Roxy, Huckleberry Hound, Billy Bob Thornton... A Photographic Study

I want you to meet our little Cockapoo (no, not a cockatiel... that's all different) Roxy. Sometimes known as Rox for short, other times known as dumber than a box of rocks, but always sweet as candy dipped in syrup and cuter than elf turds.




Awwwwwwwww.....


Now... this is a spot where I fed the sheep all winter, just lump of lousy dried out hay and I threw a match at it the other day to get rid of it. It burned all up into a big black pile of poofy ash.






This is a picture of a cartoon character named Huckleberry Hound. One of my favorite cartoons from way on back. Huck always was singing "Clementine" and happy 'bout just pert near everything on earth. When my daughter Amanda was little she called him "the little blue doggy".






A couple days ago I looked out at the spot where I'd burned the haypile and saw Roxy. I might not ever had noticed her if she hadn't been carrying on like a fish you'd thrown out on the pond dam. Flippin' and floppin all over. Rooting and rolling and just generally enjoying burned hay ash. I don't have any answers. We laughed til we couldnt stand up.






This pose says it all. She's so proud of the new look she's created, and in this shot looks particularly Huckleberry Houndish.






I may have changed my mind. That smile on her face looks a little more like Billy Bob Thornton in Slingblade than Huckleberry Hound.







She had a little bit of smokers hack for a couple days. Took 2 baths to get her decent to go in the house again. When she ran across the yard she poofed like Pigpen in the Peanuts comic strip.


That's my dog.


*sigh*




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Llama Llama, Who's Got The Llama

Yesterday my neighbor Dale came over and we loaded up our 3 sheep, Ruby and the Psycho Sisters... Dummy and Stupid. Then we went to his place and loaded up his 5 sheep and a Buck and hauled 'em all over to my buddy Gary's house where we were gonna meet up with Doug the sheep shearer guy. Gary was gone but his wife Jolene was there so me and Dale and Jolene hung out for awhile until Doug the shearer showed up.

Meanwhile I looked up the driveway and did a blink... rubbed my eyeballs... blinked again. Here comes a llama being led by some Amish dude. Gave me a serious case of the giggles. I dunno if it was the fact that a llama is being led in, or if it's because an Amish dude is doing the leading or if I was just tired and bored. Anyway, struck me pretty funny.

Amish guy gets his llama parked and he's waiting for Doug the shearer too. Needs to get his llama trimmed up for summer. Jolene introduces us... Amish dude is "Junior". I like that. Junior Borntregger.

Doug gets there finally and we get all set up and he breezes thru the sheep, Jolene had 2 of her own too. No one wanted the stupid wool, but we made Doug take it. Anyway, came time to give "Honey" (That's Junior's Llama's name...lol) his haircut. Doug's done a few and I've got the rope holding Honey the llama so I get the most instructions about what the llama is and is not gonna do.

What I learned yesterday.

1. Llamas spit.
2. Llamas kick.
3. Llamas got a mean streak in 'em.
4. Junior is a butthead.
5. Jolene makes baby talk to llamas
6. I don't much care for llamas.

I don't know what the correct way is to cut the hair offa stupid llama, but it sure seemed to me like it was the hard way that Doug did it.

He'd be clipping along and the llama would get all still and tense like a cat then it'd kinda just explode with a bunch of grunting noises and Tasmanian Devil spinning. Junior the Amish guy would laugh, Dale kinda stood outta the way of back feet, Jolene made baby talk, Doug sheared, I got slimed by Honey.

We got all done, Junior led Honey the llama off into the setting sun. We all overpaid Doug so he'll come back (lol) and then we went home.

I know this was a prime opportunity for pictures. Sorry, no camera. But I put together this wonderful montage for you of what it was kinda like. I found all these pictures on the wide wide world of the internets.

From upper left. Junior the Amish dude, Honey the llama, Dale (I know it's a girl, but I always liked Dale Evans... what a cool chick. She'd have wanted in on this I'm sure, if she wasn't so dead.) Me, Jolene, (Jolene isn't asian, but I thought this girls pic added a bit of mystique to the whole thing) and finally Doug the shearer.

Click it to make it big.




Thank you, thank you.





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Wine Drinkers Are Party People

We played at a local winery yesterday, man did we have a blast and I do believe that everyone else did too. :-) I think we played a 25 or 30 song set with a break and the owners at West Winery provided the band with WAY too much wine.

This song... I dunno. It's pretty much our "Party Song That'll Give You A Smile That You Can't Knock Off Your Face With A 2 by 4" I have a real hard time looking at the girls when they're backing this one up... sends me into hysterics. (and makes me forget lyrics lol)







And a bunch of pictures from yesterday 'cause I'm too lazy to give you a real blog post.

*Click 'em to see 'em bigger*



















And finally, my sweetheart, Sally... dressed to the nines and looking like 2 and a 1/2 million bucks in an awesome hat, jacket, vest and boots. Having a dance here with "Arnold". :-) A little outta focus, but I think that was from 'em movin' so dang fast.

Some Pics From Yesterdays Studio Session

Sally got some pics offa the camera from yesterdays recording session for Keota.... Did I mention we had a blast? :-)

Some of the pics are a little hazy and glared that were shot thru the booth window into the studio.

*Click on any of the pics for a larger view*


Gettin' ready...





















Finally, Louis ("Louie") Me and Ronnie.

Went into the recording studio today.

Well... what an incredible roller coaster ride this week. Our band, "Keota" went to a recording studio this evening, and our intentions were to try and record 2 original songs that our singer, Martina is going to enter in a Christian music contest. We ended up doing 5! And we did those in about 2 1/2 hours... pretty much amazing. How much fun was it? More fun than you can shake a stick at. All of us were wound up, a couple of us were pretty nervous, but I don't think I've ever been more at ease playing. I'm probably not gonna sleep tonite though... 'cause now I wanna go back and finish us up a CD.

Sally took videos of the whole session and took a bunch of still shots, and I can't wait to see 'em. Matter of fact the videos are downloading off the video camera's hard drive right now. ;-) I'll get some of 'em put up here in a few days, and our daughter Nicky is also getting our website together for us and we'll have more stuff up there.

We've got a private party gig tomorrow night and then playing at a local winery's grand opening on Saturday afternoon.. so we ended up with a full week of music.

I honestly think this is the best time of my life. Truly. We're all enjoying it SO much, no youthful attitudes to get in the way, just a bunch of late 40's-early 50's people doing what we love. Well one mid 20 person thrown into the mix... but Martina is a total kick in the head. Just a pure joy to be around. We all love her to pieces.


So, a little more upbeat post today huh? :-) Pictures to come later.. it's late and I've got videos to watch!

Just an odd day... even for me.

I kinda stumbled through the day today, it was a weird one. I'd guess what set the tone was the funeral I attended this morning. I had a cousin pass away that was a couple years younger than me... her health was pretty good, she just went. Of course she'd been on my mind the week leading up to the funeral. We were together some as kids, but mostly just "howdys" at family reunions and when we'd run into one another in town for the past 30 years or so. We weren't real close, but I really couldn't put my finger right on my feeling until this morning.

After the funeral, several of my cousins and I were standing out on the sidewalk chatting, smoking, catching up, etc. and someone mentioned that this is only the second cousin that we've lost out of pretty humongous clan. When Stuart died it 'bout ruined me, we were 15 and 16. He contracted bone cancer and lasted about 2 years of misery, the loss of a leg, radiation... the whole gamut.

Even the service was catching for me. Pam's regular pastor was unable to hold the service and her family had requested a local guy, that as far as I know isn't a preacher of any sort... but gave a memorable, and at times mesmerizing and quite touching memorial service. The whole point that Jack made with his memorial for Pam was taking care of the undone, saying the unsaid and fixing wrongs before you regret them forever.

This is the second person my age to go on in the past 2 weeks that I've had some sort of relationship with. I want to say "young person" but we aren't exactly young any longer at 50, but we're not old either. Anyway, made me run a whole lot of stuff through my head today.

So... there's that part of my day. Sleep will take care of a lot of it and the rest of it I hope to address in my life as I come to it.

Ta Da!


Getting the cattle up in the barn tomorrow morning and gonna vaccinate the calves. Should be a good day.


I promise to be funnier next time. :-) lol

Cheap Hotels

I just had a story relayed to me about the price of hotels getting stupidly expensive. Heck what is'nt these days? It got me to thinking about some of the places I've stayed.

Back when I was in the gun business and I did gun shows, I stayed in some real doozies along the way. Of course with the business I was in, I was usually armed to the teeth with enough armament to win most small governmental skirmishes single handedly. If the sheets looked clean, the cockroaches weren't too bad, the place had a bar and it was cheap... I was there. Never had trouble that I remember, being a pretty good sized feller doesn't hurt sometimes... you get away with more in a rough place, 'specially with the butt of a 45 sticking up out of the back of your pants. :-)

Most of 'em I've forgot about, I DO remember a Ramada Inn that I stayed at once that had blood red shag carpeting that was soaking wet. I went back to the desk and they moved me down to the end of the hallway and everything was cool until about 1 am when the folks in the room next to mine... got loud. I gotta put this as politely as I can... They sounded as if they were beating elephants with a 2x10 while walking on hot coals. I laid there in my bed for awhile trying to envision just what antics these folks were performing... when all of a sudden I heard glass break, a loud expletive deletive, laughter.... and then what apparently was a monkey riding a bicycle in circles with a playing card stuck in the spokes while he chased a sea lion around the room. The female half (I say "half" because I'm just assuming there were only two people involved in these shenanigans)seemed to REALLY like this part.

I called the front desk and everything stopped in about 5 minutes. I looked around for signs of a seal the next morning, but none was there.


A few years ago I had to be at the hospital for a procedure VERY early in the morning, several miles from here and decided it'd be best to get there the night before and have a quick commute to the hospital. Sal got a coupon outta something for a hotel called the "Budget" something. Can't remember the name now. Anyway we got to the Budget Dump and I walk in to the front desk. The place looks a little on the tough side. A gal with what looked to be "some experience" and a black eye, took my money and my stupid stupid stupid coupon and gave me the key to hell.

Sal and I drove to room 666, got out, tried the key... wouldn't work. I drove back to the office. This time a big Mexican guy with a pony tail came to the desk and wanted to know what I needed. I told him the key didn't work and he double checked it and said to go back to the room and he'd send his brother down to open it for us.

We go BACK to the prince of darkness' room and wait until the big Mexican's brother comes waltzing down the parking lot and is quite possibly the drunkest man I've seen that is still able to keep his feet on terra firma. Drunk brother stabs around with the key, wiggles the doorknob, curses in spanish and finally the door pops open. We all 3 walk inside, it's freezing cold. I ask him if there's any heat, he flips on a heater over the top of the doorway that sounds so weary and awful, I'm sure that it predated the Spanish American war. As a matter of fact it may have been a weapon in that war. I dunno.

Drunk brother leaves and I stand there in this room with my lovely bride who refuses to get any closer to a bed, chair or wall than 8 feet. I peer around the corner into the bathroom.

Sally: How is it?

Me: Not pretty. I ain't using it.

Sally: You want to look at the bed?

Me: No.

Sally: *frightened silence*

Me: Let's go.

Sally: Where?

Me: I gotta go talk to the ponytail.

We get back in the car and I go back to the office. A puny looking little white guy in black rimmed glasses, might have been Wally Cox but I don't know for certain, handed Juan Ponytail some cash and sauntered off down another hallway with Miss Blackeye.

I belly up to the counter and he looks at me...

Ponytail: Dere a problam man?

Me: Yeah... I'm gonna be needing my money back.

Ponytail: *Looking at me*

Me: *Looking at Ponytail*

Ponytail: No problemo man.

I walk back out to the car and open the door.

Sally: How'd it go?

Me: *handing her the cash refund and laying my Glock down on the console.* No problemo man...


We drove to a very nice Ramada Inn, walked in, they were all decorated for Christmas... it was beautiful. Sally walks over to the giant Christmas tree in the lobby.

Sally: JACE! LOOK! They have a Christmas tree! Isn't it beautiful?

Sally: *running over to the curved staircase that is decorated with lights and garland* JACE! HONEY! LOOK! They have stairs. Real stairs... WITH GARLAND AND LIGHTS! I think I'm going to cry now honey.

I turned to the clerk who was smiling and she gave me an excellent deal on the room for Sally's most excellent performance and we lived happily ever after.