Good Dog...sort of

We have a new puppy. We're calling her Ladybug. She is a Shih Tzu cross. I had really forgotten how much work potty training is. Memories of short nights and groggy mornings with a new born child suddenly come to mind. Ladybug is a good little girl. Really, she is. It's not her fault that she can't communicate "I have to go pee" when the urge hits her. And she really can't explain why the bedroom is a much more desirable a toilet than our frost covered lawn at 2 a.m. It's up to her people (me) to convince her. I know it will happen. I just hope it's before a guest discovers her latest mistake before we do.

Dogs are incredibly smart. I've witnessed it time and again. When people label an animal as 'dumb', it's only because that person hasn't taken time with the animal. Our last little dog who just passed away was a little rescue dog that had been wandering the streets in town. She'd been abandoned about a week before we brought her home. She became very dear to us. But for years, as we walked together on her leash, when a certain model of pick up drove by, she would tug on her leash, totally adamant that we needed to follow that truck. It was extremely important to her. I can only conclude that she was dumped from a similar truck as a young dog when someone abandoned her. She remembered and the memory was a difficult one. It was a number of years before she gave up on finding the truck. This is not a "dumb animal." She was an incredibly smart one.

The animal shelters across our country are very in need of help. If you can't give a home to a shelter pet, please give your time, and if you don't have time, then please consider giving financially. There are hundreds of little friends with beautiful stories just waiting to share with a special someone.

My grandmother dreamed of owning and running her own bakery. She hoped to share a book corner in it as well. My mother made plans to open and operate a bed and breakfast, but she ran out of energy and resources before seeing her goal. I have inherited the love of cooking and baking for others. I also enjoy gardening and landscaping. God has gifted us with a gorgeous acreage beside a delightful creek. I have my grandmother's and my mother's ambition. Why not incorporate an area in our landscaping to serve tea and desserts to the public? What about a seasonal tea room in the garden? How about The Irresistible Blueberry Patch and Tearoom? 

Valentine's Day

     This past Valentine's Day was one that I hope I never have to repeat. I put my little dog Gypsy to sleep. She was with us 15 years. She went almost everywhere with us. We went ATV riding together, camping, visiting family and friends. She even went with us to visit my mother in eastern Montana. She was the type of dog that you could keep forever if she'd only lived that long. When she started losing her hearing, everything else followed: her bladder control, her mobility, her eyesight and finally her weight. Our last morning together, as she lie in her bed breathing hard, I had to ask myself - do I love her enough not to allow her to suffer? True love puts others before one's self. It is a hard question. Most definitely a different twist to Valentine's Day.

When the chickens come to roost...

   Our daughter came to live with us for a short while two years ago. She brought all her animals with her, which included a flock of chickens. She moved into her own home a year later but only took her dogs with her. That means that Rudy and I are keeper of the chicken flock now. And you know what? We enjoy it! Chickens have an incredible variety of personalities. They love treats just like the other pets. They leave little eggs in the nesting boxes each morning. They are always happy to see you, especially if you are holding anything in your hands. "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!" One little black hen jumps for joy. My only objection is the annoying tendency to hang out on our front porch so they don't miss anything. Anyone got any ideas?

The Master Gardener

     This is my park bench.  It is purposely positioned under two large maple trees and surrounded by an assortment of hedges and bushes.  It is a place of reflection, contentment, peace and my prayer bench.
     I love spending time here with my Father.  It is shady on a hot day, peaceful when the world is a mess and has a spectacular view of the splendor created by my Father.
     I thrill in reading scripture aloud and listening to it come back to me off the canyon wall.
     I am fascinated by the canopy of leaves overhead that were spoken into existence, the number of shades of green and the variety of shapes.
   

      The view of my yard includes all the flowers, bushes, trees and hedges that we have planted since moving here.  All of it is beautiful.  Caring for it is rewarding.
     But none of it compares to the work of the Master Gardener Who laid all things before the beginning of time.  The Master Gardener Who put the mountains in place and ordered the creek to flow between.  The Master Gardener Who imagined the trees and said, "Let them be," and planned to bring us here at this point in time and gifted us with such beauty just because He wanted.
     The Master Gardener Who shed His blood so we wouldn't have to.  I want no other garden except what is planted by Him.

The Cow with the Big Horns

     Part of my morning ritual, and has been for twenty years, is to walk with my dog for one hour.  We both look forward to it.  In the summer months, I stay on our road due to the infestation of thistles that require hours of combing to free from my dog's coat.

    Today we ran into a small herd of assorted cattle in the middle of the road.  Most were gentle, and even posed in a docile fashion as I snapped their photographs.  They let us pass unmolested.  All except one.  The cow with the extremely long horns.

     My little dog, Gypsy, who can interpret cow language to some degree, grew weary.  She made a wide berth away from the ill-tempered cow.  (I later noticed that the cow had a calf close to her side.)  At this point the cow came after us.  Since my dog is on a leash and the leash is gripped firmly in my hand, I was forced to sprint the length of a football field until my little dog was comfortable with the distance that we'd put between us and the herd of cows.

     The day was beautiful, Gypsy recovered from her fright and we enjoyed the rest of our walk.  But we had one problem.  We had to return the same way we came which was now blocked by a herd of cows.

      I don't carry a cell phone because we don't get coverage in the little canyon where we live.  2nd Corinthians 12:9 "My God is sufficient for all my needs..."

      We marched back home enjoying the morning but kept an eye out for the menopausal cow.  And there they were, now in a stretch of the road with a high rock wall on one side and a steep drop off to the creek on the other side.  There was no room to slip around the herd undetected.

     "I can do all things through Jesus Christ Who gives me strength."  Philippians 4:13.

     I said it out loud to my dog to bolster her courage, (and my own).

     She looked back at me.  "It wouldn't hurt to have a plan."

     "OK," I told her.  "Here's our plan:  We'll find some place to crawl down the bank to the river, wade the creek for a ways, and then crawl back up the bank after we are past the cows."

     Gypsy glanced at me with doubt, but didn't offer anything better.  As we started approaching the herd of cows, one brought up it's head in alarm.  I couldn't find any place to crawl safely down the bank.  My dog was growing anxious.

     The the entire herd threw up their heads and gawked at us in sheer terror.  In a split second a chaotic stampede of cattle raced AWAY from us down the road in the opposite direction.

     The herd kept this pace until they found an open gate and charged into a field and off the road without disturbing a hair on my dog or me.  I was both relived and perplexed.  How could the cows be so docile one minute and terrified of us the next?

     Psalm 18:29 - "By my God I can leap over a wall!"  My little dog and I had a need and He heard my call for help!  My God is great and my God is faithful!  When I have Him, I have need of nothing else, not even a cell phone.

Granny B's Cattle Ranch

      Granny B. turns 80-years-old this month.  She has been ranching for decades, squeezing dimes and nickels to buy cattle supplement, a new bull here and there and all the many, many other costs that accompany the culture of ranching.  She loves her animals.  She has bottle-fed many orphan calves, and many of those orphans grew up to be very large, loyal cows.
      She battles cold weather during calving, stray dogs that chase and kill new calves, high feed costs and low prices at market time in the fall.  She falls in love with each and every one of her cows, has names for all of them, and grieves when she has to sell them.

     Her corrals are falling down, the fences all need work, and she can't quite keep up the way things need to be kept up.  Her cows have been good to her, keeping her in a livlihood that is disappearing slowly.  She still loves to walk through her hay fields and gather the sticks that might cause the swather problems when my brother starts haying.

     Granny B., my mom, has decided that it is time to call an end to this era.  Winter was unusually rough, spring flood waters severe, and her arthritis increasingly more restricting. She has sorted her cattle from my brother's, loaded them onto his truck and taken them to auction.
     It was a difficult decision.  She stews over the kind of treatment and the homes that her cows will go to. But no one ever said that cattle ranching was easy.  It's never been a profession for the mild or the tenderhearted.

     And so, Granny B. enters true retirement.  Well, sort of.  She has kept twenty-five head of her very favorite cows as companions and pets.  After all, it is in her blood.  She will always be a cattle rancher.