Recently Written
Categories
- 5 Links for Friday
- aggie stuff
- cats
- cattle
- Contests
- dogs
- family
- ferrets
- fond memories
- horse shows
- horses
- La Cocina de Kalin
- school
- sheep
- sisters
- sorority stuff
- tennessee walkers
- Uncategorized
- university farm
- vocabulary lessons
- website stuff
Archives
Admin
- Login
- Wordpress
- XHTML
Search

Nov

6

The New Kid

Filed Under dogs | Leave a Comment

This is Monty!

He is the new kid around here.

Jun

25

Lil is Losing It

Filed Under dogs, family, sisters | Leave a Comment

Today we were driving down from Washington, back to Oregon, when Lil exclaimed, “Look! Corn!” I looked. It was a vineyard.

To be fair, she HAS done a lot of driving. We drove thru about a quarter of OR and the entire length of WA yesterday. By “we” I mean “Lil,” since I have done zero driving so far. I think maybe she’s worried about the fact that I’m on prescription pain killers, or maybe I’m doing such a good job as navigator that she doesn’t want to lose that. I’d just like to take this opportunity to mention that we have NO real maps, either. Just small maps from hotels and brochures. That makes everything even more of an adventure!

So I am chauffeured around until we stop, at which point I get out and shuffle around, sassing my driver and waiting for my next pill. I’m basically reenacting the last few years of Bradley’s life. Speaking of whom, something about this trip has made me miss him a lot. Maybe it’s seeing everyone and their brother out and about with their dogs, or being on the old laptop and seeing pictures of him I haven’t seen in a while. Whatever reason, he’s been on my mind a lot lately.

Tonight we are back in Oregon, where you are not allowed to pump your own gas. We’re in the same hotel and same room we had 2 nights ago. We have a partial view of the ocean and in the morning get to go visit the tide pools again, along with our little starfish and sea anemone friends. I bet they missed us!

Tomorrow, I think the plan is to head south on the coast (picture posted on my Twitter) and see what we can see of the sea!

Mar

29

My Old Friend

Filed Under dogs | 6 Comments

1995-2009

My Bradley boy passed away yesterday.

He was the best thing that ever happened to me, and while I know he had a good long life, I still feel like a big chunk of my heart’s been ripped out.

Rest in peace, Brow boy. I love you.

Feb

12

Lame Duck

Filed Under dogs, horses | Leave a Comment

I bet you thought I’d been eaten by a bear, didn’t you? I haven’t been, in case that wasn’t obvious. I dare say Olio is even doing SLIGHTLY better at being a guard dog, probably because he feels so much peer pressure radiating off of the internet. Though now that I think about it, I walked up to the house after my traditional 1:30AM horse watering/stall cleaning (the horses LOVE me when I wake them up, flip on the barn lights, and go poking around their stalls at that hour) and found that Olio had been chillin’ under the porch instead of keeping watch out by the barn. Oh well. Baby steps.

My life took a very exciting turn a few days ago when it reached SIXTY DEGREES! The snow melted, the ice melted, and the sheer quantity of mud (coupled with my knee-high rubber boots) made me wonder how the hell I was EVER going to outrun a bear if need be. I was not the only victim of the mud, as a certain young horse of mine took a wrong step while being a dork out in the pasture and has pulled a muscle. Now he’s stuck in a stall until he’s healed, which you can be sure puts him in a VERY pleasant mood, which in return puts me in an EVEN MORE pleasant mood while dealing with him.

Maybe the aforementioned (pleasant) mood is why I apparently attempted to take out my rage on a cough drop. While viciously crunching it, I felt an extra crunch — and not a good one — and promptly spat out pieces of a tooth. I like to think that maybe my jaw is just super buff, but in reality I think that my teeth or so chalk-like that it would have exploded had I chomped down on a pad of warm butter. I was hoping that it was just a filling that had fallen out, but a trip to the dentist assured me that no, the filling is there, “hanging in midair,” as my dentist so creatively described it. That tooth had a terribly uneven filling-to-tooth ratio, which evidently led to the tooth crumbling dramatically when a Halls cough drop depleted its will to live. This tragedy necessitates a crown (and not the good kind with the jewels and gold and matching scepter), which is kind of absurdly expensive. I mean, for the amount it costs for them to make one little half fake tooth thingermajigger-type crown and install it, I could probably get a little gold one made, maybe with some tasteful emeralds and sapphires, and have it embedded into my gums.

Jan

23

I’m In Danger

Filed Under dogs | 8 Comments

I like to go out to the barn a lot, sometimes at night. For many years I’ve been accompanied by a big angry dog that some of you may recognize as my slightly moody companion, Bradley. Bradley would go out to the barn with me, hang out and then escort me back inside.

But Bradley is old, so his apprentice — his little padawan — his unpaid intern — now accompanies me. Who is that, you ask?

Why, it is this emotive little fellow.

Olio is always eager to go outside, but once out there, his performance is a little… lackluster. And by “lackluster,” I mean, “riddled with failure.”

You see, Olio is a wuss. A pansy. A lily liver. A yellow-belly. And he demonstrates it by abandoning me out in the barn. Sometimes I come back inside, calling for him, only to find out that he’s already inside, having been let in by The Enabler, er.. I mean… Mom.

I tried explaining to Mom (within earshot of Olio) that I could be attacked by a bear while out there. It’s not like we have bears roaming around the yard frequently, but I have a number of fears regarding my natural predators, including but not limited to:
1) Being attacked by a bear and eaten.
2) Being attacked by a snake because I’ve stepped on it.
3) Being attacked by a mountain lion because they are historically jerks.
4) Being attacked by a fluffy, domestic weasel for providing it the wrong type of kitten kibble.

Imagine my horror when, mere days after this incident, a news story came out (complete with a number of pictures) of a black bear being spotted in a field about 1.5 hours North of here. A BEAR. NEARBY. And I’m stuck with an abandoning little terrier. Didn’t they make a movie about this very situation? Maybe I’m thinking of “The Four Feathers.”

I tried to get video footage of Olio being tormented by our barn cat, who runs after him and frightens him, but I couldn’t get anything good. Why? Because he was standing right behind my legs, using me as a human shield between him and the barn cat (which, I should mention, is actually a barn KITTEN).

So. Anybody have a bear dog you’d like to give me?

Dec

21

Ketchup

Filed Under dogs, horses | Leave a Comment

Alright, since there’s no way I’m ever going to get around to writing posts about all the things happening the last few weeks, here’s a brief rundown.

.
Finals week was hard. I was sick and trying to organize a move back home and trying to do well on my finals. We had our annual sorority senior picnic at my house, which consisted of delicious grilled cheese and tomato soup. We also ate this delicious cake!

I packed up my car and drove home in a blizzard-type thing, though the roads weren’t terribly bad until about halfway home. Right before I stopped at a hotel, I passed this excessively-lit home and drove around the block a few times, trying to find a place to take a picture. A car was parked outside and I felt like they were watching me watching them. But whatever, I say, when you crisscross multiple strands of light across the walls of your home, you WANT attention.

The next morning, about an hour into my drive, I passed this little pond. I tried to get pictures of the mist rising off of it and the frosty grass and the ice, because it was very pretty. That’s a hard feat to accomplish when your hands are frozen into something resembling a T-Rex arm.

Santana was happy to see me when I got home (as clearly evidenced by his expression). He’d been moved home while I was still away at school, so I think he was confused as to where the heck he was.