Life with a Weim.

My life with my weim, whom I lovingly call my hound has been a wild 12 years. She has given me more than a few gray hairs. If I were to be honest she has given me more gray hair than the kids ever thought of. I created a monster the day I brought her home and was exhausted from driving 6 hours to get her and turning around driving 6 hours back. I laid her in her new Walmart bed. I fell into my soft, welcoming bed and I immediately heard her start to whine. 12 years later, I should have just let her whine. She was so soft and cuddly. What could one night of sleeping in my bed hurt. 12 years later, it hurt my sleep pattern immensely. Like she never left my bed and she booted The Stauff out of bed when she tipped the scale at 80 pounds. Now at 100 pounds, she knows my bed is her bed and allows me to sleep there. Although her seperation anxiety would kick in if I weren’t there and she would find wherever I was and would sleep there anyway. Trust me, that connection is a Weim thing.

Since she was in my bed, when she would catch a smell filtering through the house and blow up, pacing till I let her out. She would blow out the door with her hair sticking straight up off her ass. She looks both ways in the yard, ears flopping up and down, the blue of her eyes darting around, just in case a random raccoon was lurking in the shadows. Nothing, she sniffs around the fresh cut grass and finds the perfect spot to pee. Barks a few more times, kicks her back feet up kicking up dead grass as it flies behind her. This goes on about 5-10 mins. Then she is ready to come back in and sleep for a few more hours before it starts all over again. This has been my life for 12 years. I have been living a new born baby life for 12 years. The up and down every night has created a bad sleep pattern for me. I talked to my Dr. and I told her how tired I am about 2:00 P.M. The converstaion went like this.

Me: “also, I am having a hard time about mid day. I am so tired around 2 I could just face plant”.

Dr: “How is your sleep pattern? I ask because sometimes people have sleep issues that need further testing with. Do you feel you get enough deep sleep?”

Me: “Well I usually get up 3 or 4 times a night”.

Dr: “What makes you get up that much during the night?”

Me: “Um, my dog needs to be let out. She paces around my bed until I let her out”.

Dr: “oh”..

Me: “deep sigh”

Dr: “how long has this gone on?”

Me: “well, she is going to be 12 years old next month.”

Dr: “Oh shhhhhii…”

Me:…………..

Dr: “I am so sorry, I don’t think I can help with you being so tired”.

As you can see I get excited to go on work trips, cause I get a bed to myself for the whole night. Although, after 12 years, my body just thinks it needs to get up. I am used to it. What is a girl to do with a dog that she adores?

This whole not sleeping was perplexing to me. I wondered if I did get a solid nights sleep would it make a difference. Would I be like the Grinch and my black heart might beat a little different with a little sleep? I decided to try a sleep app to see how well my sleep really was. What could it hurt? I found an app that I thought would do the ticket.. monitored sleep, rem sleep, deep sleep, awake time etc. Then it would analyze it. I set it all up and hit start.

I had a hard time going to sleep that night. I went to bed around 10:30 and saw 11 roll on past like nothing.. I finally drifted off to sleep at some point. In the middle of the night, all of a sudden something hit me in the face. Like dead center on my nose. I swear to God himself I thought someone was in the house and I was about to be featured on a tik tok rabbit hole of what happened to Kris Stauffer. My mind flashed with locations of all the guns and knives in the house. All of the configurations came back with, “You are probably just going to die”. I thought about the punch to the noise and was thankful I dont have any bones in my nose, I felt it would have broke or seriously tweaked if I had. This all spun out in what felt like 10 seconds. I finally opened my eyes to see who had smoked me on the nose. Brave to meet my fate. Complete darkness. “shit” I thought, “who or what in the hell was that”. I thought to myself “hold up, ya know it kinda felt like the hounds paw”. I reach out and feel the hounds foot. I grab it and extend it to my face.. yep.. sound asleep she was.. must have been dreaming and kicked me in the face. I holler at her. “Geezus H..move your ass”. She grumbled and moaned and moved to her side. Back to bed. Then she smelled a smell, off to the door.. bark and holler.. back to bed.. back to sleep.

My little app started shaking and sending out some odd noises abruptly at 7:00 A.M. Hushing my phone and stretching I remembering the app, I was excited to review my metrics. I get a “congratulations your sleep quality was 83%”. 83% I thought. HOW?? I kept reading. It said I fell asleep 9 minutes after going to bed. Now, I am calling bullshit. I saw the clock hit past 11:00. Then I look at the graphs of what looks to be alot of deep rem sleep. Eh? When?

I reviewed the recordings hoping and half ass praying I heard no voices.. 👻.. at approximately 1:20 A.M., I heard some noise and then a “geezus H. Move your ass”. “Ahh”, I thought, that is when The Hound kicked me in the nose. Remembering the thought that my life was ending at the hands of some sketch shit made me chuckle. Then I heard her bark and go out, come back in.. I went through the rest of the metrics. Amazed, it all shows I slept well. I sat their pondering as I pet my hound.. the hound.. she snored all night. That damn app picked up her snoring and put it into my metrics. Which is why “I” went to sleep 9 mins after I hit the button.. damn it. First she smokes me in the nose and then steals my cool app. I can’t win..at least one us is getting good sleep.

Sheep herder stand

A “Challenging Day”

Today was… let’s say… “challenging”.. from the moment I arose till the very bitter end. As five bells tolled on my heart claiming the end of the day, I felt a tug on my collar to go to the south pasture. The south pasture has always been my favorite place on the ranch. So much history of wagons, Indians, dinosaurs and last but not least my 3 generations before me. There is a sheep herder stand that fell over years ago.. My Grandpa would tell stories of how sheep herders would build these rock stands during the day while their sheep would graze and it would give them a place to sit later on to watch them. We have a handful on them scattered across the ranch that have been standing against the elements of mother nature for well over 100 years. This one rock pile is the only one I have ever saw that had fallen over. Why? I have no idea. The rock pile was close to the road and every time I would drive by it, for some reason, I would always feel bad for it. The kids and I would always say we would put it back one day… I decided today would be the day.

Mid October in Wyoming means one thing, the weather is getting cooler. I grabbed a sweatshirt, some gloves, my hound and I headed out. I bounced down the rough dirt road dodging water wash outs. As I drove up to the top of our ridge I prayed all the way that no snakes were hiding amongst the rocks. Surely they were chilled by now?? As I walked to my pile of rocks I studied my task.. hmm.. had their been 2 that fell over? Crazy.. All these years I assumed there was just one. Well, by the size of some of the rocks, there would probably be only one after today..

I started grabbing rocks, then grabbing smaller rocks to stabilize each layer, then added another layer and so on. I pushed down hard on each level. I made sure that there wasn’t a weak spot or a lone wobbly rock that would bring down the whole stack. It wasn’t long until I had run out of big rocks. I started grabbing little rocks filling in hanging ledges for extra support. Luckily, there was no sign of snakes.. whew.. When I had started grabbing rocks, I glanced up at the existing stack. Something strange caught my eye. Nestled very delicately inside of the intricately stacked rocks was a beautful feather. There had been a little bird nest in the pile of rocks, so I rebuilt the new stack with a south facing opening to their little hole with coverage on both sides and a tight north wall. Some bird would appreciate me someday.

I threw my sweatshirt on the dry, krinkly sod and sat down to admire my work. My hound joined me taking it all in. I laughed out loud knowing 3 generations were probably looking down with a crooked smile and a raised eyebrow asking exactly what in the hell did I build. As I laughed, I whispered into the breeze, “hush, I did good for my first one”. Ha..

I threw my head to the heavens smiling and the sky caught my eye.. Dusk in the fall meant it was about time to get really pretty. I sat there and took a million pictures with my phone as the colors changed every second it seemed. Blues, to creams, to pinks to oranges and a hundred other colors that I wish crayola could create.

Pretty soon I heard some elk start bugling for their pals, then some coyotes joined in on down in the deep depths of the draws..I laid down on the sod to stare into the sky. The breeze drifted through the cedars standing solidly beside me sending a sweet cedar smell racing through my soul. The trees stood tall in the approching shadows protecting my little sheep herder stand. I looked beside me and saw a plant that looked like the one I have been trying to keep alive in my house, which also made me laugh.. all be damned.. I have tried and tried to get that bastard to live and here it’s pals are surviving in the midst of a prairie. They should take lessons from their pioneer friends. My hound and I got up to leave just as the moon snuck out to see us home. At home I looked at my hound and said, “well, I guess some days just suck”. Thankful for a tug on the collar that led me out and said, “See? It isn’t all bad.” But if that sheep herder stand falls over I will be pissed..

When your sis just wants to chat

October is for scary stories.. Let’s go.. A flashback to another year…

Only in a Stauff life…so most people know our town house is haunted…we have made “friends” with whatever lives with us and all has been well…so last night about 11:30 Wyatt comes in my bedroom and yells “mom!!” As a phone flashlight is flung in my face. I am shocked and scared out of a semi deep sleep. Squinting at the spot light I say “geezus. What the hell is wrong, you scared the hell out of me!” He is spinning a story 100 miles an hour..”Well. You know when you get that feeling that there is someone in your room? Well I had that and I thought it was you. I said “mom, is that you?” And it ended up being J. I asked her what she was doing and she said dad told her to come into my room Then she sat down on my bed. I asked her when did Dad say that? She said last week. Mom I was so freaked out I pulled my feet up to ease away from her. I shined my light at her and she was just sitting there staring at the wall.” I am laughing so hard by now…part of me was secretly proud of his flashlight skills…I asked him where she was. He says “up there I guess, I told her I had to go get a drink of water, and I RAN down here. Something isn’t right with her” I told him, “she is talking in her sleep, you know she gets that way” he says.”Mom this is frickin freaky you have to come check on her”.. I say “Magee, come on, she does this when she gets tired” . He says, “uh yea, she has never gotten up and walked into my room and talked to me”… he had a point…I tell him, “true, but just go back to your bed”, I get a flashlight stare…so I go upstairs to see if J’s head is making circles..she is back in bed looking like she is sleeping.. I whisper “J” she says “uhhuh” , I say “whatcha doing?”, She says “I don’t know”, I say “go back to bed”, she says “ok”..I look at Magee “all is well chief, go to bed”. He stares at me “yea right, I get the crap scared out of me and I am supposed to go back to bed” . I am on my knees laughing…”Get some sleep tonight!”. It took about 15 mins to convince him to go to bed… I finally let him be and go back to my bed. all curled up, then I got that feeling someone is there…I looked up and there is Magee with his phone flashlight..looking for a blanket..camping on the couch. I asked him… “so…couldn’t do it huh”…he says a matter of factly… “nope…I am sleeping on the couch” I giggled my way to sleep…while repeating the Lord’s Prayer..😜 this am J comes stumbling downstairs rubbing her eyes.. she says “Why is Magee on the couch?” I laughed “he was afraid that we were living the conjuring last night and your head was spinning.” She looked at me and says, “hmm, I thought that was a dream”. Ummm what?

TIs time to say goodbye to the garden

There are days when I am sooo glad I live where I do. Tonight being one.. since it is trespass season, oh I mean hunting season, I took a spin around the ranch to take a looksy. I get way over south and I notice the sky getting pretty. I drive to turn around and got a ton of super pretty pictures of a dying sunset. Listening to the radio, I hear the dj say, “have to cover up my garden tonight since it was supposed to freeze tonight’. I spun my head, “shit”, I say.. “I forgot to pick the garden, blasted”. I adjusted my broom and flew down the road, knowing that since I got lost in this sunset it would be dark when I got home. I pull up to the house and indeed it was just dark. I grab a flashlight and a bucket and head to the garden. Now, keep in mind, I have flip-flops over my socks and wind pants on.. I go to grabbing tomatoes, green and red and somewhere in between. On to the peppers.. my bucket is officially full. My watering program had watered at 5.. so as I was sinking around tomato plants, I feel cold water seeping into my socks. “Ahh fugg it”.. I look at the zucchini plant.. sure as hell, I have missed a handful.. ripping stems and more water and mud soaking into my socks. I am planning this haul in my head…(you may ask why I didn’t split at this point and go get another bucket.. yea I have no idea..) tomatoes are good and then I spied a few more.. damn it.. I start filling my pockets.. as I spun around I noticed all of my perky broccoli that is currently loving the cooler weather.. ahh shit.. so I go hacking on the broccoli.. no room in the bucket.. I start packing my pockets again with broccoli. At this point I have broccoli leaves peaking out of my pocket.. I take a final gander.. ahh I called it.. I stacked all my zucchini in my arms like a haul of wood. I carefully lean down and grab my bucket.. one tomato falls out.. “damn it”.. I carefully bend down grab it and put it back in the bucket. The closest way out of the garden is through a mud puddle.. at this point I say.. “fugg it” and I splish splash through. I get to the gate and I used my mud dripping flip flop to push the gate open. My flip flop gets stuck in the wire as I started to tip over. I catch myself just as I hear a sprig of broccoli fall out of my pocket. “Ahh, geezus H.. hold on soldier, we are all going home”. I leaned down, picked up my broccoli, stuffed it back in my pocket and slipped through the gate. My eyes set on the house, a shaky flashlight shining to the stars itself… now.. since the garden got watered at 5, all this shit is still wet. The broccoli and tomatoes are soaking through my wind pants and undies. At this point I give no cares. It is what it is. I get about half way to the house and I feel my wind pants starting to slide. I look at the hound. “I would literally give you anything about now if you could give me a hand and pull my britches up”.. she just kept walking with me, encouraging me.. I went into stealth mode and made my steps wider and slower. I made it to our sidewalk and whoosh! One lone zucchini breaks free of my arms and hits the wedge of the sidewalk and busts open.. I look down and my damn wind pants were at my ankles along with my broccoli and extra tomatoes.. I walked to the front door with said shit around my ankles.. I laid my goods on the front step and pulled my soggy pants back up.. I told Magee of my mission.. he laughed and said well good thing we live where we do. Exactly my son, exactly.. so.. me in dry clothes, chopped up my split zucchini and a handful of other veggies and made supper… I bet those damn raccoons were eating popcorn watching my show tonight..and just watch.. it won’t freeze tonight… 🫣

A gesture to kill

Craziness at the homestead.. getting lunch today, I tell Magee to go get The Stauff for lunch from the wood shop. He jumps into the pickup and heads out… I am finishing up getting everything ready when J hollers, “COYOTE, get the gun Mom”. I spun around to gander out the window..sure enough… a coyote standing across the creek… broadside… my heart raced… gun gun gun… shit…the boys have the guns with them. I tell her “text your brother to get back now”. Of all the times he doesn’t check his damn phone..this is one…we watch the coyote sniff around and wonder around.. still broad side… I am dying…we look out the other window… finally here they come putzing home. They pull up in front of the house while J and I are standing in the doorway creating hand signals to let them know a coyote is near.. they cocked their head a few times at us.. I mumble..🤬 as they sat there staring at us.. 🤪 they finally opened a door and I used my arms and hands to point directly behind them and I said a little louder, “there is a coyote over by the creek”.. and I 🤫quietly shut the door and smiled at them. They looked at each other with a raised eyebrow.. J says, “I don’t think they believe us”. I shooed my hand to them and they grabbed their guns and turned around. The coyote popped up into a little knoll. They both hit the ground quickly and attack mode was set into place. Magee got to the garbage cans and laid his sites on him. Pinker and I were in the kitchen watching it all go down.. all of a sudden something black darts towards the coyote. Pinker says, “yo, is that another coyote?”.. I studied the new object that entered into the picture. “Holy shit! That is a badger running after it”. The coyote is looking back at the badger and “boom”. Magee fires off the lethal shot.. the coyote falls over the hill..the badger looks around, turns and runs his ass off back to his hole. I can only imagine what was going through his mind and I died laughing. When The Stauff got in he looked at me and laughed, “I couldn’t imagine what in the hell you were doing”.. ahh life on the ranch.. never a dull moment.

Yo… It has been a minute

Back to the blog…I have been on a hiatus… Hiatus.. umm IT issue… errrrr Apple hates me…. You get it. My Ipad kept saying it needed an update.. But everytime I tried, the said Ipad would say, “Dang girl, you don’t have enough memory”. So days turned to weeks, weeks turned to oh screw it, then yikes, a year goes by, then a few more. So, time to get back to me, to writing. Ipad ditched, new Mac in pretty blue sits upon my lap smiling, whispering, “let’s go girl”. I have new ideas coming that have been spinning in my brain ever since my Ipad vetoed me. The saddest thing is that I had written a ton of stuff in an app that is no longer supported. BOOO.. All lost. I spent most of last night trying to recover on the new pretty blue Mac. Negative, nope, nada.. All for not. Buh Bye Writer app. So here we go. Let’s catch up.. The Stauff life has been interesting. Full of “what in the hell” and “WTF”. A touch of love, alot of laughs, a few tears. Yep, that thing they call life, that we all go through. That happened. Stay tuned, cause honestly…. I couldn’t make this shit up even if I tried. 😳

Water in that creek..

Out checking water this am on the ranch I had to stop and wonder what Great Grandad and Grandad would 💭 think of a solar water well. All those years begging for 💨 wind to turn the mills for the thirsty critters on the ranch. Praying for rain to fill dams, creeks and rivers. Then a solar unit.. ☀️ sun is out..boom..water runs..I have a hankering that they would say, “well all be damned, would you look at that.” It actually still amazes me as well, since we still rely on a few of those wind mills they put together in the day. Sitting on top of the ridge smiling about all the times we worked to get water 💦 running for critters.  The one time where we had to pull the well and every joint that we pulled out dropped a pipe load of freezing cold water on us. Thankful it was 100 degrees out..but it kept you alert. The times where we would have to blow the slime and yuck out of the overflow line and usually ended up ingesting a little. Still occurs today. 🙄 or the spring that my Grandad hand dug. He pushed brown rock into the walls by hand to line it. That was his main source of water for his family at his homestead. To this day still has water in it and the pump still works.. when we have groups come stay with us I always lead them to that old pump. I have them sit underneath the spigget and pump water over their head, telling them that they have been baptized by the ranch. It is one thing that they always remember as the ranch has a way of soaking into your soul. A funny story about water is from Great Grandad..After Great Grandma had passed away, he was left to raise three kids by himself plus take care of the ranch. Grandad said that Great Grandad knew he needed help. He started writing a woman back east, a mail order bride.. he wrote letters in broken English of the kingdom he lived upon. He talked of the electricity he had..the running water he had..she fell for the German and all his letters.. she headed west. My Grandad took the wagon and headed to the train station to pick her up. He brought her home and things went south quick. As she glanced around her new surroundings she asked Great Grandad “where is the electricity?” Great Grandad said in his German twist, “the vindmill outside”. She asked “where is the running water you said you had?”. He said “the creek runs by”. Grandad would always chuckle telling that story saying in the end she only lasted a few weeks. She packed her things, had Grandad take her back to the train and she headed back east. I guess she wasn’t impressed with that running water..but I will tell you on a hot day like today, there would be plenty impressed with that running water today.

A letter to me..

You have heard the song, read the stories etc, but have you ever written a letter to yourself? I have always been a sucker for journals.. blank pages with pretty covers, thought provoking quotes embedded into the pages. The feel of the paper, the smear of the ink across the page..I wrote such a thing when I graduated college..I found a cool looking 📓 journal and wrote a letter to me..I never finished writing in the pages..there are still blank pages left..but..from move to move and years passing like the pull on a lotto machine I still have it.. do I always know where it is? Absolutely not..every once in awhile it will get tucked into a drawer or a box. But I guarantee you I find it whenever I need it the most..today I was grabbing my cup of ☕️ tea when my brain yelled ‘not yet’..my arm draped over the edge of the couch and my hand dangled in the steel crate where I keep all the magazines..my fingers touched a familiar book and when I looked down there it was..my old friend..I grabbed it and re read my letter to me.. it breathes life back into my soul. There are times when I read it and wonder who wrote it, me I know, but it amazes me still the depth I knew then that I would need for the rest of my life..

Kristen,

Here it is, your escape from life. Instead of letting it out on everyone else, just write it down. This year will no doubt be the hardest one yet. But look at 1997 as the year of change. Take a good grip of your life. You got through college – now that is something no one can take away from you. Your Mom is right – show everyone just what a Zerbst is made of. Life is short, you will find this out, DON’T waste it. It’s going to be tough – being so far away from home won’t be easy, but you can definitely do it. All it takes is will power from hell and a hard head. Fortunately 2 things you have plenty of. You have made your parents proud. Now it’s time to make yourself proud of yourself. Believe in yourself and other people will too. Just remember 2 things. That which may not kill you will make you stronger and don’t quit 2 minutes before the miracle. Keep the faith and keep your head up -I’m here to help you, so go after this year and the rest of your life, cause it’s yours to have. Love you the most, Kristen

I encourage everyone to write a letter to you, you will never know when you will need to hear some encouraging words from you..