner and Martina McBride in concert, then we got to see the premier screening of “Ride Around the World” in the adjacent Imax theater. It was great. They had a benefit auction and there was a horse there from the 6666 Ranch in Texas, where my daughter had worked one summer. She knew the cowboy riding the horse, and he even brought the horse into the dinner tent where he rode through the crowds and in around the dinner tables. That was one tame horse.

I made the richest woman in the world cry at that dinner. Miss Alice is very nice, and very down-to-earth. I was sitting between her and my daughter as we listened to Martina, who did a few happy songs, then launched into those tear jerkers that she does. I managed to hold my composure while she sang, "Concrete Angel," which usually makes me cry just hearing it on radio, then she broke out with a new one called, "In My Daughter's Eyes." I looked over at Jesi, then I lost it. Then I turned my head and looked at Alice, and she started crying, too! But she had recently lost a dear brother in a plane crash here in Wyoming, and I think that's what made her emotional, not me blubbering about my daughter's eyes.

Alice sold a weanling filly that was born while my daughter was her broodmare manager for the highest price ever fetched by a weanling quarter horse, $750,000. The filly was a daughter of Peptoboonsmal, a well-known cutting horse stallion. I actually got to pet that filly while I was there. (Should not have washed my hand.) I’d be grateful to sell one for $7,500. Actually, the red roan mare my daughter won Wyoming Grand Champion with is a better looking horse, in my biased opinion. Here's the link to Miss Alice's website http://www.waltonsrockingwranch.com/category/home/

Here's a picture of my daughter and her red roan mare.