The wild version of this "gorgeous" bird needs a mix of trees and grasses. The trees provide the birds with some of their food, cover in which to escape predators during the day, and roost sites at night. They need the grassland for most of their food, both plant and animal. A hen usually lays 10 to 13 eggs . Sometimes two females will lay up to 26 in the same nest, which is a shallow scrape in the soil, thinly lined with plant material. Incubation is about 28 days. Straight after hatching, the chicks learn how to catch insects, which form almost their entire diet. A week old chick may snap up as many as 4,000 grasshoppers and other insects each day. As they get older they switch to more plant matter. Wild turkeys probably numbered tens of millions before European settlers and their guns reached America. Good eating! So are the domestic ones.
This picture was a gift from my daughter, Kay. Happy Thanksgiving!
Friday, November 14, 2008
Friday, November 7, 2008
Colorful Names
We all know people with surnames of colors, such as Green, Brown, Black, White and Gray/Grey. Well, according to Whitepages.com, there are over 300 of the following names: Red, Purple, Blue, Aqua, Pink, Tan, Orange, and Violet. There are 298 Maroons; 272 Yellows; 6 Mauves; 28 Indigos. That's only the beginning! Do you know how many color names fall into just these categories? I think I have a new fascination!
What Does Change Mean, Anyway?
Change: alteration, mutation, variation, modification, transition, turn, shift, diversion, break, New Deal, New Frontier, generation, deterioration, transformation, transfiguration, makeover, evolution, etc. Check out a thesaurus. There are dozens of meanings of the word and/or concept of CHANGE. Which one is Mr. Obama talking about? Change doesn't automatically mean good. I thought I'd freak out every time someone said the word CHANGE. Enough already!
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Oh Yeah! Another Horse Story
Irish Eyes' comment reminded me of another incident. The black mare, the one I rode to the mailbox, had a colt. My just older sister was riding it and I was on the mother. The colt jumped over an irrigation ditch. I don't recall whether sister fell off or jumped off. Anyway, we took the bridle off the young one. I'm pretty sure it was my idea to put the bridle somewhere safe and we'd pick it up later. So...... I picked one sagebrush out of the 100's in the pasture and placed the bridle under it. Well, I couldn't find it and had to go tell Daddy. He wasn't very happy with me but we walked around until he found it. He never had to spank me, he just had to scold me or get stern with me and it broke my heart. I say it was my sister's fault for getting off the colt! What do you think? Huh? Huh?
Monday, November 3, 2008
The Other Horse
The most important horse in my life remains nameless. A friend and I were riding him double and bareback. We are on an elevated road when a dog appeared out of nowhere, barking at us. The horse bucked down the incline, which was probably 9 feet from top to bottom. Well, I did stay on one jump longer than my friend. She went off first and then I fell. I landed on my left hip/buttock. When the dust cleared, Charlotte was coming towards me. I couldn't get up so she went for help. The horse and dog apparently went somewhere together, I don't recall. In a few minutes Charlotte came back with a neighbor in a car. They drove me home and my folks took me to the emergency room at a hospital about 20 plus miles away. They x-rayed and told me that the pain was from muscle spasms in my hip and buttock and that it would work loose (the muscle spasm, not the hip/buttock :). So,being 17, I figured square dancing would do the job! A couple of days later we got a phone call from the doctor who said I needed to come back to the hospital right away as the x-ray (which they had to send to another city to be read) showed a fractured back. Oh goody! I spent a few days there, flat on my back, having to be fed by a nurse. The funny thing was... they let me get up to go to the bathroom!
I rode lying in the back seat of a car to the larger city to a "real" hospital. I was given some morphine and taken somewhere to have a cast applied. I was allergic to the morphine and broke out in huge red hives and was so weak I couldn't hold my head up. I was supposed to stand and hold onto an overhead trapeze so they could wrap the casting material around me. I ended up being stretched between two tables while they wrapped the casting stuff around me. Consequently, the belly part bulged so I had a rounded belly. I spent a couple of months in that (I think) and then a month or so in a brace. The strange thing was, I never had much pain. The worst part was that there were no loose clothes available then except for housecoats and maternity clothes. It was rather embarrassing but that's what I wore.
I will always believe that my friend was hurt more than I was, but she didn't have the option of getting medical care. And you know what mothers always say? Don't wear ragged underwear because you might be in an accident? Well, my bra was pinned together, much to my mother's chagrin.
I rode lying in the back seat of a car to the larger city to a "real" hospital. I was given some morphine and taken somewhere to have a cast applied. I was allergic to the morphine and broke out in huge red hives and was so weak I couldn't hold my head up. I was supposed to stand and hold onto an overhead trapeze so they could wrap the casting material around me. I ended up being stretched between two tables while they wrapped the casting stuff around me. Consequently, the belly part bulged so I had a rounded belly. I spent a couple of months in that (I think) and then a month or so in a brace. The strange thing was, I never had much pain. The worst part was that there were no loose clothes available then except for housecoats and maternity clothes. It was rather embarrassing but that's what I wore.
I will always believe that my friend was hurt more than I was, but she didn't have the option of getting medical care. And you know what mothers always say? Don't wear ragged underwear because you might be in an accident? Well, my bra was pinned together, much to my mother's chagrin.
Friday, October 31, 2008
The H-Word
A few horse stories.
We had a black mare when I was a kid. I got to ride her to the mailbox, which was about a mile away. The first time I wasn't very prepared. I had my hands full of mail and she decided she needed to gallop back home. Well.... Mom made a sack (maybe it was a flour sack) with ties on it so I could put the mail inside and tie it to the saddle horn. That worked. Did you know that most horses walk slowly away from home and then want to run back home? At least one I know of anyway.
We had a gray horse named Smokey. He was such a good horse and gentle. We pastured him out at a friend's farm. This family consisted of three older boys. Well, when my sister and I went out some time later to ride, he had become a bucking bronco. Mom and Dad figured the boys had been spurring him and making him buck. We had to sell him because he was ruined for riding.
We had another black horse who galloped like a rocking chair. Riding him bareback was so easy. He was a big horse but I loved him. I don't remember why we sold him.
My brother-in-law bought a skinny old buckskin mare at the sale yard. She was gentle but was stiff necked about being reined. I rode her out in the pasture and taught her to neck rein. One day, my BIL, still thinking she was stiff necked, got on her to move some cows. When the rein touched her neck, she turned so quickly that he was riding on her side. It was one of my most proud accomplishments. Sandy got bogged down one day in a muddy irrigation ditch up to above her knees. We pulled her out but she would not go into water again. On the way to bring in the milch cows one day, it was necessary to go down a rather steep slope, through a little creek, and up the other side. She wouldn't even go down the slope after her incident, so I tied her to some brush. I went after the cows on foot and, while I was going over to the other side, I heard a commotion. Sandy had fallen down the slope partway. I pulled on the reins until she got herself back up. I got on her and she gave me no argument! She headed right down the trail and through the water and up the other side. I think she thought she was being punished for her actions. Did this horse's brain connect her refusal to go down that trail with the roll down the hill? And then knew somehow that she needed to obey in order to avoid being punished again?
We had a black mare when I was a kid. I got to ride her to the mailbox, which was about a mile away. The first time I wasn't very prepared. I had my hands full of mail and she decided she needed to gallop back home. Well.... Mom made a sack (maybe it was a flour sack) with ties on it so I could put the mail inside and tie it to the saddle horn. That worked. Did you know that most horses walk slowly away from home and then want to run back home? At least one I know of anyway.
We had a gray horse named Smokey. He was such a good horse and gentle. We pastured him out at a friend's farm. This family consisted of three older boys. Well, when my sister and I went out some time later to ride, he had become a bucking bronco. Mom and Dad figured the boys had been spurring him and making him buck. We had to sell him because he was ruined for riding.
We had another black horse who galloped like a rocking chair. Riding him bareback was so easy. He was a big horse but I loved him. I don't remember why we sold him.
My brother-in-law bought a skinny old buckskin mare at the sale yard. She was gentle but was stiff necked about being reined. I rode her out in the pasture and taught her to neck rein. One day, my BIL, still thinking she was stiff necked, got on her to move some cows. When the rein touched her neck, she turned so quickly that he was riding on her side. It was one of my most proud accomplishments. Sandy got bogged down one day in a muddy irrigation ditch up to above her knees. We pulled her out but she would not go into water again. On the way to bring in the milch cows one day, it was necessary to go down a rather steep slope, through a little creek, and up the other side. She wouldn't even go down the slope after her incident, so I tied her to some brush. I went after the cows on foot and, while I was going over to the other side, I heard a commotion. Sandy had fallen down the slope partway. I pulled on the reins until she got herself back up. I got on her and she gave me no argument! She headed right down the trail and through the water and up the other side. I think she thought she was being punished for her actions. Did this horse's brain connect her refusal to go down that trail with the roll down the hill? And then knew somehow that she needed to obey in order to avoid being punished again?
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