Friday, May 24, 2024

Cooking and Cleaning on a Friday

 One more day of branding today means an early morning wake-up call

It feels odd to not be cooking dinner for the crew, but they split up the crew and are working in 2 separate sets of pens and since the cattle are on the north side of the ranch and the new camp man wants to be in charge, we just turned that over to him so his fiancé is cooking dinner.

However, DH was taking 20 men and gathering cattle while the camp man took 4 in a different direction. So I fixed 20 breakfast sandwiches at 3 a.m. this morning for DH to take along and hand out to the crew.

Nothing fancy. Just toasted English muffins with a spicy sausage patty, a slice of cheese, and a fried egg. Basically, an Egg Mcmuffin, but it's kind of nice to hand them something when they've been up since 2:30 and will be putting in lots of miles in the saddle. It's a long time till dinner.

I'm still scratching my head as to why it requires 25 men to brand 200 hd of cattle, but there's more than one way to do things and we're probably just set in our ways. They work things fast and hard now. It's not wrong. Just different, but I can't bring myself to go take pictures so I just snapped a sad picture of DH heading out at 3:45 with his horse, a tumbler of hot coffee, a cooler full of 50 bottles of water, branding irons and paraphernalia , and a cooler of warm breakfast sandwiches.

Yesterday he left at 3:15 in the morning and didn't get back until 8:45 that evening. Sigh. At 61, I hate this for him. It's frustrating, but it's fine. I just take a deep breath and know that all is well because God's got everything in His hands. 

I took the opportunity in the quiet early morning hours to do a little Spring cleaning-out. If I'm not using it - out it goes so sorting was in order

I love cards. I used to make them, until quilting took over my creative heart, but I have a lot of store- bought ones as well so I went through those and even wrote a few to send. I need to do that more often. My mom was so good at that. I don't think a day went by that she didn't send a card to a friend and it's really a nice surprise to find one in your mailbox.

And my collection of CD's - what do you do with these? 

I feel like I'm a part of that in-between generation...my parents' generation kept everything and the kids toss everything and buy something else these days. I know our chiddlers will keep photos and quilts, but I think I'll save them from having to toss out my music collection. Now as for my fabric!...I'm not ready to tackle THAT yet.

6 comments:

Elle said...

I have away every cassette tape, every CD and then sold my album collection for $100 to a 37yo w/3 kids.

HARD but doable. I sympathize with you.

Gretchen Weaver said...

Those are some early hours! I sorted through stuff when we moved. The other day I decided to sort more, stuff that I haven't used since we moved here almost 2 years ago! CD I donate to a resale shop that uses the monies received for charity. Someone may want them. I even sorted out some fabrics to donate! Hope you find some time for stitching soon.

Joy said...

I still listen to CDs while I quilt. I have downloaded music online, but I miss the liner notes on the CD cases and I swear some of the downloads get cut off in the middle.

I love your recipes but shudder at the hours you have to keep to feed all those people.

Anonymous said...

Our last move was yikes 46 years ago. I did an attic "curating" 16 years ago and started another one this year, got 1/2 done and then the hot weather made it untenable so hopefully I'll do the 2nd half when it cools off. Ridiculous amount of stuff accumulates, some we didn't recognize!

SO congratulations on staying on top of it!

Ceci

Robin said...

We just returned from a motorhome trip from Illinois to the Grand Canyon. As we were driving through Oklahoma I couldn't help but think of you, your husband, and ranch life. I kept talking to my husband about you and your life like we were best friends. I always enjoy your posts, thank you for sharing your farm life.

Theona said...

I hear your theme for the year: "It's not wrong. Just different."
LOL

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