Dan's Sh*tty Website

Ruth and I (esp. me) can be a little lazy, one of the facilitators of said laziness is iChat. We tend to chat rather than get up and go up/down-stairs to talk face-to-face. Sometimes I think this has affected our brains, I want to share a snippet from a chat earlier today, if only because it gives an insight into the environment Sophia is being raised in:

Ruth: every time the computer made a noise for me responding to you Sophia made the same noise at it while reading a book it's hilarious

Ruth, Sophia and I are leaving tomorrow for Arizona to visit Ruth's grandparents. In February. I haven't been anywhere in February in almost fifteen years. When I was a kid my family would take a yearly trip to the Oregon Coast nearly every February, but that was back when we had help taking care of the cows. For a long time now it has been just my dad and I every winter, working seven days a week for five to seven months (depending on how long the winter was). I've had both an aunt and uncle die during the winter, and both times I had to send Ruth to be there, because the cows had to be fed.

Last Wednesday, while I was leaned over with my doctor digitally inspecting my prostate, I had a flash of inspiration. Okay, that isn't true. It was more a flash of searing pain, but I assure you I would have been much happier had it been the former. Happier still if the whole situation had been different.

It has been politely pointed out to me (please take careful note of the the sarcasm there), that it has been a very long time since I've blogged. I have some very good excuses for that, really I do. But to keep my critics at bay, I've decided I'd better actually post something.

I'm sitting waiting for Ruth at her dollhouse club meeting, and since I have little else to do I thought I'd finally end my procrastination streak.

The sale of our cows is going well so far, not enjoyably, but well. We shipped the first of the herds to the auction this past Monday. I felt a little like putting a beloved pet down. The girls will actually be going to a new and, hopefully good home. But I worry about them because there are not all that many ranchers who care for their herds as much as we did.

In my opinion the best cover that Wired magazine has ever had was on the December 1999 issue. It depicted a winged woman casting herself off of a cliff. I believe it was meant to signify the excitement and potential of the new millennium, but there seemed to me to be a note of unease and uncertainty about the picture. Excitement tinged with a frightening leap of faith into the unknown. Of course the new millennium was just a calendar ticking over from one year to the next, and the importance of it, had only to do with the human brain liking round numbers.

This has been a busy period for us. We had Ruth's grandparents visit, and had a wonderful time with them. Then after they left much of my family was in the area for my aunt and uncle's 60th anniversary, and of course we had a great time visiting with them (even though one or two of them got rather demanding, insisting that we take them on a tour of the most beautiful areas of Montana, but I suppose going on a drive through Glacier Park is just the burden we have to bear for family; such a sacrifice). Meanwhile Ruth had been preparing for a dollhouse convention--the largest she's done so far.

We took a trip to Glacier Park last weekend to go camping. It was Sophia's fist time sleeping in a tent, and true to form, the girl just loved it. She likes being outside for any reason, and the trees, mountains and bugs were just a whole new area of fascination for her.

We branded today. Not the best job, not the absolute worst either, but it really isn’t much fun for anyone concerned—us or the calves. The whole thing almost didn’t happen. We’d arranged to hire some help because we no longer have anyone else working for us, and we can’t do labor intensive jobs like that ourselves (there are only three of us after all). We hired one guy from the nearby Hutterite Colony, and, or so we thought, arranged for another who lives in Fort Benton to come out and help.

I’m not really a rancher. Sure, I raise cattle for a living, I brand the calves and ship them away to become hamburgers, steaks, stews, and all of the other myriad of tasty things that beef can become. I fix fence, round-up herds, and spend much of each day “on the range.” But I’m not really a rancher. Please don’t misunderstand I do love my job, most of the time (which is a dam sight better than many people can say).