Country Days

The last weekend in March we enjoyed a 3 days with Jeff's parent's and brothers and broods in Louisiana. Everyone was there this time, Eric and Amy +5, Justin +1, Me and Jeff and Mom and Pop = 13 people in his parent's 3BR 2BA house. Good thing I'm not one of those "high maintenance" women who requires 2 hours in the bathroom each morning:)

The plan for the weekend was to pick-up and pack-up meat from the 1200lb steer Jeff's dad raised and had slaughtered for the family. For my vegetarian friends out there I'm sorry, but that's all a part of country life. And now that we have a year's worth of free beef in our freezer, I've realized it is a part of country life I like very much!

So what do you do with 700lbs of beef and 13 people to feed for the weekend - grill out of course. Only the weather, and the equipment - or lack thereof I should say, made that a little more challenging than normal.

First off - it was 45 degrees all weekend, and the wind was blowing 25mph all day every day. Makes it kind of hard to keep the charcoal lit - especially when you don't have any lighter fluid. So what does a good cowboy do in the face of this adversity - call in reinforcements of course.



Maybe if we put enough sticks on the grill, the fire will stay lit. Sorry Uncle Jeff - didn't mean to poke you in the face.



Tough times call for tough measures. Maybe Cowboy Ellis can help out.



Now the funniest thing about this entire process, is that Jeff's mission was to grill 13-14 steaks that were EACH almost as big as the grill itself, on this tiny thing. And everyone who walked outside asked Jeff the same question - myself included - "How are you going to grill all those steaks on that thing?"

Although he laughs about it now, at the time, Jeff did not find this whole process nearly as funny as I, and did not appreciate my uncontrollable giggling from the sidelines. But 3 hours later, the man prevailed over the meat, and we sat down to a delicious dinner of perfectly flame grilled steaks - all cooked in the grill used to burn trash - we later discovered. Gotta love country life.

The best part about being at the farm is the cows. I love cows - and I wish they loved me back. Unfortunately they seem to have a very strong aversion to my Victoria's Secret Lovespell lotion - although I did get to pat a few of the babies on the head this time.

Anytime we're out in the yard, all of the cows run up to the fence closest to where we're gathered.

Bovine teenagers verses 4 year old Chey.

I wonder if this is one of the calves we worked with at christmas. He or she doesn't seem to mind my lotion.

If only the Smith's had horses - I'm still trying to talk Cowboy Ellis into buying a few. After all, you're technically not a cowboy unless you own a horse.

So what does a cowgirl do during her weekend at the farm - besides laugh at her husband trying to grill steaks? Cook of course - although the picture below is from our own farm. I'm not sure that's really a cowgirl responsibility, but when you have 13 mouths to feed, well you don't really have much choice. So when I wasn't out trying to play with the cows, I was in the kitchen cooking and cleaning. I guess my dreams of commandeering the countryside with my faithful steed will have to wait for another day.

I also experienced my first bull standoff that weekend. Lisa, Amy and I were visiting in the den around 9pm Saturday night when we heard the most awful noise - it sounded like one of the cows was dying. We all ran outside, and found the guys casually sitting on the swing, smoking cigars.

"Did you not hear that??" I said.

"Yeah, that's just the bull," Jeff casually remarked.

"Is he dying? I mean it sounds like something is wrong."

"No, he's just marking his territory, or so to speak. The neighbor's bull is trying to pick a fight."

"Well we need to get him away from the fence," Jeff's mom breaks in. "He'll walk through the barbwire in a heartbeat, and then we'll have a mess on our hands."

So my cowboy husband casually unfolds himself from the swing, grabs a flashlight, and starts walking toward the fence - like breaking up bullfights is something he does everyday.

"Be careful please!! He could come right through the fence at you (as if he wasn't already aware of this)" I croak, as he saunters over to the fence, where the bull is rooting around only feet away. And then my cowboy husband shines the light right in the bull's eyes and starts clapping, of all things. And after a brief minute of protest, the bull, and what sounds like the rest of the herd, takes off thundering down the pasture. Jeff then walks over to the neighbor's fence and repeats the same process with his bull, who picked the fight in the first place.

Evidently this happens every so often, and you have to address is immediately, because if the bulls ever figure out they can walk right through the fence, well then it's kind of like country Armageddon. Gotta love country life!