Clash Of The Titans

If by 'Titans' you mean 'Dumb Dogs.' Jill Coondog gets to come in the yard with (Short Bus) Copper Labrador for some enrichment playtime. Please don't judge my ratty yard. It's the No Man's Land that belongs to the dogs. When they leave, I will make it pretty some day.

Also please pardon the dirty kitchen window through which the photos were taken.

My alternate post title was Woofless Wednesday. Get it? Instead of Wordless Wed--aw, forget it.

Now That's What I Call A Toenail Clipping

The Hoof Lady came yesterday. I like her. And she does a heck of nice job on the horses' feet. I won't post any photos of her since she told me that someone posted photos of her and she wished that she'd known ahead of time so she could at least fix her hair. So I'm not gonna do that to her. For the record I thought she looked just fine.

Admiral's toes were getting a bit long.Talk about back breaking work.Other than that, they looked pretty good.

And for good measure some gratuitous photos of my horses. Pretty!

6th Grade Graduation (4th Grade Thong)

Sixth Grade/Elementary School Graduation Day for Sam. I'm not a big proponent of lavish graduation ceremonies for every little thing: preschool, kindergarten, etc., but I thought this turned out pretty cool. They're actually old enough to appreciate it at this age I think.
It's also been enough years now that I recognize a lot of the faces in 6th grade and I was really proud of them and happy for them. And I only chuckled a little at those blossoming young ladies as they struggled in their new high heels. Ah, growin' up!
Check this out-in lieu of yet another speech they had a really cool presentation by one of the high school students, Rachel Simmons (I believe is her name.)
She starts with a blank canvas and a background of music (I'm too square to recognize.)And then she begins to paint. You can't tell what she's painting for a long time. If you're me, you can't tell until she's completely finished. Duh.
I was impressed. Girl's got talent.And there's my baby boy. Junior High, here he comes! They also had a 6th Grade Dance afterwards. Somehow I doubt they danced to REM's "Stand" like we did at our 6th grade dance.( 'Member that music video? ) But he said he had fun.

And 4th Grade Thong? Ya, Aggie said a girl in her class was wearing a thong today. 4th Grade. She bent over and there it was rearing its ugly head out the back of her pants. Ag said that everybody did the Ewww! thing and then one of Aggie's friend politely recommended that she pull her shirt down.

Hard To Be Humble

She called me 'awesome.' (Pretty much she did.) See me blushing? And I had totally intended to participate. But then I get all weird about it and the last time I tried to participate in a very nifty meme I ended up basically reneging on all my nominations because I was embarrassed about 'who the heck am I to be nominating anybody' and 'who cares if I nominate them because I'm just a little old nobody' and I just go way overboard, ruminating, worrying, etc. So when I got up at 2am to pee and couldn't get back to sleep for thinking about who to nominate for a blog post I had to just be a quitter.

However, I will happily tell you why I'm awesome.

But seriously. Why I'm Awesome:

Reason One: When I fall off my horse I get right back on. As in, this Saturday when I harassed Mark into going riding with me and I was blazing a little trail through the woods and found myself tangled in a skinny little grape vine. It went right across the front of my waist and I had to make a decision, so I decided to see if we could just break through it.

We could not. So it clotheslined me right out of the saddle. Nikki stopped and turned around to look at me. I said "Thanks for not leaving me" and got back on.

Then Monday, I went for a ride with Mark's almost-could've-been-sister-in-law, and I stopped to show her where I'd fallen off 2 days before when Nikki decided she really needed to roll. Right now. She just plopped herself down on the ground with me on her back. I managed to keep her from rolling all the way over and totally felt like The Outlaw Josey Wales when she got back up with me in the saddle. Yeehaw.

Reason Two: I ain't scared of bees. Until they start buzzing angrily in my hair.

Mark had to give the observation hive bees more room this weekend, so he opened it up and swapped out some full frames for nice empty frames. See that little rectangle? That was the queen cage. It can come out now since the queen is loose.

Here Mark is using his soft bee brush to gently sweep them back into the hive.And then close it back up. See all those bees? It was a light flurry so I backed up a bit.All was going well and Mark wanted to know if I wanted to get a photo of the queen and I did, but by then the bees were getting very agitated. When one got lodged in my giant hair and started cussing me in Bee Language, I made a hasty retreat.

Can you spot Her Royal Highness?

Um. That's all I've got right now.

And even though I'm a meme party-pooper, I'd say the bloggers I've been following have got Awesome and Then Some written all over them. And I guess that's my indecisive chickensh*t way of playing! Awesome!

Yes, It Is Possible To Get Evicted In Your RV House

Remember brother Greg? (You have to scroll down in that link to get the story.) He's the relative (by marriage!) living in a busted up Winnebago behind Mark's aunt's house.

Well, the township has finally had enough after finding out that Greg was using a bucket for his number 2's and then emptying the bucket across the railroad tracks. Something about the smell or something? And this is just barely a blip on the Greg Radar, so moving on...

Mark was helping our friend put together her brand new beehive last night. This is her first hive and Mark built her hive bodies and ordered her some packaged bees. The bees come in the mail in this box with screened sides. You buy them by the pound. And the queen, which I couldn't get a good photo of, comes in a wee little box with some attendants. She is held in by candy plugs which the bees will eat in order to free her. Gives everybody a chance to get to know one another.I won't try to give too much detail since I was educated by the resident beekeeper on some of my omissions or mistakes in recent comments! "Aw, Sara, you know that!" And I was all, "I do?"

Great Honor

We live 'over the hill' from the Meadowcroft Rockshelter . Mark grew up playing in the woods there back in the day.

I kind of take it for granted, letting the school take the kids on field trips instead of me taking them. I haven't been there since I was in girl scouts, but I love taking a drive out that way.

To get there you have to drive along a winding road down, down, down into the bottom of the deep woods where a beautiful, rocky stream flows. I love how it feels like you are so far away from civilization even though 5 minutes in any direction will have you in some backwoods, white trash (or very nice) locale. I feel like I belong there, like it's my place. Not the the trash part, you know what I mean.

I love to imagine the Native Americans living there all those many years ago. I wonder how they survived through the difficulties of each season.

And yesterday Sam found an arrowhead in our garden, so now I can imagine them living at our house. Which I probably did anyway, but still. Somebody made this: How cool is that? Unfortunately it's a little busted. Still in pretty good shape, though.

And now for a ridiculous Native American-related story. It happened a few years ago.

Mark has some of the weirdest acquaintances you'd ever want to meet including 'Jeff' ,a forty-something guy living with his parents. (Ya, that narrows it down.)

I don't remember exactly why he would stop at our house but I want to say it had to do with mushroom hunting. Those of us around here who mushroom hunt like to swap stories and compare notes so it's not an odd reason to visit. Now we don't go to other folks homes specifically for that reason, but we won't turn you away if you come to ours.

Even if you're as socially backward and unshowered as Jeff.

Jeff also raises 'Squirrel Dogs.' Not dogs that are squirrel-like, but dogs used for hunting squirrels. And he had a stack of snapshots of his newest litter. Not one of them was in focus or centered on their subject, but you could just make out that he was taking photos of puppies sitting in his lap. A whole roll of film worth, plus duplicates.

So here I am politely thumbing through all these photos, trying not to laugh, and I can feel Jeff kind of staring at me. Or can you innocently leer at someone? I know that's an oxymoron, but I just don't think he knew any better.

So he starts to tell this story. Oh, and picture me at the time with my long and nearly black hair straightened and parted down the center. Are you picturing Pocahontas with her hair down? Good.

Jeff tells of a time after the buffalo have all gone away and he is driving through the forest and cities in his Great 18 Wheeled Beast. (I'm embellishing. Badly.) On this particular day as Jeff is travelling down the road he looked into the sky and saw Hawk flying overhead. In an instant he saw Hawk swoop down, scoop up Snake in his talons, and fly away.

He ended this completely pointless story with a grave look and said 'Great Honor.'

He also gave us the name of some Indian tribe he supposedly belonged to, some name he couldn't even spell. We finally figured out that, because of my hairdo that day, Jeff assumed I was a Native American. And to this day, whenever Mark and I see a hawk or buzzard overhead, we will solemnly remind one another: Great Honor.

Now go in peace. And great honor.

Oh ya, almost forgot. So we were out in the garden and raised beds planting last night and I sent Lily to go play with coon dog Jill who is tied at her box at a corner of the garden. I wasn't really paying attention until I heard Lily doing her half scream half laugh. Jill was trying to hump Lily and Lily thought it was hysterical.

I call that Great Dishonor.

If I Only Had A Tail

Giving the calf his bottle yesterday evening, (Is it as redundant for you as it is for me?) and I was watching his tail wave back and forth, back and forth, ding dong, ding dong. Thinking to myself "What if I had a tail?" Not like a little cocker spaniel tail either, like a big Labrador retriever tail. Then I thought "I've wondered this before. What is wrong with me that I wonder about such things?"

But a tail is an expressive thing. You can say a lot with a tail.
Not sure what the calf was saying, probably something like "drinkin' my milk, drinkin' my milk, la la lala."

Dogs are usually pretty obvious. (Anybody out there want a dog? I'm serious.) They can get that tail going so hard and fast that it's a full body movement. They can tuck it under. They can raise it high for youknowwhat-sniffing. It says 'I'm happy,' 'I'm scared,' 'I'm warning you,' 'I'm resting, but I'm not sleeping so if you're thinking about doing something fun, I'm ready so don't do it without me.' The list goes on.

Cats have an extensive repertoire, too. The tail greets you, snubs you, scares you a little. It's fun to watch when they're concentrating on whatever they're 'hunting,' all wiggly squiggly with tension before they spring like a mighty puma on that scrap of yarn.

I appreciate the horse's tail when they're not whipping me across the eyeballs with it. The tail is a great indicator of the mood they're in and what they're thinking about doing, e.g. nipping you or kicking out at something. I also like when they're out running in the field, just because they feel good, and their tails are hoisted up in the air like flags. That is exactly what I would do with my tail when I was galloping. If I had one.

You know what else I just realized? Since we've been talking about the bees lately. They don't really have tails per se, but they do use their rear ends to do those bee dances that tell all the other bees where the nectar and pollen is located. If I'm not mistaken, they even get as detailed in their descriptions as to indicate whether it's a small supply or the mother load. Insert 'smart ass' pun here.

So I was wondering (in a non-Darwinian way) why we don't have tails. If we did have tails, would it be something we'd be required to cover with clothing or could we let it hang out like bare arms and legs? Would it get its own sleeve or would we just tuck it in to our pants or dress? Would we have tail envy? What about fat people tails or anorexic super model tails? Ew!
Would we be able to fake a tail wag like we fake a polite smile? Or would it give away our true feelings? And then I was thinking about how it's almost like we have an invisible psychic tail anyway. How many times has your spouse, friend,or child had their back to you but you can still 'see' that ornery twinkle? I guess a tail would just make polite society a little trickier. And flirting less subtle. And poker games tougher? Or easier?

Phew! Deep thoughts indeed.