Kentucky Derby

Did I tell you I was a huge horse fan? So much so that the Kentucky Derby was a big event in my life. My girlfriend and I would spend the night before the Derby together and pour over the statistics on the horses. Then, we would pick: win, show, place. We glued ourselves to the tv for the pre show and the race. The year I was in 8th grade we had been anticipating the race for weeks. We had already picked the horse to win: Northern Dancer. Apparently we talked quite a bit about it at school too, because everyone else knew our choices too. Our prinicipal, Mr. Kaufman, told us he could do as well and our choice was sure to lose. In fact, he was so certain we would lose he bet us each a pie of our choice that our horse would lose. My first bet! I was so excited. And of course, the horse won. What a sweet victory! You can even check on my facts. Northern Dancer won the Kentucky Derby in 1965 and Sue and her friend Debby won a cherry pie apiece! The principal paid up and I took it home on the bus. It was even homemade. (the principal's wife was a pretty good sport, not to mention the fact that they were friends of my parents!) It was so tempting for me as it sat in my lap on that bus ride. I could see those lucious cherries and I nibbled just a bit on the crust. But it made it all the way home without me having so much as a taste of the cherries. I was jubilant as I set it on the kitchen table and headed out to do my afternoon chores. There would be Pie for supper tonight, thank you very much! An hour later, when I came back in for well deserved meal and dessert I was greeted with the news that the pie had been unceremoniously eaten by our dog, Sam. Every last bite. Our kitchen table was no obstacle to him. The next day I tried to get the principal to do another pie. Tried to get him to take pity on me, after all, it hadn't been my fault that the dog had eaten the pie. I hadn't gotten to taste any, blah, blah, blah..It didn't work. I was out of luck.

Horse Story # 1

My friend and classmate, Debby, lived just down the road from me. She was an only child and she pretty much got what she wanted- including a beautiful Arabian horse named Indy. Believe me when I say, my horses were nags in comparison to this one beautiful animal. During the summer we rode somewhere every single day. There were long cool walks along a creek. Into town. to the quarry. And oh, could she run! Like the wind. We used to race. Down the road, across the pastures, through the woods. Occasionally we did barrel racing. She loved to beat me. And she did. Every single time. Imagine that. I really didn't mind. I just loved the joy of riding full out with the wind in my hair. Once, on a long ride she raced a car down the gravel road. Her horse got up to 40 mph. Wow! Being together, enjoying the horses and the ride was everything.

One rainy summer afternoon we decided on a new 'game' that she invented. (she led. I followed, which as you'll see later got me into tons of trouble) It was called Pony express. The object was to race our horses from one end of her pasture to the other as fast as possible, making sharp turns at the ends. I'm really not sure why this was a pony express ride ,other than the fact that we were doing this as fast as possible. It didn't take long for disaster. The grass was wet and her horse lost her footing and slipped falling directly on the rider. Hard. When I got back to where she was laying all she could think about was her horse. Was she ok, was she up? She staggered up and back to the house where we decided not to tell anyone about this "accident". It usually led to a worried parent forbiding us to do one thing or another. So I went home. Later that night her parents called with the news that she was in the hospital. It seems she had had to have her spleen removed! Could I give my side of the story? This tale ends with her unable to ride for the rest of the summer and with the two of us lounging around finding other mischief to make. (and we did, too unfortunately) We did have sense enough not to try that game again.

Happy Days

Stories about childhood are usually sad, unhappy, abusive tales about children who have overcome some great odds or darkness in their lives to become successful. I have no such tale to tell. My childhood was generally happy and carefree. I was expected to do chores and contribute to family life in a way that meant hard work. (I grew up on a farm!) My parents loved me, I had plenty to eat and no secret emerges from any of my closests. The only sadness in my childhood was that I didn't get to do as many fun things as my brothers. i.e. learn to shoot guns, drive the tractor, play ball on 'real' teams, fight, and so on. I was expected to do girl things. i.e. cook, do housework, learn to sew (yuck, and double yuck) sit in a lady-like manner. I had my own way of rebelling against these sorts of expectations. I shot the gun anyway. (more about that later) insisted on fighting with my brothers (until they were big enough to beat me) played ball, rode horses, baled hay, walked beans, and gave the neighbor boy a bloody nose for good measure. I never really liked being a girl, though things worked out ok as far as that was concerned. Obviously, I adjusted to the idea. Ha! The best thing during those days were my horses. I had 3 of them. The first was a shetland pony named Sparky. Onery animal that only I could ride. The second one was a white gelding named Stormy. He had the sweetest disposition and was the best all around nag a girl could have. (that caused problems later on. Related to the gun incident) The third horse was a part mule part quarter horse named Lady. She was no lady. Only I saw the potential. After she kicked my brother everyone stayed away from her. I was actually the only one who liked them, ever rode them, or took care of them. Consequently I had them all to myself whenever I wanted. In the summer I rode every single day, and did nearly the same in the winter. The best smell in the whole world was horse smell. My mother might have complained about stinky clothes, but I thought they were great! There were wonderful lazy evenings of riding one horse or another down the gravel rode, me laying on his back and staring into the sky wondering what the future held. I tried to read the clouds, as it were, to see if I could in any way predict what was ahead. What I should have done was to have held on to those moments for as long as possible. They slipped away much quicker than I had thought possible at the time. But I have a ton of horse stories to tell today. I was living an adventure I didn't realize until I started telling my kids all my horse stories. So this is the introduction to my horse story series. Too bad I don't have enough pictures to go around for every story. Oh well. Hope you're not bored.

Feet Foto

So I'm taking the feet Foto challenge and it just so happens I have photos of the cutest set of baby feet ever..Those two grandsons of mine. Here they are!

Isaiah's Phinehas'