A Pick-Up & A Pasture

**I first wrote this post in 2007, but little has changed since then.  I still feel like this captures my life … so why reinvent the wheel. So keeping that year in mind, I hope you’ll enjoy my musing.** There is the Pioneer Woman (love her recipes), the FarmChicks (heading to their show this next weekend), The Ranch Wife (musings from her life) and a few others out there.  I am enjoying that others are sharing their life, putting it out there in ‘blog land’ for the world to get a peek into the glimpses of their everyday life.  I don’t have a tutorial, a how-to, or even a great recipe to share.  What I can share is a day or a moment in my life. 

I was thinking that Saturday I should have had my camera with me.  Well I did but lordy I was filthy and wouldn’t touch it.  I often hear “you are so lucky that you live on a farm, have cows, horses, and oh my … a real honest to goodness cowboy *heart be still*”.  Not lucky, blessed.  And I don’t stay clean, I get pretty dirty. 

Not that glamorous lifestyle so many might think.  Ok, I’m not here to complain, just set the facts straight … at least for this farm & ranch. 

We have spiders.  We have weeds.  Yes, we have a beautiful farm house with a wrap around porch. 
We have mice.  We do have cats but our ferocious border collies keep them away from our home … ugghh!!!
We have snakes.  I DESPISE snakes.  I won’t even look at them in the zoo! 
We have dust. I dust a lot.  I dust daily — well at least during certain times of the year. 
We have a boys bath room and a girls bathroom, for obvious reasons — such as he gets dirtier then me (well sometime)
I purposely chose the Tuscan Farmhouse look of the laminate flooring in my kitchen as it looks like there is dirt on it … and there usually is but when it is clean, it still looks like there might be a spot or two there. 
I really do try to enforce the no shoes into the carpet area rule but it just doesn’t always work. 

Back to Saturday.  I knew I needed to get some much needed Suzy farming done (i.e. plant my garden and my addiction *not scrappy but flowers!*).  I pulled on my uniform of overalls (not so very figure flattering and they have a cute quilted star pattern on the inside), black long sleeve hot chilly shirt (still pretty cold out), and pulled my baseball cap on.  Of course, I had to get that little ponytail through my cap and put on my earrings and lip gloss.  I was out in public, had to look pretty just in case.  Just in case what????  Oh well.  Wait … NEWS FLASH!  I got a new toy!!!!!  The Black & Decker cultivator.  Lightweight, adjustable to one’s height, and cleans up a flower bed and between planted rows lickety-split. 

So where was I going with this post.  Ok, the glamorous life of a cattleman’s wife.  So on Saturday my sweetie decided I might want to go on a ride with him to check out some pasture.  I had already been playing in dirt, was filthy and had a lovely red gash across my cheek.  Me:  But, I’m not dressed.  Him:  You look great (so I’m guessing my not so figure flattering overalls are meant to leave something (alot) to the imagination.  Or maybe it was the earrings and lip gloss that touched off the outfit.  “What Not to Wear” would have a hay-day with me, but would they really know what is functional for a farm wife to wear?????  That would be a show in of itself.  Can you imagine them having us throw out our western shirts, jeans & boots?  Oy!  Then again, maybe they wouldn’t.  I guess I’d better write Stacy & Clinton and get their ‘advice’.  So we head up to check on pasture with a few dogs in tow which totally bring up the ‘romance’ factor in the pick-up with their ‘odor d’cow’.  Seriously though, we get to the pasture and go on a walk-about to check out the cattle, their salt supply and a few old barns on the property.  And I can hear my friend Carol saying — ‘what did you dig out of the barns?’.  Nada — but it was tempting!!!!  We sat and visited about how this is what we enjoy doing vs being at a campground with a bunch of campers (although a cold beer sounded good at that point after all the walking).  We spoke about our life, our soon to be celebrated one-year wedding anniversary next month, grandkids, farming, and cows.  Somehow our conversations tend to come back to cows. 

On our way home we notice the greening wheat & grain fields.  We see that the Timothy hay in some areas is flowering.  We look to see who is farming and who might be away for the weekend.  We visit about summer plans (not vacation … farming & cows).  We talk about my job (that one in town that I earn a paycheck).  We visit about family. 

The moral of the story or the ramblings … no matter what you have going on in life, taking the time to be with the one you love (whether it be a child, friend, or partner) walking through the cows & riding in the pick-up together is some of the best quality time we have.  We talk through issues, solve problems, brainstorm, make plans and take one more step in our ever-evolving relationship. 

I am still dreaming of becoming a writer … and thanks to the internet, I can! 

I first started “blogging” in 2007 on “Life at the Big Red Barn” … if you google it, it is still out there – because nothing leaves the internet!  So when deciding to ‘market’ the AirBNB and realizing it could be more than just an AirBNB, I knew it was time to get back to writing.  Put a keyboard in front of me and I go to town with typing.  Thank you Mom for ‘making’ me taking typing as a Freshman from Mr. Cacciotti in Salinas, California.  He also taught us how to make Italian meatballs … I still make them his way.  Speaking of meatballs, I will be posting tried and true Beef recipes, because … hello, we raise beef cattle!! 

Here is an excerpt from the “Big Red Barn” blog … Sometimes finding the ‘right’ time to blog takes awhile.  I don’t want to sit down & feel like I have to write.  Blogging is like journaling … actually for me it is one part of my journaling.  I write randomly and also keep a journal.  When I was in fourth grade I had a teacher, Mrs. Handy, that wrote in one of my notebooks that she hoped to see me in “Ladies Home Journal” one day.  Not yet ….

I hope you’ll enjoy following along as we continue to evolve at the Rte. 26 Farmhouse.  Life has definitely changed since that introduction in 2007 … we now have 8 grandchildren, we have hosted two foreign exchange students and are now on number three (all from Germany), my town job is now a substitute teacher, and I’m still teaching yoga.