Reruns Already??

Before I started my blog (a whole whopping 3 days ago), I used to write “Notes” in facebook when the wordiness bug struck me.  Someone suggested I repost those notes on this blog and I may do that here and there when the urge arises.  No, I assure you I’m not out of blog ideas yet .  In fact I still have a plethora of fun stuff to share that you probably never wanted to know about me.   Feel free to hit that little “x” at the top right of your page at any time….  LOL

Anyway, I was inspired to post this previous note by reading a cute post from a friend last night who wound up handling a cattle stampede in her pajamas.  For anyone who’s ever raised livestock or horses, even recreationally like we have, you can identify with this.  If you have by some chance escaped this pleasure while raising livestock, honey let me assure you that your day is coming! 

So if you remember this from last year on my facebook, maybe it will be like a good pot of stew… even better the second time around.  Or perhaps like leftover chili, a little while in to it and you’ll realize it wasn’t a good idea?   Haha    It’s a little wordy, but enjoy…

There’s like… a cow in my backyard? Could you… um… come get it?

by Ramona Petrosky on Thursday, June 17, 2010

I’ve finally figured out the key to my financial success while job hunting. Are you ready for this? I’m gonna sell tickets to our family dinners! Or at least rent out my children as stand up comics? I swear, those of you who’ve sat around a table with my kiddos when they hit their silly story moods will understand perfectly.

Tonight we were regaled with tales of today’s tractor adventures by DJ and lifeguard Dollie kicking 5 bad kids out of the pool simultaneously (she’s such a tough cookie!) all while watching Dudley near summersault into the full bathtub with Dillon during his frantic bursts of energy. Hey, just another night in paradise. Though I have to say Dollie had the winning ‘laugh till you just about wet your pants story’ tonight. I will attempt to re-tell it, though probably won’t come close since we’re missing all her expressions and hand gestures, but here goes…

Last Saturday night we had a knock on the door about 1:30am. Dollie, whose bedroom is in the front of the house, heard it. We occasionally get weirdos or drunks wandering up wanting to use the phone or something, yes… even out in the country near little ole Boling. The last time this happened she actually called me on her cell phone to tell me someone was knocking at the door. My bedroom is in the back of the house and with David’s high power fan he insists on sleeping under only about one click below an airplane propeller running, unless they’re driving a bulldozer through the door I’m probably not gonna hear it. Well, Dollie ignored the knocking as no cars drove up and it didn’t really sound like an “emergency knock”. My kids have such highly attuned perception skills? Anyway, she really didn’t feel like getting dressed to answer the door.

Then a few minutes later the phone starts ringing. Phone ringing in our house is like the starting bell in a scavenger hunt because the problem with cordless phones is there is no cord to keep them tethered where they’re supposed to be. Invariably they all wind up buried somewhere under the chaos of DJ’s room. So no one got to the phone before the answering machine picked up. We’re not really all about bounding out of bed setting a scavenger speed record at 1:30am either, just for the record.

So then we get this fabulous message on the answering machine… <read this to yourself in a kinda clueless nasally tone to get the full effect>… “Um… this is (next door neighbor girl)… there’s like… a cow… in our backyard? I don’t know if it’s yours but… ummm… can you come get it???”

Now the great advantage of no longer having a barn full of expensive breeding heifers that you REALLY don’t want wandering around the neighborhood or out on the busy highway is that we’re no longer supposed to get calls like this, right? I mean, the ONLY bovine creature we have at the moment is Dillon’s now about 600 lb. used-to-be bucket calf, Mystery, whom we have to practically search for in the high pasture grass as he munches pleasantly through his summer days. So Dollie’s really thinking “this can’t possibly be OUR cow”. But regardless, being the ever so responsible person she’s somehow grown to be (on a good day) and knowing she would feel bad no matter whose cow it was if it wandered onto the road at 1:30am and caused an accident, and knowing she was probably the most skilled cattle wrangler on hand at the moment, she slithers out of bed and gets dressed to go investigate.

By this time David and I of course are both up also but neither one overly anxious to trudge outside. Dollie has now put on crocs and shorts with her nightshirt, though honestly I’ve seen skimpy underwear with more coverage than these particular old soffee shorts from like the 7th grade provide. I managed to scrounge up a working brinkman flashlight and a rope halter. Everyone keeps a spare cattle rope halter on their coat rack, right? Yeah, I thought so. And she trudges off into the dark…

She wasn’t sure what she was going to encounter but as she walked over into the neighbor’s side yard whose blocky little white face appears? Mystery! Whew – at least that was better than some neighbor’s wild cow or buffalo (actually happened to me once, but perhaps that’s a story for another day?). So she walks up to Mystery, who was never particularly easy to catch even in a small pen, and figures she needs both hands. So she puts the flashlight between her thighs, stretches out the rope halter, and starts waddling toward to calf. Mystery thinks “Hey, I know you!” and starts pouncing around like its play time. O yeah, he’s feeling really frisky now! Dollie is hunched over, waddling after him, flashlight between her knees, “Come over here ya bleep bleep bleep “ <sorry – gotta keep this ‘G’ rated>. Anyway, she finally gets close enough to start patting/scratching his butt. He always was a sucker for the butt-scratch. In his momentary bliss he lets down his guard and she pounces, flashlight dropped, rope and arms around the neck, just as he decides to take off running. So now she’s steer-doggin’ him, in the dark, at 1:30am, in her crocs and short-shorts, cussing all the while. Yeee dawgy!!! Somehow in all this she manages to get the rope halter onto the beast and then opts for the dead-weight deterrent by digging in her feet and trying to slow him down. Only did I mention she’s in crocs? With no traction on the damp carpet grass? With a very feisty calf? Who is more than 5 times her weight? Yeah, that didn’t work so great. She wound up sitting on her butt in the wet grass, in the too short-shorts, getting drug behind the calf like a redneck water-skier. Can you say ultimate wedgie? Niiice!!!! Eventually she gains control, wrassles the calf into submission, and starts leading him around the front of the house to put him in a secure pen until his escape route is fixed.

Now guess who shows up? Yep, Dad finally has his shoes on and has made it outside. He steps off the porch… “You got this?” Dollie: “Oh yeah, I GOT this.” Dad: “Ok”. Dad goes back in the house and back to bed.

Honestly, I was in the midst of a migraine Saturday night and the parts I remembered of this episode were after she and David didn’t come back within a few minutes and I was considering where I might find the nearest roping rope to try somehow to assist (unfortunately didn’t have one hanging on the coat rack), David walked back in the house saying “It was just Mystery. Dollie got him back in with no problem.”

As Paul Harvey would say… and then there’s “the rest of the story” which I learned tonight! Who says there’s nothing fun to do at our house on a Saturday night?