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Sunday, February 27, 2011

Pandora

I adora Pandora, the devil made me say that. I am not talking about the jewellery line here, I'm talking about the internet radio station. Here's what I'm currently listening to.

1. A station built around John Cale's Hallelujah.  I first heard this song at a wedding reception I photographed. This gives me the softer side of alternative rock. Try listening to this and the Hawaiian version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," it's incredible.

2.  A station built around Coldplay. This is when I want something harder.

3. A station built around the Beach Boy's Pet Sounds.  This is my house cleaning music.

4. A station built around Alison Kraus and Roseanna Cash, my driving around music.

If you adora Pandora, let me know your favorites.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

How Do I Hate This Weather Let Me Count the Ways

1. I hate not being able to ride.
2. I hate dirty snow and icy mud.
3. I hate having to creap down the roads that take me to the interstate.  Is it just wet or is it black ice, that is the question,
4. I hate shoveling snow.
5. I hate dry winter skin and hair.
6. I hate the colors brown, black and grey and am thoroughly sick of my winter clothes.
7. I hate not being able to be outside.
8.  I hate the dark.

How about you?  What do you dislike about winter?

Oh yes, here's my activities with my horse.

1.  Go get horse.
2. Lead horse from pasture to stall.
3. Take off blanket.
4. Groom horse and clean hooves.
5. Tell horse repeatedly that "no we are not going to go for a walk, that mud's like ice."
6.. Put blanket back on horse.
7.  Go get horse's dinner and put it in the bucket.
8. Go get  horse's hay.
9.  Give horse a hug and a kiss.
10.  Leave barn
Both us are bored out our minds and by the time it gets nice enough to ride, she'll be too pregnant to do anything.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

I Kidd You Not

Last night the hubby and I went to hear the group Project Object, a Zappa tunes group, at a venue that makes me crazy.  But oh well, the hubster is a huge Zappa fan, and as we all know, you have to give a little.  Well after about a half an hour of listening to the sound system screach while they were testing it and all the screamers, I decided I'd go outside where it was quiet for a few minutes.

I told hubby that I'd be right back and went on out.  Standing around were a woman my age, two young women who looked to be their late twenties and a fancy pants man.

We started talking about the venue, and the woman my age offered up the opinion that a martini softened the conditions and two made it bearable, and by your third, you'd be singing along.  I, unfortunately had to tell her that by my second, I'd have to be carried out.  We then talked about Zappa, the dedication of the monument downtown and how cute, Dweazil is.

It was then that Mr. Fancy Pants piped in that he met his current girlfriend at the Dweazil concert.  "Oh, we said," Yes and she's a millionaire" he continued.

Obviously the jerk had never spent anytime around mares, or he would have seen all the ears go flat back and the tails start twitching. Nope oblivious to all he continued with, and I quote,"She found out that I manufacture and distribute sex toys and was just fascinated."  As soon as he shut his mouth, all four of us, in unison went, "Oooh gross," with the appropriate facial expressions.

Well, he skulked away.  This was not the response he had anticipated. And the four of us proceeded to have hysterics.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Is This Gorgeous or What - NOT

Take a look folks, this is what our landscape looks like, everything is a lovely washed out shade of mud brown.


Cute isn't it.  Oh well. Maybe next month the grass will start to green up a bit.

PS:  That's Braveheart on the far left.

Friday, February 11, 2011

The Dead of Winter is Over

Well here we go with round two of this post. Oh well.

OK, the abbreviated version.  The dead of winter is from January 21st to February 10th. From here on in, everyday it's going to get noticeably lighter and marginally warmer. To add to that happy thought, according to weather.com we're in for a February thaw.  The Greenland Block, whatever that is has gone and the Jet Stream has moved and it's going to get better.  DarC, mes amis, I don' t know if you are too far north to feel this, but we south of the Mason Dixon line definitely will.

I can't tell you how much I hate the dead of winter and the thing that I hate the most is the dark. The cold I can deal with, but the dark I find depressing in the extreme. My photography work dries up and this winter instead of having pretty snow scenes to photograph, we have had dirty ice and icy mud.  And dirty ice and icy mud do not a lovely picture make.

It became a real chore to feed the deer. It's one thing to tromp through the snow and quite another to maneuver yourself across the ice rink that my backyard has turned into. I really began to question what I had gotten myself into and why in the world I was doing it. But yesterday something amazing happened.

When I go out to feed the deer I call them and they arrive. They usually stand about ten feet away while I'm spreading their food out. They get six pitchers full. They're really hungry now, so as I start spreading the food for them, they have at it.   But as soon as I approach them to put more food out they run away. It's sort of like a dance.  There is one half grown fawn that I've started calling Braveheart, because he (who knows the sex, she could easily be a female) stays longer and looks right at me.  I always talk to them while I'm dumping out their food. And this winter,  it's been all about how animals who are being fed by people who have other, better things to do, should at least be a little grateful and not hiss, flip their tails and run away. 

Yesterday, I noticed that Braveheart was slightly limping, so when he looked at me, I told him he didn't have to be afraid, I wasn't going to hurt him, and if he had to leave, because it was so icy, he should walk away, and not run.  He stood still while I was talking to him, and then while looking at him, I got a picture in my mind of him walking away and the route he should take.  And damn, if he didn't turn and walk away, taking the route I had just pictured.

"Holy crap," I thought to myself, what on earth has just happened here.

Stay tuned folks. It will get better. There will again be pictures on this blog. And as soon as it's warm enough, I going to start my photo lessons up. We are going to begin with shutter speed and shooting raw, and by that I do not mean naked.

PS: Isn't it wonderful that I can make spelling mistakes in two languages.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Animal Tales

I was going to call this post, Mr. Squirrel's bad day and then I heard the second story so here we go.

Now before you all start feeling really sorry for Mr. Squirrel, I'd like you to keep in mind that he had spent the day in my deer chow bin, munching and napping, nice and dry and out of the cold.  Well by late afternoon, Mr. Squirrel had finished his dinner and was ready for dessert,  when what should have presented itself? An apple, from somewhere he found a nice ripe apple.  He could hardly believe his luck.  With the apple safely in his mouth, he proceded to the tree line and home.

Unfortunately as he was crossing the yard with his prize firmly attached to his mouth who should arrive, but a deer who took one look at him and thought, "yippie it's an apple." And my cat Squigg, who thought, "yippie, it's a squirrel. Both deer and cat converged at once. Poor Mr. Squirrel, what was he to do?  He thought for a second and then dropped the apple and ran for safety in a tree.  He spent the next few minutes cussing out the two who had made him lose his prize. Suffice it to say, the deer ate his apple and Squigg walked away empty handed.

Story #2

My niece, was in bed recovering from the flu, when her fiance shouted out from the living room.  Sweetie, will you please stop texting me all this nonsence. She shouted back, I am not texting you.  He said oh yes you are, you've texted me five times and it's been nothing but gibberish.  Niece then replied, excuse me I am not texting you I don't even know where my phone is.

Determined to get to the bottom of this dilemma, fiancee called her in order to find the phone.  It was under the sofa and their rat terrier, Mason was holding it in his paws and lightly chewing on it.  Somehow he had managed to compose and send texts.  Pretty clever if you ask me.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Some Thoughts on This Winter

A few weeks ago I had a rotten cold, so I stayed home and spent some time watching TV. Something I usually don't do, except for the odd HGTV show.  Well I watched a show on the history channel about the mini ice age which occurred between 1400 - 1800, and it was just fascinating.  One of the topics they brought up was, what scientists now think might have been  responsible for the mini ice age. One theory was that the melting glaciers, yes the glaciers were melting because of the warmer than average world temperatures, go figure, dumped so much fresh cold water into the ocean that one of the major ocean currents, became much colder than usual. Interesting.

The next theory was that there were five volcanoes in a five year period.  What are we up to now, three.

Then I switched to the weather channel and they said that one reason for our hideous winter is that the same ocean current was a few degrees colder than usual which was causing a colder and wetter than normal winter.  Oh jump for joy.

Well all I can say, is that I for one do not want a 110 degree summer.  If we're going to have these nasty winters, the least that the angry weather gods could do is let us have a nice summer.