Queen Mum's Dancing in the Rain

[Queen Mum]

My goodness. There are more goats than you can shake a stick at. And there is Houdini, taking it easy, laid back. Loving life and NOT trying to escape. The only time he tries to get out is when he thinks there is a girl in heat. Then he is the first buck out of the gate. I think he has decided that life is good for him here in Arkansas. And he has a buddy in the Buck pen by the name of Jack.

Jack is a Nigerian Dwarf. But for having ears, he looks just like Houdini. Jack has a personality quite similar to Houdini. He is a real scrapper. He spars like Houdini, though he is not quite as much of a bulldozer. My goodness. We could put the two on a team together and have little bulldozer races with the two.

However, Houdini is the more calm and easygoing of the two. Who'd have thought. Houdini doesn't like to start fights. He will certainly end them though. Houdini will quickly dispatch any challenger. BUT for his collar Houdini usually wins most fights. BJ, a small boer buck, has discovered Houdini's achilles heel. He has discovered that he can hook Houdini's collar and drag him everywhere. BUT Houdini is rapidly figuring out how to get unhooked and when he does, BJ is in for a bit of a surprise.

Fortunately, none of the bucks in the buck pen are serious fighters. It's mostly sparring right now.

 

[Mamaboid]

I was watching a show on the Discovery Channel the other night about cheese making, they were showing how they milk the goats and the whole process. They were talking about a couple individual goats, and one of them was what looked like maybe a ND buck. They were talking about how this particular goat was hard to keep fenced, and how he was a little monster into everything. His name was Houdini. I thought of you right away.

 

[Queen Mum]

Ha ha ha. Houdini has calmed down a LOT since I took him out of Texas. But he is a stubborn little cuss. He feels it's his job to breed every female that is in heat within a five mile radius regardless of size.

BUT, he is an amazing little guy. He is pretty cool. I like him. He's laid back, smart and wise. He never starts a fight. He just settles them. He doesn't wreak havoc, but he doesn't run from trouble either. He ALWAYS figures out how to get his share but he doesn't bully the other goats to get it either. He's a natural leader and the other goats respect him. And Jelly Bean ADORES him. He also knows I take care of him and can be trusted not to hurt him or abuse him. But he also knows he's his own little goat person.

 

[terrilhb]

I need to meet Houdini. He sounds awesome. What a good boy.

 

[autumnprairie]

you should see them tehy are like peas in a pod, you wouldn't know that they have only been here a week

 

[Queen Mum]

Everyone should meet Houdini. BTW.

You should meet these three dogs at Autumnprairie's house. We have to have a discussion about cars and running down the side of the road after my truck.

There is BeeBee. Beebee is a Irish Setter and Golden Retriever. She is very sweet and quite loyal. But she follows the other dogs everywhere. She is a good girl most days but she definitely imitates the other dogs.

Then there is this big Bear Coat Sharpei, PeiLee. She is a big sweet BEAUTIFUL dog. She reminds me of a little princess. She has a very royal bearing. She has very erect posture like she has had posture training. She is always prancing around on her toes. She is appears a bit aloof, but really that is a mask for her overall shyness. She is quite gentle. However, there is something behind those aloof, quiet eyes of hers. A kind of impish mischief lurks in her little mind.

And then last, but not least is Katrina, a lovely pit bull dog. Katrina is a bit plump and rolly polly. She is also gentle and sweet, but full of zip and zing. She LOVES to run. And therein lies the rub. Katrina leads the pack in RUNNING down the side of the road when my truck goes out to get the mail. She likes to race. There she is, every time, running as fast as she can to see if she can outrun my truck. She is so joyful in her pursuit of a good race to the next house. AND BOY CAN SHE RUN. Every muscle straining to keep up. She can do it too for a short distance.

Lately she has coaxed the other girls to be out in the field waiting for me when I come home. They meet me a block from the house and race my truck back to the driveway. They don't run IN the road. They are in the soy bean field. But it worries me. And they shouldn't be doing it. Naughty, naughty, naughty!

 

[Queen Mum]

This is Papa. Paul Alfred Nelson.

He died on February 14. (It was in 1992 (I think) He was 75. The day before he had been on his tractor and driven up to the mailbox to get the mail. The next day he couldn't do it. Mama called the whole family and asked us to come to the hospital.

I was his room at the hospital in Bellevue, Washington where he was sitting in bed and it was midnight. He asked me to call Mama and tell her he loved her. (He wouldn't let her be there because he didn't want Mama to see him die. Then he closed his eyes and went to sleep. A couple hours later he died. The result of Lung cancer for years of smoking three packs of cigarettes, and from working in the woods night and day from the time he was a young teen, and from working on the railroad, and from being in Japan after the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Papa was an amazing man. He was smart, he was funny, he was strong and he was wise. He left me with a lot of his wisdom. He was great with my kids and he was a pretty darned good dad. I learned after he died that he had done some incredible things in his life. He raised 7 of his brothers and sisters after his mother died of breast cancer (his father died when he was 11).

When he was in the service he made sure a bunch of starving Japanese families had something to eat by hiring the husbands as cooks for the officers mess and letting their families eat at the kitchen every day. (Papa had been given the job as head cook and manager of the kitchen and couldn't cook.) He saved a bunch of babies in Japan from being killed by an angry soldier by convincing the young man that babies were innocent in the war and by carrying them to the hospital himself. He was so persuasive that the young man eventually adopted a Japanese orphan. (I got the story from the soldier after my dad died.)

He saved other men's lives in the woods when he was a logger.

Papa could fix anything. He read like a fiend and when we were in high school, finally decided to tackle reading books that weren't westerns and started reading classics like Dickens and War and Peace and other such weighty tomes. He liked them so much he roared through the books.

Papa was deaf as a post and I didn't know I had inherited his problem because everyone in the house always spoke at the top of their lungs. (I read lips.) The funny thing is, he knew it all along. A couple weeks before he passed away, he said I needed to get my hearing checked. I thought he was kidding. Then I asked him the night he passed away if he was really as deaf as he claimed and did he really always not hear Mama all the time.

HE looked at me with his impish big grin and said, "Well, most of the time, I really can't hear her very well, but some of the time, I just don't want to hear what she has to say. Just don't tell her that. Please. It would hurt her feelings. It makes her rephrase things so they are easier to hear. You need to learn that skill yourself. You are too much like your mother."

I could call Papa on the phone and ask him just about anything. "Papa, my car is making a vwhap, hap, ha noise when I step on the accelerator as I am going up hill. It's right behind the right front wheel."

He's ask a couple questions and next thing you know, I would be out under my car fixing the thing, following his exact instructions and sure enough, the car would run like a top.


"Papa, I can't get the sink to drain."

He'd ask a couple questions and next thing you know, I'd have the instructions on what to buy and how to plumb the whole thing so it never happened again.

I learned more about home repairs, auto repairs, construction, landscaping, farming, plumbing, electrical wiring, you name it. JUST by talking to Papa on the phone or watching him in his shop.

I miss Papa. And Valentines day isn't a fun day for me. It's just sad. It's the day Papa passed away.

Oh, and here he is as a young man in the US Marine Corps. Isn't he handsome?

 

[TTs Chicks]

today is the 3rd anniversary of my Daddys passing and I still miss him ALOT!!

 

[Mamaboid]

My Granddaddy passed away on Valentine's Day, 1973. He was my hero. As a kid, I spent every minute I could with him. I have not celebrated Valentine's day since. My DH has gotten into the habit of doing something low key to remind me of the day, but I never pass the day without thinking of him. My Grand Mother was a.... uummm how to say this...difficult woman, and he never lost his patience with her or raised his voice or hand to her. He was a saint. The information you learned is something that you can treasure for all time, and it is wonderful that you now know these things and can cherish them.

 

[Queen Mum]

I spent my day watching a goat with diarrhea, putting up a fence, setting up my room, cleaning cupboards, fixing a table, and doing all sorts of odd little jobs. It was a productive day.