Sister Retreat

There’s six of us. Mom and Dad had one boy and then kept having girl after girl. There’s a twelve year spread between the oldest and the youngest (that’s me). We try to get away once a year without our families. This year we chose to gather at Dad’s. Our nephew turned up as well, so it was a “dad-nephew-sister” retreat. We slept on the couch and floor and filled the bedrooms.

This retreat was mostly about visiting and eating. Okay, so all our retreats are mostly about visiting and eating. Mom is gone, but her kitchen is as familiar as ever. The cast iron frying pans still reside on the stove top or in the oven, the potatoes are under the sink, the cereal and crackers around the corner. We work together to create meals and then clean up in a jiffy. It all comes back - visiting over the same sink, stepping over each other to dry dishes, wiping off counters and carrying scraps outside to dump over the fence into Wally’s alfalfa field.

Three of us are on ranches, one in the recycling business, one in real estate and one a nurse. We’ve waited tables, counted money, doctored animals and people, nurtured children and sailed oceans. We’ve managed employees, given up on marriages, stuck with marriages, and welcomed grandchildren. We’ve all had disappointments and triumphs.

During our three day stay, and following a recent death in our extended family, we spent some time sorting and cleaning a now vacant house. One evening we thumbed through the contents of a long forgotten trunk, a heartbreaking look into the life of a girl who died at seventeen in the 1940s. Here were her school papers, her baby book, even the newspaper write up of the tragic accident that took her life. She was our dad's cousin and no one is left to tell her story. Not knowing what to do with the contents, we laid the items back and closed the lid. We stepped outside as dark descended. The yard is wild and expansive and the butter-colored primroses were opening for their one-night stand. One by one they blossomed in perfect form, shouldering aside the spent and shriveled blooms that were new only last night.  

As we sisters age and watch our parents fade, we cling to each other. I just finished reading a book, About My Sisters, by Debra Ginsberg. These siblings were very different from us, loud and argumentative, with only one child and no marriages between the four of them. But the author spoke for us when she said, “each one of us carries some part of her sisters with her. I can’t imagine my life without any one of them. Nor do I want to try.”   

  

Distinguished Visitors

Every day smoke hangs in the sky. The sun comes up red and goes down red. The hot, dry weather continues, but it's been cooling off at night and feels wonderful. Gotta love Idaho.

I canned green beans yesterday. The beans are purple hanging on the vine and then turn green when heated. The jars look so lovely lined up on the counter, that I hate to take them down to the storeroom.  We’re about to get an onslaught of cucumbers. Got a good pickle recipe?

Second crop alfalfa is being baled as I write. Hauling starts tomorrow.

We’ve had a fun week. Seth and his whole FFA officer team showed up for a few days between commitments. They mostly rested and worked at their laptops, but they did get in some swimming, horseback riding, and watching the dancing at the Sho-Ban Pow-Wow. They enjoyed being incognito, except for my family reunion where they were introduced to the crowd by my cousin Kent, a big FFA supporter. 

The team comes from all parts of the nation - Wisconsin, New Mexico, New York, Minnesota and Georgia. I love the southern and midwestern dialects.  I also like being called “ma’am” and "Mama Pratt." One special night we played “bug” with Seth’s 93-year-old great grandma Bonnie. It’s a game she played with the kids when they were little. Pretty simple, only requires a pencil and paper and one dice. Whoever rolls the right numbers (3-antennaes, 6-legs, etc.) and makes a bug first wins. Seth was the winner, I was second and Bonnie third. They suspected a conspiracy; we told them it’s all in the wrist.

I think what impressed me most about the young people was how well they got along. Yes they're all agriculture enthusiasts, but they still see the world differently. They spar a little and then joke it off.  As the song says, they’ve slayed dragons together. Their loyalty to one another runs deep in this year of firsts - of all for one and one for all. They’re in Kentucky today being the face of the FFA at a meeting with Toyota.

Then Anna took off for college bright and early this morning. As her Honda headed out the lane a great silence descended on the house. 

another smokey sunrise

Little Buckaroos

The Little Buckaroo Rodeo has come and gone again. Mark has been the announcer since before we were married. I’m up in the announcer’s stand with him, keeping track of kids and numbers. He has a co-announcer, our friend Wayne, and they have a great time bantering back and forth. The rodeo and Mark are both 47 this year; his grandpa Eldro was one of the founders. Gary was the clown for umpteen years and still provides the calves, so it’s a family affair.

Mark taught school in Firth for a dozen years, and the rodeo, Firth’s claim to fame, is a good place to see his old students who enter their kids in the rodeo.  Events include stick-horse barrel racing, ribbon-tie and ribbon-pull on goats, sheep dressing (don’t ask), a pig scramble, barrel “racing” on a horse, calf and sheep riding, and the culminating event - the chicken scramble.

The kid rodeo is a big event in Firth with a community breakfast and parade to round out the festivities. Some families plan their vacation around the rodeo. The kids show up in their best western clothing - hats, boots, fringed chaps, many with stick horses.

My favorite event is the chicken scramble. All kids five and under enter the arena (no parents allowed) to try to catch a chicken. It’s complete mayhem, kids crying running here and there, chickens scooching under the fence to freedom. Good clean fun. Mark always tells the kids over the loud speaker, “no matter what Mom says, your bedroom is the best place to keep your chicken!” And this one, “parents, if you don’t want to keep the chicken – too bad!”

When Seth was five he determined he wouldn’t just grab a chicken, he would rope it. We laughed knowing what the outcome would be, but he proved us wrong, he caught a chicken in a clean loop! Seth uses this story from time to time to encourage FFA kids to dream big.

All rodeo proceeds go to the Firth FFA program, which is great, but the best outcome is that it gives children a chance to interact with animals, a rare event in today’s world.  

My nephew and his son discussing the ribbon-pull event

getting it done!

one proud boy

East Coast Wanderings

We’ve been tripping. First to Washington DC for the FFA State President’s Conference, then on to New York City to spend a few days with Callie. We were all together in New York and had a wonderful time.

We negotiated the metro, night toured the monuments in DC, walked Central Park and Times Square, sat on Washington’s veranda overlooking the Potomac, and ferried to Staten Island. A highlight was supping at Callie’s restaurant in Manhattan with her as a guest instead of a server. The staff treated us royally, with complementary wine and scrumptious dishes added to each course.

Callie lives in a Brooklyn brownstone and Seth and Anna stayed with her. It’s pretty quiet on her street. She found Mark and me an apartment above storefronts a few blocks from her room. Quiet, it wasn’t, but with earplugs we slept pretty well. What an experience to soak up a totally different way of life. We saw the real New York, the touristy sections yes, but also the residential areas and the families that live their lives there.  

I never really got used to using the subway. Well, I can ride it, but I never quite accepted the lack of congeniality among the passengers. Unfortunately the only conversation I had was a hostile one. A man with lots of anger chose me as a scapegoat. I was pretty shaken for some time and mad that he would have that effect on me. It took me a few days to see others of his type in a positive light. I know he’s an isolated case. I know the majority of people are kind if given the chance, but the “straight ahead don’t bother me look” is pervasive.

We came home to a blackened skyline out our front window. The fires are getting pretty close. 

  

I stood outside last night, looked at the stars and listened to a mourning dove. There was a gorgeous full moon. It’s good to be home.

FFA kids at the changing of the guard
Arlington Cemetery

New York's charm, alone (but happy) people in Washington Square Park

Central Park

sisters on the roof of  "The Met"
Metropolitan Musem of Art

the Brooklyn Bridge looking towards Manhattan

Meeting God

The news is sobering - wildfires raging across Idaho and other western states in cattle country.  We saw a photo of cows caught in the inferno and can’t imagine facing that. The news isn’t much better in the middle of the nation as the drought drags on. You could worry until all you did was walk the floor wringing your hands.

And though we worry, we go about our days busy with mid-summer tasks like always. Unlike our neighbors, we got rain last week with some great cloud displays. And even though we had hay down, we loved every drop. The windrows dried out enough to run the baler again, but the bales are none too pretty. The cows won’t care this winter, though.

We got a kitten from a neighboring ranch to deal with our gopher problem around the house. I'm surprised by how much we've enjoyed taking turns with her on our lap. She purrs non-stop. "One of the best sounds on earth,” Mark said. A kitten is a self-prescribed slow-down button. As if there was nothing more to do than pet a cat.  

The black-eyed susans are putting on a show at our front stoop and the peas are on in the garden. Now that’s something to celebrate!  

We buried my Uncle’s ashes last Sunday. It was a sticky hot day until the clouds moved in to create a perfect evening. At the humble service, I read a passage from an essay on death written by the founder of The Science of Mind, a blend of religion, science and philosophy. The last two sentences keep running through my mind, and with all that's wrong with our world, I am reminded that everyday tasks done well are all we really need to concern ourselves with.

It is a happy thing to believe that no man need prepare to meet his God; he is meeting Him every day and each hour of every day. He meets Him in the rising sun, in the budding rose, in the joy of friendship and love, and in the silence of his own soul.   –Ernest Holmes

Gardening the Ruth Stout Way

I’m having fun with my vegetable garden. Mark brought me a big bale of hay to mulch with. Ruth Stout, my gardening guru, proclaims rotting hay her favorite mulch. The bale is from last year’s crop, from the top of the stack which means moisture has gotten into it and made it less valuable.  

Stout didn’t start gardening until she was 45 and didn’t discover her “no work” methods until she was near 60. Okay, so her “no work” still involves a lot of work, but nevertheless I love her unique approach to gardening.

She was born of Quaker parents in Kansas and came to gardening fame in Connecticut. She lived to be 96 years old, undoubtedly propelled to a long life by puttering in her garden. She claims “no fertilizer, no poisons, no tilling, no weeding, no composting, and little watering” make for a garden like nature intended. Her savior is permanent organic mulch. Put it on your garden wherever you are in the season, generously and often. Mulch fertilizes the ground as it breaks down, moderates soil temperatures, discourages weeds, and holds moisture in.

I follow Stout’s methods and quit tilling years ago. I rake the mulch to the side in the spring and run my hoe to make a furrow, spread seeds and cover lightly and that’s it. In the fall I lay on several inches of leaves from Grandma’s lawn followed by a couple of passes with the manure spreader. Now I’m spreading hay between the rows. On these super hot days, I feel good knowing the ground is shaded and moist around my plants.

I get pretty misty eyed about the whole covered soils thing. Bare ground is the enemy; just ask those affected by drought and flood. Healthy covered soils are what we work towards in our grazing strategies. And in the spring when the sand blows off the neighboring spud ground, I know we need to modify current farming practices to allow for more covered soils. I’m all for modern agriculture, we just need to remind ourselves about solid ecosystem principles while we’re at it.

Last fall's mulch on the left, new hay on the right

Butting Heads

Mark and I are butting heads recently over ranch management - nothing new there. I think any husband and wife team working together experiences the same difficulties. I grant he’s the boss, but I love this place too and I do enough grunt work to deserve a spot at the table.  Yesterday following yet another argument, I was convinced I needed to get a job in town. I was sick of not being listened to and was going to go where I would be appreciated! Heck, I’m getting older and less employable all the time.

But even though I threaten and look at the help-wanted ads from time to time, I really want to be here. I know a hot meal at noon makes ranch work a lot brighter for everyone. I can fill in when needed and keep pecking away at jobs that always need done without hiring another body to keep occupied year round. I work cheap and don’t require work comp insurance.

I think it’s a ranch wife’s lot in life. We can see alot from behind a sewing machine darning wranglers, or weeding a row of green beans, or entering one more feedlot bill into Quickbooks. And even though we work alongside our husbands, herding cattle or feeding cows, we process our world differently. And isn’t that a good thing? Our vision is sometimes crystal clear when our mate’s is cloudy from too much shoveling and swathing. Sad part is, if I question Mark or suggest an alternative to his way of thinking, he thinks I’m being critical. And try as I might to modify my approach, it still garners the same blocking response. 

He does read and enjoy my blog though. He once told me that he likes to see me writing. He said, “it needs to be recorded”- meaning our life.

I got out of his way yesterday. I got a cut and color and took Anna to The Villa for lunch. Then we hit the stores for the rest of the day. Talk about a change of pace! I was just getting the hang of shopping when Anna had to reel me in. “Let’s go home, Mom!”   

I got these photos when we moved the main herd out of the dry farm and onto open range. The cows ran into a band of sheep at the first watering pond. Lovely scenes all.

yup, that's us

friend or foe?