Cosumne Gal

Three Anconas and an Ancona/Leghorn cross

I have 12 hens this year that are excellent egg layers. They are mostly Anconas, which I've told you about before. They are an old breed that was used for commercial egg production before the Leghorn was turned into a robot egg laying machine. Unlike Leghorns, Anconas still retain a lot of natural chicken characteristics. That makes them healthy, strong and hardy.

It also makes them a pain in the neck. I let them out to enjoy the sunshine and a few springs of spring grass this week. And this is how they thanked me.



The darned little pigs tore up my flower beds. They uprooted the poor tulip bulbs that I've already had to replant 3 times because raccoons kept digging them up. They kicked big pieces of bark as far as they could fling them.

And when they ran out of things to destroy in the yard, a couple of them flew over the fence and ran around out where the coyote could get them. If it could catch them.


They all wandered back into their pen at dusk, unharmed. It took me quite a while to repair the damage they'd done. Next time I'll just let the little Leghorn hen out.


She's the one that broke her leg last year and I kept her in the house for a couple of months in a cast. She doesn't mess things up, she just hangs around my feet waiting for treats. She looks ratty because she still hasn't molted. The rooster did not mess up her feathers, she's done that herself. I'd make her a little jacket to wear but the Anconas that share the pen with her would probably rip it up for something to do. I need to go down by the creek where the old pumpkins were dumped and get them a nice big one to destroy.

Dee (photo from sale catalog)

This is one of 19 dogs listed in the Red Bluff catalog. I have lifted several pictures today from the catalogs.

This is her description: "Dee is a slick haired, tri-colored Border Collie that is extremely quick and bites both ends. She is very obedient and loves kids. Dee has worked a lot of yearlings inside and out. Works on whistle and voice commands. She has lots of stamina to go hard all day and has hard feet. Has been working pairs for the last 7 months."

I called a local cowboy, Mike T, this morning to find out about the dog auction at Red Bluff. He said that all the dogs were worked in a 10 acre field with 5 yearlings to show them to prospective buyers. The object is to have the dog herd the cattle into a small pen with an open gate. Later that day the dogs are sold. It's a bit early to get the 2012 results, but I found the 2011 figures for you. Last year the top price for a dog was $10,000. The average was $3200. Mike says a good dog will do the work of at least one cowboy, so it's worth the price.

For comparison, the average bull price last year was $3700 (with a total of $1,037,600 brought in at the bull auction). The average horse price was $5700, and the mule average was $3800.

Here, for my friends who have horses, are some photos I took at the sale, and some information from the sale catalog.

Nic's Hired Hand (the horse)

Catalog description: "A consistently honest, dependable gelding. He's got the beauty, brains and athletic ability you desire. Used to gather, rope, brand and doctor cattle on the ranch. Sure footed in mountains as well as flat land. Super ground covering walk and jog. Gentle and calm with speed. A kind gelding suitable for youth to senior citizen. May also go many other ways and jr. rodeo, competitive trail and pleasure riding."

KC Col Pinecone Chex

Pinecone's picture from the sale catalog

Catalog description: "Pinecone is a 15 hand, good looking, kind eyed, well bred, sooty colored buckskin with correct conformation. He has good bone and feet, and weighs approx. 1050 lbs. He has 180+ days with a professional trainer. He is by KC Buckaroo Chexx, whose get are doing well in trail, reining, halter and ranching. His dam is from the Van Norman breeding program. He is calm, responsive, trainable and enjoys having a job to do."

From the descriptions, I'd say the first horse actually has suitable ranch experience. Pinecone is pretty, but a work in progress. It will be interesting to see how much each brings in the sale. I would personally pay more for the ranch horse because I'd rather be scrambling over the rocks on a functional horse than a pretty one. Actually, I'd rather NOT be scrambling over the rocks, especially if there's a cow involved, but you get the idea.

Most of the pictures in the sale catalog showed functional horses. Here are a couple of pictures, though, that had me puzzled.

Goldie

Mystic

I interpret these pix to say "Hey cowboy! Buy these horses if you want to attract crazy or beautiful women."

Finally, something for the mule people.

Buster (the mule), my photo.

Here's Buster's catalog photo.

Buster

Catalog description: "Buster is a flashy mule with a lot of chrome. He has been used mainly in the mountains but competed in Hells Canyon Mule Days and Parade. He was Grand Champion in 2011 Hells Canyon Mule Days. He loves people and will meet you at the gate. Easy to shoe."

If a mule isn't easy to shoe, you could end up with missing teeth.

Here are a couple more photos from the sale catalog that I thought were fun.

Nitro (horse). The rider seems like a character.

Rooster (mule). This would make a fun painting.

That's it for the Red Bluff Bull and Gelding sale. You can google it online and see the entire catalogs if you want, or plan to go to the event next year and see it all for yourself. This is evidently the social event of the year for cowboys and people who appreciate them. If you're not a cowboy you can buy all the stuff when you get there that will make you look like one. Just stay away from the rhinestones and don't get too close to the livestock. And unless you're going to learn the specialized jargon, best keep quiet.

Last week I was in Hollister. This week I was in Red Bluff, which is about the same distance from home, only north on Interstate 5 instead of south. For those who live in other parts of the world, I have a map of California. Red Bluff is at the top of the Sacramento Valley.



California - the useful part - is a long fertile valley surrounded by hills and mountains. There are smaller valleys, like the one where Hollister is found, nestled between hills of the Coast Range. But for today we'll just talk about the Central Valley. The top part is drained by the Sacramento River, the bottom part by the San Joaquin. Both work their way into the ocean at San Francisco Bay.

The Central Valley is mostly home to farmers. They are people who grow crops. Ranchers are people who grow livestock. They mostly live in the grass-covered hills that surround the valley. So, we have farmers in the valleys and cowboys in the hills.

Katherine and I went here on Thursday to hang out with the cowboys.


The Red Bluff Sale is in its 71st year. It's known as THE place to buy bulls, herd dogs, and working horses or mules. The animals here are ready for the range. The dogs already know how to ride in a truck and keep cows in line, the horses haven't spent their lives in a stall, they know how to do ranch work. You can turn the bulls loose on your ranch and they'll take care of business.

We weren't in the market for any of those things.

Katherine

We were in town to check out the art show so Katherine could decide whether to enter some of her work next year. The art at this show is very diverse. There are the standard paintings and sculptures, but you'll also see custom-made saddles and silver work.


Outside, there was a large trade show with horse trailers, trucks, tractors, and just about everything you'd ever need on your ranch. I'd really like to have a Gator, one of those farmified golf carts that you can use to haul a couple of bales of hay and ride around with a dog on the seat, acting important.

Here were a few items for sale.

Spurs. That white tag says $500. The pink one is $100.

Packsaddles

Spurs and packsaddles are two of the most dangerous things pseudo-cowboys can buy. A pair of spurs can get you bucked off at the most inopportune moment, like when your horse jumps a log going down a steep hill and you inadvertently poke him in the belly as you try to hang on.

Packsaddles are responsible for some of the most spectacular horse wrecks. Cowboy wannabes throw them onto a horse and load them up, assuming that every broke horse will carry anything. That sometimes works in a corral, where you can catch them when they try to run away from all the junk jangling around on their backs. Out on the trail pack horses have been known to rip the lead rope out of a rider's hand by going on the wrong side of a tree. Or you might be sitting in a lovely mountain meadow, letting the horses grab a mouthful of grass. The pack horse lifts its head and the lead rope gets caught under the saddle horse's tail. Horses don't like that. The worst pack horse wreck I heard about happened on a narrow mountain trail, on a cliff, when the pack horse tried to pass the rider's saddle horse on the inside and squeezed it and the rider off.

Those of you who cringe at all the silly warning labels we have to deal with might be interested to know that spurs and packsaddles don't come with them. Katherine also noted that not one of the many riders we saw at the sale was wearing a helmet. If you're going to be a real cowboy, you have to be smart enough and skilled enough to keep yourself alive and well. A lot of old cowboys limp and have crooked fingers.

Several of the booths at the trade show were devoted to western wear. This was a puzzle to me because many the items were really glitzed-up, with rhinestones and other cheap, shiny crap. This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about.

$48 Purse

There were jeans with rhinestones on the butt and t-shirts with glitter all over, and boots with baubles and bows. Dude clothes. If you looked around, you wouldn't see anyone wearing that stuff.



Real cowpeople are pretty conservative. Extremely conservative, in fact.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about the horses and the dogs. This is as close as I got to the cattle, watching this fellow vacuum the shavings off his bull's butt.

Yesterday when I went to the store - the big one in Rancho Cordova, not the little one up the road in Rancho Murieta - I noticed that someone was parked in a handicap space with no placard in their window. There was a young lady driver, her car was running. Presumably she'd pulled in while her passenger ran into the store. I guess if she'd seen a cop, she would have promptly backed out and gone elsewhere.

When I came out of the store, there was another car parked in that space. It didn't have a handicap placard, either. I do have one. I appreciate it because I don't walk very well, especially if I'm carrying a bunch of packages. I don't use it, though, if I can find another space reasonably close to where I need to go.

Just when I started to get grumpy about people misusing the handicap spaces, along came the parking policeman. He took pictures of the front and back of the car, then wrote a ticket and stuck it on the windshield.

I decided to stay and see what happened. While I was waiting I tried to picture the driver. The car was modest, sort of a granny car. Probably wasn't a teenager, unless he/she was driving his parent's car. Several people who walked out of the store looked like possible lawbreakers in my mind. (This was Rancho Cordova, after all.) I thought about what I'd do if I found a ticket on my own windshield. I'd have a cow, of course. I get mad when someone leaves a flyer on my car.

I was there for half an hour doing my undercover work, disguised as a ditz playing games on her cell phone.

Finally an ancient little old lady with a hump on her back, a lady who could barely push her own cart, wobbled towards the car. She put her groceries in the trunk (you call that something else in England, don't you? the boot? the booty? No, I think that's Beyonce's butt.). Then she got in her car. She evidently saw the ticket on the window, but she didn't get back out of the car. She put a handicap placard in the window. Then she just sat there. And sat. And sat.

I finally left, thinking "there but for fortune, go I." I used to forget to put my placard in the window at least once a week at work. It didn't matter because we had no parking police and often someone would tell me, or I'd remember halfway through the day and go back out to remedy the situation. But I've often wondered what happens if a person forgets. I'm not too worried about the little old lady, if she shows up in court in person any reasonable judge would excuse her.

I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to take the picture for you that I'd anticipated: a big, burly, hairy guy ripping the ticket off his windshield and kicking his car. That's why I was playing games on my phone, so I could be discreet about using it as a camera and the big guy wouldn't come kick my car, too.

Things have otherwise been pretty dull in the little valley. It rained a bit, the wind blew a bit. It's sunny again today. The seagulls are still sitting on the lawn farmer's new crop. They don't eat it, but their big feet keep the grass squashed. This morning there are three buzzards sitting with the seagulls.

The hummingbirds are fighting over the feeder right in front of my window. I think they're Anna's, the male has a bright red head that flashes when he moves his feathers.

I haven't seen the small annoying hawks for quite a while. Saturday I was sitting in the yard, so I let the pigeons out for a while. Several came out and perched on top of their pen. I let the mutt chickens out, too, thinking they'd warn us all if a hawk was about. A flock of feral pigeons, about 400 strong, was out working in the old corn maze, pecking at ears of corn that had been plowed under. It was a peaceful, happy time. Then, all at once, the feral pigeons took off helter skelter. The mutt chickens didn't utter a squeak, they just flattened out and ran like roadrunners back to their pen. I closed their gate and they were relieved. Just then a huge hawk came swooping down over us all, ending up on the ground somewhere out in the field. I could hope it caught a gopher.

My stupid pigeons just sat on top of their pen, totally oblivious. I picked up a stick and tried to coax them back into their pen. I got all but one, a tiny fat one. It took off and flew. It went round and round over the yard, like an idiot. It might as well have been towing a banner, "Look! Fat, tasty pigeons here!" It's no wonder the little hawks have taken 5 or 6 of my pigeons this winter. Fatty finally made it back to the pen and was too pooped to argue when I snatched it and put it back through the door.

I don't think the red tail could catch a pigeon in flight, it moves like a B52. But I think I'll keep my birds in a while longer anyway.

I've been trying to watch Downton Abbey. I got through season 1 on Netflix, then Bob let his membership go because they raised their rates. He's such a penny pincher. I found season 2 on the PBS web site, but it's a drag trying to watch things there. It's very slow and the program hangs up quite often. When there's more than 15 seconds between the first part of a sentence and its conclusion, I forget what was being said.

Forgetting is something I do well. Which is why I could sympathize with the old woman at the store.

The poultry show I went to last weekend was in Hollister. It's a 2-1/2 hour drive south, then west, from my house. I live on the east edge of California's Central Valley. Driving anywhere means seeing a lot of flat land if you're traveling north-south. When you drive east or west, however, there are mountains. The Sierras are east. The coast range is west. While the Sierras are rocky and craggy, the coast range is like a series of rounded mounds. Some are oak-covered, but along Interstate 5, the route I took to Hollister, there is only grass.


This map doesn't show the hills. Interstate 5 is on the border between the coastal hills and the valley. When you turn west from I-5, the highway goes up to Pacheco Pass, where it sometimes snows, and then back down into a rift zone valley formed by the San Andreas Fault. The San Andreas is an active strike-slip fault. It's where the North American crustal plate merges with the Pacific plate. Hollister itself is on the Calaveras Fault, which is a subsidiary of the San Andreas. A strike-slip fault is one that slides until it hangs up, then builds up pressure, then releases it in an earthquake. The Calaveras is a slip fault, it doesn't get "stuck," it continually slips. The fault line goes through a residential area of Hollister. You can see offset sidewalks there, and houses that are skewed.

I'm not fond of earthquakes and don't feel comfortable in the Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose). But I'm quite comfortable just sliding along in Hollister. It has a population of about 35,000. The buildings are mostly single-storied and there's a lot of open space. While there are some new houses that are occupied by people who work in the Bay Area, most of Hollister is still a farming community. It reminds me of home.

Some of the crops grown in the Hollister are similar to ours, but it's not as hot there. So you see some cooler-weather crops too, like broccoli, lettuce, cabbage and onions. There are lots of orchards.

I have stayed in every hotel in Hollister at one time or another. All are older, there's no Hampton Inn (darn). This time I stayed at the Hollister Inn for one reason...it's just across the street from Jerry's. That's my favorite restaurant, especially for breakfast. There are real people there, farmer guys wearing caps and vests that advertise fertilizer and pesticides. On weekends there are lots of dirt bike riders heading to  Hollister Hills offroad park. This time when I walked into Jerry's, ABBA music was playing in the background. My kind of place.

I had a great breakfast, scrambled eggs and steak, no potatoes, no bread. The waitress insisted that wasn't enough, could she bring me some fruit? Some cottage cheese? How about tomatoes? No, no, and no. Then she suggested grilled onions or mushrooms on the steak. "How about both?" I asked.

When my breakfast came, it was beautiful and the savory scent wafted through the restaurant. People looked up from their pancakes, sniffed, and thought, "I wish I'd ordered that."

The poultry show is about 5 miles south of Hollister. There are fairgrounds squeezed into a rift canyon. There are crumbly hills to the west.


And shorter, bare hills to the east.


You can continue on the road all the way to Paso Robles, but it's a very stark 75 miles.

I finally got all seven birds in their pens.


I discovered when I checked in that they had not received my entry form. I sent it to last year's address. It seems like I always do something wrong. This time I was not alone, however, several other people did the same thing.

The show was fun. I got to talk to a lot of people I hadn't seen in a while. Some things are the same. Older exhibitors are still happy to help the youngsters.


The troublemakers were still plotting an insurrection.


There were more than 1000 birds. It took three judges all day to place the birds. When it was finished, one of my cockerels had won Best of Breed and got to compete for Best RCCL (didn't win that, though). This is the bird:


The fellow who judged the Bantam Dominiques also raises them. It was really great to talk to him about my birds and find out what improvements need to be made. The bird above (#11) could be a little smaller, and his sickle feathers could be longer, but he looked pretty good competing against the other RCCL* birds.

When the show was over on Sunday morning, we all packed our birds and headed home. That's when I stopped at Casa de Fruta and bought some finger food for the trip (nuts and dried fruit) and the giant peanut butter cups for Bob.

As dry as it's been so far this year, it was strange to see San Luis Reservoir almost full. That doesn't help ranchers, though, who have been feeding their animals hay because there is no grass yet. Hay is expensive this year, the late spring rains last year rotted a lot of it in the fields. Farming is such a crap shoot, even in California.
_______
*Rose Comb Clean Leg

Uncle B, these are chicken doodahs.



You buy tickets, usually 4 or 5 for $1. Then you write your name on the tickets and put them in the little paper bag whose number corresponds to the doodah you want to win in the raffle. Chicken clubs can raise $1000 or so with their raffles, which helps pay show expenses.

People who are new to owning chickens often start collecting chicken-themed stuff. I, myself, had a house stuffed with little ceramic roosters at one time. Combined with all of Bob's trophies and plaques, that made an interesting decor. I kept my favorite things and still have to check out the raffle tables to see if there's anything interesting. But mostly I just buy tickets and give them to someone else, like kids. If I buy anything new, it must be unique and small, or functional. Chicken towels, for example. You can never have too many kitchen towels.

Many of the things on the raffle table are recycled. Someone will win an item and enjoy it for a while, then donate it at another raffle.

Another good money maker is a wine raffle. That's usually done in conjunction with the show banquet. Because this is California, the wine raffle can be impressive.

Here are three pictures I'd like to share before I tell you about the poultry show.

This truck is carrying products from Bimbo Bakery.


Why would someone choose that name for their company? And what does it have to do with a little white bear?

I TOLD people to stop at Casa de Fruta on the way home from the poultry show. I bet none of them did. This is one of the many things they missed.


Those are not cupcakes. They are peanut butter cups, like Reece's, only huge and handmade. I bought two for Bob. I also bought dried fruit and some garlic.

When I got home I found Bob's friend Devin wearing this t-shirt.


He said his parents gave it to him. Yes, they know Bob well. Which makes their gift very peculiar, but fun.

I'm heading to Hollister this weekend for a poultry show. I'll be taking 7 bantam Dominiques. Most people who are going probably already have their birds washed and spiffed. I haven't started that yet. My birds don't usually need a complete bath because the new pens Bob built keep them very clean. But mostly I had to clean the house first.

The Christmas decorations had to be put away. Yuck. That involved going into the hall closet. It's a 6 x 10 slice of hell. I had to do it, though, so I just put on my asbestos underwear and went in there.

This is the "after" picture.


I tossed lots of stuff. Like 70% of the Christmas decorations. I just saved the old ones and the things kids made for me. I decided it was stupid to take up the only storage space I have in this house for things that are used once a year, if at all. Most years I've only used a fraction of what I was storing. I decided I'd rather have a couple of live poinsettias that I can plant in the yard later, than the entire sack of fake ones I'd accumulated. And why was I keeping plastic greenery when I have 40 acres of the real stuff right in my back yard? (Because it was on sale when I was in Michael's after Christmas, that's really why.)

So now the Christmas stuff is put away, the hall closet is clean, and the living room is a mess. That's where everything is stacked until Bob hauls it away. I have two boxes of chicken doodahs to donate to the raffle at the chicken show. That's an easy one.

It's hard to throw away "perfectly good stuff," isn't it? I have an old Mac clamshell laptop computer. Like everything I've ever had that Apple made, it still works perfectly but has far outlived its usefulness. We also have Bob's old iMac that's been in the closet for more than 10 years. Those two things will be going to eCycle unless someone out there wants them?

Here are more useful things that are going.


Two boxes full of Beta and VHS movies. They're all great movies, which is why we saved them, I guess. But we don't own a VHS. We do have a Beta, actually, but it chews up tapes. Why isn't that in this pile (she asks herself)? Even if the Beta worked, we don't own a TV to attach it to. In the background are two wonderful purchases that got little use, a ball that you sit on to strengthen your core. I thought that might help me regain my balance. Didn't work, I kept falling off of it. The other thing, sticking up to the right, is a chair-type thing you put on your bed so you can sit up when you're bedridden. It sorta worked for a while when I needed it. Then one of the cats peed on it. I didn't throw it away then because it was expensive.

If anyone wants the tapes, please let me know, otherwise they're getting dumped. Next week I'm going to start in my own closet. It's full of clothes I used to wear to work. Now I wear the same two sweatshirts all the time. I'm going to donate the clothes to someone who can use them before they go out of style.

But first there's the chicken show. I've started the woodstove to get the house warm before I start bringing chickens in to wash. Velcro is helping me.



She's my thermostat. The warmer it gets, the further away from the stove she sleeps. When she's back in her box under the dining room table, I'll know it's warm enough in here for a wet chicken.

One of my artist friends - one who actually WORKS at art - emailed me that she thought perhaps I was referring to her when I wrote that last blog entry. She works at home and has consciously decided to do that rather than seek "regular" employment and a paycheck. Her operating theory is that if you have a full-time job and still try to be serious about your art, you will have two full-time jobs.

In her case, she has diligently worked at her craft and is probably just on the brink of turning it into a profitable enterprise. At any rate, she is very, very good. She creates a product that has value.

We all tend to pat ourselves on the back when we're successful, and like to think that ours is the only correct solution. That wasn't what I was attempting to do.

I was fortunate to end my working career with an incredible job with great benefits (thank you Linda and Alice!). That was not the result of some brilliant plan I'd concocted. I worked many years in commercial printing. The wages were adequate, the hours were long, there was a lot of stress, and the benefits were spotty. Both of the companies I worked for, each for more than 10 years, initiated profit sharing plans along the way to keep unionization at bay. Each claimed, after a couple of years, that there would be no more contributions to the plan because the companies were not making a profit. The workers, however, were encouraged to put their own money into the plan, which I did. One of the companies then "borrowed" that money and it took me years to get it back. I totally understand that a "regular" job is not a guaranteed pathway to Heaven.

I also understand how hard it is to do freelance work. I did that for five years when Bob was small and I needed to be at home. Even though I was very good at my craft and had regular customers, I worked much longer hours than I had at a "regular" job, and barely made any money. I calculated once that I had made $4.00 an hour once all my expenses were considered. Freelance is probably okay for someone whose spouse has a regular job with benefits.

I have known freelance carpenters who were very skilled, people who had their own companies, and lots of farmers. I've seen these folks go broke when a big customer went bankrupt or wouldn't pay, or when bad weather caused crop failure. Over the years I've decided it's much less stressful to work for someone else and to take home a regular paycheck. I'm always curious how long it will take other people to figure that out, or IF they ever will, or if freelance will work for them after all.

A note about farming and ranching: most of these people work until they die because it's impossible for them to set money aside. Their option is usually to sell their property to a developer and hope they have enough to live on in their little house or trailer in town. In California they will have a new option: sell their water to someone else. Farming is so darned hard.

There has been a lot of discontented rumbling here in California since the state went broke, complaints that we got in this predicament because our state employees make too much money and that their benefits are too generous. Maybe, but I don't think it's a good thing to espouse that all workers should be subject to the crappy wages and no benefits that some of us have. Isn't it a good idea to have a secure middle class? I think so. I think it's unfortunate that fewer of us are in that class, or in the case of our younger generation, can aspire to ever be in it.

Is it possible that lifestyle ideal is based on the false economy we've had? That our society cannot maintain it anymore? If so, then let's be honest about it. Guess what folks? None of you will be buying houses unless there are at least 4 people in your household who are working for minimum wages. If you get sick, you may die. When you get old your family will have to support you. Hey, that's the reality for a lot of people around the world.

But here, we're still being sold the American Dream. People who can't achieve it are depressed and cranky with themselves. They don't want to hear about prison guards pulling in lots of overtime, or a few highly-paid state workers with huge retirements (that would mostly be our Congressmen, folks).

If the truth is that we all need to turn loose of the dream and start living in reality, we could adjust accordingly, we're pretty clever.

What I was saying a couple of days ago is that, in my mind, scamming has no value in any reality.

They say that during the Great Depression, single men wandered the country looking for work. That's what the young cowboy was doing earlier this week.

Bob got his class schedule for school and found that he has his daytime hours free. So he went online and applied for several jobs, then he had me make these small posters. He put them up at the feedstores.

I would much rather he was working at a regular job, with benefits, but those are practically impossible to find. In a farming community, there is no work in the winter. Some people are resorting to entrepreneurship. They're making jewelry, cleaning houses, fixing computers, doing freelance work, doing odd jobs, creating art – whatever it takes to keep the bills paid.

And then there are those who prey on others. I'm not just talking about the ones who rob and burgle.

I've seen so many people get suckered into "Get Rich Quick" schemes. I've never seen one of these work, it seems like people just get drawn deeper into debt while they blame themselves for not being a good enough salesman. Just because big business has made a killing taking people to the cleaners does not mean YOU, Joe Citizen, are going to succeed at that from the comfort of your home.

So when the latest "friend" showed up a while back with a "great new idea to talk about" I was thankful for John Renwick's quote, "So, how's that going for ya?" Not so well, it turns out, all the person needed to do, though, was sell 10 more "memberships" at $200 a whack, and life would be wonderful.

I have one thing to say about this. Get a frickin' job, or go do some work somewhere.

I know it's not easy, I know it's not convenient when you'd rather have your life to yourself than actually get up every morning and do work. But just do it and stop bugging me about buying whatever fantastic product you're selling this month, or worse yet, expecting me to give you money for the privilege of preying on suckers myself.

There's more to an HONEST day's work than just the money it brings.

Nolan Leach

I was disturbed at 9:30 this morning by someone banging on my door. I could tell it was a stranger because Gollie jumped off the bed and scurried under it. She has ESP about things like that.

Anyway, in my tacky, fuzzy blue bathrobe and sloppy slippers, with my northwind-blown skanky hair poking out, I waddled to the door, where I found the fellow above. He was wearing a white cowboy hat and a crisp, pressed shirt, and looked very much like a movie star.

I'm not in the market for a fellow, let alone a young one or a cowboy, but this one was terribly cute and very personable. He was driving through the area, saw that I had horses, and wanted to let me know he is a horseshoer. I took a few business cards and directed him to Sheldon Feed, where he could tack a few more to the bulletin board.

If I'd had my wits about me, I would have sent him to Katherine's house. Her birthday is coming up and I think this is what she's been wishing for.

Check him out at Dream Cowboy. Be sure to watch the video. Reminds me vaguely of The Man from Snowy River.

My longtime friend Ron is still my favorite horseshoer, but you know, he doesn't have a video. Ron, you need a video! I know just where you can have one made. Spencer, the young snowboarding videographer, is out of work right now because there's no snow in the Sierras. He's good at filming action shots against scenic backgrounds. Can you learn to play the guitar and do rope tricks in a week or so? This is going to be so much fun.

It's Maru. He lives in Japan and he's famous on YouTube for trying to squash himself into boxes. According to Wikipedia (wow, he has his own Wiki stuff!) Maru is a 5 year old male Scottish Fold. His videos have been viewed over 100 million times. If you haven't seen them, look them up, they're fun.

Velcro can't compete with those stats, but she's amusing nonetheless. She tried to sleep in this box recently.





At 14 years old, and being a trifle rotund, Velcro isn't as flexible as young Maru, but she equals his enthusiasm for a good box.

She finally let me have the box to start a fire in the woodstove, though.


And I think that eventually pleased her.