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A List of Favorites

I awoke this morning and for some reason a song was in my head “You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma.” I sang it to myself and then I pulled it up on YouTube and had a listen. And of course I cried. I have a very strong memory of lying on the bed in my parents’ red bedroom next to my dad as he played that song. I loved it then and I love it still. This morning I listened to that song probably 13 times repeatedly.

It began to wash over me how much I love duets. Two beautiful voices singing together, at the same time relying on one another. Here’s a list of my favorites. I was going to list 10, but I could only think of nine.

9. Loretta Lynn & Johnny Cash—-Jackson

8. Seven Spanish Angels—Willie Nelson & Ray Charles

7. Whiskey Lullaby—Allison Kraus & Brad Paisley

6. Meet Me In Montana—-Marie Osmond & Dan Seals

5. Close My Eyes Forever—-Lita Ford & Ozzy Osbourne

4. I Got You Babe—Sonny & Cher

3. You’re the Reason Our Kids are Ugly—Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn

2. Picture—Kid Rock & Sheryl Crow

1. You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma—David Frizzell & Shelly West

What would you add?

UP

Remember when Freedom was just a baby, trying to fly out of the box?

Now here she is perched on my foot, while my leg is crossed.

But that’s not high enough. So to my knee she flutters.

Next is the arm of the chair I’m sitting in.

Then the back of the chair that she runs me out of. She just can’t quite get high enough.

She’ s a bit of a nuisance. If I squat to familiarize myself with the other chickens, she flies on my back or pecks me in the butt.

But it’s okay, I’m a bit of a free bird myself.

Although she’s only a chicken, if we look close enough I think there’s a lesson to be learned from this Barred Plymouth Rock hen-to-be.

Don’t stay down low with all the other peeps pecking around for the same ol’ piece of grain life throws you.

If you got a dream or a goal in sight:

Wake up.

Then look up.

Reach up.

Then flap your wings and flutter up.

If you don’t make it the first time, cheer up.

Flap your wings harder and keep it up.

Never give up.

There’s a perch somewhere just for you, and you’ll look good sitting on it.

Potato Leek Pizza

Three seconds after I had filled my belly with the morning’s eggs and toast, wiped my mouth and pushed my plate away, my husband inquires, “What do you want for supper?” I find this the worst possible time to ask someone what they want for supper, because the obvious answer is something along the lines of: who cares about supper, I just ate breakfast, how can you possibly be thinking about food at a time like this? But he is thinking about food, because my husband is all about the groceries. He walked into the kitchen, opened the freezer and began rattling off possibilities: beef fajitas, chicken, tenderloin, or pizza. I chose pizza.

Tonight was pizza night at the J&A Chicken Ranch. But it ain’t your ordinary pizza. We forewent greasy pepperoni slathered in tomato sauce and instead made a dreamy homemade pizza. It’s a recipe for Potato Leek Pizza from the Pioneer Woman.

I know what you’re thinking. Potatoes? On a pizza?

Listen folks, don’t knock it till you try it.

The recipe is in her cookbook, which is really worth buying, but the recipe is also plastered all over the internet. Having this silly, nilly blog, I do consider copyright laws on occasion. Also I’ve never broken a law in my life, especially copyright laws. Being a teacher, you must know I would never, ever copy something wrongfully. Not a lesson. Not a test. Not a book. Not my bottom on the Xerox machine. Never.

Plus, I would hate for Ree Drummond to sue me for my chickens and oyster shell, therefore I am choosing not to post her recipe. But bend an ear to me. Closer. A little closer.

me whispering in your ear: If you really want it, just google it.

It’s a magical combination of

crust

bacon

leeks (white parts only)

red potatoes

fresh mozzarella, parmesan, and goat cheese

There’s probably a special section in heaven where angels sing Odes to cheese.

You layer it all together,

stick it in the oven,

and *presto* instant happiness.

We don’t make our own crust. We’re just not that talented around here. But I’m sure with a homemade pizza crust, it would be absolutely out of this world. If you’re ever in the mood for interesting flavors and something completely different from your average run of the mill pizza, then you should try this.

Then after your belly is good and stuffed, carry the green tops from the leeks and leftover potatoes outside. Throw a little in the compost pile, and the rest to the chickens.

They deserve it.

GOT HIM!

The sweet (or salty) taste of victory.

Wide Load

Easter Sunday when I posted this on my blog I was trying to be funny.

Today, there is nothing funny about it.

My butt hurts. It’s the truth.

Ashy and I decided to go for a bike ride yesterday. A pleasant country bike ride on dirt roads next to green pastures.

We headed south atop our cheap Walmart bikes, rode to the first county road that runs east and west, and took a left turn.

Being married to J-Dub, he has taught me a couple of things. One of which being, there is a mile between each county road. I hadn’t been out more than a mile down the road my house sits on and we were up for an adventure to see what lay beyond the mile marker.

So we pedaled east on an extremely rocky road for about a mile, took a right, and began pedaling down a tiny dirt road with nothing but cows on the left and oil equipment on the right. I turned on my IPod and we sang Sugarland and Rod Stewart at the top of our lungs. We saw a fearful coyote running from our melodies, cows curiously eyeballing us, quail skittering across the road, the green of wheat fields gently blowing. Life was good. But the road was long. My sitting bones began to ache. I hadn’t ridden a bike in, hmmm, let’s say, 3 years. After riding the lengths of a couple of county roads, I cursed sitting on that tiny little pointy bicycle seat when what I really needed was a tractor seat. Plus a yellow banner across my backside screaming WIDE LOAD in black lettering.

But what do you do when you’re a long way from your home and your house is no longer a speck on the horizon? Do you turn around or continue on in hopes of a road soon? We continued on, enjoying our afternoon and ignoring the pain.

Finally high wires and electrical poles came into view and I knew we were nearing another road running perpendicular. Sure enough, the next road appeared. We took a right turn to head back west. Then Ashlynn needed to pee. After a pit stop in the bar ditch, we walked our bikes a while on wobbly legs and sore keisters, gathering a couple of pretty rocks on the way. Time was crawling by and we decided it would be faster to get back on and ride, to push through the pain like real athletes. Then Ashy began developing a blister on her thumb from holding the handlebar and being jostled through dirt roads. The sun burned down on our necks, the wind gave us a bit of resistance, but the IPod was on shuffle, so we kept singing and kept on riding.

An eternity later we came to our road, made a right turn heading back to the south, completing a four mile square. But before we made it home, first Ashy had to stop and pick some cotton from another barditch.

With bulging pocket of rocks and cotton, our little trailer house on the prairie greeted 2 tired, sore, hot and thirsty wanderers as we crept up the lane.

It took us way over an hour and a half to ride 4 miles. On a good day, if I book it, I can walk faster than that. It just didn’t make any sense to me. Even with dirt roads, and stopping for walking, peeing, and picking rocks and cotton, it shouldn’t have taken us that long to ride a bike four miles. So I hopped in my car today to measure the distance. J-Dub hopped in with me. Come to find out, on two of the roads, they didn’t have intersecting roads every mile, instead it was every two miles. So our 4 mile ride that I thought we’d taken ended up really being close to 7 miles. And boy let me tell you, my tail bones can account for every inch of it today.

But even with the soreness, yesterday held one of the most enjoyable afternoons I had spent in a very long time.

The simplicity of sunshine, songs, and sweat does a body good.

And a soul.

In Memory of My Dad #10

written by Bob Briggs

I recently motored out to West Texas for the holidays. I saw a bunch of old friends and made more than a few parties while visiting there on the Golden Spread.

One of the old friends I saw was Dave. Dave was an old water well man and moon player, par excellence. The only trouble was that you couldn’t tell which was his vocation and which was his avocation.

I used to work for the guy, so I had more than a working relationship with the guy when he had a moon hand in front of him. I think that Coy, a half mad guitar player is finally coming around to my way of thinking, after losing hundreds of dollars over the years to Dave.

When you live in West Texas, you’re a long way from big-city life. If not in miles, then in a state of mind. One day during a lull in the moon playing, Dave related this story to me.

It seems that years ago, when dinosaurs still ruled the earth, Dave was a pretty good cowboy. But that was in the years when Dave was a lot younger. Before he traded his string of rough stock for the spanner wrench and shop hammer.

Old habits die hard, so when Dave gets all shined up to go somewhere, be it a country dance or a neighbor’s barbecue, he still dresses western. Big Hat. Lace up roper boot (cause they’re easier on the feet.) Trophy buckle from one of those “punkin rollins”. Like I say, Dave used to be a pretty classy cowboy.

Dave went to the Veterans Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico last summer to have RK surgery done on his good eye. Dave only has one eye, so how he was going to get back to Pampa never entered his mind, seeing as how his roommate and best pal Nancy stayed home to work the first shift at Sandy’s Bar.

The first shift runs from around eight in the morning until one or two in the afternoon, due to the influx of shift workers that come in for an early morning beer. Eight a.m. is early evening for many of the Celanese, Cabot, Ingersol Rand or MapCo workers there in the Panhandle of Texas. Things tend to get pretty lively in the saloons about noon, especially if some fo the pulling unit hands are off that day and decide to spend the day shooting pool instead of mowing the lawn or some other honey-do chore.

Anyway Dave stayed there at the VA hospital for three days, when for lack of a better word, they unwrapped his eyeball. Things were still pretty fuzzy from Dave’s side of the eyeball, so they decided that he should stay for the weekend.

Dave had a great-nephew stationed at Ft. Collins, Colorado. So Dave got the doctor’s permission to fly up and see him that weekend. “It was one of those little puddle jumpin’ airplanes,” recalled Dave. So the first stop was in Colorado Springs, where the passengers had a twenty-minute layover. So Dave got himself a carton of chocolate milk and a six-pack of Fig Newtons for a snack.

Dave then went to sit at a table already occupied by a businessman dressed just like Tom Bosley, reading a Wall Street Journal through a little pair of half glasses perched on the end of this nose. Dave took little notice of the peculiar look that Tom gave him as he opened the Fig Newtons and scarfed one down.

Tom immediately reached over and got one of the cookies for himself. Dave didn’t say anything, just thought, “strange custom” and went about eyeballing the fellow travelers as best that he could with the bum eye.

Dave then ate another Fig Newton this time noticing that Tom all but snarled as he quickly put another Fig Newton in his gaping maw. “Must be some sort of practice that we don’t do down on the plains,” thought Dave eating the third of the Fig Newtons and pushing the remaining one across the table to Tom who was glaring openly at Dave now. Tom took the third of the Fig Newtons and walked away all the time muttering to himself.

“Well hell”, thought Dave, “no one in Pampa would think of eating one of your Fig Newtons without asking, and never without saying thanks.”

Dave shrugged his shoulders and made his way to where they were boarding the plane.

As he felt in his inner coat pocket for his ticket, Dave found an unopened six-pack of Fig Newtons.

Out My Window

I’d love to leave you the impression that I live on a sprawling, open, isolated huge amount of land out in the middle of nowhere. But I’d be lying to you if I left you that impression. I live in a trailer house next to a highway, next to a railroad track.

Joy.

There are things I love about living here and things I hate.

As I look out my window, propped up in my bed with a laptop on my lap, hence the name, I see Freak, Jason’s new horse trying desperately to get his freak on with a mare in the next pasture. I called my husband earlier to say, “Hey, just so you know, your next problem is that the mare is in heat”. But it appears Freak has been cut, according to J-Dub, but they’re still necking across the fence, whinnying ever so lightly, and it’s actually making me a bit sick to my stomach. I think I’ll go run him off. It reminds me of the time as a young girl, I went barreling into my teenage brothers place to tell him and his teenage friends they must come quick. I needed help. Two dogs were stuck together butt to butt in the alley and wouldn’t come apart. I can’t remember my brother’s response only the laughter from the friends as I left dejected wondering how in the world I would ever help these dogs unhook themselves from each other so they could get on with life. I’ve learned a thing or two since then.

Looking out my window tonight, I see 5 red angus calves in the neighbor’s pasture frolicking. Their mothers chew their cud, shake their heads, and mutter, “those kids, whatever are we going to do with them?” They actually run quite fast, especially when you’re on a horse chasing one. I wouldn’t know, but my husband could tell you. His tooth is finally tightened back up. Recently, he chased a calf on horseback, roped him, dismounted his horse with a string doubled over in his mouth, ran to the calf to tie his legs, only to find one of the strings to have fallen from his mouth. He stepped on it inadvertently, while the other part remained in his mouth, and nearly ripped his tooth from his head. It took a couple of weeks of eating gingerly before he could really bite into a steak again.

Looking out my window I see 14 chickens who make the most pleasant sounds in all the world clucking around in the their chicken yard as the sun goes down. I’m working on a children’s book, The Crazy Chicken Lady. Yes, it’s a tiny bit autobiographical.

Then the train whistle blows, partially disturbing my peace, but I’m partially used to it by now.

Sometimes I ask myself, like tonight for example, did I make the right choice? Leaving a moderately nice town home to move into a trailer house in the country? We need a new roof, our fence is falling down, and water lines need digging. The wind constantly blows, the dirt becomes a second skin, and the skunks’ odor burns my nostrils.

Sometimes as human “beans “we yearn, don’t we. Aren’t we always working towards something else, wondering what else is there, or is just my age and generation? Or maybe it’s just me. Tonight I’m home alone, pondering all the world’s problems. I’m reminded of a Bible verse:

Phillipians 11-13¹¹ I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. ¹² I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. ¹³ I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Isn’t God good? Have you experienced the goodness of God? I desperately hope you have. The things of this world are so miniscule compared to what we have to experience in the presence of the Living and Holy God.

I haven’t turned my TV on to see the royal wedding. I didn’t even know it was taking place until Wednesday when someone told me they were planning on recording it, and then looked at me as if I live in a hole when I didn’t know of what they spoke. Well okay, I do live in a hole, a small one. But my hole isn’t terrible and I’ve hung pictures finally, so it’s more like a homely hole. A homely hovel. With a leaning fence and shingles missing from the roof, and train whistles every half hour. Oh well, it’s at least a roof over my head. What else do I need?

I hope you are happy today, dear friend. Now I must go pen the chickens.

Until tomorrow,

Angel

What You Love

The sound of heavy bootsteps and the jingle of spurs woke me from dreams filled with high heels and travel plans.

My husband was up, dressed, and stirring around the house, waiting on the “guys” to get here. It was time for me to rise anyway. I threw the shoes I was trying on in my dream back into the closet, pushed the cobwebs from my mind and rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

My husband’s day of branding cows was soon to begin, and he was waiting on his friends/co-workers/fellow cowhands to arrive with their horses, pick-ups and trailers, so they could put the horses in one trailer, put the cowboys in one truck and head off as the sun was barely kissing the morning sky.

It wasn’t much longer until the roar of diesel pick-ups and the rattle of trailers stocked with horses begin to break the silence of the morning.

Cowboys have never had much appeal to me. I’ve never been a cowboy’s girl. In high school I always thought they were just a bunch of skinny boys with big belt buckles dressing up everyday. Now nearly 20 years later, I find myself married to one. Strange.

The cowboys greet each other, unload horses from trailers, and lead them to my husband’s trailer to load. They’ve got 3 different places to work cattle today.

These are good men. Actually, the best kind. A dying breed. Old-fashioned, hard-working, tough guys. They love what they do, but it doesn’t always pay enough to do it. These are men who take vacation days from their “real” jobs with health insurance in order to saddle a horse and swing a rope. They may even call in sick just to get a workday off. Sometimes they work the night shift at their other job, take an early morning nap, and then saddle their horse for the day. They have a passion for this lifestyle. It’s not about the money, that’s for sure.

As I sit at the kitchen table, my coffee cup steaming, there’s only one word that describes me. Proud. I’m filled with a sense of pride. Not because I’m doing anything. Heck, I’m drinking coffee. But because these fellows work hard, love their work, and do it for practically nothing. They walk tall, perhaps even strut; dark silhouettes wearing cowboy hats starting their day.

I watched out the window until the heat from the house married the cold from the outdoors and steamed up the windows.

Then I listened to the rattle and rumble of the pick-up as four cowboys head out to do what they love.

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still~~Henry David Thoreau

A Marble Cake

She’s 12 today.

A beautiful joy. Even with a wad of orange gum in her mouth.

She asked if she could have a marble cake. Sure, you can. And then she looked at her grandmother, and in her best 12-year-old, you’ve-got-to-be-kiddin-me, pre-teen, on-the-verge-of-knowing-everything voice, she said “You know that’s a KIND of a cake, not a cake with real marbles.” She may have even rolled her eyes.

Oh my.

As if my mother, her grandmother, has managed to live 60 some-odd years and not know what a marble cake is.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, Hey teenager! Tired of your parents? Move out, get a job, and pay your own way while you still know everything.

Last night I baked a birthday cake for my niece. It was one of those beautiful double layer chocolate cakes. I wish I had a picture to show you, except it was an awful mess lying out in the pasture where I chunked it. First of all, when I flipped the cake pans over, half the cake stuck to the bottom of the pan leaving lopsided, gouged out layers. Not the total end of the world, I thought. Maybe I could level it out and still make it look nice. Icing it was another problem as crumbs mingled with icing causing a gloppy mess. Finally to top it off, I picked up a big bite-size chunk of cake and popped it in my mouth. It may look bad, but at least it tasted good. Wrong. I was talking on the phone when I was mixing the batter and, well, I must’ve been a bit side-tracked and doubled or maybe quadrupled the salt. Salty cake just ain’t all that tasty, let me tell you.

After rinsing my mouth out under the faucet, I picked up the glass cake stand by the pedestal, carried it out to the pasture, reached back, and slung the cake off the pedestal as far as I could. I’m sure a coyote had a nice treat last night. And probably a belly ache. Today I imagine he’s suffering from hypertension due to an elevated sodium intake.

My husband, who hangs his Superman cap in the closet each night, cooked ribeye steaks, risotto, asparagus, and spinach strawberry salad for my niece’s birthday dinner tonight.

Oh yeah, and he stayed up until 1:30 IN THE MORNING baking her a lovely cake.

One that came out of the pans beautifully,

Iced wonderfully, and

Tasted divinely.

The best marble cake I’ve ever had.

Happy Birthday Ashy!

Cock-a-doodle-dude?

I don’t watch Dancing With the Stars or Gray’s Anatomy or American Idol. Instead of sitting in front of the idiot box, I spend my evenings with chickens. Yes I realize it leaves the question, “who is the real idiot here?” They’re my form of entertainment.

Covered in feathers, with feet like E.T., and mostly green eyes, they are growing quite rapidly and are now in the stage of developing their combs and wattles.