Ranch Thoughts
I peer down from my cabin porch and I see two matching cowboy hat heads.
And.
Oh my goodness.
They are whittling.
I know this experience is a genuine gift to our entire family, but it seems like it’s something a little extra to my sons.
A wildness. A freedom. A bit of rowdy goodness.
Otto looks even more miniature than normal atop a giant horse named Ace and the boy is all serious, a cowboy instantly.
And it’s as if being indoors is his kryptonite and He Must Go Free.
Piper Finn cannot stop talking.
Physically she is finding it impossible to stop talking and I think she might expire before my eyes if she was forced to hold back All The Words. Lying on her back beside me in bed she is a barely contained hurricane of thought and energy and if I could harness it all, I could power more homes than all the giant turbines we saw in Kansas.
Every sentence from Bergen’s lips involves the name of his horse. Cutter. Bergen is grinning and agreeable and willing to endure all amount of chaffing to Never Get Down From His Horse. He’s made a friend who calls him “dude” and that friend rides Matches and one night they both (the boys, not the horses) served themselves refreshing glasses of cider and climbed atop a very high rock and talked about their favorite colors and their houses.
My knees feel ancient and I think I might be walking bowlegged and my Chat Meter is off the charts, even for me, and I only use my phone to set my alarm and to take photos and I am already wondering how I can be LESS connected and LESS plugged in and I think I’m breathing deeper and thinking clearer and is there a way I can stay secluded up here in suspended animation until my knees completely break down and my hair turns grey and I more fully look to embody the grandmother I actually am.
London is watching the world and how it works and she is learning what she values and what she discredits and I find her uniquely beautiful in her heartbreaking sincerity.
She is sick with Lost Valley Ranch fever. Intoxicated with the freedom and the knowledge of the schedule that brings her controlled comfort and safe knowing of all the fun and food awaiting her.
On the front lawn one evening a fellow guest shared with a laugh, “I’m having such a crisis – turning twenty.”
I hid my grin and remembered well the crisis of my own making when I was twenty. Being here makes me both want to be twenty again and want to celebrate never being twenty again.
And my Mosely. 
She is open and friendly with everyone she meets. Warm and kind, polite and encouraging. She spins her wheels in an opposite direction but they are always spinning and I’m such a fan of hearing her thoughts. All the deep and all the regular ones.
It’s the warmest variety of friendly here on this ranch and I tell you what. It was only Day Two when all the kids at my table were offering up all of their present and future savings to wrangle their way back to this ranch next summer and I’ll say, I’m already on board with their plan. Sign our names on the dotted line, friends.
I think as soon as our horses were assigned – Shiloh, Mary, Joanie, Cutter, Shiane, Ace – and we met a colt named Silas and we watched Goose Creek flowing, we were already hooked.
We’ve all drunk the Lost Valley Ranch kool-aid, which they call Sweet Georgia Peach.
We immediately forgot the eight hours across Kansas and the tornado and we would all be content to rest our boots here at the ranch for the rest of the summer.
