Pitter Patter Pretty Puddles

 

Usually, I don't see much beauty in puddles.

These, however, are welcome puddles, and their mere appearance is awesome as we approach mid-August.

I read on a couple of Facebook posts this morning that after the downpour had finished its dump last night, the temperature went down by 20 degrees.

We enjoyed that sensation in real time.  One minute we were walking around, barely tolerating the heat and the the stickiness of sweat while listening to thunder boomers.  

A  few minutes later, we rejoiced on the deck as clouds let loose, raindrops pounded everything in their path, rainbows formed and that beastly warm air quickly turned cool and most welcome. 

This morning, along with the puddles, there's a lovely breeze blowing, and most of the layers of dust are gone from shrubs, bushes and tree limbs.

What a wonderful, unexpected cleanse and welcome break in the ongoing marathon of hot and sultry days. 

We have more brutal heat coming next week with triple digits once again forecast.  So, to have last night's break was not only great for the earth but also refreshing for all the minds and bodies roaming the planet in this area.  

Puddles, you are mighty pretty this morning.  

Yesterday's sky offered amazing sights throughout the day with billowly artistic clouds backed by blue in the afternoon, eventually turning dark and ominous in the evening. 

Farm fields with stacks or rows of harvested hay stationed in lush green grass cut quite a sight pretty much everywhere I drove around the area. 

It's actually pretty amazing to see so much green during August.  Last night's rain should ensure its presence for the next few days. 

Since this is a Gooby field on Gooby Road northwest of town, I think it's appropriate to include Dick Gooby's latest, very shocking story from his Gooby Ranch over in Montana.

 

Gooby Ranch Report 1:

We have a small herd of Delicious Gooby Beef that we put out onpasture every spring. Since we try to use the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service methods, we have the pasture divided into 35

small pastures to utilize intensive grazing.

 The pastures are separated by an electric fence which Mary Ann moves each day, giving them fresh

grass. The cows have been doing this for years so they are very well-educated as to the penalty for touching the fence. The calves soon learn too.

This year we bought a new young bull. Being as he was raised in a bull corral, poles and metal panels, he had never seen an electric fence. We kept him in our bull pen until it was time to turn him out with “the girls.”

After initially getting acquainted with the herd, he decided to see if the grass was greener on the other side of the fence. He went through the

electric fence so fast he didn’t even get a shock. But he did take out a quarter of a mile of wire plus all the fence posts.

 Mary Ann had to rope him and drag him back to the bull pen. Then she spent the rest of the day repairing the damage. When she turned him out the next day, as soon as he had visited all his lady friends, he again set off for greener pastures with the same results.

Mary Ann has a shock collar she uses when she’s training her cow dogs. With it she can give them a jolt whenever they need reminded of the error of their ways. She decided maybe this would also work with the bull. 

Luckily Mary Ann hasn’t tried to put it on me. Since his neck is much, much larger than the dog’s, she had a lot of modification to do. If she ever wants to use it on the dog again, she will have to wrap it around

his neck four times.

Mary Ann put the collar on the bull, turned him out. The idea was that as soon as he got close to the electric fence, she would give him a jolt.

She did and he was so shocked he jumped straight ahead through the fence.

After a couple of times of this, she put a rope around the bull’s neck and gave the end to me. My job was to hold onto the rope and keep him from going forward through the fence when she shocked him with the

collar. 

This might have worked except as he jumped forward, he snatched me off my feet and drug me through the fence with him. 

He may not have felt the electric fence jolt, but I can guarantee you I sure did. I had so much electricity in me, that night we didn’t need to turn the light on.

The next day I couldn’t help Mary Ann train the bull since I had a couple movies I had to watch. I went out at noon to see how Mary Ann was doing. 

The bull was walking up to the fence but didn’t touch it. It looks like my watching the movies really paid off for Mary Ann.

While putzing around my old neighborhood yesterday afternoon, I drove through what was once our family's farm fields.

The Upper Tibbs Place, as we called it, served as Bill's and my home for the first three years of our marriage.

While living in the rather tiny house on the hill overlooking the railroad tracks on Great Northern Road, we often wandered through the fields where our dad pastured his cattle. 

The picture above portrays its present state, complete with sidewalks and a cement walking path.   

Forty-plus years ago I could never have imagined that the farm would look like it does today.  

More than likely, just one of those dozen or so homes in the development sold for three or four times the price my folks accepted when they sold the 19 acres. 

Progress!  

A word which definitely suggests different meanings to different folks. 

I was also reminded during my drive through the Subdivision USA portion of north Sandpoint yesterday that the fair is coming up next week. 

Since my pumpkins are still only about two inches around, they won't be vying for purple ribbons.  They'll just have to stay home in the manure pile and keep growing this year. 

Activity at the fairgrounds, including some early decorating, is on the rise, and it's gonna stay that way for the next ten days. 

The main problem I saw with this display outside the fairgrounds main exhibit building is that those rear ends look all too familiar. 

 I don't know who they used for models, and fortunately neither do the models, cuz, of course, they were walking away when the images were recorded. 

Glad we don't deal with too many rear-view selfies in our lives. 

The good thing is that it seems like the bigger the posterior, the better the flowers. 

Happy Friday.  

And, Happy Birthday thoughts to my mother who would have been 101 today.