What calms you?

It's a high anxiety time. I talked to a good friend recently who said when she "gears up" putting on her facemask - and mentally prepares for a trip to the grocery store, she notices how anxious she feels. I can relate. I bet you can too. Shopping is not a leisure experience anymore.

A couple weeks ago I quipped that leaving the store be all like "I just pulled off a caper!" I put on my buff and gloves to shop at HyVee. At the store, I pick my places - trying my best to keep distance between me and the other shoppers and staff. Sometimes I hold my breath! I know, probably dumb - I haven't seen that method being touted as a way to be safe. Still, like holding my breath riding in a car driving by a graveyard when I was a kid, or not stepping on a sidewalk crack, I've adopted this behavior during Covid 19 times.

I started thinking about what helps me reduce stress. Reading Twitter and other news sites aren't stress reducers! So I'm trying to do less of that. I (and many others) enjoy doing Jigsaw puzzles. I started this hobby even before the pandemic as a way to reduce screen time. Walking and listening to books are two other great hobbies for me. I read fiction, but I marvel at the amount of educational information passed on in the books I read. Love my soaker bathtub for stress reduction too.

Today I'm listening to "The Tale Teller" by Anne Hillerman. It's part of the Leaphorn, Chee, Manuelito Four Corners detective series - started by Ms. Hillerman's father Tony who passed away in 2008. His daughter Anne carried on his legacy, writing the series which contains a great deal of information on Native American culture and antiquities. The reader speaks Navaho - the dialect is so intriguing. The characters are well-developed and dependable. During this time, I'm finding it best for me to read/listen to books where the good guys come out on top in the end. Lately, I've returned some books early that seemed to be too negative. I don't need that right now.

I've been thinking back to simpler times. Our high school class is planning next year's Class Reunion and a group email brought up some memories. All good ones - funny stuff about interaction with teachers and each other. I'd forgotten about what a body-baring time in life that was! A great deal of "mooning" (dropping drawers to show one's butt") and "streaking" (running buck naked) was happening. There are no photos and I wasn't involved. One classmate's brother attended a basketball game in a long trenchcoat. As we all stood up at the start of the game, he opened his coat to let loose two pigeons that flew around the gym pooping during the rest of the game. Incoming!

Jack was such a handsome boy! 

It was a fun time, but I sure wouldn't want to go back to those years. Teen angst you know. I was so fortunate to have a horse - Poco HiJack (Jack). He was wonderful therapy. I could ride him, brush him, or just lay on his back and sing while he grazed in the small fenced-in area at the Guttenfelder farm where he was boarded. He was solid and huggable, calm and secure. Hey - he sounds a lot like my husband! haha

Paul enjoys hunting to reduce anxiety - check out that happy smile! 

Everyone needs ways to reduce anxiety. I hope you are getting for yours!

Market and Derby Day!

Mom grew tomatoes on the side of the house a couple years and pretty Iris grew there too. That was about as in-touch with farming as it got at 202 Crombie while I was growing up in Atlantic, Iowa. My grandpa did take us out on his farm visits every once in a while. He owned a few farms that he cash rented. When we smelled cow or pig poop, he'd say, "that's the smell of money!" Me, I wasn't interested in gardening. Carrots were something that came in a bag from a store. I kept busy with my GI Joes, climbing trees, riding bikes and later - with my horses - Frosty followed by Jack. (It's Derby Day - I'm pining for those marvelous animals).

Pablo got a golden ticket (a license) to hunt the 4th wild turkey (no not the liquor) season. I knew he'd be getting up at the crack of dawn to head south for that activity. A perfect time to call my former roomie Joan McFee Bentley to see if she was available to go to the Des Moines Farmer's Market kickoff day. The weather was forecast to be perfect and Joanie was available! WooHoo.

She picked me up about 9 a.m. so we arrived when the thing was in full swing - parking was...well kinda like parking in Denver! Especially with the mess of cleaning up the burned out shell of Younkers which has disrupted the traffic flow. Like a pro, Joanie snagged a great spot on the street just south of the Market.

We made a beeline for the Iowa Farm Boys Hearty Food Company for breakfast burritos. Awesome and drippy. Anita Mittag - one of the owners (it's a family biz from Prescott, near Creston) always remembers me and calls me by name. She liked my environmental newspaper column in the Creston News Advertiser - years ago. It's one reason I blog today...I've driven to write. Something, somewhere.

I talked Joan into posing for this selfie in front of this giant Dutch Letter - even though she doesn't really even like Dutch letter...

My purchases:

• Bacon - while I was buying it someone wheeled a pet pot-bellied pig by (in one of those pet stroller things) and they bacon selling guy joked that he had his eye on it...
• Asparagus
• A couple Dutch Letters - I'm surprised they let any out of Pella since it's their big festival this weekend
• A couple Baklava - though I must admit they aren't as good as the ones I always used to get at the International Food Fair Creston's Holy Spirit Church puts on each September 

We didn't take time to look at a whole lot else because really it was just too packed due to the nice weather. What a day! 

Joanie and I then made our way over to the EV (East Village) as I had oil on my shopping list. Allspice sells oil and vinegar that they bottle themselves. With pink/purple hair. Joan got the sales pitch. 

Joan concentrates while listening to the spiel - she bought walnut flavored oil for salads

Looking at some of the spices, I almost thought I was in a Denver pot shop...

Have you ever had a recipe calling for Hen of the Woods? 

I had a great morning catching up with Joan. I lived with her for about 4 years - and we got to know each other pretty well! I miss hearing about her life - as we used to share our work angst and keep up on what was going on with fam. We need to get together more often. 

This apron says it all! 

Paul texted me early that morning to say he'd gotten his tom turkey...thanks to his new decoy...Suzie Snood it said on the box when it arrived from Cabela's. The little hussy. Worked like a charm! 

We did some errands this afternoon - we were in the mood to pick out plants for the pots out front. We tried a new garden store - family owned Canoyer Garden Center. They had lots of helpers for neophytes like us. 

I took a photo of a flower pot at the farmer's market that I wanted to imitate - Paul and the staffer selected plants

Now I'm watching the pre-Derby coverage. Horses are so beautiful. If you've never been around one then you probably don't know what personalities they have. I think they have a sense of humor - even more so than dogs - who are so earnest. I was lucky enough to own two. 

First my trainer horse (she trained me) was - Frosty. She was an older mare - steady but not flashy. My parents didn't have to worry about Frosty bucking me off. But the people who sold her to me missed her - so they dangled a young sorrel gelding in front of me...and my mentor Wayne Rodgers approved. So I bought Poco Hi Jack. He was 3 (the same age as these Derby horses) and needed training. He had a tenancy to rear, and buck. 

We brought him to Bondurant - which back then was way past Des Moines to be trained by Les Walker for a whole month. Now it's just another suburb...It must have been like reform school. He came back with much better manners! Jack turned out to be a great fella - boarded in a stall at a barn at Guttenfelder's farm near HyVee in Atlantic. 

Must have been about 8th grade summer - awesome leather show halter my folks got me for a gift...4-H baby!

I know how lucky I was to have a horse. It never would have happened without the oversight of Wayne Rodgers who made sure my horses had all their vet work and were shod and fed. I paid the bills - but he was the one who knew what needed to be done. Yesteryear and today - surrounded by great people. #blessed.   

More Horse talk

Sometime after we got settled into the horse condo, known as "the barn", Jennifer Deter's folks Don and Jane bought a stall for her, along with a small sorrel horse that she named Drifter. Jennifer is a couple years younger than I am, but our parents were friends and we were on swim team - so we were friends. I convinced her to call the horse High Plains Drifter, after the Clint Eastwood movie.

Wayne Rodger's daughter Sally was the person that introduced me to the world of horse ownership - I had ridden her little pony a few times before I got Frosty. Ron and Jackie Guttenfelder's daughter Susie lived in the house by the barn. Girls and horses - they go together.

The cast of characters:

• Zandy - Wayne Rodger's chestnut gelding. Wayne spent way more time working with horses than he ever did riding them.
• Miss Viscosity (Vissy) - her parents were Pony Adair (Wayne's brood mare) and Croton Oil. I think the name was very clever - viscosity is a way to measure thickness of a fluid (in this case, oil). Vissy was Sally's bay mare, and my gelding Jack - though he was technically not really a "he" was in love with Vissy. Jack would nicker and pine for her when she wasn't nearby.
• Pistol Pete - Susie Guttenfelder's very tall sorrel gelding. Susie rode him from the time she was very little.
• Misty Moon - formerly Anna Day Rodger's Tennessee Walking Horse, but by this time she was owned by Leroy Nelson, who I believe was an employee of Walnut Grove. I rode Misty a few times. She was training in the smooth gate of that breed. You didn't neck rein her, and didn't kick her. Instead, when you wanted her to move out, you just said, "Get away, Misty!" and clenched with your knees, urging her forward. It was like gliding!
• Dean - had a buckskin. Can't remember much else.
• High Plains Drifter, followed by Sweetie Bar Sweet (just saying that name made my teeth rot) - I don't think Jennifer Deter's mom ever did tell Don what Sweetie set him back...$$! She was a great Western Pleasure horse.  
• There were some other horses that would move in and out. I still think I'm forgetting someone.   

I spent a lot of happy hours at the barn - grooming Jack, mucking out his stall, messing around and riding. The indoor arena was great for riding during cold weather. There was also a larger outdoor arena available. Jennifer's grandpa made her some wooden jump standards - so we could pretend to have jumping horses. It was fun to put an English saddle on my horse and put the stirrups up high like a jockey.

We didn't ever wear helmets back then - and are probably luck to be alive. Though I rarely fell off. Jackson (as Wayne called him) was not a jumper - he probably went 18 inches at the most. Most frequently we rode the horses down Guttenfelder's gravel lane to the dirt road just west of their place. There were fields nearby and the dirt road ran north, then turned east and ran along a narrow field that flanked the Nishnabotna River. The famed, and somewhat decrepit 8-cornered house was at the end of the road, with a gravel road that ran north on the far side of the house. I could get all the way to Robyn Bredensteiner's house going that back route!

Before the crops grew, that was where I could kick Jack into high gear - and feel the thrill of his top speed. Girl and horse - one with each other. If I was by myself, I would sing. No iPods back then. Gordon Lightfoot. I'm sure Jack found it soothing. ha! A few times Jack shied (jumped suddenly because he was startled) due to pheasants flying out of tall grass. That was when I nearly lost my seat in the saddle. He must have lived his early years someplace dry, because he was very suspicious of puddles and water. When he came across a puddle - even in the parking lot of the barn, he would gather himself and leap across it. I had to be ready!

When I didn't feel like going the rural route to ride, I could head south, down the gravel road past the lumber yard (before it burned down), towards the hospital. Before HyVee was built, there was a field with a path that led to the old fairgrounds and barns that were a part of that complex. That was where we kept the horses before the move to the Barn. My classmate Candice Drake's dad was the Frito man - his warehouse was in a building there. One time, when Frosty was still there, I spent many hours making friends with a dog with pups out there. Another time Sally and I popped open the door of the old fair office and found ancient calendars and fair info. If I was feeling brave, instead of heading across the field, I would cross Highway 6 and go up the hill towards the hospital, riding on top of the flat hill.

When I got Frosty, my first horse, I joined 4-H with Sally. We were in the Glad Girls of Grove! Grove Township - that was our group. I was like a fish out of water, with a mom that wasn't much help...bless her heart - she was a Girl Scout Leader. We knew nothing about this organization. I remember having bad dreams that I showed up at some event with the wrong spoon. Even back then I was feeling inadequate and it manifested itself in my sleep! I registered for Saddlebred classes instead of the ones I should have...it was a struggle. And they made me do a project in Food and Nutrition. All I wanted to do was show my damn horse!

In the end though, 4-H did serve me well. I learned about Robert's Rules of Order - something used in many groups I've been a member of. I kept a Record Book, which was a lot of work, but taught me a lot about keeping track of projects. I still remember every project I did. One time Marci Rodgers tried to drive Sally and me out to Blake's house  for a 4-H meeting after a great deal of rain. She took a dirt road shortcut. Bad idea! We ended up in the ditch, but were close enough to walk the rest of the way.

Wayne Rodgers had a horse trailer and truck, so he hauled us to horse shows. Not only did we go to the 4-H show that was held early in August each year, we went to lots of other area shows - Anita, Cumberland, Audubon - places like that. Back then horses were popular. The classes we were in, Junior Western Pleasure, were often packed full - 30 to 40 participants. We got to know several other kids out on the horse show circuit - like Jody Zellmer, Geneda Jessen, Scott Westphalen and Tammy Rutherford (her dad did our horse shoeing) with her blue roan. There were kids from other towns too - like those old-fashioned looking girls from the Audubon area we called the Campbell Soup twins. It was a great way to spend weekends.

I'm sure Wayne was pretty sad when Sal and I grew up and thought we were too cool to hang around horses. I'm afraid I was the oblivious "cool" one. I kept Jack all through high school, but I didn't give him enough attention. It was a sad day when I sold him and the stall to a woman - I can't remember her name, but I think she was Susi's classmate. She didn't keep him too long, and then the Wickman family purchased him and he went to live at their farm. One time I took Paul there to see him. When he was about 16, somehow he got out on the blacktop and was hit by a car and killed. Too young. Jack was a good guy - such a personality!

Horses are a great deal of work and responsibility. They are expensive and can be high maintenance. I wouldn't advise anyone who isn't ready and willing to accept the responsibility to buy one. But if you have the chance to get to know one - you are a lucky person. Like I am.

Parting is such sweet sorrow

We did some big cleaning out last weekend. I feel good, and bad about it. I blogged about getting rid of Mom's chair. I didn't mention the other big sacrifice - my chaps.

When I was in junior high and high school I was lucky enough to be a horse girl. Mom and Dad bought me Frosty, a white/gray mare, and I later upgraded (with some angst as I loved that old gal) to Jack, a young quarterhorse gelding (that term means no nuts for you non-livestock folks). I was in 4-H, but also traveled around to other area horse shows in Southwest Iowa (Anita, Audubon, Griswold, Cumberland - once we even went to the Block and Bridle show at the fairgrounds) with Wayne and Sally (his daughter) Rodgers.

I showed my horse in the heyday of that activity! There were often updwards of 40 contestants in Western Pleasure classes. They'd have to split the class up to - and more often than not, Jack and I ended up being an also-ran. But a few times I got a nice ribbon. To be dressed for success in the show ring, I had to have the right equipment.

So for Christmas one year Mom bought me the coolest rust colored suede chaps - with fringe on 'em. They went with my beautiful blanket that went under my saddle - the tooled saddle I got in Cumberland for a birthday gift. Yep - you might say I was spoiled. (I parted with the saddle in the '80's - only agreeing to sell it to someone I liked.) I sold my horse Jack the year I left Atlantic for ISU - but was lucky he stayed right in Atlantic.

I'd carted the chaps with me since the '80's when I packed them away in my college trunk. Along with my wool LMB embroidered (my pre-marriage) sweater. Tis week they both went to the Re-Run Shop - used clothing etc. store run by the Catholic Church in Creston. They also got my "Les" tooled western belt. Damn I was proud of that thing and the big 'ol belt buckle! I hope there is another Les out there looking for a cool belt. (I was too cheap to pay for my whole name to be tooled...).

My new attitude tells me - someone should be using this stuff. It's time to quit hanging onto the so many things for sentimental reasons.

Paul tried to talk me into putting them on one last time. You bet he did. Nice try Pablo! But I was in cleanup mode. In a weak moment Paul even decided to give up his Brett Favre jerseys.

Gone Baby Gone. That's the way it's going to be. I'm not sticking my kids with going through this stuff someday. Not all of it anyway.

Tomorrow - if it's rainy. Onto the downstairs closet!

Jack the horse

My horse Jack was a wonderful fella. He didn't start out that way - he was young and a big outa control. My first horse Frosty was a good starter horse, but she was old and kinda ugly - not good for showing, but good for a young girl to get her spurs wet on. But after I had her a year or so, the people who sold her to us offered to sell us a 3 year old gelding and take Frosty back. I was around 13 or so.

Wayne Rodgers, Sally's dad was my guru for all things quarter horse. He looked over Jack's papers. His full name was Poco Hijack - with lines stemming back to Poco Bueno, a pretty famous stud horse back in the day. And Jack horses were just starting to get popular - can't remember that breed line but they all had the name Jack.

He wasn't perfect - but he was beautiful to me! He came from Yale, Iowa. He was a sorrel with straight confirmation (legs) and a pretty head with a white stripe down his nose. His mane and tail were darker and he had a couple white stockings.

First thing, we decided he needed to go to Bondurant (back before it was a DM suburb) for training. Les Walker, the trainer, took the rear out of him. He had a habit of rearing when being ridden. But he couldn't slow down his naturally fast running motion - which was my nemesis during all my years showing him. Judges back then wanted a horse who had a nice rocking horse gait, and Jack just didn't have that.

What he did end up with was a wonderful personality - patient and loving! In fact even though he had no, um balls, he fell in love with my friend Sal's horse Vissy. He'd nicker for her whenever they were separated. He loved me too. I'd drive out to the barn where we kept him (in behind HyVee in Atlantic on the Guttenfelder farm) and feed him each night. A quarter can of oats and a flake of hay. Sometimes I'd take an apple or a carrot. Having a horse taught me a great deal about responsibility. When I wasn't able to feed him, I had to arrange for his care.

When I went out to ride, or clean his stall, I'd hook him up to the big leather straps we had in the breezeway and curry him till he shined. He enjoyed that. Plus I'd spray him with flyspray and put that stick stuff around his eyes so they'd leave them alone too. Clean out his hooves with a hoof pick. Sometimes I'd just turn him out in the grassy area we had so he could graze, and lay upon his back with my head on his butt daydreaming or feeling sorry for myself - like a kid with her own horse could really do that...

We had lots of places to ride. Our barn had an indoor arena filled with sand for winter riding. We had an outdoor arena for practice showing. There was a nice dirt road we could ride down by there or we could ride in the fields nearby too - a good workout. I we wanted to go far we could go on gravel or take pavement and cross the highway. I didn't like going around traffic though.

Being in Atlantic recently made me think of ol' Jack. He liked to eat ice cubes and even ate some french fries at a horse show once. We'd slide ride off his butt and he didn't kick, or walk under his belly. What a sweetie. I've been blessed by wonderful animals all throughout my life - hope to see them in the afterlife again...all dogs (and horses) go to heaven. I'm not sure Bucko the cat is there though - he was mean!