Reflections on Cool Clear Sunday

Storms flew through last night with no damage to report, thank heavens. 

Talking to a friend the other day, I made the comment, "I'm still mad at myself for not going to the
National Cowboy and Western History Museum to see the Spiro Mounds exhibit when it was there this last winter.  I know I had good excuses, but I really wanted to see it." 

Missing out on events bothers me more now than ever. I may not have another opportunity to see that exhibit. The feelings became rather visceral in me as I pondered how to live the next thirty years of my life. Yes, I'm an optimist and have plans for this one wild and precious life, that poet Mary Oliver so aptly described. She also wrote:

"Instructions for living a life.

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it."

I want to remember LIFE and LIVING, and it would help if I started with yesterday, or what was I thinking about doing before I sat down to write?? This is how and why I began this weekly column: Reflections on a Rainy Summer Sunday

The Trails Golf Course, Norman

Three of us played golf Saturday, and noticed four baby mallards wandering around without mother nearby.  A couple of hundred yards away lay their dead mother mallard  Dead from hitting the power lines, not an errant golf ball.  Her neck was broken and our hearts cried.  When we drove by there an hour later no one had removed her body. So with prayers in our hearts, I walked over, picked her cold body up with a towel, then carried her to a graveyard of tall grasses.  "Bless her gentle soul, dear Lord, and watch after her babies." 

I know this is nature as it is meant to be.  Many times in my childhood I recall my father bringing home a nest of wild baby bunnies  We worked so hard to save them,, but wild bunnies are not meant for children and neighborhoods without fences.  

How sad, I think, what life must be for children and parents living in Afghanistan, and other parts of the warring world.

First bite of the season.

The best news of the week is that our garden burst open with fresh tomatoes. I know it is truly summer when I can eat our very own tomatoes while standing over the sink to make my juicy mess, like eating watermelon. 

I picked the rhubarb and made two pies. Yummy yummy sweet and tart. My first rhubarb pie since I left Kansas. 

The Norman Art Walk always brings delight, even more so when Jack and I are joined by Leah and Bobby. We began the evening at The Depot, where Jack and I were truly impressed with the artwork of Joey Frisillo from Tulsa.

Landscapes by Joey Frisillo, of Tulsa

She remarked about how much she likes our Oklahoma winters, and the friendly atmosphere.  Secretly, that makes me proud when people who have traveled and lived elsewhere make positive comments about living here.

Jack Chapman, The Bone Blossom
Prophecy

Then we discovered in the basement of Scratch, a restaurant with fine food and fresh drinks, a new room called the Speakeasy without the smoke and gangsters. We relaxed awhile with a drink in the cool quiet area. 

Over several thousand steps later we meandered through art walls of various pieces, people enjoying the cool evening outside, food trucks, dogs both large and tiny, delicious German food at Das Boot, Apple Tree Chocolates, and more art.  

WAIT WAIT...WHAT ABOUT ME?

I went to the doctor place this week . I weigh 24.6 pounds. That's like a lot, but then the man showed me a big dog (standard poodle) that had my color of hair. He said I might be that big someday. Letty made a funny sound.

Usually, all I hear from her is "OFF"  "STOP"  "NO!"  I listen and I try to not scratch and jump, and bite, but I want to be a flyboy when I grow up. I want to leap off couches, jump over tables, fly over gardens, and run faster than rabbits. I can already dig a hole to China, whatever that means. She says that if I don't learn to "come" when they call me then I will have to go to doggie school. My favorite thing to do is go for walks with Jack because he lets me sniff and tinkle when I want to. If I walk with Letty, she says, "Let's go Murphy...come on...keep up."  Sometimes I just sit in the shade on soft green grass because it feels good on my tummy. I know they like me  because they rubs my belly and my ears anytime I want. 

Murphy and the rabbits.

Oh, my name is Murphy Doodle and I am four months old. My mama is an Australian Shepherd and my daddy is a black poodle. I think I am important to Jack and Letty because I make them laugh at me everyday. 

click on this link to laugh more about Murphy Doodle

“Keep some room in your heart for the Unimaginable”

Mary Oliver, poet

Stormy

Stormy Weather on the horizon.

My little sister, Jonya Lee (Stormy) Stapp, says that I have a storm magnet inside of me.  Wherever, we go it seems that storms are attracted to me. 

She is entirely wrong and I have spent decades trying to convince her that she is the storm magnet. After all, Mr. Jack Horner, manager of Woolworth's Five and Dime Store in Miami, Ok. in the 1950's would not have named my sweet darling blue eyed-brunette-haired little sister "STORMY" if she hadn't caused such temper tantrums and crying fits on the floor of the dime store when she didn't get what she wanted.  She is the reason that storms appear so often when we are together.

The End of story #1, she wrote with a smirk. 

The second Stormy in my life began the decades of reading horse and dog stories that broke my heart. Stormy, Misty's Foal;  Misty of Chincoteague; Black Gold, and all books by Marguerite Henry opened the floodgates of emotions that I discovered were real, even though they were caused by stories in a book, on pages, on paper, not in my backyard. That story never ends.

Imagine to my surprise to meet a real life Stormy, on the prairie in 2015. Stormy, the bison bull was born during an ice storm in 2013 and abandoned by his mother. Luckily, the herd's owners realized the situation and rescued the newborn bison. In the beginning he drank eight quarts of goat's milk a day.  

Stormy loved the warm sunny porch of his new home. 

Hearing of my friend's new family member, a group of retired teachers made our way to visit James and Sandy Stepp at their farm, Sandy Springs Farm.

By then Stormy ruled the ranch and all of its surroundings. He made his home wherever he went and he was no longer small. 

Stormy in the banquet barn, 2015

Six years have passed and there is a bigger "Stormy" on the horizon, who roams his own prairie. 

Stormy, front left and his herd.

In early June our grandchildren Ruth Ann and A.J. Walenz and mother, Katy and I drove out to Sandy Springs Farms to see up close real live bison. Stormy had grown into a  massive full adult bison (James said that people just want to call them buffalo, so they gave up and went along with the popular name.**) James explained that at  2,200 pounds Stormy was considered small by standard bull bison. 

Stormy still is comfortable with James walking beside him and scratching his head, but James no longer attempts to ride on Stormy's back, as he did the first four years. Stormy still likes to have his giant head scratched as the kids found out.  Ruth Ann stuck her hand into his forehead and coarse thick warm hair covered her hand all the way to where a watch band might be on her wrist before she touched his forehead. Tempted to pull out some of his hair for a souvenir, James offered to pick up bison hair off the trail, so the kids could take on his hair. 

Ruth Ann reaching through Stormy's hair to touch his forehead. 

A.J. wanted to go under the fence like James....

There is a new bison in the family. Her name is Daisy. She currently lives beside the house in her very own garden of red clay, flowers, a porch for shade, and an open gate to the back pasture so she can roam as she pleases. 

Daisy

Abandoned at birth like Stormy, she was sent to live with James and Sandy by another person who raises bison. Daisy is still skittish of people, but not dogs and cats.  She will walk up to James when he arrives with the 8 quart jug of goat's milk, and drink from the bottle he holds.

James holding 8qrt of goat's milk. 

Like all days and stories we must come to an end.  With a full belly Daisy and James can relax. As for us, with two young children we continued on to picnic at Red Rock Canyon and found even more adventures. 

James and Daisy napping after a hard day's work. 

The two weeks of downpours and stormy weather seem to have faded away, and the sun and clouds are clear today. In Oklahoma stormy weather is never far from the horizon, just like our stories.  

*On a side note my mother often sang the old songs, the songs my ears still enjoys, like Stormy Weather by Lena Horne

** The difference between bison and buffalo: Generally, the buffalo has a larger body than the bison. The buffalo also has bigger horns. The bison has a larger head used to forage for feed during the winter months. The buffalo also has a smooth coat while the bison has a shaggy winter coat. The bison has stocky legs, and a hump on its back which helps hold the musculature of their large head.Bison information

For more stories like this one click on these links below:

Out Standing in the Field  

Pioneer Courage  

I really did this.

I climbed on Stormy's back.

and didn't have time to hold on

before he took off. Thank you

James Stepp for saving my butt.

The fall was hard but it could have

hurt more than my pride