A Touch of Class.

Tuesday night the girls were in bed reading...

I was laying on the couch with my sedative (a fleece blanket over me and ice pack to my lower back.)  I was all decked out in my very best flannel pajamas.

At one point (somewhere between Last Man Standing and before we started Buffy on Netflix) Brent turned to me and said, "Bret called to tell me he decided to mount Barrett's buck."  Bret is his brother.  Barrett is his nephew.  This year Barrett got a ten point buck when they went hunting...

Brent got NUTHIN'.  Unless one counts the privilege of taking his nephew hunting...And I can assure you he doesn't.

Not that I care if he gets a deer...  Well, I care.  But only because my husband feel his testosterone levels are somehow linked to the quantity of animals he kills per year.

Anyway, he felt the need to tell me Barrett's deer will be mounted.

I tried to look interested...Secretly, I was just relieved said deer will not be in MY house...

"He's decided on the European mount."

Great.  He expects interaction with this conversation...

"What does that mean?" I inquired brightly.

"It's where they use this super confusing process that leaches all of the flesh off of the skull to make it super white..."

Okay, that's not what he said.  But I think that was the gist of it.

"Yuck.  Who would want to do that?  Mount a deer skull in their living room?  Gross."

He suddenly sat upright from his reclining position.  "I'm going to do it with the next coyote I get.  It's really classy!"

And at that, Gentle Reader, I began to laugh.  Hard.

And loud.

And quite obnoxiously...

I'm talking straight from the gut laughter.

Seriously?  A deer skull?  CLASSY????

He got a little huffy on me.  I have no idea why.  

"I'll prove it to you!  Just wait!"  And he victoriously pulled up a picture much like this on the computer:

Gentle Reader, I am afraid this did NOT make me come around to his way of thinking...I fear it only made me laugh harder...

He was quite put out with me...

While in no way am I able to deny that I lack all sorts of sophistication or refinement, I can't quite figure out how that monstrosity is going to elevate us in any sort of societal circles.

But that's just me.

Thoughts?

More Pictures of Home

 I had so much to say about the 100+ photos I took at my parents last weekend, I decided to post some of them and share my thoughts.  Aren't you excited? 

I only have one beef with myself:  Why didn't Paula's family do pictures with my family?  Then we could prove that we were actually there behind the camera!

Anyhoo, let the dialogue begin...

Popcorn loves cats. And cats love her.  So much so that they are willing to go feed calves if it means another minute in her arms.  She is seldom without a cat if a cat is within reach.

 See what I mean?

 Two things about this picture:  

1.  I rotated it.  Why did blogger rotate it back?

2.  Is that my daughter in her dad's high school ball cap with a gun over her shoulder and a box of shells in her arms?

3.  How did this happen?

Yes.  That is three things.  I could not control myself.

I love this picture.  Minus the dead birds.  But I love it.  I love that my kids love their cousins and I love it that the dads in this picture are just overgrown children.

Apparently hunting near a farm pond is dirty business.  And apparently camo is not at all required to shoot dove when you are near one of the few sources of water in a drought.

 See the dove head at Kelsey's nose?  Yuck.

Aren't you glad I share all aspects of my life with you?

Why, hello Captain Morgan!

You teatotallers will not understand that comment.  

I'm okay with that.

However, I'm not at all sure that is how one spells tea totaller...teetotaler/tea totaler/I really don't know and am too lazy to look it up.

Dead Eye.  I love him.  I love this picture.  He looks so much like his dad.  And yet, I can see the resemblance to my brother in him too.  He is only 13 and he already passed my 5'8 frame.  I think he is going to be huge.

I tagged along one evening hunting.  I took pictures and "bird dogged" for Brent.

I lost three birds.  I discovered I was a little squeamish if the bird wasn't dead dead DEAD when I had to retrieve it.  Ick.

Again:  Aren't you glad to know the sordid details of my life?

This not so little lady was not at all sure what we were doing at HER watering hole.

Studmuffin is such a poser.  I love him for it.

Well, and because he's my husband and the father of my children and when I was pregnant he never let me scrub the tub as the fumes were bad for the baby and why did I ever start scrubbing it again???

Oklahoma is famous for sunrise and sunset.  Yet, I can never seem to capture the full beauty of it.

I think part of the beauty is the vast open spaces with flat land all around.

Anyway that's my theory.

See that bunch of trees?  They are one mile southeast of us.

Those trees were planted by my parents forty years ago.

They have lived in that very spot for forty five years.

I think.  The details are sketchy as I wasn't alive when they built that house.

But Dawn was.

She is oooooooolllld.

And she is dragging me along behind her.

She better fix whatever ails her before I get there.  She has twelve years to figure it out, and I'm counting on her.

Another photo that I rotated and blogger flipped back.

Studmuffin and Dead Eye with the second day's kill.

How gruesome is this picture?

I must really love my husband.

Oh, and he pointed out he still has few inches on Dead Eye.

For now.

How to Tell if Your Husband is a Redneck

Not that I ever had any questions about mine...But if your hubby displays similar behavior...Take my word for it...He's a true redneck!

So, I was sitting in my recliner blogging (of course) when Studmuffin got home from work. He was rattling the front knob, and trying to frantically unlock it. By the time I peeled my worthless tookus out of my chair, he was in, had dropped his stuff on the floor, had shouted "There's a coyote in the back yard!" and headed to the bedroom for his......GUN!!!

He appeared a few minutes later totin' his gun and calls. I stayed in the house to watch the excitement through the window. I could see the coyote in the field behind us. He was trotting up the fence line west of us, heading north (away from the house.) The Canadian geese are back. They were just north of our house. I could hear Studmuffin using his call. The coyote would slow down, look over his shoulder, and resume his trot into town. However, when the geese heard the call, they would all stand up and look at our house. The dogs were pretty excited by the noise too. The coyote was too weary of our house and although the was interested, he wasn't trusting Studmuffin's wounded animal sounds.

I, of course, lost interest and went to gather up some laundry. I passed back through the living room to discover this:


Studmuffin was standing in the house watching the coyote walk all the way into town. He stopped at a pond, then Studmuffin lost track of him. Yep, you might be a redneck if you use your rifle scope to watch wildlife through your living room window!

I think I encountered this same wily fellow nearly every morning last summer. He was younger then, and he would walk right through my back yard every morning as I would be out weeding my flower beds. However, on the weekends, when Studmuffin was sitting on the porch with his gun loaded and ready for action, he never passed by. Yep, he's on to Studmuffin's game. We'll see who comes out the winner in the end!

Hey, and for anyone who noticed my bare gazebo...I DO NOT recommend gazebos with cloth covers for Oklahoma. The previous owners had purchased the one we have the fall of 'o7, and anchored it to the concrete slab in the back. The frame stayed put, but the cover didn't last through the summer. The wind tore it to bits....Now we're trying to decide what to do about it. Buy a heavier canvas? Cover it with a light weight wood for an arbor effect? Tear it down and build an arbor out of lumber and relocate the gazebo to a different area of the yard?

Of course, we are in the middle of trying to get a fence built for the backyard, and getting a garden in. The porch cover is on the back burner for now...But it's still something I think about. Oh well, these rambles are for another day........