>Twisted steel

>Here is what is left of the mangled gate in which my horse got herself tangled. Not ending the sentence in a preposition – did you see that? Test time…

She is still going along soundly though – so lots more trot. Thing is, she is so very sound right now that she is taking her normal big, over reaching steps (which means she reaches farther with her hind legs than her front foot prints) so today – she pulled her front shoe right off. Now we wait for the farrier to come reset, can’t ride without the shoe.

If it isn’t one thing it is ten more…

But she feels really good! And that makes me happy.

>Wisdom from Charlie – Daniels not Brown

>From Charlie Daniels’ blog I love Charlie’s blog…

Invitation To The Third World

What makes a Third World country a Third World country? The causes can usually be traced to ignorance, poverty, constant war and religious enmity.

But there is almost always an underlying factor present in all Third World countries; there is usually a corrupt dictatorship whose only interest is power and control.

They seize the public treasury and use it for whatever they deem necessary to stay in power. They seize control of private enterprise, raise taxes, outlaw private ownership of firearms and pour private funds down the black hole of their ambitions bringing on unsustainable inflation, economic chaos and eventual bankruptcy.

They blame their failures on others and take credit for successes they had no part in.

They fill the ranks of the governmental hierarchy, not with the best and the brightest motivated by a desire to serve and preserve the nation, but with egghead ideologues who want to remake the nation in their own image.

They institute huge entitlement programs in the belief that he who gets something for free will vote for the party which gave it to him.

They discourage productivity, creativity and business investment, taxing away the money once used for the research and development programs which once brought the world digital technology and a cure for polio.

They hide their true intentions behind governmental slight of hand and voluminous rules and regulations, creating agencies and bureaucracies to keep the rank and file in line.

They make empty promises and tell downright lies and never get called to task by a media that agrees with them in the beginning and fears them in the end.

They turn their backs on the nation’s friends and forge new alliances with its enemies fawning over dictators and despots.

They brazenly ignore the laws of God and try to turn the eyes of the nation away from Him declaring that diversity, not the faith of the fathers is what made the nation great.

They are arrogant and profane seeking to destroy anybody with the audacity to question their methods, which they never fully explain to the public lest the catastrophic ramifications of their actions be exposed to the light of truth.

Even as their programs dismally fail they continue to beat the dead horse taking the nation even farther down the path to the terrible hurt they will eventually have to face.

Does any of this sound familiar?

What do you think?

Pray for our troops, and for our country.

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

>In which life goes on

>Finally getting to let Rosalie spend a little time outside – except today, only her fourth day in the paddock – she decided she needed to leave the paddock, so she tried to jump out – over a four foot high gate – from a stand still. She didn’t quite make it, and tangled all four legs in the tubular steel gate. We’ll see over the next few days how much damage she has done to herself. Right now, it seems to be only a few nasty scrapes, but the vet says it will take about three days before we’ll know if there is possible tendon damage. This horse is truly trying my patience. At least she didn’t break a leg, she certainly could have. Am I supposed to sit there and watch her every minute she is outside? Worse than a baby.

D3 is now engaged. Her boyfriend of the last year and a half popped the question and gave her a ring on her birthday. Thank goodness they don’t plan to actually get married until they have completed their degrees – and I say until he has a job.

Tomorrow the hub, the boy and I will drive a couple hours to visit D3 and watch her play her cello for an opera production. Happy to hear her play, but two hours of opera – not my kettle of tea. I think we’ll then get to watch her steel pan band rehearse, which I truly do look forward to.

One more week to prepare for end of year tests with the boy – then we get back to our regularly scheduled studies. He and I have spent most of the year studying physical sciences – the test is heavy on biology. Our main focus in history is US history – the test is all world history, no US at all. Can’t accuse me of teaching to the test…

Mowed the lawn for the first time this year. Not much to say about that, except it is always a good thing when the lawn mower cranks after the winter off.

I guess that pretty much covers the mundane. You know, mundane is fine with me.

>An email gift from a friend who does not know I blog

>My teacher friends (and daughter) will love this, as will any parent, or anyone with a need to laugh, or anyone who is good with words….

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country.

Here are last year’s winners…

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m., at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Point and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with Power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

>Scenes from a day in the life..

>Rosalie is finally getting to spend a couple hours a day outside, though in a small paddock, alone, and on “happy juice” (mild tranq)

We had a small scare last week when I finally trotted her for the first time in months and she was a little gimpy. Had to run back to the vet – but the vet says all is well, she is maybe a little stiff from being cooped up in a stall since Dec 3rd and to just go ahead and trot a little every day. We’ll be working her up slowly.

How is that for baby blues?

Then there is school work – the boy is prepping for year end tests – Gus wants to study too

Can you explain that Pythagorean thing one more time?

The real reason Gus jumped up next to the boy is now revealed…

>Yup, another one… Happy Birthday to D3 this time

>The roots of rap can be found in Irish music… I may have posted this before but it is altogether too appropriate for D3 (who has added button accordion to the list of instruments she can play Irish music on since this school year began) and we love this vid – it is just too funny.

Yo yo yo yo, we gonna party like its your birthday – but not until she comes home for Easter as I understand she is playing pans in a Steel Pan Band concert somewhere mid state this afternoon, then running back to Boone and playing cello for an opera production tonight – and Fri and Sat and Sunday as well. Don’t know how this kid keeps up with her schedule. Anyone who thinks getting a music degree is easy doesn’t know my kid…

>Happy Birthday D2

>

Gus & Fiona are singing right along 🙂

Happy 22nd birthday my girl.

>Ah, what fools these mortals be… sorry about the updates – video keeps disappearing!

>From AP
Their Achilles tendon is that they did not read their own damn bill so “kids with pre-existing conditions are now covered” is in fact a lie – and Bambi et al were in such a damn rush they didn’t pay attention to their own bill:

Under the new law, insurance companies still would be able to refuse new coverage to children because of a pre-existing medical problem, said Karen Lightfoot, spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the main congressional panels that wrote the bill Obama signed into law Tuesday.

Only the first of many lies we will find out about as the next few months go by. Dems will be trying to “sell America” on their piece of crap – using lies. Plain, easily proven lies.

I listened to the radio this morning as the Pay Czar, Kenneth Feinberg, tried to tell me that the American people are still outraged by salaries paid to financial institutions bailed out nearly two years ago – even though it was the government who bailed them out (the people whom we are actually outraged at), even though the salaries and bonuses were contractual and had to be paid out by law – From TWO years ago he says we are outraged. So far some laws are still in effect, including contract law. Yeah we are outraged – sir – but we are outraged at our government taking our money to bail out these businesses, and we have not forgotten who it is we are outraged at – not for one damn minute have we forgotten. It isn’t business, sir, business that provides jobs – no sir, it is government. And yet I keep hearing Democrat and liberal (progressive – whatever – semantics) talking heads tell me that Americans have too short a memory to be outraged because they ignored our voices over their health care bill? Excuse me? We were furious two years ago, we were outraged one year ago, and we will still be boiling come November – Make no mistake, let me make myself clear

We Will Not Forget!

From Breitbart:

And we see what you are doing, we are not blind, we are not stupid – and like elephants we have long memories!

>Today we mourn

>
Tomorrow we gather our troops and begin planning strategy to kick these wicked corrupt ass holes OUT!

(distress flag filched from Pam who swiped it from Pereiraville who swiped it from Venomous Kate – sorely temped to go flip the flag in front of my house!)

>There is a movement afoot

>People are descending upon DC this Sat at noon in a sign of our displeasure at their tyrannical and unconstitutional tactics to force their idea of health care reform upon us. I understand there are some education issues being piggy backed on this plan that we know NOTHING about. What ever those education ideas are, if they must be hidden under an already massively unpopular plan, I bet they are not something we would be happy about either.

I’m looking at the possibility of going – it wouldn’t be easy, but it might be necessary.

Just thought I’d let you folks know. There is not much time to get the word out – tell anyone you think might care.

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