Blondes, Oreos, and Fuzzy Orange Cats

Regina has a type.  I'd like to say it's ridiculously charming and handsome blonde dudes, but that would only be 33% right.  But she'll collect fuzzy orange cats by the bucketload and has tried to talk me into getting Belted Galloways (aka "Oreo" cattle) since she first laid eyes on one.

While we still have 4 orange cats, we've been belt-less.  Until now.  Meet Sami.  She's a 3-week old registered Belted Galloway heifer.  I've seen, literally, thousands of baby calves in my lifetime, and generally, they're all pretty cute.  But Sami takes the cake.  She's reeeeeallly stinkin' cute.

Sami came from Port Orford, Oregon -- which is just a quick 5 hour jaunt from here.  And what better way to spend a Sunday than to load the kids, the puppy, and Boy into the truck at 6:00 a.m. and head to the coast.  It was like a little vacation, minus all the cocktails and relaxation.

Sami now lives in Dolores's (Dylan's fair heifer) guest room.  Dolores probably isn't too happy her shelter got stolen, but Sami sure likes it.  She chugs 3 bottles a day, which is keeping us hopping, and she's already been a headliner at the college's career day for jr. high kids.  Dylan and I were the "ag" station, and we had no career guidance or speech to give.  We just had a baby calf and a puppy and let the little spazzy kids pet them until their teachers told them to quit.

So, we're in the heritage breed cattle business.  I'm sure, in the near future, another orange kitten will join our herd, and, as long as Regina doesn't suddenly announce, "You know what I really like?  Brunette guys," then I'll hang around too.

Penny's Creeper

Leaves!

Picture this:  You and your family are spending a nice little Saturday out at the strip mall.  Sun's out.  Cows are mooing.  You walk into JC Pennys 'cause, you know, fly threads, and there in the women's unmentionables stands a lone man.  He's not shopping, he's not picking out something for his wife, he's just ... there.  Honey, you ask, should we call the manager?  Please don't.  It's only me.

No, this isn't some sort of weird confession, and yes, that was my Saturday afternoon with Dylan and her friend.  They had to have matching outfits for the upcoming talent show and Regina was working, so I got volunteered.

Things started out strong.  The first thing I saw when we walked in was that flannel shirts were 70% off.  I thought I could hide there, in the men's section, until the girls were done, but then they asked me to hold their extra clothes while they tried stuff on.  Pennys, weirdly, puts their dressing rooms in the middle of the women's bras and underwear.  That's where I was camped out, spending what felt like waaaaay too much time trying to act un-pervy and not stare at the chonies.  Mothers held their children a little tighter as they passed.  Fathers looked disapprovingly.  I felt shame.  One lady, who'd seen me exchange shirts for the girls said, "You're a good dad."  I said, "Thanks," but I really wish I'd said, "I don't know them," because I double-down on awkwardness when things get really weird.

These are not pictures from that day.
Snapping photos in the chonie section would've
really raised a few eyebrows.

Really though, probably no one batted an eye at the hillbilly lost in the bras.  And I'm sure I wasn't the first.  As a reward, we treated ourselves to shakes, candy, and the local tattoo parlor.  The latter also doubles as an art gallery, so we perused while the artist was getting a tattoo.  We learned a lot.  And while we didn't celebrate the day with tats, I did get to enjoy the sugared-up giggles of two 5th graders on the ride home.

The lesson?  Pennys has smokin' hot deals on flannel shirts right now.  And that was about it.  But, if I ever have to stand in front of their dressing rooms again, I'm definitely wearing a trench coat and sunglasses, just to do a litmus test on how much awkwardness one store can handle.

Let's Talk About Chicks, Man

When Regina and I moved into this house, in the spring of 1999, there was an enormous, creepy chicken coop out back.  It looked like something out of Blair Witch.  We should have torched it immediately, instead, we got chickens.  I did my best to patch up the coop, but the skunks and raccoons found all the flaws in its design and Regina frequently woke me up in the middle of the night with a, "There's something in the coop."  I'd grab the shotgun I kept beside the bed for such occasions and Regina would grab the spotlight and we'd run outside to watch the raccoons scatter like we'd just broke up a really cool party.  Occasionally I'd blast one of the chicken killers, and once, when the problem got out of hand, we had the county trapper come to catch an especially diabolical raccoon.  But we were no match for their love of farm fresh chicken, and when we got down to just 2 hens, I didn't have the heart to sacrifice them to the beasts, so I gave them to my cousin.  Then I promptly tore down the coop.  It took us about 10 years before I built another, slightly safer, one and we got back into chicken farming.

The new coop is pretty secure.  The skunks can't dig underneath to eat the eggs, and the raccoons can't pry up the roof to eat the hens, so our girls' only predators come when we let them out.  We had Rodney, the Polish hen (she looked like Rod Stewart circa 1988), who got carried away by a hawk or an owl.  She lived through the flight, but had holes in her head and was never really quite the same.  Elvis, our first St. Bernard, once stuck his head in a box of baby chicks and gobbled them up like they were little nuggets.  Several have just died mysteriously, as chickens are wont to do, and a few have been fed up to Nacho, my brother's old Golden Retriever.

Last weekend we returned home from a movie date day and noticed we were missing Jerry, a big Brahma hen.  We scanned the perimeter and looked for the hiding hen or a pile of feathers and when nothing came up, we called Nacho's owner, Grant.  He said he hadn't seen anything suspicious, but the pile of feathers he'd seen in his closet earlier should have set off some sort of internal alarm.  Ollie, his daughter, went in the closet later that day and found Jerry hiding behind the shoes.  Nacho had carried her, alive, a quarter-mile up the road to his house and hid her in a closet.  She had a pretty good chunk out of her back so we doctored her up and put her in a box by the wood stove.  By day 2 she was no better and when Regina took her outside for fresh air she croaked.  Dylan took it pretty hard and made me promise I'd bury Jerry, which I reluctantly agreed to do.  I've never buried a chicken before and I wondered to myself if tossing Jerry in the river would count as a burial at sea.

We're down to 4 chickens now and one is so small she lays quail sized eggs.  Cute, but not so filling.  Our girls are on the 1 egg a week laying plan, but only if the weather is nice.  Don't get me wrong, the eggs, when they come, are delicious, but the effort and cost are hardly worth it.  But we're in this for the long haul.  I'll go dig a nice grave for Jerry, and we'll all keep a wary eye out for Nacho.

Wine and Wipes

Our hands were too disgusting to take photos,
so here's a photo of our kids inside something
that sort of looks like a crab.

You've all seen fancy fundraising galas (at least in the movies) where dinners are served by white-gloved waitstaff and folks spend exorbitant amounts on silly auction items like sea lion rides or original paintings of sad clowns by Brittney Spears.  Scott Valley has those types of dinners, only different.  From September to May (non-haying season) you could likely attend some sort of annual fundraising banquet every week.  Every event tries to have its own unique twist, but they always include at least two of the following three items: a dessert auction, a gun raffle, and a silent auction.  The fancy ones have all three.

Last weekend we lucked out and Regina got us tickets to the Ft. Jones Masons' annual crab feed.  Sound fancy?  It's not.  You get a paper plate loaded with crab and a plastic bib.  Sound awesome?  It is.  It's only the second time we've been able to score tickets because they're so coveted.  The first time was BC (before-children) and we screwed up by showing up somewhere between the two very strict start times.  They were kind and fed us anyway, but we'd broken some sort of crab-feed taboo and I was sure we'd be black-listed forever.  Twelve years later, we made it back on the cool bus and we weren't about to screw things up.

The Masons, for reasons that are unclear to me, serve an all you can eat crab feast that also includes "classic" crab side dishes: spaghetti, hard boiled eggs, garlic bread, and salad.  Everyone around us kept raving about the spaghetti and told me I had to try it.  It tasted like spaghetti.  At a crab feed.  Why in the hell would I fill my gut on spaghetti when I have crab legs to crack?  I asked that and was met with funny looks.  The egg, by the way, was delicious, but then again, I'm still new to this.

We arrived mostly prepared: we brought baby wipes and wine.  The wine, of course, we drank, but the wipes were a hit.  I think everyone in the hall came by at some point and sheepishly asked for one.  I felt like we gained a little street cred.  I thought our fundraiser dinner game was pretty top shelf, especially with the baby wipes and all, until I looked around.  People brought more than one wine variety (I guess one for the crab, one for the spaghetti), melted butter dipping pots, homemade cocktail sauces, and even linens.  It gives us something to which to aspire.  Next year, Dylan will macramé us our own crab bibs and Regina will fire up an appetizer hibachi in the corner.  Grady and I will up our crab cracking game and we'll be the envy of the hall.