Five Finger Discount

I used to hate auctions.  Household or farm auctions, that is.  To me they seem so pointless.  You never know when the item you are interested in will sell, so you stand around for hours when you could be doing something more beneficial. 

Finally, they get to the item you are interested in.  Your heart rate immediately spikes to, say, 165 bpm , and you start shaking all over.  You don’t want to look like a fool, but what to do?  The auctioneer doesn’t see your hand, so you start doing a dance routine that has those nearby giving you a sideways look whilst taking sideways steps away from you.

And then the item sells for twice what it would new, and you either got royally hosed since you bought it and those who once stood nearby now chuckle at you, or you walk away to your vehicle empty handed and heart full of bitterness and those who once stood nearby now stare in disdain at the spot you once occupied.

I still don’t like auctions.  Household or farm auctions, that is.

But I digress.  Auctions aren’t really what I had in mind when I got started with this, however, it was an auction that got me into the mess I’m about to describe.

There were some cattle panels at a farm auction that I felt like we needed.  So, I hooked up my small trailer, took the end gate off, since the trailer was too short to haul a full-length panel on, and got on my way to the event. 

On the way to the event, I had another event.

I stopped at the local parts store to pick up some items.  I waited at the counter, as another customer and his son were waited on.  It didn’t take long for me to get the feeling something was up.  Mostly because this was taking an awfully long time.  And then I saw what was taking so long. 

The man would tell the parts person one thing at a time instead of giving him a list to work on.  And it was only after I saw the thing happen that I realized my peripheral vision had seen it happen several times earlier. 

I saw the man give an order for the parts man to get, and as soon as the parts man left to get it, the man scanned the counter with its promotional items, picked up a pliers on display, and dropped it in the sack already containing some the parts the parts man had gotten for him. 

I was so incredulous, I simply stared, dumbfounded, at the man. 

His cool, light blue eyes spoke a very clear message, “You say something about this, and I’ll make sure you don’t speak at all for the next few days.”

He eventually left, although after my visual confrontation with him, he didn’t get any more five finger discounts.  I got the parts I needed and thoughtfully climbed into my truck.  So thoughtfully, in fact, that I didn’t see the fellow with the light blue eyes sitting in his truck right beside me.

And so thoughtfully, in fact, that when I backed up to leave the place, I forgot I had a trailer behind me.

But I became conscious of that fact when the trailer behind me rounded a turn, which my truck didn’t happen to be rounding, and arrested all reverse motion by cramming itself into the side of my truck bed. 

I was totally amazed and awestruck at my stupidity. 

The man with the light blue eyes laughed uproariously as I drove forward and came even with him to straighten out.

I backed my dented pride and bashed in truck straight this time and got out of there.

And the panels went way too high at the auction; even though I never placed a bid, that auction cost me greatly.

Gender Specific Food

I feel called upon to treat on this subject, even though I know there will be some of you who think it unnecessary. 

Some of you will outright disagree, no doubt.  You have that right, you know. 

I hold that most foods fall into one of two categories. 

Neutral, and Gender Specific. 

Neutral foods are just that.  Either gender enjoys eating them.

Gender Specific foods are just that.  If you are male, you will enjoy certain foods more than females, and vice versa. 

Now before any hackles start standing too greatly on end, lips are pursed or hands get perched on hips, allow me to state my case.  And if you happen to enjoy the food that I say that your gender may not, that is perfectly okay. 

But for the new brides who are starting out in the culinary business, this may be the thing that you come back to over and over in your married life. 

That’s good if you do.  You don’t necessarily need to thank me each time.

*****

Take Spaghetti.  Just trying to spell that word should give anyone a clue to its gender. 

Yep.  You guessed right.  It’s female. 

I hear tell the old mountain men who came down out of the hills and into the forts on this side of the range could take on 5 pounds of meat in a single setting.  That’s five pounds.  When you ladies think you have a fairly nice sized roast that you put in the oven on Saturday evening, look it over.  That whole thing would feed just one of those men.

Now.  Put a plate of spaghetti in front of one of those men. 

Watch him. 

He looks it over, prods it roughly here and there, notices it’s oblique, nonessential appearance, pulls a noodle out, smells it, pulls it, licks it, and finally gingerly tries to eat it.  But that ain’t the end.  It’s only the beginning.  We can hardly bear to watch as he struggles, (manfully) to load the stuff onto his fork.  The noodles wage war just like they always do.  They get cold and gummy as he toils them around and around on his plate.  The meat slips away to the bottom of the mess.  I see the old man look disappointedly at his savory dish, and, finally in disregard to any small amount of etiquette he may have been given, cup both hands and scoop the whole thing towards himself.  Even then it defies all odds and a few noodles cling to his beard, shining out like fluorescent ribbons against a cloudy, opaque landscape.

What that man needs, is a steak.

Quite simply put, it even sounds right.  You don’t have to waste any extra syllables when making your wishes known.  Holler “steak,” and we all know what you need.  Bring on a medium/medium rare steak and the gender specific question is rested immediately by the rush and dead quiet around the table as every male ties into and devours his kind of food.  It eludes my comprehension why some folks would order, say, chicken, or ribs, at a restaurant when there is a steak to be had.  For sure if someone else is paying for it.

Casseroles are a unique dish.  They start out female, but, if properly aged and reheated numerous times, morph into male.  If you could begin the dish like they end, sort of seasoned through, solid and dried out, they would be a fine meal every time you eat them.  It’s that beginning, where they are generally runny at the nose and flat on your plate that leaves you a doubting Thomas.  But they get there, if you give them enough time.

I’m not advocating that women start growing mustaches.  Not at all.  But it might be instructive, should they paste a fake one on for a short time and indulge in their favorite dessert of cupcakes.  I think you can figure the rest out on this entrée.

I would be remiss if I didn’t treat on Peanut Butter.  I know, I know.  George Washington Carver is a man you say.  And I would agree.  But I suspicion he may have had a marital spat to settle, and a dozen roses hadn’t done the trick.  So, he goes to his lab, and, because he had something amiss between him and his better half, worked out a potion that has been sure to qualm any misgivings in that area since.  Really, he did us men a favor in creating such a feminine dish.  We have to be careful we don’t overuse it, though.  Two things happen if you do.  1, your wife tends to think you like the dish since you keep bringing it home.  This can be hazardous to your health when you tell her you really don’t care for it.  2, After you tell her you don’t like it, it fails as a peace offering, and she ends up eating it, in public no less, to spite you. 

We could name more, but this will have to suffice. 

All the best in your cooking and eating thereof.

(I have a feeling the good wife and sweet daughter may feel they need to vindicate themselves after reading this.)

Small Talk

I read an article a while back that conducted a survey on conversations.  Supposedly, the article claimed a deeper, more connective conversation can be had if the small talk is skipped and searching, difficult questions are asked instead.

An example is if you stepped up to me at some gathering and we are total strangers to each other.  You ask without preamble, “What is the most difficult heartache you have experienced in your life?”

More than likely, I would mumble something about not commercializing my heartaches in reply. 

But I guess for the folks who stepped up to the challenge in the survey, it brought about great results.

I will take a stance against such conversations right here and now.  I don’t get a gathering where, as I make my way around the room, I am actively hearing about people’s most private moments. 

Please. No.

Because what happens when you are done with that gathering?  Everyone goes home as a bunch of bug-eyed emotional blurbs and warm fuzzies. 

Pretty soon, you would be addicted to emotional baggage and warm fuzzies and that would be the norm at any function. 

A bird’s eye view of participants shows all with furrowed brows, tears dripping here and there, and slumped, heavy shoulders. 

Give me a break.

A while ago, I was against small talk as such. 

Like the time the school board entered my room with pasted on smiling faces.  We talked about the weather and all sorts of small stuff.  I was screaming inside at them to “Get to the point, boys.”

But lately, and for sure after reading that article, I’ve seen a fair bit of value in small talk.

Of course, it needn’t be the main, or only, course in a conversation.

Small talk seems to give a sense of time and place that I think is necessary to human beings. 

I know we don’t remember half the stuff we talk about in small talk.  And I suspicion we probably never even think about three fourths of the stuff we say in small talk before we say it. 

If I ask you how you are, you will say, “Fine.”

Every time, whether you are or aren’t.

Am I getting too repetitious trying to prove my point?

My point is this. 

We are getting a few Christmas letters sprinkling into our mailbox. 

I like Christmas letters, but if you look at them, they are really a bunch of small talk. 

And that’s exactly what they should be.  They give me a sense of time and place about your life. 

Sure, I guess if you want to broadcast to all the folks on your Christmas letter list your latest and deepest private moment, you can.

But, unless I know you really well, I’ll run the thing through the paper shredder in respect of my feelings for you.  Perhaps would even if I do know you quite well.

So, this is sort of a Christmas letter.

We started out the year building up a new homesite for Austin.  At that point, he had no plans of marrying, although he knew who he would like to marry. 

But God works in the form of coffee cups that arrive in the mail, and a little note that happened along with it. 

And today, he is married to Lindsey Brooke, the one whom he had hoped for, and they are residing in the homesite he started.  And I daresay his cup of joy is full.

We had hardly caught our wind from his wedding and getting him settled when Bryce and I had a visit one day.  It seemed that a meeting I was planning on attending was standing a bit in the way for plans he wished to pursue.

Many miles had separated him and the one he thought fondly of, as she went to Africa, and he to India.  And the space of two years absence didn’t seem to decrease the feelings of affection that the two had shared before leaving for their respective destinations.

So . . . three months after we married Austin- Jan, Lexi, and I landed at Pensacola Florida Airport.  And driving in to pick us up was a western Kansas Ford truck with Bryce and a blonde southern belle named Roxanne. 

But I prefer to call her Doc.  Seems to fit somehow.

Life has settled back some, now that both boys are gone.  The change is good, although it has been thought provoking.

And it gives me a good chance to play disc golf with the sweet daughter.  At least with her, I have a decent chance of winning, whereas with the boys, my whole playing career flashes before my eyes as I watch the long, level throws they make, and I realize that I shall probably never win against them.

And, you’ve probably heard enough from me, via this little blog enterprise, that I don’t need to go on and on.  But I do wish to thank each of you for reading what I write.  It has made this hobby worthwhile, and I hope I can continue for some time yet.

Oh.  My good wife and sweet daughter are doing well, in spite of me, in case you wondered.

Merry Christmas to each of you. 

Enjoy the small talk.

Taz

He’s a full-blood Alaskan Malamute. 

The way I recall, we flew him in from Indiana to Wichita as a little pup, some eight or so weeks old.  We could hear him before we saw him, and we could also hear the airport folks, as they oohed and aahed over him. 

The plan was to let him have the back half of the car, seats folded down and a couple of towels there for him to relax on. 

We hadn’t made it a mile from the airport before I found my vision obscured and driving downright hazardous because of a happy pup who had taken residence in my lap. 

He stayed there most of the way home, much to the sweet daughter’s disgust.  She had purchased him for $1,100 to use as breeding stock for a puppy raising project. 

I can’t help it that he chose me over her.  I know for a fact she smells better than I do.  I think he knew he was safe with me; I’m quite sure he wasn’t the type that was in for all the cooing and lovey dovey phrases that were even then dropping all around him like gumdrops from the other side of the car.  He wanted to be treated as a man and I obliged.

Anyway, the little fellow is all grown up now, and has fathered some 24 pups, 21 of which lived.  They are scattered all over, mostly west of here, a couple as far as California.  It’s fun to see snap shots the folks send us of their dogs that they got from us.

Someday, I want to write about the journey we took in raising those dogs, but that is for another time.

Today, Taz is without a mate; but Austin’s have purchased two little girls that they hope to resume the project with, in a year or so. 

His personality has changed a bit over the last year.  He is still very jealous of attention and will fight rapaciously for it.  Blood isn’t an issue with him; he’ll shed it if he needs to, to get what he wants.

His eyes have changed though.  They have gone from hard brown eyes, flecked with wolf glints of gold, to a deeper, softer amber shade.  Oh sure, they can snap right back to what they were, hard and unblinking, if he gets fierce about something. 

But I think I know the reason for the change. 

He’s kinder now.  Definitely has a heart for those who are hurting.

*****

This fall has been a rough one for the calves, with all the ups and downs in temperature. 

We’ve lost four now, which isn’t anything to complain about.  I’ve had it a lot worse.  Each time, though, that one of these calves started going down the tubes, Taz would take up his station in the corral alongside them, licking their nose, lying right up against them. 

All night and into the next day, until they died.  And even after they died, he stayed right by them, until I got them loaded up and hauled off.

It is the next part of the day that has intrigued me. 

He has been visibly sad each time.   It usually lasts for 5 or 6 hours and then he perks back up.

I suppose you think I’m getting a little too out of hand here.

I’m not.

I haven’t been the only one to notice it.

Now I don’t subscribe to the theory that animals go to Heaven, or that they are part human in their intellect or thought process.

But I will say that the dog has taught me something, and, if life gives me the opportunity, I hope to show a bit of kindness and empathy to those who need it, especially this Christmas season.

I won’t go so far as to say my eyes have changed, though.

Wintertime Diversity

Part One

It’s that time of the year again when we occasionally see snow on the ground.  Although it looks like this year we may skip the snow entirely.  Makes me think that if I were a bit younger and more agile, I’d be tempted to pull out a battered and beaten-up tow board (yeh, you read right, tow board, not snow board, as that is how it started out) if for no other reason than to look at it for the memories it would conjure up.

 I would need some extra agility, though, to wrest it from some dark, forsaken corner, bending either around or over what seems to be an extra bulge in my midsection that is a recent addition.  I told the lady at the pharmacy the other day, when she commented that she liked my shirt, that it was getting harder to find ones that fit.  “Apparently,” I said, “I had broad shoulders in my day, but they seemed to have slid down a bit and it’s really hard to find a shirt that accommodates shoulders in one’s midsection.”  She looked me up and down and then burst out laughing.   I expect the bulge to go away any day now, as it came on quite rapidly which signifies, to me anyway, a most likely temporary existence.

I should probably charge a small fee for the next discourse, should you venture on to read it.  The fee would cover any harm saved to your person from some of the risks we took, could we say, in R & D.  (Research and Development) But I’ll waive the fee, as reading thus far has probably exacted coinage enough in general forbearance.

Winters in southwest Kansas can be tiring.  You may be wearied with endless snowfalls, or you may be wearied with stiff, raw north winds without any snow, howling away for weeks on end.  Then again, you may swing between late summer temps and outright winter weather several times each day, forcing you to carry your entire wardrobe in the back of your truck.  All of this can verge on driving one to distraction. 

So one day, my friend Ron and I hatched a plan to drive away some of the madness.

We would go snowboarding. 

Bear in mind, that the nearest hill with even the most remote snowboarding tendencies was a good thirty miles away, and the total glide distance might be sixty feet or so, if you managed to snake it back and forth on the way down. 

But our plan didn’t include hills.  It planned on harvesting the vast flat expanse of open wheat fields.  Ron would furnish a four-wheeler, we would find some rope, and all we lacked then was the tow board.  Neither of us were in the mood to spend a lot of money, so we set about building one.  Afterall, it may be, we reasoned, that we will happen upon a fantastic new design that will take the world by storm. 

Our first effort was simple.  A 1 x 10 board approximately four feet long with flashing nailed to the bottom, front cut at a forty-five to the center and 1 x 1 strips nailed on perpendicular to the tow board proper. 

We set out to learn the art.

Within 30 minutes, we had to make modifications.  The perpendicular strips were too severe of an attitude to maintain while under full load conditions and we tended to slip off the board after about ten feet of being pulled along. 

Our modification put the front strip at roughly a thirty-degree angle to the board.  This worked much better as far as being able to stick to the board. 

Now, as we encountered longer runs, say forty feet or so, we discovered another modification was necessary.  What concerned us was what happened when we tried to steer the thing using foot signals and pressure.  When we directed our tow board to go into a right turn, it would abscond into the opposite direction.  For a while we compensated by simply reversing our turn signals, but no great amount of speed could be built in such trial runs. 

Envision the torso concentrating on a right turn and the lower body diametrically opposed in direction.

While this attitude of position can be maintained with great talent and dexterity, which each of us possessed, it was less than relaxing, and when attention to detail waned, the falls taken were spectacular. 

Because of the oppositional forces at work, one left the tow board in much the same stance as he had been, only now because there was no board to claim friction to, the hands clawed madly at the air on one side, the body proper had assumed a horizontal attitude, and the feet kicked violently on the other side, trying for a purchase on something substantial. 

The kicker here, was that we had enough gyrations to set a top-notch gyroscope in motion but said gyrations can be described quite accurately as lopsided ellipticals while the falling one made his way back to the blessed earth, thus canceling out any gyroscope effect. 

One last difficulty remained, and this was when contact was made with earth.  Whichever side of this mass in motion hit the earth first had the advantage, as it soon calmed itself into subservient repose.  The other side still had to wind down, and this didn’t always bode well, as the fellow on the four-wheeler was now in danger of falling off and spraining his eye teeth because of uproarious laughter.

So, we pulled our experimental project off the field and headed back to the lab for modifications.

This time, we took more flashing and fabricated ½ inch deep by approximately 1/8 thick fins to the outside edge of the board.  These fins extended from the rear of the board ¾ of the length toward the front.  It was a simple fix and we raced back to the field to try it out.  Our problem was remedied.  Except we had over remedied it.  Now the board held true in direction.  No more of this diversified turning.  We thought we had this one in the bag, until the four-wheeler man started his turn.

The board kept on straight and true, while the rider was towed off it and to one side.  The fall was far less spectacular.  In that we failed.  He just more or less hit the ground at an angle, on his side, and remained in that position for some feet, skidding along to his final stop. There didn’t seem to be any need to prolong this phase of R & D.  

We were homing in on our final product and this time our adjustments in the lab proved to be the right ones.  We trimmed back the fins to only a quarter of the length of the board.  It worked brilliantly.  In today’s slang, ‘We were cooking with gas.’

By rocking back just a tick on the board and using the back leg to apply downward pressure and using the front leg to push sideways in the direction you wished to turn, we could make this work. 

Except now we had another issue that I wish to discourse upon.  The snow had melted a fair bit, and there were large brown, muddy spots barren of any snow.  Let me share with you, based on our time of R & D, that there are two ways to respond to these hazards.  One way, once the muddy spot has been encountered at a high rate of speed, is that you continue your purchase on the tow rope and immediately morph into very lengthy steps. 

These steps will need to span 20-30 feet in order to maintain speed and also keep your hands on the rope.  The snow board, as it can now be properly called, stops in its tracks upon arrival into the mud.  The problem with working it this way, is when the four-wheeler driver listens to that little imp whispering to him, and continues driving, acting oblivious to the need to slacken his pace, maybe even speeding up a bit, and meanwhile peeking back at the ever-widening steps taking place behind him and the facial gestures that seem to match the math of the steps.

The second way is to let go of the rope immediately when the mud is encountered.  This is the quickest way to end the ordeal.  But there is an extra hazard with this approach.  You will face plant every time.  That may be survivable, but western Kansas mud is the next thing you will need to deal with.  It’s one thing to deal with it on your clothes and shoes, but it’s quite another to work the stuff out of your nose.  If you could attach a crank to the side of the nose somehow, you would have just invented the worlds smallest sausage, uh, mud stuffer, provided you could find casings that small.

I’ll Take the Spicey

I am a lover of spicey foods and chocolate sauce.  The one wounds, the other heals.  In fact, I’ve recommended my wife’s chocolate sauce, properly heated so you can just begin to smell the vanilla flavoring in it, as a medicinal remedy for your typical sore throat.  I say a spoonful of that stuff does wonders, both for your throat and your general outlook on life.

I suspicion I could get rich quick by marketing that chocolate sauce as cough syrup; the downside would be that folks would start abusing the stuff and it would soon be labeled an illegal drug, and then none of us could have it. 

Let’s keep it the way it is now.

I haven’t always had spicey food.  My mom is a good cook, without doubt.  But the home she was raised in, and it was the same with my dad, had post-depression era cooking influence.  Thus, they cooked simply, and with what they had on hand.  I ate a lot of hamburger growing up, and today it is still a favorite food of mine.

And then, one fine butcher day, I discovered how other folks made their sausage. 

You could say I’ve been actively engaged, or perhaps even married to, anything spicey since then. 

There’s a limit though.  Don’t give me a menu that says the entrée is spicey and to use great caution, etc., etc., and then have me eat that same dish and all the while search in vain for the thing they call spice.

No.

If it says spicey, I want it spicey.  Simple as that.  I’m old enough now, and after three times that I can vividly recall a total meltdown and going up in sweat and smoke, I’ll be careful.

I know you think I’m really pouring it on don’t you.  You probably think I’m one of those ankle biter dogs that makes a lot of noise and doesn’t have the guts to really bite, except tiny little nips in frantic forays of panic driven drivel.

And I know for a fact that I can’t handle it as hot as Bryce can. 

But I have to say that I was totally smoked, I’m mean stoked, this last week at the local Wendy’s.  They had two new sandwiches on their menu.  Both were chicken.  One was a barbeque type that really got me visually with the scrummy looking onion rings.  My wife got it.

The other was a jalapeno popper sandwich that featured a nice amount of some really good-looking creamy jalapeno cream cheese.  So, I went with it, figuring if it didn’t meet my spice criteria I could finish up with the last of my good wife’s sandwich.

Then, when I was ordering, the guy asked if I wanted homestyle, grilled or spicey. 

“I’ll take the spicey.” 

Let’s say I got my moneys worth that day.  Both in flavor and in spice.  Because not only was the chicken spicey, I counted close to 8 jalapeno’s lurking in its smokey interior.

And it happened to be the third time that I can vividly remember of a total meltdown and going up in sweat and smoke.

I’m gonna get me a ‘nother one.

*****

That love (of spicey and chocolate sauce) also made me instinctively choose who my wife would be. 

Not because she likes those two flavors.  It’s quite the opposite for her. 

But I’ve come to know her personality a bit better through the years.  And what I find today is about two equal parts of spicey and chocolate sauce.

The one wounds, the other heals.

And, in a good wife that’s exactly what you need. 

Because none of us are so good and sweet all the time that we don’t need a little something that burns in the truth once in a while. 

*****

Oh, and if you want that chocolate sauce recipe, message me.  Or my wife.

But I don’t want you to make cough syrup out of it.  That is my original idea, and if anybody’s going to get rich, it should be me.

Fire and Loose Tow Ropes

Part one

It sounds and feels like the most natural thing in the world to call my favorite pair of sunglasses my Dearly Beloveds.

But to fix a name to our old feed truck is a lot harder to do.  It needs a name.  It has the character to stand back against the wall and defend its name.  I suppose part of the problem is, that for me, names need to be right, and sometimes it takes a while for a name to settle in as right.  Boola is right for my dog.  No ands, ifs or buts.  Of course, Bryce and the rest of the family will disagree on that point, but then they haven’t a feel for names quite like I do.

I imagine the closest I might come to a name for the old girl would be Katie. That would come from a childhood memory of a story read to me about a valiant snowplow who cleared the roads.

This may turn into a two-part dilemma yet if I’m not careful.  My friend Savanna says I write way too long on my stuff.  I’m sure she will groan when she reads this piece.  But, seeing she has had a bit of interaction with the old girl herself, maybe she will forgive me this time.

I was driving along the road one day, pondering things and life in general, and my thoughts drifted over to our cattle (or lack thereof) operation.  Our pens were primitive, and our feeding system even more so.  What, I wondered, was the best direction to pursue regarding it?

On a whim, I pulled my phone out and swerving enough to make my wife chirp, had she been with me, typed in Craigslist in the search bar.  I had never been on Craigslist before and didn’t know what to expect.  Next, I typed in ‘feed truck’ in the search bar.  Immediately a listing popped up for a 1979 Ford truck with a Harsh feed box and electric scale on it near Ulysses.  It was approximately 50 miles from me and would sell for $4,500.

Since I had yet to even ride in a feed truck, much less understand how they ran or any other what ifs about them, I called my friend Travis and gave him a bit of a run down.  I asked him his opinion.  He said if I wasn’t going to buy it, he would buy it basically sight unseen to have around for a loaner whenever his main feed truck needed repair.   He said it was a very good deal and shouldn’t be passed up.

Somewhere in our conversation Travis offered to ride out there and take a look at it with me.  The pictures all looked favorable enough, but with it being so old we wanted to check it out a bit better.  I think Travis sensed how very little I knew about it all and felt it would be best to go along to save me from myself. 

It’s good to have friends like that.

We arrived and looked the old girl over.  The man who had it for sale was gone, but his 11-year-old son was an excellent representative in place of his Dad.  They had done an impeccable job of cleaning her up.  I felt bad for the old girl immediately, because I knew it was probably as clean as she had ever been and ever would be. 

Travis looked things over and mentioned several definite advantages to her, and we decided to take her for a test drive.  She fired right up, sans mufflers, sans brakes, sans title, sans gauges.  Sans means without, or minus, in case you wondered.  We toodled right along up to 25 m.p.h. and that’s when she let a bit of her personality show.  She didn’t want to go any faster, and that was that.  She threw a small hissy fit and muttered a few dirty words.  I can’t print them here out of respect to her since she had a change of heart later.  In fact, you wouldn’t recognize her today from what she used to be back then, she’s so changed and all.  And, Travis told me 25 m.p.h. was plenty fast enough for a feed truck around the pens and that he would still buy her as she was. 

We rolled back up to the yard, and what feeble brakes we had faded out almost entirely.  We shut her down, and then she showed us another side of her nature.  Water was spitting out from a crack in her radiator.   

Not to be outdone, as we wanted to take her home with us, sulky personality and all, Travis asked the lad on hand if they had any superglue and Styrofoam cups.  He ran off to get us some.  He told me if you break the Styrofoam into small pieces and mix it with superglue, it forms a very durable, binding paste quite similar to J. B. Weld. 

I was amazed at his ingenuity and in no time at all we had the paste mixed up and applied to the top part of the radiator.  I was a bit dubious as to whether it would work.  We let it dry and harden and then fired the old girl back up.  His paste was the real deal, but the ole girl just arched her osteoporotic back, moved over to another weak spot in radiator and hissed angrily at us from there.  It was obvious the ole girl was feeling threatened by the prospect of new ownership. The man selling it called about that time and I explained what we were up against.  He generously offered to get the radiator fixed for us and we could come back in two weeks to pick the girl up.  We agreed and I told him I was interested in buying a gooseneck stock trailer that was for sale on his yard.  He seemed stoked by that. 

Sometimes, we play a game around here called Scotland Yard.  In this game there is a bad guy, called Mr X who wears a black cap and who plots his way around the board while trying his best not to get caught.  He operates in secret, but all the while he sits in the hot seat with the rest of us trying to figure him out.

I felt like Mr X driving that old girl home. 

I didn’t have much, if any brakes.  I had to predict well ahead what the road might do and what traffic might cross.  I didn’t have a title or tag, so I took as many back roads and field roads as possible.  I didn’t have any gauges, and didn’t know the old girl very well yet; I also knew she was still sulking at new ownership and didn’t know what tantrum she might choose to display and where.  

I soon found she liked coaxing and coddling.  She seemed to be sort of an attention addict.  Coax her, coddle her just right and she responded by letting me drive her more than 25 m.p.h.  But overdo it, and she immediately gave up and headed for the shoulder of the road.  And she gave me the cold shoulder for some minutes afterward whilst I learned my valuable lessons regarding her.  We soon came to a fairly good understanding, and she started to trust me more and more, so that by the time we were half-way home I had her hand, and she had me on my knees with humble gratitude, and also temporarily deaf.

I still say it’s a wonder we made it home without a breakdown.  Although I overshot our drive because I forgot I didn’t have brakes and had to back up. 

We definitely had a love/hate relationship during those first few months together.

The boys and I went over every detail of her, changing bearings and modifying as we thought best.  When we felt brave enough, we ordered a load of corn and started mixing it with roughage to begin our foray into the calf starting, small feedlot business. 

There were days when she went back to her old habits, and we nigh well lost our patience with her, but it wasn’t long, and she joined us and started pulling with us every step of the way. 

When she did that, it was as though she was young all over again, and today, I think she is the most liked piece of machinery by everyone in the family.

Okay Savanna, you win.  This will be part one.

Working a Cold Iron

Back in the day, a long time before I was born and an even longer time yet before I started messing with cattle, branding was done differently.

I’ve read of how an entire summer was devoted to the weaning and branding process.  Cowboys and the mess wagon would start ranging out from the home ranch, across thousands of acres that comprised the ‘free range’ area where their ranch boss’s cattle roamed together with cattle from other ranches.  As the days passed, the drag net of cowboys that had fanned out in a wide circle slowly came in tighter and tighter until one big rodeo was about to take place with the gathered group of calves and their mama’s.

Some ranches were lucky enough to have corrals to run the stock into.  Others used a live corral of constantly circling cowboys. 

The cows, with calves by their side, were identified by ranch brand and were sorted off accordingly.  A fire was lit, and a short iron rod with the brand welded to the end of it was placed, brand first, into the fire. 

Next, those calves that had been sorted off where team roped.  One fellow tossed a loop over the head, the other tossed one that snared one or both hind legs. 

The calf was stretched out just a bit between the two horses to keep accidents and deaths from happening.  And accidents and death did happen, out there on the range; it wasn’t uncommon to come back to the home ranch at the end of a summer with those stoved up and lame, never to ride the same again.  And, if things went terribly wrong, and your horse and the bull calf you had dallied onto got into a storm, then when the first ranch supper was had at the end of the summer roundup you’d be missing, and there would be a small stone and a fresh mound of dirt out on the range to mark your new whereabouts.

Once the iron was hot enough, a third fellow retrieved it from the fire and applied its searing heat to the side of the calf that was roped.  And once branded, the calf was turned back out to winter with the rest or brought to the home ranch and started on one of the famous cattle drives of the west or, in later years, driven into town and loaded on a stock car for the nearest big yard and auction.

There are some guys around here that still do the branding process much like it was done 200-300 years ago. 

They do it for old times sake, obviously. 

I applaud them.  

For two reasons. 

The first being that they have mastered an art that I couldn’t begin to master.  If they happened to see me out riding, just riding and nothing else, it would cause them a great amount of pain. (from laughing so hard) With my arms all akimbo, my knees flapping like low slung wings, and my head cracking back and forth, particularly out of time with the steed under me, causes pain to anyone looking on, as much or more as to me and my horse.

The second is, it honors those who have carved this country out with brute strength, sweat and fortitude.

And I think honor, or respect to the traditions and men who made them, is a fast-fading thing these days.

*****

For the most part, today’s branding operations take place in a squeeze chute.  One by one the calves are moved into the chute, head locked in the head stanchion, and the branding iron, heated either with an electric element or, as in our case, a propane torch, is applied to the side of the calf in the same way it has been done for hundreds of years.

Now it so happened one day that we had a larger than normal group to mass treat with meds, eartags and brand.  As we were getting towards the end of the group, I noticed the propane torch (weed burner in our case) was burning a less than optimum flame. 

And it was on the next calf that Austin started branding that I heard myself saying the words that have been common to cattlemen for years.  And in our genre, we use that phrase to describe both the branding process and other aspects of life.

“You’re working a cold iron,” I told Austin.

He was pushing the branding iron against the side of the calf.  It was smoldering away there, the calf was bawling, and when he pulled it away to look at the brand, there wasn’t much of a brand.  He reapplied it, hoping to get what little heat was left in the iron to work and get the brand to take.

But it didn’t take.

The only recourse was to step back, reheat the iron, and then, carefully, not cruelly, apply it. 

The brand always takes with a hot iron.

*****

And it’s no different in life. 

I may not say those exact words, either to my boys or myself, but you can be sure I’m thinking them when I see us haggling away at a project with subpar results.

I remember times when I have been frustrated with the job at hand, or the behavior of those I am responsible for, and the general outcome of such.

It’s often that a guy works a cold iron far longer than necessary.  And the results in life are the same as they are in the chute.  Neither side is okay, and all you end up with is an unsettled mucked up mess.  You are frustrated and upset, and the other side is cagey and defensive.

Such a situation does an injustice to both sides.

The answer is the same in life as it is by the chute.   Step back, rethink, and then apply the iron carefully and decisively.

The brand will take and both sides will be the better for it.

Don’t work a cold iron.