Who Let The Dogs Out?

The Beau marathon continues. This post from the past describes an event that resulted in a liability claim against our homeowners’ insurance policy. Sad but true. Beau is to blame. We offer him for sale. We don’t want to make a profit — we will sell him for just what we have in him, $50,000.00. Any takers?

Shootin' the Breeze

AUTHOR’S NOTE:  Yesterday was our annual John Wayne Birthday Party.  This is the 2013 sequel to the 2012 post, Dangerous Dangers at Cross Creek Ranch, https://cowboylawyer.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/deadly-dangers-at-cross-creek-ranch/.

Miss Sugar, as usual, out-did herself.  She made about nine pies, including pecan, sweet potato, and apple pie, more than one of each kind.  Plus, some of the guests contributed to the dessert table.  Sugar made enough side dishes, such as potato salad, Oklahoma caviar (black beans with something good), baked beans with sausage, cole slaw, cornbread, deviled eggs, and corn casserole, to cover a long serving counter.  I think she put out twelve different dishes that she calls “the fixins”  when she invites our guests to enjoy Texas Bar B Que with all the fixins.  She made her special Texas barbeque sauce.  After last year’s party, she chose to not make three bean salad.

It was all pretty good, but what folks will…

View original post 694 more words

Not Wholly Alone

Miss Sugar and I are on a kick to try to eat healthily.  This past weekend was our annual John Wayne Barbeque.  About 50 guests attended. We served pork that we smoked ourselves for many hours, then simmered in Miss Sugar’s special barbeque sauce.  We served barbeque beans with lots of sausage, almost like chili.  We served potato salad, Oklahoma caviar, and a bunch of other stuff which might not all be gluten-free or sugar-free.  Sugar made lots of desserts — sweet potato pie, pecan pie, apple crisp.  Other folks contributed to the array.  We had sweet tea, lemonade, and some adult beverages.  It was all very healthy. 

So today we had lunch at Whole Foods.  I walked around and around the buffet, feeling like crying.  It was difficult to find anything that I wanted to eat.  Kale is not my favorite.  I settled on some fake crab, spinach leaves, and peas.  I am still hungry, but I did not even want seconds of anything.  Picky eater, I guess.

What I noticed as I walked around the store was that I was not appropriated dressed.  I was out of fashion.  I was not wearing khaki shorts.  I was not wearing sandals.  I was the only person I saw wearing cowboy boots as I checked out the other shoppers.  No one else had boots.  No one else was wearing Western style clothes.  And this is in Colorado.

Wait!  I finally saw a kindred spirit.  I saw another pair of cowboy boots worn by a very attractive woman, who was also wearing a cowboy hat.  My heart fluttered.

Miss Sugar is my kind of gal!  Anybody can see that!

The only trouble is that when we hold hands, hers are quite a bit smaller than mine, as you can observe in the photo, but I don’t mind, and she don’t seem to neither. I’d still say we are equally yoked.

Miss Sugar Goes East

Miss Sugar is a wonderful cook, like chef quality.  She is half-Italian and learned how to cook great lasagna and other Italian dishes.  She is from Texas.  Consequently, she makes makes many Southern dishes.  When we have our annual John Wayne Birthday Party, she does “Texas Bar B Que with all the fixin’s.”  We served barbequed pork from a smoker.  The fixins include Oklahoma caviar (black-eyed peas), baked beans that are like chili, with lots of sausage, cole slaw with extra stuff, and many pies, such as pecan, apple, and sweet potato pie. She makes enough to feed around 80 people.  Everyone loves her cooking. 

Of course, I get to partake of her good cooking every day.  I have partaken so much over the years that I have gained “a couple pounds.”  Okay, a couple dozen.  Okay, four dozen.  Like I said, Sugar is a wonderful cook.

So now that the quack doctor is not happy with the 25 lbs. I lost already, Sugar is on a new cooking path.  She is taking that quack so seriously that we went together to the gym the last two days and, in addition, she bought a bunch of stuff to cook Asian food because she believes it is healthier than barbequed pork and beef and pecan pies, and get this, even than lasagna or pizza.    

Tonight she made potstickers, miso soup, California rolls sushi, and rice.  It was really good.  I have been to Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Tibetan restaurants.  I have an international palate.

However, I do not want to be deprived of the fare to which I have grown accustomed.  I have requested steak and potatoes for tomorrow’s dinner.  After all, I need to keep my weight up.

Then maybe for the next supper Sugar will use her new cooking stuff for Eastern recipes. 

Who Let The Dogs Out?

Miss Sugar, as usual, out-did herself.  She made about nine pies, including pecan, sweet potato, and apple pie, more than one of each kind.  Plus, some of the guests contributed to the dessert table.  Sugar made enough side dishes, such as potato salad, Oklahoma caviar (black beans with something good), baked beans with sausage, cole slaw, cornbread, deviled eggs, and corn casserole, to cover a long serving counter.  I think she put out twelve different dishes that she calls “the fixins”  when she invites our guests to enjoy Texas Bar B Que with all the fixins.  She made her special Texas barbeque sauce.  After last year’s party, she chose to not make three bean salad.

It was all pretty good, but what folks will likely remember is that I served the pulled pork by expertly dumping it onto their sesame buns.  Although I am generally modest about my accomplishments, for historical accuracy, allow me to point out that I am the one who mowed the lawn and I am the one who put the chairs and tables out on the lawn.  (I would also claim credit for putting up the open tent canopy thing for shade, but, to be fully truthful, I must report that Sugar showed me how to do it and then when it blew over, helped me raise it again.  Then Mitch fixed it right.  He also set up the stakes for horseshoes and provided the horseshoes.)

Oh, and another thing, before the festivities commenced, I put the dogs in a stall in the barn because, for reasons that should be obvious and will become more obvious, they were not invited to the party, especially the aspect of the party involving food.

We had over 50 attendees during the course of the afternoon.  A good time was had by all, it seemed, young (a nine day old baby pictured with Sugar and his father) and older.  Baby Colton is the only person whose age will be specified.

We even had live music provided by four talented musicians.

My father-in-law, Bob the Barkeep, served the adult beverages in addition to Miss Sugar’s sweet tea and her friend Jeanie’s lemonade.

The weather was perfect.  That and the beautiful scenery was provided by God.

I said above that a good time was had by all.  That was true until Beau, our exuberant Yellow Lab, joined the party.

Some folks visited Beau and Sadie while they were imprisoned in the barn.  Miss Sugar was begged to let them out.  After all, most everyone was finished eating and were just listening to the musicians.  Yellow Labs are inherently “party animals.”  Miss Sugar succumbed to the pleas.  Free Beau and Sadie!  Free Beau and Sadie!  So she did.

Later, the story was told to me that as soon as Beau emerged from the barn, the cowboy hat of our friend, Mitch, blew off his head.  (I know I said we had perfect weather.  Really, we pretty much did.)

So I was sitting under the canopy with other guests, enjoying the performance on the back deck serving as an elevated stage, when Beau came running up to me with a hat in his mouth.  Apparently, Mitch’s hat looks enough like mine that Beau confused it for mine and helpfully brought it to me.

As you can see, our hats are similar.

Perhaps as you read this you are thinking that Beau is a wonderful animal.  Of course, if you read other posts such as Doggone Bad Dog Gone, https://cowboylawyer.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/doggone-bad-dog-gone/, or The Usual Suspect, https://cowboylawyer.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/the-usual-suspect/, or Jail Bird Dog, https://cowboylawyer.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/jail-bird-dog/, you can surmise where this is going.

Okay, you do not have to surmise where this is going.  I will tell you what happened next.  Next, one of our neighbors who was at the party came over to where I was sitting, enjoying the performance, as I said, and told me to “Come quick.”  So I did.

Outside of the courtyard area, I saw a woman laying on the ground.  Just moments before, this very same nice lady had thanked me for inviting her and her husband, and then left to go to their car.  We offer plenty of free parking, but we do not provide a parking valet.  She probably had a good time at the party until Beau came running after Mitch’s hat and, in the process, knocked her down.  She was easy to knock down because she already had one leg in a “walking cast.”  So really she just had the one good leg, the one that Beau clipped, sending her into the gravel on the lane.  Poor lady!  Bad dog!

We hope she will recover soon.  We haven’t heard how she is doing since her husband took her home.

Mitch’s hat is somewhat the worse for wear, thanks to Beau.  We are praying that the lady’s leg comes out of her contact with Beau better than the hat did.

DEADLY DANGERS AT CROSS CREEK RANCH

              It was high noon.  Miss Sugar, my trophy wife, was fussing in the kitchen when she hollered, “Big Bronc, they’re coming!  Lots of ‘em.  You better be ready.  I’m gittin plumb nervous.”

           Soon they commenced to coming up our lane to the ranch house.  Dozens of folks arrived in waves.  We was surrounded.  

            Me and Texas Bob took our stations, him by the cantina, me peeking out from inside the house.  We was ready, providin’ there warn’t too many of ‘em.  I lost count at 65.  That seemed about right for me and the little woman and Texas Bob.

            Also, Texas Bob had brung a woman with him, as was his way.  She was a spunky redhead, a fancy dresser, name of Ginger.  I’d seen her before.  Once down in Fort Worth Stockyards, at the Cattlemen’s Club, Bob and Ginger was there with me and Sugar and we had a good old time.  Now we four was going to have a different kind of party.

            The womenfolk tried to help, but they was just gals.  Bob and me would have to “do the heavy liftin” as far as taking care of the situation.  The way I looked at it was, we’d done it before so there was no need to think we couldn’t handle this situation just like we done other times.  As you can tell, I don’t scare easy.

             So what are you’all thinking we was facin’?  The people surrounding us had been invited to our annual John Wayne party, this one to celebrate the 105th anniversary of his birth.

              We had a band.  Karen aka Sugar had been preparing food for weeks, baking and freezing a score of pies and all.  She done what she could, but of course I was  the one who set up the folding tables and chairs.  I unloaded the keg.  I dished out the barbequed pork.  Karen only made a dozen or so sidedishes and her special Texas  barbeque sauce.  I appreciated that minor assistance.  Like I said, she done what she could. 

             Texas Bob manned the cantina bar, like the experienced barkeep he is.  He served beer, margaritas, sangria, sweet tea, and lemonade.  He was very popular.  But the meat was my department.   A feller ought not to delegate the biggest job.  That buck cain’t be passed if Big Bronc wants to keep his title of King of the Wild Frontier, assumed by him after the untimely passing of Davey Crockett.

            Anyways, I expect none would argue when I tell ya’all that a good time was had by all.  No brag.  Just fact.

            After the crowd thinned out, Bob and me loaded the chairs and tables into my Ford F250 Supercab shortbox pickup truck.  We picked up the garbage bags too while the little ladies messed around in the kitchen on account of they ain’t no dang good at loading pickups. 

            Sugar and Ginger got along like peas and carrots.  Some say Ginger made her way out West by way of Jugtown Mountain, New Jersey.  If that ain’t true, it should be.  It is well known that Texas Bob is Miss Sugar’s Daddy.  The DNA results proved that.  As for that Ginger woman, the rumors are that she might be Sugar’s biological mother.   Regardless of whether the rumors are true, Sugar treated Ginger just like kin.

            You might be wondering why this tale is called Deadly Dangers at Cross Creek Ranch.  I’m fixin to tell you why or I’ll be a blue-nosed gopher. 

             Recall what I said awhile back about Miss Sugar making a bunch of side dishes.  Well, one of them was something called Three Bean Salad.  (This writing technique is called foreshadowing.)

            I reckon I might not have done a proper job of securing those garbage bags.  A couple days later, Max, our ten year old yellow lab, seemed bloated and was having trouble breathing.  We speculated that he might have been bitten by a rattlesnake.  (See also Sharpshooter blog.)  We took him to a veterinary emergency room where x rays showed that it was not a bite by a snake, but rather, lots of bites by Max as he consumed “leftovers.” 

           He had surgery.  The doctor told us that she recovered from his stomach a couple pounds of deadly Three Bean Salad. 

            As a result, I’m betting that our next party menu will not include Three Bean Salad.