RIGING DRAG / One Potato, Two Potato

With the way grocery prices are climbing I am becoming increasing glad that I plant a garden. I have talked about how much I enjoy getting seed catalogues. They come when spring is far away and set us to dreaming of fresh vegetables and beautiful flowers. It is my favorite time of year when the first catalogue arrives in the mail.

The last couple of years have been a disappointment in gardening. Spring started out well with the garden going in and for the first month things grew. Then the heat would set in and no amount of watering would keep the plants growing. It was very disheartening. But this year is worth every minute of hard work! Spring was filled with rain and not only the garden but the hay fields have flourished. Green is everywhere for the first summer in several years.

We are so hopeful that we are already planning a bigger garden for next year.  Why do we allow a little success to inspire us to expand? It’s just the rural way! Farmers and Ranchers like to see things grow. We love every minute of what we do and knowing that crops and livestock grow in direct relation to how much hard work we put into it is satisfying beyond words.

Long ago when I was a kid my grandfather grew potatoes in a tower of used tires. As they grew he would add a tire and more dirt. Before he was done the potato bed would be five or six tires high. To harvest he would take off a tire and brush away the soil revealing the potatoes. This is my plan for next year, gathering up used tires and planting the way my grandfather planted. That and praying for more rain between now and then. For the present I plan on having some tomatoes and squash for dinner. How does your garden grow?

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For more information on Debra Coppinger Hill go to AlwaysCowboy.com.

 

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RIDING DRAG with DEBRA COPPINGER HILL is featured each week at ALWAYS COWBOY where Debra is a Resident Western Poet. Join her and her Cowboy Friends for Cowboy Poetry, News & Events. http://alwayscowboy.net/debra_coppinger_hill_poetry.html

RIDING DRAG / RURAL CSI

We never heard a thing; not a scream or a squeal, not a bump or a bang, not a shuffle or a scuffle, no not a single noise of any kind. But the evidence of the murder was there; blood everywhere. Big, half-dollar size puddles of blood, from one end of the deck to the other. Globs of it in the hand rail and on down the steps. It was a gruesome scene indeed.

Our first concern was for the cats and dogs themselves. All of them passed inspection, not a cut or scratch anywhere. This led us to believe that they could possibly be the culprit. Who/what then was murdered? This was a job for CSI…Critter Scene Investigation!

I admit it, I am a closet investigator, and I am pretty good at it. Back home if there are feathers scattered across the yard I know all the evidence points to the murder of a bird. No matter how innocent the cats look laying there on the porch I know they are guilty. How? They didn’t rush to the door for food when I came outside, which means only one thing, they had full tummies. You can figure it out from there.

But there were no feathers. There was no squirrel or bunny hair. There was nothing except large drops of blood; more blood than any squirrel of bunny could have inside their small body.  It makes me nervous because apparently there was a critter on our deck that was pretty large in size to have lost that much blood. More nerve-racking is the thought of the size of the animal that did said critter in.

I have deduced this much, that whatever it was that was murdered it was too large to have been killed by any one of the three cats or either of the two wiener dogs. (Who have the air-tight alibi of being asleep in the house with us at the time of the murder.) The killer was bigger and meaner and sneaky enough to pull off the crime without being heard or seen and without leaving any evidence at all. Despite the large amount of blood there was not a single foot/paw print to be found.

I have become cautious about standing out on the deck at night. I have also confined all my Critter Scene Investigation activities to daylight hours. But it hasn’t stopped me from spending a great deal of time looking out the large back windows and doors wondering about this incident. I prefer to not think of these measures as cowardice on my part but rather stealthy surveillance. Yeah, surveillance…that’s it. CSI continues to work on this case with Agent Mom leading the investigation. Details of the case will be released as they become available. (I think I need a theme song.)

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For more information on Debra Coppinger Hill go to AlwaysCowboy.com.

 

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RIDING DRAG with DEBRA COPPINGER HILL is featured each week at ALWAYS COWBOY where Debra is a Resident Western Poet. Join her and her Cowboy Friends for Cowboy Poetry, News & Events. http://alwayscowboy.net/debra_coppinger_hill_poetry.html

RIDING DRAG / ZELLA

When I think of her, I see two pictures,

  side by side in Grandma’s book...
A hopeful young nurse, in a starched white dress,
  and a red-head, in a wheat field, with a grinnin’, onery look.
She was a nurse, when it was a job,
  that only a woman would do,
She nursed in town odd hours,
  then planted wheat and bottle-fed calves too.
Because she married a handsome farmer,
  and together they would homestead,
And in the course of fifty-some years,
  kept each other’s spirits warm and fed.

She learned how to drive most any tractor,

  and she knew how to plow,
And she knew about delivering babies,
  be they human, or be they cow.
This dual life she lived,
  sometimes took everything she had,
But if you asked her about it,
  she’d say, “Aw, it’s not so bad...
You see, life is an Adventure,
  if you play the cards you’re dealt,
Good times you let the seams out on your britches,
  bad times, you hold ‘em up with a belt.”

She loved to share ideas,

  and she had an open and inquisitive mind,
She said you should look for miracles,
  because they’re not that hard to find.
Like babies and calves in the spring,
  crocus and crystal in the snow,
And seeing your friends and loved ones,
  everywhere you go.

She would have been pleased to see all the people,

  who came to the service that day,
She never would have believed so many would come,
  just to honor an Old Farm Girl that way.
And every one had a story,
  about how she touched their life,
Like the one told by a man
   and his forever grateful wife.
The man was smashed by a tractor,
  they fetched her to their farm,
She bagged his lungs and breathed for him,
  for two and a half hours, with her work-strong arms.

 The stories would have embarrassed her,

  it was her job, as a nurse, you see,
I must have heard a thousand such tales,
  and in each one, her humbleness was the key.
So, we stood around the funeral home,
  and we laughed, as we told her favorite jokes,
She would have enjoyed the laughter,
  she would have gotten in her pokes.

 Then her Husband asked me what I wanted of hers,

  I said, just her nurses hat...
But, true to form, she’d given it to a younger nurse,
  so, I figured, that was that.
Then he brought me her old straw hat,
  the one she farmed and gardened in,
And a rhinestone brooch she always wore,
  and her little gold nurses pin.

Then came the time we dreaded,

  we had to say Good-bye,
And we’re just not the kind of people,
  who stand around and cry,
You see, Death is a CELEBRATION,
  and if you do it right,
Your whole Life is a Ministry,
  until your soul takes flight.

 And if you’re really lucky,

  people miss you when you’re gone,
And maybe write a line or two,
  that keeps your memory strong.
So, I wrote down these words,
  that would have made her shy,
So, you would know, we loved her,
  and who she was, and why.
For in her UNSELFISH lifetime,
  she had truly done it all...
Everything, from those starched white dresses,
  to the evening cattle call.

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For more information on Debra Coppinger Hill go to AlwaysCowboy.com.

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RIDING DRAG with DEBRA COPPINGER HILL is featured each week at ALWAYS COWBOY where Debra is a Resident Western Poet. Join her and her Cowboy Friends for Cowboy Poetry, News & Events. http://alwayscowboy.net/debra_coppinger_hill_poetry.html