I remember watching my grandfather as he approached the back door to go out to the garden or to get in his Volkswagen rabbit. He walked in a more or less stately manner to the door. He reached out his hand to take the door knob. Then he deliberately turned the knob all the way to the stop before he began pulling the door open, then striding through. It was all paced and cadenced.

This was a man who grew up starting the wood fire in the school house pot bellied stove. He drove a mare and buggy to deliver newspapers. In other words he lived in a time before machines, when people took time to do things right.

By contrast, I’ve always been in a hurry, and somehow ended up being late. My approach to a door knob is to run into the door, fumble with the knob, miss twice, then hit myself in the head With the door as I jerk it open.  It’s like I’ve got the Keystone cops running through my brain. (what’s left of it!)

Now, in retirement, I find that I am studying taking time. I take time to visit with friends and family. I take time to warm up a horse. I walk in my garden and fields. I sit and pet my pooches.

By the way, grandpa was born before motorized vehicles, but lived to see the first man walk on the moon.

Oh, and, all that deliberateness walking through the door – evaporated once he was behind the wheel of his Volkswagen rabbit. He drove like he was going to a fire!

Just got back home from another fun, amazing and informative clinic with Manuel Trigo, on my Lusitano mares. Thanks to him I am finally beginning to understand horse training. It’s only taken 50 years! Piece of cake. Now we’re back to work on the ranch. I’m riding out to prowl the coastal patch. As I ride across the field, I see a miracle. The grassbur infestation is nearly gone! Our Corriente cattle have eaten the majority of the malignant, pain producing, seeds. However they have also considerably reduced the biomass of the field. Another few days and I’m going to have to move them to another field lest we overgraze the Bermuda and invite weed infestation. Which reminds me of the AgriLife extension class I just attended in which we Texans were warned about the deleterious effects of overgrazing. The other thing I noticed is that owing to the lower temperatures that we humans are now enjoying, the Bermuda grass, which loves heat, rain, and sunlight, is beginning to slow down its growth. Enter the no till pasture drill! We are now starting to plant oats in all of our hay meadows and pastures. I know it seems a little late, but if we had planted earlier, the coastal bermuda was still flourishing and it would have prevented the little baby oats from growing. Also now that we’re closer to frost date, we may escape losing our oat crop to army worms! Yes, it’s true, the challenges to successful agricultural production in the south of Texas are legion. So we have to be crafty farmers and ranchers. And even so, the one variable we cannot control is weather. The time for abundance in production in Texas is past as we have also had an enormous increase in our population in recent decades. Now is the season for science, experience, and novel ideas to take the helm as the work of feeding that population meets these challenges to our success. If the climate won’t help us our God-given brains must!

What’s the old saying?

“You never miss the water until the well goes dry.”

Well, well, well, we got the college course in the literal version.
Ours didn’t go dry, it turned to mud. We live at the dizzying altitude of four hundred feet above sea level, and our water formation, which is nine hundred feet deep, dips into the earth about twenty miles north of us.

We have occasionally had to flush out sandy material from our settling tank, but a little over a month ago frankly dirty water began running out of our tap.

Our driller has had to do everything short of consult the Vatican, or hire a witch.

We have been living out of buckets and barrels, us and the horses.

Finally we are beginning to see actual transparent water, blessed RUNNING water, issuing from our tap.

We were taking cat baths, and going to my neighbors house for biweekly showers for over a month. This got complicated when they became quarantined.

Now, I experience something like religious fervor every time I open the tap!

Such a simple thing, water.

What an impact on our modern lives it is to live without running water!

As we begin to think about the next holiday, Thanksgiving, I find that appreciating simple things, like water, each other, love, family, will be the things I’m thankful for.

Have a glass of water! I’ll drink to that!

Hallowe’en 2020 has come and gone.

Since we inhabit the boondocks, we rarely see “trick or treaters” even in a normal year.

But with a worldwide pandemic, one that appears to once again be worsening, there were no little Star Wars creatures, Frozen princesses, nor pirates at our door.

Don’t know what we’ll do with all these cookies, but since we were left alone we sat on the porch watching the Blue Moon rise, second full moon in October.

It was cold and clear, except for a few wispy clouds. One of the clouds caught a reflection of the bright light of the moon making a sort of mini rainbow. Those clouds at that altitude were probably ice clouds, and that phenomenon in daylight would be called a “sundog”.

So I guess what we saw was a “moondog”.

The blue moon is said to be a time when your stuffed animals and even farm animals can speak.

I suppose that comes to us as a modification of the old Celtic Druid’s belief that on Samhain (Sawin) the curtain between this world and the next is raised and we can communicate with the departed.

I didn’t hear from mom, nor the only animal on the porch who was asleep, the big white dog, Woof. But he rarely talks and the moondawg didn’t talk, either.

Happy Celtic New Year!