Elephant story

The Pretty Boy is going to try to tell a story about an Elephant that came visiting the other day..........

Ok. I will try to tell you what happened but I don't usually talk a lot so bear with me.

I was standing out in my pasture like I do sometimes and there came an Elephant. It was blue with white polka dots all over it. I have never seen an Elephant so I was surprised but I managed to say 'Hello'.

The Elephant said 'Hello to you!'. He talked a little different than I do but we could understand each other. I told him I was called Pretty Boy and asked him what he is called. He said his name was Maboochowa but that I could just call him Boo.

Boo the Elephant said he was just passing thru on his way to see his sister who lives North of here in Wayupnorth Land. He said it takes him about four days to get there from where he lives in the land of Animamawaawaa South of here. His sister and her family usually come to see him but she just recently had a baby Elephant so it is hard for the family to travel right now. Since there was recently a Hurricane in the land of Animamawaawaa Boo decided it was a good time to go visit his sister and her family. He said that she and her husband have four little Elephants now so he is an Uncle four times over.

Boo was looking at our pond the whole time we were talking and I asked him if he liked to go swimming and if he did he was welcome to swim in our pond. I told him that my horse, Precious, loves to go into the pond and splash. Boo said that yes he likes to swim and he likes to splash and would love to get into the water if I didn't mind since he had been walking a very long time. I called to my horse that we had a new friend that would like to go swimming in her pond and she was happy to have the company. You should have seen those two in the pond splishing and splashing and just having so much fun the House Mouse said she could hear them laughing clear inside the big red barn. I don't much like the splashing so I was just enjoying watching them play.

When they finished they both wanted to have dirt on them so they were big mud things and looked very different from the nice clean animals I had seen just moments before playing in the pond.

We all went into the big red barn to eat some hay and take a nap because swimming and playing in the water and watching them play in the water is very hard work.

Latest news from the Land of Squatamala

House Mouse here with news from the Land of Squatamala......The Grand Prince and Grand Princess are staying with their parents at the Queens winter home. The Land of Squatamahahalala was devistated by Hurricane Ike.

This is very sad news since on a recent visit to the land of Squatamala the Grand Prince was given wood by the Queen and had to about building up the whole area around the Palace in Squatamahahalala Land. He and his subjects had built buildings and roads and made improvements to existing buildings using the material the Queen had so graciously provided him with.

As they have been staying with the Queen since before the Hurricane hit they have not yet survaed the damage themselves but Sir Rodger's best friend who lives in the neighboring village of La Port says all is lost.

This will be a hardship for the people's of the Land of Squatamahahalala but knowing the Royal family it will be taken care of quickly and effienctly as soon as the Kings men say it is safe to travel back down there.

That is all I know at this time I will try to keep you updated. House Mouse signing off.........

Hurricane Ike

Hurricane Ike

Hurricane Ike came thru here September 13, 2008 as a tropical storm. It was very windy. Two of our favorite stand in the shade trees are ruined. The near 90 foot tall Pine tree is layed over on the ground it’s roots looking like a big plate of spaghetti falling off the table. The human girl says the good news is that the top of it fell right onto the wild life refuge so there will be less clean up. The storm also took the top off the beautiful old Black Walnut tree. Now that is going to be a real mess to clean up that’s for sure.

There are some Cedar trees that lost some branches and some of the very over grown Privet hedges broke in place. Oh and some Chinaberry Tree limbs are broken also. BIG branches broken off those Cedar and Chinaberry trees. The human girl was going to move some of them off our trail this morning. She got one of the Cedar tree branches moved out of the way but the Chinaberry tree branch was just too big for her. She said she needed a pole saw. My horse and I think she needs a crew of men with big machines.

The human man said that he is going to call another human man with the portable sawmill to come make him some lumber boards out of the pine tree and the black walnut tree parts then use the rest for firewood. Not the pine tree parts for firewood just the black walnut.

My horse, Pretty Boy, and I are going to miss the shade from that big Pine Tree. And it will be long while before the Black Walnut is better but at least it is still standing. This is the second storm that tried to take that tree out. The last storm a couple of years ago busted a big hunk of it off on the southeast side. This storm snapped the whole top of it and some on the northwest side. We don’t care what it looks like we are just happy it is standing out there in our front pasture.

No one got hurt and we are thankful for that.

The hurricane didn't get us

Writting this before the hurricane gets here for publishing after it does. If you don't hear from us for a few days don't you be worried. We will be fine. We are in a safe place. If the electricity goes out it could be three weeks before it gets back on so it may be real quiet for awhile. Just don't be scared of the quiet. Quiet is good. Gives a body time to rest and recouperate and regroup.

So don't you worry.......That hurricane didn't get us!!

Settle back and let me tell you a story

It was another quiet morning here on the farm. Getting ready for
hurricane Ike was all done. The human girl was in the big house we
were in our pasture when Randall pulled in. My Pretty Boy likes
Randall so he sort of went over to him. Then the human girl came out
and put a rope on him and started leading him. She didn't want him to
have to turn on his bad foot so she walked him out a ways and then
turned him. She was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and
got the side of her foot stepped on. Since she had not taken the time
to put on proper work boots it was pretty much just horse hoof to
jeans contact down her ankle and foot. 'OH YOU ARE ON MY
FOOOOOOTTTTT!!!!' she pushed him off. You see us horses step on uneven
stuff all the time so we don't know it when we step on something we
shouldn't oughta be stepping on tell someone tells us. She took my
horse on over to where Randall was ready to work on his hooves and she
was saying some very colorful words while she was doing it to. A
little later she pulled her jeans leg up and looked to see what had
been done. 'Oh it's already turning purple!' she said. Randall looked
surprised 'It's turning purple?' To which she said 'Yes. What color
did you think it would turn after the horse stepped on it?!!!' He
laughed but it wasn't like a good belly hahaha laugh it was more like
a 'oh my' laugh.

So Randall got done doing my horse's hooves for him and said how nice
he looked then it was my turn. I don't wear a halter so the human girl
just put a rope around my neck. Randall was back there on my third to
last leg when I bit her. 'OH NO YOU DIDN'T!!!' Randall said 'Did she
bite you I heard her lips smack.' 'Well she tried to but I think she
might have been biting at a fly she wouldn't bite me.' the human girl
said. And then Randall sort of snorted and said 'No she was biting you
for sure. She wanted to sit down on me and I would let her so she bit
you since she couldn't reach me.' My human girl told me that was just
rude and I should do that anymore and I probably won't but I could so
I make no promises.

Then we both, me and my horse, had pretty hooves and the two humans
were standing talking. My horse got real happy for some reason and did
a happy dance even. We figure what ever Randall did to that bad foot
made it feel a whole lot better because he was one happy dancing
horse. The human girl said she might have enjoyed it more if she
hadn't been right in the dang middle of it when the danceing started.
But I know she was happy to see my horse feeling good. I laid my head
on Randall to Thank him for being so good to us and then he said he
had to go on down the road.

Now we have pretty feet and a hurricane is coming. Well isn't that special.

The Castle in the land of Squatamala

Do you remember me telling you about the Land of Squatamala and how the King of Squatamala was building the Queen of Squatamala a castle? Well there has been much work done on the Castle and surrounding land so much so that the Grand Prince and Grand Princess were given a tour by the Queen just this past weekend. The Grand Prince was given a gift by the Queen of some special blocks of wood she had gathered herself just for him. Of course he was thrilled with the gift and told the Queen so. The Grand Princess also recieved some special blocks of wood but being so grown up Grand Princess who knows how much the Grand Prince loves to build things the way his Grand TeTaw the King of Squatamala does she gave her blocks to him. (a note from the house mouse: whew that was a lot of words and I am not completely sure Precious meant for them to be all put into one sentence but she was so excited about remembering that she just spilled all those words out at one time so that is the way I typed them.)

Ever had one of those days....

Ever had one of those days when there's not a lot of sunshine but it's not real cloudy? And it's not hot but it's not really cool either? One of those days when there is just the right amount of a breeze and you can see the fall flowers starting to poke their heads out of the ground? Well that is the day we are having today.

Just a nice day for nothing to be happening. There is no traffic out on the oil top, no tractors running anywhere that we can hear. Just a quiet peaceful day.

A day for good things.

My horse, Pretty Boy, and I are thinking good thoughts all day today to keep the good energy flowing. Sometimes you have to do that. Sometimes you just have to.

Yesterday we had a lot of fun. It was a bright sunshiny day after it rained five inches in two hours that is. You know me I never miss playing in mudpuddles. My horse is very smart he knows not to follow me too close when it has rained because he could get splish splashed big time. In the afternoon yesterday I went down into our pond and stirred me up a bunch of mud since mine had gotten all washed off in that rain. Mud is like about the best thing ever except maybe for the splashing in the water that stirs up the mud that is. It really takes a lot of practice to know how much to splash the water before it sufficiently stirred up to leave a nice thick layer of mud all over me and this year I have gotten a lot of practice.

I've heard that another hurricane is headed for Texas. Last time we didn't even get any rain but we might this time. That would be really cool because my fall Flowers need a lot of water to make a really great showing. I know which ones smell the best too so I have been watching for them to pop up. Sometimes my horse and I do not watch where we are going and step on a flower but we don't get in trouble since we are not doing it on purpose. People and us Horse's are what's important not things. Things are nice but not as important.

Well I thought that human girl might be coming out here to give us some lunch but since she hasn't yet I guess I will go back out and play some more in the nice weather.

Now she broke two things

Our human girl is on a roll! Last week maybe week before last she broke her four wheeler machine and my Pretty Boy was happy about that you know. And today she was out mowing our front pasture. Not really sure she was mowing since she did that using the big blue tractor yesterday but she was out there chopping up the cut grass even if she wasn't actually mowing it. and then we heard something POP so we ran tail up away from that crazy machine with the human girl on it. It wasn't one of those back fire pops she makes it do sometimes which is just wrong but she always says she's sorry when she does that. This POP was not that kind of a pop and she didn't say she was sorry. She said some other words that I am not used to hearing said that loudly. Oh yes she did she turned off the mower blade thing and stood up on that machine. And then she said 'OH NO YOU DID NOT JUST DO THAT! YOU DID NOT JUST BREAK! I AM SO SERIOUS THAT YOU BETTER JUST BE KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' She meant it too but that machine was not listening to her. She started it back up and she pushed that mower lever to the engaged postion and nothing happened. And that is when she said those words she is not supposed to say way loud. She said
'WELL CRABAPPLES!!!!!!!!' Now me and my horse don't know what that means but we like apples. Only when she say it like that we know she is not talking about nice sweet apples like we like to eat so we moved on away down into the lower pasture thru the woods. She took her little golden tractor over to my big red barn and I could hear her telling the House Mouse that she had broken the machine and didn't know how to fix it and that she didn't know why it had broken. She said she thought it was a belt had come off because that happened once before when she was doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing. But NOOOOOOOOOO she said 'OH NO! That big shiny spring is broken on one end. I can not fix that. Man o man that's not good not good at all.'

I'm sure my human man can fix it no trouble if he just gets her a new spring is what I told the house mouse when she had gone back over to the big house mumbling stuff not suitable for horse's ears. My human man can fix stuff and if he can't he knows other humans that can fix it. This shouldn't be a problem. I will tell that to my human girl when she comes back out here to my big red barn later when she brings us some afternoon feed.

It will be ok. No sense crying about it now it's already broke.

I'll give her a hug and tell my horse to be special nice to her. We'll take care of her. That's what we do we take care of each other.

Time Passes

Time Passes quicker than you might think it is. One minute everything is beautiful the flowers are blooming and then they fade and are gone.

Flowers will come back. Our loved ones do not. Things get easier but they never really get better. I miss my horse Mousey ever as much today as I did the day he left the land. Every day I have a tear run down my face I miss him so much. I let the human girl think it is just sand got in my eye but when she wipes it away and hugs my neck I know she knows the truth.

No, things will never get better and on days like today I even wonder if they will get easier...............

Hurricane update

The update about the hurricane is that there isn't one. The human girl and the house mouse have been busy busy around here for two days getting ready for that hurricane that didn't happen. Better to be prepared is what the House Mouse told me. They have been moving stuff up off the ground inside my big red barn and making canals for rain water to run down. The human girl made two dams. One across the big barn door and one across the side door. She told us this morning that were holding.

Me and my horse, Pretty Boy, are wet but that's okay. The rain hasn't been too bad. Mostly just rain no storms near here. There is about a half a barrel of rain water out there. Pretty Boy keeps checking it to see if maybe it has food in it. He's not really hungry he just likes food.

You should have seen him get silly yesterday morning when the human girl called us up to my big red barn to eat. We were very far away when she whistle so she didn't wait around to see if we were coming but we saw her go in the door to the barn. We waited out front. I don't know why we waited out front because our feed never comes out that front door but with all the trenching and sand bagging and this and that that has been going on feed could have come out the front door I suppose. But anyway we waited out there. Of course she went out the right door to where our feed barrels are and then she had to come looking for us. Well my Pretty Boy thought he was going to take a short cut thru the cute little car parking area. I didn't follow him in there. I stood outside that area waiting to see what was going to happen. Sure enough here came the human girl.

'What are you doing in there? Why don't you go around to where I am? No you can't go that way turn around go out the way you came in? oh do I need to open this gate? I don't think so you will want me to do it all the time if I do. You just turn your self around and come into the pasture the right way. Go on now. PRECIOUS you show this boy how to get out of that pen please.' So I did show him how. I walked in a ways and then turned around and then I looked back at him. He finally understood that he was not going to get his way. We walked all the way around like was are supposed to do and there was the human girl very happy to see us and she had us some feed too!

Later I explained to my horse why we go around the fence the way we do
to get our feed. I told him if we go the way he wanted to go this morning then the human girl has to put our feed down and undo the gate and let us out and then close the gate and then get out feed with us trying to beat her to it. But if we go along that fence we are supposed to go along then by the time we get to our feed barrels she will have our feed already in them and all we have to do is eat. And another thing I told him, now that he is feeling better, is that we do not run at the human girl for our feed. Oh no. That is a bad idea. That girl will high tail it into the barn with our feed and hide if we run at her. Not a good idea to scare the person who is giving you your feed. So I told him you walk like a gentleman and what she says. He's a good horse so I think he understood. I don't think he really meant to go into that pen. He just got to feeling better and forgot where he was for minute. Then he could see her but he couldn't get to her so he got a little excited. It all worked out okay for all of us. The human girl calls that 'A good day' and then 'Thank you for not killing me.' she says as she leaves the area in one piece.

So here we are today the day of the big hurricane hitting and only just wet out here. It is going to be wet out here for at least five days I hear. But wet out here is better than that prediction of 5 to 10 inches of rain an hour that had that human girl and House Mouse digging ditches and making dams.

It's cool out here too. Not a hot and muggy rain. More like a 'Get the children and lets us PLAY in the rain day'

I'm done talking now. Just one reminder that if you think about and plan for it you don't have to worry about it.