Memorial Day

Although it is a bit odd for a man my size, I love bike racing.  I, of course, named my donkey after a famous Italian cyclist. 

Bike racing is great because it has all of the tradition of baseball, the crashes of Nascar, and all of the excitement of... well, baseball.  OK, so there tends to be some less than exciting moments in cycling, but at least you get to see beautiful landscapes during the downtimes.

Memorial Day in Baltimore means one thing to me, BikeJam.  There is a festival and bike racing all day long at Patterson Park.  My friend, Clark, is a professional photographer who was out working at the race.  (We met at an attractive bald men's convention.)  Here is a little something he put together using a new camera:

You can check out Clark's other work at his website:
http://www.clarkvandergrift.com/

Happy Mother's Day!

If your childhood was anything like mine, you can use this card for your mother too.

Granted, this is probably more of a reflection of how I behaved as a child and how I was able to drive an otherwise lovely woman to the brink of insanity, but I am made from my parents' DNA, and they raised me, so each of them has to take at least 50% responsibility.

Stalking Bluebirds

The pastures have finally grown in, so I let the horses out on Friday night after I did a second mowing.  They were quite pleased with the situation:

Gino proceeded to march around the fence-line in each pasture, throwing his head around to alert the world that this was now his land and he would be defending it with his little donkey life.  I saw him chasing a rabbit out of the pasture.  It had apparently offended our new donkey overlord.

 

(vigilant, alert, and ready to strike at any time)

The next day, I had a rare Saturday with no obligations and nothing much to do.  There is nothing better than waking up in the morning, walking out the front door with a cup of coffee and seeing horses in front of you as the sun rises in the background.  It really makes me appreciate life.  Soon, they all started snoozing in the warm sunlight:

Ellie Mae had a tough life before being rescued by the good folks at Gentle Giants.  Seeing her get to truly relax and let it all go brings a tear to my eye.

Donkey, on the otherhand, is a total jackass, but he sure is cute.

Then there is Snow... she has no time to snooze as she might miss something fun.  Instead she danced about the pasture posing.  She is something.  On this particular morning, she was amusing herself by plunging her muzzle into the water trough, blowing bubbles, and splashing the water onto the grass.  I guess that was the most fun the world was offering on a lazy morning.

As I was taking photos of the horses, I notice that there was a pair of bluebirds hunting in the same pasture.  They were determined not to let me get a good photo of them, so I had to utilize the digital zoom to get most of the shots.  Thus, the quality is a bit off, but here they are: 

Sadly, these pictures were taken over the course of more than an hour.  That says something about the state of my life.  Still, while stalking bluebirds, I also notice that the world was looking very pink and blue.

Kana found the whole thing very boring. 

She's right, it was a little unproductive, but it was a good way to spend a lazy morning.  Alas, I got on with my day and left the bluebirds to their business.  Still, it felt good to do nothing but indulge in Spring.

It's Been a While...

I wanted to leave the Kane video up for a while so people would be forced to watch it over and over.  It has not really done the trick.  Kane has not had a single suitor.

While on that topic, I have tried to start calling her Kana because it is a more feminine form of Kane.  People always assume that she is a boy, and that can be tough on a young lady.  I fear that she is going to have some sort of identity crisis, so Kana it is.

And speaking of creating an identity crisis, we had little Gino gelded.  It was not pretty.  I'm quite familiar with having male cats and dogs neutered... not so bad.  You get an animal with a couple of stitches in the old sack, and you need to keep him from jumping.  No problemo, right?  Well, large animal veterinarians, are apparently trained a bit differently.  Where your small animal vet goes to the school where they teach them about lasers and stitches, large animal vets go to the Doctor Josef Mengele School of Surgery where they use bolt cutters, brute force, and like to let things "drain."

 (What's this now?  Bolt cutters?)

Donkey's groinal region was a bloody, nasty mess for a few days.  Things needed to be "hosed out."  It was a terrible experience for everyone.

But all that is behind us now.  Groins have healed, birds are chirping, and Spring has finally set upon Bully Hill.  It felt like Spring came a bit late this year, but now everything is blooming.  I will leave you with some shots from the farm.

Revised Kane Movie

OK, I felt the Kane video needed a bit more punch, so I added a little music.  It just so happens that the greatest band ever created, Sonic Youth, happens to have a song called Sugar Kane.   It took a little editing to shorten the song to the appropriate length, but I think it works just fine.  So here is the finished product with credits:

Adopt Kane

Kane is still on the farm.  It has been over a year and although she is happy and healthy, I would love for her to find the perfect home.  Thus, I produced this video:



A bit sappy, but hopefully it will be effective.  Spread the word!

Sleepy Sunday

It's sunday so I figured I would let the dogs sleep in a bit as I made breakfast and watched the news.  The compromise was that I got to take pictues of them.  They were a little put out when I first aimed the camera at them... eyes popped open to quickly assess whether the black shiny thing was some sort of puppy torture device.

There was a brief shift to get comfortable again, but they quickly got back to the business of snoozing in the warm sunlight.

I, on the otherhand, have fallen tree limbs to cut up and a section of fence to repair.  Thus, it should be a very manly SuperBowl Sunday for me.  At least someone around here is ready to work.