Slight Detour: Saturday MOOsings and Musings

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

“The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.”

“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”

~~~~~~~

It's American author, humorist and philosopher Mark Twain's birthday today, so I thought it would be fun to start off this last day of November with some of his thoughts.

Even though he coined them, mostly in the century before last, I think every single thought rings true today.

I wonder how many readers out there have experienced the second most important day of their lives. Twould be an interesting collection of epiphanies, I'm sure.

Anyway, it's Saturday after Black Friday, a day where I refuse to participate.

I'll buy my gifts when and how I want to, thank you. Can't imagine all the body bumping that goes on in the stores on Black Friday.

That's not to say that I'm guilt free of doing Black Fridays. I used to like those days. Sometimes we'd go to Spokane, and sometimes, after trying on hats at the Burlington Coat Factory, we'd even have lunch at the Davenport.

Some good memories, but we are all works in progress, and I've slowly progressed to staying away from the crowds.

Yesterday was pretty laid-back and disappointing when we watched the ZAGS lose.

What was nice about the game was that they did a really good job of losing.

No doubts whatsoever.

No FAKE loss.

A truly substantial loss with all the trappings.

We fans know they'll bounce back, though, and we all agreed that they lost to a great team with a neat coach.

So, we lived through that and basically just enjoyed a relatively relaxing day.

The wind blew most of the day, and it was cold and pretty much gray all day, but the sunset which emerged from all that gray was magnificent, to say the least.

In the "Who's been sleeping in my bed" category, I can say that Foster had himself a laid-back day too.

I did make the bed in the morning. When I came back from the game, Foster had done a magnificent job of unmaking it.

Hard to believe a little guy like our mini-Aussie could make such a mess, but he did, and he does so quite often, each time with a little more messy finesse.

So, I make the bed more than once a day.

I drove past these weanlings yesterday on the way home from my sisters'.

Later in the day, I decided it had been kinda serendipitous that I would take photos of cows with a "McNall connection."

Let me explain with the help of a short snippet from "Great Horned Cows" in my first book Pocket Girdles.

From Pocket Girdles: The first year I took Millie and Gilbert to the fair I learned some things about protective instinct of mother cows and about the Cow Belles' disgusting sense of humor.

As a solo act, Millie had always performed beautifully. In fact, she was such a shining example of what a cow should do when circling the show ring for inspection, that we always let the younger 4-H'ers practice with her before the fair.

Millie was one of those rare cows that had the patience and instinct to know exactly how to act when little ten-year-olds took hold of the lead rope and show stick for the first time.

Almost dwarfing the little kid beside her, she walked quietly, patiently and carefully. She knew when to stop, where to put her feet, how to hold her head up, and exactly how to pose however long it took to properly show off for the practice judge in the barnyard show ring.

She was a gem or a cow, or so I believed.

The gem was revealed to be fool's gold when Millie, now mother of Gilbert, entered the real show ring for my fitting and showing class.

That year the 4-H beef show had moved to the outdoor arena, just a few feed from the Pend Oreille River, where one of McNall's shorthorns had decided to take an unauthorized swim during a livestock event a few years earlier.

Validation of the legendary day when one of McNall's shorthorns left the old fairgrounds and went swimming in the Pend Oreille River.

Tracie Roos sent me this last night.

That's law officer Phil Bradetich steering the steer(?) and it looks like it might be Vernon Ruen steering the boat in the famous river round-up, many, many moons ago.

I'm told that Doug Bradetich found the photo in his family collection.

The McNalls and all others who tried to retrieve the errant critter were not happy about the animal's propensity for a new water sport.

Everyone who witnessed the event knew the potential for cows out of control.

I wasn't worried, though, because I had Millie, and she was my pal. I had nurtured our relationship during hours of scratching and combing her, beneath cottonwood trees on lazy summer afternoons.

I trusted my cow implicitly. As we walked side by side into the ring, I was confident we would leave the ring with another blue ribbon and maybe a chance to compete for champion showman.

It didn't happen . . . .you can read the book for the "rest of the story."