I'm a cowgirl at heart . . . who knew?! (I could also have titled this, "And much cattle . . . " )

First, let me mention that the horseback riding pictures are up on the post from Monday, May 19.
We had a nice Memorial Day.
Joe worked at the house in the morning and I had coffee and a long overdue "catch-up" chat with a friend.
Then, we all got ready and headed out to Rachel and Kevin's for riding lessons and dinner.
The only problem was it was raining. And not just raining. Pouring.
We were hoping the weather would clear, so we could get some riding in. But really, it got worse as the afternoon went on.
Rachel was ready with an indoor lesson for the boys, though.
They got papers with barn safety rules, trail safety rules, the anatomy of a horse, the parts of a saddle, and the requirements for a rank I and rank II rider.
She also let them look at her saddle and point out and name places on it that they saw on their papers.
When they were done with that, we got dinner ready.
Hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans, deviled eggs, homemade fries and chips.
It was all so delicious!
We brought dessert with us -- fresh strawberries, pound cake and whipped cream. Yum. It's the best, most refreshing summer dessert there is, in my humble opinion!
Rachel and Kevin live in a house out on the farm where she works.
It is so beautiful out there. There are slightly rolling hills, a patchwork of greens sloping and rising. Fields lay on every side.
Outside of Rachel's window, there are horses grazing, and even in the rain, they calmly ate, shaking the rain off every once in a while.
We talked about lots of stuff.
Rachel mentioned that she was going to be rounding up cattle today, starting at 5 a.m., at a nearby ranch. She thought the boys would enjoy seeing what it was all about.
The boys got to see the baby goats and kittens, but had to run around inside because of the weather.
At one point, the storm must have been right over our heads because the lightning and thunder overlapped one another, and the lights went out for a moment.
But they quickly came back on, and we continued our wonderful visit.
We had such a great time.
Rachel and Kevin are quality people.
As we were leaving, the sun began to poke his lazy head out through the clouds, and we saw a rainbow spanning the eastern sky.
We headed to Sonic for some drinks and then to the church's workshop to cut the boys pinewood derby cars.
Then it was home for the evening.
The prospect of getting up to see a cattle round-up at 5 a.m. was not so appealing to me, but I knew it would be an all day process, so I thought we could drive over for a while this afternoon and watch the action.
When we got there, the first thing we noticed was all the noise.
There was mooing and lowing non-stop and loud, a bovine chorus echoing over the hills, throughout the countryside.
There were five ranch hands, including Rachel, and they were prodding cattle down corridors into separate pens.
Rachel came over and explained to us that they were separating the cows. The ones to be sold in one pen, the ones that were a year old or less in another and the rest of the cows in yet another.
She explained that the babies were going to get immunized and have some other maintenance done. The other cows were going back out to pasture and the ones to be sold were getting ready for that.
She said that it was so noisy because the babies and mamas were being separated, and they were calling for each other.
My heart broke for them when she told me that, the fact that they were cows notwithstanding.
We stayed for over and hour, and would have stayed longer, but one of the boys, (I will not mention names) had to answer the call of nature, so we were off.
As we were driving away from the ranch, from the lowing of the saddened cows, from the ranch hands full of mud and sweat and determination, a blue heron flew up from the side of the road, it's shadow shading the truck like a sudden dark cloud, its feet almost touching the windshield.
It was so majestic and so unexpected.
"Look at that! Look at that!" I shouted to the boys.
They could not have helped but see it.
"Wow!"
"It was so big, I thought it was some kind of vulture-like bird until I saw what it really was!" Isaac breathed out in gulps.
This simple statement made me think about a subtle truth in his words.
Sometimes, we see something looming large in front of us.
It can be something new that we have never encountered, or a challenge we are facing or a decision we have to make.
Sometimes, these things fly up around us, seemingly out of the blue.
For a moment -- an instant-- fear, dread, misinformation, the unknown can frighten us, can make us think we will be eaten up by whatever it is in front of us.
But if we keep looking, if we look again, at what we are facing, we often find that it is an opportunity, a destiny, something beautiful, majestic, a blessing.
I thought about that as we continued down the dirt road, heading home.
I eventually thought about other things too, like how where we are-- the landscapes that pass by outside the open windows of our SUV, the days spent by grandpa's pond or out on ranches watching cattle being processed, or watching horses through a friend's dinning room window, the smell of warm grain in the afternoon sun, the ripe scent of earth and manure cooling in the twilight of a long day, the sounds of night insects and frogs loudly playing their evening symphonies through our open windows -- all these things are making our boys, shaping their memories, becoming part of their stories.
They are stories that will be so different from their dad's and mine.
My memories are full of entirely different landscapes. The sea calls to me. I can smell it in my dreams. And city lights.
But I am finding that I like this landscape too. I love the scents and sounds and feel of it.
I found myself watching Rachel with awe and a bit of envy, perhaps. She loves the land, the horses, the work. She makes it look easy, though I know it is back-breaking toil. She makes it look fun. She is where she belongs.
I want this for my children. I want them to love a place so much that they have to be there; to love their work so much that they have to do it.
Maybe they'll grow up to be cowboys. Maybe they won't (I certainly might, though!).
But what ever it is, I want them to grow up to be them.
This mid-west life will always be a part of who they are, though, and if they ever leave it, there will be days when they sing songs about it.
There will be solitary hours of capturing a certain scent in a poem they are writing.
There will be an evening with a child who listens to stories about when they learned to ride.
There will be a catch of memory every time they pass through fields and flatlands.
They will smell the sweet smell of the fields at dusk, and they will remember.