HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

COFFEE ..... I NEED COFFEE!!!    I must be getting too old for this stuff.  I can pretty much tell you where every muscle in my body is and what I used it for yesterday.  Even my EARS hurt!!!

I tried to fortify myself with some amazing butterscotch marshmallow fudge before heading out to the Elks Lodge at 5:30 am.  Even if I ate the whole pan, it probably would not have been enough.  This recipe though ... 1/2 stick butter, one package butterscotch chips and one cup of peanut butter poured over marshmallows ... couldn't be easier to fix.  I love butterscotch, but next time I'll use milk chocolate chips and half the butter.

Here's my sweet boy letting me know he's not happy.  He's so funny ... if he doesn't get his ball to play with ... or the treat he wants ... he goes and hides and just waits.  Pretty soon I realize he's gone and go looking.  He jumps up and runs to the counter.  Sometimes he will even sneak around behind me so I can't find him, whereupon I start yelling his name, thinking he got outside.  Yeah ... he's real funny!!!!

Happy Father's Day to all the dads, granddads and great granddads out there.  The Elks Lodge celebrates our Dads by having a brunch absolutely free for them and every member of their family.  This time it was pancakes, sausage, fruit, scrambled eggs and biscuits with gravy.  We make a mean sausage gravy that's even better than I can make.  

The problem lay in the fact that no one checked the calendar.  They scheduled a big Hawaiian Luau party on Saturday night.  That meant we couldn't do anything ahead of time to get ready, thus the early morning arrival.  It had us scrambling to get everything set up to feed the estimated 300 people.

The good news was we had 14 bags of scrambled eggs to cook.  No cracking required.  The bad news was we needed 28 bags of eggs.  That meant I was back to cooking them in big pans in the ovens.  Oh my poor burned fingers.  

It didn't help that our order of food was not made correctly, and in the first hour we had to send someone running to the store after 30 more pounds of sausage.  Yessirree ... I ran 50 pounds of sausage links through those ovens in two hours and every bit of it disappeared.  

Herein lies the problem ... when you serve 8 things, people take smaller portions and the food lasts longer. When you only serve 4 things, they take more and you run out.  The next trip to the store was for pancake batter.  We ran through that 30 pounds of Krusteaz mix in the first 60 minutes.  There was another mad dash to the store. 

By the way ... best pancake cooker EVER!!  They were perfect and he cooked them all on this flattop.

Lesson learned ... when you shorten the menu, people eat more of the food you have and you have to cook twice as fast!!  I was flinging screaming hot pans around the kitchen like a mad woman!!

Three hours later we had served about 325 people.  Whew!!  What a morning ... and we were all exceedingly happy to shut down at 11:30.  We had biscuits and gravy leftover, so I panned it all up and we took it to the Homeless Shelter across town.  

It was a good day, but boy am I paying for it this morning.  I think Cooper and I will take a nice long walk to work the kinks out of my muscles ... after my second cup of coffee!!

Life On The Ranch ... Getting Creative

 I'm off extra early to the Elks Lodge this morning for that wonderful Father's Day breakfast.  If you're a member and around this area, be sure to stop by for a free bunch.  Maybe even SCHEDULE it for next year because we're going to have steak and eggs in 2024!!!  Shhhh it's a secret!

Luckily I can wear Levis and any old t-shirt to this shindig because I'll be in the kitchen.  

Back on the ranch, it was do or die ... and we were dying.  The bank account was empty and the ranch payment due.  There was no choice but to sell off all the cattle to try and keep the property.  Time to get creative in the money department.  A few months later we were lucky enough to find a big cattle guy up in Madera who offered to lease the property for HIS cattle.  The caveat was that we had to move out of the house on the right.  That's the barn in the middle, which used to be surrounded by corrals.  The house on the left was added years later.  The one across the street is a neighbor.

Again, extremely lucky ... one of our neighbors south of us moved away and offered to rent his house to us.  It was tiny.  It had two bedrooms and a closet.  The best part ... there were two fields for my horses.  That didn't last long because if OUR cattle prices were in the toilet, so where the Madera cattle prices.  

What to do ... what to do.  My mom finally got a job as Secretary at the County Road Department.  She had not one wit of experience, but a work ethic like no other.  Thankfully, that rubbed off on me.  Next my Dad went to work at the Federal Game Refuge doing what?  Driving caterpillar at night.  During the days, he got his real estate license.  I don't know where that came from, but he knew land and cattle, which is what he signed up for.  I found a job typing up insurance policies for Farmers Insurance.  OH BOY!!

It soon became evident that Dad was WAY too honest for real estate.  He would tell them how many cows that land would really support, instead of what the broker TOLD him to say.  That didn't bode well for his real estate career.

By then, I was off working at a pack station in the Sierras.  When the cattle lease fell through, my Dad and the neighbor (who grew rice on his property) came up with the crazy idea of planting all our land in rice.  He knew someone who had his own markets in Japan, for all the rice we could produce.  Sign us up!!

It took some doing, scheming actually, to get the County to approve growing rice this far North in the county, but we finally got the okay, only because my dad was so stubborn.  I guess we know where I got THAT from.  

That's when tractors like this rolled in.  It was pretty crazy the first year.  By this time my parents moved BACK to the old ranch house.  In no time there were fields of green just like above, along with big cats and bank out trucks buried in the mud.  When harvesting the rice, the bank out trucks with big balloon tires (to keep from getting stuck) would run alongside the harvester as the rice was dropped into their bins.  Once full, they would drive out to the hard dirt road to transfer it to trucks.

You've probably seen rice growing in water 12" deep?  Did you know it's flowing?  Water has to be kept flowing all the time for rice to grow.  In the middle of all this my Dad got his license to sell life insurance.  It was a big thing back in the day, though I rarely hear about it now.  He made enough money to keep eating ... a good thing, until the profits from the rice came in.  It all went on the ranch loan ... every dime.  

Over the next many years, they made more money, but being from the depression, every cent went in the bank and on the loan until it was paid off.  That was a miracle in our book.  My Mom even saved every piece of aluminum foil she ever used.  Eventually they were able to build a NEW small house, drawn up by my College drafting teacher.  That's the one on the left in the above picture.  Of course half of that roofline is repair shop!  

About that time I ended up moving back to the ranch into the old house.  Time to become a heavy equipment operator!!  That's coming up tomorrow.

Shocking Shopping

 Just look at this little face.  Quite a difference from 7 days ago!!  This is his happy play-with-me smile.  As much as I love his smile, I hate to see it because he's not allowed to play with his toys.  Although the stitches inside his mouth will dissolve on their own, that won't happen for at least another two weeks.  

Yeah .... he's pretty demanding!!  I have a soft toy, but I think it gets hung up on the stitches, so today when in town, I'll try to find something soft and not fuzzy.  What a kid this guy is!!  And yes, that's a loud SHARP bark he has, good for notifying me a car went by or a mockingbird just landed in the yard!!

Having no summer clothes to wear that can appear in public, I finally decided to bite the bullet and head to town.  Town is 40 miles away.  I go there because when our Gottschalks closed down, it was the only place to buy anything I could wear to work.  I guess it's a good thing I retired.

I dropped my purse when I saw this!!  I guess it's good for street walking so people can see you coming from far far away!!  

I started checking tags.  This is Macys ... one of the biggest and best stores in California.  There was not one single tag that said made in the U.S.A.  Every single item came from China, Vietnam or Thailand.  

CHEAP fabric ... very thin and flimsy with absolutely no shape to it at all.  I guess everything is just supposed to hang off you.  This one made my eyes hurt.  Let's face it ... I'm an old gal dresser from the days of suits and classy clothes.  This (excuse my expression) CRAP is not only not my style, but I wouldn't be caught dead in it.

I laughed out loud when I walked by this.  This is STYLE?  Who wears this stuff????  I thought going to the actual store would be better than buying on the internet, but I'm having second thoughts.  Oh I tried on a couple of things that I thought were terrible, just to see if maybe they looked better ON.

I looked like I had a big trash bag full of dirty laundry inside the shirt.  Two buttons popped off on the dressing room floor before I even put it on.  And that's another thing ... this store is well over 8,000 square feet and there is only ONE dressing room.  There used to be FOUR.  

This will make your day ... the cleaning lady was mopping the floor in the changing room next to me.  I heard her say to lock the door, she would come back with a different kind of cleaner.  Why?  She said because someone PEED in the stall on the floor, so she had to sanitize it.  That's it for me ... I'm never going back.

I was instantly depressed.  Maybe there's another store in this big mall.  Ummm that would be a no.  I counted six stores for kids and babies, four stores to buy ball caps and NO stores to buy women's clothing.  In fact, the entire Mall has gone to the dogs.  There are no recognizable stores except Penneys and Macys. By the way, Macy's now has there entire bottom floor adorned with big signs all in Spanish.  

It's like shopping in a ghost town ... oh there are a few people shopping, but NO ONE cleaning up or straightening up anything, let alone manning a checkout desk.  The entire store looked like my teenage bedroom!  People didn't used to make messes like this in the old days.  What's going on?  Me thinks there's no respect left in the world for other's property.

After walking the entire length of this big mall, I bought one lousy pretzel for $6.00.  That's another thing ... no one posts their prices any more for food!  If you want to know, you have to ask.  

By days end I had one cheap blouse in hand that at least fit reasonably well.  Probably worth about $5, the tag said $32 and I paid $20.  Add to that the $26 in fuel it cost me to get there and back, along with the pretzel and it's total is now $52.  If I'm lucky, it will last through three washings, so if you see me wearing this ten times in a row, don't ask!!!

By the time I got home I was exhausted.  It's sad to see just how far down the rabbit hole this place has gone.  I'm not sure it's any better anywhere else.  It makes me wonder if my Grandmother thought the same thing in her old age.

At least Mother Nature keeps supplying us with beautiful sunsets.

I'm off this morning to prep for the Elks Lodge Father's Day Brunch.  This one is free for all members and their families.  Hopefully I'll be catching up on my beauty sleep today in preparation for tomorrow's 6:00 morning!!

You Say Caliche ... I Say Hardpan

Welcome back to 95 degrees days.  Summer has decided to return once again.  When I walked outside with Mr. Cooper into the convection oven that was my back yard, I turned around and walked right back in and up to the AC controls.  No, I didn't go crazy and take it down to 70 degrees, but I did turn it down enough to cool off.  After all, I still have $600 to use up before I leave for Arizona ... to the land of cheap electricity.

People ask me all the time ... WHY do you go to the desert in the summer heat?  My answer ... because I can afford the air conditioning! 

On the ranch, it was a different story.  All we had in that 100 year old house was a swamp cooler.  It was so loud you could barely hear anyone call you to wash the dishes.  I remember distinctly looking at the thermometer hanging on the eucalyptus tree by the cattle loading chute.  In the summertime it rarely got below 100, with days hanging around at 113-115.  Now we complain about 95.  

At least we were not planting in the middle of summer, so driving the D3 caterpillar with no overhead cover and nothing but the wind in your face, wasn't TOO terrible.  Nowadays farmers are spoiled with music, air conditioning, magic-ride seats .. all the conveniences.

Until this happens!!  Out in the back 40 we had this horrible white soil we called hardpan.  I guess they call it caliche nowadays.  There were several big areas of it that we avoided like the plague.  In the winter when it got wet from the rain, it would turn into this ... a quicksand like quagmire that would suck a 50 ton tractor down in an instant.

Once the tracks got full of mud, there was no traction to get out.  Hardpan wins again.  To make it even worse ... if you were turning when it happened, there was a good chance you would slip a track, meaning it would come off the rollers and you were dead in the water.  Oh the bad words I heard as a kid!!

You couldn't pull it out until the track was back in place.  The shovels came out .... let the digging begin.  Anyone who could walk had a shovel stuck in their hand to help.  Once we got down far enough, railroad ties would be brought in along with jacks not nearly stout enough.  

The good news was that every so often a neighbor would hear about it and stop by to see if they could help.  Sometimes it would take a week or more to extract.  Once the track was back on, they brought THEIR cats over to help pull her out.  We avoided that spot as best we could, but it would always happen again in another spot.  Those two back fields were a PAIN!!!

Little did I know at the time that it was going to get worse.  The cattle business went downhill so fast we had to sell them all off to make the loan payment and not lose the ranch.  Can you imagine making THAT decision?  Now what do we do?  How do we survive?  I'll get into that life changing moment tomorrow!

Mostly because I didn't get home until really late last night and I'm barely keeping my eyes open.  Since there were no great rodeos on the tube to watch yesterday, I finally spent some time sewing as Cooper slept.  It's getting there .... but wait .... I seem to only have HALF the number of required squares.

I'm out of little pieces, but still need 12 more?  There's that darn math thing again.  I don't know what happened, but luckily I saved all the scraps and had more than enough to cut more pieces.  RATS ... that meant I was only HALF done when I thought I was COMPLETELY done.  

Mr. Cooper is doing well and his appetite is REALLY good.  Maybe some of those teeth were bothering him?  Though he certainly could eat the treats all day long!!  

We went for a long walk yesterday, which he enjoyed immensely.  I see the light at the end of the tunnel and it bodes well for doggie yoga to begin once again ... in another week ... maybe.

How I Drove A Dozer

 First things first ..... PROGRESS!!  My sweet boy was almost his normal happy self in the morning.  He ran around looking for the B A L L or any toy he could maul.  Sadly, I have had to put them all away for at least two weeks.  He's about as bored as I am.  

The critter cam I set up while I was gone at Bingo?  It made me cry.  There were a whopping 82 videos of him getting up and down off the couch.  He would walk to the front door window, look out, then return to the couch.  Needless to say my little bundle of joy misses me when I'm gone.  Now I'll feel terrible every time I leave!

At least this quick trip to the grocery stored didn't take me long.  I was a little shocked when I saw some of the food prices however.  Though I keep hoping they will come back down, inflation is still alive and well in California.  That whole chicken I did NOT buy for $10.00 is now $13.00 ... and this AFTER the big chicken die off event was over.  If only we could go back two years!!

Back to ranch stories .... this is not my picture of a D3 caterpillar, probably built in the late 1940's.  To be honest, I don't think I ever knew exactly what year ours was, but pre 1950 for sure.  It hung out behind the quonset hut until we needed it for plowing a field to plant hay.  

During the wintertime, there wasn't much grass growing, so cattle were taken to the mountains for feed while we planted our fields with grass seed.  Originally we had a National Park lease to run them in the Sierra Mountains.  It helped kept fires to a minimum since the cattle would eat all the green grass before it died and became a fire hazard.   We tried to warn them ........

Several years of that trashy tree stuff building up on the forest floor, along with one lightning strike, and BOOM ... a fire of epic proportions.  Over and over again.  But I digress .....

It only took one ride on our caterpillar and I was hooked.  I think it all began with those little words ... you can't do this, you're a GIRL.  I was pretty stubborn even as a little kid.  My train of thought was this ... if I can learn to drive the D3, I can be outside where I'm happy, and NOT inside doing laundry, or dusting or ironing on the big mangle iron ... that GIRL stuff.

A few times here and there Dad would let me pull the levers.  In no time I had a big pillow at the back of the seat so I could REACH the levers.  The ones on each side would put the brakes on that side only, leaving the other side still moving ... which turned you.  It took lots of finagling with both feet and both hands to keep her straight.  Add to that two transfer cases and clutches so stiff that I almost fell off the seat every time I had to reach for it, along with the controls for the plow and it kept you busy.

Turning a circle at the end of the row with a big plow attached was the most fun ever.  I know, I'm weird ... but being able to get that thing to go exactly where you wanted was a kick in the pants.  Finally Dad let me take over an entire field.  He warned me it better be STRAIGHT rows when I was done.  

I think I was 11 or 12.  The secret was to keep the corner of the cat on the fence post at the far end of the field.  Do that and your lines would be straight as an arrow.  I was out there all day long by myself, just plowing away.  I finished the field and walked back to the house looking like someone had dumped two buckets of dirt on my head.  Although I never got an ATTA GIRL, he did say my rows were straight.

As time went on, the caterpillars got bigger and bigger, as did the stories we have to tell now.  I think this probably looks familiar to Jim who just came back from working a farm up North.  I have no pictures of how our cats got stuck in the mud, but this is a good example.  That story is coming up tomorrow.

Unlike my lunch on the caterpillar which always consisted of peanut butter and jelly, this corn dog looks yummy, yes?  It's cheap eats from Costco, along with some sweet potatoes fries, both of which came out of my air fryer.  

THIS is what we have been dining on at Bingo, so I thought it would be a perfectly cheap replacement for dinner.  I was completely taken aback when I read they are chicken dogs!  OH NO!!  You mean I've been eating CHICKEN?  Let me just say they are not NEAR as good as when boiled in oil for five minutes.  Dip them in enough mustard and you can't taste them ... which is what I did.

Here's my pretty boy, looking more poodle-ish since I trimmed up his mouth.  All his fur was gunked up from the surgery and getting in his mouth, causing excessive licking.  He's doing so much better today, we are actually going for a long walk.  In his book, that's almost as good as playing the ball game.

My luck continues ... more meetings tonight at the Elks Lodge.  Nancy is pretty happy that at the end of this month I will get a reprieve from them for awhile when I head to Arizona.   Shhhh don't tell anyone!

The Nights Of Bingo

The heat is on as we climb the ladder over the next four days.  We've been loving these 80 degree overcast days like no other, but 96 is on the horizon.  I can't wait to hear the grinding hum of my air conditioning that will cost me NOTHING.  Well not exactly, I did raid my savings account for the solar panels.

That means we were comfortable sitting on the couch all day yesterday.  Cooper seemed to be a little bright around the edges, which means it's getting harder to fool him into eating the pills.  Everything was going great until he began to scratch his chin with his hind leg.  That's a no-no!

I called the Vet who was no help whatsoever.  If I put the collar on him, it might be worse.  If I DON'T, it might be worse.  Thank you ... I really needed that good advice, so off to Bingo I went ... no collar ... hoping I would be distracted by the crowd and not worry.  Bingo never fails.

My Lady in Waiting was again gone, whereupon I finally remembered she had knee surgery.  I was hoping my SECOND in waiting would be on time, but that was not to be.  I opened the doors ten minutes early since I had to count AND run the infernal machine.  That threw everyone off.  No one seemed to be able to pick the cards they normally buy.

How can they tell?  Because every single player knows EXACTLY how much they spend every week.  When I tell them something different, we have to go through their stack and figure out why.  It will be bad juju if they don't play the exact same thing every week.  JUJU can be deadly.

To add to the confusion, the Mini-Me Infernal Debit Card Machine decided it wasn't going to play fair.  Time and time again, it refused cards ... something it does not normally do.  One lovely peasant had a stack of at least 15 cards in her hand, trying to use one after the other.  

DECLINED ... DECLINED!  I love it when it says Card Failure ... which means I give them the spiel.  Take it out and rub it on your jeans, then put it back in the machine.  They look at me like I'm crazy.  Sometimes I am, but not when it comes to this critter sitting on my table.  I hate to say this, but it's probably all the dirt and sweat on the card that needs to be cleaned off before it will work.

Sure enough ... Mini-Me then runs it through and we are good.  Makes you wonder though ... how come you have so many bank debit cards, all of which are declined?  

At last my helper showed up and we ran that line down in a flash.  Let the games begin!  There was only one big argument about whose name was tattooed on that particular chair at the end of the table.  If that's where they sat the last time they won, it is now the ONLY place they can sit in the entire house.  

Tempers flared and the Knights came to their rescue.  Someone was going to lose that battle, whereupon they usually come back to my table and slam their papers down, demanding a refund.  We are happy to oblige since they will then leave the building, just like Elvis!

The rest of the night went pretty well, except for the complaints about the prices of food going up.  Inflation has also hit Bingo.  That $5.00 hamburger and fries went up to $5.50.  It's STILL cheaper than any fast food joint in town.  I don't think we have raised prices in over two years.  Remember who you vote for next time.

And so ended another night of Bingo as I raced home to be sure my best friend was doing okay.  He was OH so happy to see me.  There is something to say about having a dog instead of a husband.

This morning Cooper seems to be on the mend.  It took four days to see somewhat of a smile on his face, so Mom is a happy camper.  We've still got five more days before the B A L L can come out to play.  At least I can now get off the couch for an hour or so.  I really need to find some summer clothes to wear.  Yes I did order three shirts from Amazon and none of them fit.  Whatever happened to going to an actual store to buy clothes???

The All Purpose JEEP

 Things seem to ebb and flow in not-so-sunny California.  It was good that the temperatures have stayed low since the local fair was in full swing.  They switched it from July to June to keep the animals from dying of the heat.  No problem this year, they had to put heaters in with all the rabbits ... and here I was hoping to use up all those extra solar dollars on air conditioning.  

Here's my kid ... not so bright and cheery and still looking for his toys every morning.  It sure makes me feel bad, because all of this is MY fault.  It's hard not to be sad.

Cooper's other favorite pastime is smelling the smells outside, so off we went for a little walk.  My running plans have been thrown out the window until further notice.  After we very carefully put his harness on so as not to touch his mouth, off we went.

One thing California does have is beautiful poppies amid the weeds.  They grow wild around here, and once started, will return every year.  In no time I could tell by the look on his face we had gone far enough.  Time to head back for the hide-the-pill game.  

My tactics are lame.  Crush it up and COVER it up with something he likes.  I'm running out of options since he is beginning to figure it out.  The pills must taste bad.  Since he never eats on schedule, it's been tough to get those pain pills down every 12 hours to keep him from hurting.  Day 4 and you can tell by the look on his face below that he's not very comfortable.

Back to the ranch .... here is the all purpose Jeep.  I had to look for some time to find this picture of one which has been beautifully restored.  I don't know how we came about having a Jeep from WWII since I was too young.  Our's didn't have windshield wipers nor orange running lights.  It did not have a spare tire and the windshield was broken in three places.  

You could barely tell it was painted red at one time, but mostly showed off its rust.  There were many BIG bullet holes in it from front to back.  Hard to drive?  Yessirree!!!

I think I was six when I first took the wheel.  Us kids couldn't reach the pedals, so they wired on 2 x 4 blocks.  Shifting required arms of steel and double clutching.  At seven I made my first mistake of looking at the gear shift instead of the road and ran into a tree in the yard.  You could hardly tell since I was only going maybe 8 mph.  I don't think anyone ever got it over 25 mph.

Our fields were numbered in the order of how the irrigation water ran.  When the canal slides were opened, water would run into our ditches.  From there, we opened wooden box slides to allow it to run over the contours to the first levee.  The levees wove around the field serpentine-like depending on those contours.  When it got to the next levee, we had to open those boxes to allow it to move to the next one.  

Over and over we would move the water levee to levee until the pasture was wet enough.  Then on to the next field.  Amazingly, the Jeep never got stuck.  As you can imagine, this took some time to get over 600 acres.  We never were able to water the entire ranch because water was allotted by the irrigation district.  You only got so much.  The back fields never grew much feed unless it rained.

That's where I learned to drive.  It was much faster to take the Jeep to irrigate than to ride your horse ... and much easier to get ON.  There were no fun summer vacations because we always had to water, so we made our fun in the ditches and canals.  I'm surprised we survived the concrete gates and pipes since we didn't know how to swim.  

We got in so much trouble for trying to cool off with the carp (big ugly fish) that Dad built a big concrete horse trough up by the house.  It was all of 3 feet deep in the shallow end and 4 feet in the deep end.  Perfect for diving off the sides.  Somehow we survived.

Back to the Jeep ... besides teaching us how to drive a hard stick shift with two transfer cases, we used it to haul medicine to the center corrals, haul supplies for barbed wire fence repairs and to pull calves.  It never went to town because it didn't have a license plate.  As you can imagine, this led to cattle truck driving.

The seat cover was completely gone, but we had some nice woven barley sacks piled up so you didn't get poked by the springs.  The back seat was stored in the quonset hut because we needed room to haul feed and salt to the cattle in the center corrals about a mile from the barn.  

One of the saddest days ... my Dad sold the Jeep for four one hundred dollar bills some time in the late 1960's because we didn't need it any more.  I still have TWO of those bills.

Onward and upward ... I cooked an entire package of bacon in my air fryer.  If I'm busy, it keeps Cooper from thinking I will play if he finds his ball.  I swear, there's not much better than air fried PIG.

I spent most of the day on the couch.  If I don't keep a close watch, Cooper tries to scratch his mouth with his hind foot.  I guess it's healing since it must feel a little itchy.  Who knows ... but my butt is screaming from sitting so much!!  It's okay ... I'll do anything to make him more comfortable.  As long as I'm sitting close, he stays still and sleeps.

And that was our day!!  He finally ate his antibiotic pill this morning, so we're on to the pain pill.

I'll be on the couch yet again ... maybe trying to sneak in a nap myself.  After all, it's BINGO TUESDAY!!

Dead Cows

Well .... here we are STILL on the couch.  The healing process is slow.  While we were doing really good yesterday, this morning we are back at step one.  I've become exceedingly good at the new game of Hide The Pill.  The first one of the day gets crushed up in his all time favorite treat, which lucky for me, is very soft.  I can crumble it up quite nicely and hide the dreaded flavor bean.  He never feels good in the morning, so that's the first thing he gets.

While I work on the blog, he sleeps at my feet, giving the pill time to work.  Of course all that is after searching for the ball under every table and chair.  

 Jonathan is feeling left out.  Every night now he sits and talks for 30 minutes or so.  Sadly I can't get a video of any length to pass through my email account, but you get the picture.  The crazy part is that every time he says something, I talk back.  

So ... in the meantime ... we come to Dead Cows.  Life on the ranch was hard.  Rarely did we ever get a day off.  Cattle had to be checked every day.  Of course that was the part I liked the best ... riding out on my favorite horse to slowly wander through the fields looking for sick or hurt cows and calves.  

It was always a shock when you found one dead.  Cows were expensive.  To lose one cost you a pretty penny not only in replacement costs, but in the loss of calves she could produce over the years.

I rode up slowly.  In case you didn't know, horses don't like dead things.  They snort, spook and want to run away.  They can smell them a mile away, so if you pay close attention to your horse, you'll know when you find one.

Yup ... there she is .... dead as a doornail.  You learn how to read the signs.  In spite of the flies, she is not twitching.  Plus, within a few hours, they are bloated with legs sticking out straight.  It's not a pretty sight.  I rode back to the house to tell Dad.  We drove back in the Jeep ... a WWII red beauty full of bullet holes.  I've no idea where that Jeep came from.

At any rate, with a cow dying for seemingly no reason, the vet is called for an autopsy.  I had watch duty until he arrived.  You see dead things smell ... and smelly dead things bring scavengers like coyotes and buzzards.  You don't want any of those things messing up the "crime scene".  

The Vet showed up and the first thing he did without warning, was stick the belly and let all that putrid gas out.  OH MY GREAT AUNT LOUISE!!!  There is one more important thing you learn on a ranch ... to breathe through your mouth and NOT your nose where all the smell will make you toss your cookies in a fraction of a second.  That lesson has served me well all my life.  

Then it was on to cutting up all that stink.  Are you feeling it yet?  The Vet took out all the parts and pieces one at a time and explained to me what he was looking for.  Yeah, it was pretty gory, and is probably why that kind of thing doesn't bother me.  In the end it was determined she died from old age.  Cattle generally live 15-20 years unless they are raised for food.  

Obviously there was no putting her back together, so the Gut Wagon was called to haul her away.  The good news ... there was no bad disease causing us to kill the entire herd.  Life could be hard on the ranch.

So as I sat on the couch, thinking about dead cows, I came across these amazing cupcakes.  That's another thing about ranch living ... you don't let something like a dead cow interfere with your love of cupcakes.

One of these days soon, I'll give it a try while Cooper is sleeping.  For now though, we will be back on the couch for Day 3 of teeth removal.  I still feel so bad ... my doggy needs doggy dentures.

That California Thing

Nurse Nancy is still hard at it, honing her caretaking skills.  Be sure and bend your knees when picking up puppies to take them outside.  I have WAY too soft a heart to be in this business.  To see Mr. Cooper enjoying himself like this all day long .......

 BEFORE

And then see this.  It makes me appreciate REAL nurses a lot.  I mean just LOOK at that little face!!

AFTER

So let's take a little break in the action and talk about the latest I heard about California.  If ever there is a screwed up State, this is it in spades.  Not only are they paying immigrants every month just to come in the door, they are now wanting to pay reparations for slavery. 

Hmmm my family didn't have slaves EVER, so you're saying you are going to take money from my hard work and pay it to some people who never worked a day in their life?  I'll give you three guesses what that sounds like.  

Here's the next thing going on according to a friend who is in the business.  State Farm and AllState insurance companies ... pretty big in California ... have told the Insurance Board they are pulling out of this State and will no longer be writing insurance policies here.  

Why you ask?  Because they don't think they are making enough money.  I almost laughed at him since my insurance costs have doubled in the last two years.  They are trying to force the Board to do away with cost limits.  I'm sure there have been lots of claims from flooding this year, but again ... you want to raise MY costs to pay for losses on your policies?  Shouldn't that have been built in to those policies?

You've never had an insurance claim on your house?  Too bad ... they are raising the rates anyway.  In fact, he told me NOT to go out to bid because I could end up with NO insurance.  All this is going to take a lot more investigation on my part ... which is the part I hate.  Just another reason to leave California I guess.

Between that and my "charge", I may just have to find a nice margarita mix to hang out with!  

The Vet told me only soft food for the kid.  I've tried that before, and he would NOT eat it.  Even the cooked chicken I prepare is too hard to eat for now.  So off to the pet store I went.  What a surprise to find hardly ANY small dog food that I thought he would eat.  Duck ... fish ... buffalo ... gosh, where's the BEEF?  

I finally found only two varieties in small tins to try.  Maybe it's just Petco, but boy are they short on variety.  I waited until Cooper was scratching the rug at the sink.  That means FEED ME.  I plopped some of this in his bowl ... and lo and behold ... HE ATE IT!  Wow ... that's a miracle ... a first in his 13 years of being the most finicky of eaters.

Finally ... if only for a few minutes, he didn't look like he was dying!  EUREKA!!  I see a little bit of progress!!  Yes he still looks for his ball, especially in the mornings, but I ply him with a piece of soft treat that he loves.  Don't tell him, but there's a pill crushed up in that too.

I baked the last of the enchilada casseroles I made with Hatch green chili sauce ... boy do I love THAT stuff ... and parked both of us on the couch.

We spent the rest of the night watching extreme bull riding on the tube.  Nurse Nancy has learned to remain absolutely still so there are no growls from the peanut gallery.  

This doggie saga is kind of boring, so I'll relate more ranch stories tomorrow since I can't go anywhere and leave the kid alone just yet.  Just another observation ... it rained yesterday.  What's up with that???

Nurse Nancy

 Well that didn't go as well as expected at all.  Here we are tearing up the rugs looking for his ball that he covered UP with the rug.  It's so fun to see him so happy and making a big mess of the entire living room.  

Soon after, I dropped him off at the Vet's office with great trepidation.  I know, that's silly ... but I have been a big animal person and had dogs all my life.  I absolutely can't stand it when they don't feel good.

I tried hard to keep myself occupied, but it didn't work so well.  After three hours of just sitting on the couch becoming a big fat potato, I decided I better gear up for Cooper's sore mouth from the teeth cleaning.  

And then I got the call.  The ER Nurse, which happens to be a guy named Daniel, called to say he was shocked that Cooper still had all his teeth at 13 years old.  BUT ... and it's the BUT that gets you ... he has to have 6 or 7 front teeth removed, top and bottom front.  They are all loose and one is infected.  What can you say but OKAY!

At this point the $1200 estimate has me in shock, but I would pay just about anything to have my little guy feeling good and not in pain.  

I got out the instant pot to cook some chicken, which I absolutely cooked until it was disintegrating in my hand.  Soft food only they said!!

That brought about a mad dash to the Pet store to find some more soft food he would eat.  Finally at noon, they called to say he was out of surgery and doing just fine.  YAY ... be still my frantic heart.  Sadly I had to wait another 4 hours before I could see him again.

I was completely crushed when I picked him up and he looked like this, poor baby.  The bad news was in the end, when they took out one tooth, turns out it was holding up the next.  Big sigh.  He lost 13 of his 42.  Weirdly, the final bill came to $700.  I think they do that on purpose so you are happy when you leave.

Nurse Nancy took over instantly ... my heart was crushed probably more than when my husband ran off with his girlfriend.  

Thankfully he slept quite a bit.  I knew I had pills to get down his throat and wasn't sure how that was going to happen, but some scrambled eggs did the trick.  We snuggled on the couch the entire night.  

Nurse Nancy thinks this will be the worst day, then he should perk up a bit.  He did spend ten minutes walking around the house looking (and smelling) for his ball.  Yeah that broke my heart once again.  No toys will be mauled for at least ten days.  

Oh wait ... I did do one thing.  I bought another container of Zero Cool Whip and found some lemon curd at the store when I went looking for soft doggie food.  This creation was the suggestion of Payson48 and is my new FAVORITE.  Maybe you would be so kind as to tell me your first name so I can thank you appropriately!!

Woohoo!!  What could be easier!  Although I could not find the large container of cool whip, it didn't matter because I LOVE the tart taste of lemon curd.  I skipped the graham cracker crust this time, mostly because I forgot to buy one ... I just plopped it into little dessert cups.  Oh yeah ... this is a keeper!!  Silky smooth and lemony!!

Since Nurse Nancy is going to be busy all day with her number one patient, I'll relay the latest California news tomorrow.  It's just another reason to think about leaving the state.

I'll be on the couch with my patient .......

To The Doc We Go

 I know ... more DOG pictures.  I can't help it.  This kid has been all over the U.S. with me, from the snow covered mountains and glaciers of Alaska, all the way south to Mexico, on to Bangor Maine and back again.  He'll be fourteen this year.  We've had lots of adventures together and I really want them to continue.

He's the best companion a girl could have.  When you are a single gal, there's nothing like a good buddy to talk to and snuggle up with.  They don't even care where you go, who you go with or how much money you spend ... AND they throw a big celebration every time you return.  

We've been threw thick and thin, this kid and I, and I hope it continues for a few more years.  SO ... we are off to the Vet's office very early.  Teeth cleaning is much better than teeth falling out.  Same goes for me!!  

Tune in tomorrow when I tell you the latest BAD news for California residents.  Just when you think it can't get any worse ...... it does!

Oh How Time Flies

 I'm not sure why, but time is just flying by!!  One minute I don't know what I will do with all the time on my hands, and the next it's time to start thinking about heading south.  People think I'm crazy for going to Arizona in the summertime, but there's the reason for my madness.

Believe it or not, the summer temperatures are pretty much the same between central California and southern Tucson, partly because my little slice of life is at around 3500 feet in elevation.  The other MAIN reason is because you can actually afford to keep your house cool in Arizona.  Their electricity is less than half the cost of California, yet they provide better service.  Interesting how that works.

I really didn't do much yesterday, just hung out waiting for company to arrive.  I worked on this quilt a bit more.  As you can see, there was lots of indecision hanging on the wall.  I still have eleven squares to sew, so it's going to remain mixed up until I can figure out what layout works.

With weird overcast skies threatening rain, Cooper and I were able to spend some time outside in cooler air.  Calling all gardeners!!  What the heck is wrong here?  I know a lot of this section is just weeds and not grass, but for the life of me, I cannot get it to turn green.  

There is a sprinkler in the middle at the bottom that I have changed three times, but for some reason water just doesn't land on this patch.  I keep thinking I have the wrong type of pop-up sprinkler head.  It says 12' spray.  Do I need a "shorter" version?  Maybe a 6' if they make such a thing?  There are two other spots around the yard doing the same thing.

Company finally arrived, whereupon we spent the next three hours solving all the family problems and figuring out why those tires she ordered for her car (which lives on Maui), seem to be located on the island of Oahu.  Not a bad problem to have in my book.

One thing we always do when she's here is head out to Applebees for dinner.  It's our claim to fame and the only decent restaurant within 30 miles.  Besides that, they have a 2 for $25 deal that's hard to beat.  This is what the menu picture looked like.  Although kinda close, this is NOT what my plate looked like.  The meal started out with a HUGE salad, which we polished off quickly.

I think they were running out of mashed potatoes, so they poured in twice the milk to make them go further.  Runny would be a good description.  It's okay though, because I'm a potato girl from WAY back.  It only takes one little allergy to potatoes when you are a kid, to make you crave them every day.  On the other hand, the chicken, shrimp and mushrooms were delicious!!

The evening was spent watching yet another rodeo in Texas.  It seems they are getting LOTS of rain, unusual for this time of year.  That arena was 3" deep in water and mud.  The guys riding the bulls were even wearing rain jackets to keep sort of dry.  The mud didn't stop a single competitor.

After lots of play time, Mr. Cooper finally crashed with his favorite lamb toy.  He seems to be about 98% better, but still a bit itchy here and there.

This is my all time favorite picture of him.  I'm winding up the stress level yet again ... tomorrow he goes for teeth cleaning.  Yup ... I'm a nervous wreck!!!  He's thirteen going on fourteen and I'd like him to stick around a few more years.

Meetings, meetings and MORE meetings tonight for the Elks.  I think I'll pick up a bottle of margarita mix on the way home, to get me through the teeth cleaning ordeal!!!  Maybe I'll snag one of Cooper's tranquilizers!!  I think I need them more than he does.