July 29, 2012

Hurricane Harry - The Last Meal. I have been looking for this for more than 15 years! FINALLY!!!

have it on a cassette tape I recorded off the radio years and years ago but never could find it with my shitty google search "skills". happened on it tonight because I heard another version and has something else to start the search with.

Now I heard the warden say, I had one more day.
One last meal before they led me away.
And he said - if we ain't got it, We'll go out and get it.
You don't have to go 'til we come back with it.
So I said...

Give me two dinosaur eggs over easy.
Fried kooka-bird, not too greasy.
Mosquito knee , black-eyed bees.
An' a little bitty bowl of buttered bee-balm beans

A sabre-tooth tiger steak
A whole hippopotamus, well baked.
Two cross-eyed catfish
and some wavy gravy in the left hand dish

Now go, and get my dinner. Go,
and get my dinner.
You ain't got it?, go out an' get it.
I ain't goin', til you come back with it.


A captivating cup of crocodile dill.
A purple watermelon and an alligator pill.
A bottle of mellow mountain mist
An' a female banana I can't resist


Now go, and get my dinner. Go,
and get my dinner.
You ain't got it?, go out and get it.
I ain't goin', til you come back with it.

A heavy hunk of jelly and a fried rainbow
A rainwater cocktail and a breeze a la mode
A barbecued brick of chocolate ice cream
Bring me a plate of stewed moonbeam


Now go, and get my dinner
Go, and get my dinner
Hey Mr warden, gotta have my fill
I can't go without my last meal

July 12, 2012

A little while ago I had one of the saddest phone calls I have ever recieved.

I was in the feed store and there was kind of a rush for some reason so a lot of people were standing around visiting. My phone rang with a number I didn't recognize and for some strange reason I went ahead and answered. Not a normal thing for me to do inside a business like that.

It was a young man calling from our front gate (where I have my number posted) he said he was calling about someone who might have been left behind. A strange turn of phrase. He was obviously feeling awkward and finally asked almost as if he were inquiring about a lost dog, had anybody on the ranch seen a dead body.

It seems his cousin hasn't been heard from in over 2 months. He has been driving around the county trying to find the trail that the cousin was walking. The mother is panicking and wants to come across to search but where is she going to start, what can she do? He said he had called the Willcox Border Patrol but they said there hasn't been a body in this sector in over 8 months. I am so sad for this family. Can you imagine?

There are so many idiots running around on dune buggies and 4 wheelers, plus the local ranchers and other horseback travelers, constant low flying aircraft (more BP) - not to mention the other migrants passing through I would think somebody would have found any bodies by now from 2 months ago, but then some of the country is brushy and rough and the cycle of nature returns organic matter pretty quickly to the earth.

On the other hand a cell phone and a few minutes of Mexico calling is so cheap these days, if he was Ok they surely would have heard from him.

Can you imagine being the mother of this young man who tried to walk 100 miles to find work? I need to go hug my sons.

June 30, 2012

the old windmill part 1 and 2 NOW with ***PART 3*** !!!

that is my artsy intro picture


When I was a kid, the ranch water supply consisted of several dirt stock ponds that would hold water most of the year, and two hand-dug wells about 20 to 25 feet deep. The one up the road had a gas motor attached by a belt to a lightweight pump jack. the water in it has sulfur bacteria or some kind of problem that makes the water taste like shit although it is ok for livestock or bathing (and I suppose one might eventually get used to it but...bleh. It never got used much other than in the summer to water the old apricot tree and supplement the water storage for the corrals. Grampa would fill the gas tank and start it up once a day and that was about all it produces - 4 or 5 hours of pumping. (no idea of rates anymore)

The main "house well" was down below the pecan trees. It is a concrete lined box about 6 foot sqquare. There was always a windmill over it but I have no memory of it pumping. The tower seemed to exist to temp kids into scaring their Grandmother to death. We weren't allowed to climb on it. You can imagine the reality.

It had a much heavier pump jack that also ran by belt only off an electric motor in my life time. It was covered with old bridge ties and was not the most "sanitary" situation in the world. It was my job until too recently to climb down inside to recover various deceased wildlife. Sometimes not deceased. Ever try to fish an angry racer out of a well with a stick?

This well supplied the house and the corrals both up until just a few years ago. OK more like 10, I am getting old. The southwest entered what was predicted to be a 20 year drought about 24 years ago. The well hung in for about half of that. We eventually dropped a little submersible in there and sealed the top up with concrete. About 5 years ago we had a collapse and the bottom filled in about 6 to 8 feet with soil and rock from the sides down low (that were not cased with concrete - and I always thought it was solid rock when I was hanging off that damn ladder) and buried the pump.

That was also about to where the water level had dropped, so without somebody going down in there to clean it out we were done with it. Because of the way it had caved I had extreme safety concerns - and if you know me and the sort of normal risks we live with you will read that as I was majorly askeered of going down there, or letting anybody else do it.

Jump ahead a few years and the talk of getting it cleaned out picks up - knock the concrete off the top and start watching it. It will show a little water through the year, if we could do something - clean it out someway, maybe we could at least use it for house water again - it was good tasting water (when there wasn't dead squirrels in it). The thought was to maybe drop a 20 foot length of 4 foot diameter culvert pipe down there and then start shoveling and pulling it out with a bucket like the bad old days. And there it sat - on the back, back back burner.

THEN...a couple of weeks ago...the livestock storage tank drained out one night. The husband went down to see if the cattle had broken a float or some pipe had finally rotted through. He couldn't find any mud or overflowing troughs and was standing around scratching his head when he thought he heard water running. Over by the old well.

too be continued...

June 6, 2012

Tahrir Square and Cairo street art, April 2012 - dial up warning!

I finally got a usb wireless modem and this is my first hugh! pichur post.

My sister was in Egypt last January and February during the revolution and had a chance to go back again this spring.

Enjoy these cool images.

May 24, 2012

VERIZON WIRELESS RANT (and a little record keeping to boot) (also TLDR warning, heh)

As a few of you know, I have been on glacially slow dial up for more than 10 years. A couple of weeks ago I lost even that due to wind, a tiny bit of rain, and a bird nest. At least I have it back on because that event finally made me start the process to get a faster connection and apparently I REALLY need my dial up for that.

It has just been one fuck up after another.

All I have available out here is dial-up over 70 + year old phone lines, satellite (which everybody seems to say is almost as bad as dial-up, in some cases worse) or wireless broadband from Verizon. (despite at least 6 2-inch underground conduits' worth of fiber optic passing less than 150 feet from my house - fuck you AT&T) We have had cell phones with them forEVER. (although there were a couple years we had Altell when Verizon wasn't technically available out here - prior to that a whiz tech person had rigged up some route through Nogales for us to keep a Tucson number, but one time when we got a new phone nobody could figure out how we were even on the system) A few years ago Verizon bought Altell out so we were back with them again.

Mostly the service is pretty good and tech support is in-country which I appreciate. Things out on a ranch are hard enough to explain to urban Americans, trying to explain to people outside of the country are much more difficult.

Two of the squids have (now unavailable) unlimited data plans on their smart phones. One of them is ...um, hard on the brick-a-brack, if you know what I mean and goes through about 3 phones a year. The last time he destroyed it he went almost two months before he came up with the $$ for a new one. In that time I had the brilliant idea to see if I could transfer his data plan to an air card for my laptop. I called Verizon and whoever said sure we could do that. I didn't do it then because I needed to make sure it was going to be OK with the kid. So the next time I called to see about maybe going ahead with it and getting a new plan for him, the person almost laughed at me. No way to do that.

Next time I called I had looked on-line at their website and found a used, er "certified pre-owned" modem for $50 with a 2 year contract but when I tried to get the price for month to month bills it gave me the full brand new price. The person I talked to said she could set it up for me to get the month to month and the device at the used price. I can't remember why I didn't do it right then but it is probably related to my difficulty in justifying to myself the $50 a month for a LIMITED amount of data. Anyway, I finally got to that mental space and called to order the thing. Well as you can imagine, suddenly no I can't have a used one and month to month billing. Fuckers. I do not want to commit to a 2 year contract on this becasue I don't know if a) I can actually afford it and b) it will really work out!

So I did what we do when the kids lose or destroy a phone before contract renewal time - got a used device off the internet. (GoOverstock.com through Amazon gets a rec from me here) It got here in 3 days through the US Postal service. The way I prefer to have things shipped. Because then I have all day to go AT MY LEISURE, and pick it up at the post office. FedEx and UPS won't come down our road (and I DO NOT blame them - FUCK YOU AGAIN AT&T, fix your goddamn right-of-way once this century, huh?)

When I got it I called Verizon to see about getting the SIM card for it. "Oh you can just stop at a Veriozon store and get one for free!" Uh I live 20 miles from the nearest town and the "verizon store" is the local Radio Shack which I hate. (this was last Thursday I think) "Well we can ship it FedEx to you and it will get there by Monday free!" arrggg. I decide that somebody will be going to town before Monday so tell them I will get one in town. We go ahead and set up the account so all I will have to do is activate the thing when I get the sim card. Next day find out Radio Shack is no longer a Verizon vendor (I can imagine why, the owner is...let's just say he seems to enjoy his cocktail hour all day long). Walmart has Verizon products, though so send the kids over there to pick one up. They want $20 for it. Fuck that I am way too much of a tightwad for that! Another call to Verizon and another attempt by me to get them to pass a customer comment up the food chain about their delivery policies. I would rather wait extra DAYS and get things at the post office than have to try to meet a private-company driver who often has no cell phone.

I watch the tracking on line all weekend and on Tuesday call FedEx to make sure whatever office this is going to go from onto the truck knows to either call me or tell the driver to when he/she gets to Benson so I can meet them at the end of our road (or wherever) Yesterday I sat around all morning waiting and they finally called around 11. Got my new sim card - all excited - going to get on line, load some pix my sister emailed from Egypt that I can't even open on dial-up and maybe come post them on DU!!! yahoo, right?!! Oh HELL no.

Nothing works, can't get the frigging thing to connect, tech support can't figure it out, finally they decide my previous call didn't set up the new account right and they send me to sales...this person can't seem to grasp anything I tell her and finally INSISTS the company I bought the device from had set me up with a contract to go through them and that is why she can't activate - have to do it through them. I am like WTF? no way no way no way, the whole point of ordering a USED device from an ELECTRONIC RETAILER was to AVOID a contract. There is NOTHING about connecting through them or any kind of contracts ANYWHERE in the order, delivery emails, or paper invoice. So I had to contact them to ask WTF. They (GoOverstock.com - another little rec from me) were pretty cool and sent a good e-mail with clear instructions and mentioned sometimes the commissioned sales people have some "trouble" connecting you when they don't actually get a commission due to the way you are doing things. I try the instructions, which were to go on-line and activate that way. My first problem is entering the sim card's ID number - "a number on the card between 15 and 19 digits" mine had 20. Error message can not activate at this time call 800-xxx-xxxx.

SOOOO I call Verizon back AGAIN and get a pretty good tech guy that checks things out and runs interference for me with the next sales person so we can get the fricking thing set up right. Why? because when the damn device wouldn't connect right the first time the sim card got automatically "retired". Not only do I need to set up a new account again, but they need to send me another sim card.

JEEBUS

But wait it isn't over by a long shot! They try to kiss my ass a little by sending it free overnight! oooh. So yesterday evening these e-mails start rolling in. First an order confirmation. Ok good. Then a shipping notice - cool. Wait - it says it is being shipped USPS. WTF? I thought they couldn't do that? Wow that guy was good and he really listened to my bitching! Click on tracking number and get a "can't find" message. Ok maybe it is just not in the system yet, no biggie. Then I get another shipping notice. And a third one. The second one's numbers matched the ones in the original order confirmation but none of the tracking numbers get anything but an error not found message. Oh well I will worry about it in the morning.

Try everything again this morning. All error not found for the tracking numbers. Try to call customer service. not in until 6. go do some chores, try again. Talk to somebody. They are ALL confused. On hold while person confers with their "team". Comes back with a helpful message.

Current status/knowledge? My order should be here "soon", disregard those 4 e-mails - system errors, coming FedEx, no tracking number available yet, there was some "problem" with the 4G sims yesterday. That is it.

Oh wait, he offered to get me the FedEx 800 number. Hi FedEx? Do you have a random package from Verizon for me somewhere? No I don't have any numbers or any idea where it was shipped from, or even what address they put on it for delivery. Maybe your driver could just stop at a Verizon store in Tucson or Sierra Vista and pick up a new sim card for me? They are supposed to be free.

I'm just sitting here going

edit: just checked my e-mail and they sent me some spam about a sale on 4G smartphones!!!

May 9, 2012

shit. this could only happen to me

horses rarely get mouth cancer - vet says she has only seen it twice in almost 30 years of practice. took pictures and everything. Maybe poor old Joe the Horse will be in a published article.

he isn't in pain yet, but this thing grew pretty fast and it has deformed the right side of his muzzle. he eats and drinks fine, it isn't affecting his back chewing teeth, but the incisors on that side are shifting out of position and if he had to make a living on his own by grazing he would starve pretty fast. he is starting to dribble some chewed food like horses with bad teeth will do. he might have a couple weeks before I have to put him down.

I have barely had him for a year. but of course I have grown attached to the old man. damn it.

April 20, 2012

Tinkus Trauma

this is Frida:







This little dog packs more personality into a small body than I ever would have thought possible. She's incredibly tough too. My son got her a little over a year ago (passed on from a friend, he is the 3rd owner, as it were) and named her Frida. Of course the husband and I immediately started calling her Tinky as a joke name for a typical small dog to tease him, but it stuck. It gets other baby-talk iterations like Tinkus, Tinkus-binkus, etc - you get the gist ( )

It took her a while to warm up to anybody but with the kid working she kind of became more my dog. She goes with the other ranch dogs in the truck and horseback. She has as much stamina as either of them - at first I was overprotective and tried to make her ride when they were running but soon realized she could go as fast and as far at them. She works the cattle - funny to watch her go after a bull who's ear probably weighs more than her. Takes no guff from any of the other animals - including the cats (who are both bigger than her).

I do something a little dangerous with the dogs - I let them run when I am driving slow on the rough dirt roads around here. When we go down to turn on the pump at the well that is 5 miles from the house, we have to go on a paved county road for a short distance, then another dirt road for about a half mile. The dogs all know the tree where I stop to let them out to run (and sniff and pee and chase lizards, rabbits etc) once we get on that dirt road and yesterday I did that as usual. They were really happy to get out for a run because they had been cooped up at the house for three days while I did taxes and caught up on laundry from the pump being out for 10 days (again).

I went on to the well while they were busy at some bush doing dog things. Right at the approach to the well the road is washing out pretty bad so I have been cutting off to the side and making a new trail. That involves a right turn and then a quick left around a mesquite bush/tree. I have only been doing this for a couple of trips so it is a new route.

Yesterday I ran over my little dog.

I wasn't watching and thought she was way back with the others but she had taken off to catch up with me (she is frigging fast) and as I made that left around the mesquite she was right at the drivers side rear wheel. I think some lower branches kept her from getting out of the way as the back wheel came to the left of the path of the front one.

She screamed and I knew in an instant what happened. Jumped out and saw her on the ground right in the tire tracks. I was so afraid I had killed her or was going to have to finish the job. I picked her up and was surprised her head was ok, and that she didn't try to bite me out of pain (although that could have been a bad sign too). I was FREAKING out. Pretty much got religion and begged for her life. I can not believe how much this little mutt has weaseled into my heart. I didn't know what to do. Should I rush down to the vet with these other dogs in the truck? Is she even going to make it? Were there internal injuries? I don't have the kind of money to be able to treat a pet like a human being in terms of drastic or heroic medical treatment that might not work. But I was damn close - calculating the balance on credit cards in my mind, how I would talk them into letting me make payments, all that stuff.

I set her on the seat of the truck and watched her breathing and her eyes. She was clearly traumatized, but she wasn't fading or showing real signs of shock. Her gums had color. After a few minutes she kind of wiggled herself into a more comfortable position. She seemed like she was more or less stable so I felt around and couldn't find any obvious broken bones - pelvis was OK, legs OK and obviously skull was intact - jaw fine, teeth all normal. No blood anywhere. I began to feel hopeful she wasn't going to die right away so I decided to take everybody back to the house and ditch the other two dogs before taking her to the vet. As we got to the house she wobbled to her feet and stood on the arm rest like in the center photo above. She wasn't anywhere near that balanced or mentally that alert, but she knew we were at the house and wanted to go in.

I brought her in and put her on the bed under some covers to see what she would do (she loves to burrow) and went to change my shirt. When I looked back at her she was lying there pretty sad but she wagged her tail and that was the sign that told me she was going to be OK. I decided to wait a while - maybe even until somebody else got home so I wouldn't have to lock Lupe in the house. She was freaking out even worse than me, making weird noises and acting so strange. I'm still not sure if it is concern or predator instinct about a small wounded creature but whatever it was she wasn't going to let me just drive off with Tinky and stay there in the yard. When the son got home I went to get her and she was already trying to get down off the bed. I brought her in and told him what happened. We put her on the daybed in the living room and huddled around worrying and decided to wait until today to see if she needed to go to the vet. After we got her settled in the new spot he went to shower and I was doing stuff in the kitchen and more laundry, checking on her every couple of minutes and getting the great waggy tail reaction. Right as I was about to come check again here she came hobbling around the corner! She pushed the screen door open before I could pick her up and went out to the back yard. She headed for the door to the kids' bathroom, jumped up the step and went in. (their room is through there and the damn door is always open)

She got up on the couch and stayed there for the night. She even ate a little hamburger (cooked mind you, wouldn't touch the raw I offered) last night. I now think I just got her right front leg somehow. There is no way she would have survived a whole body squish, even an empty pickup bed is too heavy for a little dog (although Dumbass survived it when the son backed over him a few years ago, but that is Dumbass - his head is like a boulder)

This morning she went out and peed in the grass, and walked around the house a little. She even gave me a little kiss. Her right shoulder is pretty swollen but the leg is fine and while she is for-sure limping on that leg she is putting weight on it. And she has had a few ounces of water and some more beef. Now she is resting on the bed - definitely not 100%, but she is going to be alright. Now I can't quite figure out exactly what happened, but I am SO grateful she is going to be OK. OMG I ran over Tinky.

March 15, 2012

catching wild cattle is a rare and dangerous occupation

I have been really lucky to know some good cowboys with these kinds of skills. That bull wasn't particularly wild, but it was 4 or 5 miles back to any corrals or other way to get him in a trailer and we just wanted him gone. When they won't stay home they have to go.

If I had found him he and managed to get him off their property I would have had to make him go all that way and bulls can be really hard to drive with out a bunch of cows to follow in. Even then they tend to want to run off or stay behind. Plus one of the tunnels the cattle use to go under the interstate is too short for a horse so it would have been tricky getting him past that and onto the next bigger one. So this worked out OK.

March 15, 2012

Bull! (with special thanks to MFM)

Background: a couple of weeks ago I got word from the neighbors that we had a bull over on their place. Just a few days before that I had asked everybody in the house if they had seen him and another one that are usually together, because they had been coming in about once a week for salt (plenty of water up in the rocks until lately) and I hadn't seen them in several weeks now.

I was really hoping it was the fault of the adjoining neighbor guest ranch leaving a gate open or something, because I am mad at them for some other stuff and to be able to blame them for this would be a good thing. But it looks like he walked right over a cattle guard instead. He wasn't that wild or dangerous but he had horns and he is a range bull, not a 20 year old pet like their bull and 10 cows are. So the first day I didn't even ride on them, instead I went back to the three-way corner with us, them and the guest ranch and checked fences. While I was doing that the daughter (who also lives on the property) called and said they looked at the tracks and thought he came over the cattleguard and went back out. Ok, then he should show up at our headquarters in a couple of days.

I told them I would come back in a couple more days to double check and ride on them. This was the absolute first time I had ever ridden in their property (they are very into locking gates and keeping people out - something I sort of wish I could do but is impossible with the Interstate, two county roads, a railroad and numerous utility right-of-ways through this damn place - also we are about 5 times as big) I looked all over where they said he was and even covered some more ground just trying to get a feel for the place and found some pretty fresh tracks but no real fresh dung or other sign. I figured he had left like they said. Good.

They wanted Dusty to come over and look too so he was supposed to go that Sunday but didn't do it as nobody had seen him or anything and Saturday we spent the whole day moving a big water tank and working on that project. (I usually get one or two days a month from him, and he gets more done then than I do in two whole months - sigh) Of course since Dusty didn't go over there the SOB bull showed up Monday morning and was right in their yard gate. They went out and tried to make him go out the main property gate using a shotgun. (shooting into the dirt) It jammed and he ran off down hill. She called and was all pissed off and I said I would be over as fast as I could. The spouse and I were just about as far away from our house as we could get, working on the plumbing for the water tank we moved earlier.

As soon as I got back to the house I hooked up the trailer and filled the tires with air and went to saddle Old Joe. I looked at his front feet and one of his shoes was almost completely worn through at the toe and one side had come loose and was sticking up along the side of his foot. Got that out of the way but no way to ride him in the rocks with half a shoe on that foot and I am in no shape to take off the other half that was still nailed on tight. (and I still didn't want to ride him barefoot in the rocks) So I called back and said I guess I can't make it I have to wait until Dusty can come shoe my horse so they might as well wait and he would come for sure the next Saturday.

Told her the husband and son would come over the next morning and walk the jeep trail and down the canyons where he probably went. She sounded pretty mad but there really wasn't anything else I could do.

Next day I call to say they are coming over and she says don't bother she is going to have this other guy come get the bull. I was kind of shocked and surprised but said ok (they would take him straight to the Auction in Wilcox and he could be paid out of the proceeds) if he doesn't get him Dusty could come on Saturday. There is a back story to the guy but I won't get into it now other than he was told many years ago to stay off our place after some big steers came home to our HQ with his wife's brand on them. She was till pissed off and giving me an ulcer. These are 2nd and 3rd generation neighbors and aren't going anywhere, so this is a relationship I try to keep safe, unlike the assholes on the other side of me. But jeebus, the bull isn't that dangerous and she could probably lead him around with some hay! They got it in their heads he was wild and dangerous and "charged" them. I bet he was looking for a hand out, but who knows after she tried to herd him using a shotgun?

That was Tuesday. Thursday is sale day and I hadn't heard anything. Dusty texted wanting to know what was up but I didn't feel like calling them and said I would check with the daughter by e-mail. I was on my way to the store that evening when the mom called. They decided not to use the other guy and now they wanted Dusty to come again. ARGH!!! OK so...

Saturday morning it was freezing cold but they showed up - Dusty,two others plus a half dozen dogs. Since I am old and slow I just drove over (in these kinds of things having somebody in a vehicle can be useful - that is my real excuse) I sat on a hill in the truck watching as best I could with binoculars (this is rocky - huge granite boulders and deep draws/canyons that are hard to see into). They rode all around then Dusty and his uncle went back up into a place called Hells Hole while Travis went back over where they had just been and looked in more tight spots. Everybody was out of view so on a hunch I walked back up this little narrow spot that had been created when the property got passed down from the parents to the current holders - they had a fence built on the actual property line instead of keeping the old natural boundary of these huge rocks. I had noticed the bull's tracks going in there when I first came to look the week before, so I knew he had been in there, just not recently. I walked about as far as I could (not much) and came back to the truck. By then the cousin was back. He rested a little and I suggested he go on back in there as I didn't get to the end of it and there WERE some old tracks. He heads back up and I sit and wait. After a little while Dusty and uncle come riding up from Hells Hole with no bull. I was really bummed, because them not getting him meant dealing with telling them we failed. They had spent 3 hours riding around a place that is little over a square mile and couldn't find the SOB. As they rode up I must have looked really disappointed. I said Oh no! you didn't find him? Dusty cracked a grin and tipped his hat up towards where his cousin had gone and said he's in there and they trotted up the trail.

A few seconds later I heard the dogs and here come all three riders crashing through the brush and back out the little gate and around to the road and off. I shut the other gates we had open and followed in the truck. The 8 pictures condense about 15 - 20 minutes of tense and INtense work catching the bull (who had jumped the fence when the dogs got after him) near the road (very important and often neglected in the excitement of the chase), getting him tied to a tree and then into the trailer. No injuries to anybody or any critters, only ruined 3 ropes and lost one spur. Whew.
































with special thanks to MFM for lending me his phucking photobucket and editing, as mine is phucked up still - leaving for posterity

January 20, 2012

my neighbor died last night

I was horseback when I got the call. Since she was a rancher too that seemed fitting. She and I were the two Arizona representatives in book on women in agriculture that was published this year. I last saw her in early October when her son brought her along on an errand to deliver a cow and calf of ours he picked up with some of his on a third neighbor's place. She had been getting pretty forgetful over the last year or two, but in some ways it was ok for her. She used to get really worked up about political things. She was an old fashioned flag waving republican and during the Clinton administration she could get really hard to visit with. Lately all of that was gone and she was so happy to visit, even if you could kind of tell she wasn't sure who you were. It was the peaceful version of that old-fashioned term "second childhood."

She stopped cooking for everybody and just enjoyed taking it easy for the first time in 50 or 60 years.

When she dressed up she would wear red lipstick and she had a great voice and a loud laugh somewhat like my own. My sister always said Peggy reminded her of Katherine Hepburn.

She was honored as a local celebrity in the nearby town's annual Rex Allen Days festival also in October and rode in the parade. I wish I could have made it to that.

She had chest pains the night before New Years Eve and they took her to the local hospital which then flew her to Tucson. By the time she got there she was feeling fine and the decision was made to keep her overnight for observation. As her son and daughter-in-law were getting ready to leave the whole emergency crew came marching into her room because they had received electronic signals she was in trouble, only she was insisting she was fine. The chest pain was gone. She got through the night ok and was to have some procedure the next day but it almost got canceled due to no further signs of trouble when the same thing happened as the night before - she was feeling fine and ready to leave when the machinery detected problems. Well they went in and found a 99% blockage and popped that back open just in time. Shipped her to a closer rehab place and the last I had talked to anybody they were expecting to bring her home this week.

When her son called today he said they brought her home yesterday. She made it home. When he went to see her this morning she was gone. Oh what a cool lady she was. What a grand life she lived. What good neighbors they have been. Rescued me countless times. We got into it over politics sometimes but it never stopped me from loving and admiring the old broad. She was something else. May the grass be tall and green and the calves fat and frisky (and Herefords) where you have gone.