Steer Clear

Okay, after 27 years of mothering and literally countless dinner conversations I have finally found a topic I was not comfortable discussing over chicken and broccoli. 
It started much earlier in my day.  A LOCL called to ask the STP a Bible question.  Since he was not at home, she just asked me. (Since a degree in Bible and Theology from a Christian Bible College is roughly equivalent to a degree in Microbiology from a large secular state university.)  Her question involved whether a steer could be a Passover sacrifice or even kosher. Mmmm....Let me think about that.  Let me dig deep into my knowledge of Levitical Law.  I had a Jewish roommate once.  I learned a lot of things from her my freshman year at PSU.  I even went to Passover Seder at her house.  Do I know anything at all about kosher beef?  While I was pondering this, the LOCL had moved on and was using words like 'mutilated' and 'bull'.  So forget not knowing anything about Rabbis' slaughtering practices, I had to confess that I didn't know there was a difference between a 'steer' and a 'bull'. So the LOCL 'took me behind the bedroom door for a little talk.'  (Her words  :) ),  and explained the difference between a bull and a steer.  And then, after she realized the dearth of my knowledge, she decided she would call the STP at the church.  (I tried to call him first to tell him the difference between a bull and steer, but the LOCL must have him on speed dial, cause she beat me to it.  The STP didn't have to a confess to the LOCL that he also did not know the difference--because he is better at bull than I am.) 
At the supper table, we were discussing this in front of the Goob, because I think if you are from Wyoming you should be knowledgeable about all things beef.  So I was explaining the difference in LOCL terms.  But when you share your dinner table with only two guys, and they ask questions, and anyway, I declared an end to that conversation. 
But for my girls (because somehow this never came up at the dinner table when you lived at home), my faithful non-Wyoming readers (who depend on me for vital Western informantion), and anyone from the East Coast, I will give you the definitions here in one useful place.  Pay close attention.

bull   /bʊl/ 
–noun
1.the male of a bovine animal, esp. of the genus Bos, with sexual organs intact and capable of reproduction.

-noun Slang.

2.exaggerations; lies; nonsense.

—Idiom

3.shoot the bull, to talk aimlessly: We just sat around the dinner table shooting the bull.

steer   /stɪər/
–verb
1.to guide the course of (something in motion) by a rudder, helm, wheel, etc.: to steer a bicycle.
 
–noun

2.a male bovine that is castrated before sexual maturity, esp. one raised for beef.

—Idiom

3.steer clear of, to stay away from purposely; avoid: She steered clear of any castration discussions at the dinner table.

Here then is a little bull joke for those of you who have stayed with me this far into the post:
Three little bull calves are out in the field talking about what they wanted to do when they grew up.  The first one declared he would like to be a bull in a china shop.  The second one thought he might like to be a bull on Wall Street.  But the third one said he just wanted to stay right where he was 'for heifer, and heifer, and heifer...'. 

And to save you a trip to dictionary.com:
heif·er   /ˈhɛfər/
–noun
1. a young cow over one year old that has not produced a calf.

Run, Ms Brenda, Run

I am restarting the Couch to 5k program.  I am running long distance with the Queen of Queens.  Just a few differences.  She is young, I am old.  She pushes a stroller with two children in it.  I leash myself to the dog and let her pull me along.  The Queen has an i-phone and downloads C25K program friendly podcasts.  My i-pod is dead and I can't figure out how to get podcasts onto my phone. 
So I just put my old i-pod earphones in and pretend I am really cool and I am listening to something really wonderful.  If the dog runs circles around me and I trip over her leash and crash to the ground and require medical treatment and the paramedics discover my earphones are not connected to anything, then I will claim that I was mugged and my i-phone was stolen.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
On to week 2. 

The Wy-not State

Pepsi has announced and mapped the previous month's winners in their refresh everything.  As usual, Wyoming does not have any push pins in it.  But we can change that.  If everyone in a state that already has a push pin would vote for an idea in Wyoming, then we can put a pin in Wyoming.  So tell your friends. 
Vote to Open the Shack at refresheverything.com
Let's stick it to Wyoming.

A Little Bit of Ashton

One of the songs I zumba to is Mambo #5.  And what I need today is a little bit of Ashton Kutcher in my life.  Several weeks ago I saw Ashton Kutcher on The View, plugging the Valentine's Day movie and his wife's PepsiRefresh idea.  I really only know Ashton from his Nikon commercials and I only watch The View, well, I never watch The View.  But his wife won the celebrity PepsiRefresh grant for her charity.  So if Ashton would just give our PepsiRefresh idea a little Twitter time and a mention to his over 3 million FaceBook fans, I would really appreciate it. 
Ashton's charity already won $250,000 from Pepsi.  It will not cost Ashton anything to promote our good idea.
Ashton already has 3,000,000 fans.  Our little town has 1800 total population.  If Ashton gets behind our idea, we will all become fans.
Ashton had a troubled youth.  Our little town has troubled youth.  Our idea will help troubled youth and untroubled youth get into less trouble. 
Ashton studied biochemical engineering.  Go Ashton.  We got nothing like that.

So the question is: How can I become friends with Ashton Kucher?  I went to his FaceBook page, but I can only be a fan there.  Not a friend.  I'm afraid a fan is not going to be enough. So I am appealling to all of my faithful readers:  if either of you know Ashton Kutcher or someone who knows someone who knows Ashton Kutcher please tell him about our idea. 

God's Thoughts on Fly Fishing

God to Job: (Under the heading "I Want Straight Answers"  see Job 40)
I have some more questions for you and I want straight answers.  

God to Job again:  (Under the heading "I Run This Universe"  see Job 41)
Or can you pull in the sea beast, Leviathan, with a fly rod and stuff him in your creel?

Job to God:  (Under the heading  "I'm Ready to Shut Up and Listen"  see Job 40)
I'm speechless, in awe--words fail me.  I should never have opened my mouth!  I've talked way too much, way too much.

Maybe my favorite part of this (besides the fly fishing reference) is that even after Job declares himself speechless, he keeps talking. 

On to Psalms and Proverbs...

Gluten Gluttons Gone Bad

The STP returns on Tuesday.  Meanwhile, our gluten overload reached new heights (or is it depths?) last night.

Bird Watching

No robins sighted on this first day of Spring, but did see this bird in the front flower bed wearing his mud boots.  The first flamingo sighting this season. 

You don't usually see this in Wyoming.

The Secret Life of Indians

In With The New

This is my old couch.  I had a matching love seat, chair and ottoman.  I bought them off of Craig's List so there would be furniture in my big room.  We moved it here in the truck.  We used them for 18 months.

This is my new couch.  I bought it at a real furniture store and had it delivered here in a truck.  (No small feat to find a real furniture that will deliver here.)  I like it a lot.

I fact, I liked it so well I bought two.  Because the big room is really big.  And everyone likes the new couches.  Except maybe the dog.

Because she is not supposed to be on the new couches.  She has her own little pillow beside the couch.  See her not sitting on her pillow?  See her using her puppy eyes to beg admittance to the couch?  See me giving in and letting her on the couch?

Nehemiah, Esther,...

Do you think I can pull myself up by my bootstraps?
Why, I don't even have any boots!
 
...and Job.  I'm not having a particularly Job-like day, so I'm finding THEMESSAGE version of the book of Job just a fun read. 

The Case of the Missing STP

The STP is on a missions trip to Mexico.  He has been gone for two days and I am discovering things that I miss about him that I didn't know I would miss.  For instance:
1.  He takes the garbage out. 
2.  He does the dishes when I don't feel like it.  (And evidently, I hardly ever feel like it.)
3.  He changes the roll of toilet paper.
4.  He packs the Goob's lunch.
5.  He takes the Goob to school and reminds him of the 'game rules'.
6.  He refills the dog food container.
7.  He keeps pellets in the pellet stove.
8.  He plays with the dog.
9.  He sets the alarm clock.
10.He helps me find my phone when I lose it.
11.He gives me a reason to go to bed instead of staying up late watching stupid TV.

So to make up for all the missing things, the Goob and I are being gluten gluttons this week.  Hopefully a little chocolate cake with peanut butter icing and a pizza ordered in will get us through.

Diet Pepsi and I Go Way Back

Perhaps you remember when I was almost addicted to Diet Pepsi.  Except for this little twitch, I have broken completely free.  (Although, I must confess, I know the location in Dodge City of several Pepsi vending machines with 24 hr access, just in case...)  But now I have a new relationship with Pepsi.  It involves a Refresh Everything grant for the local youth center in Dodge City.  And everytime I log onto the web site to vote for our good idea I hear a can of Pepsi being opened.  These are very clever people, these Pepsi folks.  They know that I have spent $250,000 on my prior Pepsi addiction and they are willing to give it away because they are hoping I will become readdicted and spend another quarter million.   So I need your help.  Go to the RefeshEverything.com website and type "The Shack" into the search area.  You will find the good idea in the $250,000 neighborhood category.  If we win the money this month, I don't have to keep going there and voting and being tormented by refreshing sounds of Pepsi.  Really, this is for my mental health.  Tell your friends. Vote early and vote often. 

Books of History

II Kings, I and II Chronicles, Ezra

Currently Last In A Long Line of Tables

This is my coffee table.  I traded in my old couch and chair and love seat and added twenty dollars to rescue it from the used furniture store.  It wasn't this color when I rescued it.  I painted it brown, but not because I thought it should be the color of coffee.  This color is called 'Baker's Chocolate'.  (I don't know who names paint colors, but they should know that I am very influenced by the names on the little paint chips.)  Baker's Chocolate.  Yummy.  This is a great piece, not only because it is chocolate colored, but because it is really solid.  And I can prop my feet up on it.  And sit on it if I want to.  And it has a little secret.  As in 'secret compartment'. 

I'll show it to you if you promise not to tell anyone. 

I painted the secret compartment 'Indian Gem'. 

And then I got a little carried away and painted the insides of all the drawers Indian Gem as well. 

And if I put a little Indian figurine in the drawer and close it then the little Indian will come to life and build a little Indian village in my big room.  (I haven't actually tried this yet, but it could happen...)  And then it will make a little fire and brew some coffee.  And one cup of hot chocolate for me.  And we'll kick back and put our feet up and talk about what we're going to plant in our gardens if Spring ever really gets here. 

Jesus Loves Me--This I Know

I first heard the song Jesus Loves Me on an episode of "Little House on the Prairie".  Back before it was on reruns.  I can't remember if Laura sang it, or Pa sang it to Laura.  Seems like maybe they were being attacked by Indians at the time. 
Although I've sung it a thousand and one times to my own children and countless times to children of other people, my own mother never sang it to me.  And her mother never sang it to her. 
Here is a song my mother did sing to me:

Brenda, Brenda, she's no good.

Chop her up for kindling wood.

When she's dead,

Put her in bed.

Then we'll have some gingerbread.

I never had gingerbread, so I wasn't sure if one would eat it as part of a celebration or in mourning, but the song has a happy tune and my mom always seemed cheerful when she sang it. 

So I also sang this to my children.  When they were fresh out of the bathtub and smelling wonderful and I was so in love with them I just couldn't find words to express it.  While this seemed like the perfect song to me, the STP was not happy about it.  (They also did not sing at the table when the STP was a child.  This explains some of his issues.) I tried to explain to him that it was a song of endearment, but he was not buying it.  So I stopped singing it (when he was around), but I'm pretty sure my kids have pleasant memories of me whispering it their ear when I tucked them into bed.  Because I wanted them to know that I loved them.

I'm thinking that even through my teenage years, when I was pretty hateful to my mom, that I never doubted that she loved me.  Positive she would NEVER understand me. I was certain she had no fashion sense. I knew she loved my brother more than me.  But I knew she loved me.  And it wasn't because she spent a lot of time telling me.  I just knew it because of what she did.  Because she didn't give up.  She didn't let up. 

I've been reading through my Bible for lent.  Front to back.  (I am just starting II Kings.)  And I am amazed at some of the things God says and does.  To prove His love.  And I am amazed at the things He continues to do for me.  To show me how much He loves me.  And I'm glad it's not just the words of the Bible that I have to go on.  And I'm glad that He doesn't give up on me.  And that He goes to great lengths to let me know how much He loves me. 

And so when the Bible says that God is singing over me,

The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."

Zephaniah 3:17

maybe he is singing the gingerbread song today.  I like the sound of that.
 
Yeah, let's call it the gingerbread song instead of the kindling wood song...

Living The WIld Life--Part 2

My quest to see big horn sheep has been ongoing for 18 months.  You would think that living next to the Big Horn River in Big Horn County at the base of the Big Horn Mountains would be the perfect place to see big horn sheep.  The STP and the Goob saw big horn sheep on their first visit to Wyoming.  In the wild.  I had only seen them mounted on walls.
The trick is knowing some experienced big horn sheep sighters.  And the first thing they know is where to look.  Start in the place where the big horn sheep winter over.  And go in the winter. 

This may be why I have never seen big horn sheep.  They are invisible to the naked eye.  See them here out the truck window?  Me, neither.
I may have driven right by big horn sheep a gazillion times. 

 

 

I used my camera to zoom in on them.  But no, wait, that's just a clump of sage brush.

The sheep were just to the left of the sage brush.  Oh, there they are.  See them now?

The next trick is to use your binoculars.  Or borrow the great big sighting scope from the experienced big horn sheep sighters. 

Now, scopes are something I know about.  Not exactly a microscope, but what if I could combine the scope and my camera, ala fungi photos.  And voila!

I know that they make cameras that actually attach to lenses that make this easy, but where is the fun in that?

Once I knew what I was looking for I saw about 100 big horn sheep in one afternoon.  Thanks to the experienced big horn sheep sighters. 

Just as we were heading home about dusk, the experienced big horn sheep sighter says  "Look, there's a herd of elk."  And he was right.  About 100 elk.  See them?   Just at the base of the mountain.  Can you them now? 

Welcome to Game Night

Last night we played games with two families that we are especially fond of.  They both have children the same age as the Goob.  And all of the children get along and all of the adults get along and all of the adults get along resonably well with all of the children. 
We played the game "Things".  A game where everyone writes down 'things' and everyone tries to guess who wrote what.  The Goob and his best friend have brains that function scarily on the same wavelength.  Which made it very difficult to guess which of them would stand in line to see an execution and which of them would stand in line to see The Amazing Gonzo.  There was also one not quite a teenager little brother there and, as the Goob desribed it, 'his brain wanders in and out of the collective'.  Which made it especially hard to decide who would write down 'hunchback waitress' as an answer to anything. 
I scored only one point all evening.  The STP won the game.  Unless the object really was to build relationships and laugh together.  In that case, we were all winners.  Which should make our host happy.  He is one of those uber-competitive types to whom winning is important.  He laughed so hard he had tears in his eyes.  WINNER!

WasteBook

Would love to blog today, but I spent all my allotted computer time stalking about on FaceBook.
Added a new friend and updated my status.
Found two things I liked and made one comment.
For the record:  II Samuel

Old TestaLent

Judges, Ruth, I Samuel
Stories about people breaking rules make better reading than the rules themselves.

Ms Brenda Ties a Fly

Theodore Gordon is dead to begin with. 

But before that he was born in Pittsburgh in 1854 and 'fathered a dry-fly tying movement'.  

And today I was swept up in the movement.
This, then, is the beginning.
For Christmas my nephews gave me some fly tying supplies and a book with pictures.  For my birthday, the STP gave me a vise and assorted other fly tying equipment.  And today, I tied my very first fly.  Following the pattern in Chapter 2 of Tying Dry Flies. (about as closely as I ever follow a recipe) 
Step 1.  Stripped quill of peacock herl.  This is the equivalent step to preheat the oven and grease the bottom of your pan.  This is what the directions actually say:

1.  Prepare a peacock quill for the body by removing the herl with a pencil eraser.  Let the quills soak in water ahead of time to increase their flexibility.  To save time, prepare the quills in batches when tying several flies.

Which left me with several questions.  Should I soak before I erase or after?  How much ahead of time?  How many peacock quills are in a typical 'batch'?  And what exactly is herl?  At this point I should warn you that the pattern had 40 steps.  And I had 20 questions about each step. 

First I had to thread the bobbin.  The intructions said to place the thread in the tube and suck the the thread down and out through the tube.  Did they mean literally 'suck'?  Fortunately, my tool kit came with a bobbin threader.  I love the STP.

I also had to substitute some materials.  Partly because words like spade hackle and hackle butt and dun mean nothing to me and partly because I didn't really have everything the recipe called for.  (There is variation that calls for stripped peacock quill counter-wound with white thread and varnished.)

At this point I am wondering if the fish really knows the difference. 

As you can plainly see, this is what I used in place of wood-duck flank feathers.  Attached securely in my wing clump.

Next I separated the the wing clump using my bodkin.  (Which is quite different from my bobkin.) Once I posted both wings, I stopped to take another picture. That's just how properly divided my wing clump was. 

And, if I were a fish, I would have eaten the thing right then. 

The tailing fibers were supposed to be from a spade hackle(?) which near as I could tell I didn't have.  I tried to use some feathers that looked similar, but they were too short.  So I added some of my nephew Jake's red hair.  I love Jake's hair, but it seemed a little fine and limp for tail fibers.  Nothing a little hair gel can't fix.  After I had it on my fly, I gave it a little trim.  Besides, as chapter 2 describes the properly tied fly, it will balance so that the

fly rides over ...water like a Coast Guard lifeboat, so nearly balanced that often the tail...doesn't touch the water at all. 

Just 15 more steps and I had my peacock quill wrapped.  This seemed like a lot of fuss about nothing ,as a peacock quill with its herl erased looks a whole lot like black thread to me.  Evidently fish have a more discriminating eye for these things. 

And then I wrapped the hackle.  (Hackle seems to be a fly tying jargon which is used whenever you don't know what else to call something.)   There must be a method to do this.  I tried using my hackle pliers (I'm not making this up), but without much success.  Luckily I had a an extra hackle.

Here is a picture that is not in the book.  It comes between step 38 and step 39. It is my finger firmly half hitched to the fly.

And here is my finished Quill Gordon.  I set it next to the picture in the book and, really, I think it is amazing.  (Mine is the one on the right.)

Join us next time, when we skip ahead to chapter 6--The Sparkle Dun.

Spring Is In The Air

Just a safety note:  With the warmer temperatures there appears to be an increased grizzly bear threat.  We may want to find out the 'special rules'.