Ooooh...

So today J&H poured concrete. Eight yards worth. Three pads: One for the front door entry, one (the one that started the whole thing) for a new storage room attached to the house (which will also incidentally insulate the pipes inside that outside wall, which is why you don't put your main plumbing in an outside wall if you can help it) and one at the main hitching post.

Had a fair turn-out. J&H, of course. D&L. Me. And another neighborhood couple I don't talk about much, who - since I'm sure they wouldn't give a damn about my privacy - I'll just call Darrell and Marta*. Three hours of hilarity ensued, leaving us all feeling rather battered. But then there were hamburgers and bratwurst, which was very, very nice. Except that my normal diet is very bland and damn near vegetarian, and bratwurst invariably gets me running to the john. Which, since afterward I needed to shovel the shit of J&H's horses, could have been better timed...

*He's a cop. She does admin work in whatever government office will hire her. No neighborhood is perfect. I keep my distance, and forbid friends to discuss The Secret Lair in their presence.

"It's who I am, Baby!"

Jon Stewart has something to say about the Repub's Pledge to America...

Meet the new boss/something something old boss...

"So yeah. Tyranny."

You can’t even make the weak argument that the executive at least has to claim this power in the course of protecting national security. Because it doesn’t matter. Obama is arguing that he has the right to keep everything about these executions secret — including the reasons they were ordered - merely by uttering the magic phrase “state secrets.” In other words, that this power would only arise under a national security context is deemed irrelevant by the fact that not only is Obama claiming the president’s word on what qualifies as “national security” is final, he’s claiming the power in such a way that there’s no audience to whom he would ever need to make that connection.

Whoo! And also Hoo!

If you're not familiar with the Hardyville columns, you're in for a treat. It was a long-standing feature of Claire's columns that she decided to bring to an end a couple of years ago, and that I feared would fade away forever. But now she and Backwoods Home have revived some version of them in book form, and I'm a'gonna get me one as soon as I figure out a mailing address to send it to. Especially if you haven't read the columns, I can strongly recommend this book even though I haven't actually seen it yet.

Heard at a Tractor...

M: (After replacing the fuel filter) "Think we can start it up now?"

Me: "Can't hurt to try."

Tractor: Crankcrankcrankcrank...crank...crank.

Me: "Stop. Memory kicking in. I suddenly recall that with real diesels, you can't start the engine after opening the fuel system without highly intricate bleeding procedures."

M: (Goes and gets the manual) "Holy crap! Dig this: 'Open and bleed the filter housing, the fuel pump, the injector pump, each fuel injector...' We could build a tractor with less effort than this!"

Me: "Uh...heh. Belated memories are a terrible thing..."

Heard at a concrete wall...

Me: "Augh. Concrete is just spilling out of this hole. I've got to plug it with something."

M: "Here you go." (Cobbles together Rube Goldberg contraption of blocks and boards) "What could go wrong?"

Me: "GYAAH!" (Contraption collapses, and Uncle Joel is inundated with wet concrete)

M: "...Except for that..."

Paulo is no longer the Stallion from Hell...

...or from anywhere else. This is the first time in my personal experience a castration was ever viewed as emergency surgery.

Paulo's excessive hormones have been driving him insane for some time now. Friday he went over the line - or at least over the fence. He managed, more or less from a standing start since he had virtually no running room, to clear a five-foot iron fence without killing himself for the purpose of murdering the horse in the next paddock. In J's serious opinion, it was dope and cut him or just shoot him. Once upon a time he was H's favorite saddle horse, because his trail endurance is very impressive for an Arab, and she likes spirited horses. But she's progressively been less and less able to ride him because of his unpredictability - it's been quite a while since she could ride him at all in the company of other horses. There's a line between spirited and crazy, and Paulo had pretty clearly crossed that line. Selling him in that condition was out of the question, so they decided the best of the list of bad alternatives was to geld him.

It is to be hoped that, in a few weeks when the testosterone works its way out of his system, Paulo will go back to his sweet self. He really can be a very pleasant horse. I'm sorry it happened, but can't really say I disagree with the decision.

Holy Crap! Did he EAT $787,637 a year?

The spectacle of corrupt government officials* arresting other corrupt government officials for being too publicly corrupt is...amusing, if meaningless.

Hey, here's a joke! What do you call 1000 tax-eaters at the bottom of the ocean?

*Yeah, I know. Report me to the Department of Redundancy Department.

What the hell? Let's join the meme!

...Though I confess I'm still not exactly sure what a "meme" is. Guess I should have gone to college, huh?

Anyway - I see, courtesy of Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell, that there's this hoplophobic broad who wants to play 20 Questions with gun owners. I'm just absolutely convinced she'll treat the responses she receives with a completely serious and respectful attitude. Also, she asks that responses be backed up with "peer-reviewed articles" or something similar. I can't do that, since I have no peers. I am peerless. Er...I know of no one who will admit to being my peer.

(Ahem...)

Duty, Honor, Country, Death By Cop.

Erik Scott won't be going to his USMA class reunion...

Erik turned to find three officers facing him, guns drawn, and all three shouting different commands: "Get on the ground!" "Drop your weapon!" and "Keep your hands up!" Erik held his hands up, spoke calmly, told them he DID have a concealed firearm and a legal CCW and was an ex-Army officer. His girlfriend was screaming about Erik being a West Point grad, former Army officer, etc. Erik leaned to his left, hands still up, to expose the pistol inside his belt, and repeated, "I am disarming; I am disarming..." Witnesses say he started to lower his right hand, palm OUT, as if intending to remove holster and gun together — but never got the hand below his shoulder, when one of the cops (William Mosher, who had committed a fatal shooting in 2006) shot Erik in the chest with a .45-caliber weapon. Erik dropped to his knees, clearly in shock, his face a picture of disbelief. He was shot a second time and collapsed. The rest is ugly. The three officers unloaded again, firing a total of seven hollow-point rounds. At least five, possibly six, hit Erik in the back, after he was on the ground and dying.

Do you still think Mr. Policeman is your friend?

Oh, the weather outside is...somewhat variable.

Yesterday it rained ALL FREAKING DAY - and then all night. Today there is literally not one tiniest cloud in the sky. Weird.

I had to slog through squelching mud to shovel shit this morning - there was no way I was going to do it yesterday short of a threat to the gig. Spirit the Freakishly Big Mare is gone to some sort of training today, and Paulo the Stallion from Hell was back to his mellow self. Didn't give me a bit of trouble. But between the mud and the rain-soaked hay, I thought I was going to break my back hauling the shitwagon back and forth. C'mon, end of Monsoon.

Still, pretty good day. I went down to the lair, having finally worked up my nerve to cut the hole in the loft floor I need for the permanent ladder. I got two holes drilled and one saw cut done, and then the cordless battery gave up the ghost. I need to bring the corded Sawzall and really give my Lair batteries a workout. The "new" one I hauled out there has so far been pretty underwhelming. I'm afraid it's toast. But since dead batteries are pretty much standard procedure, I had a backup plan. I now have all the loft insulation done, and can start on the siding up there. I've also learned that a bed Landlady gave me will indeed fit up there, which means I get to sleep like a civilized person and not on a pallet on the floor. That's pretty cool.

Now - assuming I ever get that hole cut - I need a boatload of iron plumbing. The Latest! Greatest! plan for the loft ladder involves using 1" pipe and flanges screwed to the wall behind the entry door. Since there's now substantial damage to the loft floor right there, I guess I'm committed as to location if nothing else. Putting it there not only puts the ladder in a spot that isn't where something else absolutely has to be (it's a very small cabin) but also permits the railing to reach all the way across the open part of the loft and secure to the walls at both ends. That'll be way stronger. Uncle Joel's kind of afraid of heights.

Guys, you fooled me with this once before...

So I understand the Republicans have come out with a new "Pledge to America." This is, I'm sure, nothing at all like the "Contract with America" they started reneging on roughly three picoseconds after the 1994 election results were in. For example I'm gonna go ahead and guess there's nothing in it about term limits, because those broken promises didn't go over very well as I recall. It seems to be 21 pages long, and no, I haven't read it. Nor will I: Since a .pdf file makes lousy toilet paper, it holds no interest for me at all.

Still, there's this phrase stuck in my head. How does it go? "Meet the new boss, something something old boss..."

"This woman is a gold mine!"

Pt. 1:



Pt. 2:



Oh, this is WAY better than the birth certificate kerfuffle. Somewhere a White House PR flack is hanging herself...

H/T to Treacher.

Massive Fail

H/T to TJICistan

This monsoon business is for the birds.

Last couple of evenings Monsoon has made itself felt again, which isn't too surprising. You don't expect it go to away all at once, or without a fight. But this morning dawned gray and cool and dripping, like autumn in Michigan. Every time I think I've waited it out so I can go shovel shit like a civilized being, it starts coming down again. This sucks - I should move to the desert or something.

I do believe this young man has an attitude issue.

Offered without comment:



I've been deliberately laying off the videos lately and today I post two. Sorry.

H/T to WRSA

Just for funsies - Remember this guy?

Warning: May not be safe for viewers with low gag thresholds.

Aw, forget it.

Sometimes the ol' blogger noggin goes dry. Once again, I got nuthin'.

In the only news, Paulo the Stallion from Hell did not bite me today. It was not for lack of trying, and I finally told J&H that if they want me to do a proper job of cleaning his paddock they're gonna have to restrain him first because that horse is batshit crazy lately. Turns out even H is becoming afraid to go in there with him. J wants to get him castrated, though in terms of his financial value they'd be better off buying a freezer and turning him into dog food. He's a relatively valuable stud. He used to be a fairly valuable saddle horse when H was doing endurance races. But these days she can't even ride him in company; the last time he tried to mount the horse ahead of him while she was on his back. That's the sort of thing that's amusing only in the stories you tell afterward. Assuming you don't end up in traction during the event, in which case it's never amusing. Ask me about all my really funny motorcycle accident stories.

That horse is wearing out his entertainment value.

Yeah, it's Sunday...

Nothing going on. Nothing to write about. Nothing interesting to even steal pass on.

So here are some funny pictures instead.

"Blucher!"

Paulo the Stallion from Hell's behavior has been more hellish than usual, just lately. Since two of his ladies came to be in a family way, he seemed to have mellowed right out. But H sold the 12-year-old mare (Cindy) she'd bought a couple of months ago for saddle work because she's "lazy" and replaced her with another mare named Spirit who is - and I quote - Awesome.

She's also freakishly big for an Arab mare, and for some reason Paulo has decided that she must be killed. Normally he only behaves that way toward other stallions. Paulo's worldview is extremely simple: Mares are for mating, stallions are for killing. He doesn't seem to notice the existence of geldings. Rather than his normal misbehavior of pacing obsessively and carrying on whenever one of his mares leaves the paddock, he has now taken to charging the fence in obviously murderous attempts to reach Spirit. H says she thinks Spirit's size has convinced him that she is a male, all objective evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Since horses seem to work by scent as much as any dog, I don't find this explanation convincing. But I don't have any alternatives, and besides it's really none of my business.

Anyway, Paulo has gotten a lot more frisky lately and I've learned to literally watch my back around him. He's usually not hostile toward me, but he is mercurial and occasionally violent, and the wrong impulse at the wrong time could get me busted up. Earlier this week, out of the blue, he reached across the shit-wagon I habitually keep between us and nipped my shirt, right in the back. Then he let go and scampered to the other side of his paddock. Since he was perfectly capable of going for meat if he'd wanted to, I think he was actually playing with me and didn't take it personally. But he's never done anything like that before, and any activity that involves Paulo's teeth is automatically suspect in my book.

This morning Paulo was wearing something new: A bright plastic collar. Attached to the collar was something that looked suspiciously like one of those shock collars that hunters use to train dogs. I asked J about it; he said, "Yeah, that's a shock collar, like hunters use to train dogs. We nail him with it every time he gets worked up and starts charging the fence."

"Has that worked?"

"No, not really. But it's entertaining as hell to watch him try and figure it out."

Later I went into their house for something. On the counter near the door was a small electronic device, like an undersized FRS radio. There was no label, but I had a fair idea what it was.

I held it up. "Hey, J! If I push this button right here, will I hear a horse neigh like in Young Frankenstein?"

"Yeah," he said. "Probably."