Well, folks, It's been kind of quiet around here the past month or
so, what with Christmas and all. And speakin' of Christmas. I think
we need to send out a missin' persons report on Santa Claus. I've
been a good boy all year. I sent him three letters telling him what
I wanted. I woke up Christmas morning expecting to see my Buford,
and what did I got? Not even a hoof print. By the way a Buford is
the world's best mechanical ropin' practice machine...the one and
only! And, I was sure he was going to bring it because us chubby guys
have to stick together.
On top of bein' ignored by Santa, I was sick with pneumonia right
through Christmas. I was layin' there dyin' and the Barn Goddess would
come bouncin' in like a darn pinball and ask me if I wanted her to
take me to the doctor. All I could do was lie there and she'd say,
"let me know," and bounce on out. My best friend Mark, another
lazy horse shoer, only wanted to know if he could have my truck and
my saddle. Janice wouldn't let him have my horse, Jack. I survived
though. My luck isn't that good.
Boss Lady bought a nice double wide for me and my Barn Goddess. We've
been gettin' everything ready for its arrival, so I marked off a hole
for Mike Gay, our Road Apple Engineer, to dig for the foundation.
He's the guy that keeps our pens pretty and does other stuff for the
Barn Goddess. He got a might enthusiastic with the back hoe. I said,
"Just go down 2 ft." Well, when I want out there, and stood
in the bottom, I could barely see over the side. Now, I'm not a real
tall guy, bein' Irish and all, but I'm definitely taller than 2 feet.
He's busy fillin' it back up right now.
We've been havin' problems with our chickens flyin' out of the pen
and the ravens flyin' in and eatin' the eggs and even tryin' to get
their claws on the chickens. On New Years Day, the Barn Goddess, Boss
Lady and I made a new chicken coop. Then we chased down the unruly
hens, and the rooster. That was a sight, I can tell you, and Boss
Lady clipped their wings. We made a little, tiny, chicken-sized door
in the hen house so they could run in and escape the ravens. Well,
believe it or not, those darn ravens just flew in the top of the door
and grabbed the eggs. On top of that, last week, Vic, one of our Wrangler/Ranch
Hands, went out to get some eggs and yelled that our two black goats
were gone. Those fat little rascals had squeezed their bodies through
that little hen hole and were inside busy eatin' all the chicken feed.
We made the hole smaller and put chicken wire over the top of the
door. So far we must have foiled both the ravens and the goats. We're
gettin' about 6-7 fresh eggs a day.
We bought a new horse for our string. He's a big, stout palomino quarter
horse gelding. That's a man horse that's not quite a man anymore.
I always say they're the best horses to have ‘cause they wake
up on the same world every morning. I rode him and he did real fine
in a bosal. That's just a hoop of woven rawhide that you put over
the horse's nose with horsehair reins. It's real gentle. I wanted
to give him
every chance in the world to blow on me. I even
tried to pick a fight with him, and he wouldn't come out of his corner.
I put my buckin' saddle on just to make sure that, if he did, he couldn't
get the best of me. You never can tell with a strange horse. I've
gotten kind of careful lately. Just a few years ago I was young, fit,
and immortal, but now I'm old, fat and fragile. I used to see a horse
buckin' and I'd get an itchin' in my back pockets. Now I call the
Barn Goddess and have her put him in the round pen and chase him around.
This new horse's registered name is Mr.
Golden Dust. Boss Lady says he's gorgeous and the Barn Goddess likes
him. Darwin (our Head Wrangler) and I say, wait a few weeks, you never
can tell with horses. You can see a picture of him in the Meet our
Horses section. We're mighty glad Tammy decided to sell him to us.
Our Party Wrangler, Samantha, got over her lazy streak and we've had
some interestin' parties, weddings, and trail rides. Kyoshi from Japan
came out and spent two nights with us. It was mighty cold and we tried
to talk him into sleeping in the heated covered wagon, but no deal.
He wanted the real experience! He wrangled trail rides and camped
out and
chased cattle and ate out of the chuck wagon.
The most fun was watching him and our friend who lives in Italy
and hardly speaks English anymore, talkin' to each other while they
chased cattle around in the arena. They fit in real fine around
here. Most of us destroy the Queens English. Darwin, who bein' a
cowboy doesn't talk much, spent 2 nights on the range with him.
I'm bettin' those were pretty quiet nights.
The Heartland magazine story about us that Jo wrote came out about
a week ago. Carroll, our Reservations Wrangler, has been swimmin'
in phone calls from all over. Looks like there are lots of folks
out there who want to "play cowboy for real." They tell
us the circulation is 1.7 million folks. Wow! I hope they don't
all want to come out. I feel a lazy streak comin' on. (Don't tell
Boss Lady.)
We've had two more calves born since my last Ramblin'. They both
were mighty considerate and got themselves born during the day so
some guests got to watch. I can't figure it out, but they really
liked it (the guests, not the calves). Said it was worth the whole
trip. Thank god we didn't have to get the "come along"
and pull those calves out. That would have been another story.
So that's it. Looks like I survived writin' another Ramblin'. Maybe
Boss Lady will come to her senses pretty soon and let me stop. It
goes against my nature.
Sincerely,
Mike O'Neil, General Manager
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