Stick Horse Cowgirls

Fifteen or so years ago my husband and I ran a boarding stable for horses.  This was to defray the expense of our horse habit—not sure it defrayed any costs, really, but it did provide us with lots of horse-nut friends.  We had “real jobs,” so our stable was a you-care-for-your-own-horse facility.  This meant that most everyone was out there every day; that, of course, meant that we all became fast friends. This picture i s similar to our barn.  It was specifically a horse barn with 28 stalls.  It was old but serviceable and time-tested.  I loved walking through, seeing our contented equines with their heads poked over their stall doors. Part of our barn family was the cat population.  Through the middle of the barn was a raised (not quite a “loft”) concrete-floor where hay was stored.  From this section we could throw hay down into the hay racks of two rows of stalls.  This huge hay expanse made a great kitty heaven, and we sure did not...

Yes, every once in a while God does something that stands out in the midst of the mundane world… I’m probably the last person on this planet to know about her, but I was flipping channels last weekend and happened upon a clip of this child on a PBS fundraiser.  I had never heard of her, but sat in total disbelief—slack-jawed, really.  Look at this video—hang in there through the America’s Got Talent promo stuff—you won’t regret it: Jackie Evancho.  She is ten years old. TEN YEARS OLD !  I did a little Googling on her and found some interviews.  What poise! The story goes that two years ago—you, know, back when she was 8?—her mother took her to see The Phantom of the Opera .  She was enchanted with the music, got the soundtrack and began singing around the house.  Mom thought she sounded pretty good.  Ya think? I guess the rest is gonna be history. Jackie says that she does not perform any special rituals before each performance—only to tha...

Well, after two years of nursing my hurt feelings over the divorce, Son has decided to take a job two and a half hours north.  It is a good opportunity for him to combine work with his passion for outdoor skills.  Much as I know it is time for him to go (and he has been good to stay as long as he has), I will miss him.  He has seen me back on my emotional feet, good son that he is.  I am thankful that he’s not out of reach, at least. My mother is worried sick.  My mother’s job in this family, however, is to worry—especially about her grandkids.  My sister and I think she’s adopted “worrier” as her identity.    She has called me with all kinds of “what ifs.”  I reminded her that not too many years ago, young men (at what? 18 or 19 years of age?) would kiss their mother’s on the cheek, saying, “ I’m off to seek my fortune” and go off into the sunset, their belongings tied in a rag on a stick. At least it’s not that bad…at least we...

I’ve written before about how I believe our animals know more about us and have more cognitive ability than we like to think. My remaining dog is a three-year-old Belgian Malinois, “Chili.”  My other pet is “Sasha,” my cat who predates Chili in this household by a couple of years. Sasha is one skittish cat.  She was born here and has never been mistreated at day in her life, but my mother and I are the only humans she wants anything to do with—making occasional exceptions for Son. Sasha has lived her entire life on my back porch and in our fenced back yard.  She has her own little kingdom back there, shared with birds, who take their lives into their own wings by being there, and a raccoon who peaceably comes to her dish to share her cat food.  She makes occasional forays outside the back yard fence, but only few.  It is to this that we attribute her long life. I have never been able to get Chili to quit thinking of Sasha as prey.  I have come to t...

I loved V’s post on vintage recipes .  I knew MawMaw—knew V’s other grandmother, too.  Elsie, I must say, was a character—a Wonder Woman.  She was a kind, intelligent woman who could have been really something in today’s world of more opportunity for women—she raised a wonderful son mostly on her own.  Now that I am “of an age” to appreciate what her life was, my hat is off to her.  V has written about her before and must again. But the topic of recipes and meals with grandmothers is what I want to talk about. Both my grandmothers came from country stock.  My paternal Grandmother, Lyda, was accustomed to cooking for farm hands.  She was a humdinger of a cook, too. When we would go to Lyda’s house for Sunday dinner, the re would ALWAYS be these things:  Fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, mashed potatoes, a salad and angel food cake with canned peaches, homemade  biscuits (I don’t remember rolls) and a variety of vegetables.  Th...

      In the many years since my grandmother Elsie’s passing in 1977, I’ve often perused my great-grandmother Ada’s recipes(Ma Ma Elsie’s mother), handwritten in faded pencil in a small, falling apart ledger book.  There are various recipes from Chow Chow, Chili Sauce, Piccalilli, Tomato Relish and homemade catsup; there are different varieties of homemade pickles,  pies, cakes and old fashioned chicken remedies!  Particularly interesting to me are the vinegar pie and buttermilk pie, and Mrs. Pruitt’s Fruit Cake (with a cup full of whiskey or spirits poured over each one and laid away for a month before serving to age to perfection!  Now, I have not tried many of these recipes, but I’m going to!  This week I’m going to make vinegar pie! After visiting Karen of    http://thisoldhousetoo.blogspot.com/ ,  earlier this week and seeing the prolific harvest from her  beautiful garden, I decided today would be the perfe...

Night before last I watched the Discovery channel’s opening episode of their “ Curiosity ” series.  If there was ever a curious person (in more ways than one!), it is I.    If the adage “curiosity kills the cat” were true and I were a cat, I’d long be dead. The pilot episode was presented by Stephen Hawking, the great British physicist/cosmologist who has become a celebrity brain, of sorts.  By the way, I have learned that a cosmologist is one who studies the origin and structure of the universe and time/space relationships.  The universe is defined by Wikipedia as “the totality of everything that exists”.  Hmmmmm.  Hmmmm.   Big topic. I am sure you have seen Stephen Hawking.  He has written several books for mass publication—for us lesser minds—seeking to open the world of physics and cosmology to those of us with more pedestrian IQs.  He is made even more remarkable by the fact that he is wheel-chair bound, almost entirel...

Yet again, blame this post on V.   She has assured me that since this has been on TV, we’ll retain our PG-13 rating. Have you seen this ad? It only confirms what I have learned in my fifth decade of life: Most everything revolves around sex. You think I’m wrong?  Nope, I’m not.  I’ve practiced family law 32 years ( shudder ) and I know this to be true.  Now.  A bit late in the day.  I would have denied this ten years ago. We women have got to get it through our heads: Men just are not as relational as women are.  They have a pull to sex  from a perspective that we don’t have.  This is not to say that we don’t like sex, too; only it is different for them and not nearly as relationship-based as we women assume.  And it pulls in a way that can lead (often) one away from family and fealty. Notice in the video—it’s the men scrapping for it. The last issue of Discover magazine has a whole article on this.  Just look at these qu...

I am born and raised in the South.  So why is it that the hot summers always seem to take me by surprise?  “ Can you believe it is so hot?!” I’ll say to someone…well, yes, it gets hot here like this each and every year, Dodo.  In my defense I must say that others make the same comments to me.  It’s just a way of making conversation, I guess, and the heat is main topic right now.  My little car registered 106 coming home yesterday, and it’s not going to let up through the rest of the week.  As I write this at 4 am, it is 86 degrees, and my computer forecast says 106 again today… V and I were talking about growing up in Arkansas in the 50’s when no one had air conditioning, not even in the car. Ooooooh , I remembe r my bare sweaty legs sticking to the car seats and driving with the windows rolled  down, glad for the warm air moving through the car.  We would fight for a “window seat” so we could lean into the air (kind of like this dog in ...