Stick Horse Cowgirls

Well, the week has been action-packed, again.  I spent all day in trial yesterday.  Will have to wait until next week for a verdict but ended with a well-satisfied feeling.  I had to d eal with some car maintenance, which is difficult to manage timewise and Dollarwise.  Someone backed into my cute little RAV4 and smashed the wheel cover.  They did not even leave a note!  That sucker was $492 to replace!  Not enough to report to insurance, but  enough to dent my budget! Also, my two-year-old car had worn out its tires.  I replaced them today….my first ever purchase of tires (or as the service guy said, “ Tars .”).  Note the addition of tire purchase under the “ Power Accomplishments ” list on the sidebar! The car drives so much better than it did, and my brakes are che cked and good and the little car just seems to be quite in good shape!  But, I gotta tell ya, that’s a budget-buster, too! All this in the midst of Toyota rec...

Daffodils are showing around here!  I am just about to convince myself that winter is over.  ‘Bout time.  For this Southern girl whose blood gets thinner each year, this winter seemed coooooooold !  I think of my friend at life through reflections when she wrote about the ocean shore near her home freezing!  Brrrrr!  Could I survive that kind of winter?  Oh, probably. We only lost power once this winter, which is a good thing, and then for only about eight hours.  Husband left me with a small gasoline generator but I cannot get it started.  I think something is wrong with it, and even when it is in good condition, it must be cranked, and I’m not a good cranker!  I loathe dealing with the weed eater with its crank cord.  I don’t mind the actually weedeating but the stopping to add line and then the re-cranking gets on my last nerve.  Besides, even when that generator works, it won’t power the well pump, just the house light...

Warning, this post may need to be a series... (and, by the way, forgive the clipart, but I can't figure out how to do actual photos on this one and preserve privacy...) As you may know, I am a lawyer. "Power" needs to be my middle name: I have to persuade judges (and, infrequently, juries), I have to scream at other lawyers. It's just, generally, not a good thing for a lawyer to appear to be powerless. Here I am, the bringer of justice (just kidding!): My mind has gone back fifteen years or so ago. There was a "pioneer judge" (we'll call her "PJ," for short) on the bench of a court in which I practiced. I call her a "pioneer" because she was one of the first women lawyers in our area. The rough-and-tumble of being one of few women in this rough-and-tumble profession had given her an edge and tough skin. She was smart, and she was forceful. She was feared by many lawyers and known for a short temper. She and I got along just fi...

I am so blessed to have great neighbors, great friends! Here I am on the farm, now single, with all this equipment that has been the sole province of my husband for the past forty years. I am playing catch up in knowing how to use and care for it all and, I must say, I am loving it! (See the post from last year, “Power Woman Update” for a look at the beginning of this equipment odyssey). My male neighbors have been such a help to me in learning about tractors and mowers and weed-eaters and such. This week’s lesson included a marvelous product called “fix a flat,” which is aerosol and you just pump it right into your flat lawn mower tire and Voila ! the leak in your tire seals right up! Amazing…all women need to know about these things… This long Memorial Day weekend was built around rain, which very much impeded my outside ambitions, but I managed to get some work done. I have developed an actual love of riding the lawn mower over our acreage. It is really satisfying work to se...