Horse Tales

We had a barn party this morning - Listened to Dixieland Jazz while grooming the critters.  

Caracas (Rocky, aka Fabio) has ruined his long, flowing blonde mane by rubbing himself on anything that will stand still. Jerry got some fungal spray to see if that will stop the itching. Even a small herd of three has an eccentric member, and it’s Rocky. He’s definitely Jerry’s horse. When I try to put a halter on him, he evades me, and it takes several attempts. He lets me do it right away if Jerry is present. 🙄 But he loves his fly mask and willingly lowers his head for me to put it on. I think he fancies himself a Masked Super-Hero. He seems to like men better in general - except for a substitute farrier that came one time when our regular farrier was laid up. But that’s another story. 

Rocky

Tesoro loves me and doesn’t have much use for Jerry. He’s definitely a ladies’ horse. He’s the Boss Hoss and keeps the other two in line. Tes REALLY enjoys being groomed. He leans into the brush as if to say, "Come on now, you’re not brushing hard enough!" Tesoro had been abused when we got him, and I’ve got a soft spot for him. 🥰 I think he had been beat around the head. It took a lot of time and patience to get him to lower his head and accept a halter. It’s hard to keep weight on him. He gets a double portion of feed every day as per the vet’s orders - and he’s still on the thin side. 

Tesoro

Santa Fe (aka Fay) is just a sweetie - like most girls. 😊 She likes everybody. She really is a saint for putting up with those two geldings. She and Rocky were born on the same day at the same farm and grew up together. They are a clique of two. I think that’s why Tesoro assumed the role of Boss. Maybe he figured if you can’t be part of the clique, you might as well boss the clique around.

Santa Fe

 Good morning, Friends! On this day - January 27 - in 1756, the composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was born. To a lot of my former music students and to a lot of people, classical music (with a lowercase c) means - you know, that stuffy long-haired music that’s not generally popular. 

But Classical with a capital C refers to a particular era in music history - roughly from 1750 to 1820.  Mozart is one of the foremost composers of that era. 

Although I grew up listening to a Mozart record my parents had, I wasn’t introduced to  Mozart’s Horn Concertos until I found a cassette tape of these concertos in the glove compartment of a used car we bought years ago. They are some of my favorite Mozart compositions. 

Listen to a little Mozart today!

Happy Monday!

 It’s a chilly Monday here in southern Louisiana - a new week - a clean slate. It’s all too easy to focus on what’s wrong in the world. I know. I fall into that trap too often. There’s no denying that there’s a lot wrong with the world, and we should not be blind to it. Jesus said, "Be wise as serpents." Being wise does not mean being in a constant state of denial about the evil in the world. 

But Jesus also said, "Be innocent as doves." Don’t participate in the world’s evil. Do all the good you can and speak the truth. And don’t fall into thinking, "I can’t do much, so I won’t do anything." 

You can trust God to multiply the little good you do. You can’t imagine how much a simple word of appreciation and encouragement can do for another human being. So look for the good and the beautiful in nature and in other people. I hope your day is full of good cheer, goodwill, and lots of laughter. ❤️

Valentines

Good morning, Friends! It’s been one of those mornings. I feel like I’ve been riding off in all directions at once. I hope I can tick enough things off my list today to get a couple of hours in my craft room. Retirement shouldn’t be so busy! 

I’m working on Valentines in the craft room these days. In elementary school Valentine’s Day was a favorite holiday. It fed my postal fettish. We decorated shoe boxes, cut slots in them, and stacked them on a shelf. That was our ”post office.” We started bringing Valentines two or three weeks before Valentine’s Day when we all got to open our shoe box.  

It was important that we give a Valentine to everyone of our classmates. I don’t remember if that was an official rule or just the teacher’s suggestion. Anyway, nobody was to be left out - and that’s as it should be. 

But that meant that a great deal of thought had to go into choosing Valentines for our classmates. There were what we called “mushy” Valentines - the ones that talked about love and kissing and - well, mushy stuff. And there were general Valentines that just wished the recipient a good day. 

It was a grueling process. After all, you didn’t want to send a mushy Valentine to that obnoxious boy that kept pulling your hair. But did you even want to send a mushy Valentine to a boy you liked? I mean  - when you’re in the fourth grade, that could be embarrassing. No telling what the repercusions might be. A lot of my mushy Valentines ended up being un-sent. 

These days I think of Valentine’s Day as a celebration of not only romantic love, but a celebration of God’s love for us - the Sacred Romance. 

I hope your day is good! ❤️ Don’t forget to do small things with great love.

The Shepherd Who Stayed

I love poems and stories that make me think of something I hadn’t thought of before, and this poem does just that. 

Although most of our Nativity Scenes have the shepherds there with at least two or three token sheep, the Bible only says the shepherds went to Bethlehem. There’s no mention of them taking any sheep with them. And they probably didn’t, which means somebody had to stay behind and tend the sheep. 

So help me, I never thought of that before. But I should have because surely Our Good Shepherd would not want sheep at the mercy of wolves. The shepherd who stayed behind was fulfilling his calling as much as the shepherds who went to Bethlehem. 

This poem is by Theodosia Garrison (1874-1944) from a little book called Christmas Poems, selected by David Stanford Burr.

The Year 2020

The year 2020 will be etched in our minds forever. Everything changed - and not for the better. But prior to this extraordinary year, 20-20 meant perfect vision. In a sense the year 2020 did improve the vision of a large segment of the American people. Before 2020 we knew we were being used, but the picture wasn’t quite in focus. 

We elected Donald Trump in 2016, hoping for a clearer picture. Even before the 2016 election it was apparent that the establishment hated him. We thought it was because he was boorish. He wasn’t polished. He wasn’t presidential. But we thought this was routine politics. Neither party likes to lose. Neither party is above demonizing the opponent who won. Both parties always focus on the weaknesses of their opponents. Trump’s demeanor and his endless tweets gave them plenty to criticize.

Even so, we were inclined to think that the Democrats would eventually settle down and accept that they lost the election, and we’d be back to the routine ugliness of politics. But that didn’t happen. There was the Mueller investigation into baseless charges of “Russian collusion” followed by an impeachment trial. It started to become clear that more was going on here than the usual ugliness of politics. 

We knew the Democrats were promoting socialism, but we hadn’t realized just how far they were along the road to communism. We hadn’t realized the evil methods they were willing to use to reach their communistic goals - rigging the 2020 election - using a questionable pandemic to wreck the economy, curtail basic freedoms, and control the populace - allowing unlimited illegal immigration to insure that they stay in power.

The year 2020 has given us 20-20 vision. Is this a divine sign or merely a coincidence? I don’t know. You be the judge. But whether it’s a coincidence or a sign, 2020 was a year of revelations. He who has eyes to see, let him see.

Vaccine Logic

This logic about the Covid vaccine was posted by someone on Facebook.

"Out of all the vaccines I have had in my life....tetanus, small pox, measles, polio, meningitis, TB, etc... I have never seen so much wishy washi-ness over a vaccine that says I have to wear a mask and socially distance even when fully vaccinated.

That I could still contract or spread the virus even when fully vaccinated, never been bribed by establishments to take the vaccine in order to win a car and/or cash prizes. I was never judged if I didn't take it. I was never discriminated for travel or other regular services. 

The vaccines I listed above never told me I was a bad person for not taking it.....or taking it for that matter. 

I have never seen a vaccine that threatened the relationship between a family member and/or a close friend. 

Never seen it used for political gain. Never seen it used to persuade kids in favor of free ice cream. 

I never seen a worry about mix and matching and yet told it's ok to do it one day and then told the next day to not do it...then on and off, on and off again and again. I have never seen a vaccine threaten someone's livelihood, job, school etc.

I have never seen a vaccine that allows a 12 year old's consent supersede his/her parent's consent (that one alone blows me away!!!).

So, after all I have said can someone tell me how on God's green earth I am a conspiracy theorist, uneducated, non researched, not following the “science” for not willing to take this vaccine UNTIL the clinical trials are over at least two years from now??

Finally, after all the vaccines (shots) I listed above, I have never seen a vaccine like this one that discriminates, divides and judges a society such as this one.

This is one powerful vaccine. It does all these things that I mentioned and yet, It doesn't do what all the other vaccines (shots) that I mentioned earlier were designed to do (and successfully achieved I might add) which is…..fight off Covid"

*copied and pasted from a friend….