Say Bird Design

My hipster niece Emily has (finally) graduated and started her very own design business. The girl is talented, and you should take a look at her stuff at http://saybirddesign.com/. Go buy some very cool note cards, t-shirts and so forth while you're there.

And then there were none

Regina, the last of our ducks was killed the night before last. A raccoon got into her box and wrung her neck. Killed for sport, not food. Raccoons are vicious that way. And this guy's been making a nuisance of himself in the barn lately. Spilling the duck food, and stealing the cat bowls were just the prelude to his latest offense.

In an odd cosmic balancing act, Madeline rescued a 6 week old kitten from a flooded swale along the road on her way to the high school graduation a couple weeks ago. Despite our insistence that she must find a permanent home elsewhere for Roxy Tangerine, procrastination has worked, and the kitten has endeared herself to the family. The poor thing is so homely that she's cute. What the hell, what's one more cat?

Father's Day with my dad and the Reds

Dad and I went to Great American Ballpark to see Bronson Arroyo loose his eighth game this season. Bummer. We sat behind home plate, in the top row of the upper deck. While most of the fans were wilting in the 90+ degree heat, we enjoyed the game in the shade and with a very nice breeze blowing in from behind us. A Sherpa would have helped when it was time for lunch.

Later, we met a very interesting waitress at J. Alexanders where we ate some very good food, followed by a 10 minute drive to the Starbucks, which was about 100 yards from the restaurant for coffee, and I hit the road from home.

Perrin leaves for Pony Club upper-level camp at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning, but I'm still a bit too caffeinated to go to sleep. I'll regret this at 5AM when the alarm goes off.

Perrin and Cherish let their ya-yas out

It's Hunter Pace season again, and this gives Perrin the perfect opportunity to let Cherish get her ya-yas out. Nothing like galloping across the rolling hills of beautiful western Licking County, jumping everything in site to get you and your horse's head on straight.

Demon duck, hot and cold softball, and boat payments

Demon Duck

I was walking back from the barn the other morning, and there was Regina, sitting on the lawn, head down, neck stretched out, looking like a Klingon warbird. I'm walking by ... and she is tracking my every move ... watching ... staring. OK, I can't blame her, a couple hours earlier I had shoo'd her aside to take eggs out from under her. Still, it was creepy.

Hot and Cold Softball

Our summer co-ed recreational softball team has a sponsor this year, and we take the field looking all dapper in our Red Rock Pub T-shirts. It hasn't helped our play though. We seem to be hot or cold. We've won 3 - one by the mercy rule, one coming from behind after spotting them 8 runs in the first, and one was unmemorable. We've also lost 3, two by the mercy rule. Seems that when we aren't playing well, none of us are playing well. I'd like to say though, that our women rock. We're probably the only team in the league with 2 women on the left side of the infield. Unfortunately, shortstop Kelly goes home to Toledo after finishing her freshman year at OSU. Do the math, I had graduated from college and worked at Bell Labs for 3 years before this girl was born! God, I feel old sometimes. I'm more or less holding my own with the young whipper-snappers out there, but I sure would like some eye-hand coordination for Fathers Day.

Boat Payments

Lilly's been lame since March, and off-and-on since last August. Hoping to finally get to the bottom of what's been going on, we elected to make a boat payment for an equine lameness specialist today. Bottom line, nothing's wrong except her foot hurts. Give her 2 aspirin (AKA bute) 3 days a week and she'll probably be fine. Don't get me wrong, I'm relieved it's nothing serious, and we got some cool digital X-Rays. FYI, the screws are holding together a wooden box her foot is on