A Cowdogs Advice

Grip up, America!

Hope

Still Joy to a New Gettin’up Morning

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How swift time passes! Already we are starting another year, at least that’s what you humans do.

For us cowdogs, time just goes on, one paw in front of another, keeping an eye on the seasons and years passing as we watch out for you and do our job.

Here we are at another end, bringing the dawn of a new beginning.

I think you can start up anew every day, any day, but it is good to have this one, when the axis turns, this time to 2026.

 

 

Surely this past year has been tough for many.

Mercifully we missed a summer of drought and wildfires – but it wasn’t very far away.  Others had tornadoes and hurricanes. Some have struggled with illness, sorrow.

 

We need to gut it out, grip up, carry on.

 

 

 

But we can do it with JOY! Because we have been given one more moment, one more day, perhaps one more year. At this dawn of a grand new year, let us expect pure triumph!

 

 

Mom hasn’t had to start chopping the ice on the creek so the cows can drink, feed extra, or collect eggs more often so they don’t freeze.  But it does seem like it is dark all the time, although happily we have past the shortest day and  add moments of daylight each day, even though it is imperceptible still.

 

 

It may be a tough, dark, cold time, but we carry on. We just cowboy up, as my dad would say. What else is there to do, but to charge forward with joy and hope?

 

Time flies.

 

 

Some of us won’t be here to see another sunrise, or the next new year.

 

But there will be new ones to welcome.

 

 

 

Sometimes it is like we are on the slickest sled on an icy slope, picking up speed, fast and out of control!

It is a merciful thing, I suppose, that people don’t know what the future holds. Might as well just look forward with joy, I say.

 

 

Being a Heeler, I know about joy. I suffer, as do most cowdogs of my kind, from irrepressible Joie de Vive; I don’t speak French much, but I’m told that means “delight in being alive”.

It means we find happiness,  jubilation, humor, glee, JOY in everyday moments and in everyday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With joy, or maybe a cause of it, is hope.

 

 

 

There is hope in: sunshine, longer days, bare roads and climbing temperatures.  We have none of those things right now, but they will come. It is a blessing to have a little less cold, a sunny day, a plowed road. Other times, there is hope in rain, or friends, or a job, or the end of a storm. All the promise a new day brings, anytime of the year. I guess hope is faith, is trust in God who after all has a handle on all our stuff.

 

I know something about hope. I have chased cows through mud, snowdrifts, rocks only to have them scatter. I’ve been kicked and rolled down banks, I’ve hurtled through sagebrush and gravel, fallen off four-wheelers …just plain knocked down over and over.

It is hope – and a big dose of Heeler grit – that gets me up and back at it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I bet there is someone out there right now that needs hope, and this cowdog is here to tell you to HOLD ON! Grasp hope and faith, with all the grit you can!

A cowdog’s trials are a little different than yours, but it is still the same inner grit that stands you up and makes you soldier on.  I will lend you my grit and hope, if you are a little low right now. Ask any Heeler out there – we all have it to share.

 

Now we have the full January “Wolf Moon”.

 

 

One of many names, it comes from Celtic, Old English, Colonial or Native history, and is probably related to hearing wolves howl on cold, long, dark nights. I’m sure that is worse than coyotes, and I do not like hearing them at all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we have a sunset to end the day,     

 

 

 

 

 

 

So  every sunrise brings fresh hope for the new day we are gifted.

 

 

 

I didn’t see midnight to ring in the New Year, but Joy to the world, and to all my friends!

May you awake with joy and hope.

It is next year!

 

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him.” – Romans 15:13

 

A special Thank You to JB Myers Photography, who supplies many of the excellent shots we use on Cowdogs Advice. 

There is Hope

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Every week I come here, and for ages it seems, have told you about big blizzards, mountains of snow and a serious deep freeze. 

 

But today there is hope! Finally yesterday the sub-zero hold loosened -what they now call a “polar vortex”, previously known as WINTER! The sun slowly climbed above the eastern hills, dragging the thermometer up from zero.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the wild critters were happier, and I run through them to stir up a shared joy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now this desert dog loves the snow, I don’t mind going out in the cold for a little while. But by this time of year, we all are just hanging on, with heavily mittened paws.

 

 

And today, there is hope!

 

 

We must seek and find hope in all situations. Now I look for beauty in the snow-covered fields, interesting scents in the ice, a few patches of blue sky.

 

I inspected the turkeys and deer, and found strong healthy, fiesty critters.

 

 

I hoped the house would be warm when we came in from chores, and it always is. I hoped for a treat, a comfy couch, and I found it!

 

 

Around here, we take hope up a notch, by praying with assurance that God will intervene and help. Now that is hope on steroids for me! 

 

God is not a giant vending machine in the sky, that instantly spits out that thing we want. Sometimes we wait, but our faith and the memory of answered prayers, keeps our hope going.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We hope for such simple things as better weather, and for help with frightening, hard, sad things of this life.

 

 

 

 

Hope is the calming salve that holds us steady, keeps us going, reminds us where the answers come from.

When it hurts, it is a liniment for a sore soul.

 

As a cowdog who suffers permanently from joy de’vivre, it is easy to remain happy and hopeful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope that today, on National Love Your Pet Day, I get a steak for dinner and extra play and petting!

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this week, I hope we celebrate National Muffin Day, Cherry Pie Day, and Chocolate Mint Day! I know I won’t get chocolate, but I hope I get a fresh real bone! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But even I hope the sun brings warmth as I stand in it for the first time in weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know we could have plenty more snow, but I hope Spring comes soon.

 

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him,

                                so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.   

                                                                                                                 Romans 15:13

 

 

 

Where There’s Hope

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The world needs a big dose of  Yessir happy assurance, like us cowdogs have.  It built into our soul. We earnestly look forward, joyfully expecting a brighter day. That is hope.

This time of year, optimism is lagging, we are winter-weary and it seems this may be the start of another ice age. At least that is what Mom says, and I can see she’s tired of hauling buckets, feeding hay, shoveling and plowing. The worst she says, although I think it is an adventure, is when we go down through the woods to the creek, and chop open a hole in the ice for the cows to drink.  It is bad in early winter, when it is still dark. She says the only good thing about running through the woods in the dark is that she carries a pick-axe!

The creek is frozen over again

 

It is a little scary, but she does it, because the cows depend on it. And while she does it,  she hopes for warm weather, when the water stays open, and hopes for longer daylight. And hopes for an early Spring. Sometimes I hear her muttering and she says she prays without ceasing, especially in the hardest of times, because that ignites hope.

 

 

What brings hope now

“Who plants a seed beneath the sod and waits to see, believes in God.”

This time of year, mom looks at seed catalogs, colorful magazines that are full of hope. I like the carrot and sweet potato pages the best!

She starts seeds in little flats of dirt, with the hope of new flowers and vegetables to fill the garden. We buy trees, lots of them, with a hope that reaches out far beyond us. I may not live long enough to gather apples beneath this year’s new trees with the little boy Sprout, but I hope that someday, he, his kids, and another scrappy Heeler will. And that is what makes us plant this spring.

 

There is hope in: sunshine, longer days, seedlings,melting snow, bare roads and climbing temperatures.  Other times, there is hope in rain, or friends, or a job, or the end of a storm. All the promise a new day brings, anytime of the year.       

 

 

It is going to sleep at night in peace, because of the hope of a new dawn.   

 

 

 

When you need it most

I hear things are real tough for a lot of people right now. There is ice and snow and cold where no one is prepared for it, and they have no heat or water. There is ice on roads where drivers don’t even have snow tires. There is too much rain, or no rain. Like always there is trouble no one can control.

 

 

I know something about that. I have chased cows through mud, snowdrifts, rocks only to have them scatter. I’ve been kicked and rolled down banks, I’ve hurtled through sagebrush and gravel, fallen off four-wheelers …just plain knocked down over and over.

It is hope – and a touch of HELL NO anger – that gets me up and back at it. 

 

 

 

 

 

There is someone out there right now that needs hope, and this cowdog is here to tell you to HOLD ON!

A cowdog’s trials are a little different than yours, but it is still the same inner grit that stands you up and makes you soldier on.  I want to lend you my grit and hope, if you are a little low right now.