I'm No Good! or Rent-A-Cow!

Today has been great. Late this morning our good friends Carol & James came over for a visit and within seconds of greeting them, those two had me laughing. When Tony drove up in Kermit we went into Outer Space.

"I finished reading The Art of Racing In The Rain and I loved it!" Carol said, as we sat down in the chairs. "And I loved the ending and it made me cry. James listened to the audiobook version and..."

"Wow. I love that book," James said, as Belle Starr-Simons jumped up on him. "It is a great book and thank you for loaning me the audio version and the ending was a total surprise and blew me away..."

After we had discussed the book Tony brags, "My Belle is a genius. Yesterday she took a doggie IQ test and she is one really smart dog. I'll prove it," he said, as he got up and walked out of Outer Space. "I'll be right back." When T. returned to Outer Space with the Doggie IQ tester that Eileen had given to us, he explained how it worked while he put treats in the holes and then slid the covers over them. "Y'all aren't going to believe this," he bragged, as he placed the IQ board on the floor and Miss B.S.-S. did nothing but stand there."Come on Belle. You know how to do this," and Belle came over, so T. could refresh her genius brain, as he showed her the hidden treats as all of us laughed. "Look! She got one!" Tone declared. "Get another one!" Once again—Belle, the pup prodigy, did nothing.

As Tony sat on the floor trying to help his dog find the treats, we laughed and tried to cheer him up. "Belle is smart," Carol said, as she chuckled. "I bet we have all known some people who could not figure it out." After agreeing with Carol, Ms. B. got interested and found the rest of her hidden treats. Yeah Belle!

Then we started talking about the cows that they are fixin' to buy, so they can use them to practice cutting them out of the herd on their awesome cutting horses and we laughed so much about the trouble that they had had trying to find four nice cows, my back started aching again. So, as you can already guess—I'm sitting on my pink sheep hide, that my good friend Mari bought for me and it seems to be working.

"This one man told us that his cows were high dollar and he would not sell them to be roped," Carol said. "I tried to explain to him that we love animals and would never rope a cow, because it is cruel, but I guess he didn't know the difference between cutting and roping events..."

During that fun hilarious conversation, James looks at me and smiles and then points his finger at me and says, "We need to find us a herd-turner and we were thinking of you."

"What's a herd-turner?" I asked.

"It's a man, who..."

"A woman," I joked.

"Okay, it's a woman who just basically sits on a horse who keeps the herd together while we cut one out," James explained. "You'd be perfect for it, Nancy." Carol, Tony and I started laughing.

"I'd love to be a herd-turner as long as it's not dangerous! I could add that to my resume!"

"But, it doesn't pay anything," Carol said, with a laugh. "Think of it as an honor or something."

"Well, I'd be honored to be a herd-turner. But I think that we should do it on a trial basis, because if it turns out that I'm not a good herd-turner—I don't want y'all to feel bad about trying to figure out how to tell me nicely that, "I'm no good." Okay?" After they agreed, I said, "Rent-a-cow. Somebody needs to start a rent-a-cow business."

As Carol & James were leaving Carol got a phone call and when she hung up the phone her face lit up and she said, "We got cows! He's delivering them this afternoon!" And then James' face lit up because of Carol's good news. Then they left and went back to the ranch, so they could get ready for "when the cows come home."

This evening T. and I went over to Lisa's house, in Kerrville, to eat dinner with her & Mark From Mississippi, Matt, Shirley & Jerry and Meghann and we had a wonderful time. The food was delicious and the conversations were fun. Thank you, Lisa & MFM for inviting us—we had a great time and we're still full!

Y'all have a great evening! (I keep pinching myself, because I can't believe that I am fixin' to be a herd turner!)