My Ranch That Went Forever

(photo of ranch to be inserted)

While I was growing up many years ago my ranch like a fort or like a castle in medieval times. The ranch had cows, pigs and 20 to 30 chickens roaming the surroundings of my house. This was my greatest experience as a kid living and growing up there. I was the king of no one with my wild imagination. I used to wake up in the early with my room air brisk and frosty especially on the darkest of all mornings. My bare feet and my toes curled up to the size of an old kitchen sponges. Exercising with push-ups and jumping jacks kept me warm before I walked outside from my cozy 2-bedroom house. Lots of times I would see planes flying over my ranch and think about the pilot’s point of view and does it resemble paradise? The image must be perfect because from his position, all he sees is acres & acres of mountains. My ranch has nothing but rough terrain, trees with no leaves, and no wild life for miles. Only my livestock that roams the ranch with darkly colored wooden post with untouched rusted barbwire lining the outskirts as far as the eye can see.  As the pilot looks down from his tiny plane probably wishing he was knocking on my front door asking my grandpa if he could stay and visit a while.

This beautiful ranch with only 2 bedrooms was centered in a deep ravine where three large mountains hugged my house like a football player rushing in for the quarterback sack. It was like a football linesmen wearing a white blanket all around him as he rushes in for a tackle.  I can almost bet he was licking his lips, wiping his forehead of sweat and wishing he was on my ranch. Those look like some deep cliffs from the 2feet of snow of what he was looking at from my view those weren’t bad at all. It was winter and there was not a ski lift’s for miles and no trails no other vehicles insight over my land. Only with the pilot’s gauges to show him he’s somewhere over Lancaster, Ca, I have heard of this place but still bewildered. Flying over my ranch with no land marks just a beautiful simple 4-slided building with lots of different dots around the house. The dots were all my animals from the air that resemble many soldiers guarding my kingdom.

All my farm animals like to stay close to the house cause me being their king I was the one who took care of them. Due to the fact one of my chores were to keep up with the feeding. Thinking to myself don’t all of my animals know that the feed pin is over a mile away, or even probably a little further than a mile? After breakfast time with my grandpa consuming sweet oatmeal that anyone could smell over a mile away. Any cowboy would put a long hard day of work just to get a couple of bowls worth. I would grab my cowboy hat, slide into my Levi’s that are already standing in the dark corner by themselves, always thinking when is my grandma going to wash them. So I would kick on my muddy ground stompers head out to the wagon being as happy as I can be knowing I’m going to spend another day with grandpa. With all of my animals knowing it’s feeding time the two smartest cows start their head bumping with each other and shuffle quickly to find there self in the only 2 prime slots pulling the wagon. All the animals know whoever pulls us in the wagon down to the feeding pin leads the herd and those lucky two cows eat first. After about the midday and all my chores were complete I had remembered now I had only one chore to do. On my ranch that went forever the fun-time begun with sleighing on my grandpa’s giant size tractor inner tubes down these three mile size mountains remembering what the pilot might have been saying to himself “Those Are Some Deep Cliffs Bro”.

In the summer time I went hunting & shooting for big rattlesnakes with a 22 Winchester rifle with 11 shot clip so that I would never miss those poor old rattlesnakes. Most of my summer time was dodging incoming golf balls, and searching for lost ones. I only received 10 cents per ball no matter if I was hit by them or the ball was found in the dirt. My uncles was hitting away yelling out “This one’s 4rrrrrrr you Eric “. I know to myself I would get my 10 cents sooner or later. Some balls were never found and lots of rattlesnakes were never shot, but my memories will always be in the ranch that went forever.

 

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