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It has occurred to me that we humans seem very attached to catch phrases, something short, snappy and easily repeatable. I remember when the Tyson fire happened last August, one news article called it a “black swan” and pretty soon, everyone was calling it a black swan which, personally, I think is too suave a name for something that shook up the beef industry so much. Better to call it a “black buzzard” or something equally unsavory.

The cow went down in the pasture.
I took it as a sign.
Like lightning striking my saddle
horn or guppies in the wine.

I had a free weekend, and I’d worked it out so I could help my dad move cows from one unit of the forest allotment to another.  My folks had just bought the ranch in southern Idaho’s Oakley Valley a year or two earlier while I was in college, and it would be several years before I would make that same ranch my permanent home.

Leaving a legacy.

I’ve been pondering this statement lately. I’m in my 40s, and my children are beginning to leave the nest. When our oldest left for college last fall, my husband and I started reminiscing about our lives at that age.

Yet again, the country is worshipping the golden calf that rules our wealth: the stock market. Forgive me if I try and exit from the back pew.

Those TV shows about vets make it look easy. Doc gets a call about a calf that needs to be pulled, and he or she speeds over to the farm in a jiffy. There, things are set up nicely for a few quick turns inside the cow, and the calf comes out nicely.

It doesn’t work like that in real life.