Patrick's Saturday Six

Here are this week's "Saturday Six" questions. Either answer the questions in a comment at Patrick's Weekender, or put the answers in an entry on your journal...but either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit! To be counted as "first to play," you must be the first player to either answer the questions in a comment or to provide a complete link to the specific entry in your journal in which you answer the questions. A link to your journal in general cannot count. Enjoy!

1. When a bill arrives in the mail, what do you do with it: pay it immediately, hold it with others and pay at once, or put it off until the last possible minute?  If I can afford it, I pay it immediately.

2. Which actor makes the best James Bond?  I can't stand James Bond.

3. Of the foods you enjoy, which one are you least likely to try cooking yourself?  pizza

4. Take the quiz: What does your birth month reveal about you?

Your Results:
July
Fun to be with. Secretive. Difficult to fathom and to be understood.Quiet unless excited or tensed. Takes pride in oneself. Has reputation. Easily consoled. Honest. Concerned about people's feelings. Tactful. Friendly. Approachable. Emotional temperamental and unpredictable. Moody and easily hurt. Witty and sparkly. Not revengeful. Forgiving but never forgets.Dislikes nonsensical and unnecessary things. Guides others physically andmentally. Sensitive and forms impressions carefully. Caring and loving. Treats others equally. Strong sense of sympathy. Wary and sharp. Judges people through observations. Hardworking. No difficulties in studying

5. Of the results you just got, which one seems the farthest from the "real" you?  "hardworking" and "approachable".  Perhaps "fun to be with" also.  Unless you are a dog, in which case I'm loads of fun.

6. Will you see your extended family on Thanksgiving Day this year?  I'll see my daughter and her family, and probably Cliff's sister and (perhaps) her husband.  That's it.

fixing fence (and horse stuff)

Horses are rough on fences; it's a fact of life.  The woven-wire fence in the pen the horses lounge around in had been leaned on so much that it was sagging, and leaning sadly outward.  It held the horses in just fine, but Cliff wanted it back like it's supposed to be.  This meant taking all the wire loose from the posts, pulling all the posts and then driving them back in, and re-attaching the wire.  It isn't that long a stretch of fence, and we had it fixed in three hours.  Cliff plans to put a strand of electric fence around the top of it soon to keep the nags from messing it up again.

I'm having some very rewarding training sessions with Libby; I've only missed two days working with her since I got her.  Sometimes I only spend twenty or thirty minutes, but she seems to retain most of what she learns.

She'll walk on the plastic tarp now, even if the wind is blowing it around.  I put a bale of straw on it to keep it from blowing entirely away, and found out Libby will step right over the bale (that one really impressed Cliff:  "Let's see Blue do that," he said.  Yeah, right... it takes about an hour of pursuading just to get Blue to step on the tarp!)

Libby's learning hand signals... me motioning her to come forward or step backward.  She responds to "whoa" if she's getting too close to me.  If I pull downward on her lead rope, she instantly lowers her head, which is a very basic but important thing.

When I handle her feet, she knows which foot I'll be going to next, and lifts it for me before I get there.

I'm still sacking her out some, but I'm staying away from her head with the sackful of cans, since that seems to upset her quite a bit; I don't want to make her head-shy.  We have all the time in the world; there's no need pushing her too fast.

I can turn on a very noisy leaf-blower as I hold it in my hand and, as long as she doesn't feel it blowing air toward her, she'll actually put her nose on it and sniff it while it's running.

I try to begin and end each session with lots of rubbing, petting, and praise.

I can't believe how smart she is!

Doubleday Book Club

When I had a job, I joined up with the Doubleday book club.  I bought my required number of books, then opted out.  Ever since then, they've sent me mail that I usually don't bother to open, trying to get me to sign back up with them. 

I buy my books at garage sales, thank you very much.

The other day Cliff and I were watching TV, and an ad came on for the latest James Patterson book in his Alex Cross series.  Cliff said, "Make a note of that, won't you?  See if you can get it online."

Alex Cross novels are among our favorites for road trips.  I read, Cliff listens.  The chapters are short and the pace is fast, and those books eat away the miles.

(As a sidenote here, we've decided we like John Sandford even better than Patterson.)

"Cliff," I told him, "I buy books from half.com; it'll be a long time before that one is on half.com at a reasonable price."

The very next day, I got some junk mail from Doubleday.  And I opened it, thinking about James Patterson's latest.

They offered me this deal:  five books at 99 cents each, with free shipping.  And if I'd select one more for $5.99 (also free shipping), I'd only be obligated to buy three more books over the next two years.  Nothing to return by mail, I can opt out of any book at their web site.

Hey, I can't do any better than that at half.com!

So yeah, I'm back with the Doubleday Book Club.  All I have to do now is get Cliff to go on a long enough road trip (in the car, not on the motorcycle) for me to read "Cross" to him.

Oops

Cliff was reading my previous entry and said, "Thirty years?  I thought we'd been married forty years!"

Oh well, time flies when you're having fun.  Yes, we've been married forty years.  Our children are aged thirty-seven and thirty-nine.

"Does Cliff ever relax?"

OK, so a couple of my readers wonder if Cliff ever relaxes.  They say he wears them out.

You don't understand.

The work Cliff does on our place is how he relaxes.  It's what he loves to do, it's his recreation.

We have friends from our younger days who sold their place once they retired:  they live in a camper, and go deep-sea fishing in Florida in wintertime.  It seems one of their main occupations these days is shuffleboard.  This fellow told Cliff, last time we saw them, "I sure don't miss putting up hay!"

Dear Lord, Cliff's idea of hell is being confined to playing shuffleboard and going fishing.  He loves putting up hay!

Please don't expect him to sit and watch TV unless he's put in several hours of work around here first.

I believe some of the old codgers who read my journal will say a hearty "amen" to this.

I've lived with this man for over thirty years.  I know what it takes to make him happy.  He's most relaxed when he's doing some project around our home place. 

Trust me on this.

And if he really needs some extra help relaxing, we'll hop on the Honda and go for a little road trip.

a sunny day

Every morning when we take our walk, Cliff notices stuff that he thinks needs to be done.  A dead tree that should be cut down, limbs that hang too low to drive the tractor under... things like that.  Today he decided to work on some of those items that daily nag him.  Sadie and I joined him after awhile, and that dog was ecstatic to have some extra outdoor time, running around in circles, and finding sticks for me to throw so she could fetch them.  Until she ran away, full-speed to join the dogs next door and disappeared into Marvin's woods.  She wasn't gone too long.  When she's on the trail of another dog, she goes totally deaf, it seems.  I wasn't worried this time, because we were far removed from any road.  After about fifteen minutes, she overcame her deafness and returned to me.  Of course it's no use scolding her, because after all, she DID come to me... finally.  I hooked on her leash and tied her to the tractor for the rest of our work session.

I piled brush as Cliff trimmed it off the limbs, and helped him stack some of the wood.  I'll have to spend a lot of time at the cabin, if I'm going to use all that wood.  I'd say it's about a five-year supply.

The temperature was brisk, but the sunshine made it a pleasant morning. 

Happy birthday, Monica!

There was a time when I thought I had all the grandchildren allowed me.   My son had a couple of kids; my daughter had her son.  I figured I'd sit back and wait for great-grandchildren.

Then my daughter divorced her first husband and married her second.  And shortly thereafter, Monica was born.

I was blessed to be able to spend lots of time with my first grandchild, Arick.  He holds a piece of my heart that nobody else will ever claim, and I still melt when he hugs me.

His sister, Amber, was such a sweetie.  I loved to hear her chattering to herself as she played with Barbie and "Kim"... she never quite got Ken's name right.

Then came my daughter's firstborn, Brett.  He was a solemn child who was born knowing how to pout.  Amazing.  Tickle him as you might, he never cracked a smile.

And I assumed I'd have no more grandchildren.

Monica was the first surprise. 

And my daughter and her husband were willing to share her with me for 24 hours each week!

I'd bring her home with me on Wednesday nights and get up with her during the night when she cried (with Cliff saying, "Why are you doing this?") 

I'd tell him, "So she'll know who I am."

Monica amazed me by recognizing the letters of the alphabet at the age of two.

She's going to attend a dance Friday night, and tells me she'll be hanging out with all her "peeps".  She turned eleven today.

Happy birthday, Monica!