January 2016

http://www.petloss.com/poems/maingrp/housedog.htm


CB I too am interested in what happened to Rose -- she was so invested in the new horse, who seemed the fulfillment of a long-standing dream. We are all in sympathy but perhaps there's something we can take away from her experience to ease our own.
And congratulations on the new truck! Here's my shared Dodge Ram experience: the Ram that I sold last summer was 27 years old and running fine!. I bought it used I can't tell you how many moons ago, when its odometer read 35,000, and when I sold it, it read, I think, under 50,000. Of course, it was so old that it dates back to a time when folks altered odometers more easily, so perhaps those numbers were false. But I do know that I scarcely used it -- and now, without the horse, don't need it. Fellow who bought it cannibalized it to build a showpiece Ram just a year younger. Now what's left of my old one sits on display in the yard of the mechanic who did the work just down the road from me. Memories! My you be equally blessed!

And ELLEN, I laughed when you spoke of your cousin's Ram as being old at 8! My new-to-me-car -- one that I got at about the time I sold the truck, one that's running superbly, and one that I absolutely LOVE -- is 10 years old, and I'm depending on it to outlive me. Or my ability to drive, anyway.

GRAYMARE - Your news about Bee reminds me of this thought that I had some time ago (I hope I haven't said this already): One of the great unsolved mysteries of life has to do with how children grow up while the rest of us stay the same age.

My friend who lost her dog last week has received many condolences, among them one containing Robinson Jeffers' moving poem "The House Dog's Grave." It's here http://www.petloss.com/poems/maingrp/housedog.htm[/url] if anyone wants to look. By coincidence, today is Jeffers' birthday.

Pouring rain here all afternoon. I don't need a forecaster -- you all tell me what's coming our way.

Sorry, I goofed in inserting the hyperlink. The one at the top of the post works.

GRAYMARE - YES to John Denver!!!!!

BEECH you will love this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_KHt3ImZXQ

The acoustics aren't great as this was live in Modesto, CA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZNPRny3TdE

Eagles & Horses

Oh. Thanks for the poem BEECH.............

Cold, cold, shiver, shiver.....How many days until spring??

I loved John Denver. We went to see his concert in Roanoke way back in '79 or '80. He was great.

I would love to hear from Rose, too. Getting over broken ribs is hard. I hope she is doing okay. And I would like to know what happened, too....and avoid it myself.

CB
Congrats on the new truck!! Ours is now 12 years old and doing great....knock on wood. I hope it lives forever, I hate buying vehicles. We still need to get it set up for the gooseneck trailer. We are slow.

BEECH
We have been enjoying the maple syrup, thanks again! We had to buy more pancake mix. I wonder if you are getting the rain we got last night? It poured for hours. My muck boots are working well, so we ordered a pair for Donnie's soggy feet.

ELLEN
You must be the neighborhood cat sitter! We had a calico stray here this morning, I hope she belongs to someone, but it may end up being us. We seem to be cat magnets.

Brrrrrr.  It's 5 degrees this morning.  When I went to bed, there was no ice on the lake.  This morning, a considerable part of it is frozen again.  If the wind would die down, it would all freeze quickly.
And, yes.  I do seem to be the neighborhood cat sitter.  All I have to do is make sure they have food.  They mostly live outdoors, but do have a nice barn to be in if they want to.  For the next couple of days, I'll feed them twice a day for some extra body heat, and make sure their water doesn't freeze.

Ark, have you tried the Krusteaz pancake or waffle mixes? I love Krusteaz anything, especially the blueberry waffle mix. The cinnamon swirl coffee cake is outstanding!

ELLEN
No, I haven't tried Krusteaz, but it sounds fabulous! Today is DIEt Day, so anything with a carb in it sounds pretty good . I will look for them at the grocery next time I go. Blueberry pancakes....yum....

It was warmer than 5° this morning, but I don't know what it was. Cold. It's sunny, at least. The mud was frozen, so the herd got to go out in the pasture awhile. They rip the sod to pieces if they go out on muddy days.
We spend a lot of time fixing divets and long scrapes from them galloping like maniacs and then coming to screeching stops. I think they hold reining competitions out in the field. The longest hoof scrape wins.

Here's one for today on our news: In our state once a parent (mom or dad) owes back child support (X number of mos), their photos and amounts owed will be published on public social media by the court. (Facebook & Twitter I think). The hashtag is going to be Deadbeat. Then they showed photos on TV, both moms & dads in arrears with arrests to follow when found.

30 here this morning............I ran out first thing and tossed some hay with Rex..........He was quick to do his business and I was quick to run back in for coffee.

Then we had a clip of a little girl singing "I'm a little tea pop short & spout".
I love that cute stuff kids do.

Everyone have a good day.

I love to hear little kids say things the way THEY hear them. They are so funny sometimes.

It's really going to be cold tonight. Down around zero. The neighbors and I were going to go to another town about 30 miles away, to celebrate a birthday. With the snow and super cold, we've decided that the hotel is a better idea for tonight. We'll hit the other restaurant one another time.

It's been really windy, so even though we have water cold enough to freeze, the wind keeps it moving. One night with no wind will do it.

Frigid!!!!

Or "Colder than kraut" in Donnie language. We are up to 15° this morning, but we had 50mph windgusts overnight. Our power went off at 3:30pm yesterday and didn't come back on until the middle of the night sometime. We had our woodstove, thank goodness. Folks without one must have gotten pretty chilly.

I put blankets on the horses since the wind chill was below zero. No one complained.... We had a pleasant evening. After securing the animals, we ran to town for dinner. Their power was working. Then we came home and read by flashlights and candles and listened to the State of the Union Address on the radio. Not a bad evening, all in all. I was happy to have the power back this morning, though.

The funny thing was, I am in the middle of a scary novel about life in America if the power grid failed....then our power went out! Yikes!

It's cold here too, Ark. It was 1 degree when I woke up. The wind had died down and the lake is pretty well covered by ice. If the wind doesn't come back up today, the ice will be here to stay for a while.

My fireplace is gas. When I was rebuilding this place, I really wanted a wood burning fireplace, but it was going to be pretty expensive. Turned out that the gas is a much better idea anyway. When the power goes out, I can turn on the fireplace and keep the whole house reasonably warm.

Tuzee Susan's husband is not doing well at all and needs all the prayers we can send. He had surgery about a month ago that left a problem that caused another surgery. He has been through staph and strep infections and now C-dif. He's on dialysis now. While he isn't exactly in a coma, he can't seem to wake up. It is not good.

VERY SAD to hear that. (((((((((((((((((((hugs & prayers for Susan, Mike & family)))))))))))

Prayers for ROSE, too...............

Well, darn. I didn't win the PowerBall tonight. I was just sure I'd be the 1 out of 292+million. Yeah. Right.

Freezing here in PA too and we had our very FIRST snowfall on Tuesday. I think it is a record for the longest winter without a snow fall until the middle of January. My kind of winter. It was a crazy snow, I had just taken Ace for a walk and there was nothing, not 15 minutes later it was a complete white out. Lots of accidents on the icy roads.

Ace has been sick again. I think it's his dog food. It's the same dog food he has eaten all his life. Blue Buffalo. He is getting older and may be having some intestinal changes going on. He seems fine on the rice and chicken I have been making for him, but as son as I start to introduce dog food in with it, he starts throwing up. I'm going to look into a food for sensitive tummies.

George is doing well, still a little sore and really mad at the bill from the ambulance service, $1800 for the ride from hell to the hospital. He says I could have driven him over in the bed of the truck and he would have had a better ride. LOL

CB: I too would like to know about Rose's accident. It's just human nature to feel empathy for the person who was hurt, we are all friends we share our lives, good and bad on the forum. We've all had those types of horse accidents.

GRAYMARE: PA tried something like that for the deadbeats, I don't think it worked well, people don't really care if they are called deadbeats. I haven't heard anything about it lately. They were pulling their drivers & hunting licenses after they reach a certain amount. So sad not to support your own children. I lived that with my ex, he owes tons of money to Stacy who will never see. And he wonders why Stacy wants nothing to do with him now that he is old & gray. What a idiot. Somethings never change, once a idiot always a idiot...

Prayers for Tuleeze and her family. And for Rose to heal quickly.

Hang in guys, soon spring will be here.

Love & prayers for everyone...

Whew! Yesterday and today are a relief from the cold. But I think it's just a quick release and reset to get ready for the next round that hits tomorrow night. You know how you sort of lift and release to get a better grip on a bag of groceries? That's how I think of these brief warm-ups in the winter.

Nice here today.............going to be 65-68............AZ is full of snowbirds right now and many many things to do..............tomorrow is our playoff game w Green Bay and their fans are all arriving at the airport for fun & sunshine so at least we are delivering that today & tomorrow............Sunday is revealing some weather heading into the northern part of our state.............cloudy here, no rain.
North of here it horse shows, horse shows, and more horse shows............

LOL. My mud balls are out having fun..............yep, they sure look like they're worth maybe $1...........................

Everyone have a good day..............Prayers for ALL.

GRAYMARE
We are all coming to your house this weekend! You have the best weather and HORSE SHOWS!! Boy, that sounds good....

We have had rain all afternoon. Cold rain. The mud is back. My horses are all brown mud colored. Yuck.

I had a wonderful lesson on Ivan yesterday. It was actually sunny and mid-40s. The wind was a bit much, though. Ivan and I are learning to lower his head and get more collected at a walk and trot. Lori had him doing it really well, I was not so good at it, but improved some by the end of the lesson. It was a fun lesson and Ivan was Mr. Mellow.

Areion had her lesson, then I got on just as the dirt bike neighbors decided to bushhog their wooded field. I decided I would rather live and gave Areion back to Lori. It didn't really seem to bother Areion, but my nerves didn't do so well when they would hit a log or branch. I kept waiting on a big reaction that didn't happen. Chicken me.

ARK - Probably I'm the last person to have thought of this but it suddenly struck me, a propos of your last post, that Areion's name spells "Are I On?"

Yes, GM, when does the party start? I'm on! Going to watch our Patriots game here starting at 4:35 our time. One forecast I saw gave them only a 64 percent chance of winning, a sad comedown from earlier in the season when they just ticked off wins like clockwork. injuries! But I have no right to comment, because I don't really know all the rules, and can wrap my brain around only about a quarter of all the action going on at any given time. Just a diversion that gives me that warm fuzzy feeling of belonging when they win. And I am just a wee bit in love with Tom Brady....

Snowing here to beat the band right now . Supposed to go on all day but we are just far enough south for it to change to rain and then maybe shift back again to snow.

CB Where are you?

BEECH, our big game is tonight against the Packers............we beat them last time a few weeks ago, but now they have their first stringers back.............we still have a couple of guys out, I think. We'll see............hey, it's just a game, right?

I used to be a big Patriots fan when I lived in RI.........and only about 45 min from Foxboro...........

You're right BEECH......let the party begin.

Hey BEECH..........good football by the Patriots.

BEECH
Now you've done it! Every time she starts giving me problems while riding, I will think, "Are I on?" I never thought about her name like that before.... That's very funny!

No snow here, yet. Might be some overnight. Yuck. We rebedded all the stalls and made the horses all comfy. They will be back in their blankets tomorrow night, it is going to get really cold.

Both Beech and Graymare are happy tonight. That Packer/Cardinal game sure had some odd plays. For one thing, who would have thought it was possible to toss a coin and not have it flip at least once?

I'm half crazy................what a game!!! WAY fun w friends here. They just went home. Ha, can't unwind yet...............

ARK, I thought that was a riot.......are I on or are I off?

Here's a helpful Suzy Homemaker hint. Do NOT try to make rice crispie treats with stale marshmallows. They won't melt. They just turn into a gooey gelatinous mess that looks like the blob out of a sci-fi movie.
I don't know how long I've had those marshmallows, but apparently, it was waaaay too long.