I Hate Eleanor Roosevelt

Man, I started out 2018 with guns blazing, cranking out a post almost every week.  Dispatches From the Ranch was humming right along.  And then summer hit.  I knew there'd be a lull in my writing as hay season takes up a good portion of my energy.  But once fall rolled around I figured I'd jump right back into my old writing habits.  Nope.  Work, hunting (an upcoming post, for sure), and general laziness gave me the title of a measly once-a-month blogger.  December was looking pretty grim to even put a single post out into the ether, that is, until Grady came home from school and told us that he hated Eleanor Roosevelt.  Regina looked at me and said, "Well, there's your next blog."

Grant's not bad, but that Eleanor Roosevelt?
Just awful.

Of course, I couldn't let that one go unnoticed, even if technically he didn't tell us.  Grady, as many of you know, talks to us through a mixture of sign language, a few words, and in iPad app that he either types on or uses picture icons to put together words and sentences.  A great way for us to check up on his day at school is to look through his talking history.  It's an odd peek into his day and we piece the words and phrases he's used to paint a picture of what he learned that day.  I feel like a linguistic detective.  Grady's very into LEGO people, so their names often pop up in his history, as well as classmates, and random icons that he clicks because he found them interesting.  Harry Potter pops up frequently, as does Harry Styles (I'm still really not sure why the latter made the cut to even have his own icon, but someone in R&D must have been a big One Direction fan).  There's stuff that pops up from his science lessons, language arts discussions, and numbers from his math lessons.  And then there's always a few head-scratchers in the mix.  That's where "I hate Eleanor Roosevelt" comes in.  Eleanor Roosevelt?  Never mind where you stand politically, she was quite a badass (and was niece to a genuine badass, Teddy).  Eleanor was regarded as a humanitarian, a thoughtful diplomat, patient, and kind, and generally well loved.  No one hated her.  Until now, I guess.

Grady dismissed our questions about it with a shrug, so we may never figure this one out.  And while politics are usually not a favorite dinner table conversation, it's gotten really quiet since First Wives are off the table too.  I guess we can always talk about religion and sports.

Adulting 101

The Eastside Gang spent last weekend off the ranch luxuriating in the East Bay with our friends Perry and Lisa.  They have a couple of pretty rad girls, so we brought our monkeys and turned them loose on the electric scooters that can be found on every corner in Oakland.  Ok, that would be irresponsible, but we did find an abandoned Byrd, or Lime, or ScootScoot, and all took turns ripping up and down their cul- de-sac.  The adults spent 3 days eating and drinking our way around the greater Bay Area.  I kicked it off right by immediately devouring 2 lunches on our first day there.  How could I not?  On our way to tacos we passed a nondescript corner store with a line of people out the door.  There was a hand-written menu taped to the window with 1 sandwich, 3 pies, and 4 kinds of cookies.  Lisa causally mentioned, "That's Bake Sale Betty's."  BSB?  WTF?  I'd been reading about her delicious fried chicken sammy for years, so, of course, I had to pop in after devouring several tacos to give it a try.  Yep, well worth it.

Perry is my favorite bartender.  Never mind that he works in a bank, if he had a waxed mustache, sailor tattoos, and rolled up the cuffs of his jeans over his Danner boots he could work nights in the hiperest of hipster bars.  And, after a dinner of my only favorite pizza in the world (Zachs: deep dish sausage, mushroom, spinach), he made an assortment of cocktails that had me sleeping like a baby.  He might have roofied me for all I know, but the delicious drinks were worth it.

The only hiccup in our quest for the best food in the Bay was at a science fair.  But, it was a science fair at AT&T Park, so as the kids and I examined eyeballs and brains in the visitors' dugout, my stomach didn't really care that all it was getting stuffed with was ballpark fries.  And I didn't really care either, because I knew we were heading for a shining star (or, rather, 2 shining Michelin stars) for dinner at Chez Panisse.  Regina and I have wanted to eat there for years and so we decided to treat ourselves for our 19th anniversary (it's the food anniversary, according to my made up list).

I made the reservations and that, in itself, was a challenge.  Reservations can only be made 1 month prior, so I set a reminder on my phone and, one day while I was out feeding cows, I called.  It was busy, so I called again.  Still busy.  I hit redial.  Yep, busy.  I had the feeling that this might be a popular joint in town.  Redial, redial, redial.  I felt like I was trying to win Metallica concert tickets through a radio station -- 97th caller wins! -- but finally, after 20 or so tries, I got through, and got the last seat for an 8:45 dinner reservation.  8:45? Were are we, Lisbon?  That's often my bedtime, but anything for Alice Waters.  Of course, the meal was amazing and, besides our friend Paul asking the waiter why the burnt-honey ice cream was burnt, was super adult-like.  For us, anyway.

The East Bay offered us even more than that.  We got to hang with friends, eat good food, dive into cool cocktail bars, go on a distillery tour, and even go to a youth soccer match that amazed Dylan and Grady (matching uniforms! more than 2 soccer balls for warmups! painted field lines! a ref!).  We drove home, wore out and happy.  When we adult, we adult well.

The Season, Vol. 1

There are a few things that once you start, it's nearly impossible to stop: Cool Ranch Doritos, Camel Lights, and coaching youth soccer.  Now, every fall, whenever the PAL soccer organizer calls me, he just says, "You're coaching again, right?"

Both teams tackled me on my birthday.
I've always wondered how many 10-year olds it would take
to beat me up.  The answer is fewer than I hoped.

This year, like the previous, there were just two teams in the older age bracket.  We had the Killer Llamas and the Killer Llama Killers.  I coached the latter.  My buddy, Arnoud, coached the former.  Despite is European roots, like me, he's a former rugby player, not a soccer player, and soccer "rules" were often improvised.  Whenever Regina watched our matches she had to bite her tongue as Arnoud and I often would look at each other after an infraction and just shrug.  Our league is the XFL of soccer.  It's a faster and more aggressive game because we play on a field that's A) maybe 40 yards long and 50 yards wide, and B) there's a noticeable uphill slope (or downhill, depending on who picks) to the pitch.  If you're playing downhill, it's pretty easy for a goalie with a good toe to score with a simple clearing kick.  Plus, the field got shorter each time the grass got mowed because whoever ran the lawnmower pushed the goals in and no one bothered to reset them.

The Killer Llamas weren't too thrilled that we mocked their name and came out and beat us soundly in the first 3 games.  It's only a 6-week season, and I felt the team slipping away.  I wish I could say I stepped up my coaching skills by Googling "How to win at soccer," but in reality, I just upped my candy bar bribes.  We won the next 3 to finish the season 3-3.  The coolest part was watching the players transform into decent little soccer players.  The boy who always kept his hands in his pockets turned out to be a pretty good goalie; the girl who insisted on only playing defender turned into an awesome midfielder, and the boy who wouldn't go near the ball turned into a thunder foot who could launch it a mile.  The best, for me, was watching Dylan.  This season, things really clicked for her.  She turned into a scoring machine and my promise from 5 years ago of a candy bar for every goal she scored really bit me in the butt.  I'm sure her dentist won't be thrilled either.  Best of all, she plays soccer like a rugger.  Boys complained when she knocked them down.  I just shrugged.

The only downside to coaching is I couldn't watch Grady play.  His team played on the field next to ours so I could peek over and catch a little of the action.  And, aside from bouncing a soccer ball off his braces once, he had a blast.

So, the cleats and shinguards are back in the closet, mildewing away, and Tuesdays and Thursdays just don't feel the same without dashing to town and trying to squeeze late dinners in after homework.  But we'll figure out something to do with our free time.  I hear basketball is starting up soon.

Paradise

Between ranch work, drill team, mountain trips, and even horse camp, Dylan and Grady's horseback skills have skyrocketed this year.  It's been pretty cool to watch.  Dylan started, as a cocky cowboygirl toddler, with a limited set of skills and an overabundance of confidence.  I was certain I was raising the next horse-whisperer.  On one fateful cattle drive, I put her on Barney, the oldest, steadiest horse on the ranch.  Ol' Barney was perfect for her; she could act like she was in charge and he'd point her in the right direction.  I knew Barney was so reliable, I didn't even have to hold his lead rope while I checked the cinch on my horse.  For some reason, Barney saw his chance to break and bolted like he was running out of Shawshank.  I turned around to see a geriatric horse and a screaming toddler go galloping down the road.  Dylan hung on, barely, and Uncle Tony had to chase them down in his truck.  Adios, confidence.  It took years before Dylan would even break into a trot.

But now, Dylan rides Dad's old horse, Romeo, and the two are a great pair.  She's become a fearless rider again and I love the transformation.  So when I need an extra hand with ranch work, I call on them.  Such was the case last Friday.  I loaded our horses and picked up Dylan from the front of the Jr. High and off we went.  I needed to move a small herd of cattle that had holed up in a meadow we call Paradise Hollow.  It's a place I'd hole up in if I were a cow or a fugitive: good grass, clear creek water, nice scenery.  But the feed was running low and it was time to bring the cows home.  This was normally a job I'd do with at least one of my brothers, but they were busy, or stoved up, or both, so Dylan got the nod.

Dylan and I had a blast.  We crashed through brush and trees, hopped over creeks, and pushed pairs down a steep, dusty trail.  Dylan, as usual, happily chatted the whole time while I just listened.  When we finally got the cattle close enough to the lower meadow, we turned the horses up the hill and followed bear tracks back to the truck.

We made it off the mountain in time for Dylan to make it to yet another horse-activity: 4-H horsemanship.  She traded her ball cap for a helmet and she and Romeo practiced more obstacles in an arena.  "How'd Romeo do?" I asked that evening.  "He was okay," Dylan said, "but he didn't like going over all the obstacles."  Hmmm, I thought.  Poor Romeo was probably a little wiped out from all the down logs, creeks, brambles, and boulders he'd just spent the previous few hours stepping over and around.  I tossed Romeo a little extra hay the next morning and thanked him for being the King of Steady, and cut him a little slack for being lazy on the 4-H obstacle course.

Paintin' the Town

When ranchers really want to go out and paint the town, they do one of two things: they go to a rodeo or find a field day.  Last Saturday we got to do both.  Maybe a little too much town-painting for the family that hits the hay before sunset, but sometimes you have to buckle down and be social.

The field day was hosted by the Siskiyou County Cattlemens Association and the Ag Extension office and is a tour of a local area and highlights how other cattlemen and women operate.  We hit our first feedlot at 8:30 AM and were at our third by 11:30.  Cattle, cattle, everywhere.  The kids mentally checked out when the donuts ran out at 9:00.  But still, I learned a few things.  Any chance I can ask, "How'd you plumb that water trough?" or, "Where'd you get them perty heifers?" is a win.  We cruised through a valley which is, literally, just over the hill from ours, and saw areas that I'd only heard stories about.  We also visited a prominent ranch that I hadn't visited since I was 12 (which was probably the last time they hosted a field day).  I really need to get off the Eastside more.

After the 4th ranch on the tour, it was time to load up and hit the Jefferson State Stampede Rodeo.  The kids ate kettle korn and snow cones and the adults found the Etna Beer booth.  We watched my little nephew ride his first sheep and cheered on friends and neighbors.  We got home waaaaay past our bedtime (9:30), fell asleep and was awakened 3 hours later by the entire purebred Angus herd grazing on our front lawn.  Regina and I spent the next hour gathering them in the dark.  I guess I didn't have to leave the Eastside after all, sometimes field days and rodeos just find their way to you.

A Tale of Two Towns

Guess who didn't want her dad making a big
deal about her 1st day of middle school?

School is back in session and for the first time, Dylan and Grady are not only going to different schools, but are going to different schools in different towns.  Grady is still an Etna Elementary Mustang, but Dylan has graduated on to become a Middle School Panther in Ft. Jones.  It's another step up in logistics prep for us, but we're 5 days in and no one's been forgotten at home or late for school, so our confidence is soaring.

Super stoked for 4th grade!

I was, back in the dark ages, the last class to complete jr. high at the high school in Etna before the old Ft. Jones high school opened up as the middle school.  I've only watched my nieces and nephew go through 8th grade graduation there, so the school is as new to me as it is to Dylan.  This is a fact that, while completely uninteresting, I chose to share with a parent of one of Dylan's friends not once, but twice at our back-to-school orientation.  She gave me a look like I'd just told her I was going to be President of the World someday and then quickly moved on.

So, while Dylan is navigating rotating classes, new classmates, and a PE program with uniforms, Grady is rockin' it in the 4th grade Boys' Academy (there are only 5 girls in his class).  It's basically the same ol' routine for him, aside from having a new teacher and a stricter hat policy.

We're excited for the challenges the year will bring us, and if you catch us at the bakery on Friday mornings, I might even tell you about the time I narrowly missed going to the jr. high in Ft. Jones.  If you're extra lucky, I'll tell you twice.

Pre-Fair, Post-Fair

I was talking to a buddy today about the fair and he said that it's a lot like running a marathon.  He's right.  But it's a little more like doing a few 100-yard windsprints during a marathon, while chugging keg beer and eating a corndog.  It is, obviously, the greatest and most challenging 5 days of summer.

For 4-H and FFA kids, fair preparation is year-round.  Last year, Dylan picked out Dolores the day after the fair.  This year, we're waiting a whole week.  Dylan and Grady have been working with their fair animals all summer long.  Dylan caught her heifer, Dolores, twice a day and brushed, washed, groomed, and walked her.  Dolores had her hair professionally clipped and her hooves trimmed.  Her showbox looked like a Jersey Shore bathroom counter.  Turkeys, of course, are a lot easier and daily baths would probably kill them, but Grady was pretty good at keeping them well fed and watered.  Robot and Batman even got a good scrubbing and bath just before the fair.  You ever have to wash a turkey?  It was an all-hands on deck kind of job.

And then, voila, fair time.  Dolores had to be there a day early to get weighed and preg-checked.  When Dr. Amy pregged Dolores, her eyes widened and she said, "Any day."  So a 1528 pound, very pregnant heifer was led to her soft bed of shavings, where she'd spend the next 5 days getting washed, fed, groomed, and coddled.  Robot arrived Wednesday morning for poultry inspection (apparently, birds carry a lot of bugs).  He passed his mite test and sat on the scales at 45.8 pounds.  A tad heavy, but since Grady is still in PeeWee Showmanship and can't sell, Robot could've weighted 100 pounds and it wouldn't have mattered.

I'll skim though the next 5 days, mostly because they're a blur.  Grady showed Robot as the only PeeWee turkey showman.  And while the judge was impressed with his turkey knowledge, he was really impressed with his beast of a bird.  Dylan showed Dolores and finished a very respectable 3rd in her class, and, the following day, finished well in her market class.  Since Grady was the only kid showing a turkey, he automatically made it to the PeeWee finals on Saturday.  There, in the big showring, he marched Robot back and forth, shook the hands of random bystanders, and pointed out all the weird parts of his bird.  Dylan got back in the ring on Sunday for her final day with Dolores.  Thankfully, our awesome neighbor, Bob, bought her and promised he'd let Dylan come visit Dolores and her new baby.  That was a huge weight off Dylan's shoulders and made her goodbye a thousand times easier.

Demobilizing our fair set up made me understand why the army just dumps its tanks and helicopters into the ocean whenever it leaves a foreign war.  I wanted to do that with all our crap, but Yreka creek is dry, so I had to cart it all to the truck.  We are, still, in a bit of post-fair hangover mode.  But things are looking up.  I'm starting to miss fried pickles and 4-wheeler crashes and we're already talking about picking out next year's fair heifer.  By August 2019, we're bound to be ready.

Long, Long Gulch

We recently got back from Horse Camp.  Not to be confused with "horse camp," which Dylan also attended this summer and is an official camp, with counselors and sing-songs and cabins.  No, Horse Camp is a 4 day camp out for the drill team kids and their families.  I lost count of how many folks came this year, but I know it was a huge uptick from last year, in which exactly 2 families showed up with 0 horses.  This year, the Forest Service corrals were completely full, and some ponies had to get tied to random trailers and trees around camp.  On one ride in particular, I counted 25 horses and mules, and there were still more left behind.

We arrived on the first day and while we set up camp, Clara, the Drill Leader, and a couple of adults rallied the older kids for a ride into Trail Gulch Lake.  It's about 6 miles round trip and Dylan came back one horseshoe lighter and grinning.  I broke out my seldom used ferrier kit and reattached the shoe.  My shoeing skills are dodgy at best, and I honestly considered a few wraps of duct tape to reinforce the shoe.  That shoe lasted exactly half a day, and then I just stuck a boot on Romeo and called it good.

Irish looks pissed, because he is

For day 2, we decided on a lake that is just a little farther.  Everyone in camp filled up on a big breakfast and hit the trail, excited for the adventure.  Most kids and parents were horseback, but some (including me) were afoot.  One dad led a string of pack mules which carried food, beer, and floaties. With the long line of kids and horses headed down the trail, we looked like an orphanage had a collision with a rodeo.  The hike in is really a 2 part affair.  If you ride from camp, the trailhead is still a couple miles away.  That is, if you take the correct trail.  Somehow, we veered right when we should've hooked left, then hit the dirt road which leads to the trailhead, and, again, made the same navigational error.  The group started thinning out along the road.  We'd gone from a jolly group of campers to the last days of the Donner Party in just a few short hours.  We finally realized our mistake and had to turn around.  Children wept.  Adults sighed.

But, the 5 extra miles didn't stop us and Long Gulch Lake (now named Long, Long Gulch Lake), was worth it.  We tied up in a meadow, unpacked the mules, and I, for one, promptly fell asleep.  Kids swam, a couple horses went in for a dip, a few fish were caught, and cold beers helped ease the pains in my sore legs.  I daydreamed about a helicopter carrying me out.  Instead, I hopped on Irish with Grady and rode double most the way out.  I'm not sure which hurt worse, my blisters from walking or my ass from riding in a kids' saddle.

For our last day at camp the entire crew gave Trail Gulch one more shot.  I did a few quick stretches, hiked up my big boy pants (and laced up my "real" hiking boots) and led Grady, still on Irish, in.  The only excitement was the bees on the trail, which we all, except for Pancho, my pup
, maneuvered around.  We snacked and snoozed, Dylan and some buddies found a great rock to jump off into the lake, and one of the dads inflated a giant unicorn raft and drifted out into the lake, sound asleep.

The day ended with the 2nd ever Camp Chopped: S'Mores Edition Competition.  We left that night with a trailer load of tired horses, damp gear, dirty kids, and empty coolers.  We already have made plans for Horse Camp 2019, and next year we'll be sure to bring a map.

Porky's the 13th

Nope, not me in there

Last week, we sent Dylan to her first overnight camp.  Admittedly, all I know about camp is what I learned from watching either Friday the 13th or Porky's (and Porky's II, and Porky's Revenge) movies when I was 12, so I was a little nervous.  But, this was horse camp, with a strong religious lean, and had a 9:1 girl to boy ratio of campers, and no one there was named "Jason" who was avenging the death of his mother,  so I didn't have a lot to worry about.

We decided to send Dylan to camp good and tired, so we spent the day before hiking into a lake into the Trinity Wilderness.  It was a lake we'd never been to, and had heard little about, but it fit into our "hiking with kids" parameters (day hike, under 4 miles in, trailhead within 90 minutes).   It did not disappoint.  It's a huge lake without a lot of traffic, and the water was so clear it looked man-made.  I even brought my brand-spankin-new hammock in the high hopes of getting in a nap.  I set it up as soon as we arrived and it was promptly commandeered by my kids.  I drank a beer and napped in the dirt.

And so, with Dylan gone, we decided to try another lake.  Regina and I packed in to the Sky High Lakes when we were first married.  It rained on us the whole time and we spent a soggy night hunkered down in the fir trees.  We thought we'd give it another shot, so we continued our 4th of July lake tradition and I led Grady on Romeo and we hiked in.  Again, I packed my new hammock with visions of a peaceful lakeside nap.  It wasn't small children or rain than squashed those dreams; it was flies.  Deer flies and horse flies, to be specific.  One bites and sucks blood, the other bites and hurts like hell.  They went after Romeo with a fury, and when they filled up with horse blood, the vicious little pricks turned to Regina, Grady, and me.  But, the hike in is a beautiful one, and the wildflowers were in full bloom, so, despite the fly bites and 14 miles of trail, the day was a success.

Dylan's camp culminated in a "showdeo" where she demonstrated her horsemanship skills.  She and Sally, her flea-bitten grey mare, were a good team and her confidence horseback improves every time she rides.  Of course, we celebrated her return with, yep, a hike into a lake.  Regina and I even admitted that we missed our little fartknocker.  She's already talking about going back to camp next summer.  Maybe a Friday the 13th marathon will cure her of that.

Poultry Whisperer

While Dylan's heart has landed squarely on raising heifers for fair projects, Grady has bounced around between species like a coyote in a petting zoo.

First, he tried cattle -- it seemed obvious because we have a never ending supply of bottle calves, and, while they were never much of a problem for him, it just wasn't the right fit.  Goats! I thought, They're smaller than steers and easier to manage.  I was only 50% right.  It is true that goats are smaller than steers, but, as we learned with Snowball, they are far less manageable than cattle.  Dwarf goats! I thought, They're smaller than real goats and easier to manage.  Again, 50% right.  All goats are unmanageable, regardless of size, and they tend to jump on the hoods of cars, eat vegetable gardens down to the dirt, and prefer to poop, well, just everywhere.  They're funny, sure, but at the same time, they're belligerent.  I call them "asshole dogs."

The whole time, the answer to Grady's fair-quandary lay right in front of us.  Literally.  He's always been our go-to guy on all things chickens.  I can spend an hour trying to herd them back into their coop.  I look like Rocky Balboa in his "catch the chicken" training scene.  Grady casually walks over and scoops them up, one by one, until they're all put away.  Sometimes we catch him just sitting in the coop, hanging with his homegirls.

While chickens are fun to raise, we thought we'd up the poultry ante and go with turkeys.  Turks are amazing -- they grow exponentially, their heads change from blue to red to white like a mood ring, they have crazy body parts with names like snood and wattle, and you can trick them into gobbling simply by scaring them with your own sudden call.  It's a fun game.

Grady has two.  He hasn't named them because we're unsure if they're hens or toms (although one will definitely be named "Robot," we're just not sure which one).  And, just like their smaller chicken cousins, they're completely unafraid of Grady.  He pets them, walks them around, and keeps them well fed.

Grady's still too young to sell at the fair, so this year is just a turkey trial run, but we may have found his niche.  Find him at the fair and he'll show you two of the oddest animals you've ever seen.  He definitely is the boy who talks to turkeys.

AR, a million

She can shoot

This post's title might be the name of a hot new Bon Iver single (hipsters chuckle), or the newest knockoff assault rifle out of China (hipsters scowl), but in fact, it's neither.  Actually, it's an excuse for me to brag about my daughter a little.  The AR stands for Accelerated Reader.  I imagine if your kid goes to public school, you're familiar.  The "Million" part is the number of pints Dylan racked up this year.  Of course, I'm being hyperbolic, but judging from the amount of time she has her nose in a book, I'm sure I'm not too far off.

She can quilt

Dylan is constantly reading --- in the car, on the way to school, on the bus ride home -- sometimes I tell her to go outside and play and she brings a book.  She reads pretty much whatever she can get her hands on.  When she's out of books, she re-reads old ones.  It's interesting to watch, this little bookworm, plow through book after book after book.  I'm amazed she does anything else, really.  But, she still manages to care for a fair heifer, ride her horse, play with the dogs and kittens, shoot her bow, and, occasionally kick a soccer ball around.  But then it's always back to the books.

She can kitten

This year, I told her I'd give her $100 bill if she broke the school's AR point record.  I think I paid that out by March.  She asked for a Kuiu shirt if she reached the next 100 point increment, and 2 weeks later we were online, checking out youth shirts on their website.  I suspected she was going to keep reading regardless, so I quit offering payouts, and I was right.  As I'm writing this, there are 2 days of school left and she just told me she was going to take the tests for 5 more books tomorrow.  I haven't read 5 books in the past 2 years, and I was an English major.

Regina and I are both impressed and proud.  Someday her AR point record will probably be broken.  I joke that it'll probably be by some boy (or girl)-in-a-bubble, but I hope it's by another little jr. badass.  But that kid probably won't be decked out in camo, quietly bobbing his or her head to the falsetto tones of Bon Iver.

R&R&R

Memorial Day Weekend goes one of two ways: 1) we're starting to cut hay and are up to our ears in alfalfa and irrigating or, 2) it rains and our responsibilities on the ranch are reduced to feeding a few horses and checking the purebred herd for new babies.  This year we hit door number 2, which was great because our friends, Paul, Amy, and Malcolm, from Oakland made their annual pilgrimage north and I got to join in on all the debauchery fun.

We try to fit in all the ranch and valley activities we think they might enjoy and not otherwise get to do in the city.  Sometimes, admittedly, we go a little overboard.  Paul and Amy are very busy folks and probably wish for a quiet country weekend, full of Rest, Rose´, and Rounds (of ammunition).  Instead, as soon as they arrive, we hammer them with a 20 minute Powerpoint presentation on all the activities we hope to accomplish, have them do eleven shots, then *release the hounds* the weekend may officially begin.

After ranch chores (2 new purebred calves!) we loaded the coolers, the dog, and the kids into the truck and headed to the Russian Wilderness to hike into a lake.  Our day began inauspiciously when I led the group straight from the trailhead directly to the wrong trail.  We hiked about 100 yards and the trail suddenly quit.  I pressed on through burned fir pilings and I could feed the group losing confidence in my trailblazing technique.  Suddenly, I heard Paul yell, "Hey, here's the trail."  The rest of the group looked at me like I was General Custer and they'd just caught their first arrow.  Some leader I was.  I had to regain their confidence by finding the unmarked path to the lake, which I did, thank you very much.

By the time we made it home, we only had about ten minutes to shine up so we could make our dinner reservations.  The ladies showered, the gentlemen spit shined the wine and beer stains from our shirts and we made it with a minute to spare.  We spent the next day resting our legs by cruising around in the Ranger and shooting stuff.  By stuff, I mean ground squirrels, fence posts, and beer cans.  Everyone got a crack at marksmanship and we shot the shit out of a few dead Coors cans.


By the time they left on Monday morning, our recycling bins were full of wine bottles and our ammo boxes were empty, which is the first real indication that summer has started.  Soon, I'll  be sitting on the swather and Regina will have a little time off from principal duties, and we'll have a little time to relax and think, just long enough to start planning and preparing for next Memorial Day.

Dropping Science

The call was a little unexpected.  "Hi, Judd, this is Dr. Amy.  I have a favor ..."  If that call is from a neighbor, it might be to borrow a bottle of cattle wormer or a tractor part, but from the vet, anything's possible.  "So, Luke butchered today and has a cow's stomach and a bag of bile for 4-H tomorrow.  Could you pick it up and bring it over?"

Dylan signed up for a Veterinary Science program through her 4-H club.  Grady was too young to sign up, but since meetings fall on the same night as Regina's school board meetings, he got to tag along.  Kids learned, first hand, about all the gushy and messy parts of animals.  Day 1 kicked off with a heart dissection and a study of an enlarged cow's liver.  These kids -- mostly girls -- sliced and diced through every bit of soft tissue they could find inside dead mammals.  Roadkilled deer?  Cut 'er open.  Mummified fetus?  Of course.  Old gall bladder?  Why not.

Early on in the class, Dr. Amy asked me to save a reproductive tract from a heifer we butchered.  I diligently kept it in the freezer until I needed room for hamburger.  I completely forgot about it and swore that the unmarked ziplock bag was full of sweetbreads (neither sweet, nor bread) that had turned bad.  I was a little embarrassed to tell the class that I tossed their dissection project for the evening, but really I was just grateful I didn't try to cook up a cervix and uterus for dinner, thinking it was an unusual shape for a thymus gland.

One evening was spent looking at x-rays and old bones.  Images from car smashed cats and crippled horses fascinated the kids, but the real treat that night was the smell.  There wasn't one.  I spent most classes trying to pretend I wasn't gagging from the odor emanating from the pile o' innards laid out on the table.  Gut night was, predictably, the worst.  Many parents opted to stay outside.  Since I brought in the garbage can full of insides, I felt a little obligated to stay.

Dylan always asked a ton of good questions and one night the 4-H leader looked at me and said, "Wow, I think your daughter is going to be a vet!"  I smiled with pride and thought of all the free vet care my cattle and horses would receive.  Just then, Dylan came around the corner holding her nose.  "Dad," she said, "I definitely do NOT want to be a vet."  Well, at least we know now.

Guns-N-Rose´

This year's Mothers' Day was so much fun that I'd be satisfied if we just lumped it with the upcoming Fathers' Day and called it good.  There were, of course, the usual Mothers' Day shenanigans: dinner out, breakfast in, flowers, breakfast wine, etc., but the highlight, absolutely, was our hike to Log Lake.

Log Lake is, quite possibly, the least impressive lake in the Marble Mountain Wilderness.  It's a small, brackish, puddle filled with deadfall and void of fish.  We'd never been there though and we knew the trail was open, so Log Lake it was.  Our friends, Lizz and Arnoud, and their two boys came along.  Dogs were loaded up, coolers were filled, and we headed out.

The day began with a flat tire less than a mile from the trailhead.  We put on the donut spare, left the car on the side of the road, and loaded everyone in my truck.  At the trailhead there were a few folks who were getting ready for their hike and I felt obligated to give them a heads up on our plans.  Lucky for them, they were all headed to different lakes, so our motley crew wouldn't disrupt their wilderness experience.  So, four dogs, four kids, and four adults hit the trail.  On the hike in, we encountered just one rattlesnake, which Dylan nearly sat on and Welly, the fat lab, tried to befriend.  Otherwise, the hike was calm and beautiful -- lush meadows, waterfalls everywhere, wind in the firs -- you get the picture.

Yep, that's a wine bottle and a pistola 

Arnoud got a little unwanted attention from a mountain lion a couple deer hunting seasons back, so he now wisely packs a pistol when he's in the mountains.  I rely on my Leatherman tool and the fact that I can probably outrun my kids for a defense mechanism.  Arnoud was quite the sight with a pistol on his hip and bottles of rose´sticking out from his pack.  Lewis and Clark would have been jealous.

And so our afternoon was spent lounging in the sun, eating salami and cheese, and drinking rose´.  Except for me, I can't stomach the pink stuff, so I fueled up on IPAs.  The kids caught salamanders and the dogs swam.  It was so relaxing I didn't want to leave.

Sun's out, guns out

We finally mustered the strength to pack up our empty bottles and head out.  Depending on whose iPhone you believe, we hiked anywhere between five and forty-seven miles.  Arnoud and Lizz made it out safely on their donut tire, the dogs all slept for two days, and we already have our sights set on the next lake we can easily pack bottles of wine into.  We'll just make sure Arnoud is in the lead with his sidearm.

1st Sunday in May

It's rodeo season, y'all.  And even though they no longer close off Main St. for the Saturday night rodeo dance, there isn't even a queen to crown anymore, and Corrigan's is slowly sinking into the earth (figuratively, and probably literally), it's still one of the best weekends of the year.

Dotty's, for one, has picked up the slack for the dance and has added a BBQ.  We took the kids in and, to really prove how old we are, not only arrived early, but may have arrived first.  The grub was great, the beer was cold, and the live band kicked ass.  If I closed my eyes, I could have been 30 years younger, sneaking in through the back door of Corrigan's and shuffling across the sawdust floor to hide from Rusty, the owner.

Sunday kicked off with the annual parade.  Dylan and Grady bookended the Drill Team entry: Dylan led with the California flag and Grady brought up the rear on his reliable, yet slow, horse, Button.  They waved, people cheered.  We did the Etna loop and the kids looked great.  They got pumped up on leftover parade candy and were ready to rock at the rodeo.  We loaded up the horses and took them down to the Pleasure Park arena to get ready for their grand entrance.

Things pretty much fell apart from then on.  A kid fell off her horse during warm ups, and another kid's horse tried to roll in the soft arena sand.  Some of the younger riders got a little rattled and a few parents spent the rest of the pre-rodeo time convincing their shaken or crying children that getting back on their horse would be a good idea.  And, when they were called, God bless 'em, they all cowboyed up and rode in.

Their pattern fell apart immediately.  Two horses peeled off and started making circles in the middle of the arena.  It looked cool, but it wasn't part of the routine.  Two other kids learned that their horses don't like loud PA systems, and every time they passed a speaker their horses went sideways and broke off into a dead run.  Parents looked on in terror, but these kids are a tough group and they kept at it.  Their planned ride was shot to hell, but they made the most of their arena time.  Dylan looked like an old pro carrying the Drill Team flag, and unshakeable Romeo motored right along.  After several laps, the leader decided they'd had enough and the kids rode out.

Immediately after the Drill Team's entrance Dylan and and her buddy Pey-pey opted to gallop back in with all the other cowboys and cowgirls for the Grand Entry.  After their Drill Team fiasco, they deserved a little redemption.  They looked like champs, the cutest of champs, sure, but little junior badasses nonetheless.  They lined up for the opening prayer and the Star Spangled Banner and sat their horses like they'd been there 100 times before.

We spent the rest of the afternoon selling snow cones and making sure the kids counted change correctly in the Drill Team Snack Shack so we missed most of the rodeo.  I heard it was a good one, but I'd already seen all I needed to see.

Friday Night Lights

Friday nights mean only one thing: Drill Team.  Regina and I get home from work, catch and saddle Romeo and Button, and haul them, and the kids, into town.  Dylan and Grady ride around the rodeo arena with the rest of their Drill buddies, the parents all stand around, a few folks come in to watch, and Jimmy grills burgers and dogs in the snack shack.  Friday nights at the Pleasure Park have suddenly become the hottest hangout in Scott Valley.

Drill Team and youth baseball often overlap, and several of the kids do both.  Some even leave their games early, throw some jeans over their baseball pants, and catch the last half of drill practice.  We might be doing the same, had we let our kids know that baseball was a sport that lots of kids do.  Instead, we took them to an Oakland A's game on an especially hot day.  The sweat, the concrete, the pace of a professional game all mixed together to leave a pretty distasteful smear on their memories.  They haven't asked to join Little League since.

I have a buddy who has two boys in baseball.  Last Saturday, we compared notes on our previous evenings.  I told him Drill Team parents all bring coolers full of beer and there's a BBQ after every practice.  He sighed.  Apparently, cracking open a buckskin at the Little League field is frowned upon and all he got for dinner was Big League Chew and red vines.

May Rodeo is this Sunday and the kids have been working hard on their riding patterns and timing.  Clara, the awesome lady who volunteered to organize the monkeys, is getting them into top form.  They're improving steadily, but it's a young crew.  I think Dylan may be the oldest kid there.  When Clara tells them to go left at the end of the arena, there's only a 50% guarantee they'll go in the right direction.  And that estimate is high.  Sometimes the horses get snotty and buck (usually a pony is the culprit -- go figure), sometimes the kids get frustrated and whine, but they're all getting better on horseback, they're usually having fun, and their parents are certainly having a blast.  And somewhere in town, beneath the lights of a Little League field, there's a dad hiding out by his truck, pouring a Coors Light into a Nalgene bottle, and looking wistfully at the bright, bright lights coming from the Pleasure Park, thinking, Man, that looks like fun.

Hillbilly Golf

The Disney movie Brave changed my life.  No, not in the way No Country For Old Men did, but, I could argue, for a movie I only half-watched, Brave had a much bigger impact.  No Country just made me paranoid of cattle-killing bolt guns and get a really sweet bob haircut, while Brave, dammit, made me a bowhunter.

The Cliff's Notes version is this: Dylan watched Brave, then wanted a bow.  Then she wanted a nicer bow.  I stood around while she shot targets, handing her arrows and mumbling, "Nice shot," until my cousin Brett gave me his really nice bow.  We practiced, we watched bow shooting videos on YouTube, Dylan won a contest, I arrowed a buck.  We were hooked.  Then Grady wanted a bow.  And around we go, the circle stays unbroken.



So now we do things like worry about our laundry detergent's scent (for sneaky hunting) and spend Sunday afternoons at 3-D shoots.  You're probably thinking, 3-D shoots, that sounds awesome!  Are there lasers involved?  Cosplay?  Furries?  No.  It's even more awesome.  Think hillbilly mini-golf with weapons.  You hike around, usually up and down hills, and take shots at 3-D targets.  Some shots are difficult (Ashland has a bison out at 100 yards, Siskiyou has an iron hog with a very small soft center to hit.  There's a pile of busted arrows beneath it).  Some are easy.  Some are surrounded by poison oak, or blackberry brambles, or creeks.  Some targets are beneath cliffs and some are in caves.   Still not convinced that it's fun?  I wasn't either, until the first time I went.  The kids and I had a blast.  We flung arrows until my eyes got fuzzy and came home and started practicing for the next shoot.

Which is also something archery is great for -- discipline.  There's a concentrated focus in shooting a bow properly that very few activities offer.  Kids have to be calm, still, focused, and patient.  In archery, there's a hundred things that can go wrong before one thing goes right, and shooters have to sort all those things out in their heads before they shoot.  Plus, the sound of an arrow hitting a target is deeply satisfying.  It's something our cool-ass caveman forefathers and mothers did for survival, and that thwack of an arrow finding its mark is embedded in our DNA.

So now, we mark our calendars every year for the local shoots.  I keep googling more places to hillbilly-golf bow shoot to expand our territory.  Dylan's getting better, I'm holding steady, and now Grady is ready for his next bow.  He'll have to watch Brave first.  Maybe we'll all sit down as a family and watch No Country For Old Men, and see how freaked out the kids get, friend-o.

2%-er

Dylan, suddenly, hates having her photo taken.

It seems odd to me that only around 2% of the American population are farmers or ranchers.  Probably because 50% of the people I know are in those professions.  But I do realize that there's quite a bit that I do, because of my vocation, that most folks don't do.  For instance, I regularly stick my arm up cows' asses.  Seems weird, right?  It is, but it's one of the best and easiest ways to check if a cow is pregnant.  Getting them to pee on that little stick is nearly impossible, so, the long gloves it is.  I also get to take my kids to work with me whenever they're not in school.  I take it for granted, but I realize that most professions frown on bringing kids into the office whenever the mood strikes.  If I can cram them in the cab of a tractor, stick them on a horse, or pile them on a 4-wheeler, then they can tag along.  Besides, the extra set of hands is, well, handy.

They were home, and a little cooped up over spring break, so I had them as my cow feeding helpers.  I can count on Dylan to drive for me while I climb up on the back of a pickup that's loaded down with hay.  She likes to stay up front and play with the dogs while I holler left and right instructions, but generally, I don't have to pay too much attention to her driving.  She knows where to go and what to avoid.  I already know how much smarter she is than me because at her age, when I drove to feed for dad, he had to write a big "L" and "R" on my left and right hands to keep me from crashing into fences, trees, or bull wallows.  Dylan just puts smiley faces on her own hands.  

Grady, on the other hand (no pun intended), hates being left alone in the truck and I often have to push or pull him up to the top of four or five layers of hay -- while the truck's moving -- and then shimmy myself up super-gracefully to the top to feed.  He kicks off flakes of hay for me and sits, frozen and clinging to a twine on a bale.  Apparently, he hates heights only a tiny bit less than driving.

We got tired of trying to navigate our way to the horse pen in the dark after Drill Team practices, so on Saturday I put in a gate with closer (and semi-lighted) access.  Dylan and Grady were my brace building helpers which, mostly, worked well.  Dylan's good at measurements, so she ran the tape measure and Grady's good with tools, so he ran the chainsaw (no, he didn't).  They gathered rocks for the post holes and Dylan took a crack at hammering in fencing staples.  There's a little room for improvement in her hammer swinging skills, but it'll come.  And we completed a little project that looks pretty good with a new (to us) gate (Repurposed?  Up-cycled?  Some piece of shit that I used because I'm too cheap to buy a new one?  Take your pick).

They're back in school and I'm back to feeding solo, with a big ol' L and R written on my leather gloves.  You know, just in case.  And when the weekend comes, they'll be tagging along with their dear old dad, hanging out with a 2%-er.