Babcia,

I have been thinking of you and JaJa the last few days. I didn’t think I would ever miss the constant work at the ranch, especially in the fall as we all helped to drive the herds back to the lower grazing lands. But I do. I miss the smell of the coffee on a frigid morning as the sun slowly breaks over the hills to the east, the lows of the cattle, rubbing down the horses at night after hours of constant riding and chasing of stragglers. There is no cold in San Diego. What they call cold is a breath of cool air compared to the winters back home.

I especially miss Dalea. Dad never understood why I named my horses the way I did, but you did, just as Mamo knew, when I named Dalea, the first horse that was truly mine.

I’m sorry, I had to take a break. Today, it’s been seven years since Mamo died. I missed how she loved the circus, and the rodeos, especially the clowns. The clowns……well, let’s just say that clowns no longer have the positive meaning and memories they once did. Mamo would be hurt I think, which makes this part of the year even more painful.

In two weeks it will be All Saints Day, and I am already missing the scent of the smoke in the air from when we burned the dying grass from the family graveyard, making way for the new growth to begin, for the passing of the seasons. Perhaps that’s why I have to be gone, for the new growth, my growth to begin, out from his shadow, maybe even out from Mamo’s shadow. My memories of her are fading, and I am sad and I will forever wonder…….well, it doesn’t matter.

I miss football, I miss….Jeremiah and Andrea but its a fading pain, like my memories of so many things. It seems like such a different world, from before.

It’s been almost a year since I left. A lot has happened, so many things that its impossible to relate even in the few letters Lyndsey has mailed for me. She’s so busy with her duties, gone even from California most of the time now with Senator Graham, but that’s ok. The private academy is amazing, difficult in so many ways, but so different that its hard to compare.

Someday again maybe we can talk in person. I don’t think its strictly forbidden, but so many of my new seem to have nobody back home, or maybe even worse. Most of them rarely talk about anything before the academy. So I haven’t either, other than a few things. Its hard not to talk about how amazing you are, about riding through the thousands and thousands of acres of the ranch, searching for rare plants.

Speaking of plants, I enclosed some small sealed packages of a new strain of winter roses for Loretta’s garden. I have a whole botany lab here! It’s so awesome, I can’t even begin, and I don’t even have to pay for things myself! They allow me to pretty much experiment on anything, its so exciting.

Thank you for arranging to open the account here in San Diego…..I don’t really need anything, so I am sure that the profits from the cattle will just sit there, but……well, maybe that’s not entirely truthful, there is this girl that….well, let’s just say I’d like to take her on a real date, away from the others. Plus Lindsey gave me a credit card for emergencies, which seems highly unlikely since we never really go anywhere without a sponsor.

I know its sounds stupid, but here nobody likes or dislikes me for what I am, instead its because who I am. If that makes sense. Yea, they know that my Dad sent me away, and is a jerk to be polite about it, and that he’s the sheriff, but nobody knows that I stand to inherit the second largest cattle ranch in the Dakotas on my mother’s side in some distant future. So…..its not what my family can do for them that makes them want to be around me. So….I get to see how people really will treat me based on how I act and what I do. Its….refreshing. Maybe one day I can bring them to visit.

I gotta go. It’s almost six, and everybody else will be getting up. Classes aren’t until eight but physical training begins at seven, and….you know I like to make breakfast.

I really, really miss riding Dalea. Giver her an extra treat for me please. Although I haven’t ridden in almost a year, I’m sure it will come back to me.

Love from your favorite wnuk! Even if I’m the only one, its still fun to be the favorite.

Lukas