The Farm.ily

I wrote this the day after I got back from making the trek over the mountains to pick the husband up from an unsuccessful thumb replantation surgery. Yep. The thumb did not replant. On our drive home, I said out loud, “I should write a book and call it So you want to marry a cowboy?!” Husband laughed SO HARD. Dead serious, he goes, “you should”. So the next day I cracked open a Word doc and out spewed the story of the lost thumb. If you enjoyed it. I’ve got more.

Let’s start here, shall we?

There are many types of Cowboys: ranchy, punchy, AQHA, fancy, trashy, and my personal favorite, the rodeo cowboy. When selecting your own cowboy, I have personally found that the rodeo cowboys offer a great deal of variety in type and style.

At the heart of a cowboy is a gypsy soul. A cowboy belongs to no one and in general, they seem to not answer to anyone either. I mean, good luck to you if you want to try bossing a cowboy around.

Blog Post 1- ?? I don’t know what I am even doing here

Alright, let’s start with this week’s life changing events. Thursday’s are for the weekly rodeo in Meeker. It is a great time and we all *generally enjoy it. Like all rodeos, it is a family affair, but last Thursday I had a meeting in town so my daughter stayed with me and Cowboy and Cowboy Son went to the rodeo. Cowgirl daughter queen and I would meet them there after the meeting. So just as CDQ and I are pulling up to the meeting space I get a text from a friend… I hadn’t heard from her in a while, so I gave it a gander while I pulled into the parking spot.

The text reads:
“Dude, Brett just lost his thumb”

*Internal monologue – DUCK. And not 🦆.

Physical reaction- For some reason I called her and said, “is that a joke?”. I knew it wasn’t. I married a friggin’ cowboy. Losing fingers isn’t exactly comedy material. So I flipped the biggest bitch and hauled balls to the Fairgrounds.

Side note, Cowboy insists I need a short-bed truck (over a long-bed) for town driving for ease of handling and navigation of parking spots and such… well let me tell you, yachts can turn on a dime when the right pressure is applied at the right time. So ya, I got to the Fairgrounds in a flash, scooped up my son while our friend also hauled her balls of steel to the emergency room. Which leads me to my first tip to being married to a cowboy. Get yourself a pair of steel balls. And let them drop. You will need them. For a medley of reasons.

I’ll start with the physical pain. That’s a fun one, and a fresh topic around here. Significant physical injury is something we are already well-versed in. More on that later. Also, just so you know this is not a linear story. I am not a linear thinker. Hope you don’t mind. Buy if you do mind, then adios bitchachos, this is how I talk, and this is how you’ll read it. If that doesn’t work for you- that’s fine- you are free to move along. However, this is my story and you are not free to be rude to me about any of it. “I hate rude behavior in a man. I won’t tolerate it.” – Woodrow Call. Watch that movie 500 times, if you haven’t already. That is your handbook. Use it, embrace it, and also know, that movie/book isn’t messing around in its depiction of cowboys. Also, did you see what I did there? *Polishes one of previously mentioned steel balls… admires reflection in it’s well used shine. 😉

So you want to marry a cowboy? Just so you know- there could be this-

Yep. That happened. All of which is fairly self-explanatory- Here are the key points:

-Cowboy is a team roper. He is a heeler. A damn good one too.
-Rope coils remove body parts… similar to an auger to a farmer’s arm is a popped coil to a cowboy’s thumb.

Thank you dear friend for getting him to the ER so fast. When I walked in I immediately felt comfort to see so many capable hands tending to him. And to see him smile. A perk to marrying a cowboy. They tend to take this shit all in stride. Aint nobody got time for freaking out so you better not freak out either. (Put all your freak out emotions inside your steel balls- then hit him in the head with them later, but now is not the time).

Now is the time I say, “DUCK” when I first lay eyes on his cowboy hand, sans thumb. Not going to lie. DUCK is about all you can say. Duck. I liked that thumb. I liked that thumb on his hand. Then I felt sad. One look at cowboy and I knew I better not be too sad about it or he will soon be annoyed. Another thing to store in your steel balls. It makes you strong. But damnit, they can be stoic all they want, you can say how you feel, just do it somewhere else where he can’t hear or see you… like in a blog post… that you share on the internet… for the world to see… but really more like 3-4 people, so it’s fine. Right? That’s fine? Hah.

SO YOU WANT TO MARRY A COWBOY was actually his idea. Kinda. A shared concept. Hold on, I’ll explain. Let me back up the narrative by 48 hours. I like bullet points over paragraphs. So here’s the highlight reel.

-Thursday 10pm
COVID-19, what a bitch this virus is. I was allowed to fly on the plane, but I would have been escorted out of the hospital in Denver due to the strict visiting restrictions.
-I stay and get our cowboy kids- we watch our Cowboy fly out of town on a big med jet… sing this song with me now…

Big ol’ jet airliner
Don’t carry me too far away
Oh, oh big ol’ jet airliner
‘Cause it’s here that I’ve got to stay – Steve Miller Band

That’s always hard. I hate (and I don’t say hate often) but I hate seeing the ambulances and the flight for life come and go… it brings back bad memories… and here we are again. Fucking cowboys. So you want to marry a cowboy?

Yes, the timeline, ok back to it:
-24 ducking minutes to Denver on a jet… I was impressed when I got there under 4 hours 2 days later…
-Cowboy goes in for surgery around 11pm
-I lay in bed. At a total loss. As there always is, there is a lot more to our story that compounds upon the feelings I felt laying in bed, not able to be at the hospital, waiting to hear how he is, knowing how hard he’s worked to comeback from what happened to him 10 years ago…so many thoughts it simply was too much to process especially when you know it could have been worse, its only a body part, its not a life.
3:45am- call from surgeon, the thumb could not be saved. Not sure why I didn’t spend all those hours not sleeping googling roper’s thumb because there are host of great articles about this injury. So if this ever happens to you, google and research, it will help you feel a lot better about the ordeal.
4:00am- cry it out
5:00am- get up, start dealing with this shit

-Friday-
Cowboy stays the following day/night for antibiotics and pain medicine and literally that’s it. That joint in Denver is BUSY. When you have an easy going, unpretentious, non-demanding cowboy patient just know they are generally going to be triaged DOWN the hierchy order for the nurses. They know cowboys can handle their shit. So if you’re going to marry a cowboy. Get ready to use your steel balls and get the shit he needs when he won’t ask for it. Like pain pills, if your cowboy is like my Cowboy, he’s going to need to dosage given to a horse, and you’re going to have to fight like hell to squeak that shit out of the hospital staff.

-Miday- I go to town, back to the whose truck is better competition, I’ll concede and get HIS truck ready for the roundtrip to Denver… because I’m nice like that, of course I would rather spend 8 hours straight in my GMC yacht but I’m married to a cowboy, I know what he likes and this is one of those times you suck it up and let the discomfort of his fancy seats reside in your steel balls. Also, his truck is technically way nicer than mine. But that’s not the point.

Saturday
6am- Leave house, proceed to perform a live concert for 4 hours. Singing your lungs out is quite therapeutic.

8:00am- talk to the Cowboy’s twin sister, my sister in law. We have a good laugh, kinda, one of those what else can you say about the situation so let’s laugh. I say, “SO YOU WANT TO MARRY A COWBOY?!” to I don’t know who, any young gal making some life plans. SIL laughs her ass off and says, “I would never have married a cowboy!”. I laughed, she laughed, the new Dodge dually laughed… hell that damn truck was probably emailing Cowboy as we speak to inform him someone driving his truck was also talking shit about him. It’s smart like that, and rude… that is another post for another day, Smart Trucks… yes. Stay tuned!

10:30- Here is the Cowboy
Take a left handed selfie and we are back on the road home.

12:00pm- Chatting about whatever, I mention how the SIL and I shared a good laugh about “SO YOU WANT TO MARRY A COWBOY” and Cowboy said, “you should write a book!”. He laughed, I laughed, the dually laughed and took notes for a future email.

And here we are. Okay you’re right, this isn’t a book. But you know, a book seemed a little, idk what, presumptuous that anyone would actually want to read what I write, let alone buy it? I like to share our stories, but you don’t have pay to hear me talk… I mean if you wanted to that’s cool too… I have a lot of fancy things I need to buy. So a blog it is, if it worked for the Pioneer Woman surely it will work for the Tiger Queen who married a Cowboy 😉.