Engineering 101

Here is the latest chapter of the perils of being married to an engineer...

It's a long story so I will try to be brief...several years ago when we moved to our country place we had plans to build a storage building but with "Mr. OCD" one is never enough...we had to have two. He managed to convince me that we needed both of them as we would build a large one for our storage needs and a smaller one to use as a well house. Of course when they came out to build them he and his partner in crime, our ex-neighbor and friend Bill, convinced me that "Mr. OCD" really needed the smaller one as a tool room for his extravagant collection of tools.

Lately I've noticed the doors on both storage buildings are looking a little ragged. Mr. OCD is a big believer in once you've got it ...that's it...no upkeep...no repair...it will last till you die! Of course the door fell off the little store room...his tool room.

Now you would think...owning at least one of every kind of saw known to man...that you would run down to Home Depot and buy a little lumber and just make you another door! But not at this house...oh no...! It is much easier just to use what you have lying around the house....in this case....he just tacked an old moving blanket over the door and turned up this huge cage on its end to cover the door.

I would go make a picture of this...but I'd rather not...it is just too revolting to have to look at...so just imagine what it probably looks like and make it a little worse that what you could imagine...and somebody send me a carpenter!

Leah

Life on the Ranch

Even though I didn’t realize it at the time, growing up on a ranch was the best experience of my life. My parents moved out there shortly after they were married to the dismay of my mother who had envisioned city or at least small town life for her family. It was a huge shock when my dad told her in confidence that if all went well they might get to move to the ranch. He was delighted and she was horrified! But move they did to live for over 50 years on the family ranch.

My dad moved out there to work for his dad who lived in town and was a pharmacist. He was paid a very meager salary all of those years as ranching is a hard way of life. My dad and mom were always supplementing their income with other jobs besides the ranch just to make a living. My dad worked at the local auction barn on Saturday’s during the big sale of the week, he built stock trailers, he artificially inseminated dairy cattle, and a couple of times raised dairy calves to sell to the local dairy farmers in our area. My mother worked for a local photographer coloring photos in the days before color photography.

We raised Black Angus cattle and Angora goats on the ranch. My dad depended on my brothers and me to help him with the livestock. We often got up before dawn to get up the horses and go somewhere on the ranch to work cattle and goats. There were several places on the ranch that were not accessible by vehicle so rounding up the livestock could be interesting and challenging at times.

What fun that was…I always was so excited every time we got up the horses and saddled them up to go work livestock. Sometimes we would just ride from the barn and corrals to the pastures to round them up but many times we would have to load the horses in the trailer and drive to where we would be working them. I could have done that for my entire life!

Of course besides that we were in 4-H and raised animals and I dragged my dad to every rodeo within driving distance during the summers just to ride in the Grand Entry. He would never let me race barrels…he always said that would just ruin a good horse. But he would load up my horse and take me to the rodeos.

Of all the things I miss …life on the family ranch is number one on the list.