Gettin’ Old, This Adventure Called 'Life' Continues, However…………..

[Gary O]

Well, Rick, it was as good this time as it was a year ago.

Cheers to you, sir.

[Gary O]

I'll Never Forget My Best Friend

I was three.
He was a few months.
Neither of us had much to play with....but each other.
We never lacked.

He'd look up at me with complete unwavering trust.
Trying to read my face.
Ears perked up when I spoke.
Wherever I went, he followed.

He rapidly grew, and soon we were face high to each other.
We'd roam the patch of woods up the hill from our place, him guarding my every step, sometimes blocking my way when I got too close to the cliff edge. I didn't know it at the time.

I'd take my naps nestled into his chest.
He'd lie there, never moving a muscle.

As I grew to boyhood, he remained a part of me, my shadow.
We'd wrestle....he'd let me win.

We'd hunt.

We'd fish.

Not that he took part.
He was no hunting dog.
Just my companion.
We'd share lunch.
He'd listen, as we sat on the creek bank.

Years passed.
I got very busy, but not so busy that we wouldn't still roam the woods every so often, even though he had a bit of a time keeping up.
The day came when he just didn't get up.

I was sixteen.

Mom told me to take him in to the vet.
'He'll be able to fix him up.'
I gathered him up and laid him in the passenger's seat of the pickup, right beside me, and we had one of our conversations while I drove the twenty miles.
It had been awhile.
Too long actually.


I sat on the stool beside the exam table, while the vet did his thing.
Once again my best friend and I were face high to each other.

The vet was talking with my mom.
He handed me the phone.
It was time.
He had to be put to sleep.

OK, I brought him in to get fixed up, and now he's going to be put down....just like that.
I was told I had to leave the room.

Like hell.

I held his face with both hands, and his ears perked up as we had one of our conversations, telling him the reality.
I cradled his head, holding it to my chest, not moving a muscle until he went to sleep.

Even though the wipers were going, I had a hard time seeing through the rain drops on the way back home.

I'll never forget my best friend

[rick91351]

Thanks for sharing my friend ......... about your old friend. 

Certainly about those were the best of times, those were the worst of times.

rlr

[Gary O]

Henry

I feel as though I'm on the set of the last half hour of Papillion, or the movie Life.
Just said g'mornin' to Henry for the gazillionth time.
He's been an employee at this fine establishment since the doors opened, before even me, of which I'm regarded as the furniture. We are both a bit slower of foot and noticeably grayer since we first met.
We have light conversation...about gardening, the weather, our offspring.

He's a bit short on words.
Been thru a gaggle of engineer regimes.
Been in charge of what we call the process room forever.
It's where we encapsulate, vacuum varnish, mold, and do all the dirty work.....the dirty work that takes a mad scientist to coordinate all the tanks, racks, and ovens to yield product (as our brochure says) 'in a timely manner'.
For him, it's a symphony, and he's the conductor.
Patience his not his strong point.
He's 'hard to work with'.
Whenever an upstart engineering manager approaches him about a certain process (more like begging for an answer, so he can document the procedure in the build book), his usual reply is, 'You're the engineer, you tell me....ah...hahahahahaha'.

He can be seen on any given day, meticulously scraping out the last drop of epoxy in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket....'It's expensive'.

About ten years ago I had to take him in to counsel.
He'd made a production worker upset, to the point of tears.
We all knew he was just being Henry, harsh words were how he communicated.

I sat with him and the production manager, and explained to him about how he represented our company, and therefore an example, blather blah, blah, blather.
I guess he took every one of my words to heart.
I guess I dressed him down, took him to his inner core, because he began to weep.
It really took me off stride, as I was just building momentum, not even getting off my final salvo.
It confirmed what I'd learned sometime before.
Gruff crusty people, folks with chips on their shoulders, that once the armor of their defense is removed, will just fall apart.
I guess he was more than motivated that day, because motivation lasts only a short time, but he has yet to come off so harsh, as he'd been so many times before.

He is not articulate in the English language.
Someone once mentioned to me that 'Henry sure speaks funny'.
'Yeah, he speaks funny like that in seven languages.'

He was a man without a country for around twenty years.
I was one of the privileged few from our company that he'd invited to the celebration of his citizenship.
A lot of his people were there, and they all revered him as a god.
He looked good in his uniform.
That day he became 'Henry', and we shared a six pack of Private Reserve. He still mentions our little celebration, and has the Henry's Private Reserve cap, I'd given him that day, hanging above his desk.

Henry has several distinct scars all over himself.
Holes the size of machine gun rounds.
Holes that remind him of the death march, of hiding under the body of the guy that became him when he took his identity papers because he'd lost his.
Holes that should have killed him more than once.
Holes that remind him of the loss of his entire family.
Holes that cause him to be even less verbal when someone inquires as to 'what'd you do to get that?'

Holes that remind him of the price of freedom.

He still eats his lunch with sticks, sometimes sitting on the picnic bench cross legged.
It was a year or so after I'd hired on that Henry learned it was more acceptable to sit on the toilet instead of stand.
I was glad to see that...hated always having to wipe those freaking footprints off the lid every damn time.

Yeah, him and I are on the other side of the hill now.
But it's still really great to say g'mornin' to my fellow countryman every day....it's actually quite an honour.

[Gary O]

Geriatricology

These days I have to be careful as to how I sit. Actually, briefs keep the low riders in place. Otherwise lefticle or righticle can suddenly awaken my giddyup.

This happened to me a couple times not that long ago.
Once in a library.
While waitin' for the missus, I commenced to sit down on a bench.
Jumped straight up. Letting out a HEEEEYAHHHH!
The librarians all looked at me like I was some kinda deranged Tourette victim.
My lady came around the corner and told them 'he's just acting up cause I'm taking so long'.....it worked.

The other time was in the Portland Fine Arts Museum.
It's not good for me to get bored.
We toured the new exhibits, exhibits of things like a chunk of torn cardboard with scribbling on it. Nicely matted and framed though....$3500usd.
An outstanding sculpture of this nude guy was parked in the middle of the grand foyer, life size, detail down to the color of his molds and freckles.
This father with his 10 year old daughter, then me and a half dozen others, were all encircling the roped off sculpture.
The girl looked spellbound.
I said 'touch it'
'No, really, go ahead, touch it'
She looked at her dad. He nodded.
She reached out, one finger moving slowly toward the sculpted hind end.
'AAAAACH!'
I couldn't help myself.
Poor thing, I really didn't think she'd jump that high.
The father whisked her off, and the Barney Fife looking security guard assigned himself to me.

We toured the fine arts dept, and man, those guys knew their way around oils and brushes.
Huge paintings of fine ladies and scenes.
These were of course roped off, with little signs that read DO NOT TOUCH, GARY

Details unimaginable.
Such clarity of life itself.
How in hell did they do it?
What was their beginning and final brush stroke?
When were they satisfied with it?
Were they ever satisfied?
'Oh-a yeah-a, that's-a bitch-a I-a painted when I'-a was-a so-a loaded-a I couldn't-a stand-a up-a.
It's a real-a piece-a of-a poop-a.'

We went back to the current framed masterpieces of dumpster findings.
I leaned up against this public scale lookin' thing and asked the guy admiring it what he weighed.
Guards were moving my direction, so I decided to sit, stay.
I was tired anyway.

Sat square on a pant spud.

I shot into the air like I was on one'a those giant cartoon springs.
'HEEEEYYAH!'

Sometime later, maybe 5-10 seconds, four security guards swarmed me from all directions. Barney said something like 'Sir, you are going to have to leave.'
I said something like 'What, you think I wanna spend the night here?'
Then more authority figures came.

It was a nice day outside.
The aroma of the hot dog cart was too much for me.
People of all sorts, strolling thru the park blocks, held my attention while my lady fully satiated herself with 'art'.

Things just work out sometimes.

[Sassy]

   Gary, thanks for the entertainment 

[Gary O]

Here to help

[Gary O]

Burn baby Burn

Summer

Houston Texas (Lake Houston)

My Boss's sailboat

Me, onion paper Irish skinned me.

After learning how not to tack, jumping in and out of the water, warm Lake Houston water.

Noon

'Huh, getting a tad pink.'

9 pm

'Hey, everybody, look at the glorious sunset!' pointing my direction.

It's me

Home

It's the usual 110°F and 180% humidity.
My lady turns on the fan.
I'm freezing
I fall on the bed
I note something high pitched coming from my mouth as I lose consciousness.
I awaken to something cooking and someone screaming.

It's me

'Go to the store and buy everything they have in the skin care first aid section....then swing by the burn center at Ben Taub and wipe out their stuff....take my 45.'

'Hurry!'

She finally get's home
It's all dark in the house, except in the bedroom where I'm a quivering, glowing mass....doing a great impression of a gigantic fire fly.

'Do you want the spray or the rub on stuff, or the gauze pads?'

'Put.......some......thing.....on.......me.......n-o-w'

'Oh gaud, not the rub!'

Get......the......spray

'What the hell izzat spray, sodium hydroxide or sulfuric acid??!!'

'Get.....the.....gauze'

'DAMMIT WOMAN, quit tickling me!!'

'Hey baby, where ya goin' sweetie?'

I don't want to move, but make my way to the shower, fiddling with the temp.....ah, warm.

My upper body is OK (ish), mainly 'cause back in those days I'd work and play outside with no shirt.
I'd start the summer with a nice healthy glowing burn base and end up with a maroon like skin tone.

But my upper legs.
I coulda posed as a burn victim.

My skin festered up, boiled, and sloughed off.

I learned that getting excited would keep the damn sheet off my legs.

Two weeks of work loss.

Two jobs, 160 hrs of no wages.

The house is no place for a lad in his early twenties to be for two weeks.

My lady learned my impression of a raging lion/hyena creature was a tad intolerable...and learned to shop...for days.

So I skulked through the house alone, leaving sloughed skin trails from the fridge to the toilet to the bed.

Sense, self awareness.
I gained a bit of this in those two weeks.

[rick91351]

Wow Gary that sounds like fun.  Sort of like back in the free love days of the late sixties.  Noticing  wonderful peaceful meadow and getting naked run off through it..... into a hedge of brambles, poison ivy and stinking nettles next to the creek full of hungry leaches.  My word that was livin'.......    

[Gary O]

 Paper Work (it can be thrilling)

So I'm goin' through my weekday morning routine, opening the little factory for the umpty umpth time, makin' coffee, turning on things, unlocking doors, greeting the birds, and headin' to the john for my second morning constitutional.
Our stalls have those handy dandy double roll TP devices, the ones where you should never ever ever get yourself into trouble.
Well, I prepped my favorite stall, rolling off a liberal bee hive and swabbing the lid, then settling in for the first business of the day.
Once both legs were fully comatose, I reached for a few squares. However, there was only one left. Happily, the other roller, becoming employed from the activity of the empty roll, dropped down (what an ingenious mechanism), of which the three remaining squares it contained wafted daintily to the floor of the adjacent stall.

Huh.

I examined the 9.2 square inches of double ply in my hand. If I separate them I could maybe.......

The now luxuriously expansive looking three squares, just out of reach, looked quite fetching.

I reach down and under, stretching and twisting my torso beyond what I thought capable.

J-u-u-u-u-st one more little.....'ACH!!'...my unorthodox stretch/twist begets a cramp somewhere in my stomach.
My sudden pain filled lurch activates the lid, having been the veteran of many a seating, and a tad loose at the hinges, gave way, vaulting my lithe self into an immediate reverse hecht.

Now I'm jammed between the wall and bowl, right leg curiously up in the air, left shoulder in the other stall, left ear impersonating a suction cup on the wall of a thousand boogers.

I'm clutching the three squares.

My inherently acute MacGyver instincts immediately detected, 'there's actually a thousand and one ways to die'.
I thought I'd blacked out, but it was just the inventively designed motion activated lights flicking off.
Y'ever close yer eyes, and yer mate flicks off the lights, then you open 'em and think you've gone blind?
A windowless lavatory is rather pitch black without artificial lighting.

Minutes turn to days....wait, no, seem like, minutes seem like days.

The door opens!

Lights!

It's Henry's feet!

'Hey, buddy, ol' pal. I got a little problem here.'

He's gone?!

He's back,.....with four glorious rolls!

'Henry, you magnificent bastard, thank you s-o-o-o-o much.'
He's gone again (?!!!), leaving the rolls on the sink counter.....(?!!)

During my tenure of double stall occupancy, I hadn't noticed that my snoozing legs had actually dropped to the floor.
So I rolled to my side, and hugging the porcelain bowl of stall number two, hauled myself up to safety, wobbling gingerly back to my stall, roll in hand.

The rest of the morning was spent like I'd just survived a near death experience. The coffee tasted better, the mundane things I'd done a gazillion times before was actually exciting, and even filling out the maintenance req form for stall number one, and the terse memo to the janitor, was a bit stirring, but I held back my emotions.

How was yer day?

[rick91351]

Dad's Baby Blue '55 Step Side Chevy



When I was a 'kid' dad had a baby blue '55 Chevy step side pick-up.  Dad took a lot of kidding about his baby blue pick up.  It was the last real pick-up we ever had.  Oh we had other pick-ups after that but they were well new and modern.   I so wish I had the old '55 today.  Of course it was a gas rig, with a carburetor and a distributor.    It had a four speed transmission and you and it drove like a truck.  It was not a easy riding hybrid of today.  It was a real pick-up truck.  There were of course no lap belts or seat belts or shoulder harness.    The dashboard was metal and the gauges were simple, heater controls ran from wire cables.  Heck there was even a throttle knob if your foot got tired.  The spare tire mounted on the side, the rear fender was let in to allow for the tire.  It had a bracket from the factory that way.  They quit making real pick-ups in the mid-sixties I guess.   Pick-ups were a Spartan utilitarian vehicle back then.  Tastefully appointed with a single bench seat, with the gas tank located in the cab and behind the seat.  Back then pick ups had their own aroma in the cab.  They all seemed to smell a little like gasoline, and little aromatic from oil and grease.
   
Dad smoked cigars back then so that as well was mixed in to the potpourri aroma of pick-up.  I knew a lot of cigar smokers back then.  Not the fancy cigars of now but the Roi Tans, Ben Franklins, or my dad's favorite "What America needs is a good 5 cent cigar ...William Penn."  I even suspect 'alot' of good old church goin' Mormons and Nazarenes pickup's smelled of that from time to time, along with Luckies, Cools and Camels.  None back then seemed to come with filters much.  I have to admit I smoked my share of Camels and lots with out filters before I quit.

Old pickups, had a tail gate latched with hooks on chains that rattled and shook and knocked the paint off back there after the factory chain covering weathered away and they went unprotected.  The tailgates had three positions then.   Four if you counted gone or the removed position.  That was from when as now you were not paying attention and backed in to something.  You could latch it up, you could hook the tail gate out straight like todays models.  But then there was also let it down.  Down was used when you were unloading bulk feed or gravel or sand.  Straight out as when you were hauling something like lumber or fence posts.  Up was for when you needed to keep something inside like milk cans going to and from the creamery, rolls of barb wire, drums of oil or the burnin' barrel when you went to the dump.  Yes once upon a time people had these burning barrels that you burned your trash in.  And once in a while you drove to the dump and emptied them.

Dad's pickups had a stock rack or sheep rack on the back.  Seems as if that was the last pickup we had with such.  He built a lot of them for sheep owners and their herders.  The stakes or posts went down into the stake pockets in the bed.  They were mainly made from 8 quarter oak.  The sides were made from four inch 4 quarter plained fir boards.  They were spaced at four or five inches and the stock rack reached to the top of the cab.  The front bulkhead was solid with a small window cut in to it.  It slid into place in a slot in the side boards with a tie chain in the top front to keep them all snugged up.  The rear gate was one piece swinging gate and not the best design.  Dad made all the hardware for the closures and the pipe hinge on the back.  The boards and hardware were all held on to the stakes with carriage bolts.  Dad never had any power tools to speak of.  Holes were all drilled with a brace and bit.  Ever stake or post was hand fit with a plane and a rasp to a jig he had.  That was where I guess learned to use a ratchet, tightening down the nuts on carriage bolts.  And dad's wonderful instructions of, "No you don't use a damn lock washer there!"  To this day I still do not understand where you use a damn lock washer.  But when I am feeling unsure I will slip one on, or if I am feeling mischievous.



I made many rides to the Prairie and the the ranch in the old blue Chevy pick-up.  Sometimes Dad would let me ride back there.  I would stand there, up on the stock rack and looking out, wind in my face and blowing my hair.  The road was a lot different then and the road was slower.  There was a lot of single track road, you had to pull over when you met someone.  But that was okay because you knew everyone and then you had a chance to talk.  So today when I travel up and down that same old road; yet hardly the same old road because it is now wider and faster.  I think back at that little old blue Chevy skimming along that dirt road.  Especially near the back waters of Arrowrock Reservoir.  Some mornings it was so still the water was a mirror.  The canyon walls reflected in the water and you were amazed.  Here I am fifty years latter doing the same thing.  Still traveling along that same road.  Only back then there was only a handful of rigs over that road in a day.  Now I think of that old blue Chevy pick up in the wilds of Idaho.  And it was.... we were thirty or forty miles of road like that.  If it were a Glenn Ford Panavision movie the camera would have panned back.  The blue step side pick-up would become a little blue dot on a hill side, a small rooster tail of dust behind.  Not really a soul around for miles and miles back then.  Well outside of a rancher riding for cattle or sheepherder moving sheep, and grazing on permit, you really were alone.   Maybe there might a real adventurous fisherman, or a lost family on a drive.



That was how my wife first got up there.  I took her up the summer after we met in 1969, to show her my private Idaho.  She laughed and giggled, she had been there before.  She had wondered where she had been and this was it.  Her dad got off on a drive and ended up up there with the family when she was a little girl.  The sheer cliffs of the canyon and steep hills had made a impression and some of that impression was sort of scary bad.



I wish back when our kids were small I would have had a blue '55 Chevy step side pick-up with a white stock rack and our two kids in the back.  Amazed at the scenery, skimming along a single track road in the wilds of Idaho.  The cool of the shade and the warmth of the sun as the melt together as we skim along that dirt road.   Now I yearn for a blue '55 Chevy step side pick-up with a white stock rack with the grandkids.  Drink deeply kids, drink deeply as this is your heritage.  A heritage that was began before your forefathers left Illinois in the mid 1800, yes before that.  Maybe it begins before they left England or Scotland and the promise of a new world.  Someday you might understand but it can never be understood fully, for this world evolves and changes. Drink and breathe deep kids.  For this is a flavor you may never taste again.  Yet chase freedom and the right to drink and breathe deep.  May you never loose the taste of your heritage and your idea of freedom.  But your heritage shall grow....... drink deep and sew carefully.

                         

[Gary O]

 Really enjoyed the ride, Rick. (Dad had a '52 chevy stepside, green)

[rick91351]

Really enjoyed the ride, Rick. (Dad had a '52 chevy stepside, green)

52 was a very good year....  (My wife was born that year.)

Wow the old GMC Green I bet....  Did it have the starter peddle on the floor or a button you pushed after you turned on the key or was it modernized?  When did they change that over?  ANY BODY KNOW?

I am starting to blog again a little.  I am finding that I really missed it.  I might go back and cover last year a little.  But I usually post the same thing here as well.  Well some times        

[Gary O]

Amaizing fudes

Olathe Corn

Oh...my.....gawd

This time of year I sit down to an orgasmic feast of Olathe corn on the cob.

It's my entree.

Actually it's my Japanese tea ceremony

Prepare the table of the beast

Presenting of;
Enormous ceremonial plate of the polymer
Knife of the butter
Sweet tea of the carafe
Butter of the bovine
Salt from the clumsy girl of the umbrella
Napkin of the middle drawer

Sit

Contemplate

Wait....
For water to boil

Contemplate noise of the stomach

Wait

Contemphrickingplate

The preliminary wiping of the drool

The discussion of the ways of the Olathe festival (those bastards) while waiting

The presenting of the two ears ceremoniously laid on the plate with tongs by submissive obedient wife (the way of the tong)

The placing of the butter between ears....
The removing of the butter from between own ears and placing on ears of corn after coming to full consciousness of;
The way of the butter,

The laying on of hands to laughing wife ritual

The rolling of the ears of corn like old wringer washer until the mystery of the disappearing butter occurs.

The discussion of the way of more butter

The shaking of the salt ceremony follows

Considering of the way of the wolf arises when
The biting of own finger ritual is sometimes interjected into the ceremony of the grunt of the hog

The customary sacrament of swollen lips and tongue commences from the too #$%&#*! hot observance, enhanced by the sudden inhale and involuntary lodging of the kernel in esophagus ritual.

The burying of tongue and lips in carafe formality ensues.

The way of the Royal typewriter is enacted

Culmination of the ceremony is the audible passage of the birth of the walrus, followed by the raising of one leg demonstration of way of the duck.

[Gary O]

'Are ya scared?'

My lady and I were taking our 5 and 7 year old grandsons for a walk, just up the hill, in our suburban neighborhood a few years ago.
There was a wooded glen, just off the main road.
I noticed the youngest was looking around and every once in a while quickly behind himself, eyes bulging.
'Are ya scared?'
'No stupid, we're in town.'
A lota times their conversation was like two old men, one grumpy.
Made me chuckle, as we had told them about 'the deep dark woods'.

Another time, we took them to a park in Portland, an arboretum.
With visions of playground equipment, slides, swings, and merry-go-round, the youngest kept asking, 'When are we going to the park?'
'We are at the park!'
'Where?'
'You....are....standing on it!!'
Their conversation, killer, always.

They would spend the night, and watch scary movies till they were frozen to their chairs, couldn't even go pee.
Not the youngest so much, but the eldest, he loved to be scared.

One time we were watching PeeWee's Big Adventure, and when large Marge did her sudden change over to monster Marge, he shot outta his chair like he was catapulted from a gigantic spring, landing in namaw's lap six feet away.

He loved for me to tell scary stories when we sat out on the deck on a summer night.
'Tell me another one, papaw.'
One time I told one so scary,......with eerie glowing eyes on the TV, even when it was off, and then in the window, piercing the dark,...... that he asked me to stop. I could tell that he was torn, but his terror won out.
It's funny how just a hint of the presence of something sinister is far scarier than a full description of some drooling, toothsome ogre monster.

When I was about four or five, we lived out in the country.
A sparsely populated neighborhood tucked back in the Chapman hills about twenty miles outta Scappoose.
Our place, and gramma's place, atop the hill, was separated by five acres of strawberries carved out of a thicket of fir trees.
Ever so often I'd stay at gramma's on a summer evening.
She made good pancakes....and the folks were going out.

One time I waited too long at home. There was just too much cowboy'n to do, and I'd lost track of time.
It was already twilight, and I had several hundred yards up the hill thru a couple clumps of trees to negotiate.

As I trudged thru the first glade of trees, I thought about eyes staring at me.
I'd seen lots of bear sign in my tiny travels, and some bobcat and cougar scat here and there. So, plenty to consider.
(Actually, years later, coming from town one evening, we pulled into the garage, and a big cat jumped down from the rafters and fled into the night. We just saw body and tail, but it was, without a doubt, a full grown cougar.)

Whistling seemed to rid the noises of the stillness in the dark regions of my petrified mind.
A generous moon lengthened shadows, turning stumps into animals of prey, licking their lips, fixated on my dashing form, like Tag would when I showed him the stick I was about to throw.
Ever so often I'd give a quick glance back, but the glaring, glowing eyes that were obviously there would mysteriously disappear.

The clearing, the path, the 300 yard dash.

Breathing came in gasps and pants...or was that the breath of the galloping cougar that was about to sink his teeth into my neck any minute, and tear my puny body to shreds.

The folks will wonder in the morning, 'Where's Gary?'

Then, days later, they'll find bits of Oshkosh b'goshes, right at gramma's door, and shreds of poop stained fruit of the looms, and the brim of my straw cowboy hat, the hat part that once housed my furrowed little noggin now several miles away in a steaming mound of mountain lion poopoo.

The clump of trees loomed ahead, separating me and gramma, good ol' pillowy armed gramma.....even good ol' grumpy grampa.

I heard something shriek, or was it a howl...I don't recall my feet touching the ground over the last few yards thru their back yard thicket.
I do recall gramma, and her audible laughter, her high pitched teehee, as I hung my coat in the utility wash room of the back porch.
Apparently my countenance that morphed from bug eyed terror to smiling relief in the time space of flipping a light switch sorta tickled her.

The pancakes were extra good that next morning.

[rick91351]

Good read my friend, good read....Felt like I was there.   

[rick91351]

Posted this to my blog a week or so ago..............

Ellen and I were at the cattle auction in the early spring a few years ago.  This was BR (Before Retirement)  We were looking of pairs, or cows with their calves to buy.  My reasoning for doing so is flawed economically I know that.  The key for any successful business or farming or ranching operation is you must take in a great deal more than you spend.  That is just good business, farm and ranch 101.  Just the same as any household budget, you have to make more than you spend.  Sort of Dave Ramsey FPU in a nutshell.

Though my reasoning is flawed I do this for a couple reasons.  Keeping back replacement heifers lessons your income when the feeder cattle go to market.  The good side of that is it also lessons your tax liability.  But it also really lessons productivity in your heard.  In that a heifer has to be raised up old enough to breed.  Then she has to go through her gestation period.  Then she has to calve and raise that calf up old enough to wean and sell.  Therein lays reason number two.  First calf heifers some times just have a heck of a time calving.  Your chance of loss of calves in calving first calf heifers is also greater for both heifer and the calf.  Then you even have the one that as in humans after they calve really have no interest in their off spring.  Yes even in the animal world after all the misery of carrying and panting and blowing and straining and pushing.  The confused proud young mother says to heck with this I am leaving this on a park bench, the orphanage door step or the folks door step and disappears in to the night.  Well heifers really don't have that option.  Rather on occasion they choose to tap dance all over their calf, kick it and refuse to let it suck    So you have to sort of mother them up for a day or two and  after awhile they will bond 99 times out of a hundred.

So in order to be the least amount of pain in the derrière of the people that lease my property and watch over my cattle I usually go the easy route and just buy cows and calves and take the hit in the checkbook.  Not a good business practice but.... I really do not want to impose more than I already do.
   
So with that long explanation Ellen and I find ourselves at the sale yard or cattle auction every year in the spring looking to replace the cows that we sold last fall or we lost for some reason.  We sit there watching the parade of cattle and listening to the sing song of the auctioneers.  Ellen loves to go to the auction and has went by herself and bought cows and calves for us when I have been working.  So she seems to get more into it than I.  She likes sitting there watching intently knowing the next time the gate opens it is something we are going to want to buy.  BR (Before retirement)  Me - my mind was most likely wondering when the railroad was going to call and I was going to have to leave and go to work.  Or I was trying to figure out if I needed to lay off sick or lay off sickness in the family due to the fact the dog did not look to healthy this morning.  Or then I might have been thinking about going to the great restaurant there at the Treasure Valley Livestock Auction.  Dreaming of having one of those double burgers with ham.  Topped with lettuce and nice slice of tomato, pickles and onion.  For a side I think a big old plate full of french fries and catsup, or maybe potato salad and a cup of coffee.  Followed by a piece of pie, most likely apple warmed with a big old scoop of ice cream and more coffee.  Or I might have the hot beef sandwich, with a big old scoop of mashed potatoes and ladled all over that drowning it in a sea of brown rich gravy, with coffee and followed by the pecan pie and more coff....eeee I screech out a yelp most likely from the wind being knocked out of me.  I am awaked from my daydreaming by my wife's elbow in the ribs.  Instantly my hand flips up in the air repositioning my arm to shield my now sore ribs.  One of the two ringmen or gatemen hollers "YEP" to get the auctioneers attention.  I look down in the ring to see what I just bid on.  Everyone in the sale barn is looking at me and my flopping around and wild gesturing.  I stayed with it and bought it at a reasonable amount as I regained my wind.  The cow a black angus and a strapping good calf departed the sale ring and the gate slammed shut and I gasped out my buyer number.  Good thing Ellen is a good judge of cattle. That was done now back to day dreaming as I rub my ribs.

I attempted to multitask for a while.  My mind tried to stay on the cattle auction and my stomach started on a rerun of lets see now it was ........with a side of mashed potatoes and ladled all over that drowning in a sea of brown rich gravy, with coffee and followed by the pecan pie and more coffee.  However the auction soon dimmed and my mind returned to both worrying about the railroad calling, and should I lay off or stay marked up and my pondering the reason for laying off or taking the trip off.  However I think most likely this gave root to a bowl not a cup of clam chowder with a very liberal sprinkling of tabasco (about the only thing liberal about me anymore I have noticed) followed by plain hamburger delivered on plate of french fries, lemon meringue pie or maybe a piece of......

I feel a nudge not a poke this time.  (I am happy)  I turn to my wife and she says,  "Buy her."  I look down into the ring, there  is a small black cow young and by her side is a nice calf.  Most all the cows we have been buying are bigger cows, more roomy and nice looking.  This cow was small and the tassel on her tail has gone missing.  The calf looks nice but I really don't care for the cow.  She is too small and 'punched up' so I don't do anything.  Ellen is giving me a dirty look.  I know I am getting into trouble here.  The auctioneer is asking to start this cow and calf way to high and he drops the start down a little and my ears are starting to massage my brain.  My stomach is starting to churn and not from the food I have thought of.  I knew what was coming next, he dropped her down a little more.  Then he said the words I knew were coming.  "If I don't get a bid I'm splitting them up."  Meaning the cow will sell to a beef buyer (she will go to slaughter) and the calf well go to a person who raises calves to resell or some times for veal.  The price was right but she was just a little cow and without a switch on the end of her tail.  I so hated to see that happen to this little cow and calf.  Ellen gave me the look and out of guilt and valor of I will save you little cow and up went my hand.  Someone else bid back however dropped right out.  So we were the 'proud owners' of this little cow and calf.

The gateman on the side where the livestock exits to must have been thinking of a double cheeseburger with fries because he thought the auctioneer had split the pair.  The cow exited the auction ring and left her calf behind.  He slammed the gate shut.  There is just something to me when I hear that gate slam shut that says its over.  It has been finaled.  What occurred next was one of those things that light up your day.  The auctioneer said to the gateman, "Hey you forgot one."

The gates on an auction ring or the ones I have been to are always solid and heavy built made to open and close hundreds of times a day.  Bulls and cows test them.  They run into them, they shove and push against them.    You pull a spring loaded latch from the side with a rope so that you are out of the way.   They are not like a ranch gate that you can see through.  There is usually however a small window cut into them so the gateman can make sure the last critter that sold is gone to be yarded in the proper pen.

As the gateman jerked the rope to open the gate, our little cow who now had discovered that she was missing her calf had turned and was making a run at the now opening gate.  That little cow was coming on, her eyes were wild and burning bright like a locomotive busting through snow drifts when she knocked the gate aside.  Truly what unfurled was hell hath no fury like a mother protecting her children.  She circled the ring putting both gate men behind their guards built to shield them from such action.  The calf who was just sort of standing there sniffing the wood shavings looked up to see mom very upset.  He got a good talking to in cow language and fully understood he messed up.  Momma now was making the run for the exit and the calf was running hard to keep up.  Its tail was up in the air and rear legs were digging in and out the ring they went.  The buyers and the crowd laughed.  The auctioneer looked up at my wife and I and said with a smile.  "Well she might not be very big on cow but she is sure huge on momma!"

[Gary O]

 Enjoyed that, sir Rick.

I haven't been around cattle that much, but the one thing that sticks out to me in yer story is the visual of it's tail in the air.
I've seen cows running with their tails in the air, and right then realized where the term 'high tailed it' came from.

Thanks again, Rick

[Redoverfarm]

For anyone that has never worked on a dairy farm there is one important tale that must be told.  Always spray for flies before kneeling next to the udders.  If you are not awake for the early morning milking session you will be once the maure laiden tail cracks accross your ear and cheek.  Ouch!   

[Gary O]

 
Too funny, John.
A childhood friend lived on a dairy farm.
My first overnight visit was quite the education.
Didn't matter what time of day it was, standard or daylight 'saving', those bovines needed relief early morning and evening.
I got to learn how to hand milk and hook up the machines.
However, his sisters, all four, had agendas of their own......I think I'd have been molested save for my trusty bib overalls...farm girls.....buuuut, that's another story.

Funny thing, one of our grade school field trips was at Alpenrose, the big commercial dairy in Portland.
We all lined up and took turns at one squeeze...wonder what that cow thought.
Cows are funny subject for me, and I could easily go off on a tangent about their thought processes.
Like when people drive down a country lane, and when seeing a cow, yell 'Moooo' out the window.

Cow
'Huh, there's a cow drivin' that chevy...wonder where he got that kinda money..........'

[rick91351]

For anyone that has never worked on a dairy farm there is one important tale that must be told.  Always spray for flies before kneeling next to the udders.  If you are not awake for the early morning milking session you will be once the maure laiden tail cracks accross your ear and cheek.  Ouch!

Here some of the huge dairies, (I guess there are no small ones left.) bob or dock the cows tails.  Stock cows loose them in a variety of ways from freezing to rough handling from owners.  Some of the old cowboys on the range would take a knife and cut the tassel off the tail (Below the where the tail end just to mark them.) if they were a problem cow or wanted to ship it come fall.   

 

[rick91351]

It would be difficult for me to accurately describe my mothers knife.  Oh she had other knives, but to describe  the one she always used that would be impossible.  It was just an old fashioned butcher knife.  She used it clear up until the end when we really had very little choice other than to move her into an assisted living facility.  Alzheimer's or some other hellish thing had come upon her.  Her doctor and those at the assisted living places pinned it on Alzheimer's.  We did as well, but were also informed they would not really know for sure until afterword and they could do an autopsy.  We chose not to.  She went through several companies and facilities as my dad did as well later.  She was never happy in any of them.  She seemed sometimes to me to go out of her way to be unhappy in any of them.  A sad end to such a person.  At any rate, after they both passed her knife came into my possession.  Oh it was not a thing locked in a vault though it should have been.  We sort of treasure it, I am thinking of framing it when I get my wood shop moved and set back up and in order.
       
I believe mom told me that knife her and dad bought after they were married or it might have came with the deal..  They were together for a long time; over 60 years.  Mom never claimed to be a cook.  Yet she was a master of home cookery and not to be confused with a home chef.  Yet from time to time she would venture out of her comfort zone.  Most of her cooking was from a cookbook from the nation of unpublished featuring the state of unmeasured bordered by untimed.  Her oven was set at 350 and do not ever touch that.  That was an act of war.  The stove I remember the most the timer you never touched, because it would never shut off.  Either it was messed-up broke or we were never smart enough to figure it all out.  Rather she knew when a casserole or cake was done by smell and sight most the time and a toothpick of course which she hardly needed but gave her the benefit of the doubt.

She cooked my kind of comfort food.  I hear people talk about comfort food and I have come to the realization that one mans comfort food is another mans distain.  I guess that distain can change as well over the years however.  I had a huge dislike back then for baking powder biscuits.  I swore that I would never eat another one after I left home.  Well I really never left home because after we were married I still worked for dad for about a year and was always a phone call way afterwords.  In short Ellen and I was around there a lot.  To her I am sure it seemed all the time some times.  There were cattle to sort and hay to harvest or to feed most the time.  Because of mom's lack of measurements and her special terminology this tended to intimate Ellen about mom's home cooking.
   
Today I think if I had to choose one meal that mom made a lot that I would so love to have again but at one time swore I would never touch it again.  That would be deer chops, fried potatoes and gravy, fried apples and baking powder biscuits and homemade strawberry jam.  Funny I remember that was served a lot in the late fall and early winter when there was a surplus of cooking apples and venison.  And for some reason that never went well with me.  Now I only can dream.  However that would never been called comfort food by me.  My choice of comfort food if I had to pick one would have to potatoes and white gravy.  The potatoes would need to be boiled (not mashed)  or fried and the gravy home made of course from the scrappings in the pan that cooked the meat be it beef or pork.  A little salt and lot of pepper.  Well most likely a lot more salt than suggested by those who try and run your life by food.  Moms style of cooking without a doubt shortened their lives a great deal.  Dad was 96, mom was like 88 when she passed away.
                     
Mom was a meat and potatoes cook and that was how I learned to cook.  She was a cast iron fry pan cook.  She was the boss of the kitchen cook.  She and the foul mouthed Gordon Ramsey could have yelled at each other all day and never done any good.  She was a peel the spuds with a knife gal never a fancy peeler although she had them in the drawer.  She use the same knife to trim the meat and the peel fruit and I guess anything else that needed cutting.  She was a fried spuds cook and lots of them, or a boiled potatoes person.  Very seldom did she mash potatoes other than Thanksgiving and Christmas now that I think back on it.  She always cooked extra back then.  And then there was alway someone popping in around dinner time.  If you stopped by there at dinner time; you best plan on eating.  (I think they knew that.)  Never mattered to her who you were be it one of the founders of Micron Corp who by the way would on occasion would visit us.   To an old Basque friend from Mountain Home that at one time owned a many bands of sheep before the USFS forced them out of business.  Or be it someone off the road they all sat the same at her table just the same and there was always plenty.  It never went to waste that is for sure.  In Idaho potatoes were cheap as was meat for us.  We raised our own beef and harvested a lot of wild game.  She came from a large family that came to Idaho from the dust bowl of Oklahoma.  To her Idaho was the land of plenty and loved to tell me about all the food they had after they got here.  But she was a died in the wool Sooners fan and an Okie at heart to the end.

What ever your comfort food is it means a lot to the person.  My grandfather on dad's side was an old lathery cowboy who went by Rawhide or just Hide.  (That was just his close friends.)  When he was in the 'nursing home' dying of cancer his only complaint I heard him voice was the mashed potatoes.  "You can not get a damned fried spud here in this damned place."  Comfort food to some friends we had from Thailand it was sticky rice.  To some it is a thick rich stew and a chuck of crusty bread, or a hot bowl of chowder or Chicken and Dumplings.  Comfort food to me has to be guarded somewhat away from the norm lest it lose its magic and charm and become the norm.

Watching mom in the kitchen cooking was artistry in motion and the timing was magic.  Mom would peel the potatoes with the knife.  Pull out a heavy cast iron skillet and sit in on the stove with one hand.  She would heat up some grease, oil or what every she had on hand.  In went the the potatoes followed by salt and pepper.  She then would cover them with one of several hodgepodge of lids she had.  She would turn the spuds a couple times and then suddenly, almost magically just at the right moment a cast iron fry pan or skillet would hit the stove again with one hand.  A little bacon grease went in to it.  She would toss in a couple steaks, or chops salt and pepper and cover.  She knew when to turn them never a wasted motion or a second thought.  Off came the lid from the fry pan and the meat was turned, salt and peppered,  lid went back on and the heat was cut usually down a couple notches.  It was about here she would put together a salad, she had been a salad chef at he Hotel Boise and was very good at them.  Or she would open a can or two of vegetables that went on the stove.  She did a lot of improvising and on the fly creativity with canned vegetables.  Turn that down, uncover the meat, that went on to a platter.  Mom was a well done cook.  If you wanted rare, medium rare or anything other than done I am afraid you were out of luck.  Just best go some place else.  Funny she might have been a one speed meat cook but it was always cut it with a fork tender.  They were never as burned or dark brown and crusty and tough as shoe lather that one thinks of well done.  They were always moist and flavorful.  Anyone that sat at mom and dad's table was always truly amazed how she did it.  She said she learned it cooking for a huge bunches all the time.  Be it family or a bunch of cattlemen or sheepmen and their herders it all went on the table at the same time.  I was amazed at how she could pull everything off at the same time no matter what.  When she placed the meat on the platter, she some how had the flour in the skillet and stirred that into the meat grease and thickening that up all at the same time.   She would grab the milk and pour just what she needed into the skillet and turned the heat up.  Grabbed the spatula turned the fried potatoes once more and cut the heat.  Sat that off just in time for the gravy to boil which she would attack with salt, pepper and a spoon stirring for all it was worth.  It was soon thickened and every thing went in to bowls family style.  Made no difference to her if it was just her and dad or ten or twenty.  Her table always seemed to be a talkative place, lots of food and lots of sharing.  Sometimes mom and dad communicated a lot by arguing. 
         
But mom was not a large lady, in fact she was sort of small and petite red head.  She could take a cast iron fry pan full of gravy one handed and pour it in to a serving bowl.  She might have been the queen of her kitchen but potatoes, and white gravy were king in her kitchen it seemed.  And so were the people.  I guess they were in most peoples kitchen back then.  We visited a lot of ranch people back then and it was pretty much all the same.  Or at least they were here in Idaho.
   
That is how her knife ended up in the shape it was in.  She literally wore it almost into before we had to sadly take it away from her and move her into assisted living.  We always figured it was the potatoes.  It was concave and wore out where the spuds were pealed.  But just how many tons of potatoes and pounds of carrots, apples and other things had to be pealed?

Thanks a bunch Mom for the knife and the memories!

Rick

[Redoverfarm]

Thanks for sharing Rick.  A lot of heart and soul went into that knife over the years.

[Gary O]

 Excellent, Rick

Thank you, Pard

[Gary O]

 
IMO, there's nothing like a good meal for a get together,
and the good meal is a barbeque.

Being a northerner that spent some years down south, I can say those boys down there know barbeque.
Ribs, fallin off the bone.
Chikin, smoked, from wood, not wunna those fancy Yeager pellet rigs, but by an ol' guy raised in a 'grease house', from a pit the size of a horse trough.
Beans, I didn't know beans could taste like that. Odd things, strange herbs, spices, homemade sauces, a bit a fat meat, marinated for hours. They were a meal all by them selves.
Tatar salad...M-M-M-M, none like it.
Sweet tea, steeped in a gallon jug in the sun.
Beer, Lone Star or Falstaff..didn't matter, both tasted like mop water from a juke joint, but did their job of cleansing the palate for the next bite.
Sip, rib, sip, chikin, sip, beans, sip, salad, guzzle the rest.
Made ya just fall down and scream.

Houston.
Down the street, Telephone road, we lived on Munger, was wunna those grease houses.
An old black gent lived there with what seemed like three generations of family.
Everbuddie's grampa, even mine for awhile.
Everyone called him Chili.
Bid overalls, white butcher's apron, leather baseball cap was his eternal uniform.
Had a high pitched, raspy voice, and always a smirk on has ol' mug.
More often then not, you'd find me sittin' at his dilapidated picnic table, after work, watchin' him toil over the pit.
Nuthin' attractive.
Tin leanto roof, pile of wood, ol' white fridge that made a humming sound laboring in the heat, vats and jars, brushes, huge forks, and the huge pit with a homemade steel lid, that once he was satisfied with how things were goin' he'd drop down and come out to talk to me.....talk about stories...old day stories.....bone chilling, horiffic stories.

Naw, nuthin' attractive..... 'cept for the rich savory aromatic fragrance emanating from that glorious pit.
I'd sit there, sweating like a pig, drool stream gathering on the table in a puddle...

'Chili!

WTF ol' man!?'

'Boy, you know it's not ready....I'll tell ya when it's ready.'

It was worth the wait.


Fourth of July...or as they say down there JOOOlah, everyone barbequed.
Po foke, rich foke, middle class foke, all had their pits goin'.
You couldn't walk two steps without getting hit upside the haid with the aroma of the gods.

One fourth, me and my lady were flat broke.
I'd come off a month long stint in Brownsville, inspecting oil field pipe, big job.
Tuboscope laid some folks off after that, so I volunteered for some time off myself.
Took most of June, just me and my lady...nobody else.
Ran outta money...rent was paid, car was maintained, just broke....food crumbs in the fridge, empty bottles piled in the corner of the carport below...sittin' on the couch smokin' a partial I'd dug outta the butt can.

'I'm goin' back to work.'

'It's the fourth.'

'Oh'

Chili and family had gone somewhere.
It was hot.
Most neighbors had headed to Galveston.

Our guts were eatin' guts.
Hadn't been so hungry in a long time.
A friend invited us to a company get together.
The park was filled with heavenly flavors.
Kids, old folk, parents, all had plates heaped with goodies, goodies that tempted me to follow 'em, floating on the fragrant waves.

We strolled over to the tables.

$3.50

$3.50??!!

I had $.37

One the way back to the garage apartment I swore I'd never put myself in that position again...especially on the fourth.

I think wunneezdaze we need to head back down south for a spell.