They Have My Life!!!

It started when I was in elementary school.  I fell in love with the prairie life, or the pioneer life after reading the Little House on the Prairie books.  There was something facinating about that way of life.  Raising livestock and your own vegetables, making bread, sewing clothing, making quilts, tending crops in the field and going fishing with a cane pole.  Then reality set in and prairie life didn't look so appealing.  I mean going to an outhouse, no air conditioner, no running water, no electricity, getting up at 3 am and going to bed at 6 pm and no internet...what was I thinking.  Maybe I need to be a 21st century rancher with a helicopter.

 Also, if every rancher/pioneer had luck the way the Ingalls family had luck, then NO THANK to the ranch life.  Those poor people always had one disaster after another.  The only other family that had worse luck was either the Walton's or the Evans Family from Good Times.  Urban family, country family and pioneer family...all with bad luck.  Then I grew up and found that those things are just life...no matter what era you lived in.

 I still have my dreams of looking out my window at snow capped mountains and red barns, but they are just dreams.  For one thing I live on less than an acre of land...not exactly a sprawling ranch spread.  My vision of snow capped mountains and red barns are only in my mind.  No cattle rides or branding parties in my future, unless I visit a dude ranch on vacation. 

For the life me I don't really know why I would even like to live on ranch.  For one thing I am scared to death of a horse...which I think is essential to living on a ranch.  I want to believe that if I was living on a ranch that horses would be my friend...not sure about that.

After all my dreaming, I stumbled upon this lady's blog who is living my life.  Well, not my life exactly but the one I have dreamed about since the 5th grade.  Meet Ree Drummond and her family who live on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma.  Well, Oklahoma was not my dream spot, but she is living on a ranch.  She has a fantastic blog that gets over 2 million hits a week...I have 12 followers and my daddy.  Her daily life is so fasinating that I can't wait to see what happens next, and yes, they have disasters as well.  They didn't have any water for the longest time due to the snow and ice and that is needed for cattle to live I learned.

After reading post after post on her blog, I thought...this lady is living the life that I have dreamed about.  Clad in jeans and boots she goes out with her husband to feed the cattle.  Which brought me to another question.  Can you live on a ranch and wear capri's and flip flops?  Not a fan of my feet being hot, and I think that I look cutier in capri's than jeans.  So after I weigh in on my likes and dislikes and being afraid of horses, maybe the ranch life should and always just be a dream.

Cat Burglar!!

This morning Mark and I were snapped to attention by the high pitch voice of my father in law as he came stomping through the house. We couldn't imagine what had him in an uproar at 8 in the morning, being he is not a morning person and usually sleeps in. He was fit to be tied as the old saying goes. We finally understood what he was saying, but it was a shock. There was someone in the house. Well, not someone, but something. He told us that the black bob tail stray cat that has taken up at the house ran across his feet in the bed. Now he has dementia, but he never hallucinates, just some short term memory loss. I immediately thought that maybe we were going into another stage of the dementia. He wouldn't stop telling us that the black bob tail cat was in this house. We thought he had gone back to bed, but no...he was getting dressed and getting out of that end of the house. I got his breakfast fixed, and Mark and I set out looking for Bobbi, as we had been calling this stray cat. We looked all over and opened the front door hoping that if she was in the house she would go toward the light to go back out. We couldn't imagine how she could have gotten in...if indeed she was really in the house. Then we saw that the register vent was completely out of the floor and we could see down the duct work. So, now it was possible that she was in the house, and he had not dreamed this event. We started calling her by name...why I am not sure, she doesn't answer to it ever. We were calling kitty kitty, and nothing. We had finally decided that there was no cat, and we weren't sure what compelled him to think he had seen one...it was a dream. Mark went to close the front door, and jumped. He yelled to close off all the doors going out of that room. I wasn't sure what was behind that door...it turned out to be Bobbi. A every frightened and mean Bobbi. She has never been tame, but she had let me pet her a couple of times; but not lately. I called and tried to coax her out to no avail. We went and got cat food and put on the sidewalk to try to get her out. I even heated hot dogs and put in the bowl hoping that the scent would lure her out. Nothing!! So, we did the only thing we knew to do...call Animal Control. He came and spent at least 10 minutes in there trying to get her. She was not a happy camper when he finally brought her out. He did confirm something we wondered...she does have bobcat in her. She is bob tail and her back legs are curved not straight like a domesticated cat. There are 6 cats that have taken up here...all wild. She was the tamest, but that isn't saying much. So after all that I decided that my father in law still just has some short term memory loss. We had us a Cat Burglar this morning!!! What a hoot this household is at times.