Tales of the Unemployed

Perhaps if I were lyrical, I could compose a poem of incredible eloquence, subtlety and beauty. A poem that would be moving and deep, and express in the most musical way what it is like to be unemployed. Unfortunately, I've never been that good at writing poems that are all of these things, and still rhyme. Fortunately for you, I'm aware that I can't write a poem to save my life, so I won't try.

I've been without a job for almost a full month now and in that time I've made the following observations:

1.) Housewives with no kids are either incredibly lazy or bored out of their minds
2.) If I rationalize enough, I won't have to clean and organize the back closet
3.) My husband and I don't create enough dirty laundry for me to wash it once a week
4.) But doing the laundry gives me a purpose so I wash our meager amount of clothes regularly and call it an accomplishment
5.) I don't have to shower every day
6.) But I do anyway. Again, an accomplishment

There are many other observations of equally deep natures that I could share with you. But I don't want to overload anyone's cerebrum with too much philosophical thinking in one post.


I've applied for positions left and right, had a couple interviews, and am waiting to hear back for a couple more potential interviews. In the meantime, I've been bored a lot. I've read 4 books in the last 2 days, surfed every remotely interesting internet site, and watched almost 5 seasons of "Mythbusters."

Every now and then, I've emerged from my cave of an apartment to consort with the outside world. Last Friday, for example I embarked on an afternoon with two girl-friends, Whitney and Aaron (yes, that is the correct spelling, and she is a girl). Aaron brought her too-cute-to-be-true 4 month old son, Noah. And I brought my camera.



Whitney.


Aaron.


Noah. The big cutie.

We went on a drive to Philipsburg, a 1800's mining town. We had lunch in the cute little restaurant/soda fountain that has been around pretty much as long has the town has. Then we enjoyed the sapphire and gem store, and rounded the day out at the Sweet Palace. Very appropriately named.











 
 Fudge! Beautiful fudge! And free samples! What a glorious thing. Aaron and Whitney both went home with half a pound each of favorite flavors, but I abstained. I would like to say it is because I had the will power to turn down such a fattening, high-calorie treat, but in reality, I'd already spent the money I was allowed on lunch and even though it would be a tasty over-purchase, I knew I had to be content with nothing. So I mooched samples off of Aaron and Whitney instead.

Peace, Love and Sugar-comas.

Allow me to introdce myself..

Hi. I am the lady who is terrible at blogging. Nice to meet you.

I've resolved to fix that little quirk in my personality. Unless something distracts me. Like life, or painting my toenails.

Fall/Wintertime Is Here!

It's been snowing. The highs over the next couple days barely break the 30 degree mark. The lows are ready to dip below 0.

If you weren't paying attenion, you would think Montana only had two seasons. Summer, a brief 8-12 week stint that isn't necessarily consecutive. And winter. Which has apparently arrived. A couple weeks ago, on a Monday, we had fall. Then, that night, it snowed and winter took over. Now the still green-yellow leaves are frozen to their branches and will either be blown off by violent wind, or stick around until spring's new leave crowd them out. What will not happen, is they will not turn orange, red, or brown and float gently to the ground below.

Lord help me, what kind of place did my Prince-Charming carry me off to?

Fire

Scaring the Baby

This memorial day weekend was certainly exciting to say the least, and a lot of fun to say it perfectly. Primarily, Prince Charming and I traveled back to his hometown to fraternize with his best friend, his best friend's wife and their new, barely 2 month old baby. Of course, there were some great side adventures, such as the 4 amigos reuniting to unearth new ways to have fun with fire (pictures and story in forthcoming post), and trips to the Sheriff's office to make a statement about threats on my life (story also forthcoming, but no pictures for this one).

Sunday afternoon, the new parents, Jack and Elaine, had a BBQ for all those in the small town who knew Jack growing up and wanted to see if his offspring was going to be as troublesome as he. The baby's grandparents hosted at their house and most of the home church showed up to enjoy the reunion, and the food.

I spent nearly the entire time snapping pictures with my new(ish) camera, enjoying the many range of emotions, smiles and events happening around me. Enjoying, too, capturing as many as I could with my camera.

Perhaps my favorite moment and range of emotions came when my beloved Prince Charming accepted into his arms for the first time little Landyn. The son of his best friend (and best man at our wedding), with whom he had gone through the pains of growing up, the joys of living in a small mountain town, and the excitement of setting everything possible on fire. Jack and my prince are very close, and each family accepts the other friend as a surrogate son. Thus, it was understood that Prince Charming and I were surrogate Uncle and Aunt to this young life and Prince Charming has already been planning on buying the young tyke his first BB gun as soon as he is strong enough to grip it.

At the all-important introduction of Uncle and nephew, Jack carefully passed his young charge to Uncle Zach.



"Offspring, meet crazy Uncle Zach. And vice versa."



My heart started to melt as my handsome and beloved husband cradled this young life. I started to dream of the day (far from now) when he would be holding our own child. Suddenly, I wanted that day to come much sooner.

But then.....this happened








Uh-oh



Someone's not happy



"What do you want, kid?"



Prince charming is conviced that he scares all little babies. But, I've seen him around children before where they haven't immediately cringed and cried. This poor little guy was just having a long day, with lost of strange people around him. And he missed his nap.

He didn't cry for me though. Thank goodness.

Leviticus

Starting yesterday, and for the next couple days, several churches are partnering together to read through the entire Bible at a local park. Straight through. Day and night. Without stopping. Genesis to Revelation.

With the help of volunteers, they recruit even more volunteers to read for 15 minute increments. I became one of the latter volunteers when a friend of mine (remember Kelly, from the branding post below?) became one of the recruiting volunteers. Each recruiter is given a 3 hour period to fill with people to read, and if they can't fill all the slots, or someone is a no-show, the recruiter fills in.

Kelly had been given the noon to three chunk yesterday afternoon and filled it primarily with the college students and other friends that weekly visit his family's ranch. I took the 12:45 to 1pm slot, a convienent time for me to take my lunch. And Sunday, when I signed up for it, I knew that I would be reading Leviticus. Something in my gut just knew.

My gut, though sometimes completely off base, was right on the money this time. When I arrived, I was just in time to start reading from the end of Leviticus 13, all about infectious diseases, proclaiming things clean or unclean, sacrifices to become clean again, mildew in fabrics and houses, and a woman's monthly period. It was quite educational. Did you know, for example, that in order to be declared clean after a disease (and after the requisite minimum 7 day waiting period, and ceremonial bathing), you have to bring 2 doves or pigeons (whichever you can afford) to the priest along with hyssop, a scarlet thread and an epaph of a certain substance? The priest will then kill one of the birds over fresh water, tie the other bird up, then dip the living bird into the dead bird's blood and the fresh water and sprinkle it before the Lord 7 times, ending with a few douses on you? Makes you kind of greatful that we have freedom in and under Christ, doesn't it?

At least I didn't read any faster. After me, my friend Jacque read all about sexual regulations. Good stuff.

Branding

Yesterday afternoon, I ventured into uncharted territory. Well, uncharted at least for a born-and-raised-city-girl like me. Along with prince charming and a friend of ours, Aaron, I helped brand, vacinate and castrate about 40 calves. (We only castrated the boys.)

I'm mostly going to let the pictures speak for themselves (which they can do in abundance!). But I will give you some background. The family are very good friends of ours who live on a ranch and graciously invite us, as well as almost a dozen other college students, out every Sunday for dinner and fellowship. It is well known that anyone is welcome to come by whenever the mood strikes them and this family of 8 (including grandma), will always be happy to see, and usually feed, you. When we arrived, The Dad (Kelly), Mom (Cindi) and oldest child, a daughter named Rachel, were finishing up with the mama cows. Every year at springtime, the mama cows are run through the chute so they can get their shot of vitamins. Their part is pretty quick and relatively painless. Their babies, however, get a little more attention. The calves have all been born within the last month and a half. They need to be branded, vacinated for various diseases, and the boys need to be castrated.

This is Rachel. She is very sweet. But she also knows how to wrestle heifers. She pushed the calves down the chute into the contraption that we used to hold them down while we worked on them. She also held the front legs so they couldn't squirm too much when they were being given a shot and branded.

This is Kelly. He took a lot of kicks to his stomach cause he was working the back ends. He would hold the back legs, check if it was a boy or girl, and then castrate the boys. (I'll explain how they castrate them a little later. Guys may want to skip that part.)

This is our friend Aaron. She gave the shots and prepared the castrating tool. We kept her at the safest end so that she wouldn't get kicked. She's carrying a baby and a strong kick from a powerful back leg to the stomach did not sound like a good idea for her.



This is Prince Charming. He worked the table. We worked together to cinch the cows down with the metal bars (I worked the head bar) when Rachel would run them into the machine. Then he would heave them on their side (some of these babies were near 400 lbs!) while the rest of us worked on them. He also took over branding the last half. Since the smell of the burnt calf hair and flesh was kinda getting to me.

This is me. Like I said, I helped my prince with slamming the metal shut on the calves so they couldn't just run through, stopping for just a few minutes to snap pictures and document this process for you lovely people. I also branded the first half of the group.



This is the brand. It is hot.


These are our victims...I mean patients.

This is the table in use.



These are the concerned mama cows. The entire time we worked. there was constant concerned "moo-ing" from the mama's to their babies and the babies answering back.

Here is how things worked.

Rachel drives a contestant down the chute, towards the table.

Then, Prince and I slam our respective parts of the table shut at just the right moment to keep the calve from just running all the way through. Prince charming then pulls the calf and table to a horizontal position. Rachel and Kelly grab their feet.

Aaron administers the vaccine to the lower neck.

Kelly then checks to see if it is a boy or a girl. If it is a girl, we move straight to the branding and let her go. If it is a boy, he gets a little more "special" treatment. (Guys, this is where you might want to close your eyes and just scroll down)

To keep the boys from becoming bulls, filled with testosterone and attitude, they are castrated. Some operations simply cut off the testicles. But here is how we do it:

Kelly grabs the testicles. Rachel hands him a special tool that has a very strong, very small, rubber band on it. Using this tool, Kelly "bands" the testicles with the rubber band close to the calve's body. This cuts off the circulation. Over the next few weeks, the testicles will eventually just fall off.


Poor guy. I imagine this is the same look on the face of any guy who dared read this part.

Then the boy gets branded.

And sent off to join mama. Go free, little guy. And bask in the knowledge that you'll never have to go through that again.

If it isn't that much consolation, I understand. You've been through a lot.