Saturday Slight

After an enchanting full-moon night, morning clouds are now lifting from the mountains, while a low layer of fog hangs just above the ground. Looks like a pretty nice Saturday ahead, and, unbelievably, some weather forecasts suggest 70s again next week. We're certainly getting our share of autumn lagnappe this year.

Bill introduced me to that word from his native Louisiania. It means a little something extra, like a baker's dozen. When it comes to weather like we've had the past few weeks, I'll take lagnappe any day. I do have a different attitude however pertaining to snow, drizzle, gray, cold and rain. In those cases, I prefer to adhere the trend all the dietician know-it-alls are trying to impose on the eating American public: measure out those portions and make 'em small.

Why is the government telling us what to eat----and how much? What has the government ever done to show us how smart it is, anyway?

Before I get off on a rant, I must remember that this is the Saturday Slight where I don't get off on rants. Instead, it's hit the high spots, so here goes.

• I was really pleased to read about Mike Brown in this morning's Daily Blat. This was not Mike Brown, my brother, nor was it Mike Brown, my classmate, or even Mike Brown, the K-Spit newsman. Instead, this was Mike Brown, one of my students. I sold Rambo's mother, Mrs. Black to Mike's mother, my classmate, Carolyn Brown. How's that for colorful and confusing! Anyway, Mike Brown sells affordable homes here in the area, and a while back, he gave some folks a trailer after hearing that their house burned down. Recently, after getting back on their feet and selling some property, they gave the trailer to someone else and came back to Mike to buy one of his high end homes.
  
• Speaking of Mike Brown---I spoke to another Mike Brown's grandmother on the phone yesterday. And, let's take this a step further. That Mike Brown was also one of my students, and that Mike Brown's grandmother sold me my mare, Mrs. Black. Is there something about that six degrees of separation in this story? I'm sure it can apply to horses as well as people.
  
• And, speaking of Mike Brown, my brother, he's in Scotland this week. We hear reports that the trip is going very well. They even went to Loch Ness but saw no monsters.
• Now, as I type, the sun is casting a soft golden ray through the fog, and the Taylor's misty field across the road has turned temporarily sepia. Mighty pretty.
  
• Bill hiked to another metal lookout yesterday. Kiwi accompanied him while I stayed home and washed windows, brush hogged some more, weed et, cleaned house and interviewed a man from Oklahoma for an Appaloosa Journal story. Bill said the visibility was hardly what we enjoyed last Saturday because of cloud cover. This lookout was on Saddle Mountain, and he said cow trails kept leading him astray, but he finally came upon the tower after figuring that if he just kept climbing upward through the clouds, it would be there.
  
• Today we're taking the horses to my sisters' facility where there's a weekend clinic. I talked my sister Laurie and the clinician Monty Collison into pooling their experience and know-how in an effort to teach me what to do with Casey and his harness and to teach Casey what not to do when we hook up the cart behind him. We'll work in the indoor arena and just continue some driving, then add some poles for him to pull and hopefully add the cart by tomorrow afternoon. I hope it works. If it does, we'll be practicing every chance we get up and down South Center Valley Road and through our fields and forest.
  

So, off I go on this lovely fall Saturday where the clouds blocking Schweitzer are now gone but the sepia stays in the field to the east. I read this morning that our area is now considered world class----on days like this, I agree.

Happy Saturday to all.