Quitting Smoking

Well, the entirety of the Farm Fam (with the possible exception of Farmdad,) has decided that the cigarette tax hike (about eight bucks per carton, effective Monday, according to the clerk at the stop&rob where we get our smokes) is the perfect excuse to quit.

I have six cigs left in the last pack out of the last carton that I bought. Farmmom and Mamaw are getting the infamous Patch. Here goes nothin!

I was leery of the patch, since older versions tended to drop blood pressure, and I natrually have low blood pressure. Not like, no worries about hypertension low, but like "Hey, are you sure you're alive?" low.

The pharmacist ensures Mamaw that the patches she bought will not effect blood pressure... we'll see if I die. It's not going to be fun, and it's not going to be easy, but it will help that Mamaw and Farmmom will be doing it themselves.

The timing could be better, what with going back to classes Tuesday, and all, but if I worry about that, at this point, I'll never quit.

I figure the tax is a sign from Above (and no, I don't mean Obama... if he wanted me to quit smoking he'd show up at my house and nurse me through withdrawals with his own two hands!..... < /sarcasm >) along with the Fam quitting right along with me...

I'm not going to kick myself for a slip, and I'm not going to expect it to be easy. It's a process, and I'm going to give it my best shot.

I think if I can get past the first three days or so, I'll be good.

On the other hand, this is a good thing for me gaining weight, not only because cigarettes supress appetite, (AD, can you imagine me with more appetite?!?!?!?) but because I've found that the most effective oral-fixation replacement is, you guessed it, food.

Particularly sunflower seeds, because I can nibble those suckers all day and not get full, with occasional injections of chocolate for those ever-lovely endorphines.

So, wish us all luck!

Back To School, Back To School,

Well, as of Tuesday I'll be back to classes. Monday through Wednesday as a student instructor for the freshmen.

I remember the stupid things the sophomores made us do last semester. I just hope that I don't annoy the students I'm assigned to as much as the sophomore I got annoyed me.

It's gonna be tough being at the barn and not riding. Especially since, from all appearances, they're almost done with the fancy new indoor arena.

Friday, I'm headed out of town for the weekend, so blogging will be non-existent, but I'll try to get a couple of good ones up before I leave.

Walther....

I am not what I would consider a "Gunnie." I have a working knowledge of firearms, and a reasonable (if extremely rusty) skill in putting the projectile where I want it.

The night before I headed off to the big gathering in Dallas, Farmdad sat down with me, and laid out three smallish pistols. Two Kahr pistols and this little beauty:

"Any of these will be easier to conceal than your Firestar, and handier for walking the dog at two in the morning," he told me.

I picked up and fondled each in turn, and chose the Walther. What can I say, after carrying the Firestar, the Kahrs just didn't feel like real guns. Plastic toys, not for me.

When I announced my choice, Farmdad said "Happy Valentines Day... early." Apparently, if I'd chosen one of the others, it would have been a loan.

Like I said, I'm not a gunnie, per say, but I am rather proud to have this particular gun. It has a story, almost certainly much more of one than I know.

What I do know, is that it's a real Germal Walther PPK from the 70's. When Farmdad acquired it, it had literally been walled up in a house for an unknown number of years, and was a rusted mess. For it to be functional, it had to be re-blued.

So no, it's not original, but it is functional. It fits my hand, and feels almost as sweet as my Firestar, while being easier to carry. The double-action trigger is heavy, for me and my tiny hands, but then, I'm not used to double-action in the first place.

I need much more practice with this pistol, and my Firestar, than I've been getting, but that's just a matter of finding the time, which I intend to do soon, as the weather is starting to get nice.

In honor of MattG's picture with a full-size 1911 (and to help illustrate why I'm so picky about my guns,) I give you:


Yes, my hands are tiny. Yes, those are my real nails (need to chop 'em off...)

Oh, an interesting piece of trivia about me... I name my weapons. I have a weighted baseball bat named Reason, "Because sooner or later, everyone listens to Reason." I've had that one for several years, before I got my first gun, even.

So, when I got the Firestar (partially as a birthday present, partially paid for by trading in my 20 gauge shotgun) I continued the theme, so to speak, and named the Firestar Logic. "If Reason doesn't sway him, Logic will."

I've toyed with the idea of naming the PPK "Understanding," but it just doesn't fit (the gun, not the theme.) I'm still wavering, between "Brunhilde" and "Gertrude."

I'll figure it out, eventually.

Happy Birthday Farmmom!

Today is Farmmom's birthday, and if this whole blogging thing is good for anything, it ought to be to get a whole buttload of people to wish my mother a happy b-day.

So, hit the comments, and wish her a happy day. Do it for her. Do it for me. Do it for your country!

Ok so birthday wishes have nothing to do with patriotism, but it sounded good, all right?

In honor of this special day, I've assembled some quotes. Some are on motherhood, (since she is my mom,) and some are on birthdays. Enjoy!

This is part of the essence of motherhood, watching your kid grow into her own person and not being able to do anything about it. Otherwise children would be nothing more than pets. -- Heather Armstrong

My mother's great. She has the major looks. She could stop you from doing anything, through a closed door even, with a single look. Without saying a word, she has that power to rip out your tonsils. --Whoopi Goldberg

Whatever with the past has gone,
The best is always yet to come. - Lucy Larcom

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty. - Georges Clemenceau

They tell you that you'll lose your mind when you grow older. What they don't tell you is that you won't miss it very much. - Malcolm Cowley

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. - Mark Twain

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. - Ogden Nash

Women deserve to have more than twelve years between the ages of twenty eight and forty. - James Thurber

Youth is the gift of nature, but age is the work of art. - Garson Kanin

We are all born naked and screaming and if you're lucky that sort of thing won't stop there. - Unknown

You're not getting older, you're getting better. - Unknown

May you live all the days of your life. - Jonathan Swift

Birthdays are nature's way of telling us to eat more cake. -- Anonymous

Like many women my age, I am 28 years old. -- Mary Schmich


Here's wishing the wonderful lady who rocked me to sleep, patched up my bangs and scrapes (of which there were plenty,) taught me to be a good person, gave me perspective on the world, offered advice even when she knew I wasn't going to listen, and generally helped to build me into the person I am today, a wonderful birthday.

After all, without her birthday, I wouldn't have mine.

Things....

I have a great story... just can't quite get it down on paper (the sound effects aren't coming out right) so I'm gonna keep working on it.... It's coming, though.

This morning, Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth The Umpteenth, aka Lizzy Dog, aka Farmmom's pup, is getting her baby factory shut down, and Farmdad's pup is getting his shots. So, I'll be playing puppy chauffeur in the morning, and likely puppy nurse in the afternoon. Probably keep Dizzy Lizzy with me for a couple of hours after she comes home at least, just to be sure everything is kosher.

Tomorrow, we're off to the cattle sale again!

Probably take Farmdog along, just because she enjoys going on rides. I'd take Fuzzy Pup but he doesn't like the leash and he'd probably spend the whole day offering to kill one of them big furry things for me.

Cattle sale etiquitte; Don't bring your dog if it's gonna be a nuisance. So, Fuzzy Pup stays home, until I get him taught some more manners....

Light Blogging

Over the weekend. I'm at FarmBro and SIL's, playing with the munchkins.

They call it babysitting. I call it playtime.

Ya'll enjoy your weekend, cause I sure will!

Dowsing

There is a practice, handed down from generation to generation in rural areas. It's used by city workers round about here to locate old pipes that never made it into the city diagrams.

This practice is much-maligned in some circles, and much heralded in others.

I'm talking about dowsing.

There is a lot of controversy over this particular subject even amongst those who believe it works. Some say that it is the body getting in tune with Mother Earth and communicating with the conscious mind through the medium of the pendulum or rods.

Others say it's an outside force pointing the rods and the dowser in the right direction.

A lot of people say it doesn't even exist.

Some of ya'll will believe, and some won't. It's up to you to make up your mind which group you fall into, and how you feel about it.

The man who's opinion I always respected most on the subject had little to say about it, really.

When asked, grandpa would say "We can do it, some folks can't. I don't know what it is, I don't know how it works, but then, I don't know much about how that dag gum teevee does it either, so that's all right."

Grandpa witched hundreds of wells, with scary accuracy. He could tell you where to drill a well, how deep you'd have to go, and how many gallons per hour the well would support. When people went missing, he was right there looking for them, too.

When Elizabeth Smart went missing, Grandpa called to offer his assistance. Shortly after that call was made, he came to the Old Homestead, bearing his rods.

After a short discussion with Farmmom, a hair brush that we both shared was stripped of a few hairs, those hairs were tied onto the rods, and we trooped outside.

I'd seen grandpa witch a well, and I'd seen Farmmom check the path of a water line, so I had an idea what was going on.

Grandpa told me "Stand here, hold the rods like this, loose, let 'em sag a bit, thats right, and close your eyes. Think about finding the person the hairs belong to."

He and Farmmom then walked in circles around me, and I tried to think about finding things.

One rod swung back and forth, following, near as I could tell, one set of footsteps, impeded by my shoulder as the person would walk behind me. The other rod swung immediately around and began bumping me on the shoulder.

After a while, grandpa told me to open my eyes. I was sure that I'd failed the test, and wasn't a dowser, given the wacky behavior of the rods.

Grandpa pursed his lips for a moment and then said "I've never seen anything like this."

Slightly dissapointed, I asked "So I'm not a water witch, then?"

"Weeeel, no, I think you are."

Remember I mentioned that they used hairs from a brush that Farmmom and I both used? Apparently, one rod had followed Farmmom like "a puppy on a string" in grandpa's words, and the other had never followed anyone, just flipped around and started bumping on my shoulder.

They got hairs from both of us.

The relevant authorities in Salt Lake declined Grandpa's help, something that bothered him until she was found. But he'd planned on dropping everything and taking Farmmom and I to help look for her.

After that, I spent some time experimenting with this strange talent, finding quarters tossed into the yard, things like that. Farmmom told me that she had to use copper rods, while her grandfather, grandpa's dad, had used a forked stick exclusively. She told me of how Great Grandpa would forget to wear gloves, and wind up with bloody hands from the stick twisting in his hands, pulling him this way and that.

It's a family tradition, she told me. Not everyone in the family can do it, but there's usually at least one in every generation.

"Never take money for finding a well," Grandpa told me. "It ain't something we learned to do, it's just something we can do." He got a thoughtful look in his eye, "When I was a kid, my dad told me we were just helpin' out the neighbors. When I got older, I figured that since I really didn't have nothin' to do with it, it wasn't right for me to charge folks."

The man would spend hours tromping through fields, finding a pocket of water and asking the rods about it. He did it right up till he physically couldn't do the tromping through the fields. And he never accepted a dime for it.

I've never witched a well. I've never been asked to, but I'm a dowser. It's one more piece of the heritage I inherited from my grandfather.

I believe, do you?