SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER

Spring

by Larry Gabriel

On the ranch, it is calving time. The early morning ride to check the cattle is the best part of each day, best because all the world is soaked in peace and life.

As my horse (Blackberry) and I leave the yard, I can hear the Canada geese calling to each other. They are offspring of geese planted years before. They have many places to nest undisturbed on the prairie where no one expects to find them.

The wild turkeys seem to be jabbering at each other about what they will do today. I hear them too above the constant chatter of smaller birds and the songs of robins and meadowlarks.

During that first hour of light, the wind is calm and the first warmth of sun mellows the morning crispness of the air. Later the wind will come up. By afternoon it may be howling, but for now even the wind is at peace with the earth.

Blackberry notices the cottontail rabbits darting around at the sound of her hooves. She pays them no mind, unless they take her by surprise.

My mind just sits there drinking from the fountain of early morning. Thoughts of office, and phones and politics and problems are not to be found. They are not even distant. They don't exist.

An Indian man once told me that his father believed that God is closer to the earth in the early morning. When he lay dying, his only request was to die in the early morning for that closeness. The now famous "star" on star quilts is said to be the morning star. Maybe that has something to do with the idea.

I am no expert on Indian beliefs. I don't know if that was unique to his tribe or is a general belief shared by all Native Americans, but I suspect it is common to all people of the land.

On that early morning ride, I too am one of the people of the land. If not religious, it is certainly a spiritual bond between the people and the land.

It is not nature worship, as some city folks believe. It is just being part of the land, by remaining quiet and in awe of creation. There is nothing else like it. I hold onto it.

When I return to my office job (as I occasionally must do), I take it with me. I recall those moments and take them out and look at them, like little nuggets of gold found without effort.

I suspect every farmer and rancher experiences a similar thing. They may not think about it, but it is there. If they too were tied to a desk and phone for a while, they would do more thinking about it.

It is not January 1st on the wall calendar, but it is the beginning of my year. It always is a time of great hope and excitement about good things to be accomplished.

Spring is to my year what early morning is to my day, my favorite part.

Mr. Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture


Martha, Maxine and Me

By Julie Carter

I’ve picked on Martha Stewart before and she is probably used it to by now. Besides, right now she is busy with Donald Trump and a poison pen trade of words and name calling.

I’m pretty sure I’ll stay under the radar if I again mention a few things Martha never had to deal with like baby calf afterbirth under her nails and broken stock tank floats. I doubt she ever found herself having to wait on the hens to lay an egg so she could finish baking a batch of cookies.

So I think that qualifies me to speak from a position of authority from my side of the cattle guard.

There is Martha’s way and then there is my way, which to save a plagiarizing charge, also happens to be Maxine’s way. You all know Maxine, that crabby character from Hallmark that is so very witty, flippant, and the irreverent lady of one-liners. She’s my hero. I like the way she thinks.

Maxine has a way of cutting to the bottom line. A real shoot-from-the-hip kinda gal.

A few kitchen hints from Martha invoked Maxine’s brazen honesty.

· When a cake recipe calls for flouring a baking pan, use a bit of dry cake mix instead and there won’t be any white residue on the outside of the cake. To which Maxine replies: “Go to the bakery! They’ll even decorate it for you.”

. To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the back with them. Maxine’s hint is: Buy Hungry Jack mashed potato mix and keep it in the pantry for up to a year.

Maxine’s sound logic is painfully honest and laughably correct:

--The trouble with bucket seats is not everybody has the same size bucket.
--Drinking makes some husbands see double and feel single.
--Living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween.
--After a certain age, if you don’t wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.

Every now and then we rural women get an urge to be more like Martha and less like Maxine. Fortunately we recover from that lapse in judgment fairly quickly.

A ranch wife friend said she changed hair stylists which meant she went from a beautician to a stylist. She had been told a stylist was a much higher class person and while she is still not so sure the class was higher, the price certainly was.

Since no one seemed to be appreciating her “inner beauty” she was making an attempt to improve the outer version. After getting styled, she said the grocery stop at Wal-Mart was pretty basic in an attempt to put some balance back into her household budget.

When I grow up I want to be just like Maxine. Some will tell you I’m already dangerously close. I’ve NEVER been accused of being like Martha. Although, when Martha got out of jail last year it was reported she went to “her large ranch 40 minutes from New York.” And here I thought the closest thing to “ranch” Martha ever came was her homemade ranch dressing.

It could happen-- perhaps we, Martha and I, could go out in the garden and see if those bulbs I didn’t plant didn’t come up.

Or better yet, Martha and I would go riding off into the sunset with Maxine snidely commenting about the size of our “buckets” in the saddles.

© Julie Carter 2006


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11 PEOPLE ON A ROPE

Eleven people were hanging on a rope under a helicopter, ten men and one woman.

The rope was not strong enough to carry them all, so they decided that one had to leave, because otherwise they were all going to fall.

They were unable to decide who would let go, until the woman gave a very touching speech. She said that she would voluntarily let go of the rope, because, as a woman, she was used to giving up everything for her husband and kids and for men in general, and was used to always making sacrifices with little in return.

As soon as she finished her speech, all the men started clapping.