I am very concerned for the folks that live in the area of severe drought! What misery is being inflicted on that region and the people that live and work there. I hope you praying folks are keeping them on your list. We just never know what the weather will do and we have the one way of asking for a change, just talk to the Master.
I have started riding Snip occasionally because he is getting so pudgy. I guess I could take him with me on the rides but leading and counting is not near as much fun as just riding. I want to say now that I like fun, fun is wonderful and my life has some fun in it! There, I said it and I meant it too! So as I ride across the highway and down the ditch to the heifer pasture and you see me on your way to work you know I am having some fun!
Snip is a solid horse. He handles with just a touch or a move of your legs and knows how to open and close gates, lets kids ride for a few minutes before going lame and is a horse I will always be partial to, but like me, he is getting on in years. He has not lost any style, is not gray, and is spunky as ever, but I know when he gets up slowly that his joints are like mine -- he needs a grease job!
I am just sick over the cow that has what looks like cancer in her eye. She is bred to calve next spring and was looking good when we had her in the chute. Now her left eye is getting cloudy and there is a mass big enough to see in the corner of her eye. We will get her in tomorrow and take her to the vet. She is bred to a hundred dollar a straw bull and settled the first time. We raised her and this should be her third calf.
I drove my close relative down after lunch to take another look and I was not mistaken about the mass. We both remember her as a calf and her dam was also a very nice cow. My close relative keeps her personal set of books, writes down names of the sires and dams of her favorite bovine and she has this one's data. I suppose it is a sign we both love what we have done with our lives and the Lord has granted us mercy in allowing us to do it with good health.
Dealing with phone calls from the Warranty Division of America is not a job that brings out the best in anyone. Joe Niemeyer is about as nice a feller as you can ever meet. He smiles, opens the door for ladies and is aware of manners to the nth degree. He was telling me why he needed to borrow a phone to call home. Seems he threw his out the window somewhere between home and Kansas City after answering it four times in thick traffic during a rainstorm to discover he could get a warranty on his wife's brother's car!
It is my opinion, and everyone has one, building a fence or even repairing a shed is costing all of us a pocketful of cash. I nailed up some old lumber from the junk pile on the side of the pole shed in the south pasture. I figure it will be cheaper next year after all the houses are built. You know the end of the building will come someday and all the people who are coming to our corner of the world will finally get here. I believe some who thought it would be paradise will even pack up and go somewhere else. You can build a home that resembles a castle but that won't make you a king with a kingdom to rule. It makes you a feller who has a lot of space to pay for!
Take time to be kind today and check on the neighbors. Some fresh tomatoes or a sack of spuds would be appreciated by a widow trying to live on SS. Spider webs in the gun cabinet means you are lacking in security! Clean it out, oil the weapons and buy some ammo! Remember the Alamo!
Bill is the pen name used by the Gravette-area author of this weekly column. Opinions expressed are those of the author.