Up Early

I got up at 5:30 this morning.

It was a very crisp, clear morning. Why is it "crisp" – meaning the visibility is enhanced – when it's cold? I could see the traffic lights at the top of the valley very clearly, almost like I had a new pair of glasses. Why is cold air more clear?

At 6:30 I got a phone call. I had gone to sleep on the couch last night, in front of the wood stove, with my phone in my pocket. The cats were happy. Wesley slept on my feet and Gollie on my stomach. That's the only time she lets him get so close to her.

I dashed out to the car expecting to find the windshield frosted over, but it wasn't. It was 33°, evidently just warm enough to keep the frost away. It was still pretty dark, but someone was watching me.

That would be Dusty. He's a perpetual optimist. "I don't know why you're out here," he'd be saying "but it must be time for breakfast." It wasn't. I had no time for digging shards of hay out of my clothes, or more likely from between the layers of my clothes (long sleeved t-shirt, heavy sweatshirt and Bob's old ski jacket).

Where was I going in such a hurry?

To the post office. The morning crew gets in just before dawn and called to let me know my package was there.

That would be my package of 2 live birds that were mailed Monday from Missouri. I know, why do I need more birds? I don't. These won't be mine, their owner will be in South America for a month or so and I offered to show them for him and then mail them back to him.

When I got home it was a little lighter and Dusty was still hoping.

The other horse, Blue Top, just stays in the shed. If he hears Dusty munching, then he'll come out.

These are the two birds that were in the box. They'll be in the house for a couple of days until I'm sure everything is fine with them. So far, so good. Their box didn't have a single scratch or dent on it.

These birds will quite possible beat mine, but I don't care. I like to see Dominique bantams do well, it doesn't matter to me whose they are.

Stay tuned.

Christmas with Wes

I didn't have a Christmas tree this year. Mostly because I'm too lazy to drag all the decorations out. But also because of Wesley.

The cat was into everything all week. He pulled things out of paper bags and Christmas stockings, knocked items off the counters, took the bows off the packages, and managed to drag a couple of my shoes all the way into the living room. The excitement of the holidays was too much for him. So I thought it would be a waste of time trying to decorate a tree. It might have been possible with enough duct tape. Not very pretty, though.

On Christmas Eve, it was just me and Wes, all comfy by the wood stove. About 10 p.m. we heard Santa's reindeer scritching on the roof.

 Or maybe it was a mouse in the attic. We went right to bed, though, in case it really was Santa.

On Christmas Day Wes and I were joined by Bob and Anna, John, and John's cousin Beverly. Bev likes cats. It didn't take her long to need a band-aid.

Our old cat Velcro used to love Christmas. We would stick our bows to her head and arrange the ribbons around her neck. She would pose for pictures and wear the decorations proudly.

Wesley wasn't interested in any of that. If I tried to stick a bow on his head, he'd take a swipe at me. He was pretty impressed with the mess on the floor, though.

"When I make fun stuff like this, she screams at me!"

"Don't touch my stuff Mr. Bob, or I will bite you with my fierce fangs!"

Once again, Bob suggested I should throw Wes outside and bring Biscuit in the house.

"Mr. Bob needs to leave now."

Good Times to You

Klaatu berada nikto, Maytag!

On Wednesday evening last week, I received a recorded call from a delivery company I'd never heard of. The call was to confirm that I would be home Friday evening between 5:30 and 9:30 so a large item could be delivered to my house. (Press "1" for yes or "2" for no.)

OMG!!! A large item...all sorts of thoughts crossed my mind. The same thoughts you get when you see a big present under the tree with your name on it. I thought, "Oh goody, goody! Someone is sending me a special Christmas present, I wonder what it could be? A car? A pony? A reclining chair?"

Reality soon prevailed, though. There is no one in my life who has the inclination to send gifts like that. Maybe I won a contest?

Then I remembered, my new Maytag washing machine was supposed to be delivered soon. But on a Friday night? Egad.

So Friday night came at 5:00 because, after all, it was almost the shortest day of the year. I had cleaned the back porch and turned on all the outside lights. That's not very many, this place is quite dark after the sun goes down. It had been drizzling all day and had just started raining a little harder.

I wondered what kind of idiot dispatcher would send a driver to a rural area in the rain, after dark. My friends who have been to my house several times have trouble finding it in the dark. Sometimes I have the same trouble myself. I hoped the driver wouldn't be by himself because the door sill to the back porch is 3 feet higher than ground level. Before 5, there would have been lots of helpful guys at Davis Ranch. After 5 there is no one but me.

The delivery driver finally called me at 8:30 and asked for directions. I told him. Then I asked, "Are you by yourself?" Silence on the other end of the line. Maybe he thought he was going to be ambushed. I hastily added, "...because I think you'll need some help getting the washing machine in the house." Yes, he had an assistant with him.

At 9:00 a huuuuuuge truck showed up, banging into low-hanging branches on the trees that form an arch over the driveway. It could have been carrying a whole houseful of new furniture. Out climbed two of the smallest, skinniest little fellows I've seen in a long time. Seriously, I don't know how the driver was reaching the pedals on the floor of the truck.

When I showed them where the washing machine needed to go, they sort of groaned in harmony, but went right to work. The driver pushed the old machine into the doorway, said "stand back!" to his buddy, then just shoved it off the edge onto the patio. Bing! bang! smash! Oh well, it was broken anyway.

The new one, they said, would be lighter because it wasn't full of water. And the two of them did manage to lift it up into the doorway without incident.

It took maybe 5 minutes to set up. Seriously, folks, I could have done that myself if I could have managed to transport the thing out here and get it onto the porch.

The driver said he and his assistant had already put in a 15 hour day and they still had one more delivery to make a few miles up the road. I tried to explain how they could drive the huuuuuge truck around by the corn stand, but they insisted on backing it down the driveway, the same way they came in. Maybe that was wise. The dirt road behind the house slants into the field for drainage, when it's rain slicked it can be treacherous.

So it was just me here, with Gollie and Wesley and the new washing machine. I put a small load of laundry in it and pushed the "on" button. My old machine had been very quiet (I mean even when it was running, not just when it was dead). The new one is noisy. The cats took off, in fear for their lives.

There was no crashing or banging. But the machine sounds like an antique robot. It beeps and boops and clacks and makes servo sounds. The water rushes in it like a waterfall.Later I found this note on the instructions under the lid: "During Sensing and the Wash cycle, you will hear operating sounds and pauses that are different from your traditional washer."

I know just enough about machinery to know that sound does not always reflect function. Is it really necessary for a machine to "boop"? What mechanical parts would cause that?

Thirty years ago, when I was a typesetter, I worked on a system that used a mainframe computer to set the type, and a separate Linotronic output to produce high quality repros on photographic paper. Today, everything is digital. In those days, each typefont consisted of a negative that was about 3x4 inches. It fit over a drum that had a high intensity light in the middle. The machine could produce type from 6 point to 42 point (if I recall) just by using a series of lenses and mirrors. There was some mechanical movement to achieve this, but it was something you'd scarcely hear. Yet, when the machine was running, you'd quite definitely hear "beep, beep, boop, beep, booooooop" as each letter was exposed. The sounds and tempo were different depending on the type size.

One day it occurred to us that light makes no sound. We discovered that the sound was some engineer's afterthought, maybe a way for the operator to assure that things were working. Indeed, if you paid attention you could almost tell what the machine was doing just by the changes in sound.

Typesetters are creative people. One night, when work was slow, we decided to see if we could make the Linotronic play a song just by using certain letters in sequence. Within an hour we had it playing a decent rendition of "Tea for Two." Those were the days.

Danged Cat

What's wrong with this picture? Aside from the fact I took it through the dining room window.

This is how Biscuit spends his days. On TOP of the very expensive feral cat house I bought for him. Admittedly, he can't fit his fat head through the small entrance hole very well, and though it's been wet and rainy for 2 weeks, it hasn't been cold enough to encourage him to try a warmer place.

The smaller unit to the right is a second cat house. It has a bigger door and is stuffed with nice, dry straw. He doesn't use it, either.

I don't like having all this junk on the front porch if it doesn't get used. Biscuit eats his breakfast on the porch, a bowl of milk mixed with an egg and a small can of cat food. Later in the afternoon he has dinner in the woodshed with whatever feral cats show up to join him.

I don't know where he spends his nights. He leaves the porch when it gets dark. Sometimes he's gone for a couple of days, probably just living on the fat he's stored, or maybe he has a cache of mice somewhere.

I would put both of these cat houses in the woodshed, but I'm worried they'll attract rodents or raccoons instead of cats.

Why are cats so uncooperative?

Washing Machine

My 10-year old Maytag has bit the dust. It didn't die from overwork, I only generate enough wash for a couple of loads a week. Its death is more an indication of what's wrong with businesses as a whole.

The machine had not been used for a week. It was a week of power outages and surges. All the electronic equipment in the house (computers and things like that) are on surge protectors. Who would think a washing machine had enough brains to require one? Not me.

But, sure enough, when I went to the back porch to put a load of wash in the machine, I discovered it was dead. Totally dead. The breaker had not been tripped, but an electric surge had evidently fried the logic board. The electric company takes no credit for this, especially when one lives in a rural area.

I didn't pinpoint the problem for a week. I asked Bob to check it out. He's the one who said the breaker had not been tripped. He suggested there might be an internal breaker or fuse in the machine. I asked John (a self-professed expert on everything, and the person who had chosen this machine years ago) about that. He said, standing in front of his own empty pick-up truck, "Have Bob load it in his pick-up and take it to Zajic." Zajic is supposedly the best place in the county to get appliances fixed.

Well, Bob doesn't live here. When he does come out it's on a weekend and Zajic is closed then.

So I called Zajic to find out about the possibility of an internal breaker or fuse. Three days later, they still had not returned my call. I got online. For $28 Paypal, I accessed a site that has repairmen on duty. One of them immediately diagnosed the problem from my description, gave me a part number, and assured me that plugging in a new logic board was not difficult.

I called Zajic again. This time I got the owner. I told him no one had returned my call, and that now I needed a new part. He said, "Maytag sold out to Whirlpool. Whirlpool discontinued several models of Maytag, including the one you have. Even though the machine you have isn't that old, it's very difficult to find parts. If we could find this part, it costs $250. We can bring a new washer and install it for $1700."

No thank you. That's more than the combined worth of all the furniture in my house.

So I went to Sears Discount Store, the place where they sell dented and scratched appliances. There was a tall young salesman there who nabbed me when I came through the door. What fun he was! We looked at all the models, from the cheapest to one that was almost as expensive as a used car. He had answers for all my questions.

"My first requirement is I want a washing machine," I said, "that doesn't eat socks."

"Washing machines don't eat socks," he answered. "Dryers do that."

"I need to have a machine delivered and set up, and the old one hauled away, because even though I know lots of people with trucks, it will take months for any of them to do this. Especially the haul-away part. I already have 3 old couches sitting in my backyard waiting for my son to haul them away."

"Sounds like you need family counseling," he said. (I love smart alecks.)

The new washer won't be delivered until next week. That's 3 weeks without one. "Woe is me," I wailed as the pile of dirty clothes got higher and higher. I hate going to a laundromat, for one thing all those quarters are hard to pack around in your pockets. Plus there's always at least one pushy laundromat veteran there who manages to give me a hard time for not knowing all the rules.

Finally one morning when I woke up, there was no clean underwear, and the thought crossed my mind what a wimp I was being. Probably more than half the people in the world do not have a washing machine, I'd just do what they do, wash my clothes by hand. (Later it occurred me that perhaps lots of people go without underwear, too.)

The sink worked just fine. Did you know that laundry detergents don't make many bubbles these days? I didn't. That makes it easier to rinse the clothes. The hardest part was wringing out enough water so a load didn't take 3 trips through the dryer. I don't need a broken dryer right now.

I did underwear and T-shirts in the sink, but most of the dirty laundry consisted of denim jeans and sweatshirts. I came up with a different solution for those things. I dumped them all into the bathtub.

Then I took off my socks and stomped them clean. Like stomping grapes to make wine.

It was really, really hard to wring that stuff out, and it took a long time. But I got the job done.

Some 50 years ago I was attending UC Davis. My roommates and I rode bikes to school and around the campus, it was the only way to get around. One day, one of us used too much soap on the wash. As I was cycling to school in a rainstorm, soap bubbles started forming on the knees of my pants. Like they had rabies. It wasn't fun.

It's nice that laundry soap isn't bubbly these days. I'm sure people in Bangladesh appreciate that, too.

Goodbye, Chuck

Chuck is not my cat. He belongs to everyone; everyone who lives in the area and shops at Murieta Plaza. He is "Chuck the Plaza cat."

Chuck was found almost 20 years ago behind the Ace Hardware in the little Plaza shopping centre at Rancho Murieta. He was captured then by Jerry Golsong, who worked at the hardware store. For 12 years the cat was a fixture at the store, usually sleeping on the checkout counter.

When the hardware store was sold, the new owners made a place for the cat. Golsong, who no longer worked there, came back often and visited his buddy. But the cat moved his headquarters to a real estate office, where he has been royally treated.

Over the years the entire shopping center has been his home. He has his own Facebook page. Here is one of the comments there: "Chuck is such an amazing community cat. I have seen him over the past 12 years curled up on the counter at Ace Hardware, loafing around, sleeping and soliciting love at [the real estate office], strolling around the center checking out his home territory and just generally adding a little elegance and class to the whole place."

A couple of weeks ago I ran into Chuck outside Plaza Foods, the grocery store.

The small dog in the background was tied. Chuck would wait for someone to come out of the store, then dash in through the door before it closed. He almost appeared to be thumbing his nose at the dog. As I sat in my car, Chuck made it through the door at least 3 times, and each time he was gently carried back out by one of the employees.

Then I read in the local paper that Chuck has been going downhill. His age has finally caught up with him. When I went to the store this week, Chuck was in a comfy bed right outside the door.

I'm sure he's there because that's where he wants to be. I know he's being watched and cared for, and taken back into the real estate office at night. He's getting a little thin, but he's still a pampered fellow.

Meanwhile, people going in and out of the store often bend down and scratch the old boy's ears and say goodbye to him. I did. And then I cried all the way home, even though this isn't a sad thing at all.

It's just what I do.

Typical California Overreaction

People in other parts of the nation make fun of California all the time because of the way we overreact to weather. I think this is legitimate. We don't often get severe weather of any kind, and truly not like places in the rest of the world. 

I'm not sure if the blame for overreaction should be placed on us native Californians, however. I think the blame is more righteously placed on the media and on people who have moved here from other places.

First, California weather media has a very hard job presenting a program that isn't totally boring. Even a small amount of rain or wind is pumped up and dramatized just because it's unusual. We who are natives tend to ignore this. But people who have moved here from places where weather can actually be very dangerous, and weathermen are actually not entertainers, are accustomed to taking things more seriously.

The problem is even worse when we have weathermen and ladies who are transplanted here from other places. If they've only been here for a couple of years, while we've been having a drought, they haven't even seen a typical local storm yet.

We who have been here a while understand full well what a Pineapple Express is. In 1987, I believe, I was working swing shift in a type shop by myself. It rained so hard one night, water started backing up in the drains and coming back into the building. I had to unplug all the electric equipment and put things on top of tables before I checked out and went home.

The trip home - about 15 miles - was very difficult. If I hadn't been driving a big pickup, I wouldn't have managed it because every little dip in the highway was full of water. At one of these places I could see the top of a Volkswagen floating away.

In Sloughhouse, Deer Creek quickly overflowed its banks and the levee was washed out in a couple of spots. Even so, nothing was harmed much, the creek is slightly downgrade from all the houses here, the valley seems flatter than it actually is and the early inhabits were wise.

The river can handle a lot of local rain. It's only a problem when there's a lot of rain up in the Sierras on a heavy snowpack. In 1987 it didn't rain on snow, as I recall, but there was a lot of rain in the foothills and that came roaring down our way a couple of days later. So, the creek had receded, the sun was shining, and we were watching the river rise. It's what you do when you live in SLOUGHhouse. As usual, the river rose until the levees broke downstream in Wilton, where the waterway is narrower, and then the water levels here started to recede.

Right now there is scarcely any snow in the Sierras. Could we have as heavy a rainstorm as we had in 1987? Maybe. Is it really a problem? Well, creeks could rise. Every time we have a drought, people manage to build houses where they shouldn't and some of those could be in trouble. (The next few days will be a great time for house hunters to check properties out for problems.) The low spots on the freeways could fill with water (why are the freeways built with low spots?), it could get windy and scary on the roadways, especially for people who don't generally even worry about replacing their windshield wipers because they don't have to use them very often.

The headlines have changed over the past week..."Worst storm in 9, 7, 5 Years." Okay, since we haven't had much of a storm in the past 10 years, even, that isn't saying much.

Schools are closed, people are staying home, eeek! Eeeeeek!!! Are the rest of you laughing at us yet?

I suppose it's still possible we'll have some problems, and it's probably better to be safe than sorry, and I see nothing wrong with kids staying home to play in the mud (this is a warm storm). 

But wouldn't it be nice to have news and weather without drama? Something you could actually count on to be truthful? Thank you Fox "News" for polluting the airways with your crappy influence.  

If today or tomorrow actually turns out to be a problem, I will happily eat my words. But we don't have hurricanes here, we don't have polar vortexes or whatever else the rest of the country goes through. It's mostly just old, boring California with really low reservoirs right now that can totally handle quite a bit of rainfall.

So please don't worry about us. Yet.

Time Capsule

When Bob was little, he really looked up to his cousin, Sarah. She was a star athlete, she was in school plays, she was smart and wonderful.

He can't physically look UP to her anymore, but she's still one of his favorite people.

Bob did all the cooking at Thanksgiving. He planned a small joke into the menu. When no one was looking, he took the turkey out of the oven and replaced it with a Cornish Game hen. Then, when all the rest of the food was on the table, he made a big show of taking the "turkey" out of the oven.

"Oh my God! It shrunk!" he said.

The joke didn't get a big response from Uncle Jerry, but it worked pretty well on Cousin Sarah.

Thanksgiving Kid Pix

"I want to take a picture of the three little ones in the family," I said. "Just put them on the couch together."

Grandma Nancy got Tommy on the couch, but he wouldn't wait for the other two.

"Just hang on, everybody, all we need is one picture."

Tessa hung onto Tommy. Grandma hung onto Charlie.

And it all went south from there.

Mom's Cake

Bob and Anna are cooking not one, but two, Thanksgiving dinners at my house this week. My only chore is to clean the house. Yuck. It's a TOTAL mess because I tore it apart looking for my glasses. I found them, under the last piece of furniture in the living room that I turned upside down.

I decided I needed to cook something, make some small contribution to the effort. So I did two things: I cooked and mashed the pumpkin for some pies and Anna's pumpkin cheesecake, and I made a Chocolate Chip Applesauce Cake.

This recipe is something my mom, Doris, used to make for my stepdad, Ben, to take to the mountains to the cow camp. It has the consistency of a fruit cake and travels very well. She liked to make it with mint flavored chocolate chips, but I haven't been able to find those for several years.

You can experiment with using different kind of chocolate for the 4 tablespoons - unsweetened baking chocolate, cocoa, or even melt some Hershey bars and use those. You can use different kinds of chips, and try different nuts and/or fruit. Don't make this cake unless you have lots of company, a little of it goes a long way.

When I read the Alexander McCall Smith books about the #1 Ladies Detective Agency in Botswana, this is the cake I imagine being served to visitors at the orphanage.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. The cats love this time of year because I bring home things like turkey gizzards from the store. Only for the outside cats, Wesley would take one and stuff it between the couch cushions, Gollie would eat the whole thing, walk two feet and erp it back up.

Meeting New Folks

It's sometimes hard to meet and talk to people at a poultry show.

First, it's a noisy place. The roosters are crowing and it's hard to hear. I deal with this by smiling and nodding and hoping that at some point in the conversation I'll hear a key word or two, catch up, and everything will make sense.

Second, people are busy taking care of their birds. They don't relax until they get back to their hotel rooms at night, where they are isolated from each other.

At the show in Sonora this past weekend, circumstances were favorable for overcoming these two obstacles. The hotel had its own restaurant with a welcoming staff and, instead of staying in their rooms, people were encouraged to hang out in the restaurant and talk, drink coffee, or eat dessert. If people were sitting in a big enough booth, they'd make room for you.

I not only got to spend time with old friends this way, but also to make some new ones. There were two exhibitors from Utah. I've seen them at shows before and had a lot of questions to ask about their trips. There were some 4-H people who I didn't know that are from the same county where I live. I found out a lot about them and the poultry activities they like. I also watched their family consume an absolutely huge strawberry crepe. It took up an entire plate, was filled with ice cream and covered with fresh strawberries and a mountain of whipped cream. The rest of us had fun teasing them about it. I think they enjoyed the attention.

I got to meet and talk to a couple of people that I'd seen at shows before, but had never met. It turns out they've been showing for 40 years. They had some interesting perspectives and observations.

It was a nice show, put on by a really small, overworked committee that did a great job. Sonora is only 90 minutes from my house, along Hwy. 49 through the gold country. It's more a scenic route than one you'd take to get somewhere quick, but I've been on it so many times since I was a little kid, it's familiar and comfortable. I didn't get any pictures for you. The road winds and there is no shoulder, so it's wise to keep both hands on the steering wheel. I can tell you, however, that the local plants have benefitted from recent storms. The live oaks seem refreshed, the grass is starting to sprout.

I believe this is what the Indians called "First Grass." It sprouts in the fall with the first rains, then just sort of hangs around and doesn't grow much. It's not that nutritious for grazing animals. In about February the grass takes a growing spurt. This is called "Second Grass." Last year, with very sparse rain, the grasses grew rapidly in the Second Grass stage, putting all their effort into setting seeds. So the pastures were short and sparse, and the countryside went from green to dry yellow almost overnight. Unlike other parts of the country, there are few perennial grasses here, they are all annual.

I took almost 20 birds to the show. It was a lot of work but the birds are starting to settle into the routine and aren't as difficult to handle or get ready. One of my cockerels was Best RCCL out of the 73 birds in the class.

My Ancona pullet was Best Mediterranean. That's 3 out of 3 for her! She was also Reserve Large Fowl of the Show. I don't have a photo of her. She doesn't get much respect, does she? I'm hoping someday I'll get a copy of the nice win photo that was taken at the Fallon show.

This week is Thanksgiving, for those of you readers who don't live in the U.S. Bob is cooking one dinner here on Thursday and another here on Friday. He bought two turkeys and all the stuff that goes with them. My simple job is to clean house. Yuck. Last night I built a fire in the woodstove and messed around in the living room trying to clean a little. I sat on the couch for a minute, though, and fell asleep. It was midnight when I woke up and went to bed.

My glasses got lost somewhere in this process. I probably took them off and set them on the nearby footstool, then Wesley came along, stole them, and hid them somewhere. I'm still looking for them. I have torn apart the couch (it's still on its back with its feet in the air). Then I decided I should move the furniture in the living room as long as I was going to clean. Not a good job for one old crimpled lady to try by herself. Like I said, the couch is still on its back. I haven't decided if I should leave things the way they are and say the house is messy because I couldn't find my glasses and couldn't see the dirt. Or if I should just pretend it's fine because I really canNOT see the dirt, so who cares?

There is a small chance that I just put the glasses down somewhere unusual and because I don't have them, I can't see them. I seem to do things like that more and more. I keep expecting to hear them crunch under my feet.

In the meantime, the cat is once again in the dog house.

Tired of Feeling Guilty

I have donated to SPCA, and along the way my email address seems to have been shared with everyone who is looking for a share of animal and do-good money. At the same time, a couple of the Facebook pages I follow have been turned into places where people take the opportunity to "get rid of" their unwanted animals.

First, there are the people who go to shelters and "adopt" dogs, mostly pitbulls, just hours before they're euthanized. This would be okay, but then they turn around and post pictures and beg for someone else to take the dogs and give them a "furever home." I think, "You mean, unlike the temporary one you are providing?"

Here's another one: "Free kitty, 6 weeks old, my older cat doesn't like her." And I think, "Then why do you have her in the first place? How did you end up with her, did one of your unspayed cats give birth to her? Did you take her thinking she was cute and now your older cat is pissing on things? And how can you have had a 6 week old kitten long enough to know these things?"

Also, because I've stuck with Wesley through all the bad times, I look down my nose at people who can't be bothered to try to make things work. Yes, that's self-righteous. Too bad.

This week there was a woman giving away a small dog she'd had for 6 years because now that she has a baby she doesn't have time to spend with the dog.

There was a grandmother trying to give away a one year old pitbull mix (she was calling it Lab and Border Collie) that was proving to be too big for her two year old grandchild. (No duh, dipshit.)

And finally, there is a woman trying to give away her father's 4 year old chihuahua mix because her mother died and her father can't deal with pee pads all over anymore.

None of these people see anything wrong with what they're doing. They'll say, "If I can't find a really good home (I read this as "with a better, more responsible person than I am") I will have to take it to a shelter."

On both sides of my family there are animal lovers. The kind that, when they take on an animal, make a commitment for the rest of its life. We don't always have animals if there's something else going on in our lives that will prevent us from making that commitment. We understand and practice responsibility.

I'm getting so tired of the buttheads who can't see that their problems are not resulting from people like us who aren't responding to their pleas, but with themselves. Why do we need to feel guilty? I keep asking myself that, and unfriending people and pages on Facebook that make me nuts.

Living with Wesley

Wesley is growing to be a very big cat. Not big like Biscuit. Biscuit has a big tomcat head, and a big muscled body. Wesley is tall and elegant, with a long swishy tail.

Wesley actually does try to be good sometimes. He still knocks things off the counter. He is still mean to Gollie, though when I feed them he backs off and lets her eat first. I still have the barrier up to the den because I need to put birds in there when I wash them for a show.

So how, then, is he actually trying to be good? When I won't get up in the morning and he tries to knock my iPhone off the bedstand, I only have to snarl "Get DOWN!" once and he'll leave it. When I have company, he isn't so bad about tasting them (though I don't trust him yet and I still spend a small fortune to keep Bandaids on hand).

He'll actually sit on my lap sometimes and not end his petting session with a bite. I'll know he's totally reformed when I don't end the day with a bloody paper towel coaster under my tea cup.

Breakfast With Friends

I seldom go out to dinner, I don't like to eat very much after 3, and I really prefer breakfast food or a nice salad at lunch.

At least twice a month I meet one old friend or another for breakfast at Bert's Diner, where the waitresses know us and don't mind if we sit around and jabber for hours.

This past week my office mate when I worked had a day off. I got to have breakfast with Melanie at a restaurant neither of us had tried before. I really, really miss this lady. What a way to spend your last working years, sharing an office with someone who's fun and a great worker.

Things Other Than Shoes

Choosing clothes when you live on a farm is quite different from when you live in town.

If there is a choice, one typically wears denim. This is not because of a retarded sense of style, it has practical applications. Only denim sheds hay, shavings, and dirt. Only denim won't rip immediately if it comes into contact with barbed wire, chunks of wood, or sharp cage edges.

I can wear other things to town, but not if I need to feed horses on the way to the car. I love sweaters. If I put on a sweater, though, I need to use a pitchfork to throw hay to the horses. It's pretty much guaranteed that will be the day Dusty shoves the chunk of hay back over the fence at me and it goes right down the neck of the sweater. There is no hay that exists that won't totally ruin a sweater. Grass hay has seeds that burrow in, oat hay has even more insidious seeds, and alfalfa will crumble and you'll be picking pieces out of the sweater for the rest of the day.

I have been known to wear a long sleeved coat over my sweater just to get the horses fed. Or leave the sweater in the car and change into it later. Walking back to the house to do this is not an option when walking is a time-consuming chore and you need to get on the road quickly.

One thing I love, but never buy, is something like this.

Does anyone who lives on a farm or ranch ever wear velour? If so, how do you manage it?

I'm think people who have pets probably don't wear much velour, either.

Shoes

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this topic before. And that I'll be talking about it again, sometime.

On one of the diabetes sites I frequent, they recently had a questionnaire for the members to answer. One of the questions was, "Are there any effects from your Diabetes that affect your daily life?"

At first I thought, "not really." My choice of food is what I'd need to eat whether or not I'm diabetic. I have to get new glasses every year, but that's because my eyes keep getting better and the old glasses are too strong. I couldn't think of anything.

Then I got up from my computer chair and started to walk across the room for another cup of bulletproof coffee. My brain was working great, my body from the knees up was ready and willing to stride purposefully. But not from the knees down.

Some days I have to wonder if someone came in at night and transplanted lower legs from a 90 year old person onto my body. They just don't coordinate with the rest of the body. Nor with the brain.

I have neuropathy from the knees down. Okay, so I won't be running a marathon. But the main problem is that my feet seem to morph constantly. A footprint taken 2 years ago won't match one taken today. I know this because I have custom-made orthothotics that are 2 years old and they don't fit at all.

I have a small fortune invested in shoes. Not because I love shoes. I hate shoes. But I have several pairs because I can't wear any one pair all day or I'll end up with blisters or soreness somewhere. Some days I wear one shoe on one foot and a different type of shoe on the other foot.

And, NO, it doesn't help to have custom orthotics or custom shoes. Those have been the worst. They're big, heavy, and bulky and because they're rigid, they make lots of blisters.

I don't even try to wear shoes that match my "outfit." I consider what I'll be doing for the next couple of hours: driving? (there are some shoes that rub blisters on my heels when I'm driving); walking? (only a couple of pair that won't make the ball of my foot sore...and that's WITH pads and bandaids added); slopping around outside in the garden or cleaning pens? (that requires yet another pair of shoes).

Aside from the shoes on my shoe rack, I have at least 20 pairs stored in a plastic bin in the closet. Those are the ones I could wear two years ago that my feet no longer like, including at least 5 pairs of expensive Arcopedicos. You know the story of The Princess and the Pea? Well, I have pea-brained feet.

It wasn't always like this. I used to walk the 1-1/3 miles around the field behind the house barefoot. I had really tough feet. Even now, I don't have typical diabetic feet. My blood sugar is low, blisters heal easily in a couple of days, my feet don't swell.

In addition to all the shoes, I have a drawer full of bandaids and I've tried every pad and pair of inserts that are sold. And I have many, many pairs of socks. Because some shoes require socks with extra padding around the back, some require thin socks.

I'm not the only person I know who shuffles around because of foot problems. And what I live with now is really a big improvement over a few years ago. So it doesn't bother me much until the brain wants to take the body somewhere quickly and the feet won't cooperate. It's pretty much like dragging two balls and two chains.

Want to take the garbage can out to the road? No problem except by the time the feet shuffle out there, the brain has been out and back 4 times, the upper legs are bored, the arms want to push the can over and just leave it there (maybe with a little provocation from the brain).

I'm not just a Pisces, I'm a double Pisces (sun and moon). That appears to indicate an affliction with feet. It makes as much sense as anything the podiatrist has come up with.

Ventura and other things

Do I do anything besides go to chicken shows? Sure, but just not in October.

I put more than 2500 miles on my car last month, with trips up and down the valley. Ventura is a long trip, and technically it's in the nastiness of Southern California, but it's at the extreme north end of that area, so going through the SC traffic is not required.

I went down Hwy. 99, up over the Grapevine pass, then the Ventura turnoff is immediately to the right. It sort of skirts the hills at the edge of the border between Northern and Southern California. My timing was not great, as soon as I turned west the sun was right smack in my face. I couldn't really read the road signs. As it turns out, I didn't have to. The highway just joined neatly with 101 at its end and the show turnoff was just a couple of miles up 101. Things like that scarcely ever happen.

This is how the hills looked all over California that week, without rain for quite some time.

Dry, dry, dry. No grass for cows. While I was at the show, however, it did rain in Northern California and now, just a few days later, the hills are starting to get green.

This show, like most, is held at a county fairgrounds. It's a little more scenic because it's right next to the ocean and not in the poorest part of a dusty valley city. This is the closest I got to the ocean, though.

I sorta saw it from my car on the way to the fairgrounds. That's okay, I'm not a big fan of the ocean. You know what? There are no tsunami signs in Ventura like there are up on the coast in Northern California. Do you suppose they don't get them in Ventura? Or maybe they think signs would depress the property values.

I was at the show for about 3 minutes when I realized I had forgotten my dolly and would have to carry the boxes full of chickens. I'm pretty strong and the boxes don't weigh much, but I can't walk and hold things at the same time. I had gotten to the show before anyone else who had a dolly, so couldn't borrow one. Luckily one of the junior exhibitors (Garrett, for those of you who know) helped me. A lot of the exhibitors are even older than I am, and I hate to ask them for help. Anyway, it worked out.

I took 7 birds to sell and ended up selling 8. The last one was actually one that I showed. Here is one of the buyers:

I love selling birds to 4-H kids.

I won Best of Breed with this guy. He had messed up his comb and wattles in the carrier, but the judge still liked him.

It was my Ancona pullet that did the best this time. She was Best Mediterranean and got to be up on championship row. That was as far as she got, but that's pretty good for a chicken that lives in the mutt pen at home.

Best of Show went to a bird owned by the team of Jones and Leonard.

I had taken my new iPad with me and worked for an hour trying to set its alarm so I would get up at 6 a.m. About 30 seconds after the alarm went off, I discovered why the hotel I was staying in is called The Clocktower Inn. I did get up early Sunday morning to have some breakfast before picking up the birds. Here is a typical, lovely Southern Cal sunrise scene: palm trees and a McDonald's sign. I didn't eat at McD's.

I was going to go back home the way I came, but a friend suggested 101 instead. I'm glad I took that route. First, it's much more scenic.

But also there was a lot less traffic until I got close to San Jose in the north, and there were practically NO trucks! It's amazing how much more polite the other drivers are when they're not dealing with the frustration of truck traffic.

Near Salinas, everything is irrigated and green. Every square inch of ground has been dedicated to farming.

See the area up there between the hills? Even that had crops on it. In another few years, maybe this area will have terraces all the way up the hills like they do in China. I think the Salinas area has done a much better job than Sacramento County about keeping development from encroaching on farm land. Sac County is an ugly, totally lost cause. And it's probably the worst place in the state for development because it has the #1 potential for flooding of any location in the United States. Developers and county supervisors have collaborated to let houses be built all over the floodplains. Where do you suppose they'll be the first time there's a catastrophic flood? Living off their profits somewhere else.

Anyway, the poultry show was fun. The show banquet on Saturday night is the best anywhere because it's prepared by a TV chef who is really good. He also makes sumptuous desserts that people can bid on, and they go for lots of money. The (other) people at my table of 8 bid on a large bottle of cognac and a box of fancy cupcakes. It was fun to watch them all get a bit tipsy.

I've had lots of work to catch up on. I took 16 birds to the auction on Sunday. I got the car windshield replaced, I had an appointment with a dietician, I bought and unloaded 20 sacks of pellets for the stove, I had to move birds around after the auction, and I am a month behind on the Dominique Club newsletter. The house is a mess (thank you, Wesley) and there's a lot of laundry to do.

And so, I also got behind in blogging.

Fallon

Even though it's in another state (Nevada), Fallon is one of the closer shows I attend. It's quicker to get across California, when it's not snowing, than it is to go up and down the loooooong valley. There are two main routes to Fallon from my house. The first is to go east on Hwy. 50 through Placerville, Lake Tahoe, and Carson City. The other way takes you east on I-80 through Auburn, Truckee, and Reno. I used both routes: went to the show on 50 and came back on 80.

I was fortunate to have an assistant this time. An old friend from high school, Max, went with me. Max has several engineering degrees from Stanford, so he got the jobs like figuring out how to make the container of pop-up wipes work properly. They are used to clean the birds' feet in the morning before judging.

Like Carlotta, Max used to show horses. They're both handy assistants because they understand about grooming procedures and can handle animals. It takes someone who won't just turn loose of a squawking chicken and watch it fly for the rafters.

I appreciate driving with a good navigator. Max is a good navigator because he's skilled with his smart phone and its GPS capabilities. Sometimes he'd even look up from his phone to read road signs. Bob's friend Jonathan has similar skills. Both are computer nerds.

I am a jabberbox when I travel with someone else in the car. I love lively conversation and debate. Carlotta and I argue about everything. Bob and I used to have indepth philosophical conversations to and from chicken shows when he was 8. Or he'd sing "99 Bottles of Beer" and drive me nuts. John just told me to shut up, not to talk while he was driving (we didn't often travel together). Max held up his side of the conversation, but whenever I'd ask one of my rhetorical questions, he'd google the question and come up with an answer. That was great!

I took 17 birds to this show: 4 white Old English bantams, 12 Dominique bantams, and a large fowl Ancona pullet. The judge was Donald Barger. Here he is examining one of my Dominiques. Please note the clear barring on the bird's wing...that's a wonderful thing.

Was he calling for advice on how to judge the class?

No, Donald's mom called while he was working. Note to all sons: Donald is a good example, always pick up the phone when your mom calls.

Here is the same bird, #16. By the end of the day he had won Best of Breed, Best RCCL and was Reserve Bantam of the Show. That was fun.

My Ancona pullet won Best Mediterranean. Max and I went to lunch with our old horse show friends Joan and Bill, who live in nearby Yerington (as much as anything in Nevada can be described as nearby) and came over to visit for the day. When we got back to the show room, a photographer was taking the class winners out of their cages and photographing them. On an open table in the middle of an open room. Yikes!

Anconas are quite flighty. I said, "I doubt my Ancona will cooperate. It would be just fine to NOT take her picture." "Oh no," I was told. "The photographer is very good with chickens."

So I found a comfortable seat that was close enough to enjoy the show. There were lots of kids around. I figured that when the bird got loose one of them would catch her. Eventually.

But the photographer really WAS good with the birds. Great, even. He spent time settling them down, then walked back to his camera and shot the pictures.

He got several nice shots of my girl before she took off flying. He caught her in mid-air and walked her back to her cage, talking to her. What a very nice fellow.

Fallon wasn't the first show of the year, but not everyone attends every single show. This was the first time I got to see some of my friends.

Here are Max and I with Kathy and Ryan, two of my favorite chicken show people.

We traveled back from the show on Sunday morning and got home before Bob and his friends were even finished with breakfast. I had barely stepped through the door when I was met with stories about what a bad boy Wesley the cat had been. "Whoa!" I said. "Give me a minute to put this all into perspective and find just the right way to express to you all that I really don't give a shit."

This week is a short one for me. Another chicken show on the weekend, I will be driving all the way to Ventura by myself. In addition to 17 show birds, I need to take as many birds to sell as will fit in the car. It's got me a little strung out trying to get it all organized. Only one show in November, though, so there'll be plenty of time to rest. And catch up on the stories about Wesley.

One more note. Just before I left one of the folks from Davis Ranch brought me this baby Tubby Dove.

They found it on the ground near the Ranch Cafe. I put it in a little carrier and took it to Fallon with me. When I got home, its sibling was waiting. It had also been found on the ground, but had been pecked on the head. It's usually a parent bird that does that. I was surmising that someone may have shot the father (dove hunting season is on) and the mother couldn't feed the babies, so she kicked them out. But yesterday afternoon I found a baby pigeon in the pigeon pen with a similar story. The weather has turned, maybe there's something about that that prompted the babies' parents to abandon them.

Anyway, now there are 3 babies to hand feed and pack along with me. Anna has volunteered to take care of them while I'm in Ventura. She's such a peach.

Workshop

This has been a really busy month with the chickens. There are shows on 3 of the 4 weekends. Last weekend would have been the free one, but a wonderful opportunity popped up.

There is a fellow in Missouri who is considered by Dominique breeders to be our national expert on the breed, Mark Fields. He literally "wrote the book" on Dominiques. He was available to come out and help assess the birds we've raised in California this year, so we quickly arranged the trip.

"Come on out to California," I told Mark. "It will be a relaxing trip." I picked him up at the airport on Friday morning. The two of us caught and evaluated all of my birds during the day. It was really a chore.

On Saturday, three other breeders brought their birds. Before he left, Mark handled over 150 birds. It was anything BUT relaxing.

This is Chris (left) and Mark examining one of my cockerels.

Debbie drove up from Southern California. It took her 6 hours to get here, we spent 2 hours on her birds, then she loaded them up and drove home. Mark is weighing one of Debbie's birds.

It's very difficult to raise Dominique bantams that are the weight specified in the American Standard of Perfection. They are mostly too big. Some of mine have been waaaaaaayyyy too big. One of my otherwise very good pullets right now is 34 ounces. She's supposed to be 20 ounces.

This is Sara, her daughter Bailey, Debbie with a copy of Mark's book, and Mark. Bailey has been breeding Dom bantams for a couple of years in 4-H and has some good ones. This is a hobby for people of all ages.

Our impromptu workshop was really a benefit to us all. It gave Mark a good idea what's going on with the breed out here on the West Coast, and all of us had a crash course from the master teacher. My head is still reeling with all the information I tried to cram into it. I now know which birds to keep and which to sell. I'll just need to be home for a while so I can pack up the sale birds and ship them off to people who want them.

Mark was kind to us all, but one thing that makes him a valuable teacher is that he doesn't mince words. If a bird has a fault, he points it out. One of his goals was to help everyone improve their birds, so he always had advice on things we could do. In some cases we were able to trade birds with each other, which might make the improvement process a little shorter.

This weekend is another show. I'm washing birds tonight. Some of them had been designated "inferior" but they're in good show condition, so they're going anyway. Bob and Anna are keeping the cats company while I'm gone. I've been trying to learn to use my new iPad mini this week, so maybe I can add something to my blog from the show. Or, more likely, not...because everything requires passwords and I keep forgetting what they are. Passwords are my downfall, my biggest problem with technology.

One last thing, I'll be taking a baby dove to the show, too. He fell out of his nest near the Ranch Cafe and was brought to me to foster. It's not hard to do, but I have to take him with me. Wesley has been predictably bad, I have the baby in a carrier that's locked inside a cage that's in the hatching room with a barrier so Wes can't get in. Every time the baby squeaks, the cats eyeballs rattle around in his head and he goes into hunting mode.

Wish us all luck.