An Ancient Article

The following article of writing was written back in the middle of June. Due to unforeseen circumstances (cows) I became enormously angry with one of the persons about whom I frequently write (I’ll leave you to draw conclusions... hint: it’s Dad), and who was central to much of this post. We’re on the brink of getting over it for now (see attached image), so I thought I might as well post this. Also, my fans are insatiable. That is, my grandma has been nagging me to write a story.

So, until I find the time to write up some current material, this will have to do...

I was manning the fort alone last weekend, so I had an awful lot of time to be with my thoughts. My sister kindly suggested that instead of just messaging her with my dilemmas, I should... let me see...

“Make a T chart. Embellish details, then put it on the blog. Call it an organic creative insight experience.”

That’s copy and pasted from her message. I’m reminded of the Corner Gas episode when the whole town convinced the town buffoon that he should write his thoughts on a blog instead of talking to them in person.

Like the town buffoon, I am flattered by these attempts to stop me talking. After all, choosing to be flattered is the best way to approach insult. The only other way is to be insulted and obviously that is a bummer.

I know, I’m really wise. Or ‘woke’, as the kids these days say.

So, anyway, the dilemma that brought this on revolves around the dogs. Since Border Collies can self-destruct (and also just plain old destruct) if left to their own devices, we bring them into the porch whenever we’re indoors. Now, last time I was home alone, one of them was sick and threw up an outrageous amount of barf. Normally, I would ignore the problem and either the dog or Mom would get it cleaned up (using vastly different methods, I might add). Unfortunately, the dog was not obliging me, and I really couldn’t leave the pile of sick sitting around until the end of the weekend (though, I did consider this option).

Cleaning it was not a great experience, but once, when it was dark, I stepped both of my bare feet into a pile of dog vomit, so I’m not about to say it was my worst experience.

This past weekend, I had a similar issue with the dogs, but I can’t decide if it is worse than the puking or not.

They appeared to be incontinent.

So here’s my T-chart on that, except it’s not a T and it’s not a chart because all I know how to do is words.

Incontinence: smell pervades the house.

Vomit: smell provokes my gag reflex.

Incontinence: more smearage.

Vomit: greater volume.

That would have been a small T-chart, because those are the only differences. For both of them, I experience deep disgust, for both of them I live in constant fear of a repeated incident, and for both of them, the all-raw-meat-diet that the dogs are on is very evident.

This dilemma has not been resolved (though I did clean up the messes; you’re welcome, Mom); I still don’t know which is worse and can only hope that both will stop forever. However dismal that conclusion was, a different dog-induced anxiety resolved itself shortly after.

I found a tick on one of the dogs as soon as Mom and Dad were gone. It was roughly pea-sized, but I was really hoping it would just stay in until my capable parents got home to deal with it.

The next morning when I gave it a glance, though, it was about the size of a chick pea, which is around when they release.

Despite the fear that it would escape and produce thousands of reprehensible offspring, I flip-flopped between willfully forgetting the issue and trying to come up with a way to get the tick off without having to be near it.

Fortunately, I was saved the trouble of both when I went to let the dogs out: the tick had detached and was laying on the floor. Disgusted as I was, I was mostly grateful for this resolution, even though I still had to dispose of it. Since we have a sealed mason jar in which to collect ticks (as one does), I just had to quiet my tremors, open the lid, and shuffle the new tenant inside using a piece of paper.

I think that’s all I had to say about my dog problems, so now I can over-share about some new topic...

Since Father’s Day has recently passed us, and since I cruised through Mother’s Day without acknowledging my own special birthenator (in my defence, she was gone from home at the time), I’d like to dedicate this post, dogs and all, to those magnificent people who raised me.

Any sort of warm fuzzies my parents experience due to my writings are strictly on behalf of myself. My freeloading siblings have already piggybacked on years worth of poetic material. No more signing your name on the bottom of the cards I slave over.

First of all, let me describe to you the arrangement that we have between parent and child around here. It’s pretty simple.

1. Mom exhibits infinite amounts of patience towards Dad and myself.

2. Dad and I <torment Mom> provide ample opportunity for Mom to hone and perfect her patience.

Lately, my harried mother has been using the phrase, “You two deserve each other.”

This is sometimes said with a light eye-roll, or perhaps a scoff of exasperation. Once, when we wound her up a little too much, it was said as she used a very particular finger to point us in a very particular direction of where she thought we should go.

This is because my father has created and cultivated a blonde, better-looking, more verbose, female version of himself. That’s me. And it just gets worse as we spend more time working together.

Here’s a small and sweet example of how we have the same sense of humour...

Mom and Dad were leaving from some destination and texted me a heads up that they left, so I’d know when to expect them back. This is a travel safety thing that we’ve done since the dawn of us homeschooled kids emerging from our home. Every time we were driving somewhere, we had to call before we left that place, so they’d know if they had to come search for us in the ditches. They may have been helicopter parents (still are), but now all their kids are helicopter kids and we all hover around each other and make sure we’re safe. It’s touching, really.

So anyway, I got a text from them that just read, ‘Left.’

I knew what it meant. I knew that Mom had sent it from the passenger seat and that Dad had dictated it from the driver’s seat (don’t text and drive, kids). I didn’t have to respond, but when I saw that one little word, I thought to myself, “I bet Dad wants me to text back, ‘right’. I bet he’s thinking I’ll do that...”

So I did. ‘Left,’ they wrote; ‘Right,’ I replied. Not exactly comedy gold, but here you are reading a blog by the same author, so...

Meanwhile, in the car, the following exchange:

“What should I text? Just that we’re leaving?” Asked Mom.

“Just say, ‘left,’” Dad said.

“Left?”

“Yep. Just ‘left.’

“Okay.”

“I bet she’ll reply, ‘right,’” Dad said.

“Why?”

The phone buzzed with my text.

“Well? What does it say?”

Mom scoffed. “‘Right.’ Wow. You two deserve each other.”

My next example is the one where we seem to have gone too far...

Most days, Dad and I will be out of the yard from mid-morning until late afternoon. Usually when we blow back in, a certain someone is hangry to beat all (that is, my not-blonde, less good-looking, male counterpart), so Mom is already in a tizzy, trying to be on call for any emergencies we’ve brought back with us as well as have a big delicious lunch/supper combo meal ready.

One day, she came rushing out to the yard to meet us and asked us what we were doing.

“Are you coming in for lunch? I should go check heifers quick before I make it!” She took a few steps towards the quad.

“No, we need you to go get pails to milk a cow!” Dad said. He said it with urgency, so that Mom would panic. He does that a lot.

Mom turned around and walked away from the quad, towards the house.

“Well, you can still take the quad!” I said, also with urgency. Part of me wanted to save her the trouble of walking. But part of me was being a shister. The shister part of me put the urgency in my voice.

Mom turned again, and walked towards the quad.

I knew that she was just on the brink of cottoning on to our being butts. One more turn would make her either angry or very angry. I was just going to turn to Dad to tell him to let me do the last one (so she wouldn’t be very angry), when he went for it.

“No!” Dad said, after letting her get a few steps towards the quad. “Just walk!” Mom turned once again away from the quad. Unfortunately, she saw us laughing.

She got very angry.

She stalked to the house, shouting, “You two deserve each other!”

But she came back with the milking stuff.

And she still made us lunch.

We may deserve each other, but we don’t deserve her.

It’s a good thing Mom has such a great sense of humour; I feel blessed to have inherited her ability to laugh at myself. And at her. We all do a lot of laughing at her.

Sometimes I unintentionally make her do something foolish by distracting her. This generally happens when she’s cooking or baking.

Once, I started a joking argument with her while she was making cookies. She delivered a rebuttal to whatever I had said and was going to finalize it with a self-righteous sip of her coffee. Instead, she slurped on the mug of raw eggs she had set out.

Just the other day, I was having an innocent conversation with the woman while she was making supper. She had a box of raw macaroni that she was about to dump into a pot of boiling water, so she went to the stove... and dumped it into the pan of frying vegetables. She had to concentrate after that, to pick all the little things out of there.

God bless you, Mom, for your undying patience and indefatigable forgiveness.

And now, my father...

I didn’t appreciate, until quite recently, the sound teaching practice of a good, swift kick in the pants. Let me enlighten you to efficacy of this method with a short trip down memory lane.

This is a very clear memory for me, because it made me angry for close to fifteen years. One day, I was thinking to myself that I turned out pretty great, and was contemplating how very superior I am to youths of today.

“By George,” thought I, “it was the kicks in the pants! More kids should get kicks in the pants!”

And just like that, fifteen years of unforgiveness were lifted; only gratitude remained.

And a lot of ego.

So, anyway. Here’s the memory...

I was probably around eight years old or so, and was already riding the old Red mare out with Dad to tag calves. I couldn’t throw the saddle on the horse, but Dad would put it on her, and I would strap it on.

On western saddles, there are often three straps to do up: the main cinch does most of the holding, the back cinch keeps the back of the saddle snugged down, and the breast collar (or 'chest' collar, if you're eight years old and don't feel comfortable verbalizing the word 'breast') keeps the saddle from sliding back.

When I proved myself capable of doing up the buckles under supervision, Dad gave me the lecture:

“I’m only going to tell you this once: you have to do the main cinch up first when you’re saddling and last when you’re unsaddling. If your horse ever takes off or shakes the saddle off and you just have the breast collar on, what will happen?”

I pictured it, and I’m realizing now that this type of question probably is why I picture worst-case scenarios in my head all the time.

“And the same with the back cinch,” Dad continued. “They won’t hold the saddle on by themselves, and the horse could get tangled in it. It’s dangerous for the horse and for you. If I ever see you not put the cinch on first or not take it off last, I’m going to kick you in the butt.” He didn’t say it menacingly or anything; I’m not trying to give you the wrong impression here. He clearly laid out a rule for equine safety and matter-of-factly informed me of the consequences of lapsed diligence.

I don’t know how long it was after this lecture that my diligence lapsed. I do know that as soon as my feet lifted off the ground, I knew exactly what I was getting it for, and as soon as I landed, I quickly unbuckled the offending strap.

I was mad, yes.

But I didn’t do it again.

Some of you still might think that was a little harsh, but I am genuinely thankful for it. And truly, not all of his lessons were so abrupt. When he taught me to hold the reins in my left hand, he used a stick... but not on me. He told me to hold the stick in my right hand and not to let it go. In a day’s worth of riding, I had changed my riding hands.

He’s taught me the fundamentals in how to not die when riding, roping, chasing cows, and birthing calves.

He’s shown me how to be on my toes and on the ball, and that a lapse in diligence comes at a cost. And when he says something costs a kick in the pants, he doesn't beat around the bush - he lifts it clean off its feet.

Now that I’ve appropriately thanked my dad for his part in rearing me (thus retaining my status of favourite child), I have to share a little treasured memory of him. It is from only a few weeks ago, when we were out tagging calves.

Dad had been riding Barb for the start of calving season to see if they could get along. She’s about as opposite to Tee, Dad’s regular horse, as they come. Tee likes to just walk around at an easy pace and Barb... well, Barb sometimes doesn’t care if she’s going fast or slow, as long as it’s not what you want to do.

On the day in question, we found a calf just on the wrong side of a single-wire cross fence, so Dad threw a rather amazing loop under the wire and over the calf’s head. He didn’t even have time to look back at me and grin smugly at his lucky shot (which he does every time he catches something) before Barb spooked and got herself out of there. Dad dropped the rope, let Barb have her moment, then brought her back around. Instead of jumping off to collect the rope, Dad was feeling pretty cocky. I guess he figured that he already looked pretty awesome by throwing that incredible loop under the fence perfectly, so he was well set up for success in some other amazing feat.

He leaned down... way down... even farther... and tried to grab the rope without getting off of Barb.

His fatal moment was when he just brushed the rope with his fingertips. Then, he felt that he was close enough to give it all that he had.

With a final lurch meant to close the gap, Dad’s heel slipped over the cantle.

The cantle, the back of the seat of a saddle, is the highest point at the back of the saddle. It is named the cantle because if you haven’t reached your object by the time your heel is hooked there, you can’t-le. And he didn’t-le.

With Dad’s last-ditch lurch, his heel slipped past that final point and he fell to the ground with a lovely sort of ‘fwump’ noise that was accompanied by the jingle of his chinks and spurs.

Then, he could reach the rope.

But Barb had left again.

I have to give him a hard time about this because he is always accusing me of falling off horses when they do so much as sneeze.

He is referring to the time that his horse straight up bucked me off, but he refuses to acknowledge that it was a buck.

“He just jumped a little!” Dad said. That’s fake news. I know because part-way through my flight, I looked down and saw the horse’s ears beneath me. And the horse’s head was high.

I was even higher before gravity took full and merciless effect and I landed with a mighty fine 'fwump' myself.

So now I can say that Dad fell off when his horse wasn’t so much as moving.

And it’s not even fake news.

Even though Dad and I get along for the most part (he has to be nice: he made me what I am), there are some occasions when he seems to shake his head. And when he literally shakes his head.

When we work in the shop, it’s my job to hand him tools (sometimes I feel unqualified even for this). I’m not super intent or focused on such occasions, so I get caught off guard when he asks for the tool that I’m holding, even though I’m obviously holding it expressly for the purpose of him asking for it.

One time, he asked for the little hooked pick that I was holding. Unfortunately it had become tangled in my copious amounts of hair. It became this way because I had absent-mindedly used it to scratch my head.

As I struggled to extricate it, Dad looked at me over his reading glasses with an unimpressed expression that I interpreted as, “If you were a son, this wouldn’t happen.”

I imagine his inner dialogue to be saying this any time I have issues my hair.

And when Mom and I run off on topics of leg-shaving or the like.

And that time when I cried as I tried to explain a mathematical equation.

He also looks at me in that unimpressed way when I drink from my water satchel. He even looks at me like that whenever I just mention my water satchel. He doesn’t like my water satchel.

I love my water satchel.

I got one of those rubbery hydration bags with a long tube of a straw; I pack it in a leather saddle bag and take it along in the truck. It holds around four litres of water! It’s great! And I stay so well hydrated!

But Dad shakes his head every time I drink from it. Every time he shakes his head, I accuse him of being jealous and offer to buy him one.

So far, he has turned down this generous offer.

He also shakes his head at me when we’re out riding and I tell him to go on ahead as I stop in the bush for a moment.

Gotta stay hydrated, though.

Well, that's it for now. This messy conglomeration of little stories and goings on is all I have to offer these dear, sweet people that raised me. Hopefully I’ve displayed them in a good light, because I’d like them to keep doing nice stuff for me.

I’m living the dream, here.

P.S. A second motivation that I had for getting this ancient thing posted was that a dear, sweet friend of mine (she may read this, so I have to say nice things) (winky face) has asked to submit a poem for the poetry section of the blog! I'm excited to dust off that neglected portion of this website with some refreshing verses from a talented author friend! However, before I had this Prairie Chicken blog surprise-attack your inbox with poetic writing from a strange new mind, I thought I'd better get a post of my own writing up so that you could remember what you subscribed to. I think what I'm guilty of here, really, is projecting my own forgetfulness onto you peoples, because this is the sort of post script that I would find helpful in a similar situation. Anyway... Bye now.