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Just a Bit of Bark and Banter: Summer Days with My Toy Aussies

By
Jennifer Long
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Jennifer Long
Columnist

Summer is here, and while many of us love soaking up the sunshine, my four Toy Australian Shepherds have their own opinions about these hot days!
Lucy, our indoor queen, is perfectly happy lounging in the cool air conditioning. She’ll occasionally peek outside, but the heat doesn’t appeal to her one bit. Her favorite summer activity? Sprawling out in the coziest spot on the couch, keeping a close eye on everything happening inside.
Brutus and Scout, on the other hand, are usually the adventurous ones. They love their walks and exploring the neighborhood, but lately, the summer heat has slowed them down. Walks have to wait until early morning or late evening when the sun isn’t blazing. Even then, they’d rather take shorter strolls and hurry back to the shade.
Luna, our playful girl, likes a mix of both worlds. While she appreciates the comfort of staying inside where it’s cool, she can’t resist her little pool in the backyard. On particularly hot afternoons, she’ll splash and play in the water, tail wagging, before heading back inside to relax.
Watching my Toy Aussies handle summer in their own ways reminds me that, like people, pets have their unique personalities and preferences. Whether it’s lounging indoors, enjoying a quiet evening walk, or splashing in a backyard pool, there’s no wrong way to beat the heat—so long as they’re happy and safe.
A Few Summer Tips for Your Furry Friends:
Hydration is key! Always keep fresh, cool water available indoors and out.
Paw check! If the pavement is too hot for your hand, it’s too hot for their paws. Walk during the cooler parts of the day.
Shade & splash zones: A shady yard and a small kiddie pool can turn a hot afternoon into a play day.
Frozen treats: Ice cubes or frozen dog-friendly snacks make for fun (and safe) summer cool-downs.
Know their limits: Just like us, dogs can overheat quickly, so watch for signs of heat exhaustion and give them plenty of rest.
Summer with my Toy Aussies is never boring—between Lucy’s lounging, Brutus and Scout’s short-but-determined walks, and Luna’s splash parties, there’s always a story to tell!

Tradin’ Places (Best Of)

By
Lee Pitts
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lee pitts

They left the auction arena shrouding their eyes…they couldn’t stand to watch the sale of their cows, the ones they raised from calves and given family names. They didn’t want their friends and neighbors to see them cry so they got their final cattle check and left without saying goodbye.

They’d best be getting on with their lives. They weren’t getting any younger and their son didn’t want any part of the ranching life. So with ranch real estate selling for a pretty penny they decided there wasn’t gonna be a better time to sell the old ranch house. And so they moved their possessions to town in the back of their Gooseneck® trailer. When it was empty they traded it and the truck in on something more practical. The ranch pick-up wouldn’t fit in the garage of the tract home they were buying anyway. They’d left behind a few items they thought the new owners might appreciate but they were soon stacked by the road, “Free for hauling away,” the sign said. Only one item was broken in the move to town, an antique vase, like the ranch, handed down from generation to generation.

Having lived their entire lives under cowboy hats they didn’t have the necessary skills or the proper clothes for urban life. After all, one doesn’t wear five buckle boots and Carhartt overalls to the bank. Having said goodbye to their horses and their habits they tried to rid their lives of any record of the ranch. It was bad enough when a cattle truck would pass or a cowboy friend would call. They stopped answering the phone because they didn’t need good memories reminding them of better days.

City life took some getting used to. You couldn’t run through the house half naked because a salesman or someone peddling religion might be standing at the door. They’d never locked their door in the country and were not used to carrying a house key. So now they had to leave a window cracked and the screen off so they could crawl back in. The neighbors complained about their barking dog, but not for long. He got run over trying to go back to the only home he’d ever known.

Oh sure, town life had some pluses. If you were baking and ran out of milk a store was handy. And when you flushed your toilet it was someone else’s problem. Your well never went dry, fast food was readily available and the hospital was just a short ambulance ride away.

Pops got bored with retirement and looked for some part-time work to keep himself busy but he’d never gone to college, having always known what he would do for a living. He finally got a job delivering soda pop which meant he had to change the brand he drank. In his spare time he wandered around like a pony with its bridle off.

One day he drove out beyond the urban sprawl, past the ranchettes to the old home place. They’d traded places with an urban-bred family looking for “the simple life.” Oh really? Wait till the septic tank backed up or the road went out. Now they were living in each other’s world. Perhaps they’d make it, after all, there wasn’t a cow on the place just a llama, a non-working breed of dog and a miniature horse. Oh well, they had probably never swung their leg over the back of a real horse anyway.

No sagebrush rebels these.

Their old house had been transformed into a bed and breakfast with a coat of paint and a sign by the road. The tree house had been taken down and a cute little John Deere became the first tractor to take up permanent residence on the place. The new garden sprouted signs they knew as much about farming as a hog does about Sundays. It was planted way too early in the Spring and there were far too many mounds of zucchini.

So this is the changing landscape of the countryside, where everyone has a gardener or is one. Welcome to a world that is moving at Internet speed and doesn’t seem to care too much for the ‘family’ or the ‘farm’, where heritage, traditions and customs are reduced to being part of an irrelevant past.

But the blood, sweat and tears won’t sift from the soil that easily.

Just a Little Light: His Legacy in Words

By
Dawn Phelps
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Dawn Phelps
Columnist

Richard, my late brother-in-law from Lexington, Kentucky, was a master builder.  He and his friend Jim owned a building company that erected large buildings such as hospitals, schools, and buildings on the University of Kentucky campus.

Richard also was a lover of books.  For many years, he read aloud to my sister Joy at bedtime.  Together they read many, many books, and Joy called their reading time “bonding time.”  

So, it really was no surprise that Richard was very descriptive and eloquent with words.  He also liked to write, and from time to time, Richard would email an article he had written to Tom and me.  He referred to his writing as his “musings” and never realized his musings would later become our treasures.  

After Richard had a stroke a few months before his death, I searched for my folder with his stories.  Then I began typing them, working furiously, so I could preserve them.  I combined them into a forty-page memory book of Richard’s writing.  I had his stories bound into a booklet that I named Seasons.  

After his death, the booklets were distributed to his close family members and friends at his funeral, and the pastor who spoke at his funeral read two of Richard’s “musings” at his service. 

So, in essence, Richard wrote part of his own eulogy!  One piece was about II Chronicles 7:14 and the other was his memory of his and my sister’s 54th anniversary and their trip to Shakertown, Kentucky.  I cried when I typed the story—his love for my sister Joy showed through so vividly!   

Richard left behind a legacy in his stories.  For instance, there was a story of his first day at school; how molasses is made in the South, using the old methods that he learned from his grandpa; his remembrances of Pearl Harbor; his springtime memories in Kentucky and Richard’s thoughts about Andy Griffiths. 

Looking back, I believe Richard knew he was in his final season of life since he had been battling cerebella ataxia for several years prior to his stroke.  Perhaps he was reviewing his life as he wrote, gently getting ready to turn loose in this world for a better one.

After his funeral, my sister Joy allowed me to bring home more stories Richard had written—she too had a special folder for his writing tucked away.  I put together another memory book named Seasons II that was shared with family and friends.   

That book contained stories about what Christmas was like for Richard as a young boy; about his first date with my sister Joy; one about how his grandparents made maple syrup in the spring by tapping maple trees; how his grandmother cooked some of the sap down into syrup and made some into maple candy which he said was so good.

He told the story of how he and my sister hiked up Wilderness Road in the Appalachian Mountains where Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia come together—how he and Joy planted their feet in Kentucky and one hand each in Tennessee and West Virginia, so they could say they were in three states at the same time (and they were).  There are stories about the history of Jesse James and the Hatfields and McCoys.  

And there is a special “musing” about our family trip with my siblings and husbands to Alaska in 2009.  By then, he was having some trouble walking, but he was so grateful to be able to go on the trip and see such beautiful scenery and wildlife!  He described the trip on paper and verbally after we were home!   

After Richard’s stroke, he never penned another story, but he had already written two memories about my late husband Ralph that I will someday share in a book.  So, Richard’s stories were special gifts for his wife and family.    

It is never too soon for any of us to start writing.  It need not be perfect, just get started and write—the thoughts will come!  Then someday, like Richard, you could leave behind a legacy in words for those who love you. 

 

[email protected]

Stop and see new mural in Dickinson Couny

By
Guest Columnist
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0

Mindy Allen of Mindy’s Murals, who painted the new, vibrant, large-scale mural at the Heritage Center, was pleasantly surprised at what the center operated by the Dickinson County Historical Society has to offer.

“I didn’t realize it was as much as it was,” Allen says, after a tour of the facility prior to painting the mural. “I need to take a moment to really walk through and look at everything a little bit better. It seems like a cool place to stop that was more than what I expected.”

The mural reflects aspects of Dickinson County’s rich history including the C.W. Parker Carousel Company, the Chisholm Trail, cattle town marshal Wild Bill Hickok, a pioneer cabin, agriculture, and the C.L Brown Telephone Company.

“I had heard of the carousel, but I had never been back there to see it, and I didn’t realize it was inside (a structure with openings to outside),” she says. “I was surprised about all of the history about the telephone, I had no idea that was all in there and how large it actually is.”

The mural Allen painted fills the once blank canvass of the Heritage Center’s new Heritage Hall addition and increases the visibility of local history that can be found inside the Heritage Center’s museum and in The Village behind the building, according to Dickinson County Historical Society Director Austin Anders.

“The marketing committee was looking into ways to give Heritage Hall more curb appeal and a mural was the answer,” Anders says. “The front of the building looked very plain, but now is a colorful piece of public art that displays county history.”

Marketing Committee chairman and Dickinson County Historical Society board trustee Rod Riffel says Mindy Allen of Mindy’s Murals was selected as the artist based on her previous work in the Abilene area and her vision for the mural matching that of the committee’s.

“We wanted it to be an educational tool that reveals our county’s story by focusing on the highlights of what we are noted for, the 1901 hand-carved wooden carousel that visitors can ride, our new Farm Toy Museum that represents our agriculture history, and our telephone exhibit,” says Riffel. “We also wanted to honor our cattle town era, with Abilene being the end of the Chisholm Trail and Wild Bill Hickok serving as town marshal, and our pioneer heritage with our log cabin. Of course the Village behind the museum also includes a barn, one-room schoolhouse, early-day telephone office, and Agriculture Building filled with early-day farm machinery, a barbed wire exhibit, and transportation vehicles.”

The new addition to Abilene’s murals would not have been possible without the support of the Community Foundation of Dickinson County and the Dickinson County Historical Society’s board of trustees that “allowed this dream to come true,” adds Riffel.

The newly-completed Heritage Hall is a multi-use area that can be used by the Historical Society and the community for events up to 85 people, according to Anders. To reserve Heritage Hall, please phone 785.263.2681.

An open house for the new Farm Toy Museum, Heritage Hall, and the mural will be on Oct. 5 at the Heritage Center. The Farm Toy Museum is a new building that houses a variety of toy farm equipment sizes 1/64 scale and up. 

Parallel Views

By
Guest Columnist
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0

Ralph Williams
Guest Columnist

I am going to take a paragraph and introduce myself to the readers of the Rural Messenger. I am from the western part of Reno County, live on a small farm with my wife, 3 house cats. It is quiet here this morning two miles south of Langdon and one and a half west on the South side.
Living on Parallel Road you get to see who had a good spelling program in school whenever they ask for your address. Some will write it and go on, others write par then look at us and/or ask about the rest. Some will write it how they think and not ask. Parallel road is also known as the correction line.
As this area was surveyed, the crews surveyed from both north and south, meeting here. They figured out the surveys were off nearly one-half mile east and west, one quarter mile north and south. Rather than start over it was decided to keep it as was. All our north-south roads along the correction line have “T” intersections across the state. The first row of sections south of parallel are one and a quarter long north to south resulting in a long quarter section in the middle of each. For someone who doesn’t know the area it is difficult to navigate to an address here let alone something with no address. Driving from Pratt or Hutchinson makes it worse since highway 61 seems like east and west.
As a service tech in the ag equipment world I have been told where to go many times, pun intended. Directions might read “north to the correction line on 281 east one and a quarter, south one quarter southeast to the well, engine has a miss.” You won’t find that with GPS. I have been a direction person as long as I can remember, getting directions mixed up in a city drives me insane, that being a short trip.
This leads me to using directions inside as well: it’s on the north side of the couch, push the front of a tractor to the north a bit when joining an engine to a clutch housing. I had one helper say “Don’t give me direct ions in a building.” I feel sorry for ones who don’t know directions well it seems like a handicap. Don’t get me wrong I have been lost many times but bailed myself out eventually. I have been sent to one machine with the next repair being four miles north from that location east five miles two north and a quarter back east without benefit or signs at intersections. I have called for parts in those instances having to tell them to let drive a bit I don’t even know where I am, when I figure it out I will give you directions to meet me.
I had a young man with me once who was pretty sure we were going to have to camp for the night, me being me, I told him it would be okay, it would be a nice evening under the stars and we could start a fire with the cutting torch. That didn’t help his anxiety a bit. We kept driving east and found our way back to 281, all ended well.
I can’t win in towns with directions but get along pretty well out in the country. We were coming back from the state FFA convention in Manhattan Ks., I was navigating and Enola was driving when I missed the little intersection at I 70 and I 135. About 5 miles away from the turn I told everyone in the vehicle we had missed our turn, resulting in four cell phones switched to navigation and a scolding from my wife. We had a friend and classmate to my son with us, with me being the only one sure we would get home. I got out the paper map and went to plot a course while the rest fretted with their phones. I told Enola we will be ok as long as we head south on the first paved road off I 70. We went south for a while then had to go either east or west, I chose west thinking that would get us closer in line with
Langdon. We saw a few towns we hadn’t been in Geneseo for one, we zigged and zagged always finding another road south with me saying as long as we keep going south we will make it. My wife and the extra boy with us seemed concerned. I told them we just gotta keep heading south. Enola finally snapped “Just because we go south doesn’t mean we’ll get home.” A few miles of dirt road were involved at one point which made the doubters even more concerned. I clung to the paper map, darned if we didn’t wind up at Alden. The woman in the phones had given up hope trying to tell us our route and adjourned to a virtual bar I guess a few miles and turns back. The neighbor kid was sure we weren’t getting home that evening, even though he lived just two miles west of us. Of course, from it was indeed straight south to Parallel Road. Our running joke is as long as we keep going south after that adventure. One thing for sure, no matter where you’re at there you are.

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