There's No Title Because This is Basically Rambling Bullshit. That's it, Rambling Bullshit.

Well, I'm sure you've all been missing me the past few days. With that last of our many Christmas celebrations finally over the last Saturday, we've been strung out on holiday cheer and I just haven't known what to and what not to blog about. So, rather than post a long, never-ending narrative about one of them, I thought I'd just hit the high and low points, which will no doubt lead to a long, never-ending post, but at least you'll get to switch subjects to avoid spontaneous sleep.

1.) Our dog Whiskey died this Saturday. Apparently in the midnight hours, he snuck into town to visit some randy lass we were unaware of. On his way back home, he was struck by a semi and my husband and mother-in-law found him the following morning.
Named after the Willie Nelson classic Whiskey River, Rowdy and I got the border collie pup when our relationship was just as new and fresh as his baby's breath. I was amazed to watch him grow, the way the herding instinct just seemed to rise out of his DNA and, over the past few years, his work had become as important as an extra cowboy's. Sure, it was rough at first. He'd push cattle when he wasn't suppose to and then turn right around and not push when the time was right. But, in just a few short years, that thing inside him took over.
Whiskey had a meek and sweet spirit. He would let me pet him as long as I liked, unless of course Rowdy fired up a four wheeler and then he was off to work. He never called in sick or missed a day. He was a great hand.
Although I always loved Whiskey, I think my real bond with him came after our children were born. They'd tug his ears or yank his tail and, in return, he would drown them with slobbering kisses from his wet tongue. As my boys got older and would periodically be around cattle, we noticed this was perhaps the only time Whiskey didn't dart after his herd. Instead, he kept a steady eye on the livestock and the boys, careful to always be directly in between them and each calf. He was a good dog.
This morning was bittersweet. As Rowdy got dressed to go out and start his day, our youngest yelled out the door for his faithful old friend, "Whick-key, Whick-key, where you?"
Tears were in both our eyes, as we knew his calls wouldn't be answered.

Okay, now onto more sunshiny tales, the ones you come here for.

2.) In spite of our loud and steady pleas each year for each set of grandparents to limit the toys under their trees and candy in stockings, all four pairs (both our parents are divorced) steamed full force ahead with the stockpiles of trains and trucks and enough sugar to keep a bakery in supply for a full year. Rowdy and I dumped each stocking into a big, black bag, hoping to smuggle that shit out of the house before the boys had it strung from top to bottom.
The plan, my friends, was unsuccessful. After I tucked everyone into bed last night, I put the bag up high on the kitchen counter and went off to bed myself.
Then, at 3:30 in the morning, a small boy shook me out of my warm bed and he commanded me to, "Wake Up! Hurry!" I wasn't sure what Rolan was waking me for, but I knew it couldn't be good. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to his room, where his big brother was fast asleep with the giant bag o' goodies resting next to him. Apparently Rolan was just so proud that he realized in the middle of the damn night that the candy, totally unguarded, was there that he had to wake me to show his spoils. I tried to explain to him that this would be like calling the bank BEFORE you robbed it, took the candy and left him whining in his bed.
And, just to make all the awakening better, my mother-in-law was at the front of our room at 5 am, asking Rowdy questions about the business. Overall, AWESOME! **Que Dry Sarcasm** I'm not at all bitchy today.

3.) As Ridge crawled into my lap this afternoon, he pointed to my groin and quizzed, "Is that where your balls are, Momma?"
I began explaining the whole boy-girl thing and, interrupting me with a choir of giggles, he wisely said, "Oh, you have girl parts. I don't like girl parts. They have poop and oil."
I sort of understood the poop since it is in the same general area and he is, after all, 4 and, when you are 4, poop is a pretty big part of your life. But, the oil I didn't get. It's not like I'm frying chicken in my "girl parts."
Also, I have trained him to chant on demand that his momma is his NUMBER ONE girl and I plan on soon having him brain washed into declaring that no woman will care for him like me. Just kidding. Kinda. I realize this might be pretty costly in therapy charges down the road, so I am trying to reign it in. Trying is the key word.

4.) Can you say Senator Franken? Now, if you've been reading this blog long or if you've gone through my archives, you know I bleed blue (although I can't say I'm super stoked about Obama's stacking conservatives in his Cabinet. But, at least they are really, really smart conservatives, right?).
All the Bleeding Heart Liberal characteristics (**Que More Sarcarsm** which is really popular here in Oklahoma) aside, I didn't even think my friend Al could pull this shit off and I donated to his campaign and have bought every book he's ever written. Hell, I even highlighted through those bastards.
Even though a Minnesota board certified Al the winner over Norm Coleman today, the incumbent Coleman will no doubt take further legal steps to prevent it and, in spite of little room for change, I hope he does. We Americans are impatient. We want to know the winners of our elections as though they are football games. This may have been a pains taken, almost parody of a recount as though it were actually a brilliant Saturday Night Live skit written in Al's past life on the show, but we will have no doubt in the winner. 2.9 million people voted and this baby was decided by 225 votes. Remember that the next time you want to stay home from the polls, thinking your vote doesn't matter.

5.)Mollie's daughter Hannah, who is homeschooled not for religious reasons but because her mother wholly and fully believes she is almost as genius as Stephen Hawking (and she is), somehow stumbled upon those videos from that mascara-drinched Britney fan, yelling at US, all of US, to leave Britney alone. Now, this is particularly hilarious since Hannah didn't know who the hell he was talking about when she found it.
She said, "I don't know who this Britney person is, but I hope they leave her alone so that guy will shut up."
Now Mollie and I want to force Hannah into making our own mascara-drenched video. And the therapy bill just keeps going up.

Thousands of Cattle Still Missing

Yesterday, the New York Times published an article detailing the ongoing efforts to find and rescue the 25,000 cows that are estimated to have gone missing as a result of Hurricane Ike two weeks ago. 10,000 of the cows have been found alive, but the others are still missing or already dead. The efforts of the groups and volunteers working to rescue these animals (and the livelihoods of farmers and ranchers throughout the region) are truly heroic.

Rare articles like these remind us that after the initial media circus surrounding natural disasters dies down, the terrible effects for local residents linger for months and years. At Farm Aid, we try and bring attention to these issues and help farmers in the areas through our Family Farm Disaster Fund. Last week, we gave $30,000 in initial grants to four groups working to help farm and ranch groups in the region. Please donate today to allow us continue to respond to this and other disasters in a timely manner.

In addition to the article, be sure to check out the amazing photos of cattle and the rescuers in the area.

The Spirit of the American Farmer

The alarm clock buzzed at 5 am. As though I was still dreaming, I sprung from bed, turning the damn thing off. Crawling back into bed, I remembered that Rowdy told me he had to be up that early.
"Baby, if you are still wanting to get out of bed at 5, then it's time to wake up," I said, softly shaking his shoulders.
I stumbled to the kitchen for a drink of water. When I returned, he was still half-asleep. I didn't want to go back to bed myself until I knew he was awake. After all, I turned off his alarm without thinking. Rowdy's unfettered will to work even in the most undesirable circumstances has always amazed me, so I knew he would be up in just a second.
Since I hitched my wagon to his star five years ago, my knowledge of agriculture families has taken on a new definition. Most of what I thought to be true before has gone to the wayside, things I didn't even know was done has turned out to be the foundation of farming and ranching.
With our operation, Rowdy has to be a jack of all trades. Before he goes out each morning and when he comes in late at night, he scours the internet for market data. And not just the Chicago Merchantile Exchange either, all of them. He scouts weather patterns and veterinary trends. He mechanics on everything from bulldozers and large tractors to pick-up trucks and plows. His days are long, longer than anyone else I know and I've never heard him even mutter a small complaint.
The rain fell early this year, so he's started sowing wheat. Although no time of our year is technically slow, this is hands down the busiest. The success of the crop is so dependent on Mother Nature, circumstances completely beyond our control. It must be done when it can be done.
I don't know anyone else who saves their vacation time to farm, but Rowdy's little brother Chad (please click on Chad's name for the GREATEST story ever) comes out every year to drive tractors and labor in the unforgiving Oklahoma sun. He lives in Edmond, a suburb of Oklahoma City, with his wife and children. Although he isn't technically involved in agribusiness, he is still married to our farming and ranching success. I'm sure many others are committed to their family's businesses as well, but I think his is particularly true of farm and ranch families. It's not just the notion of livlihood, although that's an issue at hand, but also being a part of the whole, belonging to something larger than yourself. Chad knows the prosperity of our year, or lack thereof, is tied to this expensive slither. Plus, he and Rowdy are closer than perhaps any other two siblings on the globe. I mean, they are like Fidel and Raul Castro, dominating a country, close. Although we do pay Chad for his hard work during this time, there are some things money cannot compensate for. He and his wife could use this vacation time to be off on some lover's retreat together. Hell, he could spend it swaying in the hammock in his backyard. Instead he's caked in sweat and dirt, tending to cattle and plows for us. In fact, Chad's childhood on the farm continues to play such a large role in who he is today, he wrote a song about it.
So, when Rowdy and I were in John Deere, the same dealership my grandfather ran the parts department and worked on many a tractor for nearly 40 years until his death four years ago, I spotted this bumper sticker on one of the office windows. It spoke to me, not in a tripping on acid way, but in a waxing nostalgic way.
Of course, our greatest motivation in this line of work is to provide for our family. But, even though we produces only a small little dent in the country's food chain, it is there, on the kitchen table's of strangers. We know that China already produces 1 out of every 2 vegetables grown each year. We might not be able to match that ever again, but we can at least do our little part.


PS--For all your readers who visit my page for my foul-mouthed antics and mishaps, I will be posting one you'll love later on this evening. I promise to dry up my recent sappy behavior.

Playing Chase

All little children love the parental interactive games, i.e. peek-a-boo, hide-and-go-seek, etc. Typically it doesn't matter who is playing with them or which of the games it is, if they can reel in a willing participant, their hearts are content.
While my boys get excited just to play, as I said, they both have always had their favorite adult-included games. Ridge's is bucking bulls, a never-ending living room rodeo with Ridge as the cowboy. Guess who gets to be the bull?
While Rolan loves this horseplay, the sport of his heart has always been chase. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that pleases him more than someone, anyone, running after him. As he is dashing down the hall or wherever else the game may be taking place, he periodically looks over his shoulder to see if his playmate is still in pursuit. If they are, his eyes burst to half dollars and a deep giggle bellows into his lungs. He is off again.
He loves this so much that he has, in fact, learned to tease my mom's dog Harley with food to incite a good game of chase. I didn't realize he had started doing this until we were at Mom's for the Fourth of July, her birthday. From the corner of my eye, I spotted Rolan extending a piece of bread to Harley's nose, shaking it back and forth. Just as I was thinking, "That's sweet. He's feeding his buddy Harley," Rolan yanked the food back into his torso, turned on a pivot and sped toward the other side of the yard. To his delight, Harley took the bait, running just a few steps behind Rolan for a minute or two. Each time Harley would finally tire of the game, Rolan would tear a little bite of bread of his slice and toss it to Harley. The was, of course, just enough to reignite Harley's interest in the bread, thus opening him up for another round of play. Once again, Rolan would wave the bread in Harley's face, jerk it from him as though he should be saying, "SIKE!" Knowing how much Rolan loves chase, I was really impressed with his ingenuity. I would've played chase with him myself, but I was too busy celebrating our country's independence the way our Founding Father's intended. Of course, Anneheuser Busch was sold to some Belgium brewing company, so I don't know how I will commemorate the holiday next year.
Harley hasn't been the only prey in Rolan's game. Hell, he's been doing the same thing at our house for a long time. He keeps his little eyes constantly peeled for some possession forbidden from his touch to be within his reach. Once it is, he snatches it up, making sure his actions are deliberate enough for you to see that he has it. For the most part, he takes the same path each time: as soon as he knows that you see him, he spins off toward the hall, looking over his shoulder gleefully, eagerly hoping that you've taken the bait and then hustles into our bedroom and scurries behind our headboard. The space between the wall and our headboard is small enough that only he and his brother can fit between it. He knows if he makes it back there, his beloved game of chase can be prolonged for quite some time.
Rolan has had some wrecks in the pursuit of this game, although none has been quite as brutal as his collision Saturday night. Rowdy came in from a long, laboring day in the punishing Oklahoma heat Saturday evening, ready to kick back in his recliner and soak up some of the holy air conditioning in the house. I had just pulled supper from the oven and stove: corn flake chicken, Brussels Sprouts Aug Shonda and mashed potatoes. The boys were ready to eat, too, so all three dug in.
After the meal was reduced to lowly crumbs, Rowdy asked if we could walk down to the pins and assist him for just a second. Predictably, the boys were bouncing up and down, squealing, "I want to go! I want to go!"
And I like helping Rowdy. I'm not always the best help since, honestly, I don't know what the hell is going on as far as ranching is concerned, but I like helping, nonetheless. Rowdy works 7 days a week, so if my bumbling assistance is any help, I'm willing to give it.
So, we headed out in the golden Oklahoma evening, warm and marshy as fresh bread pudding in a window seal. I love this time of day in the summertime, or at least I tolerate it. In fact, it is the only time I willingly leave my home until, like, November.
Rowdy needed to put a bale of hay out in the south cable pins, a big lot with two smaller pins within it. He and Ridge jumped into the tractor while Rolan and I opened the gate. As the two of us were waiting for the two of them, Rolan looked for ways to entertain himself and, of course, the old, trusty, stand-by game of chase was his first instinct. At first we teetered around the amputated bed of a truck long since retired. I would stand at one end, staring at a giggling Rolan on the polar opposite side of the antique metal, and then dart over one of the edges. With each sudden move, Rolan would succumb to a deep, rolling laughter.
And then a large telephone pole standing out one foot from the fence caught his eye. He has a real knack for locating these types of areas, big enough for him to maneuver in out and of like a flounder in a fish bowl bolting through plastic rocks and reef, but small enough that no adult can venture behind it to grab him. Really, it's perfect. This is a true instance when being two-years-old is an advantage.
He ran to the upright pole, going back and forth, back and forth for several seconds. His bright face could've illuminated a dark room. As I was playing along, taking in the images of his joy, he grew brave to entice me further into his sport of chase. He inched out from behind the pole, locking his eyes into mine, purposely tempting me to come closer to him. Slowly, I crept over. When he was near my reach, he sprung back toward the pole, looking over his shoulder to enjoy his cleaver victory. Just as he turned his head back toward the pole, he was upon it. His nose collided violently the sturdy piece of round wood, his body slammed into the solid earth. All the excitement he was consumed with just seconds before was vanished, replaced with sharp pain and shrill screams.
Without missing a single beat, I scooped my two-year-old son up from soil. This isn't the first accident resulting from his beloved chase, but his reaction is typically the same. It can be described with only two words: heart break. As any scorned lover can testify, betrayal by the object of your affection is a stinging blow. Perhaps that description seems a bit melodramatic to you, but that is seriously the best way I would describe it. I know that a big part of his tears are shred for the physical anguish of crashing face first with a telephone pole, but as his mother, I also know that a big bulk of them were because he was suddenly yanked from the warm, fuzzy feeling he gets from chase into semi-consciousness on the ground.
After I gave Rolan a few minutes of undivided pampering, he was fully recovered. In fact, we spent the entire walk home from the pins, you guessed it, playing chase.

Outside Man Ridge

I drive the tractors well into the night
and hop the combines with all my might.
The seed, the rain, the dirt, the grease.
I am a hard-working, hard-playing, hard-laughing beast.
When Dad's daily task prevent me from goin,'
Mom has one wound up boy she'll be a-towin.'
I love equipment, none too small or too big.
I am a tractor-drivin,' cattle-callin,' outside man, Ridge.

Apocolyptic Accounting, I suppose

Well, the oil inventory numbers just came in. Keep in mind that crude was already trading at $135, a solid hunksie over what it traded at less than a decade ago. Analysts were expecting a neutral number, neither an increase or decrease in the world's available supply. Boy, where they off on this. On CNBC, any time some report is scheduled to come out, which is often with home sales, credit applications, even freakin' ebay listings, they put a small countdown graphic in the bottom right hand corner to the time of the expected announcement. Just as the clock hit 00:00, the doom on the announcers faces was evident.
The crude inventories came in 4.6 MILLION barrels lower than expected. Instantly, crude rocketed up and the Dow went in the opposite direction. With the housing market still reeling from the knock out punches of last summer and the trickled effect of the Bear Sterns demise, I can't help but wonder how this trifecta will effect the American economy. You might not afford to go the movies or on the earned and anticpated vacation, but you at least now have my witty blog to entertain you. I know that's a comfort.
On the other hand, if you do have to go through the "American Oil Crisis," as the conservative CNBC is now deeming it, there's probably no better place to live than Western Oklahoma. Rowdy and I may have to sell one of our kids to get a wheat crop in the ground, but at least our friends and Rowdy's stepfather can whip out their fat oil dough and buy us a beer for consolation. Talk about job security. All jokes aside, I'm a lover of Western Oklahoma and it really does make me happy seeing this area that is my home prosper.
Several airlines are making moves to cut down their fuel consumption and some of them sound kind of funny. American Airlines, for example, is debating removing all the backseat telephones, stating that each plane carries 200 pounds of 'em.
Now the South Koreans are out in full force protesting because their government is reinstating their American beef imports. Of course this is frenzied fit is because of the one confirmed case of mad cow. It was over three years ago and the American Beef Industry has gone above and beyond to prove overwhelmingly we will never have another case. For example, if a steer has any trouble walking, he will never make it into the food chain. Turns out, they sometimes break their legs. The leg can be healed, but if it impairs their ability to walk at all, the slaughter houses won't take 'em. The upside is that Rowdy then has more head to feed out here and then sell at cost to our lucky friends. You won't eat a finer steak at the most swank restaurant in Manhattan than you will in my kitchen, thanks to the feeding genius of my husband. American beef is really our only remaining import. Everything else can made, normally cheaper, in other countries. And, sure, they can raise beef in the other parts of the world, but they can't raise the quality beef that we do. Have you ever eaten a burger in Mexico? However, that sole case of mad cow in American, the world's largest beef producer, has been a bargaining chip in the South Korean Free Trade Agreement. Ranchers were offered up on a sacrificial alter for lower import tariffs and Korean a few troops. Thank God they did, too. It would be total disaster if pimple-faced 14-year-0lds had to pay $30 for video game than $25. If you think we will go to war over foreign oil, just imagine if we were fully dependent on foreign food. In this global market, a country must be able to import something to maintain growth and, in turn, independence.
Last night I saw a Wal-Mart commercial promising to cash the stimulus checks, or "China Money" as Mollie coined it, without a fee. And, if you will get it put on some sort of Wal-Mart card, they will waive other fees. Now, let me see if I fully understand this --- We are borrowing money with interest from China to give to American consumers to stimulate our economy (and our stock market, which is cooooolllll with this stock trader) so that they can go to Wal-Mart to buy products made in freakin' China. Holy shit, it's like some weird twilight zone. Remember that picture of the cow eating grass in your science books, with the arrows going into a circle. That's what it reminds me of. And, outside of the short-term, I can't really see this being beneficial to the country, but you know I'll be getting long the favorite retail stores of idiots who will spend their checks instead of saving them. Maybe AutoZone or Pep Boys? Vehicles seem to be the preferred investment of the prudently frugal. Spinners or lift kits or a deafening "system," anyone?
Speaking of shopping, this month's retail numbers come out tomorrow. Just like today, the little countdown will be rollin' away in the corner of the tv screen on CNBC. I'm sure this oil mess won't look positively effect these reports, but who knows? The first round of verdicts on the stimulus checks will be in and, good or bad, you can beat the talking heads will be all a-twitter.
Until then, I'm not putting either of the boys on the auction block just yet. But, we are still three months, give or take, from sowing wheat. Call me then and we'll see. They are cute and they never talk back. They eat whatever you serve then and they put themselves to sleep. And the stimulus checks are going to fix everything.