Remarkable weather. It was bright and sunny when I got to the stable. By the time I put together Rocket's dinner (13 lb. alfalfa-grass hay and a warm mash made by cutting up an apple and two carrots in the bottom of his black rubber dish, putting an ample 2 cups of pelleted feed on it, and adding boiling water to cover) and started trundling it ( Read more... )

Rage, rage against the dying of the peas! And the onions! Let there be weeping and gnashing of teeth! Damn, I thought it was a fortress ( Read more... )

This weekend I got a new puppy - or half-grown dog - for my big ancient Keeshond cross, Ben, whom I inherited from my daughter when she went away to school. She's (daughter,not puppy) working for a vet now, to supplement what I can give her toward school, and she found a bright, optimistic almost-grown dog to keep Ben company. Ben is 13 and ( Read more... )

Re: quail: 15 years or so ago a neighbor found a small egg in the grass while he was mowing his lawn. He gave it to my daughter Keila, now 23 and heading toward vet school. She put it under a table lamp, and a few days later she called me at work to say it had hatched. Both kids were understandably beside themselves with excitement. I said ( Read more... )

Stall mats are 4'x6' pieces of heavy black foam rubber, an inch or more thick, that go on the floor of the stall to insulate the horse's feet from the cold ground or hard cement or whatever it might be. Benign walking surface for them. You can imagine how dense the foam is, to resist the weight of an 1100 lb horse with relatively small feet not ( Read more... )

I stayed up late (as usual of late) (no pun) playing with the computer and then for way too long lying in bed reading the bible. Just got up now - long enough ago to nuke my coffee and go get the paper but not read it. So far the bible's not very dense - not a bunch of useful or inspiring information. Noah took one of each gender on the ark, ( Read more... )

At a party a couple years ago somebody double-took because I was wearing an open fuchsia silk shirt over some sexy undershirt, and said "Oh, that's right, you don't have a man yet." Shit - that's not why I sometimes still try to look sexy. I do it because I can. She can't! Hahaha ( Read more... )

Rocket the pinto NSH hadn't been out much for a couple of weeks because of all the quartet performances, so I took him to the covered arena (a 4.5 minutes walk) tonite and cut him loose. Having worn a blanket for a week because of the cold and rain, he rolled and rolled and rolled. Then just as he exploded into a bucking gallop, a deluge of rain ( Read more... )

Damn - got a speeding ticket on L.K. Wood. Cop says I was doing 43 in a 25. I don't believe it. No way. Interestingly, though, I was singing barbershop songs in the car; and last time I got a ticket I was singing barbershop songs in the car too. (a) I need to quit singing barbershop in the car, or (b) I sing barbershop in the car all the time ( Read more... )

Tonight the quartet performed for the stable Xmas party. I mean, the Xmas party of the people who board their horses out at the stable. It was a big hollow room, not the best acoustics. We sounded better warming up in the ladies' room. Great, in fact. Then afterward we went to sing for the baritone's aunt in a local nursing home. She was ( Read more... )