country – Page 3 – Angel Wheeler

Life is But A Blob of Wetness

It’s calving time again here on the ever so windy plains of Texas.

While the rest of the world is bombarded with severe weather, we remain rainless. And windy. And oh-so-very dirty. Today was field day at my school and when we left there, after battling wind gusts of up to 50 mph, and no measurable rainfall since last November, we were all simply a walking layer of sunscreen encrusted with dirt. Seriously, you could have carved your initials in my face.

Besides all that, it’s calving season here on the ever-so-windy plains of Texas.

My husband spends his days checking heifers. Now remember my good students, that heifers are very young, first time mothers. They are the unwed teenagers of the bovine population. They need to be monitored closely for birthing distress and to ensure they are going to raise their newborn babes and not spend their days drinking ale with their friends and getting new tattoos.

J-Dub has 20 heifers to watch. Out of those 20, 12 have calved and the rest are growing closer every day. So he makes his rounds studying their backsides for floppy and swollen you-know-whats and big, full utters (a.k.a. bags). But the tell-tale sign that a heifer is about to calve is a raised tail with a crook in it.

I accompanied him the other day. The cows who remain pregnant gather around the truck looking for a handout. The heifers who have calved usually are hidden out with their babies somewhere, or they leave the babies hid out to come get a handout.

The second cardinal rule of cowboying aside from ALWAYS CLOSE THE GATES is ALWAYS COUNT THE COWS.

After a quick head count, it was discovered that a heifer was missing.

She was quickly found amidst the Skunk Brush,

with a new, wet baby by her side.

A new, wet baby with a rumbly tummy.

7 more babies to go.

Caught

I love this picture.

It reminds me of the child who denies being in the cookie jar despite the crumbs on his face and the chocolate on his hands.

“Hay? What hay? We aren’t eating the forbidden hay.”

Caught with their ears up.

And their pants down.

If only they were wearing them.

Birthing Babies

My husband, whose Superman cape is presently hanging in the closet while he lounges in his Lazy Boy has a pretty in-depth resume’. Among his many talents include cowboss, gourmet chef, drumming dynamo, and husband extraordinaire. But most recently, he has added foal nanny. The ranch he works for decided to buy a horse. A horse who happened to be pregnant. The horse nanny position was assigned to J-Dub. So he’s been watching a bred mare for quite some time now checking her for signs of birthing. Normally, a horse would have a foal and raise it in the pasture and life would go on without any interference from man.

But this mare is a bit on the high-end, with good breeding for a cutting horse. The hopes are that the baby will have good cutting horse tendencies and make a nice investment.

It’s a gamble. There’s probably better odds betting 13 black with a spin of a roulette wheel. But I like to play it safe anyway.

Due to the investment of this animal, instead of putting her out into a pasture to have a baby, my husband built her a nice little stall and has been horse-sitting.

Much like Prissy in Gone With the Wind, J-Dub “don’t know nothing ’bout birthing no babies.” Except cows. Who are put in the pasture to calve.

The reason he must watch this horse closely is the very small window of time in which the foal needs to be “imprint trained”.

Much like Prissy in Gone With the Wind, I don’t know nothing about imprint training, but this is how I understand it. As soon as the foal hits the ground, before it even stands up, a human begins working with it in order to imprint its brain with certain techniques to enable it to be trained easier later in life.

Last Saturday night we left town for a music festival in a nearby town believing that she was still 24 hours away from foaling. Some other expert in horse gestation and delivery said if she wasn’t waxing (whatever that means) then we’d probably be okay until Sunday.

But when we returned on Sunday afternoon to check on the little mama, she had a little horsie by her side.

Although we were late and weren’t sure when the baby was born, J-Dub began his work.

He tied up Bobby, the momma, to get her out of the way and keep himself out of danger.

Then began his newly acquired knowledge of imprint training on the little baby girl.

Mama pawed the ground, knickered, and kicked up quite a stink, and some dirt, while her baby was taken from her and poked, prodded, pestered, and primed.

The idea of imprint training is to establish a bond between the baby and a human and to get it used to being handled to desensitize it for later training. J-Dub laid the baby down on its side and rubbed it all over. He picked up its feet for when it needs to be shod, rubbed under its tail so it won’t spook if a rope rubs it there, flexed its legs, stuck his finger in every orifice on its body and rubbed it all over until it was calm. Then he rolled it over and did everything again on the other side.

Then the two were reunited. Four days later, Bobby the mama, was hauled to a nearby town to be bred back to foal again in about a year. When the baby is weaned, she will be sent to a trainer and hopefully her imprint training will have taken effect.

J-Dub spent all that time building a nice little horse stall, equipped with pine shavings for a bed, and Bobby didn’t even use it. Here’s the afterbirth laying in the horse pen. Isn’t fascinating? It looks like a big oily rag or something.

I just had to throw that in there.

You can thank me later.

I’m Not Gonna Hurt You, I Only Want to Chew On Your Neck.

The J&A Chicken Ranch, the place I call home, is stocked with 2 dogs and 14 chickens.

Natural enemies, they are.

The dogs live in the fenced backyard and the chickens live in a chicken pen and garden shed close to the backyard. Somedays I like to let the dogs out, and somedays I like to let the chickens out, which leaves a logical deduction that someday they’re going to be out at the same time. I would hate to raise my chicks to survive the bitter cold, dangerous chicken hawks, and an owner that leaves them crushed under the water tub all day, only to be massacred by tame dogs.

I’ve been trying to think of a way to introduce the dogs to the 9 week old chickens.

My practical approach has been taking the dogs to the chicken pen, shaking my finger, and yelling “NO, NO, NO!” for at least 3 hours at a time.

My husband thinks no matter how many times I do that, if they are ever left alone, Drew Miller will kill them.

Drew Miller is my killer hound, my head of ranch security, notorious ’round these parts for polishing off possums, slaughtering skunks, and going a couple rounds with any porcupine dumb enough to stick a bunch of quills in his face.

When Drew Miller sees the chickens, he tenses, his ears go up, drool runs from his massive jowls, but when I give him the finger shake and the NO, NO, NO technique, he becomes disinterested, wags his long, powerful tail, and meanders off.

Grace, on the other hand, stares them down. She is on point, which doesn’t make any sense to me since she is a Heeler.

She won’t break eye contact with the chickens. She watches their every move. I think if given the opportunity, she might kill my chickens. J-Dub says she will only chase them.

I must make the dogs understand that I love these chickens. I’m trying to train them by going into the chicken pen and holding the chickens, talking to them, and petting them. The dogs just watch. I’m not sure they understand. I think they’re jealous.

They’re certainly curious of them. They haven’t acted aggressively toward the chickens yet, but I don’t trust them. No siree Bob. I’ve got some more work to do on training my dogs to love my chickens as much as I do. Or rather, less than I do. I’d be content if they’d just leave them be.

Teaching old dogs new tricks has taken on a whole new meaning for me.

Rain and Reptiles

Lightening, thunder, wind, and RAIN greeted us this morning in the Texas Panhandle. It has been so dry, the trees are bribing the dogs. Here in my little town we only average 21.16″ of rain annually. So far this year, we’ve received seven drops. Okay, maybe eight.

Technically, we’re in a drought. We haven’t been this dry since the 1960’s.

Drought Monitor

So every teensy, tiny little drop of rain helps. Even if it is a couple hundredths of an inch. My husband is still having to cake the cows, which has nothing to do with chocolate in case you’re wondering. Usually by this time of the year, they are able to graze, but since it hasn’t rained, the grass hasn’t grown. Something about that whole cause and effect thing.

Texas: Current 1-Day Observed Precipitation Valid at 5/11/2011 1200 UTC - Created 5/11/11 23:40 UTC

Just so you can feel a tiny bit sorry for me, I’ll tell you how hard it is to go to work while it’s raining out here at “the Place”. I gather up my purse, my lunch, my phone, and my coffee cup and hit the door running. I don’t have a garage. Nor do I have an umbrella, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have a hand to hold it. So I must run to the car while the rain comes at me sideways pushed by gusty winds and plops in my coffee. I also don’t have a paved driveway, I have a dirt one. Nor do I have an electric gate opener. So my flipflops become soaked and muddy, and my clothes become wet, and my hair sticks to my head as I get out of the car to open the gate, step in a puddle, get back in the car, step in a puddle, drive through the gate, get back out of the car to close the gate, step in a puddle, get back in the car to head to work.

But I’m thankful for the rain. I’m not complaining. Really. Please don’t mistake this for complaining. It’s just something new I’ve had to learn since I was used to garages with openers and paved driveways. Ah, the country life.

Perhaps the rain is what brought a friend into my yard this evening. He’s from the reptile family, but don’t worry, it’s not a rattlesnake. You know, the first time I see a rattler in my yard, I’m liable to sieze up and piss myself. It was only a little turtle. I took a picture, but it wouldn’t load, so nevertheless you have to take my word for it.

The turtle fellow kinda caught me by surprise, nestled up against the chicken pen. He’s probably a harmless welfare case out begging for some free chicken scratch or something.

Actually I have no idea what turtles eat.

We found a turtle one time a couple of years ago and my niece Ashy tried to feed it some grass and leaves,

but it wasn’t having any part of that.

I guess it doesn’t matter what he eats, as long as it isn’t chicken, we’ll get along just fine.

Picture of the Day

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.

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.

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

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.