D  e  s  e  r  t   E  x  p  o  s  u  r  e        January 2008

Voice of a Ranch Woman

What Jerry taught me about the daytime rains is that you always watch the clouds. You always watch the clouds to see where those thunderstorms are, so that you know that you need to get home, or you need to get in, or you just need to prepare yourself so you don't get caught in one of those floods.

I've seen a lot of coyotes. Always the dog has to go jogging with you. And you think a dog's gonna be protection? No. They go out and find the coyotes, and bring 'em back to you. I've had dogs and coyotes come right down the road, meetin' me.

And then one time I was saying my prayer out there and I was thankin' the Lord for the animals and I looked up and there was a coyote looking right at me. I go, "I'm not sure I was really thankful for that coyote."

Then another time when I was out jogging right in the creek — it was in the summer, and I looked at the ground and I saw this weird track. I go, "I think that's a bear track." And I went home and I told Jerry that and he says, "No, it's not." And I says, "You just come look," and he did, and he says, "Yeah, that is a bear track."

Sometimes I'll see a snake track, and they usually cross the road straight across, not at an angle. It's like they're trying to get across as fast as they can.

But one time, in the space of probably about a hundred yards, I saw 16 snake tracks. It must have been spring or fall, and they were really moving. I saw 16 snake tracks in that short distance.

I've seen javelina.

And of course you see crows every single time you go out, flying all over. And there's been times I've seen buzzards. And quail.

One time I was jogging along and there was one little quail feather. One little quail feather on the road. So I brought that in.

Yesterday I left my house with Granny's dinner, and right in front of me on my trail were these quail, and they were just fluttering off. I'd disturbed them, and gotten in their way. But they were so pretty. Those quail with those topknots were just so pretty, and I stopped and looked at them, and some of them were the little quail. That little covey hangs around here and keeps me company.

I've seen roadrunners. I heard a roadrunner. I didn't know what it was. But when I described it to this boy who helps us, he said, "Yeah, what you heard was a roadrunner." It's kind of a muffled, whirring sound.

Michele, our daughter, said yesterday, "My folks have always lived camping out." Her friend didn't believe it. Michele told her, "A whole nest of racer snakes hatched out in their house. Mom trapped six skunks out of the storeroom."

Jerry paid me $20 a skunk for every one I caught, and he drowned them.

I killed a rattlesnake in my pantry storeroom, and I've had two bats flying around in here.

And what else?

Oh, yes, right now I have a five-foot bull snake somewhere in this house. Jerry says, "You don't know it's there," and I say, "You don't know it's not."

But we didn't kill it. It got away and it's still someplace.

Anyway, Michele's friend was convinced, after hearing all this, that yes, we have lived "camping out" with all these critters.

And mice. "Rats," Michele told her, "big enough to carry off a small child."

That's the reason we've never done that much camping out — because we live out in nature.

Then there's been those few special times when it's snowed. You see, I don't like the snow. In Colorado I never did like the snow. It was cold. I was cold all the time. But in New Mexico the snow is real special.

Because it melts. It doesn't stay and keep you cold.

So there have been times when I've gone out and stood by my prayer tree where I say a prayer, and the oak leaves will just be cupped and holding that snow.

And you know you're catching a glimpse of nature that's going to be gone in only a few minutes when the sun comes out.

Another special time is when you go out and it has rained. The rain is dripping off the limb or the leaf, or maybe the fence. That's going to go away in just a little while, too, and so you just feel like you've just captured a little glimpse of nature.

And nobody else is there.

That's another thing, too. When I jog up the road — and I've got trails in other places, too, just because I don't want to meet anybody on the road — I like to be out by myself. I like to enjoy the solitude and feeling of Heavenly Father's creations.

Every day I say a prayer and I thank Heavenly Father for the rocks and the trees and the birds and the animals and the wonderful rain He's sent to dampen our land, that our cattle will have feed. Because if they don't have feed, we don't sell calves, and we don't have a livelihood here, because we are totally dependent on the rain.

We are so grateful for it.

Jerry keeps meticulous records on how much it's rained. And that's the talk among the ranchers. "Well, how much rain did you get?" "Well, I got 33 hundredths." "Well, I got an inch."

It's just important, because that's how you make your living.

When I go out in the snow — and always I go out when it snows, because it doesn't snow that often — I just love to be the first track in that snow.

And that will be the first that will melt, too, will be where you step on it.

Then after it has rained, too.

I really don't like people to see my tracks, but I still like to be the first one out.

And then you'll see, oh, there's been a rabbit out here, or there's been a coyote already come out. They've beat you out.

But it's fun to be the first one after a rain or after a snow, to intrude on nature. Because indeed, man does intrude on nature.

But nature also blesses man very much, and so I feel very blessed to be that close to nature. Even though you have to cope with the dangers, that's part of it.

Think about the Mormon pioneers coming across, pulling handcarts and wagons, walking. They didn't ride in those wagons. That would be a really horrible ride. They walked. Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked. We've got so many songs in Primary that teach the children about the pioneers and how the oxcart creaked as it went along.

I did try one time doing what they talk about, using buffalo chips for their fires. Well, I tried using cow chips for a fire. I don't know how they cooked with those. Maybe buffalo chips were better than cow chips. But those cow chips didn't make a very good fire, or I didn't know how to do it, one of the two.

My sister got me going making cards to give to people. She did it with things she found out in nature, just little weeds or little flowers.

When I go out in the morning I see, say, those primroses, they bloom early in the spring. That's the first flower that will bloom usually. You pick a primrose and you bring it in. When you put it on the contact paper it becomes kind of iridescent. It's so beautiful.

And then I have also undertaken quite a study of the flowers.

There's this beautiful red four o'clock. I didn't know what it was. I'd just see this beautiful, fuschia — they call it a red four o'clock, but it's a fuschia-colored bell — and it grows real sparse. It usually grows by a bush and it usually grows on the east side of it. I wanted to know what that flower was.

My friend, Suzanne Dye, gave me a book by the Audubon Society, and it classified all the flowers in the United States. And I found that flower. It is called a red four o'clock.

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