HOME AGAIN

I am back (not that you missed me) from the 2010 World Percheron Congress in Des Moines, Iowa. WOW!
I did not take any dogs along and while I missed them desperately they were better off at home. There were dogs there- Cattle dogs, Corgis, a Swiss Mountain dog, a long-haired Chihuahua, an alpha male Doberman I wouldn't have messed with (this is a story I will tell another time.): and ONE BASSET HOUND named--FLASH! Flash loved everyone, of course, but was kept well away from being underfoot. Some of the other dogs were probably horse-savvy but the first day we were there a cattle dog pup got his paw stepped on by a horse that probably weighed close to a ton. It was not a good place for a city dog.
Horses. Let me tell you!! These were all Percherons, black as coal or Dappled greys very few brown, almost none.

The world champion stallion stood 19 hands high (a hand is 4") at the withers, or shoulder. He weighed 2,442 pounds or thereabouts, I may have the last digit wrong but you get the idea. These are not Little People in the photos--these are grown men. Trust me, you do not walk one of these without thinking about it first, altho they are, for the most part, extremely gentle and sweet horses. Once they get into show-mode, it's another story, and besides, he's what he is-- breeding stock. And he knows it.

 This is how big the medium sized horses are. Look at his feet. I would walk through the barn and put my foot inside, completely, one hoofprint. The shoes they wear differ wildly, and I do not know enough to write about it. The horses who are used primarily in hitches have one kind, those with other jobs have different shoes. Farm horses have yet another kind. There were farm demonstrations, but the one I really wanted to see I forgot--it was last night and when we left, after the 8 hitch classes, it was already 10pm.
This is already a long blog.  But I want to say that I was there as a volunteer and we were up at 4:30 every morning and at the Hospitality Room by 6, Susie Spry and I.(There were many other volunteers, all over and helping in hospitality, but Susie and I opened the room every day and closed it down. ) By 6:45 the room was packed with horsepeople, who had already walked, watered and fed the horses, and those first two days it was FREEZING-- the wind whipping across the prairies from wherever and the temps plummeting. When I left home at 5 in the morning on Tues it was 71. When I got to Des Moines about noon, having battled winds that sent semis skittering across I-80 and rain, it was about 40, not counting windchill. People were ready for coffee! We closed the room at 3pm each day but I bailed and did a lot of photography.

This was bathtime. There was a room inside to bathe the horses as well, with warm water but it was always crowded the first couple of days.This horse was really fun to watch getting his bath. I couldn't tell whether he was thirsty or just curious. His ears are up, his face is relaxed even as he appears to be stepping away he really wasn't. The order of the photos is reversed and I think the water surprised him.

The real bathing room was

just inside the barn doors, altho there were three barns full of these horses. This grey is fairly small but not infrequently you saw grown men standing on kitchen ladders or stools to reach the tops of the horses backs, and their heads. One time, walking through the barn I saw a gelding chewing on the overhead stall beam. He was that tall.

FOUR ABREAST HITCH

ps. If you hate horses, skip the next few blogs.

TOMORROW

Tomorrow I leave DadPerson in charge and take off for the 2010 World Percheron Congress in Des Moines. My ever-faithful traveling companion, Cooper, will not be going. I have not told him this yet, but he sees the bags and is becoming suspicious. Hopeful, even.
He is afraid of normally-sized horses. I hate to think what meeting 800 Draft horses might do to him. We will be at the fairgrounds, I am told, from 6 in the morning until after 10pm. EVERY DAY.
I was going to make stuffed manicotti to take so Susie doesn't have to cook but I guess not. Transporting it, frozen, could be a real challenge.
So I am hoping to overwhelm the blog with photos of gorgeous horses and interesting people. I should take  some release forms. I will have to make them out. Hmm.

BITS AND PIECES

I got up at 6 this morning, fed the dogs and let them out and in. By 6:30 they had been in and out 3 times.

I finally locked the screen and shut the inner door which has become the sign that they are IN TO STAY at least for awhile.

A friend of mine sent me, simply because she does this, a heated mattress pad.

While it may fall short of being one of the seven great wonders of the world-- or is it eight-- it certainly became, in one night, my favorite household item. I sleep in a converted (not by much) garage (actually it is pretty nice as these things go and it does have a built in space heater that is very good.) Nevertheless when I wake up in the morning these days the temp is about 63 which, knowing people who consider that overly warm, it is cold for me. So last night I threw Conley off the bed (he growled at me because I took him off the bed and he got right back on and I removed him again and he resented it)
And I put the new mattress pad on and I plugged it in (that was the worst part, crawling under the bed in the thick dust--and when I crawled, finally, into bed MY FEET HIT WARMTH!!
Awesome.
The dogs usually get me up at 4 to go out and this morning I refused to get up and then went, mumbling, back to sleep. So thank you thankyou.

Next week I am leaving for the Percheron Congress in Des Moines, Iowa. DadPerson will be dogsitting, so I ask for kind thoughts and patience vibes for him, for he will CERTAINLY need it.

KAILEY

This is Kailey.
She was a stray.
She was adopted by my daughter and lived almost 17 years.
She was the smartest dog I have ever known, including my own.
She was funny, bright, bouncy, perpetually upbeat, protective and intuitive.
If it is possible to have a heart dog that is not your own, she was mine.

When she was excited, she made this strange, high-pitched keening noise. Her Bunny noise. EEeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

When she was excited she leaped straight up in the air, maybe 3 feet above the ground.

Kailey lived with us off and on over the years. Here she is with Mitchell (ATB) when he was but a pup. She put up with him but as you can see by the wide, gaping jaws, it was not always a happy group. She would not have dreamed of hurting him. But by the expression I see here, she is about to yap right in his ear, or grab whatever she is guarding and leave. She barked a LOT. But at night, walking the dogs, we followed her bright and bushy white rear end with her beautiful silver tail curled over her back. Despite the fact that she had the worst underbite I have ever seen, she was a beautiful girl.

One time a serviceman came to the door and opened it before I had a chance to get there. Stacey and Kailey were staying upstairs, the bottom of the stairs ends to the left of the door. The guy opened the door and Kailey let out a roar and leaped-- LEAPED-- From about halfway down the stairs to the door, roaring like a German Shepherd, all her teeth bared, all her hair up and hit the door as the serviceman fell backwards out of it and slammed it in her face.

Later we saw Kailey on walks, innumerable times, place herself in front of my daughter when Kailey thought there was a threat. She was the sweetest, funniest dog I have ever known, but by God, nobody was going to mess with my daughter.

This is a typical Kailey expression. A combination of  suspicion, gentleness and temporary acceptance.

One day when she was staying with us I thought it was very quiet outside and I opened the door in time to see her stepping through the fence. I called to her--"Cheese, cheeese"-- her most favorite thing. She wagged her tail, and gave me a look similar to this and----vanished. (We found her.)


She was patient with the puppies but not overly so. She lived here with Mitchell and my first Belgian, Quiller with no problem. Later her companions were Rottweilers, and that was fine too. She grew older. She became slightly deaf, arthritic, and slow. It was so sad. She was a wonderful girl.

This is Kailey. She is ATB now but I think of her often, and I wonder if there will ever be another like her. She was not my dog, but I loved her as if she were, and I miss her all the same.

WOODS WALK

Very early this morning I started thinking it would be a good day to take a walk in the woods. Whatever else is wrong with where we live, there is a  lot of green space. Just because we don't dare go into most of it, even on the trails with a big black dog, doesn't mean it isn't there.
However this morning I thought I would take the camera and go visit Thorn Creek Woods, where I have had some interesting interactions with deer in the past.

Alas, dogs are NOT allowed. This is Thorn Creek woods. There is a creek that runs through it and it extends for several miles beyond where the paths and trails go. I really was looking for deer. By the time I got there it was just daylight, but the real light had not penetrated yet. The leaves are turning and, as you can see have fallen, but there are still a lot left on the trees.
I tried very hard to be quiet. I was accompanied by some birds -- I am not good at identifying birds as you will learn, but these were clearly warning everyone that Evil was afoot. It was quite annoying. Even had they not been along, try as I might, I probably sounded like the Cavalry, with their thudding hooves and creaking leather, jingly spurs and bits (altho I do not think their spurs were the kind that jingled) and the occasional snort and whinny sounded to the silent Indians...

Anyway there were some interesting things along the way even without the deer.
And of course, I took photos of it all.
I am sparing you a great many. There were strange leaves and interesting mushrooms and a very few flowers left.





And this tree trunk.







Now I had taken the trail marked WOODLAND TRAIL 1 1/4 miles. I am old and I am fat and I have arthritis and I was going slow. I could hear, now and then, twigs popping. There were squirrels dropping nuts and of course my personal escort of screaming birds (I think they are woodpeckers.)

I crossed the Creek (I assume it is Thorn Creek) on this wonderful bridge. I don't know who built it but it looks like something a group of Basset Hounds would put together. There were still frogs in the creek, which fled with little "crrk" noises and a plop into the water, so they must have been on the bank. I looked, and of course, great outdoorswoman that I am, saw nothing...

Continued on the path in utter silence. Even the birds had abandoned me.

I was still being very cautious and quiet but my neck was starting to hurt from the weight of the camera (it is not small) and my hip was starting to hurt as well.
I had seen no deer sign on the path, but it is

very dry. When I was out in the spring it was wet and there were deer prints in the soil in spots and even  some deer poop but I saw nothing. A twig would snap off in the distance, or an acorn would crack into the ground from forty feet up. Nothing.
Squirrels laughed.

And I began thinking that I had taken the 2 mile trail. (I am not a hiker). I had one lens in a pocket and the other on the camera, my cell phone and the car keys. John was asleep when I left and I just left a note, but it didn't say where I was. And here I was, thirsty, needing to pee, with squirrels giggling and throwing acorns at me. They even sent a chipmunk to distract me and I sat immobile for five minutes, waiting for it to re-appear before I discovered that it had a whole network of hollow, fallen trees and was down the slope from me about a block away. I really kind of gave up. I had been standing in one spot, seriously, waiting for the chipmunk and I sighed and shifted the camera and started on, looking up--

And there it was. In the spring they are redder, easier to see. I watched it's tail as I sloooowly brought the camera up and focused and could see the tail slowly rising. I took the photo. I took two. The tail flicked up, the deer turned but slowly, flipped it's tail at me and slid off into the brush. I took three steps and another, smaller deer tail flashed behind me. There had been two. I don't know enough about deer to know when their antlers fall but this one had none.
After that there were no more deer at all. Well I take that back, I saw one more tail further down the path.

I managed to get back partway. I knew I was near the trail end when I saw the brick back of the church next door to the Nature Center. And then I saw the birds!

One of the woodpeckers that had been following me (I think) and warning all the woods that I was about. And.......................

The Thrush. I am not sure what kind of thrush it is. If anyone knows, please email me. I think it is a Hermit Thrush which I have seen out there before (my bird book had a marker there) and if it is and I have a positive ID, then it is a life bird. It may also be a Veery, or a Wood Thrush.

Here's a better one.
Let me know.
The dogs, Cooper especially, are not speaking to me. I went hiking without them. Ignoring me, they are out sunning..

WHY I DON'T INVITE YOU INSIDE

I have always liked minimalism. I thumb through House and Garden, Architectural Digest and their ilk and am smitten by homes with huge, open areas, floor to ceiling windows that showcase birch trees and pines, or a heady expanse of sand and water, and I drool. A lot.
I open BH&G in line at the grocery store and stare at the articles: Organizing your Closet Space, Kitchen of Dreams, How to Live With Four Dogs and 30,000 Books, 10,000 Seashells Neatly---wait. No. That last article is made up. I wish.
We are collectors. Hoarders? The new popular pastime? I don't know: maybe.

You (or we-- since YOU are not getting past the door, nothing personal) can still easily navigate through the house. There are obstacles to be sure.

There are three like this one and then another but the fourth will move out of your way. These are fairly stationary : also known as "Burglar Bumps" and at any given time are distributed throughout the house.
Altho they appear harmless, when you attempt to step over them, they lurch to their feet beneath you and loudly demand an apology for stepping on them, and treats.

Seating space is limited, I admit.
This is the couch, and the view out the front. It is considered a prime spot because from here one can view the houses across the street and anyone coming in or out, the brown truck, the white truck, the mailman,
the kids going to school, the meter-readers, and anyone foolish enough to come to the front door attempting to get me to sponsor their trips to Disneyworld or anywhere else. Clearly, there is no room on this couch for company. (This rare photo was taken one day when I had cleaned the dog spit off the windows.)(This is also one of the times when Conley, on the right, did NOT fall behind the couch.)

This is the dining room wall. This is why I do not buy artwork, altho there is much I would love to have. This is a "dog wall" There is another in the living room, and another in my work/bedroom. Frighteningly, there are dog pictures scattered throughout the house in addition to these. We do not need to paint: there is no bare wallspace...

The wall is a bit bigger than it appears here-- it is hard to get a good photo of it because of that light. Also when I step back to get better distance I hit one of the "bumps" and have to spend ten minutes calming it down and feeding it treats by way of apology.

This is one wall in my room.

The big painting in the middle is my Dad, painting, painted by another painter who happened to be along painting the day my Dad was sitting there, under that little bridge, painting something else. The painting is by his friend, R Shuler. The other stuff is, above and to the right, a painting by my sister-in-law, Marcia, to the left above a painting by my Dad and below that a painting by a young man in Wisconsin. There is some other stuff there-- an "esemblage" by Ginny Raftery and plaque sent to me by my friend Mary... below all this is more, and SURPRISE!! a bookcase! But the bookcase contains only a few books and mostly photographs.

What is left of my workspace after an attempt to switch from beading to precious metal clay. I have more beads than I know what to do with.
I have tried selling them. The markdown is unbelievable.
This is only part of the "space". Periodically I make a half-hearted attempt to clean it up and then, what do I do with stuff? Where do I put it? Am I really going to throw out my thousands of dollars (yes, really) of beads and supplies? Oh I want my space back, I really do. I want to be able to sit and paint or draw. In this room which was once a one-car garage, there are also 5 bookcases crammed full, a huge wardrobe, another desk, my stereo, TV and VCR, a full length mirror attached to nothing, a folded grooming table, 3 dog crates (large) and my bed.

But there are advantages to all this, too.....

Someday I will have all the time in the world to clean....

        And then, how quiet and lonely it will be in my neat, clean house.

OLD PHOTOS

Somewhere there is a photo album that my parents had. It had an ivory colored cover and black pages with the little photo corners. In it was a photo of my Father, striding down the street of downtown Des Moines, Iowa. Very alpha-- he was-- wearing a white hat and a white suit and white shoes and his almost Mediterranean dark good looks. He was first generation American and spoke German before English, but he did not look German to me.
I can't find it.
It is my favorite photo of my Father but I don't know what happened to it. I have some of the photos from that album but not all.

This was taken in April of 1942. I was not even born. My Brother would be about a year old. Dad was a lawyer and during the war he worked in the Pentagon doing something that he never discussed. I always thought it was something very very secret and that he had all kinds of clearances and maybe it was and he did but as I have grown up I have begun to suspect he was a lawyer doing lawyerly type things for the Army and he just didn't talk about it. When I grew up everyone's Dad had been in the Army or Navy or whatever and none of guys talked about it, not even Mike McMichael who had been almost torn in two by machine gun fire, or Dick Dole who was some kind of Fighter Pilot hero.
They were very proud, those guys, but not gabby.

This is my Dad and his Mother, Rosa. When I look in the mirror now, it is Rosa whom I see looking back, except she kept her long grey hair and I cut mine off, and she was never fat. Grandma was deaf pretty much. This is how deaf she was:

My parents went out a lot. When we were younger they would leave Grandma to babysit. When my brother was about, oh, maybe 12 or 14 he had an air rifle. In our house in the living room was a huge picture window, and in front of it was the chair my Dad sat in all the time. When Grandma was there she would sit in that chair and read, which she was doing the evening my brother loaded the Daisy Air Rifle with God knows what, aimed it at the window from about 6 feet away and fired.

The window, needless to say, shattered in a gazillion bits.

My Grandmother never looked up.

She was a little German lady who ended her days in a mental institution, the victim of --we were told-- organic brain disease. I have no clue what it would be now. Suffice it to say she was quite daft and not in a good way.

This is my Mother. This is exactly the same expression she would have on her face when she walked into my bedroom forty years later and looked around at the unbearable chaos I constantly kept it in. This was my Mother: Helen Jeanette Berry in 1917. She was born the day the Titanic sank.

TOYS

Some time ago someone sent my dogs a toy that they loved to pieces. It was a chicken. It made a really funny noise and while it was for the Bassets, Cooper immediately stole it, then it stolen back by Llewis who took it everywhere for a few days until Conley got it and then Cooper took it back and then Nigel had it, and all summer it was outside being rained on, and cooked by the sun, and dragged and fought over and grew green stuff on it until finally one day someone chonked down too hard and broke it.

Like the woman in BEST IN SHOW I now began quest to Find The Chicken. How hard could it be? I started at PetSmart whenever I was there, and PetCo and neither place had it. I roamed through countless toy bins at dog shows and no one had it, altho they tried to sell me substitutes, forcing me to say "No it has to be the right chicken!" (IT'S A BEE! HE NEEDS HIS BEE!!!!) I
spent hours digging around through catalogs, online looking in various places and could not find THE CHICKEN.

Yesterday at the Nationals I poked through the Vendor tables, eyes always seeking the tell-tale plushy yellow chicken. No, it isn't latex. No, no-- it has some stuffing in it. Yes, I am sure it's a chicken. No it isn't flat like that.
Yes it makes a noise but no, sorry,not THAT noise. (THEY NEED THEIR CHICKEN IT HAS TO BE A CHICKEN!!!)

Then this morning I came across the old chicken, laying under some branches (did they bury it? mourning it's demise?) and I realised (slow learner) it has a beat-up, mud-covered, tattered tag!! I brought it in the house and learned that it is an "Ethical Product" so I began there.

Well no wonder I couldn't find it. I was looking at pet stores and vendors and places like that and where, exactly is it sold? WALGREENS.
So as soon as John is through shaving I am off to Walgreen's, money in my hot little fist, to buy another CHICKEN, and I will bring it home and each dog will look at it as if to say
"Yeah ok chicken big deal-- we had one once." And go off to dig another hole in the yard or look for something to eat that will make them sick.