Guinea returns
by rakeeter

There was a knock on the front door Saturday afternoon.  A woman who said she lived in Quadrille was driving down our street and saw a guinea fowl.  Knowing that we had guineas, she stopped to let us know one was at large.  It was across the street on the  Mock place when I saw it and it immediately went around the fence on to the Elliot place.  I herded it toward the street thinking I would get it onto SA through our gate.  Once it crossed the street, though, it seemed to recognize where it was and headed down the fence line to the 2005 driveway.  After a few back and forths it made it through/under the gate and seemed very glad to be home.  Joyce was just as glad and offered it some stale bread, a favorite of the wanderer. No doubt it kept the chickens spellbound that night in the chicken house with tales of its adventure.

January soaker
by rakeeter

It is unusual to get significant moisture this time of year.  Anywhere from a light dusting to an inch or two of snow is about all we can expect for January here on Planet SA.  And we got that earlier in the month.  But starting Saturday it rained and rained, then snowed Sunday night.  Saturday the rain gauge accumulated an inch and Sunday it added another inch between raining off and on all day and snowing during the night.  The snow was probably four or five inches deep and very wet.  People in less arid parts of the country will think this is nothing to get excited about, but here on the High Plains, that much moisture would be noteworthy even in July.  Falling in winter it won’t burn off and blow away as it generally does in the summer.  The flora will get a good long sip and not have it disappear into thin air through their leaves. Continue reading “January soaker” →

Tositoya
by rakeeter

Tositoya

as told to Montie McBride Rockwell

Tositoya was a little white boy with an Indian name.  Tositoya is the Indian name for “White Chief.”  When Abigail Stringer came west from Indiana to help in an Indian school in Fort Sill, Indian Territory, she met Dave McBride from Illinois and as you people do, the young couple married, and as the years went by three sons were born to them, Robert (Tositoya), William and Amos. Continue reading “Tositoya” →

Montie’s story
by rakeeter

The Story of Montie Gertrude McBride Rockwell

by Montie Rockwell

I was born on February 6, 1886 at Doan’s Crossing, Texas, fifteen miles north of Vernon, Texas, where the long drive of longhorn cattle crossed the Red River going north to market from north (sic) Texas and Mexico.  In those days there were no trucks or cars.  Everything was done on a horse, on foot, or by horse-drawn vehicles.  The cowboy’s life was anything but a bed of roses!  On those long drives there was drought, floods, lightning and thunderstorms to frighten the cattle, making them stampede.  Only by going to the front of the here or line and getting the cattle to circling could the boys get the cattle to bunch up and settle down.  Boys even lost their lives in the operation. Continue reading “Montie’s story” →