OP
terry.dinerman
Gold Member
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2009
- Messages
- 431
- Tractor
- 1990 - JD 870
Can You See The LIGHT?!
(The Father / Daughter Dance Redux)
By the time Precious Dafter and I rolled up to the Jubilee Feed Store, Tire Center and Hair Care Emporium (We Rent Stuff Too), John the Goat Guy And Master of all things Mechanical was already holding Court on the Bench of Wisdom out front ...
A few moments chatting with John are always worth it ... he is a certified Character with a capital "C"...
At first sight, John looks like he should be playing guitar for "ZZ Top" ... a long grizzled gray beard and shaggy head of the same color hair frame a face covered in a weather-beaten hide that has crinkled permanently along the laugh lines, as if John's good nature needed a permanent advertisement there.... it makes him seem ready to bust out laughing at any moment which, in fact he IS.... his eyes sparkle with the light of someone adept at mischief in all it's forms ...
I love swapping stories with John The man is a good time looking for a place to happen....
John's pasture shares a short piece of fence with The Old Goat Ranch, and his house and shop are a stones throw down the road between TOGR and MIL and FIL's house ...
The front of Johns roadside pasture houses the finest collection of rusty old agricultural equipment and tractor implements in the county ... and after coffee and "Court" each morning he can generally be found tinkering a piece of equipment or some old truck back to a useful life on the driveway in
front of his cramped little shop ... if anyone cares to question his abilities a beautifully restored Ford model A sedan sits in the driveway on the other side of the neat little house ... and the vintage pickup he runs around town in is a perfect match to the driver.... lots of miles but lots of character too....
In another life John was a mechanical engineer of vast experience and skill ... now he is enjoying the fruits of a life of "High Pay, Travel and Adventure" and loving every minute of it ...
I want to be just like John when I grow up....
Our work out at the Ranch has been an endless source of entertainment for him and he is delighted / horrified that someone else in the area wants to run meat goats ... he HATES them ... but they provide him a modest income and hate 'em or not, his place is awash in plump, happy, healthy goats ...
....apparently his dim view of all things caprine has resulted in a constant baby-boom amongst his herd .... just to spite him...
The kids and many of the adult goats think that the farm equipment museum in his front pasture was placed there just for them to play on and can be found scampering over the stuff constantly.
After giving a progress report to John, who nodded approvingly and gave his usual grinning encouragement, I went in to the Store and let the Boss know I was ready to load up the trencher I had reserved the other day.
I walked out back to the shop building just as the yard-guy finished checking the oil and gas and pulled the starter cord....
....and slung parts all over the driveway as the starter housing ripped off the engine and spewed springs and bolts at the two of us in defiance....
Yard-Man said ... "Gee ... it worked just fine the other day ... "
I refrained from offering any comment at that point and settled for banging my head briskly against a nearby telephone pole ...
Well as I said before, I wasn't in a rush since I have no inspectors or contractors waiting, so I told the man to see what he could do to fix the thing as I went back into the Store to get a cup of coffee and let Precious Dafter know what was happening....
PD was decidedly un-impressed with the whole situation ... "Wow...this ranching stuff is FUN...!" sez she ...
I said something philosophical about how all mechanical things are destined to break while in my care and we talked for a while about not getting too emotional about these minor setbacks (after I covered up the lump on my forehead with a ball cap....)
I was fired up by the coffee and a sudden headache and wanted to keep an eye on Yard-Guy, and PD was content to snooze in the truck while I kept vigil over the repairs ... so I trotted back to the yard to "supervise"...
Yard-Guy gave it an honest try, but the starter was Null and Void with the main spring broken. But the wisdom of the Briggs and Stratton engineers being what it is, the hub left on the engine had an angled notch built into it ... designed for a manual pull-rope ... which, once Yard-Guy rounded up a piece of strong cord, started the engine up without a problem.
He did salvage the handle from the former starter cord .... so that was SOMETHING, I suppose....
So ... I survived disturbing PD's nap, and we drove around to the yard and loaded the trencher up ....
Out at TOGR the trencher started up again with no problem ... we got it unloaded without incident and then proceeded to lay out the wire ... my first try at pulling the spool with a chain thru the center was a bust ... the wire spooling out from near the center of the heavy spool, in effect produced a continuously variable transmission that wanted to accelerate the rim of the spool ... not fun on the dry earth ... and worse, this threatened to kink the cable....pushing the spool by hand was not much better .... so PD and I ran the tractor out to Machinery Row, dropped the rake and put the forks on ...
...she is getting GOOD at spotting that tractor on the implements ....
....and with an old fence post thru the spool as an axle, we lifted the spool clear of the ground and soon had the wire all laid out ....
Precious Bride already has her eye on that spool for some sort of Hippie plant stand, so I will have to hide my new portable work-bench behind the barn for a while....
I started up the trencher, waltzed it over to the corner of the barn and lowered the boom slowly into the ground ...
And that's where the progress on this job pretty much ended ....
Despite the sandy clay in this part of the Ranch being as dry and hard as a fire-brick, the trencher made short work of it, grinding thru the gravel pad at the barn and the hard earth beneath it and left a nice fine fill in its wake .... but barely a few inches below the surface a tangled mat of live roots as thick as my index finger and running almost a foot deep began to wrap themselves around the chain and drag it to a halt ....
I tried everything I could think of.... I went so slowly you could barely see the machine move, hoping the chain would grind the roots up .... I made multiple cuts, each a bit deeper than the last .... but no matter .... the smaller roots either stopped the chain entirely and killed the engine, or the larger one just laughed at the chains attempts to cut thru them and the machine would just sit there with the wheels spinning ...
Foo ...
After an hour of thrashing around and having barely 20 feet of trench to show for it, I decided to call it quits ... and after consultations with Precious Dafter, we decided to go to with the Alternate Plan ....
We loaded the trencher up and returned it to the Jubilee Feed Store, Tire Center and Hair Care Emporium (We Rent Stuff Too), and to their everlasting credit, they returned my full rental fee ... "Gee ... it worked just fine the other day ... "
Uh HUH....
So .... we spun by Good Neighbor Joe and borrowed his utility trailer (its GOOD to have neighbors!!) and headed off in the direction of College Station and my good friends at the Big Rental Yard ...
Precious Dafter said Joe was mumbling something about a wrench and breaking anvils with tack-hammers as we left ....
On the phone, Rental-Dude said he had just the thing .... a new hydraulic walk-behind machine with a 36" boom that sits on a pair of rubber tracks that you drive dozer-style ... and sporting a new chain with carbide inserts on the teeth for rocky ground .... all at popular prices....
Ok ... we'll give it a try ...
When we rolled up, the machine was waiting for us, and was as advertised ... the yard-crew had it loaded up on the trailer before I could get back from the office.
Tho I would have preferred to keep my trade local, if you have to go outside of the "Family", this is the way to do it ...
We drove back to TOGR and got unloaded ....
.... and the news was no better than before ...
Despite a more powerful engine and hydraulic drive, the new teeth and the rubber tracks, this machine did no better than the older mechanical beastie... the small roots still dragged the chain to a dead stop and the rubber tracks apparently worked against any progress thru the heavier stuff, as the lower ground pressure made them more prone to spinning than the wheels were ...
A second hour-long beating and I had another 20 feet of trench completed....
DOUBLE FOO....
So ... PD and I sat on the tail-gate for a water-break and took a moment to reflect on our predicament ... noted that the sky was clouding up for rains that were predicted to start any moment .... took stock of our options ... and seeing how our Primary Plan and Alternate Plan had been shot to pieces, it was time to deploy the Escape and Evasion Plan ...
I wonder where she learned to SWEAR like that ... must take after her Mother ...
We loaded up the now disgraced trencher and headed back to the Big Rental House ... it began to rain a few drops on us as we pulled into the yard, where the crew sprang into action again and had the machine unloaded before I could get back from the office ....
I walked around the yard with Yard-Dude and looked over their trencher fleet ... the five foot behemoth I had rented for the primary electrical conduit was slated to rent the next day, so it was out .... but they had two smaller ride-on units that were it's just a little lighter but equal in horsepower to The Big One, just a shorter boom at 48" ... half the price of the The Big One for a days rental and at 5,000 pounds I can haul it on my trailer and save $150 on the delivery fee ... so I put it on reserve for the day after Christmas ....
Apparently my micro-account is so good with these folks they did not require any cash or card up front and they only charged me for the few hours out on the small machine instead of a full day too ...
I need to get these guys more donuts ....
It was sprinkling lightly as PD and I left the Big Rental Yard and headed back to the Ranch ... we got a bite to eat on the way and mused over all the FUN we are having Ranching....
We spent a lot of time on the subject of "How To Know When To Stop Banging Your Head On The Telephone Pole...."
Yep ... someday Kid, all this'll be yours ...
We dropped off Good Neighbor Joe's trailer and made our "Thank You Neigbor" to a kind and generous man...
PD said Joe was now mumbling something about miracles happening every day, apparently in reference to getting his trailer back in one piece ....
Once back at TOGR I decided it would be best to roll up the cable and lock it up for the few days hiatus ... some of my less prosperous and more environmentally aware neighbors might not be able to stand the sight of all that recyclable aluminum laying around and removing temptation from the scene seemed a better option than me purchasing the rest of that reel of cable at the Big Supply House ...
PD expressed some trepidation at the thought of spooling the stuff back up, but I showed her a couple of tricks I learned backintheday while working with heavy cables on the dredges....
The kid is not at all afraid of hard work, but like her Dad, she feels there is no sense getting too emotional about it if you don't REALLY have to...
Like we said back in the old neighborhood...."If it ain't choking, bleeding or on FIRE, it ain't an emergency..."
We soon had a nice neat 6 foot coil wrapped up with baling wire, backed the tractor up to it and then tipped it up onto the box blade for easy transport
..... I should be able to drop it back on the ground right where we spooled it up in the corner and pull each end back out to its starting point .... by hand this time.....the plastic cover on this cable is slick as youknowwhatonadoorknob and slides easily over the ground ...and since I will be on my own on the return trip, so this will be a Good Thing ...
PD backed the tractor with the cable into the container like she'd been driving it for years and I had just snapped the lock on the door as the rain started falling in earnest ...
We skipped schmoozing the Pasture Posse ... Pancho was quiet and I could only imagine the mob were probably huddled up under a loafing shed or the trees... so we locked up and headed back to MIL and FIL's to clean up, have some supper and break camp.
It rained fairly heavily overnight, so breakfast was a more leisurely affair, and we said our goodbyes to the Grandparents then headed south soon after....
Precious Dafter and I took our usual route thru the countryside...she is as bad as me and her mother about taking back roads whenever possible....We talked about how the scenery was just as enjoyable under winter cover as it is during wildflower season ....
Yep....I like this Kid....she takes after her Mother....
It was a nice ride home, raining off and on throughout the trip, but otherwise no problems....as slow as I drive I am in no danger of losing control on a slick road ... my meandering pace drives the Girls MAD ....
We talked over all that had transpired and it turns out that Precious Dafter is a bit of a philosopher in her own right ... PD figured it was better in the long run that things went all wonky like they did, so she doesn't get any rosy visions of the whole "Adventures In Ranching" thing ....
Well....this trip was certainly a heck of a good lesson that is best summed up by one of my old Chiefs favorite adages ...
"When you find yourself in a hole, it is best to stop digging...."
We got home in good order, and after putting up my gear and having a Quality Moment with Precious Bride, I put some rib-bones PD and I saved from our lunch the other day to use thrilling our little Dog Pack ...
As far as the Pack is concerned I am their large and strangely furred Alpha Dog who goes off on long hunts and brings them pieces of my exotic kills ....
...or something like that anyway ...But I now have a responsibility to provide some dainty for the Pack at each return or risk their scorn....
"Dottie" AKA "The Grand Old Lady", is a Beagle / Jack Russell mix and frequently referred to by various nick-names such as "The Two Thousand Year-Old Dog" due to her advanced age, "The Indian Weather Dog" or "The Vibra-Hound" for her ability to predict weather changes by getting all weird when rain is headed our way ... she is as dumb as a bag of walnuts, but endlessly sweet natured...we got her and a long deceased littermate from the local SPCA when the Kids were young and rough and we sought durability rather than intellect in our pets ....
The older of the two Corgi's is "Fox", the product of champion parents and a fine example of the best temperament of her kind...she is a willful and intelligent dog that definitely knows anf follows the rules and is not afraid to enforce them if need be ... a creature who likes conformity, don't move anything in the house or backyard without her foreknowledge or you risk having to spend time explaining yourself to "The Dog of Law"...
Tho a runt and a dwarf with even shorter legs than is usual for her breed. she is fast as lightning and her favorite game is herding the other dogs or any people she can get to comply. She will greet you at the door with her favorite "Fetch" toy as soon as she has you trained properly...
Fox was supposed to be destroyed as a pup due to her dual status as runt/dwarf, but her owner at the time was quite ill herself, and could not bear to kill such an engaging little dog...
Fox will become the dominant dog on the Grand Old Lady's passing ...
Last and youngest but not least is "Stella", another Corgi who was adopted from the Harris County Animal Control shelter in Houston .... the Vet who spayed her said that for as young a dog as she was, to have as much internal scarring and bowed legs, she might have been a "Puppy Mill" dam who spent her life in a cage until she was either tossed out or escaped to be picked up on the street.....this dog took a lot of work on the Girls part to change her from a cowering bundle of shot nerves to the happy dog she is today....if all else fails the Girls can get into Heaven solely on that work alone....
Stella is now a happy and outgoing dog, but where Fox is pushy and domineering, Stella is gentle and submissive....that is until it is time to play "Chase / Herd" with Fox, when Stella delights in outrunning and outgunning the fatter, slower dog at every turn....if you are out in the yard with them all you have to do to set off the game is holler "RUN STELLA, RUN!!!!" and the fight is on....
Considering that the little dog probably spent a good part of her life in a small cage, the complete and utter JOY she shows in racing around the yard, bobbing and weaving as she avoids Fox is that much more poignant....
After the traditional Happy Dance, the Pack lined up for their goodies.....those nice soft pork ribs didn't last long....and I thought I could actually see Dottie smiling as she licked the last bit of grease off the floor as she and the Corgi's nose-patrolled for any stray pork-flavored molecules....
Precious Dafter was already headed out the door to spend a little Quality Time with her Chums and no doubt regale them at length with stories of her adventures...
... the Boy was deep into an online game and it seemed like a pretty good evening for Precious Bride and myself to share a glass or two of vino on the couch (...once we kick the Pack off of it....)
After a less than wildly productive trip, things were once again spinning in Greased Grooves ....
(The Father / Daughter Dance Redux)
By the time Precious Dafter and I rolled up to the Jubilee Feed Store, Tire Center and Hair Care Emporium (We Rent Stuff Too), John the Goat Guy And Master of all things Mechanical was already holding Court on the Bench of Wisdom out front ...
A few moments chatting with John are always worth it ... he is a certified Character with a capital "C"...
At first sight, John looks like he should be playing guitar for "ZZ Top" ... a long grizzled gray beard and shaggy head of the same color hair frame a face covered in a weather-beaten hide that has crinkled permanently along the laugh lines, as if John's good nature needed a permanent advertisement there.... it makes him seem ready to bust out laughing at any moment which, in fact he IS.... his eyes sparkle with the light of someone adept at mischief in all it's forms ...
I love swapping stories with John The man is a good time looking for a place to happen....
John's pasture shares a short piece of fence with The Old Goat Ranch, and his house and shop are a stones throw down the road between TOGR and MIL and FIL's house ...
The front of Johns roadside pasture houses the finest collection of rusty old agricultural equipment and tractor implements in the county ... and after coffee and "Court" each morning he can generally be found tinkering a piece of equipment or some old truck back to a useful life on the driveway in
front of his cramped little shop ... if anyone cares to question his abilities a beautifully restored Ford model A sedan sits in the driveway on the other side of the neat little house ... and the vintage pickup he runs around town in is a perfect match to the driver.... lots of miles but lots of character too....
In another life John was a mechanical engineer of vast experience and skill ... now he is enjoying the fruits of a life of "High Pay, Travel and Adventure" and loving every minute of it ...
I want to be just like John when I grow up....
Our work out at the Ranch has been an endless source of entertainment for him and he is delighted / horrified that someone else in the area wants to run meat goats ... he HATES them ... but they provide him a modest income and hate 'em or not, his place is awash in plump, happy, healthy goats ...
....apparently his dim view of all things caprine has resulted in a constant baby-boom amongst his herd .... just to spite him...
The kids and many of the adult goats think that the farm equipment museum in his front pasture was placed there just for them to play on and can be found scampering over the stuff constantly.
After giving a progress report to John, who nodded approvingly and gave his usual grinning encouragement, I went in to the Store and let the Boss know I was ready to load up the trencher I had reserved the other day.
I walked out back to the shop building just as the yard-guy finished checking the oil and gas and pulled the starter cord....
....and slung parts all over the driveway as the starter housing ripped off the engine and spewed springs and bolts at the two of us in defiance....
Yard-Man said ... "Gee ... it worked just fine the other day ... "
I refrained from offering any comment at that point and settled for banging my head briskly against a nearby telephone pole ...
Well as I said before, I wasn't in a rush since I have no inspectors or contractors waiting, so I told the man to see what he could do to fix the thing as I went back into the Store to get a cup of coffee and let Precious Dafter know what was happening....
PD was decidedly un-impressed with the whole situation ... "Wow...this ranching stuff is FUN...!" sez she ...
I said something philosophical about how all mechanical things are destined to break while in my care and we talked for a while about not getting too emotional about these minor setbacks (after I covered up the lump on my forehead with a ball cap....)
I was fired up by the coffee and a sudden headache and wanted to keep an eye on Yard-Guy, and PD was content to snooze in the truck while I kept vigil over the repairs ... so I trotted back to the yard to "supervise"...
Yard-Guy gave it an honest try, but the starter was Null and Void with the main spring broken. But the wisdom of the Briggs and Stratton engineers being what it is, the hub left on the engine had an angled notch built into it ... designed for a manual pull-rope ... which, once Yard-Guy rounded up a piece of strong cord, started the engine up without a problem.
He did salvage the handle from the former starter cord .... so that was SOMETHING, I suppose....
So ... I survived disturbing PD's nap, and we drove around to the yard and loaded the trencher up ....
Out at TOGR the trencher started up again with no problem ... we got it unloaded without incident and then proceeded to lay out the wire ... my first try at pulling the spool with a chain thru the center was a bust ... the wire spooling out from near the center of the heavy spool, in effect produced a continuously variable transmission that wanted to accelerate the rim of the spool ... not fun on the dry earth ... and worse, this threatened to kink the cable....pushing the spool by hand was not much better .... so PD and I ran the tractor out to Machinery Row, dropped the rake and put the forks on ...
...she is getting GOOD at spotting that tractor on the implements ....
....and with an old fence post thru the spool as an axle, we lifted the spool clear of the ground and soon had the wire all laid out ....
Precious Bride already has her eye on that spool for some sort of Hippie plant stand, so I will have to hide my new portable work-bench behind the barn for a while....
I started up the trencher, waltzed it over to the corner of the barn and lowered the boom slowly into the ground ...
And that's where the progress on this job pretty much ended ....
Despite the sandy clay in this part of the Ranch being as dry and hard as a fire-brick, the trencher made short work of it, grinding thru the gravel pad at the barn and the hard earth beneath it and left a nice fine fill in its wake .... but barely a few inches below the surface a tangled mat of live roots as thick as my index finger and running almost a foot deep began to wrap themselves around the chain and drag it to a halt ....
I tried everything I could think of.... I went so slowly you could barely see the machine move, hoping the chain would grind the roots up .... I made multiple cuts, each a bit deeper than the last .... but no matter .... the smaller roots either stopped the chain entirely and killed the engine, or the larger one just laughed at the chains attempts to cut thru them and the machine would just sit there with the wheels spinning ...
Foo ...
After an hour of thrashing around and having barely 20 feet of trench to show for it, I decided to call it quits ... and after consultations with Precious Dafter, we decided to go to with the Alternate Plan ....
We loaded the trencher up and returned it to the Jubilee Feed Store, Tire Center and Hair Care Emporium (We Rent Stuff Too), and to their everlasting credit, they returned my full rental fee ... "Gee ... it worked just fine the other day ... "
Uh HUH....
So .... we spun by Good Neighbor Joe and borrowed his utility trailer (its GOOD to have neighbors!!) and headed off in the direction of College Station and my good friends at the Big Rental Yard ...
Precious Dafter said Joe was mumbling something about a wrench and breaking anvils with tack-hammers as we left ....
On the phone, Rental-Dude said he had just the thing .... a new hydraulic walk-behind machine with a 36" boom that sits on a pair of rubber tracks that you drive dozer-style ... and sporting a new chain with carbide inserts on the teeth for rocky ground .... all at popular prices....
Ok ... we'll give it a try ...
When we rolled up, the machine was waiting for us, and was as advertised ... the yard-crew had it loaded up on the trailer before I could get back from the office.
Tho I would have preferred to keep my trade local, if you have to go outside of the "Family", this is the way to do it ...
We drove back to TOGR and got unloaded ....
.... and the news was no better than before ...
Despite a more powerful engine and hydraulic drive, the new teeth and the rubber tracks, this machine did no better than the older mechanical beastie... the small roots still dragged the chain to a dead stop and the rubber tracks apparently worked against any progress thru the heavier stuff, as the lower ground pressure made them more prone to spinning than the wheels were ...
A second hour-long beating and I had another 20 feet of trench completed....
DOUBLE FOO....
So ... PD and I sat on the tail-gate for a water-break and took a moment to reflect on our predicament ... noted that the sky was clouding up for rains that were predicted to start any moment .... took stock of our options ... and seeing how our Primary Plan and Alternate Plan had been shot to pieces, it was time to deploy the Escape and Evasion Plan ...
I wonder where she learned to SWEAR like that ... must take after her Mother ...
We loaded up the now disgraced trencher and headed back to the Big Rental House ... it began to rain a few drops on us as we pulled into the yard, where the crew sprang into action again and had the machine unloaded before I could get back from the office ....
I walked around the yard with Yard-Dude and looked over their trencher fleet ... the five foot behemoth I had rented for the primary electrical conduit was slated to rent the next day, so it was out .... but they had two smaller ride-on units that were it's just a little lighter but equal in horsepower to The Big One, just a shorter boom at 48" ... half the price of the The Big One for a days rental and at 5,000 pounds I can haul it on my trailer and save $150 on the delivery fee ... so I put it on reserve for the day after Christmas ....
Apparently my micro-account is so good with these folks they did not require any cash or card up front and they only charged me for the few hours out on the small machine instead of a full day too ...
I need to get these guys more donuts ....
It was sprinkling lightly as PD and I left the Big Rental Yard and headed back to the Ranch ... we got a bite to eat on the way and mused over all the FUN we are having Ranching....
We spent a lot of time on the subject of "How To Know When To Stop Banging Your Head On The Telephone Pole...."
Yep ... someday Kid, all this'll be yours ...
We dropped off Good Neighbor Joe's trailer and made our "Thank You Neigbor" to a kind and generous man...
PD said Joe was now mumbling something about miracles happening every day, apparently in reference to getting his trailer back in one piece ....
Once back at TOGR I decided it would be best to roll up the cable and lock it up for the few days hiatus ... some of my less prosperous and more environmentally aware neighbors might not be able to stand the sight of all that recyclable aluminum laying around and removing temptation from the scene seemed a better option than me purchasing the rest of that reel of cable at the Big Supply House ...
PD expressed some trepidation at the thought of spooling the stuff back up, but I showed her a couple of tricks I learned backintheday while working with heavy cables on the dredges....
The kid is not at all afraid of hard work, but like her Dad, she feels there is no sense getting too emotional about it if you don't REALLY have to...
Like we said back in the old neighborhood...."If it ain't choking, bleeding or on FIRE, it ain't an emergency..."
We soon had a nice neat 6 foot coil wrapped up with baling wire, backed the tractor up to it and then tipped it up onto the box blade for easy transport
..... I should be able to drop it back on the ground right where we spooled it up in the corner and pull each end back out to its starting point .... by hand this time.....the plastic cover on this cable is slick as youknowwhatonadoorknob and slides easily over the ground ...and since I will be on my own on the return trip, so this will be a Good Thing ...
PD backed the tractor with the cable into the container like she'd been driving it for years and I had just snapped the lock on the door as the rain started falling in earnest ...
We skipped schmoozing the Pasture Posse ... Pancho was quiet and I could only imagine the mob were probably huddled up under a loafing shed or the trees... so we locked up and headed back to MIL and FIL's to clean up, have some supper and break camp.
It rained fairly heavily overnight, so breakfast was a more leisurely affair, and we said our goodbyes to the Grandparents then headed south soon after....
Precious Dafter and I took our usual route thru the countryside...she is as bad as me and her mother about taking back roads whenever possible....We talked about how the scenery was just as enjoyable under winter cover as it is during wildflower season ....
Yep....I like this Kid....she takes after her Mother....
It was a nice ride home, raining off and on throughout the trip, but otherwise no problems....as slow as I drive I am in no danger of losing control on a slick road ... my meandering pace drives the Girls MAD ....
We talked over all that had transpired and it turns out that Precious Dafter is a bit of a philosopher in her own right ... PD figured it was better in the long run that things went all wonky like they did, so she doesn't get any rosy visions of the whole "Adventures In Ranching" thing ....
Well....this trip was certainly a heck of a good lesson that is best summed up by one of my old Chiefs favorite adages ...
"When you find yourself in a hole, it is best to stop digging...."
We got home in good order, and after putting up my gear and having a Quality Moment with Precious Bride, I put some rib-bones PD and I saved from our lunch the other day to use thrilling our little Dog Pack ...
As far as the Pack is concerned I am their large and strangely furred Alpha Dog who goes off on long hunts and brings them pieces of my exotic kills ....
...or something like that anyway ...But I now have a responsibility to provide some dainty for the Pack at each return or risk their scorn....
"Dottie" AKA "The Grand Old Lady", is a Beagle / Jack Russell mix and frequently referred to by various nick-names such as "The Two Thousand Year-Old Dog" due to her advanced age, "The Indian Weather Dog" or "The Vibra-Hound" for her ability to predict weather changes by getting all weird when rain is headed our way ... she is as dumb as a bag of walnuts, but endlessly sweet natured...we got her and a long deceased littermate from the local SPCA when the Kids were young and rough and we sought durability rather than intellect in our pets ....
The older of the two Corgi's is "Fox", the product of champion parents and a fine example of the best temperament of her kind...she is a willful and intelligent dog that definitely knows anf follows the rules and is not afraid to enforce them if need be ... a creature who likes conformity, don't move anything in the house or backyard without her foreknowledge or you risk having to spend time explaining yourself to "The Dog of Law"...
Tho a runt and a dwarf with even shorter legs than is usual for her breed. she is fast as lightning and her favorite game is herding the other dogs or any people she can get to comply. She will greet you at the door with her favorite "Fetch" toy as soon as she has you trained properly...
Fox was supposed to be destroyed as a pup due to her dual status as runt/dwarf, but her owner at the time was quite ill herself, and could not bear to kill such an engaging little dog...
Fox will become the dominant dog on the Grand Old Lady's passing ...
Last and youngest but not least is "Stella", another Corgi who was adopted from the Harris County Animal Control shelter in Houston .... the Vet who spayed her said that for as young a dog as she was, to have as much internal scarring and bowed legs, she might have been a "Puppy Mill" dam who spent her life in a cage until she was either tossed out or escaped to be picked up on the street.....this dog took a lot of work on the Girls part to change her from a cowering bundle of shot nerves to the happy dog she is today....if all else fails the Girls can get into Heaven solely on that work alone....
Stella is now a happy and outgoing dog, but where Fox is pushy and domineering, Stella is gentle and submissive....that is until it is time to play "Chase / Herd" with Fox, when Stella delights in outrunning and outgunning the fatter, slower dog at every turn....if you are out in the yard with them all you have to do to set off the game is holler "RUN STELLA, RUN!!!!" and the fight is on....
Considering that the little dog probably spent a good part of her life in a small cage, the complete and utter JOY she shows in racing around the yard, bobbing and weaving as she avoids Fox is that much more poignant....
After the traditional Happy Dance, the Pack lined up for their goodies.....those nice soft pork ribs didn't last long....and I thought I could actually see Dottie smiling as she licked the last bit of grease off the floor as she and the Corgi's nose-patrolled for any stray pork-flavored molecules....
Precious Dafter was already headed out the door to spend a little Quality Time with her Chums and no doubt regale them at length with stories of her adventures...
... the Boy was deep into an online game and it seemed like a pretty good evening for Precious Bride and myself to share a glass or two of vino on the couch (...once we kick the Pack off of it....)
After a less than wildly productive trip, things were once again spinning in Greased Grooves ....
