Tuesday TwitterdeeKEEEEE--HOE

It's Election Day 2011, and the city closest to where I live has a mayoral position up for grabs.  So, I'm gonna put in an endorsement.  

KEEE-HOE for mayor of Kootenai.

Mike Keough is the perfect candidate to take over the reins of Kootenai's city government for many, many reasons.

First, we could keep him off the golf course.  Mike has been taking up far too much time at the links since he retired from his teaching career. Governmental duties could add  some variety to his life.

Mike has an excellent mentor at home to teach him the ropes.  His wife Shawn happens to be one of my favorite politicians---or should I say senators (state or national).  Shawn is far more a senator than a politician, and that has been very good for her constituency.

I'm sure she'd be happy to help Mike out with her guidance should he get into any prickly issues affecting Kootenai. 

Mike doesn't get too excited, so I'm sure his level-headed approach to the municipal challenges of his community will bode well for its residents.

I've held Mike in high regard for a couple of decades, especially thanks to the time he served as my daughter's golf coach at Sandpoint High School.  

Golf provided a wonderful dimension and discipline to Annie's life, and her coach provided her great support and encouragement during those years. 

I know that Mike has been a popular figure in the lives of many other young people, especially a couple of guys named Ted and Chris, who did daily shout-outs to their favorite teacher from the window of my Portable 2 classroom.

While Mike was trying to keep his middle-school P.E. troops in line out on the practice field, he calmly dealt with  yells resounding from the classroom just before each fifth period class began:  KEE-HOE, hey, KEE-HOE---the guys would beller.  

Once satisfied that Mike had acknowledged them, they sat down ready to learn English. 

In short, if I lived within the boundaries of Kootenai, I'd be putting an X next to Mike's name today.  

Since I'm not a city resident, I'll just shout out:  KEY-HOE, KEY-HOE, elect Mike mayor--Yo!

Even without my help, I think Mike has about a 99-percent chance of winning.  He's the only candidate listed on the ballot. 

That's about as political as I'm going to get this morning.  It's probably a safe decision.

~~~~~~Had to put horses back in the barnyard this morning.  Of course, when you leave the gate unlatched and there IS green grass on the other side, horses make good choices.

They were pretty well behaved, and the ever-magical grain can lured them back to where they belonged with no cussing and no incidents.

On another equine front, I won't be screaming or throwing handfuls of rocks at my horses for a while. 

Some day I'll take a picture of the barnyard fence and post it just to show you why I occasionally scream and fling rocks at my equine friends.  

This happens when they look me dead square in the eye and eat the board fence---as if it's grain.  

I know they do this for spite.

I scream cuz I'm mad at them, and I pick up a pile of rocks to persuade them to leave the damn fence alone. 

They run away.

I go back to whatever I'm doing.

They come back and start eating again, as a well-honed team of beavers.

I pick up rocks and scream again.

They run away . . . . and so on.

The reason they do this is that there has been no efficient deterrent other than an occasional hooking up of the electric fence.

That has been more trouble than it's worth for the past five years because I have to string the wire in front of the barn doors and across the lawn.  

They always know when they see my left-handed get-up strung across the yard that the electrical fence is on.  So, they stay away.

If there's no left-handed get-up set up, they eat the fence.

Well, this weekend, Bill and I were talking about the problem, which I've been trying to solve for years.

We were planning to look over the possibilities of a more efficient electrical fence set-up when I took a shovel, dug a hole at the north end of the barn and discovered that we already had the perfect set-up.  

My discovery that the wire from the barn ran through some PVC piping underneath the ground to a hook-up several feet north of the barn solved the problem.

Now,  turning on the electric fence simply involves plugging in the fence charger.

My horses are not thrilled.  

I am. 

Maybe the board fence will survive, and I won't need to fling any more handfuls of rocks.

~~~~~~Yesterday another notch on the way to winter happened next door.  Bert Wood hauled his cows home from their summer pasture at Meserve's.  

That means I'll be making my annual telephone call to Stan and Geneva to see if it's all right to walk the dogs through their big field.  Geneva always reminds me that I'll have to dodge the cow pies. I tell her I don't mind.

The field offers a great expanse for dogs to run and sniff the ground and for me to get my exercise, whether it's simply walking or trudging along on snow shoes.  Plus, there are usually some neat photos to be snapped.

~~~~~I read a book yesterday in record time.  A friend from way back in my childhood days sent me a note via Facebook telling me about the book, which is set in Boundary County and parts of Western Montana.

It's a novella--116 pages, published this past August.   It's written by a winner of the National Book Award:  Denis Johnson. 

Suzan Cantrell Syrett told me she checked it out from her local library to see if any it dealt with any of her relatives who lived in the Bonners Ferry area.  

It's called Train Dreams.  It's surreal, and it's a great read.  

Since the book came home yesterday afternoon from Vanderford's, both Bill and I have read it and chuckled about some of the little stories within.

We found it especially intriguing because it's mostly set in the woods near Meadow Creek where my dad's mother taught in a one-room school, back in the 1920s.  

I'd recommend this to anyone who loves a gifted writer who uses snippets of history from a local area to craft a great story. 

~~~~~Well, the doggies are here with Debbie, so I'll call it a day.  Have a great Tuesday and if you're in Kootenai VOTE KEE-HOE for Mayor.