Last week flew by, just like any other. It got really cold there for a few days, and it was hard on Ryan and his concrete pouring program. I made some hot beef soup one evening so that everyone could warm up, especially Ryan who had been working in the chill autumn air (he hates fall and winter.) I had it in my head, that everyone, including Mo had enjoyed their soup. Little did I know that Mo had stuffed all of his meat into the milk jug while no one was looking. I noticed him on the table as I was clearing up, but didn't give it a whole lot of thought until Ryan poured chunks of meat on his peaches and cream the next morning. Ryan just shrugged it off, scooped out the meat, and enjoyed his peaches and cream. However, no one else could finish theirs. Boo to your idea to add meat to the milk Mo! I hope this isn't an activity that you plan on repeating.
Ryan insisted that I cook beef tongue this week. It didn't go well at all. Carol mentioned that I needed to pressure cook it for a long time. Well, there must have been something wrong with my pressure cooker because it ran out of water way too soon, and scorched the heck out of the tongue. Yucky. My whole house smelled like burnt tongue for days. Needless to say, that it was not a hit at all. I am with him on cooking and saving the beef heart, I consider the tongue and the liver coyote bait. They are having coyote troubles at the ranch again this year. Coyotes love melon...who knew? The problem is, the melons aren't quite ripe (well, a lot of them aren't) and the coyotes will claw and scratch through melon after melon until they find a sweet one. They are ruining tons of melons. Who wants a melon with bite marks and claws up the side? I noticed that Arden had killed one today because he had posted it on facebook. Wams enjoyed running coyote traps for them last year...we might have to send her down.
We had a surprise visit from Dave this week, and my kids just love him. It was fun visiting with him. Mo loved playing with his dog Rosie. Thankfully, Rosie is used to being around little kids and she seemed indifferent to his antics.
Cliven wanted us to come to the ranch for the weekend which meant that we had to drag the trailer down for the winter. We had cleaned it out good, and Ryan's employees fixed the water leaks in it. I love, love, love the ranch this time of year. I love the clean and fresh smell of the river, and the melon smells coming out of the bins. Plus, it was Conference and that is something that always gets me way happy. I love conference weekend. It always makes me want to do better, and be nicer. Love it. Anyhow, the trailer is great, but we are pretty squished at night time in it. There are literally kids sprawled out everywhere at night. The ranch always wears everyone out too. It reminds me that I have life pretty easy. As I walked down the ditch bank, I noticed that Arden and Clance had tied up all of the dogs. The first one had his ear sliced open and sagging, and the second one was missing part of his paw. Life on the ranch is work, and tough work. There is so much to be done, and never enough time and resources to get finished. I hope that we help out to some small degree, but I know that we get to enjoy the good parts of it, and leave Cliven and Carol with all of the struggles. Life is tough no matter where you go, but we always go home with a few battle wounds. Jazz got scraped up good when her Dad backed over a melon cart, and Mo got stung by a wasp on the face. His little face is still puffy today. Anyhow, the Bundy's are tough, and that is why. I am grateful that my husband was raised there. Anyhow, back to sleeping arrangements. Mo ended up in our bed, which is pretty small compared to what we are used to. I kept having dreams of being choked, or not getting enough air. I woke up with Mo's legs sprawled across my neck. Not a pleasant arrangement. I might have Ryan strap him to the roof next time.
We got word, while we were down there, that the Casablanca had some cows get on the golf course. Unfortunately this happens quite frequently. Ryan took Arden, Jams, and Sags and I to go and deal with the problem. We also took one of his better cow dogs with us. It was kinda comical to be driving around the golf course in Cliven's Dodge while everyone else toodled around in their golf carts. Ryan and Arden could see by some fresh tracks, that we were looking for a large bull. Arden mentioned that it was probably "big dummy." I found this extremely amusing and wanted to hear all about "Big Dummy." Apparently Big Dummy is a big, black bull who prefers the golf course. Although, the ranch has a lot of mean bulls, Big Dummy is pretty docile. According to Arden, he hides out in the brush when he is being trailed, and no matter who, or what chases him out, he ends up back on the golf course. Arden claims that they even picked him up once, drove him all the way out to Lake Mead, and then left him. Well, it wasn't very long before he was back on the golf course. I don't think that Big Dummy is very dumb at all. He is actually quite smart. I laughed and laughed about big dummy. Anyhow, Arden, the dog, and the girls wandered through the brush seeking out Big Dummy but he was never found. Ryan and I stood ready to chase him out of the gate, but he must have been hiding too good. I guess Arden will have to find Big Dummy another day. I must admit that I wanted to find him all big and dumb and hiding in the brush. Too bad. I can only imagine that the golfers don't appreciate Big Dummy grazing on the greens and bushes. It definitely isn't something that they expect to see.
We ended up visiting Grandma Great (Grapes) for awhile. I was trying to keep Mo away from all of her breakable trinkets. I sat on her porch and watched him run around her yard as I listened to conference. I must admit that I saw that he had gotten into her outdoor spigot that happened to be dripping. He seemed really happy to be playing with the dripping water, and so I just let lazily let him play. I found out all too soon that he had found a mud bog under the spigot. This mud had an odd balloon/rubber glove smell to it. Everywhere we took Mo the rest of the day was unpleasant. He smelled of balloons, and this was after we cleaned him up at Grandma's. He reeked of balloons and had a weird eye thanks to his hornet sting. It was good to get him home and clean him up. The rest of the kids had a ball playing on the hay baler, and chasing chickens. Oak mentioned that he had a chat with the chickens and let them know that we eat their eggs. He mentioned that this upset the chickens so much that they ran off looking for their eggs. Jerusha caught a pet frog that she played with for awhile, and they all (Jazz, Rooshkie, and Oak) eagerly stood by the fence waiting for melon customers. Stetsy shared her latest hair techniques, and we went to a gun show. We had some trouble with Chlo, who kept getting her feelings hurt over dumb stuff, but the kids enjoyed getting out and playing hard. A great weekend, had by all.
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