Tiny Home on the Range

Since it's Throwback Thurday, I would just like all of you to know that we are SO far ahead of the curve on this whole tiny home craze. When we moved back to Montana we took up residence in the bunkhouse. Two adults, a toddler, a full grown Border collie in approximately 450 square feet. We survived the first six months with our minds and our marriage mostly intact, mostly because we arrived in the spring and spent a lot of time outside. But there was no way we were going through the winter with the kid sleeping on a futon in the kitchen.

The answer to our fervent prayers was a wooden granary built by my grandfather and mostly unused. Come fall, we shoveled out a pile of fertilizer from one side, a pile of old barley from the other (funny, you never see THAT on the home improvement shows) jacked the granary up onto a pair of telephone poles for runners and dragged it half a mile across the hayfield to set it on the concrete pad we'd poured for a floor.

We learned many things in this process. First, it was easier than you'd think to saw the old floor off and bolt the building to the concrete. Second, these old granaries are lined on the inside with plywood to resist the outward pressure of tons of wheat or barley. And my grandfather was a real over-achiever when it came to nailing on siding and roofing. Which was probably why the building was in such great shape, but we weren't feeling as thankful as we might have while we pulled out those ten thousand nails. Especially when the dust, grain chaff and mouse turds began raining down on our heads.

Also, because like most things the process took a bit longer than expected, I learned that when the temperature is hovering around zero, you don't hold that extra new nail in your mouth. Think tongues and flagpoles. Ouch.

But we finally got it stripped, insulated (six-inch walls in cold, windy country are AWESOME), wrapped in moisture/wind barrier and sided in particle board, at which point we could hack a couple of holes through into the old part of the bunkhouse and triple our square footage. We also added an attic so I could unload the last of our worldly possessions from the tack room of the horse trailer.

After a couple of years of the kid sleeping on a mattress in the living room, we added a wing with another bedroom and a porch, a quick three-year project. And last summer we decided to put on real siding (mostly because my mother was tired of looking at the peeling, faded particle board and offered to pay Dale and Richard Bird to come out and do the work.)

One of these days, I might even get around to doing something with those plywood interior walls.

**Note that the tractor is larger than the original bunkhouse.

Want more stories of the sublime and the ridiculous out here on the range? Subscribe to my newsletter, Rock Soup for the Cowboy Soul, by clicking on the gold button in the top right corner of my home page:  KariLynnDell.com

On the Mend

November may be fall in most places, but for us it is traditionally the first month of winter. Each year we engage in our annual race to finish any and all maintenance or improvement projects that cannot be done once the ground freezes--driving fence posts, repairing roads, cleaning feedlots--and every year we push it right to the limit. One fall my husband trenched in the plumbing for our new porch in the dark, as the snow fell and the temperature dropped. By morning the ground was frozen solid. The next fall we scrambled to get the foundation for the same porch poured before the weather got too cold for concrete to set properly. (This is a sterling example of the rate at which home improvement occurs around here, by the way.)

This year my husband rented a backhoe for the fall fix-it rush. His last project, again completed as the snow began to fall, was cleaning out the south reservoir. The soil out there is a gumbo clay that stuck in the bucket, then partially froze overnight. Before hauling the backhoe to town he spent most of an afternoon chiseling muck with a crowbar. Then he hauled a few hundred pounds of salt and mineral out to the cows. Then he pitched hay in all of the round bale feeders. The next morning, he couldn't bend his left elbow.

A few days before all this, we got our initial warning blast of snow--the week we all weaned and shipped calves, as per usual. While helping my cousins gather, my horse stepped in a snow-covered badger hole and pancaked, slamming me down on my right side. Thanks to the five layers of clothes that made it nearly impossible to climb on said horse, I bounced pretty well, but it sored my shoulder up enough that for the first few days it was difficult to reach over my head or behind my back.

Yesterday we stopped by the house for a Pepsi break and Greg proudly demonstrated that he is now able to bend his elbow far enough to reach his mouth. He asked how my shoulder was doing.

I said it was much better, and in my usual, high brow fashion added, "We're both doing great. You can pick your nose and I can wipe my butt."

You Inspire Me

As a writer, I am often asked where I find the inspiration for my stories. The answer--everywhere. News stories, family gossip, conversations overheard at the dentist's office, and most of all life. It's all around us, you just have to pay attention.

One of my favorite nuggets, though, came courtesy of long time writer friend Patty Blount, who made me spit Pepsi all over my computer by declaring on Twitter that she'd just given herself a minor concussion trying to remove her sports bra at the gym. Her tale of woe sounded just like something that would happen to a character I was writing at the time, so I asked if I could borrow it. She graciously agreed. 

In honor of a great friend and an award-winning writer (check out her books at PattyBlount.com) who is celebrating the beginning of a shiny new half century of life tomorrow, here's a sneak peek at the scene she inspired, now a part of my novel Reckless in Texas, due to for mass market release by Sourcebooks in August 2016.

The Set Up: Immediately prior to this scene, Violet has suffered a fall from a horse in a muddy arena, causing a mild case of whiplash. Joe has been given the job of seeing that she gets safely to her camper and tucked into bed.

The parking lot outside the emergency room had a wicked tilt to it. Or maybe that was Violet, because when Joe wrapped his arm around her shoulders and tipped her to the left, the ground flattened out. 

“You’re a mess.”

She wanted to smack him for laughing at her, but she needed all her concentration to climb into the pickup without braining herself on the door frame.

Joe buckled her seatbelt and shut the door. When he climbed behind the wheel, he asked, “Are you hungry?”

“Nope.”

“Do you mind if I swing through a hamburger stand on the way?”

“Nope.”

 He cranked the engine and she hunkered into her seat, letting her eyelids droop so the lights along the main drag zoomed past in streaks like when a movie spaceship jumped into hyperspeed. She was stoned. More stoned than she’d ever been in her life, including the day she gave birth and the night her son was conceived. And the second one didn’t count because she was drunk, not stoned, and they were totally different. Weren’t they? Except in that Johnny Cash song about Sunday morning, but she was kinda young and naïve back then so maybe she just thought he was stoned on beer.

Anyway, this was nothing like being drunk. More like floating. Really high. She could still feel the pain in her neck—the real pain, not Joe, who was annoying her with the bossing and pushing and all—but neither pain bothered her if she didn’t move too fast. Joe didn’t ask if she wanted her prescription filled, just pulled into an all night pharmacy and left her in the pickup while he jogged inside. Just for that, she ate most of his French fries while she waited.

When he parked at the rodeo grounds, she slid out of the pickup only to discover her legs had gone on strike. Joe caught her, propped her up and steered her in the direction of her trailer. Violet yelped when something popped out from under the fender and went straight for her knee. Katie jammed her head under Violet’s hand, stubby tail doing double time. Joe scratched the dog’s ears while Violet turned her head one careful degree at a time. Where Katie went…

Cole unfolded from one of the lawn chairs in the black void under the awning. He looked at Violet, frowned, then looked at Joe. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s got whiplash and she’s zonked to the eyeballs on pain meds.”

“And they left her with you?”

Joe made a face as if he couldn’t believe his bad luck, either.

“How’s Delon?” Cole asked.

“Good enough to ask if he won a check,” Joe said.

“Guess he’ll live then.”

The rigid set of Cole’s shoulders relaxed a touch, the equivalent of a normal person’s giddy smile. Violet ground her teeth. Of course he hadn’t come to the emergency room. Instead, he’d sat alone in the dark, brooding. The big dumbass. She shrugged free of Joe’s arm and stumbled over to plant a hand square in the middle of Cole’s chest, both for balance and emphasis.

“You are a jerk,” she said, giving each word its own space.

“I know.”

She slid her arms around his waist and burrowed her head into his shoulder. “I love you anyway.”

He stood, stiff as a statue, as she clung to him. After a few seconds his hand came to rest on her back, patting awkwardly. “You scared the shit outta me.”

“Join the club.” She gave him another squeeze then let go and turned on her heel, sending her head spinning off into hyperspace again.

Joe grabbed an arm and swung her around to face the steps. “Up you go. Say goodnight, Violet.”

“G’night, Violet,” she repeated, then giggled.

“Geezus. She’s wrecked.” Cole whistled to his dog. “Let’s get outta here, Katie.”

“Appreciate the help, buddy,” Joe called after him, then manhandled her up the steps and through the door, propping her against the nearest wall while he found a light switch. “Which bed is yours?”

“I need to clean up first.”

Joe made an exasperated noise, but helped her to the bathroom door. He inspected the interior and grunted. “It’s so small you probably can’t fall over.”

 But she could faint, and almost did when she got a look at herself in the mirror. She peeled off Joe’s coat, hung it on a towel hook and shrugged off the hospital gown. A shower was beyond her. She’d have to settle for combing the mud out of her hair and swabbing her face and neck with a washcloth. First, though, she had to lose the sports bra. The clammy elastic dug into her shoulders and ribcage like steel cable. She hooked her fingers under the bottom band and tried to peel it up. The bra didn’t budge. She pulled harder, gritting her teeth against the arrow of pain that shot down her neck. Her fingers popped loose and her hand flew up to cold-cock her square in the chin. The toilet hit the back of her legs, buckling her knees, and her shoulders slammed into the wall. She slid down like a bird on a windshield.

Joe yanked the door open as her butt hit the toilet lid. “What the hell—” 

Violet blinked up at him. Them. Multiple versions of his face wobbled though her field of vision. “I believe I’m gonna need a hand here,” she said.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PATTY!

In Praise of a Good Wreck

My latest latest blog post is available at Progressive Forage Growers, in which I cogitate on all the wisdom I've accumulated from questionable choices:  A Good Wreck.

And while you're there, check out the other blogs. If you enjoy mine I suspect you'll get a chuckle from some of their other humorists.

Next Stop, Insanity

First off, I wrote the title to this blog post and had my fingers poised above the keyboard when my husband burst in the door and asked, "Wanna see some bears?" People, there are no words in the English language important enough to keep me at my desk under those circumstances. Especially when said bears are a sow grizzly with three cubs and they're A MILE FROM MY HOUSE.

We've known there were grizzlies around for the past several years. The neighbors see them. We find bear scat on the road and around the grain bins up on the ridge, but this is our first actual sighting. Unfortunately, we didn't get within camera range. Or maybe fortunately because SOW GRIZZLY WITH CUBS. We do have very good binoculars, though, and it was an amazing sight. Also, I now feel totally justified for carrying bear spray to walk across the yard to my mother's house after sunset.

Ahem.

Back to my previously scheduled post, which now seems pretty dull by comparison. This week I started a brand new book. Just me and a blank white page, upon which I am expected to paint an entire world, beginning with a couple hundred words:

(Note: Click on the image to enlarge. If you read my first book, The Long Ride Home,you've already realized from this snippet that the new series isn't quite so squeaky clean.)

At this moment, I always feel as if there should be a chorus of angels, or at the very least that tinkling sound magic spells make in Disney movies, and sparkles floating around in the air. Because really, writing fiction is a sort of magic. The essence of creation, as miraculous as the act of conception (yep, there's more of that in these books, too). I am giving birth to not one, but a whole cast of humans.

And yes, sometimes it's a lot like being in labor, except without the epidural. I have very fond memories of the epidural. Beer isn't nearly as effective, unless you use it to wash down a couple of shots of tequila, and then I just experience a different kind of pain while getting reacquainted with my lunch. Which is a real disappointment, because I thought a high tolerance for alcohol was part of the package when I became a writer, along with the voices in my head and a nearly irresistible urge to edit magnetic signboards in public places.

For the love of God, people, learn to mind your apostrophes before I'm forced to do it for you, which would be embarrassing because I am not good at stealthy and the Chief of Police knows my parents.

ANYWAY...

Writers tend to sort themselves into two categories: Plotters and Pantsers. Before committing a single word to the page, Plotters spends days, weeks, or months developing a detailed outline, in depth character sketches, maybe even a collage of photos that represent the people and places in the book. When not writing, I assume they iron their socks and alphabetize their canned goods.

Pansters are so-named because they prefer to fly by the seat of their pants, making it all up as they go along. You can probably guess by this aimless, rambling post which group I belong to--or so I thought. Turns out, I'm a hybrid. Or possibly an undercover Plotter who's just too lazy to write it all down.

My normal process is to start with a situation that piques my interest--a true story about a high-caliber rope horse that goes missing then shows up years later, ridden by an oblivious teenager (see The Long Ride Home)--then spend months letting it rattle around inside my head, conjuring up the people who would be most damaged by this situation, Then I dream up several key scenes from the beginning, middle and end that act as my guideposts. And then I start to write, figuring out as I go along how to get from one key scene to the next.

(Note to writers, aspiring or otherwise: This is basically three act structure, without the whiteboard chart, index cards or sticky notes. Again, too lazy for all that, unless I've written myself onto the edge of a cliff and it's the only safety line. If you want to know more, ask me in the comments and I'll hook you up with some links.)

Along comes my three book contract with Sourcebooks. Book One (now pretty much officially known as Reckless in Texas and pretty much officially set for an August 2016 release) was complete before we started pitching it to publishing houses, which is the norm for fiction. I'd written the first few chapters of Book Two and had the situation, the characters and my key scenes firmly embedded in my mind, in hopes that someone would want a series. Book Two, working title Tangled Up in Texas, is now complete and will be off to my editor by the weekend.

Which brings us to Book Three. It must share the general setting and star at least one secondary character from the first two books. So here I sit, aimed a hundred and eighty degrees from my usual starting position. I've got these people, now I have to figure out what to do with them.

Like I said, I thought I was a Pantster, but I've always sort of scoffed at the writers who claim they sit down at their computer every day to see what happens because they don't know until it appears on the page. Surely, I reasoned, they must have a sketchy outline in their head. They can't really end every scene with no idea where the story is going next.

Yeah. I was wrong about that, too. I have only one key scene in mind for this book, and it's still up for debate. But I no longer have the luxury to mull things over until it all comes clear. I have this thing called a deadline and it demands I put words on the page now, so I just bailed in and started writing.

It's very much like taking a cross-country road trip with people I've only known for a month. Usually I would have a map with a route drawn out and we'd all have the same destination in mind. From here to Great Falls to Rapid City to Chicago to Cleveland and finally the Big Apple, for example. And I'd know who was most likely to navigate rush hour traffic without accidentally taking an off ramp into drug gang turf or squashing a smug hipster in a Smart Car like a gopher, possibly on purpose.

With this book, we climb in the pickup every morning, look at each other and say, "Keep heading east, we're bound to hit some part of the coast eventually. When you see the big water, stop. And for crying out loud, don't let Hank drive or we'll end up in New Orleans throwing beads at topless women."

P.S.- Since I failed to get photos of this morning's bears, you can have this one from our Sunday drive up in Glacier National Park instead. He was smaller, cuter, and polite enough to stand alongside the road almost totally ignoring the tourists who climbed out of their cars and offered themselves up as an afternoon snack.

P.P.S. - THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! Can you hear my inner editor screaming?  But it is funny.

The Camper's Curse

Dear Visitors to Glacier National Park,

I suspect your Labor Day camp outs were pretty much ruined by the weather over the past three days. I wish I could say I was sorry, but really I'd like to thank you on behalf of the entire local population. Such a large swarm of people determined to enjoy themselves in the great outdoors is an irresistible target for Mother Nature's contrary sense of humor, and she obliged by dumping up to ten inches of snow in our mountains (which have been ablaze for weeks) and two inches of sorely needed rain on the adjacent plains.

Also, a shout out to my cousin who did his part by not entering any of the rodeos this weekend because he planned to be home harvesting grain.

I do feel badly for those who traveled hundreds or even thousands of miles to revel in the Park's natural beauty. Please do come back next year. We'll probably need more of your weather karma by then.

On Subways and Suitcases and the Big Apple

Traveling would be awesome if it didn’t require luggage. Imagine, waltzing through airports with nothing but a wallet and the clothes on your back—at least until you reach the security line, where they take half of those. Air travel with suitcases is the sole reason the term ‘baggage’ has come to refer to hauling around a heavy emotional load.

Last week’s trip to New York City for a writer’s convention was no exception. Before flying out of Bozeman I dropped my son at my sister’s house for a week of quality aunt time. Upon arrival, we discovered his suitcase was back home on his bedroom floor. Thank the stars that I have a male child, and he’d stuffed his iPad and toothbrush in his backpack. Buy two changes of underwear and a pair of swimming trunks and he was set for a week long vacation.

My baggage and I arrived simultaneously in the Big Apple, which is always nice, and I’d arranged a car directly from the airport to the friend’s doorstep where I’d be spending the first night. No sweat.

Then came Wednesday, when I had to get from her apartment to the convention hotel. I considered the cost of a taxi. Then I considered that I could board the subway two blocks from her house and be spit out two block s from the hotel for a mere three dollars. I did not consider that the subway system wasn’t designed for people with luggage. I bought my ticket from the vending machine, swiped it, and promptly got my suitcase wedged in the turnstile. A long-suffering woman in the glass booth shouted at me to back out, then let me through the handicapped door with a ‘Stupid tourist’ eye roll.

New Yorkers are masters of the eye roll. I know. I saw them do it a lot.

I proudly de-trained at the Times Square station, only to realize there were seven exits and I had no clue which was closest to my hotel. I made my best guess and hauled my bag of bricks up three flights of grubby stairs while wearing a skirt and sandals, emerging into the tourist mob without a clue where I was in relation to the Marriot. On the plus side, this is an excellent way to meet handsome, helpful members of the NYPD.

I have no idea how many toes I ran over slogging through the crowd, but I did eventually arrive at the right hotel—word to the wise, there are actually three Marriot hotels in the vicinity of Times Square—dumped my luggage on the first bellman who would take it and keeled over on the nearest couch. 

Not only had I arrived, but I could skip that trip to the hotel gym.

Four days later, I re-packed and headed for home, feeling smug. I had downloaded the Delta app on my phone, checked in online and paid for my bags. I couldn’t be more prepared. The shuttle dumped me out at Terminal Four and I started following signs to the Delta check in, which appeared to be up two floors. As I made for the elevator, a helpful airport employee flagged me down and instructed me to just bop around the corner, where there was a convenient ground level baggage check.

Yay! I barely reached the line when a guy came along waving and shouting at a whole herd of us to march down the terminal—hurry, hurry, hurry—to where another dude was grabbing suitcases and tossing them onto a conveyor belt. I handed over my first bag, expecting him to ask to scan my boarding pass, but he just tossed it on the conveyor with the rest. He started to reach for the second. I kept a death grip on the handle.

“How do you even know that was my bag and where it’s going?” I demanded.

He looked down at the bag we were currently wrestling over. “It isn’t tagged? They’re supposed to be tagged.”

“I haven’t checked them yet,” I said.

He looked at me as if I was the idiot. “You have to go upstairs for that.”

NO KIDDING. Which was why I tried to go there in the first place, instead of this zoo where they were rechecking bags for connecting flights from other terminals. In the meantime, my untagged suitcase had disappeared into the bowels of the airport. Congratulations, JFK, for being the only airport to lose my luggage before I even set foot on a plane.

I hiked half a mile upstairs, where clerks did some truly exceptional eye-rolling and agreed the recheck guys were idiots but could offer no solution. I hiked another half a mile downstairs to baggage services, where a third clerk confirmed their opinion—along with the eyeroll—and made a phone call to see if someone could grab my bag before it dropped into the pit of no return. She did not appear optimistic that such a feat could be accomplished. There was mention of filing a claim at my destination and possibly being reunited with my belongings at some unspecified future date, but no one made any promises.

I dragged my aching feet another mile back upstairs, through security and to my gate, defeated. Just before midnight, I stumbled down the jetway in Bozeman to stare blearily at the baggage carousel, when what to my wondering eyes should appear than my missing suitcase. My fellow passengers didn’t seem to appreciate the magnitude of this modern day miracle. From their expressions, you’d think none of them had ever seen a woman hug a Samsonite before.

Writer friend Patty Blount, my very first little black dress, and yet 
another reason I would have wept if I lost my suitcase forever.

Wait and Hurry Up

Back when I worked in sports medicine as an athletic trainer, we used to say the job was comprised of thousands of hours of boredom interrupted by brief moments of sheer panic. You'd stand on the sidelines day after day watching game after game, and the most thrilling challenge you faced was trotting out on the field with a rack of water bottles during a time out and trying not to trip and fall on your face.

But always, in the back of your mind, was the knowledge that any moment could be THAT moment, when an athlete fell and didn't get up. When you raced onto the field reciting the A-B-C's of basic life support, replaying CPR class in your head, and running through a checklist of how to treat a spinal chord injury. In fifteen years, I'm happy to say I never needed to apply any of those skills, though there were times we immobilized and back-boarded a player as what turned out to be an unnecessary, precautionary measure. And I can honestly say, there's nothing that'll get the ol' adrenaline rushing like the sound of a human bone snapping with enough force to be heard from forty yards away.

Then it was back to the sidelines to observe a few hundred more hours of football or baseball or soccer without having to deal with anything more life threatening than a blister.

You're probably wondering where I'm going with this. Me, too. Give me a few minutes and maybe I'll remember what the point was when I started.

Oh, right. I was thinking how really, working with book publishers isn't all that different. In movies, the heroine gets a big book deal and is instantly whisked off on a glamorous tour of the world where thousands of adoring fans line up to fawn over her. Which actually happens to some authors, I've heard, but they skip over a few things. Namely, the months between when you sign on the dotted line and when something actually happens, because the gap between selling your book and actually seeing it on the shelf can easily stretch to a year. Or two.

Scheduling a book release isn't as simple as scribbling your name in an open slot on the calendar. A savvy publisher is looking at all kinds of factors. What other books are they releasing at the same time that could compete with yours because it's aimed at the same audience? Or, if they've picked yours as a book that's going to get an extra promotional boost, they'll want to avoid releasing on the same day as one of their big name authors who'll be monopolizing a lot of marketing resources. What books are other publishers releasing that might overshadow yours, especially if you're a relative unknown? What time of year do books like yours sell the best? (Yes, good marketing people know these things.) Plus a hundred other factors unknown to anyone outside the publisher's inner sanctum. 

All of this to say that yes, I signed a contract for a new, three book series with Sourcebooks back in November. And then...nothing. Well, mostly nothing, at least concerning the first book, which is already complete. I got to meet the whole Sourcebooks team and my lovely editor at both the Romantic Times and Romance Writers of America conferences and learned that due to reasons stated above, the first book is tentatively scheduled to be released in June or July of 2016. I gave them a few chapters and an outline of book two and floated some book three ideas past my editor. Other than that, I've just been cooling my heels over here on the sidelines. And writing another book that I fervently hope they won't hate on sight.

Then yesterday, POW. First email from the editorial/marketing/art department with a list of what they needed from me. Author Bio, character descriptions, book blurb, etc., etc., and by the way, is there any way you can get that back to us by Friday? Or before would be better.

I felt like I'd flashed back to my athletic trainer days. Wait, wait, wait, wait.....OH MY GOD WE NEED YOU NOW.

My first reaction was, "EEK, IT'S STARTING!" And my second was, "Oh...dear...Lord....I have to look into that manuscript I haven't opened in over a year and what if it has moldered into a pile of drivel in the dank basement of my hard drive?"

I'm happy to say, it didn't spit in my face for ignoring it. And in the process of reminding myself how I described these long ago characters, I even found a few things I liked. This line of description in particular, a welcome surprise considering character description is my least favorite part of writing. If I had my way, I'd start every book with photos of the guy and the girl and say, "Refer to this as necessary".

Anyway, the line goes like so:

"This close she could smell the clean sweat that had his hair hanging in damp clumps around his face, and see that his eyes were green. The color of luck, and money, and the grass on the other side of the fence."

I like to think the description tells you something about his character, and how the person doing the describing feels about him. That's the goal with good physical description, anyway, to reveal something of the character of both the subject and the person looking at them, not just an inventory of parts.

The other bit of good news is, I've already done this once before and knew what to expect, so I had most of what my publisher needed already in mind, if not on hand. One frantic email to my agent's office got me the hardest bit, so for once in my life I got my homework done and handed in ahead of time.

If only I'd learned this lesson sooner. Perhaps I wouldn't have procrastinated my way through eight years of college. Or not. Sometimes it's more exciting to just be ready to take the leap at a moment's notice.

Earn Your Spurs Podcast

Yep, it's me, yakking again. This time about the history of our ranch, what it's like when your husband is actually the boss of you, and why a writer isn't the world's most reliable employee. There's also a chance to win an ebook copy of The Long Ride Home if you check it out before March 3, 2015.

EARN YOUR SPURS PODCAST

KariLynnDell.com

The Right--No, Left--No, Right Side of the Bed

Okay, show of hands. How many of you who sleep with another human being on a regular basis have a dedicated side of the bed? (No, the cats and/or dogs don't count because everybody knows the dogs always take the middle and the cats sleep on your head).

Before you get married, people tell you that you'll argue about money and who does the dishes and the laundry and the whole toilet seat up or down thing, but nobody warns you about the hand-to-hand combat over who gets which side of the bed. After twenty three years you'd think we'd have this settled, but we've always been a little slow.

To start with, neither of us really cared all that much. I ended up with the left side of the bed. Then, just when I got settled in, we switched bedrooms. (This was back in South Dakota when we actually had such a thing as a spare bedroom. My husband says the longer he's married to me, the smaller our houses get. I say we're trying to reduce our carbon footprint. He says...well, we won't get into that.)

Anyway, in the new bedroom the right side of the bed was closest to the door. As a new bride I came equipped with a red tick coonhound named Weezy who didn't believe in drinking water from a bowl. She'd get up in the middle of the night, wander into the bedroom and shove her nose in my face, her way of asking me to come turn the bathtub faucet on for her. The first night we slept in the new room she strolled in and slurped the ear of the person closest to the door. My husband was not amused. I was immediately relocated to the right side of the bed.

This lasted for a couple of years. Then one day I roped a calf in our practice arena and my breakaway hondo malfunctioned, and instead of the rope flinging harmlessly off to the side it zinged straight back and nailed my mare, Scotty, in the nose. She reared and fell over and I landed on my elbow, doing bad things to the bursa and tendons in my shoulder. Suddenly, laying on my right side was not an option and I am incapable of facing toward the middle of the bed while sleeping. Once again we swapped sides of the bed.

We stuck with this arrangement for about a dozen years, despite my campaign to swap sides after our son was born, my side being the one closest to his crib. Then we moved back to Montana, into my parents' bunkhouse, in which the bedroom was originally my grandfather's chicken coop. The roof slants down to the point where the north wall is only four feet tall. After driving his head into the ceiling several times in the middle of the night, Greg begged me to switch sides, which was fine by me because my side was by the door and our son was in his get up at 2 a.m. with leg cramps stage. Sorry, honey, you're closer.

Then Greg got his hip replaced and couldn't lay on his left side so we had to switch again. That lasted just over a year.

At the beginning of this past summer I had one of those female surgeries that plunge you into instant menopause, complete with hot flashes and night sweats. I happened to notice on chilly nights I slept better. And then I realized that, thanks to our crumbling foundation and prevalent north wind, the left side of the bed is always colder, so I made him trade me spots.

So here we are, back where we started. Who knows how long this will last. All I can say it, thank God we never had bunk beds.

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Now available for pre-order from Samhain Publishing!!

Ranch Math

*

Story problem:

You have two pastures with good shelter and water that doesn't freeze in the winter.

You have six horses. Two mares--Myla, who is approximately a hundred in horse years but can still kick an upstart gelding away from the hay pile, and Target, the fat Paint pony, who gets along with everything. Four geldings: Hollywood, Nico and Bailey, all of whom think they're studs and should be top dog in the herd, and Vegas, who is a total weenie and gets pushed around by the fat Paint pony.

Hollywood can't be turned in with the mares or he goes completely brain dead.

Bailey and Hollywood can be together, but only as long as there are no other horses in the pasture.

If Nico and Vegas are in the same pasture, Nico will run Vegas through the fence just for the fun of it.

Nico and Hollywood are sworn enemies.

Bailey, Vegas or Nico can be turned in with the mares, but no two at the same time.

Hollywood has to be in the pasture attached to the barn because you can't get a halter on him unless you lure him into a stall with a bucket of grain.

Divide the above horses into the two pastures. Please show your work.

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WARNING: Any person who suggests the mares are the problem gets a two week time-out to consider the error of their ways. My mares don't take no crap,


UPDATE: So I did the horse shuffle, splitting up Hollywood and Bailey so they didn't gang up on anyone. Nico, Hollywood and Vegas went in one pasture, figuring there was enough space that Hollywood and Nico won't kill each other and they'll be too busy fighting to pick on Vegas. Bailey was more than happy to go out with the mares. Everybody appeared to be safe, if not thrilled with the new arrangement. Until this morning, when we were doing chores and Bailey tried to come in the barn while we were bagging calf feed, and Max the Cowdog bit him on the nose and drew blood. 

*sigh* Horses and dogs. It's always something.  

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Scary Good Fun

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Today I saw something on Facebook that could possibly give me nightmares. No, not the abused puppy pictures. (Damn, why do people post those things without warning?) Anyway, what I saw was this (sorry, it wouldn't embed,you'll have to pop over to their page to watch it): 

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152194433561433&pnref=story

I have no idea what this event is even called, other than insane. In other words, it looks like a total blast, but only if they'd let me ride a real saddle. The scary part is while I watched this, I tried to picture myself doing it on the only trained jumping horse we've ever owned. And that, folks, was terrifying.

Her name was Betsy. She was a Roan Hancock mare, only fourteen hands tall (that's small, for you non-horse people) and had an attitude the size of King Kong. Some people we knew in southern Alberta had bought and trained her as a jumping horse for a junior competitor. She could clear five feet, but was too much for a kid to handle.

The one thing you could say about Betsy...she never bucked. She didn't need to. She could inflict all the damage she wanted before you ever got off the ground. You couldn't catch her, and if you tried to corner her she'd run you down. Once you did get a halter on her, she'd either drag you, step on you, or knock you cross-eyed with the side of her head. And to top it all off, she had a mouth like a rock, and wasn't above grabbing the bit between her teeth and taking off with or without you.

She was also, pound for pound, the best rope horse we've ever owned. She could fly and she had a killer stop. All you had to do was nod your head and rope. Betsy took care of the rest.

And because she was so athletic, we couldn't resist training her to run barrels.

May I say, I've done things that were more frightening than the time I ran Betsy in the big Choteau arena, but I'll have to think for a bit to remember any of them. Her finest moment, though, happened at a jackpot up in Alberta, with my sister Lola aboard.

The fence around the arena was woven wire topped by a wooden rail. I have no recollection what kind of run they made. They flew home from the third barrel and Lola pulled up at the scoreline. Instead of slowing and circling, Betsy ran straight up to the fence, planted and launched.

She would've cleared it, too, if she hadn't clipped that one hind leg on the top pole.

I can totally see Betsy in the competition in the video I posted. She would have either blown all their doors off, or it would have been a complete runaway with four or five laps at full speed around the arena and then she would've lawn-darted me into the water hazard. Either way, those people in the crowd would have remembered her.

I guarantee, none of the people who knew her will ever forget.

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Enjoy this story? Want more? Sign up for my newsletter and get a story in your inbox a couple times a month. Plus prizes and stuff if show even a vague interest in my upcoming book, The Long Ride Home, due out from Samhain Publishing on Feb 3, 2015. http://montanaforreal.blogspot.com/p/sign-up-for-tales-from-frozen-north.html

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Shifty Business

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I confess, I occasionally have a hard time finding reverse on our stick shifts, but in my defense:

Our Dodge Ram Pickup

The Chevy chore pickup

My parents' Dodge Ram pickup (shown in actual position)

The International grain truck

Seriously. Can't we all just come to some kind of agreement?

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On the Road Again

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There is this window of opportunity in June when calving, branding and trailing to the summer pastures is done and haying hasn't started, so all there is to do is the thousand and one 'fix-its', and everybody knows the minute you cross something off that list the cows will go tear something down to replace it. If you need to take a road trip, this is the time. So we did, to my husband's home country of Brown County, South Dakota, clear out in the northeast corner, approximately 900 miles from here at the ranch, most of which involves driving kitty corner across Montana.

But let's rewind a few months, to the reason for the road trip, not that seeing Greg's family isn't enough. Many moons ago Greg told his brother to keep an eye out for a cheap grain truck in good condition. A couple of months back, we got an email with a picture and a message from David saying, "If you still want a truck, you should take a look at this one."

Greg did, and burst out laughing. Turns out, the truck in the picture was purchased brand new by his dad back in the 70's and auctioned off when he gave up farming due to health issues. Now the guy who bought it had it up for sale, and yes, cheap. You can bet Greg jumped all over that, because it is a good truck, in good condition, and it's a great memento of his dad who we lost over a decade ago.

We've been dithering about when to make the trip. Had to wait until school got out, then things kept popping up, finally last week we decided we just had to do it. Climb in the pickup and go. This decision was in no way influenced by the email from my sister-in-law about how they just bought a new pontoon and planned to spend the July 4th holiday cruising on the lake. Really. Just ask her how long it took me to write back and ask if they had room for three more on the boat.

Thanks to prolific rain in the past two weeks, the drive was gorgeous. Even the badlands in North Dakota were green, verging on lush. Almost made a person want to move to eastern Montana. A very large 'almost'. Negated immediately upon exiting our vehicle and being sucked dry by mosquitoes. My child looks as if he's had a recent case of chicken pox. Our wind here might not be pleasant, but it sure does keep the bloodsuckers at bay.

So instead of a dusty rodeo or a drive to Glacier National Park, our July 4th looked like this:

And a lot of this, which was when we realized our poor, underprivileged nine year old had never seen a professional fireworks display. Luckily, he got good pictures. 

And then the temperature hit ninety with an equal measure of humidity, so we loaded up the grain truck on the flatbed trailer with only four feet hanging off the back and began the trek home with a questionable clutch, but spare parts along just in case. I'd show you a picture of that, too, but for some reason the blog doesn't feel like loading it. Suffice to say, there were a lot of wide-eyed oncoming drivers on those narrow, eastern Montana roads. At least when I was at the wheel. 

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Still Kickin'

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Yeah, it's been a while. Life sort of gang tackled us in the past month, the way life will do on a ranch. We've had cows to artificially inseminate and bulls to fertility test, and consider yourself lucky that I'm not sharing details or photos of either. Then there's branding and trailing to pastures and pondering which bulls should go with which bunch of cows, and oh, yeah, how 'bout all those fences the drifting snow knocked flat?

And somewhere in there, we do a little farming. And oh, right, on top of all of that? I'm in the process of training my replacement at my town job, which is requiring me to all of the sudden stop and explain all those million and one things you normally do at work without really thinking, and let me tell you, that much thinking pains me considerably. Not to mention the part about having to talk to people all day, when I'm used to just hiding back in my little billing office, safely away from the public eye.

Times like this, you sort of wish you didn't live in the place where it stays daylight until 9:30 pm, cuz that working 'til dark can damn near kill a person. Notice I didn't mention anything about starting at daylight. Morning people we are not, and if a person's gonna be self employed, they oughta at least get to choose what time they go to work in the morning.


In the meantime, though, my newspaper column does go on, so I do have a story to share. Here's one about our branding crew:

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Just Don't Shoot the Banjo Player

Over time, we have accumulated a rather motley collection of acquaintances and relatives, as one does. Our collection is a touch more diverse, due to our family's propensity for rodeoing and dragging home strays from all over the country. Plus the younger generations have moved around a lot and married people from 'away'. Plus I've become involved with writing and an arts festival that brought me into contact with performers from here and there. Plus there's this exchange program that brings young people from countries like England, Sweden, Norway and Australia to work for six months at a time on local ranches.

All of that is to explain how we ended up with all of this descending upon us for Memorial Day weekend:

First off, let it be clear that there is no holiday involved. We will be branding calves, the main herd on Saturday and a smaller bunch on Sunday. This requires gathering up a crew, which consists of friends, neighbors and family, whom one might rightly expect would be a solid cross section of native Montana ranch stock.

Yeah. Not so much.

First there's my husband, the pride of Bath, South Dakota. My cousin to the east will bring her husband, who is a former Highway Patrol officer and native of Long Island, New York. My cousin to the west will bring along his wife Charlotta, who is a native Swede but speaks four other languages. They'll also bring their current exchange worker Mitchell, who hails from New South Wales, Australia and speaks something none of us can understand unless enunciated slowly. He sports shoulder to wrist tattoos and sleeveless muscle shirts to show them off, which is fine by me because the tattoos are beautifully done--and so are the muscles.

So much for the locals. Next we have my sister and her two kids, who planned to pop over from Spokane for the weekend, except it got a little more complicated because my brother is currently deployed at what I swear he told me was a place called Skank in Afghanistan, and his wife was depressed about being home alone for the long weekend, so she's loading up her four boys and driving over from Tacoma to meet my sister and come to the ranch. Did I mention my sister in law is a native of the Dominican Republic, and Spanish is her first language?

Into that mix toss a bluegrass banjo player from the Flathead Valley who comes around two or three times a summer to practice his target shooting while helping to rid us of our constant infestation of gophers. Yep, we have the makin's of quite a crew. Or a backwoods version of the United Nations, except with varmint guns.

I starting counting heads and beds and meals and said, "I'd better make a run to the grocery store."

My husband started calculating how many shooters he was going to have on hand and said, "I'm gonna need more ammunition."

And then he looked at me and spoke the immortal words of redneck party planners everywhere: "You get the beer, honey, I'll get the bullets."

It'll all be good as long as nobody shoots the banjo player while he strums the theme from Deliverance in the background.

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An Ear-ful and an Eye-ful

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We got a couple sets of the real, store-bought ear protectors. It might be less humiliating to have stubby, frozen ears.

You gotta wonder what that cow is thinking when she's looking at this. 

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Farm Hogs

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My brother in law belongs to a motorcycle gang. Harleys, black leather, the works. Except his gang is made up exclusively of middle-aged South Dakota farmers, so I don't think you need to alert law enforcement when you see them rolling into town. If this bunch of renegades had a logo, it would be an ear of corn.

Instead of choppers, these guys have touring bikes, the motorcycle equivalent of a 1972 Buick four door. Wide body, sound system, GPS, cushy back rest on the rear seat for the wife. More trunk space than my grandmother's attic. Tip one of these puppies over, you've gotta call a tow truck to get it upright again.

When they all decided to haul their bikes to Florida for an extended vacation, their biker friend Tim figured no problem. He'd just toss it in the bed of the pickup. He backed up to a dirt embankment, plunked down a twelve inch plank to bridge the gap between there and the tailgate like he'd always done with his snowmobile, and eased the bike onto the ramp.

A little too easy.

Halfway across, it stalled. And that's when he discovered the critical difference between a snowmobile and a motorcycle. When stopped, a snowmobile doesn't tip over. Therefore, he'd never noticed that on a foot wide plank suspended in the air, there's no place to put your feet down to catch your balance.

A thousand pounds of motorcycle began to teeter, and Tim had no choice but to save himself. He dove one direction, the bike went the other. Crash! And that was just Tim. You should've seen the bike.  

Luckily, the damage was mostly cosmetic (to the bike, not Tim, who was both bruised and mortally embarrassed because of course his wife told everybody). He was able to get his pride and the Harley repaired in time for their big trip, but he still had to load it in the pickup. Definitely not trying the ramp again. Being a farmer with no livestock, he didn't have a big loader like the ones his rancher buddies used to feed hay to their cows, but he did have a nice utility tractor that should do the trick.

He built a sling for the bike, hooked it onto the tractor bucket, and lifted…the rear end of the tractor right off the ground. Whoops. Obviously, counterweights were needed. He chained a couple of old chunks of broken concrete to the three point hitch on the back of the tractor and gave it another go. This time the bike came off the ground, but as he started toward the pickup the motorcycle began to sway on its tether, and the concrete blocks weren't quite enough to offset its weight. Every time it rocked forward the tractor bobbed, the bucket dipping a little farther with each swing, sway-dip-sway-dip, until Tim was dribbling the motorcycle across the yard like a very expensive basketball while his wife debated whether to speed dial their insurance agent, an ambulance, or one of those funniest home video shows.

Somehow, he finessed tractor and bike into position. When we saw him, he was en route to Florida with the Harley securely strapped in his pickup bed and a vague sort of plan for how he was going to get it out again once he arrived at his destination. My husband suggested he might consider buying a motorcycle trailer. A nice low one, with a built in loading ramp.

Tim snorted in derision. "Tow a trailer all way to Florida, through those cities? That would be a pain in the butt."

As opposed to the obvious efficiency of his current method. Then again, if he liked to do things the easy way he would've quit farming years ago. 

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Don't Step in the Afterbirth....

...and other ranch wisdom:



That's our indoor arena, in case you wondered. You can see the roping boxes when I get down to the far end. And yes, if the temperature is more than about fifteen degrees, give or take the wind chill, it does get too warm in there too keep the door shut. More precisely, it gets steamy and damp, which is the ideal breeding ground for bacteria, which leads to things like pneumonia.

And if you just can't get enough, here's my first attempt at videoing the two A.M. cow check. The one where there were actually new babies, but the iPad ran out of memory halfway through:



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Location, Location....

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They say location is everything in real estate, so we kept that firmly in mind when we bought a house last year. As in, it's located in town, instead of way out in the sticks like our ranch, which will come in handy now that our son is getting old enough to be involved in after school activities. It's actually an apartment building, and we reserved the smallest unit for our infrequent stays, when either the weather or our schedule demands. 

We call it the Townhouse. Original, right? It is four blocks from my office, three blocks from my son's school, and in the past month I've gotten lost twice driving there from work. What can I say? It's a gift.

Last Sunday evening I had a meeting in town. As usual, we dawdled around until the last minute, then threw stuff in a suitcase and dashed out the door. I couldn't find my cell phone, so I grabbed my husband's. We arrived at the Townhouse with a school backpack for the kid but no lunchbox, three pairs of socks but no clean jeans. Like I said, as usual.

Ordering pizza seemed like the simplest way to deal with dinner. One quick phone call. Easy peasy.
Except right off the bat, the girl asked, "What's your phone number?"

Uh…good question. I don't dial my husband's cell phone number, just click his name in my contacts list. I stammered, stuttered, and said, "I think it's…"

"Oh—kay," the girl said. "Will that be delivery, or carry-out?"

Wait. Delivery? I hadn't thought of that. It was three degrees outside, so I said, "Delivery. Definitely."

"What's the address?" she asked.

I rattled off a street number and name.

"Um…." She poked at computer keys. "Are you sure? According to my system, that street doesn't exist."

"It's right up the hill from the high school," I insisted.

"On the south side of town, then."

"Yes. Oh. Sorry. I said north, didn't I? I meant south."

There was a quiet sigh, the sound of a woman thinking, Why do I always get the morons? "Got it," she said. "Apartment number?"

"Uh…" Huh. The back door we habitually use doesn't have a number, and I've never bothered to notice which apartment was which. "The one on the bottom," I said. "At the back."

Another sigh, but she clicked more keys and said the delivery person should be there in forty minutes.

Thirty-eight minutes later, it occurred to me I'd failed to specify the street was south east, and I'd given them a faulty phone number so if the driver was wandering aimlessly around town, she wouldn't be able to ring me and ask for guidance.

I called the restaurant again. "Hello? This is the person who ordered a large Canadian bacon delivered…"

"Oh." You, her tone implied.

"I may have given you the wrong address," I said. "And phone number."

"Yeah. We noticed."

I hastily gave her the correct information, then hung up and went out front to meet the delivery driver at the curb since I still didn't know the apartment number. She pulled up and warily got out of the car, as if she feared she was dealing with someone who might have a tenuous grasp on reality.

"I was here before. They told me nobody lives in the bottom rear apartment." She clutched the pizza to her chest and darted a glance at the house, her expression suggesting that it had occurred to her I might just be a hungry burglar.

"Well, we don't. I mean, not really. Just sometimes, when the weather is bad…" Uh, not helping. I gave up, pried the pizza out of her hands and said, "Never mind. What do I owe you?"

I tipped her extra to offset the possibility that she would dial 911 as soon as she got in her car. And next time, I'll just pick up the stupid pizza. It'll be a lot less stressful for everyone.

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