Greetings all:<\/p>\n
We landed in Billings in a snowstorm, crashed in a hotel, and headed south for Thermopolis first thing the next morning. After so long on the road we were anxious to pet and hug our two shelties. During our tour Shannon spent most of her time punishing grandma. It seems that young Jake has figured out that if he’s in grandma’s lap, he gets the lion’s share of attention. Now, you’ve got to understand that Shannon has always loved grandma, perhaps even more than Mike and Kathy. The two of them have a special bond–which has been fractured by Jake driving his long nose between them. To get back, Shannon spent the two and half weeks snubbing grandma, ignoring her commands, and generally doing everything she could to get “alone” time with grandma. <\/p>\n
And people think that animals aren’t just little people? <\/p>\n
Dogs, like so many conscious creatures, are just people. Having them around to share our lives adds incredible wealth and value to quality existence. How? Interaction with animals, especially mammals and birds, adds perspective to the soul. In many ways they remind us of what’s real. Wow, did raising buffalo, being a part of their community, and learning their rules ever change our opinions of what is really meaningful in life. Similarly, our shelties have taught us that long term bonds between species adds breadth to our understanding of the world. For the most part humans living in the modern technological urban bubble have lost this, and most don’t even knew it evaporated from their lives.<\/p>\n
One night during our recent visit to New York, our foreign rights agent, Teri Tobias engaged us in conversation about the ranch. She’s been here and understands what we have at Red Canyon Ranch. Her question revolved around where we were happiest. And why. Now, here’s the thing: We do very well in any sort of an environment. We can walk through Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue without gaping like hicks. At the Society for American Archaeology we mingle and mix among peers. We have old and dear friends in the book selling community that includes wholesalers, editors, publishers, bookstore owners, and reps. But in all of these environments, we are never really able to relax and be ourselves. What the sociologist, Goffman, called “presentation of self” is always at play. <\/p>\n
So when Teri asked, “Where do you really fit?” Mike’s answer was “When we’re hanging out with buffalo people.” At her surprise, Kathy replied, “That’s because they live in the real world.”<\/p>\n
Which, of course, leads us back to the animals. Ranchers who raise any livestock, but bison in particular, are constantly reminded of life’s realities. Buffalo insist on being recognized as “persons” who follow their own rules and deserve to have their cultures respected, and will treat you the same way if you demonstrate that you deserve it. We find that we are constantly striving to live up to their expectations. <\/p>\n
Shelties, fortunately, don’t take life to such extremes, but having learned our lessons from the buffalo, we cherish our dogs even more. Plus, there’s an added advantage: Buffalo don’t sleep on the foot of the bed at night. And, believe us, we’ve had sick calves sleeping on the foot of the bed, you don’t even want to consider it except in the most dire of circumstances.<\/p>\n
End of story? We’re home, playing with the dogs, and back at work on Iroquois and de Soto books.<\/p>\n
Until next time,<\/p>\n
Mike and Kathy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Greetings all: We landed in Billings in a snowstorm, crashed in a hotel, and headed south for Thermopolis first thing the next morning. After so long on the road we were anxious to pet and hug our two shelties. During our tour Shannon spent most of her time punishing grandma. It seems that young Jake […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gear-gear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gear-gear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gear-gear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gear-gear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gear-gear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gear-gear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140,"href":"https:\/\/www.gear-gear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gear-gear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gear-gear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gear-gear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}