Why Work

Has anyone noticed the change in the workforce in the last 30 or so years? It is odd that when folks are working two weeks out of four and continue to complain about having to be at work when they are there, and then complain loudly when asked to work overtime often turning the extra time down. It's disturbing to me . . . Dad taught me to work when I was very young living in New Mexico while he was employed by the El Paso Natural Gas Company. We lived in company housing up and away from the small community of Kirtland. Dad was doing shift-work at the processing plant and in his off hours he would voluntarily work on my Uncle Roy's ranch and on my Uncle Grant's apple orchard. Many nights he would get up in the middle of the night to go to Uncle Grant's orchard to reset the water lines during irrigation season. After the picking season was complete, Dad would often go the orchard and prune the trees to get them ready for the next season. When we were big enough to go with him it was our job to collect the prunings and bring them out of the orchard. I was always excited to go help with the work, maybe not always that much help but definitely happy to be there. It was exciting for me to be in the orchard working. In the summers there was always hay to pick up and put up. I was too small to handle the bales, so they put me in the cab of the truck and gave me the job of keeping the truck headed down the row of hay bales without hitting any of them. Someone would put it in "granny" and I would sit there in the drivers seat and steer it down the field while the men moved around picking up bales and throwing them up on the flat bed to a man up there who had the job of stacking the bales neatly on the truck.



Later on I always wanted a job. I had paper routes for a while. In the afternoon after school I would hop on my bike after school and head down to the La Grande Observer office to collect the papers for my route. I had to stuff and roll all the papers before I could load them in my paper bags on my bike and deliver them. In the morning before school I would be up and delivering the Oregonian. Mel or Mom would spot the papers along my morning route because the Oregonian was so big I couldn't haul all the papers for my route in my bags. The paper routes didn't pay very well though and I didn't make much money, so I was looking for something more lucrative.


I had a friend the worked for the DelMonte cannery in Pendleton during the summer harvesting peas around La Grande, and I thought it would be good if I could get on with them one summer. At the end of the summer harvest the harvesters were driven back to Pendleton to the cannery and my buddy convinced me that the company had a sign up list back at the cannery and that anyone that showed up could sign the list and work for them next summer. We concocted a plan to get me back to Pendleton to sign the work list. The plan was for me to hop on the harvester he was driving as they passed through town and ride along with him. I hopped on as the parade of harvesters made their way through La Grande on the truck route. I managed to climb up and into the grain storage bin up on top of the machine. I ducked down so I wouldn't be seen as we made our way east on highway 84 to Pendleton. Everything went well for a while until we were about half way between La Grande and Pendleton when the crew boss saw me as I popped my head out of the bin to see where we were and how the trip was going. He pulled up alongside the harvester and stopped the parade right there on the highway! I crawled out and got into the back of his pickup at his insistence. I suppose I was lucky he didn't leave me there on the highway to make my own way home. I rode the rest of the way to Pendleton in the back of his pickup and tried my dangest to talk them into signing me on for the harvest next summer but nothing doing. Not only were they mad at me for jumping the harvester but I was a year too young to participate in the harvest. Eventually we all loaded up in the crew bosses rig and made the trip back to La Grande. Once again lucky they didn't leave me sitting in Pendleton to find my own way home.

I learned a valuable lesson that summer . . . There is no easy path to success!

2010 Christmas Morning

Merry Christmas to all! I couldn't sleep so I'm up a bit early this morning. Delaine and Anna are snoozing comfortably in their nice cozy beds. The weather has been very nice the last couple of days with no rain to speak of and temperatures in the 50's most days of the week. This year it's just Delaine, Anna and me for Christmas. Devin and Ryan stayed home in Wyoming and Tara and Zach stayed home in Las Vegas. It's really quiet in the house without the grand kids here, they always bring so much energy where ever they go! Mom stayed in New Mexico this year even though I tried to talk her into coming up, and she is at Uncle Darrel's house with his family and I'm sure having a great time. We opted out of traveling too, partly because of the weather but mostly because I have used up all my vacation time earlier this year. I'm thinking of saving a few days next year to take around Christmas time. Anyway, it certainly is nice to have Anna here with us! She is out of school for a couple of weeks then heads back on the 4th of January to begin her second semester. She's in her freshman year and so far is doing very well at BYUI. She changed her major from Animal Science to Speech Pathology, so she will have to transfer to a different college at some point to get her degree. She is hoping to transfer to BYU Provo to continue on that path, and so far her grades are what they need to be to qualify for the transfer. We just have to see if it can be done.

I can't help but think about past Christmas mornings when we were young living in our old two-story house on X avenue in LaGrande . . . the three of us boys would get so excited about the coming of Christmas morning! We usually had to go to our rooms early so Santa would be able to the come, but we rarely got right in bed. We would sit up talking and playing and waiting for Mom and Dad to go to bed. We would watch out the window for Santa to fly over and swear we saw him in his sleigh! Some years we would sneak back down stairs after Mom and Dad were well asleep to inspect our Christmas presents. Every year Santa would bring us some nice presents and leave them by the tree and we could hardly stand not knowing what was there. At times we were even naughty and would use a razor blade to open our presents so we could see what they contained, then we would carefully tape them back up so we could open them on Christmas morning. We were always excited to get up early and rip and tear! Once all the presents were open we usually had a nice big breakfast then spent the rest of the day playing with our gifts. One year we got an HO road race set, and I remember Dad and our uncles spent more time setting it up and playing with it than we did. Not that we didn't want to mind you, but they were having so much fun with it we couldn't get close.

One year I remember a small gift under the tree that came from Granddad Fuentes. It was small and had a question mark on it. It was mysterious in its size and the way it was wrapped with just plane white paper. I remember looking at it every day before Christmas trying to figure out what it could be. Christmas morning that was the first one I wanted to open up. When I opened it I discovered it was my pocket knife I had lost the summer before! All at once the memories of that summer came rushing in. We had been at Grandma and Granddad's place in Luna and Mel, Dale and I were playing out back around the grain storage building as we normally did. I forget what game were playing but I had gone into the storage building and Mel locked me in. I couldn't open the door from the inside and nearly panicked! The door had a screen window in it that let the air in and I had a pocket knife, so I pulled it out and cut the screen so I could unlock the door and free myself. I spun around and stabbed the knife into a bag of grain and run free promptly forgetting about the knife until that Christmas morning. Guess what? I never used my knife to damage anyone's property again and I remember it to this day?

I love Christmas! Maybe next year we can all be together again . . . may we always remember the true meaning of Christmas and my we work to keep "Christ" in our lives this time of year and all year long!

Merry Christmas!

091114 Saturday Morning

We sat out in the cold, foggy evening yesterday and witnessed Roseburg bury Barlow 47-8. The Indians were on their game last night and look very good though at one point in the 3rd Quarter and fight broke out between a couple of players and one from each team got ejected from the game. Thereafter every holding penalty resulted in a loss of 15 yards for offending team. Other than that it was a clean game. Roseburg moves on in the playoffs to go up against West Salem next Friday. Since it's an away game we won't go but it ought to be a good one.

Now that I'm up, I'm doing this a bit and paying the bills. It's one of those necessary evils of life. Once that's all done . . . I'll be out working on the horse stalls a bit then no doubt make a run to the dump. If there is time left and if the fair grounds are available we will take the horses out this evening for a work out.

Have fun today and be safe . . .

Here we are - Saturday Night

Anna went to a party at Kylie's house today after our horse ride and is still there. They are watching movies. We watched a movie this evening - The Proposal. It was a funny movie :) I'm not sure it is a movie I would want to watch twice but it was probably worth watching once. I like Betty White and Sandra Bullock.

Oh, did I mention the horse ride. We took the horses out to the Mildred Kanipe ranch today for a trail ride. This is the last weekend we will be able to ride there this year since it will be closing next weekend. The weather was great with the sun peeking out between the clouds most of the day. I didn't even have to wear a jacket. The horses all did very well today with no big surprises. Pretty good considering is been several weeks since we've been on them. One little issue with Dustie and Lacey while going down a fairly steep decline into small valley. There was a ditch in the very bottom and neither horse wanted to go over it to the uphill side. I worked Dustie for a while next to it and finally got her to cross and Delaine took Lacey down the ditch till they found a spot to cross. It was good to have them out.

Mom and Tara, thanks for responding to my I'm curious posting. I've been wondering if anyone reads my blog. I know it's very dry but that's all I have. I'll keep it up and try to post more regular but I can't promise anything

Just Curious

Does anyone out there still read this blog?

Home Coming Dance

Remember when you were in High School and you got to go to the home coming dance? I don't . . . but Anna got to go to the dance this evening. She is still there probably dancing and having a great time with her date Oliver. The play saxophones together in the marching ensemble and in the wind ensemble and in the jazz ensemble. Even though she is 17 now and only a few short months away from 18, I worrying about her being out on a date. I guess that's just a dad thing. :) Devin and Tara, you may be surprised to know I had the same feelings when you were out like that. Like you two, Anna is a very good kid and I trust here completely, just worry by nature I guess. Here is a photo of the two of them on their way out the driveway:

Looks like they are already having fun, doesn't it . . .

I'm still here . . .

I know it's been a while since I posted to this blog, but just wanted to let you all know we're still here and still doing pretty good. Anna is back to school and is very busy with band and other activities associated with going back to school. We've managed to volunteer for the band parents organization so that keeps us occupied when we aren't working and when we aren't doing horse stuff. Once we're back in our groove I'll start posting a bit more often. In the meantime my flickr site is still up so you can enjoy looking at our photos and I log into face book daily.

I hope all of you are doing good . . .

Some of my current concerns:

Health Care/Socialism
9 trillion dollars debt
Mortgage foreclosures
AH1N109

To name a few . . .

Another Fair Coming Up

We are hardened county fair participants as we have been doing 4H and FFA with the girls since around 1989. Devin and Tara started the whole thing with those dang rabbits. Actually the truth of the matter is that Delaine started it by bringing home a rabbit named Apricot that she picked up for free at the girls swim lessons in Medford. So here we go again for another year. This year of course we're in the Douglas County Fair Aug 4th through the 8th and we will be there from the 2nd through the 9th with the animals. Anna's steer is finished and ready for market and she has delivered 20 buyer letters to misc. businesses throughout the Roseburg area. Of course one went to all previous buyers and then she added several letters to folks that have bought but not from her. We know the economy is in tough condition and the odds of getting a good price at the auction are slim but she'll do her best anyway. Then there is Brazo . . . he'll go in Monday afternoon and Anna will compete in events on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. She will compete in western equitation, showmanship and trail on the three different days. Brazo is more mature this year and more settled so she hopes to score higher than she has in the past with him. I'll try to get off long enough to watch at least one of the events, but I'm not taking the week off.

Along with Anna showing her steer and competing with her horse we will be working the gates a couple of evenings during the week with our Posse group. It's one of our main fund raising events for the year so we need it. Delaine will work in the 4H kitchen at least one day and maybe more if needed.

I scored tickets to the Josh Turner concert on Thursday evening and since I'm not a big fan of Josh Turner I gave the tickets to Anna and Delaine. They will get to go back stage and visit with him and have their pictures taken with him and maybe the band, who knows for sure. I think it will be a good relief for them. Then Friday night is the auction . . . I'm sure we will be there late for that and of course we hope Anna sells early so most of the buyers will still be there.

Anyway . . . wish us luck . . . I'm sure we'll need it.

Story Time

A couple of weeks ago on Sunday evening Delaine and Anna wanted to go down to Rob Estabrooks arena and ride the horses. Rob lives just down the hill from us and owns and runs rough-stock with his son-in-law, so his place is set up pretty well for riding. I debated on whether to ride or not because I was still a bit sore from our trail ride the previous weekend. My leg and back were still hurting a some. After some kicking it around, I decided I would take Maverick down and work with him and ride him a bit. I've ridden him a couple of time in our round pen so I figured it might be good to get him out into a larger area to see what he might do. Well we rode around the arena a couple of times slowly while stopping next the several bulls Rob had in pens next to the arena. He was perfectly okay with standing there looking at the bulls and showed no signs of excitement really. He seemed pretty well settled after the walk down the hill and several minutes of groundwork so he was doing what I expected him to do. I rode him back to the end of the arena where Delaine and Anna were parked talking with Rob's daughter Amy and her two sons. We set there and talked for a few minutes then I decided to make another lap. As Maverick and I took off and were about 20' from the group headed across the arena at a walk a gust of wind blew up in our faces and it must have caused some sort of reaction in Maverick's brain when all at once he started bucking while standing in place. I stayed on for about three bucks then lost my balance and went over the left side of his neck head first. Luckily I thought or reacted to tuck my head to my chest and roll with it as I hit the ground on my left side shoulder and arm. Amazing my glasses stayed on. My reflexive reaction was to hang on to the reins and Maverick was backing away from me while I was laying on the ground hanging onto the reins. I guess he dragged me a ways until I heard Delaine, Anna and Amy hollering at me to let go of the reins which I did quickly. When I got up I couldn't breathe well because of the blow from my arm and elbow into my ribcage. Amy told me to raise my arms and breathe which I did and that helped some. I walked around a while catching my breath then got back on Maverick and rode him in circles for a while. I got off and we headed home after that. I didn't go to the doctor because I had full range of motion with my arm and shoulder so even though it was extremely sore I figured there wasn't anything broken inside except maybe a cracked rib or two. After two weeks I'm just now getting to where I can blow my nose and cough without extreme pain in my left side ribcase. It still hurts quite a bit when I sneeze though so I try to avoid that when I can.

Lesson learned? I'm not sure . . . maybe if I had recognized quick enough that he was starting to buck, I could have pulled his head around and stopped him from getting too carried away by throwing him off balance. Rob's suggestion was to add a "dog collar" to the saddle next to the horn to give something to hang onto while he bucks. He said he uses one and has never had a horse put him on the ground when he has been using it. I think I'd rather figure out a way to keep him from bucking, so he is going to get plenty of ground work before I get back on him. Then when I do if he raises his head or rear end I will promptly pull his head around to through him off balance before I lose my balance.

Happy Birthday Ron

Today was a good day! I heard from Dale, Tara, Devin, Mom and Mel (twice). Thanks for singing to me Mel. Delaine and Anna both wished me a happy birthday too. The weather was near perfect today too with no rain! I got up at 6:00am after laying awake in bed for about an hour. With the nice cool morning and overcast sky I figured it was the right time to mow the grass around here. Delaine went to town, Anna went to the school to take the SAT test so I was here all alone so mow I did. I got all the lower area around the round pen mowed and all the area between the driveway and the road mowed as well as all around the goat pen. It looks pretty good right now. Delaine came home from town and planted some flowers in the yard while I finished mowing then we went down town and met Anna for lunch. We had Mexican food . . . it was good. Delaine and Anna stayed in town after lunch and I came home. I laid down on the couch and took a nice long nap. It felt good! I can't remember the last time I took a real nap. That's one of the simple pleasures I really enjoy. In the evening Delaine and Anna took me to Anthony's for dinner. Fox and Mary went with us to help with the celebrations. After dinner we came home and I opened presents and we had carrot cake and ice cream. Now Anna is off baby setting for Ben Tatone and Delaine and I are vegging out in front of the TV.

It's been a good birthday . . .

Everything is Okay

Just a quick one to let you all know I'm still here and that everything is okay around our place. It finally dried out and warmed up a bit here in Roseburg. I've been busy working out around the place. Today I managed to get two piles of brush burned, these two piles have been bothering us for quite some time now and it's good to get rid of them. Delaine got a bunch of her plants in the ground today too. With the long weekend we may actually get our deer fence up around the garden spot. If we get it up then maybe we will actually have some vegetables later this summer. Anna and Delaine have collected a bunch of plants to go in the garden. Delaine plans to put in a small flower garden behind the fence too.

Anna went to prom last weekend. She had a lot of fun and she looked very pretty. I got a photo of her in her dress. I posted it on flickr if you want to see it. Monday evening Anna was honored a UCC for outstanding performance in her math class. They had a night of excellence and she was one of about 50 kids from high school that were honored.

I hope you all are doing good . . .

Progress on the '95 GMC

I got the fender and the hood on the GMC today before church. I noticed the '89 fender is just a bit different than the '95. There isn't enough difference to make me want to look for another one but right at the top next to the door the '89 tapers back toward the front of the pickup, so there is a little bit of a gap. It's only about 1/8" in 1" so it's not very noticeable really. I snapped a couple of pictures of it. You can't see the gap but you can see the difference in the color.

Now all we have to do is get the new grille in and we'll be able to start prepping for paint. I have a new grille coming from Clint Newell, it should be here this Tuesday. The grille is coming white so we won't have to mess with painting it. The bumper I got is a little rough and should really be re chromed. I suppose I'll put it on the way it is for now then after school is out I'll take it off and get it cleaned up and re chromed. All the side body molding is glued on and will get ruined when I take it off, so likely I'll order up body molding kit from Clint Newell too. The old pickup should look pretty good when we get done with it. Before Anna starts driving it to school I'll take it in and have the front end aligned since it got jarred around during its trip into to the tree.

The Jimmy is Home

We picked up the Jimmy from Clint Newell this afternoon and drove it home. Mind you there was no bumper, grille, hood or right front fender on it. The lights all work but some are hanging from the wires on the front end. I'll clean a spot in the shop and move it in tomorrow so we can still the reassembly process and prep it for paint. It will be white still and get a pearl treatment then clear coat after that. I'll get some pictures of it later and post them up for all to see.

The work begins . . .

The Frame is Straight

Okay, we decided to go ahead and get the "Jimmy" fixed so Anna would have it to drive. We got it for such a small amount that we figured we could spend some money on it so we took into Clint Newel's body shop and they put it on the frame rack to straighten the frame. Well they were successful and it is straight again. Nick the technician did a very nice job and he painted the two spots that he had to straighten. You can see the end in this photo. When he took the inner fender tub, and core support out he found them to be too bent to put back in so I had to scurry around and round up the parts. Luckily for me our neighbor Rob has an '89 Chevy setting in our other neighbor Larry's driveway and they visited me the other day to tell me I could take whatever I need off it. Also luckily the '89 was clean on the front end and all the parts interchange perfectly so I got the inner and outer fenders, the core support, the hood and the bumper. The parts are silvery blue instead of white so Anna and I will paint them and we'll also repaint the whole pickup. It ought to be good project for us. I though Nick would be done with today but he didn't make it so we won't get it back till Monday. I was a bit disappointed because I was hoping to work on it this weekend. Now it will be next week before we can get into it. Here is another shot of it on the rack:

It will be nice to have it back . . .

Time Marches On

I'm sorry I haven't updated you for a couple of weeks but we've been busy and I've been lame, sorry Devin . . .

Since I last wrote we've closed the deal on our refinance. We managed to land 5.25% fixed rate for 30 years. We set ourselves up with bi-weekly payments though and that will cut 8-9 years of the life of the loan. It was quite an ordeal getting the loan put together. It took about a month the close.

Also, we bought a car to drive while the GMC is broke down (wrecked). I have the pickup in the frame shop this week to get that bent frame rail straightened out. We replace the bent fender, hood, bumper and grille and then repaint the entire pickup. It was in need of a paint job anyway so now is a good time to do it. The car we bought is a black 1996 Mustang GT with 85,000 miles on it. The car is in premium condition so even with that many miles it should be a good car for many years. After all the '89 Mustang now has 250,000 miles on it and it's finally ready for an overhaul. I posted a photo of the '96 on flickr if you want to take a look at it.

This weekend I rented a tractor and did some work around the place. I leveled a spot to the west of the our existing horse shelter so we can add a couple more stalls on to it. Also I rototilled the round pen and got it into shape to use now that we are getting fewer days with rain and I rototilled the garden spot so Anna can plant her vegetables this spring. It will be nice to have small garden again. We even got some popcorn seeds! Devin and Tara you may remember the home grown popcorn from our gardens in Central Point. I love home grown popcorn, it's so much better than the corn you get from the store.

Today we played hooky from church and stayed home and worked around the place. It was stake conference this weekend and we can never get there in time to get a decent place to set. We're usually way in the back and have to watch the speakers on the monitor that doesn't really work that well. Anyway I managed to get the tall grass knocked down around here and it looks a lot better, not the mention it makes it safer around here. Also, we worked with Maverick, our rescue horse, and took several new photos of him. I posted some of them on flickr for you all to see. He is certainly making progress and is actually growing hair now. We think he is going to have some black hair mixed in with his sorrel color. He is starting to fill in, but he still has a long way to go to be in fit condition. Of course we a getting attached to him . . .

The EWP business is still very slow right now. We are going to take next week down which will make the second week in April with no production at the plant. The sales forecast has us taking another week down in May. So far we've been able to keep the maintenance crews working as we have an extensive list of work that needs to be done. In a way we are lucky to have the time with the machines down to get the work done. Eventually we will get caught up and then if we are still struggling with sales we'll have to take time off. We currently have four millwrights on lay-off but fortunately for them, they are all working. Three of them still with RFP and the other on a big construction job in Eastern Oregon.

I hope your week went well and I hope everyone is well and happy . . .

Parking Lesson

Okay, so this is only funny if it doesn't happen to you. When parking on an incline always remember and never forget to put the parking brake on. If you don't this may happen to you -


It was raining really hard and it was cold and I had an arm load of stuff to get out and take in the house so I was distracted and in a big hurry to get out of the rain. I had all my stuff in my arms and had just unlocked the front door when I caught the movement out the corner of my eye. When I looked around there went the jimmy, right down the driveway. I couldn't move quick enough to stop it so I could just watch. Now I have some work to do.

Rescue Horse

We took on a new project this week (as if we don't have enough to do already), a rescue horse from a neglected herd of horses in Burns, Oregon. The herd included 60 horses on the ranch and by the time the humane society got to them there were only 11 still alive. We volunteered to foster one of them and feed him back up into adoptable condition. We will probably come up with a name for him at some point but for now he is rescue horse and this is what he looks like:

As you can see his hooves are in desperate need of trimming and he is very rough. We hope to have him up into condition in 4 to 6 months. There are still nails in his hooves from his last shoeing. We'll have the farrier up soon to get them taken care of and for now we are feeding him alfalfa hay to put some meat on his bones. He's been under control of the humane society for the last 3 weeks and has been eased into the alfalfa and is ready for regular feeding. I'll post a couple more pictures of him on my flickr page if you would like to seen more.

Wish us luck in our endeavor to help one horse . . .

Week in Reveiw

You all know we were in Albany last weekend for the annual Equine Fair & Expo. We went mainly to see the extreme mustang makeover and Craig Cameron's "Extreme Cowboy Race". It was definitely worth the time spent. We watched part of the cowboy race on Saturday evening and then went back Sunday morning to watch the finals. Here is a photo of part of the course:




The guy in the wheel chair there and the guy in the red jacket standing next to him were the judges for the contest. Craig Cameron is the guy to the right with the blue denim jacket on. You can see he is holding the microphone in his hand. He was having trouble with his voice because of a cold or something but he made us hear him alright. It was a kick watching the cowboys and cowgirls make their way through the course. The fastest time was around 6 minutes and they were scored 0-10 for each obstacle with 30 seconds on each of the 13. We don't know who won the contest because they didn't announce it while we were there

The extreme mustang final was on Saturday and we were able see most of it. The program is that 90 horse trainers are selected from applications and 1 of 90 mustangs are assigned to each trainer, then they have 90 days to work on them before the finals. At the finals they bring the horse in and demonstrate their success or lack of success to the judges. They are scored and placed according to the way they perform. I believe the winner gets some money, but I don't know how much. Once the competition is over the horses are all adopted out at auction. We saw the last three go through the auction and the third to last brought in $300, the second to last brought $5000 and the last one brought $1500. Kind of all over the place. They all did a very nice job training their horse and it was a good show. Most of the trainers claim they would rather train a wild, untouched mustang than a domesticated horse.

Anna had a lot of fun during the weekend too because of all the vendors there selling their stuff. She came away with a cool yellow denim jacket (you would be jealous Tara) and a couple of Tee shirts. She was a bit disappointed that there weren't very many boots because she was hoping to buy a new pair. Like she really needs another pair :)

We got home from Albany on Sunday afternoon and immediately loaded the horses up and headed for the fair grounds for our ride with the posse. Even though we were tired from messing around at the show all weekend we enjoyed the ride then went to Subway for dinner and got home late.

The rest of the week was fairly typical for me but Anna was off for spring break and Delaine was off several days during the week. They both worked on Friday. I got a call from Anna on Friday during my lunch break while I was talking to Mom on the phone. I got off my call with Mom and called Anna back to see what was up since she rarely calls me during the day. She was a little weepy on the phone and finally told me that the pickup wouldn't start when they went to go to lunch. Turns out she had left the headlights on when they got out of it Friday morning and the battery was dead. She wondered what to do. I suggested getting someone to come and give them a jump start. It wasn't an emergency so I didn't want to drive the 35 miles back to town to get the pickup running. One of gals at the office talked to her boyfriend and he volunteered to come and give them a jump. When he got there the jump didn't work so he took the battery out and took it down to Les Schwab to have it charged. I knew the battery was good because it is practically brand new since we replaced it when we bought the truck last summer. So they skipped lunch and worked the rest of the afternoon until I got off. I went into town and picked the battery up and put it back in the pickup, and it started just fine with a freshly charged battery. That was around 4:00pm so they were pretty hungry from missing lunch. We went home and snacked some because there was not time to eat since we were taking the horses out to Dodge Creek for our Friday evening ride. After the ride we stopped at Subway again and had a sandwich with the posse group and got home around 9:00pm. I think it will be a good while before she leaves the lights on again . . .

The Friday evening ride was sort of interesting because we all brought and obstacle to work our horses with. One of the gals brought a bunch of balloons and tied them all around the arena, we brought a blue tarp and made a "pond" on the ground, there was an umbrella and a lariat. I couldn't get Dustie to go over the tarp though I certainly spend a lot of time trying. The highlight of the evening was when I tied the lariat to a big orange highway cone and drug it around the arena. It spooked every horse there including Dustie! She was fine with it for about a half revolution around and then she noticed it following her and got a bit excited. She spun around like she has never done before and start moving back and to the side and the spun the other way and was backing and starting to loose her balance so I let go of the rope. Then I did it again and she repeated her excitement again. Then the third time I did it she was pretty good about dragging it. It was nice to find out she could move like that . . .

On Thursday Anna took her first private lesson on her saxophone. We found an excellent instructor we hope can help her improve her playing. The instructor is a lady that comes from Chicago and is a professional. She has played with some very highly rated symphony groups as the lead oboe player. She also plays and teaches the piano, saxophone, flute, bassoon and clarinet. She is very nice . . . she and her husband moved to Roseburg last summer to get away from the rat race in Chicago. She has been playing three gigs a day most of the week and was just getting burned out and wanted to slow down a bit. Roseburg ought to be a good place to slow down. Anyway we're excited for Anna to be able to take lessons from such a high level professional. I've been kicking around the thought of taking piano lessons from her, do you think a 55 year old man can learn to play the piano?

Today we worked outside some and I increased the size of our round pen to around 50'. I decided to get the tarp out again and see what Dustie and I could do. I worked her around the tarp for around 20 minutes when she finally decided run across it so I worked her that way for a while and she finally settled down and walked on it, then I walked her back and forth across it and turned on it a couple times then put her back in her stall. I'll do it again tomorrow and maybe I'll ride her across it too . . .

Week in Reveiw from Roseburg

We're really looking forward to next week as it is spring break and Anna will be out of school. Delaine will be off several days next week too. Maybe we can slow down a bit and relax some.

This week has been typical with something cooking almost every evening. One of the highlights of the week was Anna's spring concert at the Rose Theater. We spent the evening there listening to the bands play. There are four band groups at the high school that usually perform at the concerts. Morning Jazz Lab, Symphonic, Jazz Band and the Woodwind Band. Anna plays in the Symphonic band and they did three pieces, none of which I recognized. Their band instructor generally chooses music from the 20's or 30's for some odd reason. I would love to here them do something contemporary. They have one more concert this year before school is out. I really enjoy listening to the kids perform even if the music is out of date. We are considering enrolling Anna in private lessons with a local instructor. The instructor is a gal from Chicago that worked as a professional horn player for many years. She finally got burned of the entertainment so she quit it and moved to Oregon to set up a shop where she can schedule her private lessons. We've yet to talk with her but I've heard a lot of good things. We should know more next week as we get to make contact with here. I'm excited for Anna to get lessons because she really enjoys playing but hasn't gotten much out of her high school instructor. Not to mention we just had her horn rebuilt and it sounds great.

On Tuesday, Anna went to Medford with the band to compete at North Medford High. They didn't place but I think they all had fun. She got home around 9:30pm and I was already in bed and asleep. While she was gone Delaine and I went to a special Posse meeting at Ten Down Bowling alley to discuss our connection with the sheriff. The lady that is the new liaison for volunteers met with us and went over the action from the sheriff's department. We were supposed to be getting applications to join the sheriff's posse but she didn't have any. They aren't quite ready to take applications and the sheriff has named another group as the "Temporary Official" sheriff's posse. Most of our group is upset because we do so much community volunteer work the the other group does very little of it. They mostly do gaming and have little interest in community volunteer work. It's an ongoing saga and we'll have to wait and see what the outcome is. In the meantime we still plan to do the parades and Camp Millennium and child ID and the drill presentation for the retired folks and security for the half shell this summer and all the other volunteer work we normally do. We will do it until our group disbands or they tell us to stop.

Anna is still tutoring Cody and they had two session this week, one on Monday and the other on Friday. It turns out the Cody's mom is our home owners insurance agent. Roseburg is really pretty small. Also Anna had a Spanish club part on Thursday evening, they had fun.

This weekend we are spending in Albany at the annual Horse Fair and Clinic. Craig Cameron will the there doing an extreme cowboy competition all weekend and they are having the extreme wild horse makeover finals. We'll be spending most of our time at those two events with some time in between to shop. Saturday evening and night we'll spend with Sheridan and Mark in Woodburn. (We're looking forward to spend the evening with you.) Also, Sunday we will celebrate our 34th wedding anniversary. We may go to dinner after the we leave the Horse Fair.

What do you all think about Mr. Obama's gaff on the Jay Leno show? And what do you think about the A.I.G. bonus scandal. I think things are getting out of hand and a little dicey . . .

More to the steer chasing story

I didn't mention this when I posted the episode with Anna's steer, but as we were in the heat of the chase I lost my glasses. My phone popped out of my pocket and I reached down to pick it up and must have not seen my glasses or they came out at a different time. I often stick them in my pocket when I'm not trying to read something. So I got my old pair of glasses out to use until I could either find mine or get another pair. These were and older generation prescription and the lenses were so cloudy and scratched I couldn't see that well with them. I figured I wasn't going to find my good ones so I went down to the vision center to get a new pair. While I was in there I couldn't find any that I liked better than my originals so I talked to them about just replacing the lenses in them with my new prescription. They said no problem and took a pattern of the lenses. It took a week and a half to get them in so I've been wearing the old ones all that time. What a pain! Well the new lenses came in this past Thursday and now I can see clearly again! Made me realize how much I depend on my glasses. It also makes me think I should have a spare pair of glasses . . .