On the road again.

Heading back to Oatmeal ranch for some wide open spaces while I do my pre-reading for grad school. Here is the checklist for the trip:

Get puppies vaccinated for rattlesnake bites. Check.
Plot out reading assignment on calendar, leaving enough time to do some fun shopping in the hill country. Check.
Print out map of nearest vet and hospital to Oatmeal. Check.
Pack up latest additions to ranch decor. Check.
Load Mom's Kindle with plenty of juicy mysteries. Check.
Purchase rattlesnake repellent, rubber boots, and Great Stuff to fill in any holes where mice (aka snake snacks)might get into ranch house. Check.
Secure puppy car seats. Check.
Ask neighbor to get mail, newspaper and feed cat. Check.

Still to do:

Pack for myself, and the dogs. Mom still needs to pack,too.
Bake a blackberry pie to take with.
Finish up the mixed media longhorn collage to take with.
Bathe dogs.
Give Freddie his doggie Dramamine 30 minutes before we leave.


Yes, we did see a rattlesnake about a mile from the ranch house last week, and yes, I am intent on keeping them away from my mom, my dogs and myself. We don't have the wagon master to wake us at 5:00 a.m. Tomorrow, but I'm confident we can wake up in plenty of time to be at the ranch by noon. Cell service is sketchy, so posts may be infrequent, but I will make every effort to keep up with the snake report.

Vacations

As our Panhandle vacation came to a close, I was actually thinking about another vacation. Whenever relatives of a certain age get together, the conversation usually comes around to death and funeral plans. Not in a morbid way, very matter of fact. My granny used to say "When I take my vacation with Jesus, y'all will have a time going through all my junk, so if you see something you want, take it now.", or "I have a list of what I want done when I take my vacation with Jesus."

I hated to hear her talk about it. I love Jesus and all, but I knew if Granny went on vacation with him, she wasn't coming back. But Granny, a woman of great faith, looked forward to that day, and so, when she did take her vacation, we followed her plan, even singing a hymn about taking a vacation with Jesus.

My mom knows that I don't like to talk about this stuff. I am a realist, and I know that one day we will all take our vacations, and Mom and I have discussed the important details, but we choose to live in the present as much as possible. We don't visit lost loved ones at cemeteries, because we believe that the part of those folks we loved and treasured doesn't live there.For some folks, though, a trip to the cemetery is an act of respect, and I get that.

But back to the most recent conversation with the wagon master and the peacock hunter. We passed a lot of cemeteries, both coming and going, and around Madisonville, cousin Judy remembered driving Granny to a cemetery where her first husband (the father of the wagon master and the peacock hunter) was buried, along with a child that Granny lost. Granny married my grandfather, my mom's dad, not long after her first husband was killed in a work accident.

The conversation then turned to cemetery plots, and where who was going to be buried. After a long pause, the peacock hunter asked me what an aura is. I gave the best explanation I could, and of course, asked why she wanted to know.

"Well," said she, "I think I read somewhere that your aura stays with your body for three days after you die. I want to be cremated, but I don't want them to burn up my aura."

We'll add that information to her "vacation plans". The wagon master wants to know where it says anything about auras in the bible, because if it doesn't say anything he doesn't believe it. I promised to research this and get back to him.

I'll let you know what I find out.

Great things and not so great things.

Great thing. The Panhandle Plains Historical Museum. Wow! I will admit that I wasn't expecting much. Boy was I wrong. Really well curated, unbelievable breadth of exhibits. The wagon master's favorite was the bison-skinning video and accompanying wax figures of a Native American and his bison. The peacock hunter loved a beautiful painting of a violin in one of the three art galleries. I loved the textiles exhibition, and a Georgia O'Keefe painting inspired by the colors of Palo Duro Canyon. Mom loved the early 60's Mustang driver's seat and dashboard, complete with a radio. You could push the buttons and music from the era would play. I think I heard her singing "Sugar Shack" from across the museum. Judy liked the textiles, too, but her favorite part of the visit was the oil well drill bit exhibition. The bits were enclosed in plexiglas. Next to the first bit was a sign that read "push to activate." It didn't say how long you should hold it, so Judy pushed it - for a really, really long time. Not so great thing. The bit went up and dropped into a stone base making a booming sound. Over and over and over and over. Being the mature middle aged women we are, we didn't bother any of the octogenarian museum guards. WE RAN AWAY!


Great thing. The hamburgers and fries at the Trading Post inside Palo Duro Canyon State Park. Grilled while you wait, buns toasted, fries from scratch. So tasty!

Great thing. The hour long jeep tour of the canyon. Mom, Judy, the wagon master and I booked a tour through Elkins Ranch. We hopped in a jeep named Jonathan, along with our tour guide, Lee. Lee knew so much about the geology of the canyon and the history of the area. The jeep ride was just the right amount of bumpy to make it exciting, but not scary. Pictures will come once I'm using my laptop rather than iPad to post. Near the end of the tour, Lee asked us to hold on while she gunned it to make it up a steep incline. Not so great thing - the engine died. Lee tried to restart, but she flooded the engine. We hopped out of the jeep and waited under the shade of a tiny juniper bush while Lee walked back to headquarters, drove back in a suburban, restarted the jeep, moved to the bottom of the hill, walked back up the hill, hopped into the suburban, and drove us back to the parking lot. Lee was a trooper. I told her about the pioneer women. She really is one.

Great thing. Steak dinner from the Big Texan, followed by a great show - Texas. With the backdrop of the canyon, pyrotechnics, great voices, music, dancing. Not so great thing -we didn't get to bed until after midnight, which would be fine, except that the wagon master set an alarm for 5 a.m.

So, tired and grumpy we begin our trip home. Stop in Flower Mound, then home tomorrow.

Freezers, Grief, Singing and Thai Food.

Well, the wagon master let his nieces take the reins today. Judy took the first leg while I took notes on my iPad. Not sure how we got on the subject, but we were talking about foods you can freeze. The wagon master has three big freezers in his garage in Port O'Connor. He has lots of stuff in his freezers -venison, gallon bags of fish, ice cream, buttermilk, peas from his garden, the hind quarter of a wild hog, peanut brittle, cookies, stew, and cakes. Lots of cakes.

His wife, my Aunt Berniece, passed away almost a year ago. It has been quite an adjustment for him, as they did absolutely everything together. When he starts to feel blue, the wagon master bakes. The overfilled contents of his freezers are a testament to his love for his wife. It seems everyone in Port O' Connor knows about the freezers. Last week,someone from his bank called to see if he had an extra cake they could buy. A customer had passed away, and they wanted to take a cake to the family. The wagon master said that the cake would be his gift. Cool how baking the cake gave him comfort, and receiving the cake would comfort someone else.

I took my turn at the reins after a few hours. I had conveniently misplaced the Roy Clark cd, so the wagon master, the peacock hunter and Mom sang old gospel songs. Mom and the wagon master sang one song while the peacock hunter sang another. At the same time. After miles and miles and miles of nothing but wind farms and oil rigs (shout out to my friends who went to Tech) we arrived in Canyon, Texas.

We made our plans for tomorrow - breakfast, then be at the Panhandle museum at 9:00. Jeep tour of the canyon in the afternoon, steak dinner and show in the canyon.

Our next decision was dinner. The peacock hunter had her heart set on Thai Spice. After selling it really hard, she got the wagon master to agree, though he pronounced it "thigh"' not Thai. We pulled up to what was clearly an old KFC, walked in the front door, and were greeted by the hostess. The peacock hunter immediately turned on her heels and said, "we gotta go. Somethin' don't smell right.

Much to the joy of the wagon master (and everybody else), we ended up at a great place called Feldman's for some American food.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow's a big day!

Wagons, ho!

Well, the wagon master picked us up this morning and we set off on the first leg of our journey - to pick Judy up in Round Rock, then head on to The ranch in Oatmeal to camp for the night. Here are a few things I learned on the first part of the journey:

Apparently, 10:30 is not too early for beer, per the peacock hunter. (see yesterday's entry)

My mom's Uncle Willie, the Methodist preacher, lived in Chappell Hill with his wife. He was "just the sweetest thing, but that wife of his-she had a big, purple mole on the side of her face and she was mean, maybe even a witch."

The wagon master has started writing his memoirs - just a list of everything he can remember from the time he was born. He's got some good stuff! He told us a few stories while driving. Whenever he gestured with his right hand, for emphasis, our wagon would veer to the right.Good thing we weren't going over the speed limit.

He is also a great baker. He made chocolate pudding cookies, oatmeal cookies and peanut brittle for the trip. YUM!

In case you were wondering, you can never listen to Roy Clark's Greatest Hits too many times. We listened to it twice between Houston and Round Rock and had time for a third listen to the first few songs between Round Rock and Oatmeal. The peacock hunter met Mr. Clark when she owned a hunting lodge, and he gifted her with his cd's.

I also learned what a ring-tailed cat looks like. Judy and I scared the scat out of the cat when we opened up the barn at the ranch. Truth told, he scared me a bit, too.

Just before we turned in, we sat outside and listened to nature's symphony. Cicadas, birds, some other unidentifiable wildlife. Glorious!

Time to turn in. The wagon master has called for an early departure. So, though we won't make Amarillo by morning :), we should make Canyon by afternoon.

Pioneer Women

In a couple of days, Mom (75) and I will be hitting the trail with Uncle Doyle (83), Aunt Frances (86) and Cousin Judy. We are going to Palo Duro Canyon State Park. The pioneer women and the wagon master will have a sleepover in Oatmeal, Texas, then journey onward to just south of Amarillo to view the majesty, see a musical extravaganza about Texas, and make some memories. I have a strong feeling that this trip will be ripe with blogging opportunities.

In order for the reader to fully appreciate what is to come, we need to add a little info to those schema folders. Pull out the folder on pioneer women. I mentioned the other day that Mom and I considered ourselves pioneer women. What I meant was that whether by necessity, by choice, or by heredity, most of the women in our family "do for themselves." Take Frances, for example. There are many good Frances stories, but I'll choose two.

Frances used to have quite a bit of property in Wharton, Texas. She ran a hunting lodge/bed and breakfast, and also owned a hair salon on the same property where she lived. To add to the atmosphere, Frances kept peacocks on the property. Annoying little buggers - what with that horrid call - but pretty. One of the males was Frances favorite. Until the day he turned on her and flew at her head. Did she call for help? No. Did she try to cage the bird and send him on his way? No. In her words - "I got my shotgun and killed the *@#$^." Pioneer woman!

Another time, she wanted to kill a water plant that was overtaking the creek on her property. She did call for help, but help wasn't available on her time schedule, so she strapped on a tank of herbicide and got down into the creek and "killed those *@#$^s." She did lose her footing and fall, but she righted herself and came out the victor. Pioneer woman!

Mom doesn't pack heat, but she is handy with wasp killer, gardening shears, and hoes, and attitude! She once stared down a big, agitated, black dog while simultaneously tossing one of our dogs in the air and catching him to keep him out of harm's way. Pioneer woman!

My mom was a working mom, when mom's didn't work. It didn't stop her from spending hours making my costumes and uniforms, helping with homework, semi-single parenting (Dad travelled often for work.) and being ever present in the lives of me and my brother. Pioneer woman!

My cousin, Judy is a modern day Annie Oakley. She should have her own show on HGTV. Her toolbox and know-how are the envy of many. She is a baby whisperer, called on by family and friends for her expertise, and she once took a vacation to Cowgirl Camp. Pioneer woman!

I am the navigator. I have an uncanny sense of direction, and a need to take the wheel. I am a problem solver, an organizer, a cook, a nurse, and a comedian. Not sure I've done enough to earn my pioneer woman badge, but I'm on my way.

Please pray for the wagon master. He is going to have his hands full with the pioneer women.

Good neighbors.

Yesterday was good neighbor day on my street. At 8 a.m., there was a knock on our front door. Our neighbor, Kenneth, was responding to my plea for help in putting together my shiny new bicycle. Mom and I are what I like to call pioneer women, meaning we really do try to do things for ourselves, but putting the bike together was out of my realm. Even with my glasses, the print on the instructions was too tiny. So, enter Kenneth. He didn't need the instructions. He put the thing together in record time, took it to his house to tighten things up with his metric tools (what?), and used his uber digital tire pressure checker and electric air pump to make sure the tires were properly inflated.

When he was satisfied that the seat and handle bars were in just the right place, and after he had me take a test drive, he got his own bike out and we rode up and down the street. Kenneth and his wife, Frances, have been lived next door for more than 30 years. They are salt of the earth, do anything for you, good neighbors.

While I was riding, our neighbor, Oscar, came out for his morning walk. As I pedalled by, he shouted, "That's the way to do it girl!"

I am still a girl to Oscar. He and his wife, Lily, have been our neighbors for more than 40 years. Later in the day, Mom would go over and help jump start one of their cars.

Our neighbor Mel came out, on his way to work. He reminded us that whoever was home when the trash man came needed to put all the cans up. Burglars have been determining whose homes are prime for picking by whether or not the trash cans have been put away. Mel has been our neighbor for more than 20 years. He and his room mate, Johnny, dogsit for us from time to time.

Good people, good neighbors! It is not lost on me that I benefit from of all of this kindness due, in no small part, to the fact that my mom is a good neighbor. She has cultivated these relationships over the years. She extends herself to these people, providing a listening ear, a shoulder, a ladder, a cup of sugar - whatever is needed.

Thank you, Mom!