Lingering Questions

Work keeps me busy. So busy that I sometimes don't hear my alarm in the mornings, and when I do it takes a log chain and a draft team to pull me out of my slumber. Yet, despite that getting up in the morning part, I am still a night owl. You would think my body would learn to shut down after eight o' clock in the evening, but it doesn't and probably never will. The fact that I stay so busy hinders my ability to find time to share my thoughts with you. Although I will not forget you, I just prefer to call it seasonal blogging. You know, depending on the weather/seasons will foresee how often I blog. Hopefully you all can handle that. I know it's quite the let down since you just love reading these posts. Har Har Har *Snort* Haha. I'm a funny one. The other day I made the bestest lamest pun ever, although I can't recall what it was about. I will ignore that sigh of relief at not having to hear my amazing pun story, and continue on with my next train of thought.

My thoughts really do become quite random, but I promise they all have a link somewhere. For example we could be talking about kittens, yes soft fuzzy kittens, and then I might hear you say that the orange one is cuter. That key word orange could spark all sorts of topics like the fact I'm not fond of oranges or how that color can be hard to wear fashionably (like I know much about fashion), the list could be endless depending on the weather, barometric pressure, humidity, whether mercury is still used in thermometers and how its poisonous or deadly or something along those lines. And wow, see how far off topic we could get. We could have dug to china before we even realized it and then had to wind our way back through the tunnels to return to our starting position.

Reporting back to the starting position, I want to discuss the ups and downs a person can experience in one day because honestly I don't know if it's just me, but it feels like I'm a buzzard soaring on some very unsupportive heat waves. Consequently I go from one moment thinking I am following my dream. I am doing good. It's a long road, but I am doing good. Then the next moment (hour or two or four later) I am thinking maybe this isn't right for me. What if I get hurt? What if I am no good at training horses? I have such a long way to go. No one really supports me. Am I doing the right thing? Now hopefully someone else feels this way too at times. It really can be exhausting dealing with such emotions all day long, but then again it hasn't made me quit yet, and I truly doubt that those thoughts would. Even so, I am going to have to set myself some goals and you should too if you feel this way. So far I have a two month goal set that when I have been working at this for two months I need to step back and assess myself. What I have learned? Am I improving? Are my employers giving me more responsibilities? Those are the kind of questions I am going to ask myself in two months and again in four to six months time to make sure I am moving forward. The last thing I want to be is stagnant. Except I think I covered the fact that my mind is far from that in the previous part of this post.

Have a great day!

- Tess

Summer Is Here

The house it needs cleaned. The dishes, placed along every countertop, beg to be washed. The laundry remains strewn over chair, bedpost, and dresser. The effects of busy, summer days. For some summer may mean fashionable sundresses and new swimsuits, days by the pool, and suntanning in the noon day heat, but for me it means snow white legs from jeans worn even in July, sweaty saddle pads, early mornings, and late nights, hats and braids and sunglasses over blue eyes. It means water bottles littering my pickup and packed in saddle bags, with cool light lunches of salads and sandwiches and sweet ice tea. It's cloudless days and blistering heat, cool AC in the front pickup seat, frequent checks of the summer pasture and moving cows. At first it's mosquitos, then it's wasps in the house along with flies, many flies, banging on the windows wanting out. Summer is green grass until the sun turns it brown and praying for rain when dust covers the ground. It means allergies from weeds and trees, and that sickly sweet smell when it's the year that the sweet clover grows. Summer is passion and happiness, tan lines and cool drinks, sweat and early mornings, late nights and dances, boots, blue jeans and unending work. Summer is here.

Sun Browned Hands

You may notice her uneven tan,
But focus on her sun browned hands.
Leathery like an old boot,
And calluses even lotion won't sooth;
Recent burns across three fingers
From a rope she wouldn't let go of.
Her nails with dirt underneath,
sometimes painted pink.
Hands stained by oil and dirt
From fixing her truck,
Or oiling her reins.
They can handle a needle with skill,
Whether it's mending worn clothes
Or closing a wound.
Mending old fence
Or putting up new.
Her hands can twirl the twine,
Or teach a colt to follow a feel.
Each day she works hard,
And in each small way she reaps the reward:
From the colt that grows softer,
And the twine that ropes truer,
With the fence that stands longer,
And the wound which heals sooner,
To the truck that runs sweeter.
Each day a small reward, and each day a little more worn.

Cat Eye Skull

How bout another little short story. I wrote this one for my spring class as well, and I think it might be fun to keep going with it. Enjoy! -Tess

He was not the kind of person to end up at a breakfast line at five o’ clock in the morning. He never even ate breakfast until at least eight or got up before seven thirty in the morning. Now he was standing in line waiting for food that looked like oatmeal, but all he could smell was the stench from the guy in front of him. The tattoos peeking out from the collar of his jumpsuit even had a grungy look as if a layer of dirt sat over the top of the intricate dragon and the skull drawn on his skin. That same skull he had seen once before on a guy selling vacuum cleaners door to door. The top of the tattoo was thick as it formed the cranium. Even though he couldn’t see it all he remembered the rest of the ink flowing down the sides, the lines dipping under the cheekbones and leveling out to form the jaw: the teeth all still intact and perfectly straight, as they seemed to smile without lips. He remembered what really stood out about this tattoo where the eyes in the skull, they were cat eyes with the vertical slit in the middle. He was sure it was the same tattoo as the salesman had on his arm that day.

He remembered only half of that day. He knew it was August and still unwelcomingly hot outside. The doorbell had rung around ten o’ clock because he had been downstairs working on his latest experiment and heard his wife answer the door. When he had heard the other man’s voice inside the house he put down his solar experiment and headed up the carpeted steps to see whom the voice belonged to. As he neared the living room he could hear more clearly as the man said, “It’s the best kind around ma’am. This attachment here can reach the tops of those pictures hanging on the wall, and this one is for getting under that sofa without even having to move it.”

“Well that sounds nice.” He heard his wife say.

“Yes, ma’am it is. You won’t find any better one on the market today and they are only offering these for a limited time. Mind if I vacuum your carpet a little?”

She must have nodded yes because he heard the sound of the vacuum as it started up and powered across the floor. As he cleared the top of the steps and positioned himself in the doorway of the living room he watched as a man of smaller statue busily made two or three swipes across the cream colored carpet. He remembered quite vividly the man had been surprised by his sudden presence, but continued on selling the product taking confidence in the rehearsed lines. He had already heard enough so without to much more talk he told the salesman they weren’t interested and to get out the door. He had taken his time so he made sure and helped him by chunking his vacuum parts out the door behind him.

“Barry, do you have to be so rude?” his wife had asked.

“Why on earth did you let him in Judith?”

“Well he seemed really nice and we do need a new vacuum.”

“You don’t even vacuum Judith, the maid does.”

She had failed to respond to that and he had gone back to his work downstairs not giving the scenario another thought until the tattoo from the back of the guy’s neck reminded him. Only ten days into a prison sentence he still didn’t know how he got.

He didn’t really have much memory of the rest of that day. He knew he was in the lab and that Judith had left for a lunch date, but he hardly remembered when she came home or if she did at all that day. The prosecutor at the first trial told him she was murdered in her own garage before she even left the house, but he had been certain she left. He really didn’t know how many days he was down in his lab after the incident. It all blurred together after he made the breakthrough on his experiment. All until he woke up in the local jail on the concrete floor awaiting trial. Ten days later and he was still awaiting the second day of his trial, which had been put off since last Tuesday. If he could only remember the rest of that day he might be able to save himself from life in prison. He was innocent, the cat eye skull told him so. But, how was he going to find the evidence he needed to tie the vacuum salesman to his wife’s murder? He knew his attorney was looking into it, but it wasn’t the rest of their life on the line. Giving it some thought, he decided to call the number one of the inmates had given him.

***

            She never ate the chicken on her salad. Salads were a cold food and chicken should be eaten hot, therefore in her book the two didn’t mix. As she picked through her lunch in the break room, she heard the increasing hustle of voices coming down the hall. A nurse shouted orders to prepare the operating room, a couple intern’s sounded like they answered and the sound of running feet receded. Moments later John swung the break room door open and winked as he came over and sat down.

“Well hey there, May. How’s it going?”

“Just fine, John. Was it a car crash?”

“Ya I think so. I heard he had internal bleeding and a punctured lung, probably some broken bones too.”

“Ya probably.”

John was a five foot eight sandy blonde haired man with dimples on both sides when he smiled, which was almost all the time. He was a gentleman at work, sweet to the patients, and they all tended to request him as their nurse once they knew he was on shift. She admittedly liked being around him too.

“So what do you say to that dinner on Monday night since we are both off Tuesday?”

“John, I told you I don’t know.”

“C’mon May. I have been asking for weeks now.”

“Only a week and a half John. Besides, I really don’t think it’s best for people that work together to also date.”

“We don’t have to call it a date. It could be a get-together, you know, an outing with friends.”

“You know you can be quite nerdy sometimes.” She chuckled as she dumped the remainder of lunch in the trash and headed out the door.

“It’s a good thing for nurses,” she heard him say, “and I’m taking that it’s a yes on Monday.”

The last part she barely caught, but it made her smile. He was so persistent, but not enough to annoy her completely. He must have been the youngest child growing up since he always seemed to know how to work the situation to his advantage. As she walked by the desk to gather up the information for her round of patients her phone rang. Since she was on duty she let it go to voicemail.

***

He was surprised when the voicemail came on in a light cheerful female voice. I guess he expected if an inmate gives you a number to call for some help it would be some tough guy straight out of the roughest parts of Chicago, not a girl. Maybe she was just a receptionist, he thought.  Knowing the lines where tapped he left the message just as instructed by the inmate.

“Hi, I was just calling to arrange for some flowers to be sent to a funeral on Thursday. I really would like to sign the card myself so if you could bring it by the jail I would appreciate it. Thanks, Bye.” It sounded strange, but then again it made sense and just might help out his innocent plea. He sure hoped whoever he just tried to contact showed up. 

Last Month In Pictures (April)

This past month in pictures.

Early April Showers

Turned to Mid-April Snow

Gluten Free Bagels

Cooked and Ready To Eat

The Barn Cat

The View From My Office aka. The Barn

Tri Heeler Puppies

Of All Places They All Climb in My Lap

Latest Finished Drawing - Will Be For Sale Soon

 You can also check out the rest of my drawings at http://tesslackeydrawings.blogspot.com. I don't know about you guys, but I am ready to see what May has to bring!

- Tess

Bunkhouse at the Nine Bar Nine

So this is just a little fun piece I wrote for a class this past semester. I hope you enjoy it!

A clock hung off the wall probably from a nail driven into the drywall, all crumbly and white. It hung so easily high above the dwindling smells of soup; and a dying wood stove all black and grey with ash from the mottled, rough bark of a log that burned red and blue and white. The chairs were tipped back on two legs, unstained wood worked into perfection. No intricate work adorned the chairs, but rough, callused hands sanded and cut until they stood square. The table showed much the same work of those hands. It was smooth as polished stone and the lines that once flowed with nutrients for the tree, now flowed with stories from old cowhand tongues; words that mesmerized the sleepy-eyed and excited the drunk into fistfights.

The bunkhouse was small enough to be warmed by that one potbellied stove in the far corner by the door and big enough to sleep three. Each bed was more of a cot with old wool blankets in rusty red, and burnt brown threads to keep warm on white, snowy nights. The cooking stove in the north corner ran off propane, but most often sausage links impaled by old bits of coat hanger were cast into the wood fire as it raged sending smoke through the black pipe and out into the cold night air.

Three tin cups sat neatly on the counter awaiting steaming black coffee poured into them at dawn’s light or before, and the counter mimicked the rustic interior with it’s wood surface scratched and scuffed from years of use. Over the lone window hung a dirty horse blanket still caked in the sorrel’s fine hair, it kept out the cold and unwanted sunlight on days when the work wasn’t theirs. No television played and no radio sang just the oldest cowpoke played guitar. He hummed to himself as he picked each string. The guitar wood gleamed as if it was freshly stained this morning even though it was as old as the man who played it. His face matched the counter all scarred and scuffed and wrinkled from years of misuse. The wind that howled outside the door didn’t treat anyone kindly, and the sun that would shine soon only added years to the wrinkled brown faces. A black and white collie laid by the fire fast asleep on the hardwood floor. By the door, along with boots leaking mud and water off of the soles, laid the only rug on the floor.

They all sat in contentment half dazed from the thick soup of beef and potatoes and biscuits on the side. Each one tired from the day’s long work and the cold wind that had watered their eyes and howled through their coats. The long day of calving and moving heavies to the barn was done, and soon the night check would begin. 

Death Chases After Me

Suckling the newborn calf

With a rubber nipple.

To cold to suck,

It tries to sleep.

I rub its body to warm it up,

But my hands are just as numb.

So I keep moving too.

It won’t stand and drink

Wobbling on its rubbery legs.

Bawling weakly at me,

As I clamp its mouth closed,

Then open

Death would find it standing

If I had my way.

It doesn’t care to drink once the snow chilled its bones.

Mother Nature, who gave it instinct to survive,

Also tried to take its hour old life.

I fight against this unchallenged force.

And I know Mother Nature can’t be tamed,

But I will beat her at her own game.

So I force it to survive.

It can’t lie there and sleep

Through immobility death will creep;

Closer to the sleepy ones

Than those that never stop.

I used to chase my dreams in sleep,

But death was creeping up on me.

So now, death chases after me.

- Tess