Today I’m writing from a new location on the ranch that is 5,684 units east of our old location. Well, its not really a new location because I’m sitting in the same ranch house at the same personal computer. You see, the county folks wrote us a letter telling us that our address had changed. Where once we were 4248 West, now we are 1436 East. My husband began ranting, mumbling curses about government edicts, unfounded mandates and officials who can’t tell west from east. I had to explain that where once we were oriented to Tooele’s Main Street (which we are west of), now we are oriented to Vernon’s Main Street, from which we are east. After all, what’s in a name or should I say direction?

West Greenjacket Road was confusing anyway — at least to the airport luggage delivery man who was a little too confident in his GPS navigation system. A couple of years ago, he drove south five miles from SR-36 to the “T” in the Benmore Road. He confidently turned west, which led him another five miles and turned into the Oak Brush Canyon road of the Sheeprock mountains. An hour later, he called us when he came back into cell phone range, and we explained that all of Greenjacket Road was west, and we were on the eastern most point where it dead ends. In essence, we lived in a bizarre Columbus world, where you can only find east by sailing west.

Shakespeare asked, “What’s in a name?” Tooele County apparently knows, because our west was appropriately changed to east.

My father used to name cattle, whereas I give them the three-digit number that fits neatly on an ear tag. Of course he only named the important ones. Once he pointed to a cow in particularly good flesh and told me she was named after one of the ladies in town. Why? “Because she’s big, she’s beautiful, and she gets whatever she wants.”

Come to think of it, names can be pretty entertaining.

Which brings me to our new puppy. My daughter, Rebecca, figured out the name Mad-eye with Maddy for the diminutive, but she didn’t answer to the new name very well until I called her while holding a bit of hamburger.

It must have been the address change, because the next morning a visitor showed up looking for habitation. He was wearing a charcoal suit with a white stripe and our brilliant dog was staring at him curiously. The stranger showed off his tail while I scrambled for the gun. Fortunately-unlike other such occasions — I found the bullets quickly, loaded, aimed, and hit the stranger on the first shot, then twice more to make certain. Then one minute later, I saw him twitch.

I suppose I should tell you he was a groggy skunk. This warm weather made him get up and come out to nose around a bit. It was the first time I had ever shot a skunk, although I did shoot a domestic tom turkey who chased me across the yard. Then, as now, I defended our family from vicious attack. But this time was entirely different — we are not going to eat the skunk. Even if we called him everything good and appealing, I don’t think it would change our opinion, or his smell.

Perhaps names aren’t important, but they sure are entertaining. My neighbor named his dog something that can’t be printed. Still, I wonder why we need a house number with no flare to it. If our house is the only residence on Greenjacket Road, why can’t we be No. 1 Greenjacket Road? That would have style, even if one is a lonely number. But I’m afraid we would actually be No. 3 Greenjacket Road — counting the old shack and the chicken coop of course.

Elizabeth B. Mitchell, along with her husband Alan, operates the Bennion Ranch at Benmore.