BLOGGED DOWN

This blog thing is akin to sitting atop a wild bronc, in that, my pageviews have seen their fair share of ups and downs. When I first started blogging I tended to be a little longwinded. Okay, so this is my first rodeo, but I didn't want anyone to think I was lazy. From now on, I'll keep it short and sweet.   Figuratively speaking, however, it should take you at least eight seconds to read it.

MATRIARCH

Every herd has a boss mare, even a herd of two. My wife, Diana, is the boss of our household. That's why the other day when our neighbor asked me if he could have some ash trees off of our property, I told him, "You'll have to ask Diana, she's the boss." The woman sitting next to me said, "That's the way it should be." And I suppose it is. Things just seem to run smoother when there's only one boss.

MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK

Ah yeah, there's nothing like that adrenalin feeling I experience in the spring. It's a sensation of flying, like a rag doll, through the air. The turbulence before take off. The picth of trajectory before gravity pulls me back in. The rough landing when I hit my head. And then...the audible moan upon impact, "Ouch, I hate riding these horses after they haven't been ridden all winter!"

TIME TO TWEET

Really, is this how people are talking now? Seems like a foreign language to me, a cross between Tweety Bird and Trick or Treat. Even so, next week, I'll be on twitter.

LOVE LETTERS

Do men still send love letters through the mail, or are all the Don Juan's behind bars these days? You know the guys I'm talking about, the ones who have all the time in the world to write the kind of gushy stuff that every woman wants to hear. Yep, they sure don't seem to have any problem getting in touch with their feelings. But, I do. I have never written a love letter in my entire life. I'm not sure my wife, Diana, would know what to do if I did. But still, she understands how I feel about her. I don't have to express it in writing. I show her every time I go to work and put in a twelve hour day, or when I spend my weekends building fences and fetching water for her horses. She knows. Why else would she put up with me for thirty-three years?

FORBIDDEN

For my 10th birthday, I got a BB gun. Before I even had a chance to shoot it off, I was told by my mother that shooting animals was forbidden. All the while, I envisioned waving the rifle around and hitting moving targets. I couldn't wait to get outside and try it out. I lined up beer cans and plastic army men, and fired away at them one-by-one. The neighbor's tire swing made a nice target, as well as a couple of ornaments that adorned his backyard. But, as the days wore on, I became bored. I suppose it was instinct more than anything else that made me grip the rifle and hold it straight up when a robin flew over my head. I didn't think I would ever hit something moving so quickly. Still, I closed one eye, aimed, pulled the trigger and nailed it. The bird fell right in front of the kitchen window and proceeded to flop around wildly. To my horror, my mother was at the kitchen sink doing dishes. I had to decide whether to get the bird out of her view or run in the opposite direction. I dropped down on my hands and knees, crept along the side of the house, reached and snatched it up pronto. The incident went unreported. But, from that day forward, I decided to travel a little further from the house before bagging anymore birds.



My nephew refused to smile and the pony laid her ears back, so I muttered, "Just take the picture!"