Posted in Down on the Farm, Just Funny

may the horse be with you…’cause the cat sure ain’t

My husband is fuming about our cat. Smoke-billowing-from-his-ears angry. Curiosity better move over, ‘cause the cowboy is first in line. When he went out to feed the cows and horses, the cat dared not to give him the time of day. puppy kittyBrushed him off, you might say. (Never mind she is a CAT. Snubbing is her native language.)  Probably doesn’t help kitty’s personality that we named her Puppy.  Sarcasm and contrariness seem to run in the family and clearly the cat is not immune.

The cowboy believes all living beings can be trained like horses and should be submissive when called upon to do so (including me . . . but that’s a WHOLE ‘nuther blog!).Hubby is what equine savvy people call a “horse whisperer”. He first began this undertaking when his patience level defined him as more of a “horse yeller”, (not to be confused with “Old Yeller” who had to be put down), mustangbut in the past few years he has become fairly reputable and talented with the whole “breaking wild mustangs” thing. (Ironically, I always wanted a mustang too – just one from 1967 in Candy Apple Red. Sigh . . . ) 

Anyway, I digress. Because the cowboy can adeptly take an unbroken mustang and have him following, loading, eating out of his hand, and disengaging his hindquarters (yeah, that’s a thing), sometimes in a matter of minutes, he believes he should be able to do this with all living creatures.

Our cat disagrees.I’m eager to see who wins this battle.

Posted in Down on the Farm, Just Funny

award-winning cockroaches and beached manatees

This is my bedroom.e2626-mybedroom
I like my bedroom.
It’s dark and cool.
It’s comfortable.
The mattress is firm.
The pillows are fluffly.
Getting into bed is a wonderful end
to most days –
not generally an olympic event.

 
However, while we were in Fort Worth for the cowboy’s “Sadde Boy” competition, we bunked in the horse trailer. (No, not WITH the horse…the back 9/10 is the horse part, the front 1/10 is “living quarters”) I use the term “living quarters” very VERY loosely. It was akin to sleeping in an aluminum shoebox on wheels. The floor section, shaped like the state of Nevada, only had enough room for Kevin’s military-style cot, the step stool, and one standing human. As you can see from the picture, the interior has been gutted, so the walls were bare except for the lovely remnants of brown wood glue. Everytime we turned on the light it threw a breaker. Our “camping spot” was on the gravel parking lot wedged between dozens of $200K motor homes.  We looked like the redneck MIssissippi cousins.
4933242152_44ebfc5025One aspect of the weekend I found particularly enjoyable was the 2-block hike to the bathroom located upstairs and inside the dormitory of the Fairground Swine Building of the Will Rogers Equestrian Center across the street from the National Cowgirl Museum.  Yee. Haw.  When I first stepped into the dark, abandoned concrete shower, which was creepy enough to be the setting where my horror movie doppleganger will die gruesomely,  I was startled by an enormous hog left behind from last weekend’s judging – no wait, that’s just a prize-winning cockroach. He and I did NOT get along. It was a quick shower.

The most entertaining part of the weekend, for those lucky enough to witness it (my 14-year-old son), was me, trying to get into the sleeping bunk of the trailer. Even with the step stool, I was only chest-high to the metal platform. After numerous and wildly unsuccessful attempts to fling my leg up onto the platform, I finally had Kevin stand on his cot, and lift the air mattress up to the ceiling. This allowed me to bend to a 90-degree angle, then roll my entire body onto the platform under the air mattress, much like an injured manatee rolling herself onto the beach. I then spun the opposite direction until I was against the wall, allowing Kevin to drop the mattress. At this point I got onto my hands and knees and crawled onto the mattress. Lying down, there was a good 7 inches between my face and the ceiling. Now to get undressed. Uh oh.  I couldn’t lift my legs – no room. Tried lying in a fetal position and wiggling. No luck with that either. No matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to manage the removal of my clothing. Why didn’t I get into my pj’s BEFORE I clamored up there? I DON’T KNOW. But I sure as heck wasn’t getting back down and then up again! So I called down to Kevin,
“Kevin, help me pull my pants off.”
“Yeah, right, mom.”
“Please, Kevin, I can’t do it.”
“Like that’s gonna happen. I don’t think so.”
“But Kev, I need help!”
“Suck it up and sleep in your clothes, mom!”
“Kevin, please please.” (Imagine a whiny, cartoony voice at this point.)
Kevin begins to giggle hysterically at the thought of my not having enough room to perform this function for myself, and at the audacity that I would even dare ask his help with undressing. Then, of course, there was the mental image of him actually helping me with this, which, I have to confess, was really really funny.
“Keeeeevvvvviiiinnnn, pleeeeeaaaaassssseeee!!!!!”
More giggling. This time from both of us.
This went on for about 20 minutes until we were in tears.

After we fell into a good sleep, probably from the exhaust fumes of all the other motor homes, we were awakened by an 8.3 earthquake – a crash, a jolt and the sound of breaking glass.  Oh wait, that was just the cowboy backing his truck INTO our trailer. Luckily, the only thing he broke was his passenger side mirror.

Extreme Mustang Makeover – reservations for next year have already been secured at the Hyatt Regency downtown Fort Worth.