Home Again

When I ask my mom about round up in days gone by from when she was young, she covers her eyes and shakes her head. Shows like Heartland might give you a romantic idea of what a round up in the mountains might look like; mercy, I tell ya, there are too many stories in the family that aren't suitable to immortalize on my blog.

The cows are home now and I'm happy my husband is back in cell reception. Things were quiet this year and went without a hitch. It was snowy and cold, that wet cold that get's down into your bones.  When we popped in to see the neighbours, the girl that was riding with them out there had a mysteriously bright looking sunburn on her neck, with nary a ray of sun in the sky, you knew it was damp - the dye from her red scarf leaked onto her skin.

They're ba-ack!

My Dad and Uncle rode up to the 'top end' one year, in minus fourty degree weather and trailed strays back into corrals down at what we call the junction. They got back to the cabins around 10:00PM and when I gasp, "you could have froze to death," Dad just says they almost did. I'm glad the ugly weather this year pales in comparison to others. As much as we know a cold snap will help bring any of the cows left wandering the bush down, I'm quite content with our Indian summer.

I love the term Big Sky. It reminds me of who I am.

One of the boys I grew up with married a lovely lady from Calgary. She always gets such a crack out of things when I say my husband is out bringing home the bulls and that I'm on pins and needles waiting for him to be back in cell reception in case I go into labour. I know she pictures me out in a sod house with the wind a' howlin' and my babes round my ankles praying for Daddy to come home. That's fine, she can picture things like that because I picture her with her homeboys in the heart of the city, waiting for her man to bring her a latte from Starbucks.

Just so you know, Rebekah, if I had a clue how to run photoshop, I would put your picture right smack in the middle of the herd with a rope in your hand and poop on your boots and send it as a post card to the unit you work on .I am going to get you out here one day to help haul water and stoke the stove and maybe you could explain to me what a dishwasher and that thing they call the tee-vee is. I'll send an invite with the pony express on Monday and maybe we'll see you and the boys sometime early January.