Happy Father's Day!

Great day today. Took a fairly long ride and saw lots of wildlife - elk, black bear, whitetail deer, otters (see the pic w/ Sage & the otter), cranes, ducks and lots of flowers.

RFDtv last night was great as always. Rider's in the Sky were on Larrys' Country Diner - they are always great. And my new favorite song is "I've cooked everything , Man", sung to the tune of "I've been everywhere, man". VERY funny. And, T. Graham Browne (did you know he's Jim Ed Brown's nephew?) was on Country Family Reunion. He has such a great voice.

Our 1st guests arrived today. We have to go "Meet" them tonight after dinner. Just found that out today - oh joy! But, guess it could be worse.

Well, I'll post pics & sign off. Short blog today - no rants!! Take care everyone!!

A Life Well Lived

Jeff & Ben returned from PA very early Sat a.m. (4am). Their plane was delayed in Detroit and Denver due to tornadoes and other storms. But, they made it home safe & sound & are glad to be back.

Their time in PA was good for all, however. The community really rallied behind them (as they have for the last 6 years of Julie's cancer). I found it inspiring how people reacted and how they showed their care. So many gave of themselves - not just time and money, but things that were uniquely from them. The dance/music studio where Julie's kids had taken lessons, have promised that both kids may attend for free as long as they're interested and in school. The local Bed & Breakfast donated rooms to any of the Artley family that needed them for the memorial. The local grocery store gave $100's in dollars in coupons to her husband and kids, and also loaded Jeff & Ben up w/ food for their return trip (and the owner even remembered all Jeff's favorites from when he worked there in h.s.!) The funeral home made up beautiful, laminated copies of the obit, with pictures and a poem for each of the family members. And, of course, there were many generous monetary gifts for the family to assist with funeral expenses, to go towards the children's future needs, etc.

For the memorial itself, 100's of people showed up. Every extension office, in every county of the state, sent a representative (50 of them total). The University sent representatives, have promised to name a seed after Julie (I didn't even know they still did that! So, perhaps someday you'll plant a "Julie carrot" or some such thing!) Jeff said they started greeting people at 5:30 (memorial was supposed to start at 6:30) and at 7:30 they were still greeting and had to be pulled away so it could star, and there were still 50 people in line! Nearly every family member, no matter how far away, made it a point to be there.

The impact that Julie had on her family, community, church and the general public at large through her work, was obviously immense - and inspiring to see the depth of that impact. She will be sorely missed, but we rejoice in the knowledge of our reunion with her in heaven some day.

We love you Julie - Enjoy your new perfect body, free of pain and limitations.

Experience & Catastrophes

I ran across this TR quote that I've put above. Makes me think about the BP oil spill... it's not like this is the first time it's happened... not even the 1st time for the U.S. And yet, have we learned? And, will we learn from this larger spill - a true catastrophe?

An article in the paper last week made a very good point. We Americans, from a nation of historical adventurers, farmers, miners, fishermen, sailors and so forth, have become removed from our roots. Today, a very small minority are in the "production" of our basic needs, and the vast majority are in "services" (whatever that means). We have become disconnected from the source of our basic life requirements. We all use gasoline, oil, and massive amounts of petroleum products (can anyone say "plastic"?) but somehow we're surprised that the process by which those items are acquired is a messy one? Where do we think it comes from? I once had a newspaper article that listed the difference between real cowboys and urban cowboys. One of the items was "A real cowboy owns at least 2 head of livestock, usually cattle. An urban cowboy wouldn't recognize a cow if one walked up and kissed him on the lips. He has been led to believe that milk comes from cartons." This is the truth for ALL our supplies today. Meat comes from animals (sorry to disillusion those who thought we "synthisize" it a-la-Star Trek), vegetables come from DIRT that has animal crap IN it, and plastic, gasoline, oil, and various other supplies come from CRUDE OIL that is dredged out of the deep earth, in a variety of ways.

Now, I'm NOT condoning what happened. I'm simply saying that WE are as much at fault as BP. If we insist on requiring such supplies, we have to take responsibility for these types of incidents. Either we, as a whole, do whatever it takes to ensure "SAFE" acquisition(as far as that can be carried since NOTHING is foolproof), or we do without it (maybe actually put serious effort into pursuing alternative sources?), or we suffer the consequences and pay the price - a concept that seems to have been lost in recent generations, as evidenced by the inability of many people to take responsibility for their actions!

Yup, it's my blog, and I'll rant if I want to!! But, now I want to move on to more fun items. We went riding Sunday (my birthday "escape the ranch" ride) and here are some pics. There's also some taken different days on the ranch, one is a bear track Jeff saw when out hiking. He didn't see claw marks, so most likely just a really big black bear. In a couple days I'll post some pics of horse drives.

Contentment

Snow over night... but gorgeous morning. Sure would like some WARM weather - for more than a few hours, though.

RFD.tv guests Sat night - Ray Stevens, Rider's in the Sky, Charley Pride & a few others. Very entertaining. Gotta say I'm loving Ray Steven's new release "We The People"... talk about to the point! And, of course, the Rider's in the Sky are always awesome.

Jeff & Ben are due home tonight from PA. The memorial was apparently extremely well-attended and the family was showered with love & condolences. Jeff said that everyone wants to do "something". The owner of the little local grocery store (it has a small cafe in the back where they ate breakfast today) loaded Jeff & Ben up w/ all kinds of food for their trip back. I think he's really glad he went - it was important for him to be able to be part of that for his own closure.

On an entirely different note: Jeff & I were talking the other night about an old friend of his from high school - Chris Hazel. Chris was labeled "Mentally handicapped" in school, but his parents made sure to treat him like any other kid - anything he wanted to try, they made sure he was able to do so. He played basketball w/ Jeff on the h.s. team and graduated w/ him. He took one job washing dishes at a local kids camp & was there for several years, eventually moving on to the kitchen at the very large psychiatric facility located in a nearby town, where he also washed dishes & was general kitchen help. He's been there almost 20 years & is talking retirement!! What a lesson we could learn from him. He's been totally content at that one job - and more importantly, a job that most of us would HATE and would want to move on from as quickly as possible. He never missed a day of work and takes great pride in doing a good job. Why aren't we all that content? Why do we feel such a need to "move up, move on, move out"? Why can we not just take pride in a job well done? Lord knows, Jeff & I are as bad or worse as anyone else... and I'm not sure why - where does that drive come from? And why do we, as a society, worship it as such a good thing? Wouldn't the world in general be better place if everyone would look for contentment in their current situation, rather than always striving for that elusive "Something Better"?

And... just to be perverse... let's consider that other side of the coin. We seem to want that "Something Better", but NOT at the expense of any actual work! We want it to fall in our lap and just somehow "get better". Lord forbid we have to actually experience any discomfort or difficulty to get there! Why on earth would someone choose to feel miserable indefinitely over feeling uncomfortable briefly if it would lead to a better life?

Ok, that's my rant for the day. Perhaps I just stated what you already know... or perhaps you'll have something to mull on? Or, most probably, it's just me being difficult and wanting Something Better to land in my front yard. :)

Updates & Musings

Well, lots of updates for the last couple weeks and some more musings on my part...

Julie passed this a.m. at 8:30 ET. Jeff is torn about going back for the memorial or not. It's a bad time to leave the ranch as the owners are leaving for their oldest son's college graduation in CA, and Kelly (the wife) is dealing with her own dad's decline. He is on hospice and not expected to last much longer either. So... we'll see how timing and other factors fit. I said he should go... there are things in life that are important, and things that we just THINK are important. This job will be here if he goes, but he won't get another chance for closure.

It's been raining non-stop here for weeks. We did get a couple hours of nice sunshine yesterday, but it's back to rain today. Our staff is getting somewhat discouraged - it's hard to stay excited about a ranch job when reality hits! They all are enjoying the area, however. Most go for a hike or bike ride nearly every day. Each time I wonder if it's the day one of them will get eaten by a grizzly or stomped by a moose. These kids have NO common sense. One came back the other day & said she'd seen a grizzly up close & personal but that he didn't know she was there. WHAT? A grizzly will ALWAYS know you are there... it may just not deign to notice you! And the next day, TWO of them came back & said they'd ridden / walked (they were separate) right by a cow moose & her calf. YIKES! (as my big sis would say!) We are seeing lots more animal life than earlier this year. Elk & moose w/ their calves, bear, baby rabbits (they are SO cute!) and so on. Of course, the baby rabbits are STUPID and 3 have been killed by dogs.

Here are some pics from several weeks ago when we walked up to the pond on a nice day. And, also some pics from our Memorial Day softball game. We invite 2 other dude ranches located close by to come and we have the game and then a potluck. It was lots of fun. Pretty cool to play the game in such a setting! And it held off rain for the game which was nice. But it was COLD.







Well, that's enough for one blog... I'll probably write more later & post a second one in a day or two. Hope everyone has/had a fantabulous weekend!!