Another gorgeous day in Colorado with my family. For starters, several of us lolled about on the ranch house's front porch. All were tickled to see a dust cloud in the distance which turned out to be Cousin Jonni, driving herself along the road in one of Tom's Aunt Judy's farm vehicles. Jonni had the company of 2 of Aunt Judy's friendly Border Collie dogs. We had fun fussing over the pups.
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| Tom, and Jonni-ann with her pup companions |
But suddenly the dogs jumped off the porch, bulleting down the road. David said they must have heard Judy's car coming, but nope! It was Judy alright but she was driving her HUMONGOUS green tractor carrying a round bale of hay with Cousin Charlaine as her co-pilot.
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| Judy, Charlaine and doggos, headed for the porch |
None of us had any idea what a treat we were in for. Judy had rummaged her files back at the ranch. She chose poetry inspirationally written by Tom's grandfather. The poem told the tale of Tom's grandfather, out checking three cows, who had birthed their three calves, all in the deep snow of a winter blizzard. I wish I had the poem to post here, which contained true cowboy humor.
It was like watching one of those CBS Sunday Morning reports which are so beautiful that I feel sad that I wasn't there to soak it up. But here I sat, live, in person, enjoying the sensations of poetry as it washed over me, setting me down in a snow coated rangeland, blinking as snow flakes landed on my eyelashes, and the moos of livestock serenading my ears. Yeah, that was heaven.
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| Judy, the Williamson family historian |
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| The rings on the coasters are beautiful |
As if all that wasn't gift enough, Judy had risen early that morning, and set to sawing segments of the ranch's ancient & aged fence posts into slices. Everyone got a set of the beautiful ringed tree, drink coasters.
That was the best of the day in my opinion. After Judy's visit the whole fam got busy packing and making at least some effort to leave the ranch house in good shape. There was some disturbing news, concerning Tom's father which had us on tenterhooks on the drive back. Tom's dad had suddenly taken ill, to the degree that Tom's sister was flying in from out of state. We all worried along with Tom and hoped he and his sister would be able to handle the crisis and that their father should survive it as well. Family means having to handle such crises and we know Tom and his sister are up to the task.
Back in Denver we all had quiet - or as quiet as we manage to be - evening. For dinner we all ordered pizza at a v. close restaurant and some of the more energetic cousins (yeah, not me) walked over and picked up the orders for all of us. We had a lovely dinner, loads of chatting and happy anticipation of tomorrow's activities.
