Finally, the project is complete, off the press and shipping to a mail box near you! If of course you ordered. If you didn’t, the opportunity awaits. Just click on the BOOK button above for full ordering instructions.
So far, I’m getting great feedback from people who have received their copy. It’s a beautiful book and I owe MUCH of that to Gordon Snidow for allowing me to use his painting for cover art. The attitude and style suit the book and it’s content well.
I love seeing people thumb through the book to see if THEIR favorite story is there. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t, which means it could show up in another book.
I have learned so much in this process and thank all of you who have encouraged and supported me through it. The success belongs to you as much or more than it does to me. I put the parts together, you were the inspiration.
I’m also finding people who are completely NOT cowboy are finding something to enjoy in the book. A young gal at the printers told me she began reading the stories as they worked on the book and her comment was “Those are so funny!”
So when I can reach beyond the cattleguard to give someone a smile, I’ve succeeded! And you don’t need to be a cowboy or know a thing about them to enjoy the stories!
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FROM THE BOOK:
Moonlight cowboying
You don’t have to own yearling cattle that get out on the highway only after you have gone to bed to appreciate the story I’m about to tell you.
What you will understand is first the humor, and then, just how often we ranch folk are thankful for so many little things.
Marci had been trying to fight off a record book-sized head cold for days so she wasn’t in the best of humor and had only a little sleep, at best, for several nights.
About 9 p.m. on this particular night she took some cold medicine, hoping it would help both the cold and the sleep problems. She tossed and turned, got up at 1 a.m. and took more medication and went back to bed an hour later.
At 2:30 a.m. the phone rang. That is never a good thing. It was their neighbor Jim telling her that they had lots of cattle on the Yankee highway and they were headed north up the canyon.
Marci slapped a still sleeping husband, Frank, up side the head, mostly to wake him up but more so out of simple frustration. After 30-plus-years of marriage, she was sure he didn’t know the difference.
Pulling on their cowboy clothes, they jumped in the pickup and drove up to the highway.Jim had gotten in front of most of them and had them headed back down the highway towards home.
The local sheriff was on the scene in his fancy car and was managing to hit Marci in the eyes with his high-powered spotlight whenever possible.When the sheriff wasn’t blinding her, Frank was with his own Q-Beam. She noted that one-million candle power in your face at 3 a.m. is not soothing.
Marci was leading the cattle with the pickup and Jim was bringing up the rear of the herd. Frank was riding in the back of Marci’s pickup for a fast get away. Marci was slightly amused that at this point, he trusted her driving. But then she realized he still hadn’t figured out that she had slapped him awake.
They got the cattle to the gate of the pasture where they belonged, and as cattle will do, they changed their mind and headed back up the canyon again.
Marci wheeled out to go help Jim and both were trying to outrun the cattle up the highway.
Frank was hanging out the back of the truck telling her something that sounded like “stop†so she hit the brakes.He had said stop but didn’t intend for a slam-the-brakes kind of stop. He rolled over the side of the truck and recovered on his feet enough to block a side-road off the highway.
The cattle finally went through the gate on the second try while the sheriff was still waving his spotlight around and trying to figure out who was on first.
They got home about 4:30 that morning. Marci’s “thank God†praises were for good neighbors, gentle cattle and a full moon.
How did Jim know the cattle were on the highway you ask?
He got up sometime after two in the morning to go to the bathroom and saw car headlights slowing down and weaving to miss the cattle.
Marci then thanked God for old men with weak bladders.
