My Friend Mike Glick... A Little More...

A little something my friend Mike posted on his face book....

At the local "Whole Foods" market, known by locals as the "Whole Paychecks" market, you can discover the most amazing flours, grains, pastas, nuts(of the leguminous variety, although the hominine is also abundant), herbs, spices, oils, hone

ys, salts, and yes, Rices! 

Most recently my curiosity effected the purchase of some "Forbidden Rice". Appearantly a favorite of Emperors of China's past.

This rice has the size and shape of common Brown rice, but is jet black as the ace of spades. Boils to a perfect wild rice, firm but tender texture in a short 35 minutes. Has a unique to rice, fruity almost grape like flavor. And, once cooked and served, portrays an exact likeness to a half a cup of moist, fresh, steaming in It's scoop sized serving portion on your plate, pile of mouse poop!

Even for myself and my cast iron constitution, it made me take pause before consuming a fork full.

When watching those little, black gems, all uniformly cylindrical and pinched to a fine point at either end, a perfect turd facsimile. Dropping from my fork in pairs and trios, it took my memory back in time to my old Colorado shed row I shared with my horses. Before making camp in my very own stall, I cleaned up numerous five gallon bucket loads of rodent dukie. 

Even after making camp, mouse poop remained a theme of daily existence. From the mornings, waking up to my bedroll being sprinkled with poop from the night's activity of rodentia in the shelving above my bunk. To the evenings constant scurrying and scampering with the hub of the "night life" centered around my chuck box, in the shelves above my bunk area.

I watched the springs crop of young grow into maturity that winter, munching on my stores of bread, crackers, cheese, and chocolate bars.

I worried at first! You know, seeing the miniscule nibble marks at the corners of my cheeses and chocolates. Gnawed right throught the wrappers, bite marks resembling those left from a lilliputian cheese grater.

Finding evidence of their approval in my shopping selections in the form of not yet dried turds on the tops of my sardine and chili bean cans. 

But, after time my concerns waned with the thought that, "really, there's not much the mice could catch from me biting over their nibble marks in cheese and chocolate or bread? They should be fine with sharing." 

And, "this is whole grain bread, those little, black things are some kind of seed kernal..... I think? Well, come on Mike, they have to be, the way they "crunch" is too hard to be a little Fiffel's #2 ?"

After more thought "Awhh, they're tasteless anyway, who cares?" 

Funny how the resemblance of rice to mouse poop could create such a "Deja Vu"? That being the thought, "Is that a mouse turd, or something edible?" 

Concluding with, "Hmm, doesn't taste bad... Couldn't be!?!"

My Turkey Day!

Another great Thanksgiving in the books!  :0)  Didn't take as many pictures this year as last...and we didn't have a 4-Wheeler Rodeo this year either.  Why?  Because we all remember how poorly it went last year!  Who says we can't learn from our mistakes?  LOL!!

Parked my self in front of my computer to down load my pictures... AND Blogger said I'd used too much data again... and wanted to charge me.  I thought again??  :0(  So I used a round about move to get pictures up...  And they are kinda huge.  Oh, well...it's the thought and effort to skip paying $3.00 a month to express my inner most yammering that matters the most.  Right?!?  Heheheee!!!

You know your husband loves you and your sister when he offers to lead the smallest cutest horse of the bunch...AND lets you take his picture while he's doing it!  I am sooo lucky... aren't I?

April ripping it up, showing off for Chad!

Tari getting in the "Wild Horse" mode!  L.O.V.E. this mare!!

Speedy!  It was 30 degrees outside... so the blurriness is his breath.  He wasn't being wild that morning.  So this is the best that I got.  Kids...

Wyatt!!

Aren't his hands funny?  Two guns!!  He was leading his Uncle Chad to the garage to see his sand/dirt box.  He shares so well for an only child!!

I'm sure Chad was telling him something oh, so important...  OR making better motor sounds than his mom and aunt...

Wyatt's Mustang!  This kid loves this car.  And it's pretty fast.  Actually crazy fast for a wee person!  He did laps around the driveway until we made him park for a while!

His Seven dog liked all the running around!

Testing the pies...  Wyatt tested and approved!!

Then he sang Happy Birthday to me, and let me take his picture while he did...

Then he blew out the candle and cleaned it off for me!  Such a good kid!!

The day after Thanksgiving we went down to the water and walked off some of our Thanksgiving Dinner!
Check out how clever his bike is rigged for parents and kids.

Vaaarrooom, vaaarrrooom!  He makes lots and lots of car noises.

Notice how the handle position has changed?  If the parent grabs that, they can turn the front wheel...if Wyatt's parents do that, he turns around and says "hey, I'm driving...not you!"  He is too smart for his own good!

And he's done...  So we went to Mexican for Margaritas!
I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!
We sure did!!

My Friend Mike Glick

Here's a little introduction!!  :0)

This for the record is how Mike dresses everyday...  He loves the 10 gallon hats, says they are dapper.  Says they came from a time when men knew how to dress.

Mike seriously should have been born 100 years ago or even earlier.  He is the most unique person I've met that is my age... I've met lots of  older than me people whose mold was broken, but never one as young as Mike.

And for the record, Chad thinks he's pretty dang cool too!  :0)

A Poem From FaceBook... I love it!!

No Rest for the Horse

There's a union for teamster and waiter,

There's a union for cabman and cook,

There's a union for hobo and preacher,

And one for detective and crook.

There's a union for blacksmith and painter,

There is one for the printer, of course;

But where would you go in this realm of woe,

To discover a guild for the horse?

He can't make a murmur in protest,

Though they strain him both up and down hill,

Or force him to work twenty hours

At the whim of some drunken brute's will.

Look back at our struggle for freedom—

Trace our present day's strength to its source,

And you'll find that man's pathway to glory,

Is strewn with the bones of the horse.

The mule is a fool under fire;

The horse, although frightened, stands true,

And he'd charge into hell without flinching

'Twixt the knees of the trooper he knew.

When the troopers grow old they are pensioned,

Or a berth or a home for them found;

When a horse is worn out they condemn him,

And sell him for nothing a pound.

Just think, the old pet of some trooper

Once curried and rubbed twice a day,

Now drags some damned ragpicker's wagon, 

With curses and blows for his pay.

I once knew a grand king of racers,

The best of a cup-wining strain;

They ruined his knees on a hurdle,

For his rider's hat covered no brain.

I met him again, four years later,

On his side at the foot of a hill,

With two savages kicking his ribs,

And doing their work with a will.

I stroked the once velvety muzzle,

I murmured the old name again,

He once filled my purse with gold dollars;

And this day I bought him for ten.

His present address is "Sweet Pastures,"

He has nothing to do but eat,

Or loaf in the shade on the green, velvet grass,

And dream of the horses he beat.

Now, a dog—well, a dog has a limit; 

After standing for all that's his due,

He'll pack up his duds some dark evening, 

And shine out for scenes which are new.

But a horse, once he's used to his leather,

Is much like the old-fashioned wife;

He may not be proud of his bargain,

But still he'll be faithful through life.

And I envy the merciful teamster

Who can stand at the bar and say:

"Kind Lord, with the justice I dealt my horse,

Judge Thou my soul today."

Anonymous from Songs of Horses, 1920

Oh, the fun!

Where to begin??

Chatting on the phone with Mindy about 10 days ago, I walked into the barn and found the frost free/non-freezing water spigot hissing.  Mindy confirmed my fears...it's needing repair/replaced.  Wahooo!

I relayed my problem to my husband.  Oh, boy he was excited.  Not.  He also failed to react as quickly as I'd like.  So I chatted with the Co-Op employees and took home a new handle/spout and  and actual entire replacement unit.

I then decided to start with replacing the handle myself... First issue, the shut off valve was leaking...then the handle/pipe was painted together, and I then failed to get the pipe wrench braced against the wall, so when I tried to turn the handle, I ended up turning the entire unit.

This I knew was not good.  So I stopped and insisted ye ol' husband give me a hand on Sunday.  Hoping for the best and planning for the worst, we went out Sunday morning hoping for at the most a couple of hours of work.

Well, of course that was not to be...  We first tried digging from the inside out.  What a mess.  For the record, it is impossible to properly dig out a spigot and pipe in a 26 inch square space.  So after we spent an hour trying to get to the bottom of the 5 foot bury depth of the pipe from the inside, we went and started digging towards it from the outside in.

Took us about another hour and a half to get to the bury depth from the outside.  It was awesome. Not!!  Once we were at bury depth we were able to see that there was a wee bit of damage from my attempt of fixing it myself.

I'd snapped the union at the anti back flow valve.  Awesome...  Now not only is our shut off valve at the barn leaking, we can't easily fix this issue now!!

Oh, did I mention that it was 26 degrees outside while we were working?  And that is was trying to snow off and on then entire time?

ALL the animals served as quite the peanut gallery.

I bought a new water tank...300 gallons, hoping to keep Fi out of it...and away from the heater!  She wasted my last heater...

The donkeys begged for food.  The horses did too...

Then Fiona put her head through the fence, so that Chad could be irritated with her as well as the really cool job his wife had him helping her with!

The dogs played, then whined about the cold...

I'd put them in the house for 15 minutes or so.  Then let them back out.

It's become obvious that we've got to get Seven a coat and Kage a new one.  It's just too cold for the hairless dogs.  Abbi doesn't seem to notice a thing about the weather!  (0: 

After we marched all around the property with the "key" checking all the turn off's hoping beyond hope that one of them cut the barn water off from the main line, we had to accept defeat.

The only way to  turn off the water at the barn and the leaking valve was to turn off the water to the entire property.

Our plan of attach was not to take a break and warm up and then dig everything out more, so that we could measure everything and figure out what we needed from Home Depot.

So we did that...then we talked about how much daylight we had to work with in the evenings...

Then we talked about what our limits were...  Then we talked about a plumber... Then we talked about finding someone through references...  Then we talked about who to call...

Then I had an epiphany...

I'd call Jake, my farrier!!

After about 5 hours of digging, head scratching, head aching, loud complaining, and going from sweating like crazy to freezing, I reached out for a life line!

And Jake came through big.

I placed a call on Sunday afternoon, dropped Jake's name (he told me to).  And before noon on Monday afternoon, I had my water fixed.  It wasn't expensive and it took less than 45 minutes.  And now we're up and running.

I do have to finish filling in the hole tomorrow...I ran out of time, and energy tonight...and for the life of me can't find the tamper...  But I've got part of my back fill done and everything is in good working order.

Who's my go to guy for info this month?

My farrier!

I figure I owe Jake a couple of cocktails for the help...so before this weekend, I'll hit up the liquor store so I can go by Jake's house for a proper thank you!  (0:

**Not sure why blogger posted my pictures out of order.  Guess it's having one of those days...**

Happy Veterans Day