Catching up (short version)

Well, since I've been getting some requests to catch up from old friends, I thought I might try to sum up where my life's gone since... oh, the 20th century.

So.

There was high school, then college (with art and theatre and a case of Yukon Jack), then the Science Fiction section at Powell's Books, then the nursery in Burns, then working for the Burns schools (including the OYA facility), then the Crane Elementary library, then getting married to Rosemary, and that pretty much brings us up to date.

For every one of those "then"s, you can figure on a variable amount of time spent at the ranch. That's where I'm working now, driving back and forth between Hines and Drewsey every day like an idiot, and trying to get a grasp of how a ranch is actually run. I don't know if I'll ever really get it, but I'm trying.

Whenever I'm not working at being a rancher, I'm either working on making our house a better place to live, fixing somebody's tech problems, or reading blogs and webcomics in bed.

So... how about you?

The lives of the cowboys...

Well, today started out as a fairly ordinary day. Out of bed, kids to school, off to work at the ranch. We were sorting calves out (some to ship out tomorrow, some to keep around for a while, some to sell now) and had gotten not quite halfway through when one of them jumped, kicked out a hind leg, and hit Mom in the jaw, knocking her out, splitting her lip, and loosening some teeth. She came around quickly, but with no memory of what had happened, and spitting blood.

Dad and I got her up on the four-wheeler, and took her in and loaded her in the car, and Dad took her to town to the hospital. Turned out her nose was also broken, and the doctor recommended sending her to an oral surgeon right away. This meant a two-hour ambulance ride, since the car was acting up on the way in. Now I'm waiting to hear that the surgery's done and that they'll be ready to head back tomorrow.

So, in the morning, I'll be heading out to do everything that they normally do in the morning: feed the horses, make sure everything has water, feed the calves, then check for any sick critters in the fields. Ah, the glamorous life of a cowboy...