Neighbors – As Far As The Eye Can See

On Sunday things were pretty quiet at our ranch. I was in North Portal and Estevan all morning leading worship, Russ, Morgan and our friend Lynn were dealing with a cow problem in the pasture that came up the day before. After Russ threw together a very fast lunch they headed to the Alameda area to help our friend Miles move a herd of his cows home. When I got home from Estevan our home was empty and quiet. I had lunch and a nap, a long nap. Like I said, our home was very quiet on Sunday. By 6pm Russ and Morg were back, I had found my way past my nap induced stupor and was making supper. It was in these moments that Russ challenged me, “guess who got “Dog of the Month” today! Just guess!” My first reaction was, “Russ, its only the 5th day of the month, dog of the month….already?!” He insisted that something so spectacular had happened that yes this was certainly dog of the month material.

Who earned DOG OF THE MONTH? It was Knightwing, our German Shepherd/Marama cross guard dog who loves to travel with the crew and do what they are doing when we let her. She loves to herd cattle.

Here she is between Gina and Russ on the trail last fall.

Knightwing earned her award while working the McNeil cows. In those Sunday afternoon moments Miles witnessed Knightwing encounter a wolf. Miles’ description of the wolf is that it was big, as tall as his stirrups were from the ground. Knightwing caught sight of it and went in hot pursuit, she chased it away and followed it into some bushes. There was, at that point, some wondering, “will we ever see Knightwing again?” It didn’t seem wise to go off with such a potentially fierce creature. However, moments later, Knightwing reappeared, her work done. She had driven off that wolf, it was not to be seen again. We know that Knightwing rises to the challenge of coyotes regularly, often sinking her teeth into them, but to see her boldly protect her people and these cows from a wolf was new territory, not something Russell has ever seen. Through Miles’ recollection of the story Russ very readily made the declaration that Knightwing had earned “Dog of the Month” designation. Our wonder at this creature we have been entrusted with grew some more.

We hold Knightwing in our thoughts with alot of wonder for many reasons. She is the only dog we have that smiles. It really endears her to people.

Our friend Dawson sent me this picture one day while he was dogsitting for us. Earlier I had asked Dawson if he had a favorite dog, he told me that it was Knightwing because she smiles. Here you may be tempted to see a fierce expression, but this is her smile.

Kightwing connects with people, she is our 90 year old friend Shirley’s favorite dog, I think because Shirley feels that Knightwing remembers and recognizes her from visit to visit and looks for her. No arrival at the ranch is complete until Shirley and Knightwing have connected. Knightwing is quite a needy dog. She loves belly rubs and her favorite place to ask for one is in the driveway, where she is supposed to be guard dog on duty. Knightwing needs lots and lots of sympathy in the winter. She sleeps outside in a dog house just outside our door. In the morning when Russ lets the Collies out to do their morning routine, Knightwing comes barreling into the house. She heads straight for our room where I am usually still in bed. She jumps straight onto the bed and buries herself as close to me as she can and starts talking. She whines and I listen, when its my turn to talk I ask her questions, I thank her for fighting off the coyotes, for braving the cold, I say, “poor Knightwing” and we go back and forth until she is done. I really love those moments.

Here is a morning Knightwing moment, after she has finished getting all her concerns off her chest.

The designation of Knightwing as dog of the month for her wolf fighting work came at an interesting time. In the morning, at church, I had brought some toys to help tell the Children’s story, these included a Shepherd, sheep, lambs and two wolves.

We were talking about how God is like a Shepherd who cares for us and protects us and leads us to places where we can find what we need. As we thought about the menacing wolf that was set up a little ways away from the “herd” a little three year old girl whispered under her breath “I’ll huff and I’ll puff”, we ran with that a bit. We tried to see if I could be a wolf and blow the Shepherd and sheep down, nope I couldn’t. The wolf did not prevail.

In 24 years of living in ranch country I have had cause to think about wolves so very seldom I want to say “never.” I am therefore a little bit fascinated that on this one day these two stories lined up. When Russ told me about our “dog of the month”, I knew I wanted to blog about it and tell you readers.

I want to probe one more thing. I find myself wondering if Knightwing illustrates something important. She is wired to need certain things. She just needs tummy rubs. She just needs to get to cry/talk/whine when her world is frosty. Her vulnerability, apparent weakness and need for compassion have not compromised her ability to be attentive and fierce, very fierce, when need be. I feel like our culture readily shames people for being vulnerable, for needing tenderness and touch, for needing compassionate conversation. Does Knightwing illustrate the possibility that we do our best with our life callings when we are seen, when at times we are encountered with tenderness and when sympathy is shared through compassionate conversation. Such realities have not ruined Knightwing and her calling to be fierce and protective when need be. Maybe they have made her that much more invested in doing her thing to protect her people, her cows, her Collie sisters. I don’t know but seeing Knightwing in action as both needy one and protector I am more invested than I was before in believing that the world is better, that we all do better, when we let ourselves truly see and respond to those who cross our path. I see you, you see me.

Last week Russell and I went to Regina to accomplish a few different things. A main hope was to find a possible piece of equipment for our haying work. As it turned out we are looking for a very rare thing and of the four dealerships we visited only two even took our contact information down. It was a little bit of a downer.

A little something happened enroute that I find myself mulling over and not sure of the significance of. We stopped on the side of the highway before we got to Regina. This is common for us, we often switch drivers at this point as I am the city driver of our duo, Russ does most of the highway miles. As we went around the back of the car to switch sides I initiated a hug with Russell. From an outside perspective I find this a bit weird of me. I grew up in a family with a warm environment but still we mostly only hugged at the airport or other places where significant hellos or good-byes were said. However, I find alot of comfort in Russell’s embrace, so as we physically drew near to each other rounding the back end of the car it seemed a quite natural thing to do. As we hugged, me facing the highway and he facing the ditch, my chin on his shoulder and his chin on mine, we both spoke at the same time. He said, “I can see a fire way over there.” while I was saying, “huh, someone is land-rolling over there.” We got back in the car, feeling amused that even as we were engaged in a hug, we were both scanning the landscape. Russ had this theory about our words, that people of the land are always surveying their surroundings. There are surely several reasons for this but I know one big why. I am thinking about the many stories where the alertness of neighbors has meant that we, our land, our buildings, our animals and our machinery have received what was needed when we have needed it. Sometimes its our eyes that help our neighbors. Just yesterday Russ and Morgan were joined by a neighbor coming down the road and together they put another neighbor’s wandering cows back in their pasture. Scanning your surroundings is part of being a good neighbor, an acknowledgement that we don’t have enough eyes to monitor all that we are responsible for, our neighbors eyes are important in the mix. We have so many good neighbor stories, it is a big part of what makes being a steward of land and creatures possible.

Another amusing thing of that day happened when we dropped into the mall to make a return for a friend. We were in a woman’s clothing store that had some sales on. Russell said, “Kathy, why don’t you try something on.” I have not been feeling myself for quite a while and at times like that I think maybe its not much fun to try on clothes or even to know what to look for. I am in a bit of an identity shift perhaps, in times like that, what clothes do you need? I find I still want to dress like I did in the late 90s. I had a good collection of vests. Anyways….I found myself responding to Russell’s invitation to shop longer and try things on by saying this, “nah, no need for new clothes, lets go tractor shopping.” It was not lost on me that I was speaking words that I never expected myself to utter and I do feel that I let the sisterhood of farm wives down. I really was not that thrilled about implement shopping (we are looking for a self propelled haybine not a tractor, but it was the word tractor that fell out of my mouth in that moment.) I think I just had no space in my brain for clothes shopping. Its fun to take note of the times that words fall out of us that we never expected to be the source of.

Part of our time in Regina included a trip to Starbucks to see Jill at work. As we came up to the till Russ told the clerk that he wanted a black coffee and a hug from that girl over there. The cashier looked taken aback, which was partly Russell’s goal I am certain. I piped in, “thats our daughter!” You could see relief come over the clerk’s face. We proceeded to enjoy moments of back and forth with the cashier and Jill. When we sat down to enjoy our drinks a woman sitting near us said, “is that your daughter?” When we affirmed that yes it sure was, she said, “she’s good.” It meant alot to us to hear that. Jill later told us that she is a regular, I guess that means she knows what she is talking about. A parent’s heart is bolstered at times like that.

Last Thursday we did something really interesting, a little bit challenging and quite rewarding when we exchanged favors with ranch family friends of ours. Our part of the exchange was to bring lunch to their branding. There were 35 mouths to feed. Russell was my catering assistant. Morgan was on the roping team for the branding. I have never attended a branding before, we do things differently at our ranch. It was interesting to see how the large scale action unfolds. It was rewarding to feed a very polite and thankful crew and see in the eyes of our friends deep gratitude for what we were able to do for them. The fun part that we keep talking about was that I made a slapdash broccoli salad in the last minutes of my preparations. I threw together the ingredients and with no sense that I had created anything special we headed out the door. It was a hit. Sitting around afterwards people were talking about it. Zany things were said, perhaps not just right for this blog post, but we are still smiling about them.

One last anecdote to round out this post. Morgan has been burning the candle at both ends lately. He has been schooling, ranching and getting a few fun nights with friends in as well as being a cowboy every chance he gets. He has become quite exhausted and I feel bad about it. Recently I found him flaked out on our bed, sleeping so soundly that I could not rouse him. So I did what any woman would do who misses their little kids. I washed his face and read him two children’s books. By the end of the second book he did respond to the ridiculous duck on a bike with a pretty teenager-y expression, but otherwise, I read uninterrupted. It felt good.

Thats all. Just a few little nuggets from the days we have known.