We didn't do much. Did a lot of sitting around listening to the birds. When I woke up that morning Joe was on the porch drinking coffee. I joined him and we sat in silence just listening to the sounds of the ranch; the birds, the frogs and insects, the cows. Then Dad came out and started blabbling nonstop. I made plans to get up extra early on Saturday so I could have more time alone out there. Really, those bird sounds are like Prozac.
After breakfast and doing some more sitting around Molly, Maryann and I went to the pasture to hunt for fossils and arrowheads. Ruth came along and sat in the car. The pasture isn't what you'd normally think a pasture would be. It looked pretty much the same as the rest of the ranch. Lots of brush and rocks. In one particular place there is a strata of oyster fossils. It's pretty cool. You can find perfectly preserved oyster shells. These babies must have been delicious. Dems some big oysters. If you have a very good eye you can also find rocks that have been worked by ancient Indians. I found one that looked like a small scraper and fit perfectly in my right hand. But you have to be very lucky to find an arrowhead. Anyway, it was a nice stroll.
Molly brought a loaded pistol with her. She said there's a herd of about 50 feral hogs running around and you really don't want to meet up with any of them unarmed. There are also javalinas at the ranch and they're none too friendly. Rattlesnakes, too. That's why I decided it wouldn't do me any harm to lay off the exercise for a while. I can't outrun a freakin' pig.
I was really enjoying getting to know Maryann. She was always the cousin that I didn't know very well because her family lived in Washington and we always went to see the Texas relatives. She's pretty cool. She reminds me sooo much of Michele. She's very mellow and easy to be with. Molly and Maryann are the same age (60) and they had spent a lot of time together as little kids. They had stories about the old folks I had never heard. I could see they were really happy to have this week together.
Friday was a good day (when I wasn't dealing with Mr. Smartass).
5 comments:
Dang, Javalinas, wild pigs, snakes. There's probably a kind of zen you can get into by running into one of those...and then running away.
Birds, I love the sound of birds. Pretty cheery and if there's a lot of them they drown out the traffic. Well, at least at my house.
btw, I think swallowing a Prozac pill much easier than swallowing a bird. Those feathers are probably pretty dry.
Ah, but we didn't have to swallow them, we only had to listen to them, which is much easier than shoving a Prozac pill in your ear.
If there's anything zen about crapping your pants, screaming, running and then being knocked down and killed, I haven't heard of it. But then, I'm not very religious.
It's quite possible that if I happened upon a nasty, wild pig the first word out of my mouth would be JEEEZUS!
Have you ever been in so much danger that time slows down to nothing? Where you notice every spec of whatever is in your face? Time s l o w s . Thats the zen I'm talking about.
Oh, THAT zen. Yes, twice, but there were no pigs involved.
Wait, now I'm not sure if we're talking about wild hogs or my turtle-shooting cousins.
Post a Comment