Gotta go see a show about a horse

Yup, I'm running late this morning. Still have to get my ice chest filled with water, cheese and M and M's. That's the preferred diet for a horse show announcer---this one, at least.

I noticed yesterday that humankind is the preferred diet of those bees, whether or not you put out little treats for them or give 'em a foam bath in bee poison. They still keep coming. I didn't get stung but my friend Moriha did. And, she's a bee keeper.

She's scared to death of hornets and wasps after handling her sweet honey bees all week.

Well, I think they're providing me another can of hornet spray today, and we'll keep our fingers crossed and our eyes open for any dive bombers looking for a human steak to chew off from.

Lily's in a bunch of classes today. How Lily does will be up to Lily. She has the potential to do well, but she also has a mind of her own. So, we'll see.

Am keeping this short, so will wish everyone a Happy Sunday. Maybe I'll have a few Lily shots for tomorrow's posting. I know I can get some close-ups of bees!

Love Notes, July, 2009: Cooper's Night

Note: This story appears in the latest issue of The River Journal. If you'd like to read more features in The River Journal, visit (www.riverjournal.com)


Cooper Vierra visited our Lovestead a few weeks ago. He came with his mother Nikki Ross Vierra. We rode around the place in our 4-wheeler, petted horses’ noses, and, of course, both mom and son joined our Lodgepole Society.

Since Cooper comes from a long line of local loggers and farmers, including his great-grandfather Herman Crabb and his grandfather Randy Ross, his induction into the society seemed appropriate.

During this visit, we also spent time in our living room while I asked Nikki questions and Cooper downed about four grasshopper Oreos. After demonstrating for me how he could get down on all fours all by himself, he invited me to join him on the floor.

So, I did.

“Thank you,” he said.

Within moments of meeting Cooper for the first time, I said to him, “Ya know, Cooper, a few minutes spent with you every day, especially in the winter, and I’d never need to leave town to get over the doldrums.” Cooper’s smile and total enjoyment of life are infectious.

That’s just one reason this 7-year-old from Sagle has an amazing story. Cooper also has two amazing parents and a cool 4-year-old brother named Trapper who watches out for him. He’s overcome some daunting challenges in his young life. I can’t help but believe that Cooper Vierra will continue to amaze all who know him in the future as he happily continues to defy the odds.

Cooper has cerebral palsy.

His mother Nikki is also on a mission to see that her son can achieve his full potential through the Anat Baniel Method of therapy and from her own training as an ABM practitioner . To help with expenses for therapy and training, Nikki is organizing a benefit dinner/auction July 16 at 6:30 pm at the Ponderay Events Center.

For more of Cooper’s story, I’m deferring to Nikki who recounts the saga in her own words:

Nikki Ross Vierra: I was still in college pursuing my nursing degree when I unexpectedly got pregnant. Everything was going great. I was never sick or anything. Life was good!

The standard 19-week check-up and ultrasound showed that we [Nikki and her husband Aaron] were carrying identical twin boys. We were so excited. They sent us to be seen by a specialist in Spokane. The following week during that visit, I was showing signs of early labor. From that day on, I was put on strict bed rest.

Cooper’s water broke at 24 weeks, and we were heart-flighted to Deaconess Hospital. They stopped my labor for two more weeks. On Friday October 26, 2001, my labor could not be stopped.

Two tiny babies were brought into this world via emergency C-section: Cooper, weighing 1 pound, 10 ounces and Tyler weighing only 1 pound., 3 ounces. This started a very scary and traumatic roller coaster ride of events that being in hospital for 99 days will do.

During the first 48 hours of Cooper’s life, he suffered a Class-4 bleed on his brain. (damage to all four ventricles). The doctors asked us to unplug him several times. We said ‘no.’ No matter what, Cooper chose us, and we were taking him home.

We moved on.

Cooper had to fight for his survival almost daily. He underwent eight surgeries, including bowl, eye surgery and shunt placement for his hydrocephalus.

We got to hold our little babies for the first time on November 20. Though it was a very brief time, it was amazing. They could tolerate being out of the beds for only about five minutes a day.

Six weeks after his birth, an infection took Tyler’s life. The night he passed away, we felt his spirit move into Cooper. We believe he is always with Cooper, helping him and protecting him.

This time was so hard for Aaron and me. Our young marriage was put to the test. We got so much closer and grew together during this time. We lived at the Ronald McDonald house two blocks away from the hospital.

After losing Tyler, Aaron decided not to return to work, feeling he needed to be with Cooper and me. We were at the hospital every day, by Cooper’s side. After a long 99 days in the hospital, we were able to bring our little man home. We were so excited.

Cooper came home from the hospital on February 2, 2002, still on oxygen and with a few medications. At this point he was eating about 3 cc. of breast milk and weighing six pounds!! He was huge!

We were so concerned with for Cooper’s fragile immune system that we only allowed visitors, (except for close family members) to look at Cooper through our dining room window. In retrospect, it seems kind of funny. We are very protective over him.

For sure, I’m his advocate and a lioness of a mother. I held him all of time and was unwilling to let other people hold him. I was making up for lost bonding time, I guess. He had to stay on oxygen for only about a month or so. After that, it was a little less stressful leaving the home.

In April, 2002, Cooper got an infection in his shunt. (A shunt drains spinal fluid most always into the abdominal cavity, but, in his case, the heart.) We had to be heart-flighted to Scared Heart. Cooper’s shunt had to drained externally for over three weeks, before doctors could do a surgical shunt revision procedure.

I had to fight the hospital to stay by Cooper’s side. At that time, they did not allow parents to spend the night in the ICU with their children. Let’s just say we changed the rules. I slept by Cooper’s side in a crib for four weeks while he recovered from the procedure. My first Mother’s Day was spent in the ICU.

After that, Cooper’s health picked up. We were able to go a road-trip type vacations and relax a bit about his health. At this time we started traditional therapies, and the Birth-to-3 program.

Cooper’s health continued to improve, and we became less concerned with infections. We started taking him into the store with us (instead of my staying in the car with him) and being a little more free from our germaphobia. Life was great.

When Cooper was two, we decided that he needed a sibling. I started seeing a specialist in Spokane, regarding the septum in my uterus. (This was the reason Cooper and Tyler were born so early). I needed to have it removed in order to have a full-term pregnancy. I had surgery, and we got the go ahead to start ‘trying.’

It took us a while and a few miscarriages later, but finally we were very excited to be pregnant. Trapper, Cooper’s little brother was born March 17, 2005, mostly full term, just three weeks early.

I had a great pregnancy, with no problems lifting and carrying Coop around. My biggest fear was being on bed rest and unable to take care of Cooper. Thankfully, it all worked out. The closer we got to the due date, the more nervous I got about leaving Cooper, who had never slept away from me, while I was in the hospital.

Thank God for Dr. Joyce Gilbert. She arranged with the OB department at BGH that Cooper could stay there with Aaron and me, after I was out of the recovery room. It all worked out as a great experience for all of us.

Cooper and Trapper are great friends. They play together very well. It is so fun to see them interact. Their imaginations are wonderful. Trapper always sticks up for his brother and watches out for him. They are so much fun.

Their dad is also a wonderful and supportive father. The boys are lucky to have such a terrific role model in Aaron. They look up to him so much. They are so excited at the end of the day to hear the pickup roll into the driveway. I have the perfect partner for this wonderful life of ours.

Also, Dr. Gilbert has played a big part of our lives. She has been Cooper’s doctor since we brought him home. I’ve had to call her at home after hours a few times, and she as always been wonderful.

Just a few months ago, for example, we were in Salt Lake when Cooper woke up in the middle of the night with a severe headache. There was only one person who would understand our situation, so we called Dr. Gilbert at 1 am. She was so great. I apologized profusely. Her only response was that she chose to live in a small town and that she was happy to help.

We feel so blessed to have such a wonderful, talented and personable pediatric physician living in our community. We are amazed with her dedication and the respect she shows to her patients.

We have been very diligent in implementing all of the traditional forms of therapy for Cooper over the past six years. Last year, however, through a friend of a friend, we were very blessed to discover an alternate form of therapy called the “Anat Baniel Method.”

ABM uses gentle, innovative techniques to help the brain form new neural connections and patterns in a brain-injured child, enabling the child to move beyond his current limitations.

The ABM office is in California, but after some research, I learned that one of their practitioners lives in Salt Lake City. I called her.

We had a 45-minute conversation about Cooper. I hung up the phone in tears. She told me she could see Cooper in two weeks for four days and that he would receive two lessons a day. Aaron and I were so excited.

A few days later, Cooper had a seizure. I have never been so scared. I heard him cough via the monitor, (he was napping). I ran into the room, and he was completely lifeless. I picked him up and ran outside where Aaron was working. We grabbed Trapper and took off for the ER.

On the way I called Joyce and she had the ER ready and was waiting for us. We live in Garfield Bay, so the whole way to town, I kept checking Cooper’s pulse and telling him that we loved him so much.

We didn’t know that Cooper had experienced a seizure until we got to the hospital. He had never had one before. We again had to be heart-flighted to Spokane, to be monitored for the night. He was released the next day. To say the least, I was very nervous about our 12-hour drive to Salt Lake just a week away. Dr. Gilbert gave us some emergency seizure medication to take with us.

So we went to Utah and met our new friend and practitioner, Maralee. Cooper had a great four days of lessons and was doing new things every day. He was able to touch and play with his feet for the first time. It was so exciting.

During our conversations with Maralee, she kept telling me about the practitioner-training program for ABM and that it was still open for applications. She said she loved the way I worked with Cooper and that I would be a great practitioner. She wrote me a letter of recommendation. I nervously applied. Thankfully, I got accepted and started the three-year training program in February.

My training is outstanding. I have met some amazing and inspirational people from all over the world: professionals and parents of children with special needs, all coming together to make a difference.

I have witnessed this method of therapy change the lives of so many, and seeing the daily transformation in my son, I know I was meant to be a part of this. Sometimes different situations or circumstances in life can change your dreams.

My dream of being a nurse has been changed in a way that I can not even explain. I found a future for me and my son that is better than any fairy tale I could have ever imagined.

If you’d like to help Nikki and Cooper, tickets for Cooper’s Night can be purchased at Sandpoint Furniture, Panhandle State Bank, and Odies Store in Garfield Bay. If you wish to donate items for the auction, call Nikki at 208-265-0997.

Flat Tire -- A Tale of Two

Laurie says they make the lug nuts on those VW bugs so you have to have a combination to get into them. I don't know all the details, but the lugs were a big factor in their flat-tire experience yesterday.

All I know is that they figured it out and got to their horse show on time. Laurie and I have shared a couple of flat-tire experiences and lived to tell stories about them.

One occurred just past where their tire went flat yesterday. We were just path Athol (for those of you who don't live in the area, yes, it does sound like a bad word if you have a lisp). We were on our way to a powwow at the University of Idaho about three years ago.

The tire on the Jimmy went flat, and I didn't know what to do cuz if I recall correctly, it's got one of those donut spares. We called people who called Les Schwab in Ponderay. Then, Betsy at Les Schwab in Ponderay called people at Les Schwab in Hayden. It didn't take them long to get there, put the donut on and take the other tire back to their shop to fix.

We made it to Moscow in plenty of time. We may not have tried to change the tire because of our previous flat-tire experience which occurred late one stormy summer night on I-5 over by the Tacoma Mall. Sounds like one of those "most horrible beginnings for a mystery novel," doesn't it?

Well, by the time we got back on the road headed for our motel in Federal Way, our experiences came close to epic proportions. In fact, I did write about it in my second book. The story was called "Of Spud, Lugs and the Fuzz."

For a translation, you must know that a trainer on the coast was working with Laurie's horse Chris at the time. He nicknamed Chris "Spud."

You'll figure out the "Lugs and Fuzz" part as you read the following excerpt from the story, which flashed back into my mind yesterday morning when I knew my sisters were headed to a horse event and had a flat on the way.

Enjoy . . . .

. . . . One evening before we left the horse show, clouds came in over the area and started dumping some rather intense rain. As we traveled back to the motel, the rain hampered our visibility, making the drive down the big busy freeway all the more terrorizing. Headlights darted all over the place, and seeing the exact location of the exits was almost impossible.

Those hindrances, however, quickly turned into forgotten minor annoyances just as we approached the first few exits to Tacoma. I was driving in the middle lane, pushing the Cutlass Cierra to speeds of 65-70 m.p.h. to maintain my spot in the flow. Suddenly, we heard a loud thump followed by “kerthump, kerthump, kerthump.”

“Oh God, we’ve got a blow-out. What are we going to do?” I yelled frantically while grabbing the steering wheel with all my force. The next second I was fumbling around, trying to find the switch to the hazard lights. This was the first time it had been called upon by any member of our family since we had purchased the car just a few months before. The switch was not where I thought it was supposed to be.

“I can’t find the hazard switch! What am I going to do?” I screamed, trying to maintain control over the car. In the black of a blinding rain storm, the strangers racing through the night around me and behind me had no idea that I had a blow-out, and since I had no clue as how to get those emergency lights blinking , the only way they were going to find out was if I up and stopped in the middle of the freeway.

I didn’t think that was a good idea.

So I kept yelling expletives deleted and driving 60-plus with that flat tire. There seemed no route of escape from my middle lane. I watched the rear view mirror. Laurie kept looking behind us, while Alia sat speechless as a statue in the back seat. We traveled for almost a mile before Laurie spotted an opening.
“Okay, turn left,” she advised.

“LEFT is INTO the traffic,” I protested.

“Oh--- yeah,” she agreed. “Turn right now.”

I maneuvered the thumping machine out of the traffic and rolled to a stop near the guard rail. Vehicles darted past us like bullets with no sign of any good samaritans looking for a job. We figured that was okay, being country girls who read the paper and watched the news and heard about the insanity that happens to innocent souls in distress on America’s freeways. When we got out, we discovered one bright spot in what had to be the worst scenario any three females would want to face. The blow-out was on a rear tire on the off side of the freeway.

“At least my rear won’t be sticking out in that traffic while we change the tire,” I commented. The rest of our situation looked pretty dismal. It was 10:30 p.m. It was pouring rain. I had no idea where the jack or even the spare tire was located. It was dark. We had no cellular phone. Our friends probably wouldn’t be driving by to rescue us. We all knew we could be facing a long night ahead in the midst of a million people who would not dare to stop. The scene reminded me of the “Rhime of the Ancient Mariner,” only it was “people people everywhere but not a one to trust.”

After assessing the situation and feeling temporarily defeated, my natural bravado took over.
“We can change this tire, by golly,” I said. “Let’s get that flashlight out and find the spare.” That was about the only sensible comment I made during the next hour. From that point on, Laurie went to work like a trooper and relied on “When all else fails.” Oldmobile folks had been nice enough to provide a nice diagram showing where to find everything, and where happened to be under the carpeting in the trunk. A rather strange looking jack was attached to the donut spare tire. Laurie figured out how to get both out while Alia held the flashlight.

Then we studied the jack. It was obviously a new model with undoubtedly better features that some of those other toothpick type contraptions we’d seen attached under the hood or in the trunks of other cars. We failed to see why or how the thing worked. We turned it upside down and around and tried to figure out how to get it to at least look like a jack. For some reason it finally started making some sense and cooperating in my hands just as another glimmer of hope came rolling up behind our car. That was the first time I’d ever welcomed flashing blue lights on a freeway. My prior experiences had always drained me---mainly of change-- except for the time south of Calgary when the Canadian Mountie stopped me after clocking me at 80 m.p.h. for two miles. After giving me a strict lecture and telling me I could be a “guest of the province” for up to a week, he had a heart and simply told me to drive carefully.

I was really happy to see this Washington State patrolman as he stepped out of the car.
“Thank God,” I said. “Someone always comes to the rescue.”

He walked through the rain toward our bedraggled trio and surveyed the situation. By that time, Laurie and I had conjured up some confidence. Feminine pride and grit had set in, but actually I wasn’t going to mind a bit if the guy wanted to change the tire.

“I don’t quite understand how this jack works,” I said, showing it to the young officer, figuring he would certainly grab it and get going on the tire.

“Well, I’ve never seen anything quite like that before,” he said. I continued to fiddle with it and within a few seconds figured it out enough to set it down near the tire. As I tried to set it up in the right spot, the cop knelt down beside me and reached under the car for a solid place to put the jack.

“Go ahead and put it under here,” he instructed. When I had it in place and started trying to jack the car up without much success, he showed me that I’d have to rotate the tire iron handle instead of pumping it. As soon as it was apparent that I was making progress, the policeman abruptly announced that he had a potential blockage up the road a ways and that he would come back to check on us. He seemed to be in a hurry to leave us. At that point, however, we were feeling pretty cocky and were welcoming the challenge of proving to each other that we could certainly take care of ourselves.

We didn’t need help from a man.

Both Laurie and I had changed tires before. I had practiced several times on our Forest Service rig while sitting through twelve-hour traffic surveys that often averaged no more than ten cars a day. My partner, Chris, and I many times found ourselves desperate for entertainment in between our sessions of finishing off an entire cold chest full of food. Changing a tire ranked right up there next to cherry pit spitting contests. And Laurie had had hands-on experience when the motor home had a blowout on the I-90 one mile shy of George, Washington, on a beastly hot July day.

So as seasoned veterans of the road, we knew we’d be on our way in minutes. We again turned the process into a team effort. Laurie now held the flashlight while I rotated the tire iron, trying in vain not to scrape my knuckles on the wet pavement. I managed to raise the jack about an inch when it suddenly toppled off to one side.

Chalk up number one for the cop.

He had failed to find the two-inch perimeter of solid metal so diabolically planned by the perverse Cutlass engineers back at the Olds factory. After a few more expletives deleted, I managed to find paydirt. We found and installed it. The jack seemed to be more secure. This time the car rose steadily and without incident.

“Okay, Alia, you’re going to hold the lug nuts,” I instructed like a gung ho coach. “We’ll all have a part in this.” Alia seemed pretty noncommittal about this teamwork stuff, but as I loosened each lug, she held out her hand and grabbed it. Finally, I removed the hubcap, and then attempted to pull the tire off its rim. It wouldn’t budge. I attributed the failure to the fact that I had been bent over for too long in one position. So I stood up and then reached down to grab it again. It still wouldn’t move.

“Let me help,” Laurie said. Within an instant, she was kneeling on the wet pavement with both hands around the tire. She tugged and tugged with no success.

Teamwork once more.

“Here, you grab it on the top and the bottom, and I’ll grab the sides,” she suggested. Four hands and arms wrapped around each other like octopi and clamped themselves to the tire’s hardware.

“Be careful though. Let’s not get anybody hurt,” Laurie cautioned.

Pulling and tugging with all our might, we two farm girls---outdoors women accustomed to throwing 60-pound bales of hay --could not budge that tire.

“Driving on it that far must’ve bent the rim,” I concluded. “I’ll bet it’s stuck on there.” Out of desperation, I resorted to an old kitchen trick. I picked up the tire iron and beat on the tire. My rain-drenched logic told me that if such a strategy worked for ketchup bottle lids, it would certainly work on a tire. The tire, however, had not had any similar experiences. It stayed put. Several times Laurie and I bent over and tried various methods of pulling and tugging, each time to no avail.

“Well, it looks like we’re here for the duration,” I said as cars continued to zip past us on the freeway to one side and down an exit on the other. We leaned against the cement barricade the next half hour, sharing lots of ideas as the rain refused to let up.

“Maybe if we look pathetic enough someone will stop,” I suggested.

“No!” Laurie argued. “We don’t want anybody to stop unless it’s a cop or someone we know.”
Someone suggested having one of us wait for a break in the traffic, run across the exit and go look for a place where we could call.

“No!” I snapped. “We’re staying together even if we have to stand here all night. At least we all know where we are.”

During our 45-minute stint alongside the freeway, I’m sure at least a thousand pickups, motorcycles, cars and semis roared by. Of those, about five drivers decided to honk. But not one stopped.

We were prisoners of that road, hoping for a policeman to come and release us from our outdoor cell. We talked, we giggled, we walked around. We wished we had a cell phone so we could call Larry and beg him to come and fix the tire.

We imagined the horrible things that could happen to us and how it was going to read in the paper. “Three Idaho Spudettes Slain by Freeway Lunatic.” Occasionally, I picked up the tire iron and beat on the blow-out, hoping the tire would miraculously fall to the ground. When that failed, I’d proclaim that at least we had a weapon. Then I’d conceal it under my sweatshirt for whenever a troop of vicious vagabonds might show up to do us in.

Suddenly out of the darkness blue flashing lights appeared, first as if an illusion but then invitingly real. For the second time in my life, I welcomed the sight of those lights. A cop car pulled in behind the Cutlass. What appeared to be a different Washington State Patrolman got out of the car, walked our way and said nothing. He didn’t have a chance.

First, we applauded him and announced how glad we were to see him. Then, I walked toward him--always the journalist--giving him a complete clear, chronological report on our predicament.

“We’ve got this blow-out and we’ve just about figured out how to get the tire changed, but we can’t get it off the rim,” I explained. “Maybe we bent the rim because I had to drive almost a mile on it.”

The cop did not comment. A typical man, he simply walked toward the car, intent on analyzing the situation for himself. We could hear his radio blaring out a report of three female hitch hikers looking for a ride along I-5.

“We’ve got the lug nuts off, but we couldn’t budge the tire,” I told him as he bent over and inspected the tire closely. We stood over him as he studied, and I felt an urge to talk.

“Do you know that we had another cop stop here about a half hour ago, but he didn’t seem to know much about changing tires?” I said.

Laurie chose that moment to hit me really hard with her really sharp knuckles. I misinterpreted her message.

Our family has a warped way of showing affection. We double up our fists and pound on each other, many times leaving black and blue marks. I thought it was a bit strange that she chose this moment to send her big sister a sibling love tap.

Then the cop stood up and made a comment faintly reminiscent of something I’d heard earlier.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like that,” he said, fortunately in reference to the tire. Then, for some unknown reason, a strange possibility suddenly dawned on me.

“Do you suppose that we really didn’t get the lug nuts?” I suggested. “Maybe those are just the lug nut covers that we took off.”

The Love family had never had a car with lug nut covers, but somehow at this very moment it seemed that maybe the auto manufacturers might have come up with such a thing. We all stood and looked for a second; then, I grabbed the tire iron and found a second series of perfect fits. Sure enough, the lug nuts were still firmly attached. No wonder Laurie and I, the tough farm girls, couldn’t budge that stubborn tire. We then considered what success could have meant to our reputations.

“Yeah, they’re Amazons all right. ” I could hear it all now. We would have become legends, possibly even sought out as candidates for “American Gladiators.” But instead we now could consider auditioning our act for “Candid Camera” or maybe more appropriately “America’s Dumbest Freeway Females.”

Embarrassed, we giggled as I loosened the REAL lug nuts and dropped them one by one in Alia’s hub cap. The cop stood there watching and saying nothing as the gang of three once again cooperated and pulled the tire off with ease this time. Then Laurie handed me the slippery donut spare. When I tried to put the strange little tire on, it slipped out of my hands. That’s when the policeman decided he ought to help.

“Here I’ll get it,” he said. I stood up. He knelt down and deftly installed the tire. As he used his four-pronged tire iron to tighten the lugs and reached for the hub cap, my mouth went into motion once more.

“I can’t believe that the other Washington State patrolman didn’t know anything about changing a tire,” I commented. “He acted like he really didn’t want to change it because he found an excuse to take off.”

“I stopped here before,” the cop responded at the same time as Laurie’s second attempt to shut my big mouth.

“He’s the SAME one,” she whispered.

Where was the hole in the pavement when I needed it? I stood there wanting to become invisible.

“You’ve really done it this time, Marianne,” I thought to myself. “How are you going to pull that size 45 foot out of your mouth?”

“Yeah, I came by here about a half hour ago,” he said as he got up and wiped his hands off. We stood around him as he commented about stopping and then having to go off to a road blockage.
For once in my life, my brain quickly, calculating that in 30 minutes time it was possible that another cop might have stopped. This guy didn’t know that one hadn’t. So, obviously with the help of God above, I yanked that foot right out of my mouth and adorned my tongue with a thick silver coating.

“That cop had glasses,” I said. “He wasn’t nearly as good looking as you are.”

Laurie was impressed. Alia was impressed. I’m sure the cop was impressed as he headed toward his car.

“Thank you very much,” we yelled as he drove off. Then, we all doubled over with laughter before getting back in the car and heading for the Super 8, where we would find warmth, dry clothes and beds upon which we would lieand laugh ourselves silly about this near-death experience where our nemesis could very well have been an very insulted state patrolman. We envisioned the fact that he would probably not tell his wife this story but certainly would enjoy some belly laughs with the guys during the next state patrol coffee klatch.

“Yeah, those were the dumbest women I’ve ever seen,” he’d tell his buddies. “They thought they could take the tire off with the lug nuts still on.”

We delighted in telling our story about the fuzz and the lugs over and over as the week wore on. On the last day, we finally discovered the other route from our motel back to the fairgrounds. Besides eliminating a need to travel the scary interstate, it was 15 miles shorter.

And Laurie’s karma dramatically turned toward the better. With encouragement from the Lewis family and a troop of loyal fans from Sandpoint and Spokane, she climbed aboard Spud and won the Amateur Western Pleasure Championship at the 1996 Region 5 Arabian Horse Show. Luck was changing. A month later, Laurie and Barbara successfully drove their motor home to the Canadian National Arabian Show in Regina, Saskatchewan, where both won Canadian Top Ten plaques with their horses.

And they didn’t even have me, along to serve as the cheerleader and tire changer.

Note: The rest of this story and others about country hickdum, can be found in Postcards from Potato Land, which is available on www.amazon.com

Check back later . . . take that back!

My sisters have a flat tire down by the Bayview turn-off on HWY 95. They're judging a horse show in Coeur d'Alene, starting at 9. So, no blog until later.

I must get down there and trade cars with them so they can get on their way.

That means I may get to drive the bug convertible home. Tough duty!

Update: My dream of driving the VW convertible came to a quick halt. Laurie figured out how to change the tire. So, Barbara says they're good to go.

This will be a judging experience they'll always remember. I think they're judging the Kootenai County 4-H horse pre-show today.

Speaking of horse shows, we've got our big show of the year coming up this weekend. Barbara will be showing a couple of her horses---Dusty and April. Laurie will show her little buddy Scout on Saturday and riding Barbara's horse April in English classes.

Sunday will be Lily's big coming-out party for 2009. Laurie has her entered in six Western classes. She's been working really well, but we won't be holding our breath.

The sights, sounds and distractions of a horse show can turn a barnyard champion into a show ring reject. So, we'll take each class as it comes and hope for the best.

I have to announce the show. It's different from public speaking. I decided a few months ago to end my public speaking days. It just involved too much advance stress---sometimes weeks on end if I know I have to speak a long time in advance. The actual speaking is okay but I still haven't figured out what to do about the dreaded anticipation.

So, enough is enough.

Horse show announcing is an entirely different ball game. You don't have a crowd of people sitting and staring at you. In fact, they seldom even think about where the announcer is; that happens to be up in a booth, overlooking the arena. And in mid-July, it's a hot, bee-infested booth far away from the people and horses but never far enough away from the torment of hungry bees.

I actually love doing horse shows because I love horses and enjoy watching the progress of riders and their mounts over the years and sometimes over the course of a show. I also like to do this show, which is called the Spots of Fun Show. It's sponsored by an Appaloosa group, and the perennial show manager Moreen Leen works her heart out every year to put on a fun event for riders and the audience.

So, through the heat and the bees and the long hours isolated up in that booth, I'll do my best to help out Moreen while keeping my fingers crossed that Lily performs worth of a second-grade graduate.

Haven't heard from my sisters, so they must be on the road again. Now, if they had ridden their horses to Coeur d'Alene, flat tires wouldn't be an issue.

Happy Thursday!

Are you mad yet?

Usually I just delete forwards from people constantly riled up about something. I learned a long time back that these "urgent" pieces of information often have traveled the Internet many times over or that they're filled with baseless facts meant to incite our basest instincts----like to go get a gun and kill someone.

I actually opened one of those forwards yesterday, however, and printed it just to show a visitor how ridiculously overzealous some people are in their mission to keep everyone else as upset, unhappy or paranoic as they are.

Sure enough it was the same Archie Bunker-style rhetoric, laced with hatred and indignation about all the horrid, evil stuff going on out there in the world which is surely going to take away our rights and all our freedoms---especially the one freedom which allows us to send that kinda crap on the Internet in the first place.

At the end, it read something to the effect of, "Are you mad yet?"

Well, yes, I was.

I wasn't mad the way the sender wanted me to be, however. Instead, I was mad that this person keeps sending this stuff to me, thinking they're going to get me riled up.

While discussing the forward with my visitor, we both wondered what motivates people to spend so much time wantonly suffering from "the mad-as-hell syndrome" and insisting on spreading their affliction to others. We also both agreed that if all this bad stuff is gonna happen, why not enjoy life so that when our lives are ruined by evil doers out to get us, we at least have the good times to remember.

We kinda figured these people who are mad all the time are missing the boat a bit. If you're mad all the time now and evil takes over and ruins your life, doesn't that spell a double dose of misery.

After the conversation about the forwards, I just said I'll keep on deleting them and trying to get some enjoyment out of life. My visitor concurred.

Granted, there are plenty of reasons to get mad. Almost every morning, my mile-long hose provides me motivation to cuss when it kinks up for no reason. Can someone tell me why a hose kinks up with only one gentle flip while traveling across a flat lawn and why it takes at least half a dozen twists to unkink the damn thing?

Now, that makes me mad, and what really makes me mad is when it refuses after a half dozen attempts and I have to walk clear across the lawn to remove the kink. And, what makes me even madder than that is when it rekinks the minute I turn my back and start walking forward. Now, there's a conspiracy!

And, then there's that white clover that thinks it's so pretty. Why does it have to grow SO fast and make my lawn look all scraggly two days after mowing. I'm just about as mad at the clover as I am in May when the dandelions keep recycling themselves all over my lawn as often as those irritating forwards from mad people appear in my inbox.

I still haven't gotten mad at the behind-the-barn pool, even after it drained itself yesterday. There is no explanation as yet what happened, but one of my Facebook friends said "maybe it was the deer." And we did see a deer run through our yard last night. The pool had water in the morning but not much left in the afternoon after I returned from a trip to Spokane.

Could be those deer are watching my habits, and it could be they frolicked in the pool while I was gone. Damn well better not have punched a hole in the pool with their sharp hooves. Now, that would make me AND Bill mad. And, he doesn't get mad too often.

Winter in North Idaho makes me mad a lot too. Readers know that because I get cooped up and need something to do and I complain a lot on the blog. Maybe I've found the answer.

In the winter, I can transfer my aggression from Mother Nature to the forward fanatics. Maybe I can make up some new lies to spread and to fuel the conspiracy, paranoic pots and work really hard to find something to send that makes someone else really, really mad.

No, I'm not gonna do that. Life is too short. Energy spent enjoying our lives, appreciating our surroundings, our friends and family and spreading a little cheer or positive vibes to others feels a heckuva lot better than the alternative, I think.

Water works

We've been blessed with water from the Heavens the past couple of days. It's been a good washing for the plants.

That also means I don't have to drag the hoses around the yards, which means I have time to notice things upclose and personal.

My nasturtiums are supreme this year----biggest leaves I've ever grown. Some are more than four inches in diameter.

And, some this morning were cupping water droplets in pretty ways.

I worried for a while that the giant-leafed nasturtiums would bear no flowers.

But they're there---just haven't popped open yet.

I'll never forget that nasturtiums I saw in New Zealand, where plants spread across entire hillside along the roadways.

Doubt that'll ever happen here, but this year's crop, for the most part, is pretty spectacular.

Which brings me to a question.

Why do plants shrink?

I've got other nasturtiums and green peppers which has turned micro, so much so some are hard to see with the naked eye.

That's a mystery. I'm wondering if it's the soil or if they're sharing space with other plants that gobble up all the nutrients.

Anyway, I've got the big and little of nasturtiums---the peppers are rebounding and maybe, just maybe, they'll return to normal size just in time for frost.

Anyway, the rain has been welcome, and the garden seems to like it.

Happy Tuesday.

Nasty Eyeclops

Garden bouquet

Puddle picture

Sunday stuff

Yesterday was another full day. Housework, lawnwork, writing, cherry picking, hosting company and even a trip to the mountains for geoacaching.

Laura and the gang showed up to try out the new pool.

While Laura and I dangled our tootsies in the doggie pool, kids and dad splashed in the big pool. Water escaped, but no big deal.

A lot more needs to escape before it's not functional.

I think I will take my lawnmower repairman Tony's advice: drain it, refill it and work with the sides. Tony thinks it's level enough. His vast experience with a similar pool demonstrated a need to nurture those sides as the water gets deeper.

So, we'll try that.

In the meantime, pool action turned to 4-wheel action and then the obligatory family pictures.

The Laumatias, plus cousin Bishop, gathered around the Scotch pine in the front yard for this group shot.

Laura, Justine, Bishop, Jacob, Sefo and Grace.

Kiddie pic. in the front yard: Justine, Bishop, Jacob, Grace.

Sefo likes his flowers, so I picked him a tiny rose.

He also took the kids in the 4-wheeler out to the God Tree.

They signed the Lodgepole log again; this time they put their ages.

In late afternoon, we took off to do some geocaching. Bill also led me on a short hike through a slash area to an old cabin.

Anyone have any idea where we were?

Mountains are a giveaway.

Rebel among the nails

Botulism, anyone????