Blame it all on my Roots, I showed up in Boots!

I got new BOOOOOOOTTSSSSS!!!!  Brand spankin' new Ariats with (According to my dear father) "patent leather" red tops with purdy turquoise stitching, and white collars. I love 'em!   

Daydreamin about Summer

Mmm summer…oh how I miss it in these boring winter months.  I guess it could be worse, there could be 3ft of snow on the ground and it could be 10*.  Now that I think of it, it hasn’t been a bad winter, above average temperatures and only a couple little snowfalls have made it a pretty decent one.  But its just boring.  No color across the land and only a pale blue sky.  Just yuck.  It’d be awful nice if we could just skip from Christmas to March!  Never fails about the time January and February hits, I start longing for that first taste of warm weather.  I always wait to hear the  Killdees(killdeer) come back, their constant squawking always signals that Spring is almost here. First few days of 70* weather makes everything wake up and the whole world comes alive.  Leaves pop out on the trees and the yard greens ups overnight.  Spring in the Osage is gorgeous.  Plain and simple gorgeous I tell ya!  Spring burns will start about the first of March.  Talk about makin it feel like Spring.  The smell of grass smoke on the evening wind…the smoky haziness of the air, the sound of the fire trucks…I love it!  Those burns always seem to kinda announce Spring’s arrival.  After a little rain, the burnt grounds turn green and the deer and buffalo flock to the tender green grass.  The killdees(killdeer) squawk 24/7 , robins sing from the treetops  and turkeys start getting all twitterpated.  March fades into April, bringing Spring rains, thunderstorms, strong south winds and baby buffalo….oh and my birthday. ;)  Orange babies dot the herds of buffalo, never getting far from their mama’s sides.  The nights don’t get as cold and the afternoons get up into the 70s.  Fans stay in the bedroom windows and draw in that cool night air.  I swear if you’ve never slept good until you’ve slept in a room with a fan in the window on a April night!  Clothes and bedding gets hung out on the clothesline all day, making them smell like heaven.  April turns into May, and Summer starts trying to sneak up on us.  Summer in Osage County can be anywhere from mild to brutal.  Some years will have tolerable temperatures and good rains and other years we can have temperatures that reach above 105* and little to no rainfall.  Last summer was like that…one of the hottest, driest summers on record for the part of Oklahoma.  We’ll set the pool up about mid June and the contest to see who can get the darkest tan will be on!  By July its usually getting pretty hot, but the early mornings and late evenings aren’t too bad.  Oh how I miss those evenings where the sun doesn’t set till 8:30 or 9…the smell of fresh cut grass and watermelon, muddin and fishing.  Fresh Bass sounds so good.  Mmm fried fish, tators and ketchup and maybe a little lemonade or sweet tea.  You can’t buy a meal like that at McDonalds lemmie tell ya!  About the end of July, Bass Brothers will start shipping out their steers.  Cattle trucks will roar down the hill southwest of the house on the county road, the lights on their trucks and trailers looking like Christmas parade floats.  More than once, one has missed the corner and ended up driving up the Bunkhouse driveway, usually getting either stuck out in front of the bunkhouse or hung up in the parking lot.  99% of my July evening are spent at the shop with dad where he’s either working on one of his trucks or fixing a trailer tire for Northcutt.  Ol Northcutt is a pretty interesting feller, him, his two sons and whoever loads up with him, help Bass Brothers during shippin.  You’ll never see him without a truck full of kids and a trailer full of horses.  He’s just a good ol cowboy.  He never fails to find something to pester me about though!haha  Dad usually goes and helps Bass Brothers ship a couple days.  A year before last I went with him quite a bit, riding in the sook truck and taking pictures of the cowboys as they gathered cattle horseback.  After shippin’s over, summer seems to start fading out.  The TGP might do a little summer burning and offer a good opportunity for me to go take some fire pictures, but other than that, it starts getting a little boring.  August turns into September and another Summer’s over.  The  cool weather is welcomed with open arms by everybody and even I look forward to a break in the hot temperatures.   But come October, I’ll hear a song that reminds me of Summer and I’ll start missing it again.  There’s just something about the warm weather and the smell of grass smoke and fresh cut grass, the taste of fried fish and potatoes, the way cool pool water feels on a hot day, being able to walk around outside barefoot and the way the days seem to last forever, that I love.  I’ll spend Fall and Winter missing it, anticipating sound of Killdees and that first blast of warm weather when Spring hits the Osage and it all comes alive again… 

My Boys

Ain't they purdy??:)