Memories of the Ranch

My heart aches for the ranch. I want to be riding a horse through open range where I can't hear a single sound that can be attributed to man or anything manmade. I loved watching the city lights in the distance from the plateau, smelling rain in the air and seeing clouds roll in from miles away. I miss stumbling upon all sorts of weird flora and fauna and even artifacts could be found if you knew where to look. The last time I was there, it was October and the full moon never looked so beautiful as it did from that cabin, a cabin I'd known all my life and would never see again. I knew every inch of that ugly orange shag carpet, and the trick how to open the broken handle on a fridge left over from the 60s. The whole back wall was covered in pages from 1800s Sears and Roebuck catalogues. In the winter we had to keep warm by feeding the fire in an old wood stove. I remember the smell of horse, leather, and wood. And few things were as brilliant as the trap door to the basement that fascinated us kids. There was a peg board there where artwork was thumbtacked. One was my grandfather's and the other mine, from one of our adventures where we would take the watercolors and search for something to paint, often on the side of the road, painting someone's cattle, or the horses at the ranch. It's hard to remember my grandfather, that last night at the ranch. He had always been so strong, so brave, a real cowboy. He was everything I wanted to be, but time always has its say. No matter how weak he was, he never lost his sense of humor. As a youth, I remember his cowboy boots, thick with dust from the trails, and trying to walk in them, shoes I'd never be able to fill. Those were the best moments of my life. Some part of me will always long to relive sitting on the porch, eating watermelon with my grandfather, our legs dangling over the bottom story. We watched my dad and brother throw horseshoes below, while my mother and grandmother could be heard inside. The horses meandered curiously not far away, grazing and moving slowly in search of better grass. It's a place I can never go again and the people who made it home are gone as well. I wish Morgan could have gone there, met my grands, seen the cabin my grandfather designed and the family built. It was a little slice of our own personal history permeated with memories. When I imagine things before I fall asleep, of something happy, it always starts with that ugly orange shag carpet and the place my heart still calls home. There my horse still waits for me to ride the trails that I still remember to the old 1800s caboose, or the shed, or the cliff, or the Olsen's, or the deer trails to the top of the Rimrocks. I'm grateful that I was so fortunate to have those wonderful memories, and so sad that they won't come again.