Coming Home

When I got home tonight - late, because we had a lot of work - Bob had a fire in the fireplace. The whole house was toasty and comfortable. Made me want to lay on the couch and purr with the kitties.

I haven’t been home to water the garden for a couple of weeks, so the rain we’re expecting to get tonight will be welcome. Fall has finally fallen in Northern California.

Anyone who’s praying for rain, please add this disclaimer - “...but NOT all in the same week.”

Thank you from my warm little house that sits in the slough.

Tales From the Zoo

Thursday last week, before I left for Ventura, we had another run-in with wildlife invading the chicken pens.

After midnight, I was awakened by one of Foghorn's warning screeches. Foghorn is a mixed-breed rooster with a very deep voice. He seems to be very alert (for a chicken) at night and lets us know whenever some strange thing is creeping around.

Suddenly the rooster's warning turned to panicked screeching. Bob was playing computer games with his headphones on. I yelled at him to go check the chickens, and he grabbed a flashlight and his flip-flops and ran out the back door. It took me a while to follow, hobbling along with my cane.

I got to the pen in time to see Bob beating something with the leaf rake. It was an opossum.

Sproing. Sproing. A leaf rake is not a very effective weapon. “I think we need to buy a gun,” Bob said. I handed him a shovel instead. That worked fine.

Foghorn had run out of the pen when Bob went in, so we had to track him down and try to catch him. It’s not easy catching a panicked chicken in the dark, but Bob did it. The bird was OK, but he’d had the first joint of one wing, with all the primary feathers, chewed off.

I know from talking to other people that many have had losses from predators this year. Raccoons, neighbors’ dogs, skunks, weasels, river otters, coyotes, foxes, even a bear. Everything likes to eat chicken. Even other birds: hawks and owls.

Whenever I hear someone go on about how chickens should be “allowed” to run free, I know the person talking has never raised chickens. I have mentioned this before. This is not a statement about Prop. 2, just about trying to raise a few chickens in peace in your back yard. Bob says, "I hate to kill something that's just looking for a meal." But it's no fun dealing with mutilated birds, either.

The rest of the animals here at the zoo are starting to calm down a little. I’ve sprayed Nature’s Miracle in the critical locations and the cats seem to be remembering their litterbox manners. Here is Gollie, checking out a pair of stinky slippers and probably wondering why THEY haven’t been sprayed.


Velcro has moved back to the living room couch and is behaving pretty well. Last night she was on the kitchen counter and wouldn’t get down. Finally I noticed a sack of corn sitting there. Bob brought it home from the Corn Stand - the last day for corn this year. We had it for dinner. Velcro had some, too. She loves corn.

More From Ventura

It took me a while, but here is Katherine at her art booth with the same bunny ears hairdo she gave me at the belly dance show earlier this year.


Bob and I had a lot of fun at poultry shows over the years. I don’t show anymore. I could probably wash a couple of birds and get them to a show, but I can’t handle raising 100 chicks a year to get a half dozen good ones, and a lot of work is required to keep them in show shape. I considered rebuilding pens so it would be easier to take care of birds, but I’ve decided not to do that. It’s time to move on.

The poultry club we belonged to is going through a period of idiocy. This seems to periodically befall all clubs whose primary focus is a hobby. Some people just get too tied up in it and their unreasonable demands make everyone else miserable. Or uncomfortable, at the least. Like most volunteers, I liked to help out because it was fun. The fun is gone for me. I don’t have time anymore for something that isn’t fun. I’ll try to get to a show once in a while to visit all the wonderful friends we’ve made over the years, and to see the birds. I still love chickens.

I did buy some birds in Ventura. I got two pairs of Taganrogs. Those are really cute teeny little pigeons.


Pigeons are easy, you can turn them loose after a few months and watch them fly around the yard.

We went to Ventura on I-5 and came back on US 99. On both routes there were several almond groves that were totally dried up and dead. Does anyone know what that’s all about? Did the price of almonds tank or something? It seems like such a waste to let the trees die.

We’re getting into a really busy time at work. I’m glad I was able to get away to Ventura when I did. Tina was right. She said “You’ll love Ventura. I visited there as a kid in Girl Scouts and fell in love with the area - there’s just a different feel to it from other beach towns.”

And traveling with Katherine is fun. She’s a good driver and she has great music on her iPod.

Trip to Anywhere

Guess where I’ve been? Nope, not Hawaii. Ventura. I went to the 135th Annual APA (American Poultry Association) National Convention and Show with my chicken, art, and horse friend Katherine.

Before we got very far in the van stuffed with art stuff and show chickens, we had to stop at a Best Buy in Stockton. Katherine used a GPS system to find it. Wow! That was a new experience. I think it would be fun to get a GPS, have someone put in a random destination, then just follow the instructions and take a Trip to Anywhere.

But this weekend we had other things to do.

The fairgrounds in Ventura is right on the beach. Usually poultry shows are at fairgrounds in exciting places like Bakersfield and Stockton. And most fairgrounds are old and are surrounded by crumbling neighborhoods. The grounds in Ventura, however, are in a beautiful location. And you don’t even have to drive through LA to get there. Just turn right when you come down off the Grapevine, and drive about 30 miles through avocado and citrus orchards.

Katherine took her art display and set it up at the show. Here she is with the card rack. The booth is in the same room with a couple thousand chickens.


The booth makes a good place to sit and watch people going by. I got to see lots of old friends and made some new ones.


More to come.

One More "Kid"

Brent somehow managed to miss getting into the group photo at the wedding. Here he is, Brent, man of mystery.

And dimples.

The First Wedding

Today the first “kid” in Bob’s group of friends who have known each other forever got married. Most of the group was there so it was a good occasion to take pictures. I’ll not tell last names on this blog, but for those of you who have also watched these kids grow up, I’ll identify them by first names: Travis, Alex, Jen, Erinne, Gwynessa, Julie, Stephanie, Kyle, Josh, Anthony, Bob.


Seven of them did 4-H together for at least 10 years. Nine started elementary school together. Three are Bob’s classmates from home school high school. One is a classmate from the Waldorf school. Here is a neat statistic: two of them are Julie’s ex-boyfriends, one of whom was her man of honor.

A note to parents of small children - put your kids in small schools, if you can. Put them in 4-H, or girl scouts, or some local group where they can be with their friends in a stable group as they grow up. Make your house open to them, and love them all, even when they go through the twerp stages. These kids (and the 8 or so who couldn’t make it to the wedding) give each other more than money could buy.

Here’s another statistic. Seven of these kids had parents at the wedding and we all had a good time visiting and remembering all the times we spent driving kids around. In retrospect, it was time well spent.

One thing at the wedding was really funny. When it was time for the bride to throw her bouquet and the groom to toss the garter, the girls and guys all joined the group, but stepped back and put their hands in their pockets. “Nope, not me, I’m not next in line for this wedding stuff yet.”

I was amazed that Bob found clean clothes to wear. He looked very nice if you couldn’t see the creases in the shirt that he just took out of the package that morning. And if you didn’t notice his socks.


This is Bob and Kyle and Alex. Jon should be in this picture, but couldn’t attend the wedding because the tech department at Apple couldn’t function without him.


In 4-H these fellows were Chicken Boy, Goat Boy and Rabbit Boy. And each took a turn at being the director of 4-H Camp.

Of course, whenever you have to dress up, you take advantage of the opportunity to have your picture taken. Here are Bob and I. Thank you, Donna!

Just Another Day

The cold concrete floor on the back porch finally got to Velcro. She has moved back onto the footstool in the living room, right in front of the wood stove. We haven’t had a fire since she moved there, but she’s ready, just in case.

I’ve been letting George go outside for a while in the morning. All the cats seem happier with that. I’m not. All I see is more vet bills in the future.

Charley is still studying ways to annoy us all. He’s always tried sticking his snoopy nose in our drink cups. That might make sense if you’re drinking milk. But coffee? If he’s not slurping it, he’s pretending. I thought I’d foil him by using the narrowest cup I have, but his head is very small and pointy and he’ll work really hard to get that last drop left in the cup.


Another bad habit of his is to knock over half-full glasses or cups. He takes his paw, puts it inside the vessel, and pulls it right over. This is always fun after one of Bob’s parties when there are half-full glasses of Coke or cheap beer all over the place.

But you gotta love Charley. For all his tricks, he’s the softest, most cuddly cat ever. Here he is in a Costco cat house. All of the cats love it, so Charley hogs it.


This is a cat house from Pet Smart. None of the cats use it.


Sort of like buying toys for kids when they’d rather just have a big refrigerator box to play in. Or in Bob’s case when he was little, a mud hole.

Blast From the Past

I work in education. It’s a big deal right now that there are so many minority children in our schools. They are used as an excuse sometimes for schools that don’t achieve the state’s academic goals.

But where I grew up, which is right where I still live, we always had a diverse population of students. This is the first grade in 1955. (Not mine, my brother’s.) There are 5 little white bread kids, 3 Hispanic kids, and I think a Japanese boy. Even though this wasn’t my class, I remember all their names. It wasn’t unusual for us to know everyone in grades 1 through 8 of our little school (no kindergarten),

There were actually more kids in this class. At least one girl whose parents had cattle in the mountains and didn’t move back to the valley until a month of so after school started every year. And there were a several more Mexican kids whose families didn’t come until spring and left in the fall after hops had been picked. We had students who barely spoke any English sometimes.

I don’t recall that any of this was a problem. Kids were pretty much judged on their own merits, and in those days academic excellence was not the only measuring stick. You had an opportunity to be good at volleyball, dodge ball, tetherball, folk dancing, singing, and any number of other things that didn’t involve books. The playground was pretty much kid territory, the teachers stayed inside and maybe watched out the window as they smoked their cigarettes.

The teacher of this class was Mrs. Butler. She taught us all to read in first grade, I don’t recall that it was that difficult. Her class was first and second grade. I don't recall that was a problem, either.

Nowdays it’s a big deal to have all students reading by third grade, and it’s sometimes not accomplished, schools say, because there are so many kids whose parents don’t speak English. Our school was at least half Hispanic.

My cousin Nancy is one of the kids in this class. She was a teacher herself until she retired. Maybe she has some input on this subject. Maybe there WERE kids who were getting left behind then, and I just didn’t notice it because it was no big deal. There was no state-mandated test in those days that pressured schools to pressure kids.

It just seems like things worked better, though.

I’m having a lot of fun going through the old pictures and scanning them. Here is one of my baby brother and I from 1951.

Harvest Time

This is a really busy time of year at the Corn Stand, as it transitions into a Pumpkin Stand. There is still corn, and tomatoes, melons, and all the good things that have been producing all summer, but the weather has started to turn so the goodies will be going away soon.

The bell peppers are at their best right now, thick-fleshed, juicy and sweet. Time for stuffed bells. Yum!

Here is my harvest. An avocado. It was blown down by the wind. The tree is 40 feet tall because we haven’t had a hard frost in a couple of years, there’s no way you could get to the fruit to pick it. You just stay out from under the tree when the wind’s blowing, then pick the crop off the ground when it’s calm. Not much guacamole from this little thing.


It’s noon right now, and even though it’s a sunny day, there’s a nasty north wind blowing and it’s chilly. I was outside planting bulbs, and the soil is already chilly. Last night I had the first fire of the season in the wood stove. Gollie cat heard the wood box door open and was waiting in my chair. We sat under a snuggly blanket and enjoyed the fire. As usual, the sound of the fan and the purring cat put me right to sleep and there I stayed until 2 a.m.

I finally got up and went to bed, where Charley and George were waiting. The cats - remember - those names belong to cats? I just got comfortable in bed when there was a commotion in the chicken pen and I had to get dressed and go see. Bob was out all night, or I’d have just yelled at him to do it. Darn! It takes me so long to do anything, by the time I get out there everything could be massacred.

The Anconas - the few that are left - were off their perch, on the ground. Something had scared them, but they all seemed OK. I trudged around for a while then checked the chicken house. Nothing lives in there anymore except a few pigeons that come and go. My flashlight found a kitty. A black kitty with orange. A very dark calico, so obviously a female. She didn’t look extremely wild, but not friendly either. Once again, someone has dumped a cat at my doorstep. Probably the same person, someone who thinks they’ve found an ideal place for dumping. Someone, if I had a shotgun, who would end up with a butt full of buckshot and their ears full of nasty words as I beat them senseless with my cane.

This newest cat is going to have to survive outside. She seemed to be hunting mice and there may be mice out around the chicken pens, if Trudy missed a few. This cat seems a little cagier than George, hopefully she’ll learn to stay out of Trudy’s range. She seems to have convinced the pigeons to evacuate the building, something raccoons never managed to do. I don’t think she can actually harm a chicken, they’re all full grown and big. If she does, we’ll have to trap her and take her to SPCA. Which is where she should have been taken in the first place.

We are still living in a cat war zone here in the house. Bob suggested a couple of days ago that we should try to find a better home for George. I called the vet’s office for some cat psychology advice, and was also advised that might be the best thing to do. “Will the other 3 cats go back to their old peaceful ways?” I asked. “Maybe.”

Or maybe Velcro will live the rest of her life in a carrier on the back porch. And Charley will never again remember that there is a cat box and that it’s the proper place to poop.

What I want to know is how the little old ladies manage to cram 86 cats into a 2 bedroom condo, when I can’t even get 4 of them to get along.

Meanwhile, here I am, one cat on my lap in charge of the keyboard, and the other in charge of the monitor.


I need another cup of coffee. Or something.

Horse Talk

This is mostly for you readers who share my horse background.

I have been horse crazy as long as I can remember. Many of my friends are folks I met while pursuing equine activities. And even though I can’t ride these days, I still have 2 horses. Blue Top is 22 or so and has been John’s riding horse all these years. Dusty (Champagne Dust) is 11 or 12 and is the grandson of my favorite riding mare of long ago, Big Ears. Blue Top is out in the pasture with That Goat. Dusty is at my friend Katherine’s. Dusty and Katherine are learning about gaited horses.

Katherine is a good rider who has only ridden horses that trot. Dusty doesn’t really know one gait from another yet. So to help K with the task of teaching Dusty what to do, we went to a gaited horse show this past weekend.

Until 1976 I went to horse shows regularly. Horse shows have changed a lot.

First, there used to be a lot more entries. The show on Sunday was for Tennessee Walkers (TWH), Missouri Foxtrotters (MFT), and Peruvian Pasos (PP). Most classes were lucky to have 3 horses in them, several classes had been cancelled for lack of entries. Even so, I thought it would be a good educational experience because there were 3 different gaits to study and compare.

The first class was for TWH. The horses started at a flat walk, then the running walk was called. When they had gone around the ring once, K said, “I must be gait-lexic. I don’t see the difference between this and the first gait.”

Hmmm. That’s because there WAS no difference. Not in speed or execution.

In the good old days, TWH classes were exciting. When I was in high school, I was fortunate to be part of Northacres Stable. We took horses to all the county fairs and other shows that had a TWH class – San Joaquin, Amador, El Dorado. After a boring western pleasure class, the TWHs would come in and wake up the audience. We all wore bright jackets, the horses wore bright ribbons and the horses themselves came in bright and unusual colors. When the running walk was called, it was like a race. The horses tore around the ring (admittedly in a variety of gaits) and the audience came alive, yelling and hollering for their favorite. And there were 3 gaits, the third was a rocking-chair canter that also impressed the audience. It was tons of fun.

No more. Borrrrrr-ing.

A couple of the horses had a technically proper gait. ONE good gait that passed for two. In most classes they weren’t even shown at a canter. The TWH at this show that weren’t doing exactly the right gait were still close. No pacers or rackers.

The MFT were a different story. After a couple of times watching them go around the ring K said, “It looks like they’re just trotting to me.”

And so they were. One horse didn’t even come close to a foxtrot during the entire class. The other hit a step or two, but mostly just trotted. Gaaaaack! So we used the opportunity at least to study the difference between a trot (a diagonal gait) and the lateral gaits that the horses in the warm-up arena were doing.

Katherine did get to learn a few things about gaited horses.

I got to learn a few things too. Mainly that horse shows – probably all animal shows – are an artificial environment. The “ideal” horse and gaits are based on whatever trend is popular at the time. People who have shown over the years just absorb whatever trend is current. If you are observing a slice out of time, however, the difference is stark.

I rode in competitive trail rides for years after I left the show ring and gained a different appreciation for gaits. It doesn’t matter so much on the trail if a gait is “proper.” It’s more important that it be comfortable and safe for the horse and rider. So I don’t really care if horses are shown these days at a more “proper” gait.

TWH classes used to be fun to watch. And now they’re not.

Successful Gardening

The guys at the corn stand planted zinnias earlier this year, and they bloomed all year. They're at their best right now, just as pumpkin season is starting. I love this cheery view as I'm on my way to work in the morning. I confess, sometimes I swipe a bouquet.

Sort of successful was my attempt to grow a Black-eyed Susan vine. The vine grew all summer with nary a bloom. Now that the end of the season is here, it’s covered with blossoms that look like a little kid drew them with crayons. I wish they'd bloomed earlier. I think it's an annual vine, so its days are numbered.


This patch is also probably at the end of its season. Sweet potato, coleus, vinca and hibiscus. Do you suppose I’ll get any sweet potatoes? If we don't get a frost this year (we didn't get one last year) I could be in real trouble if the sweet potato keeps spreading.

Broderick Crawford Day

It's 10-4!

Happy Broderick Crawford Day
to all my friends.



http://www.highwaypatroltv.com/photos.shtml
(you can't click on this, you have to cut and paste - I don't know how to do real links)

Broderick was the crusty actor who played Chief Dan Mathews on the TV show Highway Patrol. He made 155 episodes from 1955-1959. He was actually in hundreds of movies and things - he was even on Saturday Night Live once - but I only remember him from Highway Patrol.

October 4 is Broderick Crawford Day because in every episode Dan Mathews could be seen yammering on his radio, and he always ended the conversation with a loud and curt "ten-four."

OK, so maybe I invented this holiday and no one else in the world celebrates it, but we SHOULD. It's completely non-commercial, you don't have to spend a dime.

To celebrate appropriately, you could wear a fedora, talk fast, and smoke a lot of cigarettes.

Charley's Toys

Charley has many toys. We buy some, and some are things he steals out of our drawers (like my hair bands) and turns into toys. Charley loves to fetch. He’ll bring toys back to you until your arm is paralyzed from throwing them.

When I got home yesterday, I was anxious to sit down and read my mail. But before I could enjoy myself here came Charley with a toy he dropped at my feet. I bent over to pick it up and throw it for him, and it moved. It was alive. A mouse, a real mouse, not a toy one.


I gargled. That’s because I’ve never been able to scream, I sort of shriek and gargle. I’m not afraid of mice, but it was a nasty surprise. What kind of idiot mouse would sneak into a house with 4 cats?

I called Bob at work (right next door) and asked him to come home and dispose of the thing. He said he’d do it in a couple of hours when he got off work. “Charley took it into your room,” I lied. No deal, he wasn’t coming home.

I finally caught it myself and tossed it out the back door onto the lawn. Give the thing a chance to ponder its mistake and find a new job. Oops! Eagle-eyed Trudy saw the intruder on the lawn, swooped down and packed it off. No wonder we haven’t had a mouse problem.

It’s still not very peaceful here in the cat house. Velcro stays in the carrier. I can bring the carrier into the rest of the house, but she won’t leave it.


Ah for the good old days (a couple of weeks ago) when the cats all got along, when they’d even sleep on the same bed. Ironically, George is the only one that’s really behaving. I guess I should keep him and ship out the other three.

So I’ve been interviewing replacements. These are 3 Norwich Terriers that belong to Mellie. You already met Phoebe a while back. The two blondies are Miles and Cindy Lou the Possum Killer.


(You all KNOW the cats aren’t going anywhere, right? But these doggies are sure cute.)

Dealing With Change

The title for the previous blog was supposed to be CAT Mad House. It still is.

Velcro sat in the carrier for a couple of hours. I took her in the carrier out to the back porch later in the day. She crept out, ate and drank, and crept back into the carrier. She’s been on the back porch in her carrier since then. That’s OK, it’s only 4 steps from the cat box, so she has no excuse to pee on things. Once in a while, like when I cook dinner, she pokes her nose around the curtain between the porch and the kitchen, but she won’t leave her comfort zone yet. Not even for tuna.

Meanwhile, Bob and I are making a big step. We got a membership at the health club up the road and are going to start working out. I’ve worked beyond my fake bike and little weights. Bob is in dire need of exercise, after moving only his mouse hand for the past couple of years. I take that back, he’s been working a lot of hours at the corn stand recently, so he’s been moving his fingers on the cash register too.

I heard from Auntie Mo recently. She retired from teaching, and it sounds like she’s having a great retirement. She takes adult classes at Chico State and volunteers at the local charter school. A lot of my friends and relatives have reached retirement and seem to be loving it.

I’m really fortunate to work with people I love and do work that’s always challenging. The nicest thing this year is I don’t have to figure out how to deal with the challenges myself, the younger folks are doing that, and doing it very well. It’s been fun to see what they come up with. I’ve gone from the person who pulled everyone else along through the computer world several years ago to the one who is the stick-in-the-mud. (Show me a better way to do things and I’ll jump right on it; but things are not necessarily better just because they’re different or new, by cracky.)

At least I’m not hiding in my carrier on the back porch.