Missing the Boat

Every year there is a Sloughhouse Reunion for people who have lived here. It’s at the elementary school that I can almost see from my house. I went to this event a couple of times, but when Bob was growing up, every weekend in May and June was eaten up with his school and 4-H stuff. In more recent years I just lost track of the date. It’s sort of embarassing, my brother comes all the way down from Chico to go, and I can’t even waddle up the road a ways to get there.

Well, a couple of days ago Aunt Beth called to remind me about the event and I told her I’d be there. So I ran to Sheldon Feed this a.m. and got my chores done, took a shower, got dressed up, and drove up to the school. There were no other cars in the parking lot. Not a single one. I sat there for a while. Then I called my aunt’s number and no one was home.

There was a time when I was so sharp that not only was I totally on top of everything in my own life, I helped other people stay on track with theirs. These days I have been known to show up a week early for a meeting, or plan all morning to go somewhere and by the afternoon I’ve drifted off to pull weeds or something and forgotten my planned activity.

I thought I must have missed the boat again. So I went on up to the store at Rancho Murieta. When I came back down the road, there were still no cars in the parking lot. Now I was sure I must have pulled one of my famous “showing up on the wrong day” tricks.

I got home, put my scuzzy clothes back on, read a book, took a nap. At 4 p.m. my aunt and uncle show up still wearing name tags from the reunion. Well fooey! I must have had the day right, but not the location.

Nope, my aunt said they were just parking cars behind the school instead of in the front lot.

My brother and other people who don’t even live here figured that out, but I didn’t.

And I really think I’m going to drive to Washington, when I can’t even function in my own neighborhood?

Well, I don’t care, I'm going anyway. It’s not snowing up there, I’m not going to get stranded on the top of some mountain and die in my car. Well, probably not.

One More Odd Thing

I used some soil from outside when I repotted one of my house plants. Now there’s a wild strawberry growing in the pot with it.

They grow like weeds in the flower garden. I pull them out because they don’t produce much fruit and they grow right over the top of my flowers. I’m not sure how they got here, maybe the birds planted them.

The houseplant is raggedy because the cats chew on it, then run in on the beige carpet and cack up hairballs. We’re very organic in this house.

Odd Stuff

The garden has been mostly beautiful, but there are some odd things going on out there too. Like this mutant lily that popped up among the lovely pink and red ones. OK, so the giant frog in the background is a bit weird, too, but it’s not real.

And then there’s the tree rose that thinks it’s really a tree.


And Trudy the peahen who has evidently given up on the horse barn roof idea and laid eggs in the back of the red dump truck this time. They won’t hatch, of course, there is no peacock.


I let the Ancona chickens out every day to give Trudy some company (she likes to herd them around), but the Ancona rooster isn’t friendly to her at all. And frankly, the thought of an Ancona crossed with a peahen is frightening. I don’t think chickens cross with peafowl, maybe turkeys do, or pheasants?

Don’t tell Trudy her eggs won’t hatch. As long as she’s on a nest, she’s staying out of trouble. I’ll need to put a sign on the truck though so John doesn’t take off with Trudy in the back of it. He did that with one of our cats a few years ago. It took me a month to find her. She was 3 miles away, at the first stop sign.

Camping Trip

Some of us barely get a day off to do anything. Captain Picard and his friends have plenty of time, and they spend it having fun. They went camping on Memorial Day weekend.


Wonder Woman helped set up camp.


Then she went for a hike.


The guys sat around the campfire. They mostly just swapped stories and visited. They might have enjoyed a beer, but I couldn’t find any teeny tiny cans of Coors.

The Shoes - Again

Every darn day I have to deal with being diabetic. But it’s not how you’d think.

Yes, I have a different diet. I don’t care about this, what I eat suits me just fine (low carb), it’s not a sacrifice. And I don’t take any medication - none. And my blood sugar stays low. (For those of you who know about these things, my A1C is 4.9. I know, I say this a lot.)

In Kaiser’s computer system, however, I am diabetic. Once that’s on your records, there is no escaping it. Because I’m diabetic, I have to wear the shoes. The clompers.

My new clompers are a lot smaller than the originals, but they are still big and unwieldy.

There is the cosmetic aspect. How do you wear a dress, if you were the sort of person who’d want to, with these clompers? You’d look like Elly Mae from the Beverly Hillbillies. This morning I wanted to put on a pair of knee-length pants instead of long pants. When I put the shoes on, I look like a 12-year old boy - puny calves and huge feet.

I wore them anyway. I sit at my desk all day, and I’m not given to worrying about fashion. But there are still consequences.

I have to be very careful on steps. I have to think about where my feet are at all times, I can catch the heel of one shoe with the toe of the other very easily. Stairs are a fright.

Today I discovered a new danger. I started out my office door. It was half closed, so I pulled it open. The door hit the end of my shoe that just sticks out there in space, bounced back and hit me in the head. It looked like something out of the 3 Stooges. Poor Melanie was choking, trying not to laugh. These shoes could have killed both of us. Melanie, who is very stylish and always wears the best, would be mortified if she died because of a totally inelegant shoe.

I wouldn’t be much happier about it. My head hurts.

On a Garbage Truck

I saw this today on the side of a big green garbage truck:

"Our landfills supply over 17,000 acres of wildlife habitat."

This reminded me of the time when Pearl T., who lived near our county's Kiefer Landfill, brought a plastic rat to a Board of Supervisor's meeting and left it sitting on the podium while she spoke against the landfill.

I suppose rats could technically be called wildlife.

Something Bright and Orange

My computer is in a corner of the dining room where I can see all of the front yard. It’s like the command center, and I love it. This is where I first see new birds, I can watch the horses in the pasture, and even though I’ve let the trees grow to block the view of the road, I can still see what’s going on out there.

This has been a lovely morning. A really fat little hummingbird is buzzing around the geranium that's growing up into the camellia bush in front of the window. There is some kind of new bird out there that is a real shrieker. No way you could call that sound a “song.” I’ll have to investigate that.

Then suddenly I see a flash of orange. What’s that? An oriole? I love orioles and the mulberries are ripe, it could be an oriole.

Maybe it’s just the tree rose.


Nope, it’s something out by the highway.


Oh. It’s the bad boys out picking up trash on this lovely day.


For those of you in England (my one follower from there), the bad boys are fellows who have broken a minor law or two and serve part of their sentence by doing public service. In this case, they’re out picking up trash along the roadway. OK, they're orange, but maybe not so bright. There are sheriffs in charge of them and they’re followed by a white van that pulls 2 porta potties on a trailer. Why 2? Because sometimes there are bad girls on the crew also.

This is the road crew, California-style. Things may still be a bit more rugged in Texas and Alabama, like you’d see in an old Paul Newman movie.

Teenagers

I don’t have a teenager anymore, but I’ve been talking to mothers of teenagers quite a lot this week. They all have the same problems. This is what I’ve learned, my friends:

It doesn’t matter if you’re Wonder Woman. Living with a teenager is like camping with a pig.

Lilyville

I planted 38 lilies last fall. I didn’t expect some of them to make it, I bought them because I felt sorry for them. They were left over from the previous spring planting season, all shriveled up there in the bins at Home Depot. If anything has a chance to live, it will happen in the wonderful soil where I live.

Here are a couple of the earliest lilies. There are some pink ones coming along that will be nice, too.



This isn’t a lily, of course, it’s a rose.


A miniature rose that Aunt Patty gave me last year. It was in a tiny pot and when it stopped blooming in the kitchen window, I split it in two and moved it outside. This is just one of the pieces, the other is at the opposite end of the flower bed and is also doing well.

I hope you’re not bored with flower pix, it looks like it will be a good year for them.

A New Love is Kindled

I have something new to love. It looks like a wallet (an empty wallet). It’s 5-1/2 x 8 and 1/4 inch thick.

It’s my new Kindle from Amazon. And it’s how I’m reading books now. It’s one of my efforts to do away with “stuff.” I read over 150 books a year, and even though I mostly order them from Alibris.com, which has cheap used books, it was still costing me a lot, and then I had boxes and bags of books hanging around the house until I could find them good homes.

The Kindle holds 1,500 books in a digital form. Amazon has its own network for the Kindle, it works like your phone. When you need a new book, you just access the Amazon site through the Kindle, browse their list of books, and click on the ones you want. Brand new books that you’d pay $20 for a hard bound copy in a bookstore are $9.00. It takes about 1 minute for the whole book to download. There are almost 300,000 books available already, many of them are between $4-$9. The classics are free.

The batteries are great. It took about an hour to charge the Kindle initially and I read 3 books before it needed to be charged again. You can change the size of the type or have the book read aloud to you (even if it’s not an audio book).



The case folds back so the book can stand by itself. On your stomach, for example, when you're lying in bed. It's easy to hold, and it always keeps your place.

So far I really love this gadget.

Try This Blog

http://coalcreekfarm.com/

If you've ever raised chickens, you'll have experienced the debacle of killing meat birds. This blog, about city folks who have moved to the country, tells it all. (Note: the most recent blog has blood and guts, be warned.) If the "killing chickens" story bothers you, scroll quickly below it to the previous entry about sisters reliving their childhood.

I had a Tiny Tears doll too. In fact, I may still have it in the cedar chest. I don't remember mine being mean, though. Mostly I had model horses and, when I was older, stick horses that I made myself. And forts.

My brother Jerry and I made forts everywhere. Up in the attic of the old shed (until he fell trying to come down the ladder head first). In the field full of star thistle. Star thistle makes great forts when it's dry, it stacks very well. We had a star thistle fort at school also. The best forts, though, were in the backyard and started with sawhorses and old wood and junk. You could LIVE in those forts.

Happy belated birthday, brother. I hope you're still making forts.

XOX
Your Sister

Bee Nursery

We found where the carpenter bee’s house is - under the old picnic table. Turned the table upside down to move it and the bee came out of this hole. This is a big, black one like the one in the front yard last year. It’s been supervising the backyard building activities, making bombing runs at the amateur carpenters and anyone carrying a saw.

Bathtub Ring

We get so dirty out here in the country, you could plant flowers in our tub.


Actually, we used this tub as a horse trough. It’s been sitting on its side “out back” for awhile. Bob thought it would look nice with his backyard remodel project, so he dragged it into the yard and set it up for me.

Oh shucks! Now I have to make a trip to Green Acres. The sacrifices I make!

Having Bob around is almost like the years my mom and I lived together. We were good gardening partners, she specialized in hacking things up and I specialized in planting.

Mom would hack at the weeds, then hack at the dirt for a few days and I’d have a nice, new place to plant flowers. It was only a problem when she’d run out of weeds and start “pruning” my flowers out of season. In those days we didn’t have Round-Up or there wouldn’t have been a live plant for miles. Mom’s favorite season was fall because then she didn’t have to hack at the vegetation, it was dried up and she could burn it. We didn’t have “no burn” days then, either.

People have asked where Bob is working. He’s cooking at the Wildhawk Grille. That’s at the Wildhawk Golf Course off Vineyard and Gerber in the south area. You might think, because there’s an “e” at the end of the word “grill,” that this is a very classy place. Actually it seems more like a place for the masses. I’m sure anyone I know would feel comfortable there. The public is welcome at the grill (which is open for breakfast and lunch. And unlike the snob club up the road from Cosumne, there isn’t a dress code to keep the denim folks away from the Ralph Lauren people.

Bob’s having fun. He says it’s hot enough in the kitchen that our house with no air conditioning feels cool when he gets home.

Dogwood Puppies

I must have just the right mulch under the dogwood tree. Every berry that hit the ground last fall has sprouted and there are at least 100 6-inch dogwood puppies in my flower bed. I’m going to be pulling them up in a couple of weeks, if you’d like some please stop by. I have a few pots, or you can bring your own.

Bookends

Shoe Comparison

For comparison, from left to right:
My first Kaiser prescription shoe, size 11EE
My second Kaiser prescription shoe, size 9C
My Arcopedico shoes, size 9M
My foot.

The theory, I have been told, is that diabetic shoes should provide toe room and offer lots of support.

The first pair were sooooo big and clompy I couldn’t walk in them. In fact, I fell down a couple of times while I was wearing them. True, they didn’t rub on my toes, but they wiped out one knee and scared the heck out of me on the stairs.

The second pair I just got a couple of weeks ago. They are a real improvement, but are still pretty big and clompy. I was wearing them Thursday on the carpet. When my leg turned, the shoes did not. My knee is swollen again. Back to the cane.

The Arcopedicos are what I wore for the 2 years inbetween the Kaiser shoes. They are light mesh and stay right with my feet. They don’t offer an iota of support but they also don’t trip me up or scare the heck out of me.

Sigh.

New Baby

One of the Dominique bantams has a new project too. It's a boy!

Concrete Day

The new sidewalks are in. What a difference a little concrete makes! This will be really nice in the winter, especially.

I was curious to see what Bob and his philosopher cousin Joe would write in the concrete. I was expecting some snappy phrase or wise saying. All I found was their initials and these funny arrows that go straight down the middle of the walkway.

What are these for? Maybe to guide the traffic? Are the backyard parties going to be so wild there will be a need for that?


Nope, turns out the boys didn’t do the arrows. They’re Trudy tracks. I love it. I should have recognized these, they're similar to Amanda's ankle tattoo.

The boys didn't write because they had been busy building a bench.

Mother's Day

I had to work this morning. Bob was already off to work himself when I left. When I came home, he presented me with this wonderful Mother’s Day gift he'd made - a fruit salad carved in the shape of a flower. He used a canteloupe, some strawberries and an apple (with the sticker still on it) on a bed of beet greens.

I love this kid.

Two Little Sweethearts

Bob once had many white Old English Game Bantams that he showed successfully. This is the very last one left, a cute little hen, with her sweetheart, a Dominique bantam rooster. He takes very good care of his precious. She sleeps under his wing every night.

The Construction Project

Here is the building in the early stages of remodeling. One end had to be torn off to deal with dry rot. A new window was installed.


Halfway finished. New roof, new window, new paint job, new patio area. Tomorrow Steve from across the street is coming to help with the concrete walkway.

Creative Block

None of us has accomplished much this month except work, work, work. Even the Captain, who is retired and stays home all day, hasn’t been able to finish a project. Or even get it started. He hasn't even gone to see the new Star Trek movie yet. (Bob did.)

At work, I'm still working on the same long drawn-out project from hell that has kept me busy since last Thanksgiving. It’s the Zombie project, it refuses to die or even be completed so we can move on to other things.

Bob’s construction project has lost some steam since he started a new job. He has only one day off this week, it’s hard to do everything in a day. He’s enjoying his work though, cooking at a restaurant. Yep, that’s what I said. Remember this is the boy who took cooking in 4-H when he was 8. He had a wonderful leader who taught the kids to make everything from scratch: stuffed Cornish game hens, apple pie, pizza, biscuits and gravy.

The title of his first gold medal demonstration was “How to Make Biscuits Better Than Your Mom’s.” His biscuits WERE better than mine. He puts together a great stir-fry in the summer, out of veggies from the Corn Stand. Well, mostly great. I wasn’t too fond of the nopalitos mixed in with zucchini and peppers.

I don’t know that cooking professionally is his life’s dream. But he always puts his best effort into work and enjoys his coworkers. I think he’d make a great waiter eventually, and he’d probably prefer the later hours. Some mornings he’s out of here by 6 a.m. Can you believe that?

I haven’t had time to sew. Haven’t even had time to read, though I did sneak a book in yesterday just so I could learn to use my new geek toy. I’ll tell you all about that when I have more time.

To keep you all informed, we never found the missing kittens. Not even a trace of them.

Trudy is still here. I turn the Anconas out every morning to keep her company. I don’t think they like her, but she stays busy herding them around. In the afternoons when I get home I let George out for a while. Trudy plays hide and seek with him. George always hides and Trudy hunts for him.

All the rain we had was really good for the garden. The lilies are blooming, lots of other stuff is coming up. I see new shoots on the hibiscus. I’m glad I didn’t pull it up when it froze back this winter. The tomatoes are almost to the top of their cages, with lots of blooms.

I trapped a raccoon a couple of nights ago. He had injured one of the Ancona hens, but it looks like she’ll be OK.

I got my new Kaiser shoes. I’ll tell you more about them later, but they at least fit my feet, they’re 9W instead of the 11WWs I was given before. I can almost walk. I’ve done the half mile track around the field twice now. It’s slow and ugly, but I can do it.

I hope you're all enjoying these beautiful days.

An Easy Keeper

George is sure that his newfound fame in the high class art book will lead to appearances on the Letterman Show and others. He’s ready to travel, he doesn’t need an expensive carrier. A grocery bag will suffice.

Aunt Beth, do you see the heart on George’s tummy? That’s right where it should be. George LOVES his food. Also everyone else's.

Jury Duty, Part 2

Inside the courthouse, there are at least a thousand people who have been called for jury duty today. The line to get into the building and send our valuables through the x-ray machine snakes around like the line for Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland.

More than half the people are men. I haven’t seen so many men in one place for a long time. Why is that? I wonder if they only show up for things when they’re forced to?

We all check in and try to find a place to sit. Some are standing against the wall. Some are sitting on the floor.

Last time I was here, everyone fit into the official waiting room. Today they spill out into both sides of the hall and fill up the mezzanine. No one is leaving their chair to go to the bathroom for fear of have to sit there for the rest of the day. Ow. That would make a real butt ring. (Public toilets don’t have lids, have you noticed that?)

After we hear the indoctrination routine, the judge of the day gives us a lecture over the loudspeaker about how the jury system came to be. He’s telling jokes and laughing at them himself. We jurors start glancing at each other, each of us curious to see if we’re the only one who thinks this is lame.

We’re given questionnaires to fill out. One of the questions asks for dates of previous jury service. Wow, I don’t have a clue when I last spent a fun-filled day on jury duty. Maybe I’ll get passed over as a juror because my memory for detail is so bad. Dates are numbers, the only number I can remember is my first phone number at home when I was a kid. MUrray 5-4209. I can’t remember the number of my present cell phone. Had to scratch that on the cover. There’s a way to show the number on the screen, but I can’t remember how to do that, either.

Somebody just coughed. It occurs to me that they’re closing schools for a week if someone coughs, but they’ve packed the bunch of us in here like a bunch of Vienna sausage in a can.

Just about the time I’m starting to snooze, someone comes out of a courtroom nearby and, right in the middle of the crowd of waiting jurors, she starts screaming at the fellow she’s with. Calls him some pretty unusual names. I think to myself that the legal system is supposed to give us civilized ways to deal with our disagreements. It must not be working. Oh well, it’s good entertainment.

Leaving town in the afternoon was not much better than the trip in. The street I’m on is suddenly blocked and I have to either turn right or left. I choose right. I can go one block, then have to turn right again. Let’s think about this. How many folks do you suppose WANT to go back the same way they just came? Who planned this fiasco?

Finally I get to J Street. That’s still a straight shot out of this God-forsaken place. But suddenly there’s a whole lane blocked off for Cinco de Mayo festivities. There is a park directly across the street and it’s totally empty. Is it illegal to have festivities in a park these days?

It’s obvious downtowners do not want outsiders in their midst. That would suit me fine. I don’t want to be there. I only go to attend a Board of Supervisors meeting or to show up for jury duty.

And then I wonder, why are these things in downtown Sacramento anyway? The Supervisors have jurisdiction over the unincorporated parts of the county. The City of Sacramento is run by the mayor and the city council. Why aren’t the county buildings out where we can get to them easily, instead of being held hostage by the city people?

Is the courthouse downtown so it’s close to the jail? Have you ever seen prisoners chained together and marched across the street to the courthouse? Unless there’s an underground passageway, the prisoners are probably put into a vehicle and driven to the courthouse.

So what makes more sense: load a dozen prisoners in a bus and take them to a courthouse a few miles away, or require 1000 prospective jurors to drive downtown that day? You be the judge. And the jury.

Ranting Again

I woke before the roosters this a.m. Bob had already gone to work at the golf course. I stumbled around the house feeding cats, went out in the rain to feed birds. (Good morning, Ms. Trudy! Every day she’s still here makes me smile.) Eventually I managed to get dressed and crawl into my car, balancing a cup of tea. That darned Raiders cup won’t fit in the holder.

Even at 6:45 it takes forever to merge into the traffic that always whizzes mindlessly by on the highway in front of the house, one car after another, hundreds of them.

Many of them are “newcomers,” and they gripe me more every year. I conjure a spell that will make anyone on the highway who hasn’t lived in this area for at least 20 years disappear. It doesn’t work. It never works. I am a bitch, not a witch.

Once on the highway, I’m sandwiched between two of the mindless idiots, watching closely for brake lights. It takes a full 45 minutes just to get to Sacramento from my front door. And then the real fun begins: figuring out which way the streets are going today so I can maneuver my way downtown.

The people who live downtown are even worse than me. They think they’re so special the streets are there solely for their convenience. Every week or so they change the direction traffic can run on the streets. Worse, they block parts of them off, sending cars in endless circles.

I used to just get on G Street and go straight to where I needed to be. Now when I take the G Street off ramp from the freeway, there is nowhere to go. The street is blocked with a huge concrete planter. Why is there an offramp to nowhere? Now I have to go to H Street and turn right. Two blocks later, H Street is blocked by another planter. I have to turn right again, which takes me back to G Street.

This is called “traffic calming.” How can something that makes drivers irate be called “calming”? The speed limit is 35, the traffic is already slow. I see no one on the sidewalks: no kids, no pets. Who is being protected? No one, they just want to piss off people who don’t live there.

So I’m thinking maybe when I get home I’ll take one of the empty horse troughs, fill it with flowers, and drag it out across one lane of the highway. This week the highway in Cosumne will be open only to westbound traffic. Next week I’ll move it to the other lane. We have unwelcome traffic racing through Cosumne that really needs to be calmed.

I’d see if Steve the concrete guy across the street could put in a speed bump, but we’d have to do a study to see where the cars’ trajectory would launch them when they hit it going 65 mph.

Back to my present situation. Luckily I left early so I won’t have any trouble getting a parking space and being on time. Ooops. Wrong. When I find a space my car can finally squeeze into, I can barely get out the door. I smear my clothes all over the side of my filthy car.

By now I’m really steamed. I hate this, I’m not a happy camper. Someone’s going to pay.

If you were a defendant, would you want me on YOUR jury?

Famous Cats

Rachel Schleuter, who painted the pictures of my cats, has included 3 of them in her book, Cats Like Us. My kitties are famous!

The book is very nice, but before I could enjoy it, I had to pry this not-so-easy-to-peel label off the back cover.

Tubby Doves

I finally got a picture of the pair of big bazoomba doves that hang around the feeder. I think they’re Eurasian Collared doves. They’re sort of like Turtle Doves, but these are definitely bigger. When they’re in the feeder with pigeons, they’re the same size. This is the second year I’ve seen them here. I hope they make it through dove season. (Why would anyone shoot a dove? Does that make sense to you? What kind of tragedy would it be to have too many doves in the world?)

Grandma Betty is Gone

John’s mom, Betty, passed this morning. Good for her!

What a wonderful mother-in-law and a model grandmother. She raised three great kids who took wonderful care of her when she needed it. The past few years were a trial for all of them, and I send them all love and wish them peaceful, happy times.

Chicken Folks Showing Horses

Does your whole universe take a sudden shift once in a while that leaves you feeling weird? Mine does.

At the last minute on Friday, I found out that one of my poultry show friends was showing her horse in Sheldon, so I went to cheer her on. (K, I know you needed to keep your nose to the grindstone so I went by myself.) To make this more complicated, it was a gaited horse show - Tennessee Walking Horses and their owners were there.

I bought my first TWH when I was 13 and spent quite a few years on the outskirts of the show horse world. I was a member of NCTWHA in its glory years, when a TWH show would attract 300 entries from all over the west coast.

It’s a little different these days, as I mentioned last October when K and I went to a show at Brookside Stables. There are only a few horses and their names don't all start with Midnight or Merry.

My friend who was showing is Sherry, who is now raising TWH and has 5 of them with a couple of foals on the way. I met Sherry through 4-H and poultry shows. This is Sherry with Jimmy, the young man who is riding her 4 year old mare, Fancy. (Not Fancy Pants bloodlines, her full name is Coin’s Double Gold, “Fancy” is a nickname.)


And here is Jimmy riding Fancy.


He showed her in a Model halter class as well, and here’s a funny story: Jimmy started to lead the mare through the in gate with his helmet on. A young lady at the gate said, “You don’t have to wear a helmet in a halter class.” Sherry said, “YES, he does.” (I thought, well, some people are over-safety-conscious, but whatever.) The girl said, “No, really, it’s not required in a halter class.” Sherry replied, “He HAS to wear the helmet. You haven’t seen his HAIR!”

From what I could see poking out from under the helmet, that would be lots of curly stuff.

It had rained all night before the show, and it was raining during it. The grounds weren’t too bad, but all the well-groomed horses and riders were getting mucky. As they grouped under the roof at the in gate, it reminded me that gaited horses let you get away with poor horsemanship practices. The horses were just standing around, no kicking or snorting or dangerous attitudes. There were a couple of Peruvian stallions on the outskirts, but they were OK too. This is remarkable when you consider that many of the gaited horse riders are ancient. (Which means older than me.) Between classes, some were riding scooters for the handicapped, even. But they handled their horses capably.

Contrast this with what was happening in the background, with the regular residents of the stable. A lot of the horses there are Thoroughbreds and dressage-types. Big, high-powered creatures, all ridden by athletic young women. Two rode past the waiting show horses, their mounts snorting fire, bucking, and kicking their heels. The riders were admirable and had them well in hand, but who in the real world could deal with that?

A few minutes later there was an incident on a hotwalker by the stable. Someone had left a big mare on the hotwalker and somehow she ended up on the ground, thrashing around with her neck twisted - still tied to the hotwalker. A bunch of TWH people ran over and unhooked her, but she was in shock and it took them a while to get her back on her feet. Definitely NOT a TWH.

My big gelding Jake used to get his foot caught in a rope or a fence and would lay down and patiently wait for someone to come free him. The down side of that was that he would stomp the fence without fear and I eventually had to replace it.

I’ve been to chicken shows, and away from horse shows, for so long that I had forgotten how snotty the people can be. I’d walk up to someone holding their horse and say, “What a nice horse! Tell me about him.” Instead of sparking a conversation (Who doesn’t want to brag about their horse?) I’d get dirty looks and be totally ignored.

OK, so I can handle that. You have to work your way IN with the horse show crowd. I don’t know if there are still horse show politics. It used to be that there were two or three major groups and you had to be identified with one of them to be seen as legitimate. Unless you had a lot of money. Or they THOUGHT you had a lot of money. Then you were welcome everywhere.

I observed something that I think affects all club-type activities. The old, cranky people were in positions with the most public contact. This happens because they have the time and the experience to do the job, but overall it would be better to have someone who really LIKED to deal with people who are learning.

And finally, here is something I learned when Bob was really little and we had just gotten into showing chickens. I was still bemoaning the fact that he really didn’t like riding horses and would probably never be interested in showing them. See these ribbons?


To win one, you have to spend a lot of money on a horse, train it or have it trained, maintain it in show condition, have a truck and trailer, get your horse, expensive tack, and expensive show clothes clean for the show. Load the horse into the trailer (sometimes this is traumatic), spend a lot of money on gas, spend money on stalls and entry fees. For all this work and expense, you MIGHT win a ribbon.

Or, you could buy a $20 chicken. Put it in a small cage, spend maybe $3.00 a month on feed, wash it in your kitchen sink a couple of days before a show. Unless you’re a kid doing showmanship, you don’t need special clothes. The entry fees are less than $5. You can carry the chicken in a cardboard box in the back of your car, even the little, economical car you drive to work every day. When you get to the show, you dust off the bird and pop it into a cage. You check it occasionally to be sure it has food and water. If you win a ribbon, it will be the same as the ribbon you spent so much money for at a horse show.

No matter what your hobby, even if you just do it for enjoyment, it’s good to go to events once in a while. It’s the people who strive for perfection in any field who set standards and make improvements for all of us.

Here are a couple more pictures from the show. I don’t know these people. I was tickled that I only took a couple of action shots and managed to get the foot position pretty good in both.



I spent a fun morning with Richard and Sherry, thinking about old horses, old friends, and old times. And I met one new person who could have an effect on my life.

As I hobbled up to the fence through the mud on my cane, a little lady with muddy knees turned to me and smiled. When we started talking about horses, I told her I still had TWH but didn’t ride anymore. “I’m lucky to even be walking,” I said. “Last year I was in a wheelchair for a while, and on a walker most of the time. I can’t ride anymore.”

She said, “I was in a wheelchair too, and on a walker for 6 years. I have no feeling in my legs, I do pretty well, but I just slipped and fell in the mud. I’ve learned to ride my horse again. You could do it, too.”

Maybe I could.

Rain

California desperately needed rain, they said. I suppose that’s true for everyone except the hay farmers.

And, eventually, the hay consumers.

Captain has a new dog

Jean-Luc has a dog, a Bernese Mountain Dog. Bob says the dog’s name is Tubix. I don’t know what the significance of that is.

I hope the dog is housebroken, I don’t want dog poo (not even plastic poo) on the kitchen windowsill. He seems to be well trained otherwise. He sits and stays very well.

Trudy

It rained really hard all afternoon on Friday. When I got home from work, someone was waiting on the porch for me.


It was Trudy.


Yes, she really was waiting for ME. She knows when I get home, she knows my car, and she knows I always have puppy chow in the back of my car for her.

People have asked if Trudy misses Rudy. Probably nowhere near as much as I miss him. Trudy has been on her nest on the horse barn roof for 2 months. She had no eggs, but when she’s on the nest she is very single-minded. She finally came down during the worst part of the rain storm, and it looks like she’s finally given up on the nest.

I’m worried she might start wandering when she realizes she’s alone. There are peacocks a half mile away both up and down the highway. You can hear them call this time of the year. I’ve already been offered a couple of male peacocks. Rudy was pretty special, I don’t want to try to replace him.

Nancy asked if I saved Rudy’s feathers. I have a couple. By the time I got home that afternoon, someone else had picked them up. That’s OK. I have lots of pictures and good memories.

And at least for a while I still have Trudy.