Diesel: May 12, 2007 - March 13, 2009

I went to the vet clinic just before lunch to visit the inmates, Diesel with his broken pelvis, and Lucy with her 7 puppies. Saw Lucy first, she's doing so great and the puppies are fat little burritos. Thought they were going to be all white at first, but one has eye patches and two look like they're going to be a very light tan. Hopefully I can have a place ready for her at the new house real soon and bring them all home.

Went to visit Diesel, and couldn't find him. Thought they moved him to another building, but he was nowhere to be found. Checked the horse stalls, the lamb pens, nothing.

Went back inside and asked, where's Diesel? The girls got real quiet and stared at me, and I guess I knew the answer but it didn't sink in until one said, OMG I'm so sorry.

When I had gone to check on him the day after he was run over, we thought the prognosis was good. He was young, he'd heal up in 6 weeks or so, and be fine other than some arthritis that would likely set in as he aged. Unfortunately, Diesel never stood up again after he arrived, and he had lost control of his bowels. The clinic couldn't find my cell number to call me and the decision was made to put him to sleep.



When Deez was younger he was so awful at his job. He preferred to play with the lambs rather than protect them. His first year I think he killed 20 lambs. Everyone said to get rid of him but I kept trying, thinking he'd grow out of it. I tried to work with him, and he was great when I was around to keep an eye. Not so great when I turned my back. He took to killing chickens too, though he ate them down to the feet and beaks instead of just played with them until they died. Even though they weren't mine (the neighbor lets their chickens run wild) I didn't want him killing them. One day while watching TV I heard that god awful squawk a hen makes when she's about to be sent to Jesus, and I ran outside in time to catch him in the process of killing the last chicken left standing. All of his past crimes came flooding into my head and I thought, you rotten SHIT everyone told me to get rid of you and I kept saying no no we'll get past this, and here you are doing it AGAIN! Another thought regarding the futility of spanking a 120 pound dog with my hand surfaced, along with something about yelling being equally pointless, and then my eyes landed upon a brick lying on the ground beside him. For a moment I thought, OMG I can't do that, but as that horrified sentiment was being formed, a much darker, angrier one took hold and I did unthinkable. I grabbed the brick and knocked him upside his big stupid head and yelled NO ASSHOLE!

For a moment he stared at me, stupified, the chicken dropped to the ground in front of him. For a moment I thought, I'm going straight to animal abuser hell.

Then he shrugged and grabbed the bird again.
I whopped him in the head again and asked him what part of no and a brick on his head was confusing to him.

This time he yelped and dropped the chicken, glaring at me before taking off to the barn. I felt like shit. I kept telling myself, he's lucky he's still alive, any other rancher would have shot his stupid ass months ago. But it didn't matter. I'd just had a Come To Jesus meeting with my dog, but with a brick instead of a chick tract, and I felt about an inch tall.

Deez never looked at another chicken again. The black hen he was in the process of eating that day is still running around here somewhere. The brick still lies on the ground where I dropped it after I realized what I'd done. I still feel like shit for it, but he forgave me the next day and remained my bud, always putting himself between me and whoever showed up at the house. He would stay by my side as I walked up the porch steps, letting me lean on him for support on those nights when my back hurt so bad that I had to take the steps one at a time. I pretended I wasn't that attached to him but the truth is he was my favorite dog of all time.

Gonna miss you buddy.

garden chaos

Let me start off by saying I LOVE my new house. No broken out windows, no busted plumbing, no nests of scorpions hiding in the closet. LOVE IT.

I don't, however, love the haphazard landscaping the former owners installed. A 10 ft gold flame Euonymus beside a 3 ft Gulf Stream Nandina beside a 15 ft Photina. No flow, no style, basically no sense involved. I'm no fan of the west Texas staples of Euonymus and Photinas anyway so they're coming out. A massive shrub rose is hidden on the side of the house that faces another, along with a good sized crape myrtle, and between them another tiny Nandina. I'm yanking out almost everything the former owners put in. Some will be relocated, like the crape myrtles and a few variagated privets, the rest will be stuck in buckets by the side of the road with a sign that says FREE SHRUBS.

I've gone through a few designs for the front of the house, each design becoming more and more Japanese in style. Not sure how that will work with a boxy, brick ranch from 1960, but I think I can pull it off. Azaleas, mugo pines, hydrangea, a bloodgood Japanese maple, and a few golden sedges are on the list. Need to find some stones first though, to anchor it, before I go to planting.

What I really want are a few of these but OMG look at that price tag. I think I can make my own using styrofoam forms and concrete though. Maybe.

In other news, last week the wife of the couple who are leasing my place stopped by to visit, and when she went to leave she did not see Diesel under her truck and ran over him. Broke his pelvis in two places. He's staying at the clinic for a while until I can get a place at the new house set up for him. Had intended to leave him with the sheep but not now. Also, Lucy my teenaged tramp is at the clinic with her new litter of 7 puppies. Yes I know this is my fault, should have gotten her spayed. Anyway, now I have 7 puppies to find homes for. Akbash, Anatolian, Pyr, and half Labrador. What a mix.

Playing The Game

New house means new neighbors, and the first two appeared on our doorstep day before yesterday bearing gifts of yummy brownies. Both seemed quite nice, but it reminded me that new house, new town, also means it's time to choose. Do I play The Game, or not. Normally I eschew The Game, as I don't really give a crap whether I fit into other's ideas of right. In a town THIS small, however, I'm thinking it might be a wiser course of action to just play The Game. At least for a while.

The Game (which should be trademarked but am on the fiance's PC instead of my Mac and can't remember the key combo for that) is essentially created by, overseen, and enforced by women. It is basically a huge set of rules that dictate what you can wear, eat, say, and do, and the rules are subject to change at any given time and without any notice. Take for example the ultra low rise jeans. If you're 13 and a size 4, they're cute. If you're 19 and a size 4, you're a tramp if you wear them. If you're 40 and still a size 4 with a rockin body, you're just too old for it. Now on the surface you think, hey if you have the body for it, you can wear it no matter how old you are, right? Wrong. Truth is it has nothing to do with the clothing or woman wearing it, and everything to do with the rulemaker herself. The 13 year old poses no threat to the rulemaker. If her husband/boyfriend is staring at the 13 year old, he's just a pervert. The 19 year old is a HUGE threat. She's young, she's attractive, and if the husband/boyfriend looks at her no one will condemn him. So, the rulemaker has to step in and condemn the girl instead by calling her a tramp for wearing those pants. And the 40 year old? Well, her only crime is still having a body worth showing off, while the rule maker's own physique is showing the wear and tear of childbirth, lack of exercise, and way too many Ring Dings. Or is it Ho Hos? Anyway, no one will condemn the man for looking, so the rule maker condems the woman by saying she's too old to be wearing those jeans and at her age she should be in elastic waistbands and loose fitting slacks.

But what if the wearer is less attractive than the rulemaker? No matter, now the rule maker can bring in the "You're Too Ugly/Fat/Short/Tall For That" rule. This allows her and other women nearby to ridicule the wearer for daring to be seen in such attire, and by extention feel superior in the knowledge that they look better. One of my very few female friends is so bad about the "too fat for that" rule that sometimes I want to shake her. My own rule on this is if you don't like what you see then look somewhere else, but I understand that rule isn't in print yet.

Of course the rules of The Game go far beyond clothing. They cover the car you drive, the church you attend (or don't), your hairstyle, and even how much you eat. Think I'm exaggerating on that? I've known women to refuse to drive a luxury car because they're afraid of the talk that will spread about how they got the money to pay for it. Likewise have known a few who would drive nothing but, even if it meant not being able to afford food, so their "friends" would not dis them for driving a hoopty. If you're really stuck for entertainment, go watch a group of women eating out. First they all discuss their diets. Then they commiserate about how they can't seem to lose weight. Next is the competition. I only had a salad at lunch. Oh well I just had a yogurt. You ate the whole yogurt? No just half. Oh well I had 3 almonds and a green tea for lunch. I ate nothing at all. I'm on the cabbage soup diet (also known as the firehose shits diet). Then they order, and trust me, they pay attention to who orders what and how much of it they eat. This is why a lot of women get a salad when they go out to dinner, pick at it the entire time, then go home and raid the fridge when no one is looking.

Maybe my new neighbors aren't independant rulemakers of The Game. Maybe they just made up a big batch of brownies because they're nice people and wanted to welcome us to the neighborhood. Maybe they went home and said, they sure seem like nice people. I hope so.

Or maybe they're like every other female who has ever welcomed me or my family to a new neighborhood, more interested in sizing us up than befriending us. Maybe after they met us and returned home, they commented on how they shouldn't have brought brownies given how the poor new neighbor so clearly doesn't need them. It will just be so much temptation to her when she's trying to watch her weight. Maybe a nice plate of fruit would have been better.

Either way, I ate 3 of those bitches and they were GOOD.

What a shock.

Needless to say, my unreliable friend called to tell me he couldn't get the money for the truck, so it's back on the market. Of course I lost the original buyer, he found something else.

Anyone in the market for a 95 F250 XLT powerstroke diesel? $2500 takes it home!

I am a bad person because I finally said no

I have a long time friend, let's call him Angel (because that's his name), who alternates between saving my ass and completely pissing me off on a regular basis. He is COMPLETELY unreliable, always promising to do something and then never delivering. He borrows things and never brings them back, or else brings them back after months of me asking for it, broken or otherwise messed up. To date he's borrowed a water heater, a sprinkler, some trailer tie downs, two baby goat blankets, a large dog carrier, a tri folding ladder, and a bunch of other crap I've long since forgotten about. To date, I've gotten the dog carrier and ladder back, and the ladder was covered in acoustical ceiling spray and green paint, and the base was broken. I gave him money to buy pasture seed with so we could partner on some hay, never got the seed OR grew the hay. I bought firewood off of him, only to have him dump a bunch of 6 ft long branches in my driveway and promise to come back later to cut and stack it. Never did. When I ask him, when are you going to do that thing you said you'd do, the answer is always the same. "I'll do it when I have time."

Here's a public service announcement. You have to MAKE time to get things done. Time will never just fall into your lap, and even if it did, something else would come along and take it.

Here's another public service announcement. Don't tell me you will do something on a specific date if what you really mean is, you will do it when that magical free time appears and you have nothing else more entertaining to do while it lasts.

On the good side, when I'm in a total bind because no one else is answering the phone, I can get him to water sheep or catch them if they've escaped. I've borrowed car dollies and trailers from him and his family (and brought them back promptly and with new tires on them I might add). They've jump started my truck and pulled it out of a mudhole a time or two, and gave me a decent discount on some fence work they did for me. I give them free sheep and goats for bar-b-q and breeding. It evens out.

I put him in the catagory of Person I Like, But Don't Count On. I have a lot of friends like that. They're not bad friends, just not ones I like to rely on in a pinch, or bend over backwards for. Great for hanging out with over the grill though.

Over a month ago I told him I was selling my truck. He asked how much, I said 2500 (a full 2250 under book), he said "Oh", and I took that to mean "Oh, I'm not paying that much" because typically he doesn't pay much for anything. Thinking he was not interested, I listed it for sale on Craigslist and Thrifty Nickel. Around the first of Feb, he texts me out of the blue, asking again how much. I tell him, 2500. He wants to know what sort of "deal" I will make him, seeing as how we're friends. That kind of ticked me off. I told him, 2500 cash for a truck that lists at 4750 is a pretty good deal in my book. No no, he wants to know about me letting him pay it off.

I don't know about most people, but I am not a bank. I am not in the business of making car loans. Furthermore, the fastest way to ruin ANY friendship is by letting money come into the mix. Given I already knew how this particular friend was about doing things he said he would do, I was not inclined to let him pay the truck out, especially when you figure I need the money to pay for the wedding.

The next morning my boyfriend texts me to tell me he sold the truck, for 3000, to a guy at work. I figure Angel would understand that 3000 cash makes a lot more sense than 2500 in drug out payments, so I text him and tell him I got a cash offer that morning.

He loses his mind. I am promptly treated to almost 2 hours of guilt tripping text messages, the jist of them being I care more for money than my friends, he thought I was a better person than this but clearly I'm not, I don't appreciate his friendship, I don't care about all the stuff he's done for me over the years. I point out that he is completely unreliable and never does what he says he will, which he tries in vain to argue with his "I'll do it when I get time" logic. At this point he retreats to the "I thought I knew who you were" argument. Tells me to "have a nice life". Oh the drama. It was like arguing with a woman, constantly trying to make me feel bad so that I'll forget why I said no in the first place. I got fed up and told him that he was being childish, and the first time I tell him no he goes off on me, and if he wanted to think I was a bad person, so be it.

Well, after much more whining and bitching, I finally cave in. I told him, 2500 cash by the end of the month, and the truck stays with me. Oh, suddenly we go from I'm a money hungry a-hole to love ya baby. Uh huh.

He's been Johnny on the Spot ever since. Moved a round bale for me without my asking, which was nice. But I've yet to hear anything about any money for the truck. I suspect he will show up at the end of the month with half the money, and want more time. This time, however, I'm going to say no for good. I turned down a cash offer for more money to give him a chance, I won't do it again.

His dad gave me a go to hell look the other day when I drove by. Still wondering WTF that was about.

No I did not fall in

Been a while since I fooled with this. I don't know why I start blogs. First of all, who really gives a crap what I have to blather on about. Secondly, updating a blog is about as attention holding as painting my house, and if you'd seen how many unfinished colors have been applied to my house, you'd understand.

SO, new events unfold. As of Christmas eve I am officially engaged. Imagine that! I had pretty much chalked myself up to a long solitary life spent at the computer eating Triscuits and EZ Cheese with no one but my dogs to complain about the crumbs in the keyboard. I know, I exaggerate. As if dogs complain about crumbs.

Now I'm in wedding planning mode, and OMG these things can rack up a tab. I set up an unused domain in the Google advertising program to help with the expenses, so feel free to head over to www.texas-hunting-dogs.com and visit some of the businesses that are advertised there. I'm hoping between now and Sept 12, that site will make enough to at least pay for all the songs I'm downloading on iTunes to play during the afterparty... er, I mean reception.

Anyway the wedding/reception will be held on a boat out on the lake, how totally cool is that? No stuffy church wedding, no uncomfortable monkey suits, no endless holding in of the breath. Sunshine, a breeze, and unlimited pina coladas. My kind of wedding. And did I mention to wander over to www.texas-hunting-dogs.com and visit the various businesses on there to help fund those pina coladas? :D

I am heading to a sale late March to unload a bunch of the rams to help pay for this, hopefully the market will be good. Sadly I don't have much to take, mostly the dregs, although there's some really nice Dall rams in the bunch. Wish they were a year older though.