Waxahachie: My Uncle the cowboy.

This is how a typical day starts out in their household: The table is set for breakfast- which was done the night before by my Uncle the cowboy.

My Aunt trained him VERY well.

And because we're in Waxahachie, Texas, the French morning news show is on the TV

Hearing French makes me feel like I am home. Something so familiar and comforting but at the same time, sad.

But first, it's time to feed the animals; Waiting at the front door every morning are the 3 dogs and 8 cats that were unceremoniously dumped on his land at different times by ignorant people.

People dump all sorts of garbage on their land. Furniture, bags of garbage, you name it. 

My Uncle takes the animals into the vet - gets them vaccinated, spayed and neutered and nurses them back to health if needed. Sometimes they are far too ill, and he has to put them down. 

The cats - well, what can I say? They're cats. They hang.

Just one of the sights when you walk out the front door:

It's a tractor! A tractor! How often do you see a tractor??! With hay in the background?!

(btw, side note: Do NOT wear Belgian loafers to traipse around a ranch. Seriously.)

For some reason I love this license plate. Maybe because it is what it is. It's a farm truck, and that's that.  I'll take this plate over any of those damn personalized plates in Los Angeles - I can still see some of them:  4NANCI or BLNBABE or PRGURU1. 

Ugh. 

SOSTPD.

The cats having a early morning wrestle:

My Uncle tending to one of the elders.

Anyway, time to go to work: to get to Ranching.

My Uncle took me into the pen with a BIG Bull.

Listen, normally I wouldn't be frightened, but my Uncle said he was a mean Bull. I hid behind my Uncle like a silly 5 year old girl. I was NOT pulling the camera out as we were walking in. 

Lemme tell you something, Mr Bull can give stink eye like no one's business.

As we walked in my Uncle did a Cesar Millan type sound and a wave of the hand and the bull turned away. Regardless, I was still sort of freaking out internally.

Then it was feeding time. This was the special needs area. One of the cows was injured, a calf had just gotten weaned off the bottle and wasn't too keen on eating this "special" food.

Behold:

And then, the calf comes around. My Uncle was surprised, as this calf has had no interest in non-bottle meals.  

I, of course, like to think it was my presence. 

Or the dulcet tones of my morning voice. 

Take your pick.

Below is my Uncle telling me about the cotton seed that he feeds to the cows. But this isn't about that. This is about his HANDS. LOOK AT THEM. 

those friends, are WORKING hands. Don't see too much of that anymore.

Now it was time for my Uncle to really get to work and stop letting me play "Reporter Girl"



And time for me to go to the cemetery.