Wednesday, December 19, 2007, 05:44
The Un-Kodak Moment
I wish I'd had the camera Monday. It was a lovely, sunny day. Warmer than it has been for a couple of weeks with a temperature up around 20 degrees. I hadn't picked up horse manure around Isabelle and Kajun's pastures for a few days, and I figured I'd better get at it while I had the time and while there wasn't, for once, a below-zero windchill. If I leave the manure too long, then it turns into such a big job. Even as it was, I carried 22 five-gallon buckets from Isabelle's pasture to dump on the pile on the other side of the fence.
Actually, I wasn't picking up manure all over the pasture -- just in and around Isabelle's shelter.
At one point while I was working in Isabelle's shelter, I heard a strange noise over by the fence. Whenever I clean up around the pasture, I usually leave the shovel or the pitchfork or the stall picker leaning against the fence until I need it. And whenever I do that, Isabelle always has to investigate to see if there is something she can play with somehow.
As it turned out, there was indeed something Isabelle could play with. She had managed to knock the spade shovel down from where it was leaning against the fence, and then she had managed to pull it under the fence toward her.
When I looked around the corner of the shelter toward the fence, I couldn't help wishing that I'd had the camera. . .because there was Isabelle, standing on the shovel. Not on the handle. She was standing on the blade. On the end of the blade, specifically, so that the handle was pointing up at about a 45 degree angle. I didn't have the camera, though. Randy had taken it with him because he was going to take some pictures on the way to work for a friend so he could make a Christmas card for the friend's business.
"Found something to play with didn't you," I said.
Isabelle turned her head to look at me, all wide-eyed with innocence.
"Just don't hurt yourself," I said as I went back to cleaning out her shelter.
I figured Isabelle would get tired of standing on the shovel in a minute or two and then she would leave the shovel alone and do something else.
Five minutes later, I looked again, and Isabelle was still standing on the shovel. Her head was level with her shoulders. She was dozing in the sunshine.
Isabelle actually ended up standing on the shovel for a long time. I finally had to go and wake her up because I needed the shovel to chip up piles of frozen horse manure. She seemed bewildered that I wanted her to move, and she seemed even more bewildered when I walked away with her "toy."
I have no why Isabelle seemed to think it was so much fun to stand on the shovel. But at least she didn't frighten herself. If Kajun had done something like that, he probably would have scared himself into running through the fence. I had enough trouble walking through the snow to dump the horse manure buckets on the pile, never mind chasing a horse.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Monday, December 17, 2007, 07:03
A Sense of Relief. . .
I am happy to say that all concerned made it through the Sunday school Christmas program Sunday morning! No one fainted. No one threw up. And the Christmas tree in the church is still standing.
Actually, everyone did quite well -- adults and children. When you've only got five kids in Sunday school, adults in the congregation have to help out and fill in. And they do. Bless their hearts.
Randy and another gentleman whose three-year-old son is in Sunday school were the shepherds. The little guy was a shepherd, too. As Randy put it, "we were action heroes. And the comic relief." The shepherds had to run to the back of the church to "Bethlehem" and then five seconds later they had to run back to the front of the church.
As far as I could tell, moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, other family members and the congregation at large enjoyed our little 20-minute program. I know there was at least one video camera going. And there were lots of flashes from pictures being taken.
Isn't it grand?
LeAnn R. Ralph