Tuesday Twitterdeedum

Bill's headed off to work with the Jimmy. It's gonna be serviced today so that it's good to go this Friday when I take a trip over to the coast. This is "get outa town" weekend, and from what Annie has planned, we have a lot of fun in store.

~~~~

In the meantime, there's tall grass to mow, tall weeds to pluck and fence wire in tall wet grass to secure to metal posts. The horses have eaten down Pasture No. 1 pretty significantly, especially since Lily came home.

We wanted to save Pasture No. 2 for hay because it's so thick one can hardly walk through it without getting tangled in the grass. Each of the options we considered, however, had a drawback, so we opted to forego the haying possibilities.

When I do turn them into the second pasture, I hope I can find them, and I know I'll be doing a lot of walks down the lane to retrieve them before they eat too much and get sick. That's always a problem with horses and their sensitive digestive systems when the grass is too rich.

~~~~

Our 35th anniversary has come and gone. Bill and I enjoyed a quiet evening at home, dining on steak dinner and fresh-baked brownie dessert. The kids took us to dinner when they were home last weekend, so we'd done enough celebrating on the town. It was nice to have a relaxing time at home---just as much gift as anything else could be.

My brother Kevin and his wife Joyce celebrated 41 years yesterday. Both of us can't believe where the years have gone. I guess we now look forward to the next milestone and hope that it will slow down just a bit. I know we will.

~~~~~

It's a big writing week for me. Just finished a story about Cooper and his mom for the Co-Op Country News. I featured a photo and some thoughts on him last week on the blog.

Today I'm moving on to a mapmaker in the forest industry. He's a GIS-GPS specialist who finds a lot of "corners" for landowners so they can figure out the proper boundaries.

There's a lot of technical stuff about his story that I have to master (oops, hardly master but at least gain some understanding) before I actually plunge into writing. That's what I like about these forest products profiles---just like anything in journalism---always learning a little about a lot of things.

That's also why I never tire of writing these stories.

~~~~~

So, Austin Daye left Gonzaga to go to the NBA. The big announcement came yesterday, and ya know what, I didn't even frown about it.

I do remember frowning a lot wihenever the big boy made all those facial grimaces in total wonderment every time a referee called a foul. Wonder how long he'll get away with that in the NBA.

Mr. Daye played well---most of the time---but all of the time, it was obvious, by his little-kid theatrics he had some growing up to do. I'm sure he'll have no choice but to do that in the pros. In the meantime, I think Gonzaga will roll along providing some exciting college basketball for the fans and an excellent education for the Bulldog squad.

Being an old teacher, I think the NBA ought to provide a better example by telling those players to stay in school and get their education---then come and see us. Soapbox over.

~~~~~

I borrowed a mounting block with three steps for the WOW luncheon the other day. Kathy needed it for people to walk on stage from the right side during the program. Co-Op Country Store was nice enough to loan it to the group. Over the weekend, before taking it back, I thought and thought and yesterday, I bought.

We can use something like that around here for several jobs---especially standing next to tall horses or trying to get on tall horses. So, even though I could maneuver my way up on to Lily from the ground, I'll use the mounting block, and I know Laurie will appreciate it as she works Lily every day in preparation for the first July horse show.

I rode Lily down past Eva Whitehead's the other day. Instead of a bucket of bolts with a cranky, unyielding gear shift, Lily has turned into a sports car with automatic transmission. Just a subtle hint gets her into the smoothest, most comfortable jog I've ever ridden. Big difference from last year's torture (mine) of killing my leg muscles while kicking her in the side and begging her to "MOVE."

So, I guess I got my money's worth from Monty's training. No more rubber belly.

~~~~~~

Well, my blog published before I finished it, so I guess that's a hint to shut up and get outside.

Happy Tuesday.