Happy Father’s Day

I hate to even talk about our weather with so many of our friends and family sweltering in the “heat dome.” Our highs on Monday and Tuesday are forecasted to be in the low 50’s with rain and even possible snow (let’s hope not!).

And just a little fun facts about one of our favorite singers–George Strait. In a June 15th concert at Kyle Field on the Texas A&M campus in College Station, Texas, George Strait’s concert set an all time ticketed concert attendance record with 110,905 fans in attendance!

George Strait has set many records in his illustrious career: the most No. 1 singles of any artist in any genre, the only artist to chart a Top 10 hit every year for 30 years, and the most No. 1 albums, gold albums, and platinum albums in the history of country music including 20 of his massive 60 No. 1 hits. (Billboard)

So many of the performers labeling themselves country and western singers don’t sing C&W–Beyonce comes to mind. As a result we seldom listen to current country and western music. We haven’t attended a concert in years and years but I just might be tempted if ever George Strait was performing nearby!

While it’s been a busy week it hasn’t been very exciting and that’s perfectly OK. A friend, Beccy, posted this on her Facebook page and it struck a cord with me–

I’ve been trying to get back into walking, something I haven’t done much of since we got back to Montana. The Cowboy and I walk with Kaycee every morning up into our hayfields on mown paths–so I can see the snakes before they see me–but that walk doesn’t give me enough mileage. Our road is a gravel county road that also leads to an active mine. The traffic on our stretch of road can be heavy–semi trucks, buses, mine vans, etc. Just up the road from us is another less traveled road that I like to walk–shady in spots, beautiful scenery, running water and way, way less traffic. But sometimes it can take me a bit longer than 40 minutes to walk 2 miles when I stop and visit with the neighbors heading up or down the road!

Kaycee and I walked two days this week with the first day being a bit traumatic for the little devil dog. I don’t use a retractable leash for training or when walking a dog in public places. But, I thought the retractable leash would allow Kaycee a little more freedom out on the less traveled road. Just as we were starting out on our walk Kaycee managed to jerk the leash from my hand where it fell very close to her making a clattering racket. Kaycee thought she was being attacked and took off running with that leash chasing close behind her. The poor little dog would turn around and look back at the leash absolutely sure she was under attack. The leash finally bounced off into the roadside grass stopping the loud clatter causing Kaycee to stop too. I laughed so hard I had tears–poor little pooch!

Wednesday we were off to Billings bright and early. Friends Kathy and by default Jim agreed to watch the Kaycee girl for us as we had a busy day in Billings. The Cowboy has had two years of no Mohs surgeries–he wasn’t so lucky this year. But this wasn’t a bad one and we were out of there just before noon. Lunch in downtown and then a mammogram for me. We squeezed in a Costco stop and on the way out of town picked up groceries at Walmart. Kathy had texted to say Kaycee was doing well, they had walked to the barn and Kaycee got to meet the horses and the barn cats.

We had a teaching opportunity this week. Kaycee and I walked into the back yard and Kaycee ran right over the top of a garter snake which froze. I grabbed Kaycee, made the snake move and when she lunged at the snake I yelled, “watch out” very loudly and pushed her away. We did this a couple times until the snake decided he had had enough and slithered into my flower beds. I think it helped! Then on Sunday we came upon the carcass of a rattlesnake and I did the same thing. If Kaycee sees the snake she just might avoid it but if she stumbles across one we might not be so lucky. We need to discuss the rattlesnake vaccine with our veterinarian. We always gave it to Emmi yearly even though our vet told us that as small as Emmi was, she likely would not survive a rattlesnake bite even with the vaccine. Kaycee at 4.5 months outweighs Emmi as an adult by 2 pounds–she’s probably going to be much larger than Emmi who never weighted more than 10 pounds all her life.

We buy most of our meat at Costco. The steaks we’ve been buying lately are cut way too thick leaving you with a steak that weighs 1.5 pounds–way too much meat for two people! So, we splurged and purchased a prime rib for $184 getting 15 one inch steaks from that cut of meat. That’s about $12/steak and as we split one, that’s about $6 per person. You aren’t going to find a steak in a restaurant for $6! I cooked one of the steaks for Michael’s father’s day lunch and it was delicious. Lonn and the gang were going to try to come for dinner tonight but it didn’t work out–such is the life of a ranch butler. I also made a rhubarb/strawberry pie which has yet to cool enough to sample. As usual, my crust isn’t pretty but it will taste good!

Happy Father’s Day!