by Kathy Brasby | Sep 9, 2014 | Stories
Unstained reputations still matter to some folks in small towns and they don’t like shadows of shame when undeserved.
So that’s why Charlie got in such a huff.
I don’t think he minded that his name appeared on the police blotter.
But the problem came when a new reporter and a police officer with scrawling handwriting crossed Charlie’s path.
The new reporter was going over the police reports, searching for news leads or at least a report on the tickets issued last week.
He thought he’d found an interesting lead. This Charlie dude had been ticketed for weed.
So the reporter wrote a piece about Charlie’s ticket for marijuana possession. Coming from a college town, it made sense to him.
The problem was that the police officer hadn’t made a nice strong S at the end of weed.
Charlie had been ticketed for the weeds growing too tall in his alley. Charlie needed to mow, not hide his stash.
And that’s why Charlie got in such a huff.
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by Kathy Brasby | Aug 26, 2014 | Stories
The cowboys, with their sleek horses, found lassoes and saddles fall flat when dealing with sheep.
We were at the county fair where the sheep had done their duty for the mutton busting contest, which featured the preschoolers riding sheep with helmets and determination.
The rides were timed and the kids stuck like a burr until the buzzer sounded.
Soon all the sheep were milling in the arena. It was time to get them back to the corral.
The cowboys with their uniforms of Stetson hats and starched shirts headed their horses toward the flock.
The horses pressed against the edges of the flock but sheep aren’t easily herded.
They scattered, leaving the cowboys with nothing to herd.
After several minutes of scattering, the cowboys reined their horses and mulled.
What to do with these sheep?
The sheep gathered to the far end of the arena, ready for round 2. They could scatter all day. Those horses were no match for mutton bustin’ sheep.
But then George came to the rescue.
George knew sheep. He pulled a white 5-gallon bucket from the bed of his pickup and headed for the arena.
He stood at the gate and raised the bucket, pounding his hand against it.
At the thumping, the sheep lifted their heads, their ears rotating.
Then they honed in on the sound. And together they surged forward to George and his bucket.
With George thumping the bucket, the sheep followed him into the corral and got ready for round 2 of mutton busting’.
Cowboys had no chance against tradition.
Those sheep knew a feed bucket when they saw one.
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by Kathy Brasby | Aug 19, 2014 | Stories
Sometimes a mom needs to re-examine the smart remarks when the kids get older.
Here’s what I mean: Few things torque a tall teenage boy more than having to slide his long legs into a cramped front seat of a car.
Or so it seemed when my son, all 6’1” of him, stuffed himself into the driver’s seat of my car.
“This is crazy. Who can get into this?” he asked as he shoved the seat to its far limit.
Moms need smart remarks in these instances. When the kid towers over you, outweighs you, and knows more cool technical terms than you do, snappy remarks are important in the arsenal.
So I fired a smart remark back. “Well, it is not my fault you have such long legs.”
I settled into the passenger seat feeling certain that he’d settle into his seat with his hands on the wheel and his mouth shut.
Then we stared at each other.
My husband is two inches taller than I am, but my legs are two inches longer than his. I stand 5’9” – fairly tall for a mom.
“Um, maybe it is your fault,” my son said.
Yeah, maybe it is.
Looks like I need a snappier comeback.
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by Kathy Brasby | Aug 5, 2014 | Stories
Last week I wrote about Goats in Love but it was only part one. Story number two may top it.
Rocket, our daddy buck, spent a lot of time alone pining for his girlfriend. Now the girlfriend varied from week to week, but Rocket was always ready.
Rocket’s pad also paralleled a small pasture where two does lived. One day I noticed that one of the does, Lulu, was ready to meet Rocket. The other doe, Maybelle, was oblivious.
I did mention that Rocket was always ready, right?
I opened the gate and Rocket roared into the pasture, legs churning in a blur like Wiley Coyote chasing the roadrunner.
Rocket, as we already established, had more hormones than brains. Chanting “hey, good lookin’” as he flew past me, he focused his loving gaze on Maybelle. Not Lulu.
A female goat not in the mood has no interest in a hormone-fueled buck. Maybelle saw Rocket racing toward her and took off like a jet. Her legs were churning faster than his.
I watched the pair flying around the perimeter of the pasture, legs spinning. Rocket’s head was up as he enjoyed the beauty of his new girlfriend. Maybelle’s head was down; she had no time for anything but a panicked gallop.
Meanwhile, Miss Lulu was sending little air kisses and twirling her tail like a string of pearls.
As the racing pair headed down the backstretch, their path took them past Miss Lulu who by now was flashing her lashes like a neon sign.
I did not know a thundering buck could make a 180-degree correction without turning inside out but Rocket did it.
Suddenly, he was bringing roses and chocolate to Miss Lulu.
And Maybelle leaned against a fence post, heaving for air while her life passed before her eyes.
With goat romance, when it’s not your time, it’s not your time.
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by Kathy Brasby | Jul 29, 2014 | Stories
I’ve decided to declare this time as Valentine’s season for goats because, well, if you have to ask you may not understand.
Of late, I’ve been seeing these adorable YouTube videos of baby goats cavorting with great joy. If you’ve seen those, your appetite may be whetted toward goats. Well, you need to know more.
If you haven’t heard about goats in love, you are woefully deprived.
In our goat herd, we usually keep our buck – the future daddy – separated from the does so we can control when the babies come.
One bright fall morning, one of our girls had put on her high heels, lipstick, and Chanel before sashaying along the fence line she shared with Rocket the buck.
Rocket got the message: she was in the mood. Rocket was always in the mood so he pushed his manly head through the fence to sniff her fragrance.
When I saw the hearts drifting into the air above those two, I collected Miss Elinore and brought her into Rocket’s pen. She wiggled her hips and lightly danced from the gate to the fence line so that she could lean against Rocket.
Just what he had hoped for, except for one thing.
Rocket’s massive head, and I could not make this up, was stuck in the fence.
He pulled and twisted while Elinore was nearly doing a pole dance beside him. His front legs were like pile drivers pushing into the ground. His cheeks would have turned red from the exertion if not hidden by that thick buck fur. No go. He was stuck.
The love of his life was at hand and he couldn’t get his head out of the wire.
I gotta tell you that it’s hard to cut fence wire when you’re laughing that hard.
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by Kathy Brasby | Jul 22, 2014 | Stories
This is not another of those cute cat stories that make the Facebook rounds, largely because I think cats are as unfathomable as two-year-olds. Or teenagers.
Clara the cat joined our family as the responsibility of our teenage son. Somehow the connection seemed poetic.
We already had a cat. Snickers was the responsibility of our college-age daughter who is moving out soon.
Maybe a little cat overlap could work as long as I had no responsibilities.
These cats’ problem wasn’t sashaying over my desk, waving a tail before my nose, knocking my glasses across the room, tromping on my keyboard — but I digress. Their problem was each other.
Neither liked the other.
Their owners thought they’d get acquainted and then play together.
Ha.
Responsible teenage son decided to comb and clip the tangles from Clara’s long hair. So he held her in his lap while he worked.
Clara growled at Snickers as though Snickers controlled the comb wirelessly. Every time the tangles were pulled, she snarled a little louder. When one tangle needed extra work, she suddenly launched a full-scale mauling on Snickers, who hadn’t bothered to ignore the hair styling party.
Bet he regretted that.
The cats seemed to like yowling at each other more than parading over my computer cables, scattering papers and nestling into the paper-thin space between my printer. Digressing again…
One evening we heard this now-familiar guttural noise rising from near the dining room table. Clara and Snickers were flopped on the floor just out of batting distance from each other.
You could hear cat swear words in those growls but neither moved.
My son wandered onto the scene, watching the two combatants throw insults and threats without shifting their leisurely positions.
“Weird,” he said. “That is the laziest cat fight ever.”
Wow. Even more unfathomable than teenagers.
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