Our updates for all of you

If you had a kid, they could go on a goat pulled wagon tour of the grounds. The teams in the big barn had to hitch up out in this area. Some of those expensive wagons wait. I wish I had taken my better camera. I will next year. But I did get some interesting shots like these two. Like I'd said in a previous post, this little camera usually takes good pictures, and in the view screen everything looked like it would be okay. Surprise when I took a look the next day! Kinda, sci-fi huh? Type later, Tad

This photo on right shows a large team of Belgium's in one of the barn areas. They were munching after the noon performance and still all decked out in their show harness. Next phot shows a couple of harnessed mules waitng for their turn at the ring. Stacy spent a lot of time at this corral. Can't see it to well but a Norweigan Fjord is in this corral and for sale. Stacy asked a lot of questions and pet the horse quite a bit. This "Doctor's Cart" was for sale. In nice shape it was 'only' $2,500. The black horse in the background is actually a mule you could buy a raffle ticket for. Stacy had her hopes up, but we never got the call on Sunday. You had your choice of the mule or $400. Heck yeah! We'll go again next September! It was fun!

First is a few years ago at our Phelan property. The corrals before we got the 6 stall mare motel. Laura with one of the two Morgan horses we had then. Stacy's mom had gotten them for Sandy and Laura as colts. Ultimately Sandy had to stop riding and stay away due to severe allergies. Both horses were trained to ride and one, Pet was trained to pull a cart. To give an idea of size, these next two photos were taken at Larry's place while we were learning what we'd be doing on the Draft Show circuit. Stacy and Laura were washing one of the Percheron horses. Stacy in just under 6 feet tall and is not standing in a dip. See how tall this horse is compared to the Morgan horse above? Another shot while at Larry's. Same horse, walking him back to the barn. Stacy on left, Laura on right. The 'training' wagon in the background on left. Next post will have some pictures from last weekend.

Been pretty busy actually. A four day work conference down in Lewiston Idaho, about 200 miles each way, from the 14th to the 17th. Found diesel on the reservation on the way down to Lewiston for $3.99 a gallon! Wish they were closer! Our '04 Chevy crew cab diesel got right at 19 MPG. Not many gas trucks of that size can do that! Then last weekend Mike and Brenda were to come visit but had to cancel due to Mike's job. So we spent the day Saturday the 20th at the Sandpoint Draft Horse and Mule show. Boy did that bring back memories!! Most of the readers of this probably didn't know that when we lived in California we had up to 9 horses once, usually 4 or so. We had two draft horses over the years, and in the show season of 2000, we'd been the "crew" for our farrier Larry Roberts, his wife, and their team of 6 Percheron draft horses. Stacy loves horses like I like sports cars, motorcycles and flying. That summer we followed and were the team of "Diamond R ...

Today is one of those dates that the above question would mean something to almost everybody. Tuesday September 11th, 2001 we woke up at the Coeur d' Alene K.O.A. a few miles east of the town. We'd gotten there the night before on our way to get the first look at our new Idaho property that had been bought the fall before. Stacy's father had done all the 'leg work' in getting the property and we hadn't been able to take the time off to go see it until that September. We'd left Phelan on Sunday the 9th so we could see off our son on the Saturday the 8th. Sean was waiting for his start in the marine corps. He left for San Diego on the 8th for his start, and went in at 12:00 midnight of the 9th to 10th. We'd spent the night of the 9th north of Salt lake City Utah and got to the CDA KOA Campground after sunset the 10th. We were in our 5th wheel trailer, I was having breakfast, Stacy was in the front bedroom getting dressed and it was about 8:20 am Pacific t...

That's what I've been doing the past couple of days. Last Saturday Stacy and I went through and unloaded all the boxes and items we brought back from Eureka. In the stuff we brought I came across one box with a partial photo album and a box of photos, in another an album that had been put together at some point in time but recent enough to have some good photo quality reproductions of old photos and newspaper articles in it. I scanned just about all the photos in. Still have a few to go and some were just too damaged to scan. In the photos, many I'd never seen, some of me I didn't remember ever seeing, were many that obviously meant something to my mom. I just wish she'd labeled them!! She had gone back at some point and written names, rough dates, or just a note about the picture. Quite a few were professional photographers shots. In looking at them I'd guess that 'posed' professional pictures were very important in the 1930's and 40's, but eve...

These three pictures were taken last weekend on the Eureka trip. First at left was a "Shoe Tree" that we stopped to see on Highway 97 north of Bend Oregon. If you're ever out that way I imagine it will still be there! It has a lot more shoes on it but was there last time we went that way in 2006. Next picture down was taken at one of the storage rooms. A week ago right now that's what we were working on! This was the larger of the two. They were not square but were deep to get the space. The last shot was taken at the rest stop on Highway 84 west of Boardman along the Columbia river on the return trip. This was Monday morning. We'd been through a lot of rain on Sunday in central Oregon and developed a short in the trailer lights. So with no lights in back we only got as far as "The Dalles" in Oregon on Sunday night. You might be able to tell by the tree in back it was windy. 20 to 30 MPH winds, at least on the return trip it was a tailwind most of th...

I found out yesterday that my father had a thing for sports cars that I hadn't heard of before. Seems his dream car had been a 1950's vintage Triumph. From the post about sports cars, above is the Mitsubishi 3000GT that we used to have. This was my 'dream car' that Stacy had gotten for me. That's why at the time I thought I'd never really drive it, I decided to trade it in for her GMC truck. It was a really nice car. Like I said, large, about the size of a Corvette, did look good and those models still do look great! Very stable and plenty fast enough. Although technically a 4 seat car, we always had those small rear seats folded an used it as a hatchback storage area. Last time we were up at Fred Davis's place was 4th of July 2004. Above was his beloved Jaguar XKE. It was a 2 plus 2 model, although I don't think any human ever was back there. Even a kid would have been too large! And as I'd said in the post, when I drove it around and actually ...

Yes, yesterday was my birthday. Thanks to all who read this and know me for the calls and E-mails yesterday. I remember when I was a kid I didn't like my birthday because it meant the end of summer and the beginning of another school year. It was nice when it fell on Monday to become the Labor day holiday, but I was born on a Wednesday in San Bernardino California way back in 1957, at about 5:20 am. Now though, I think I'm believing the idea of "just keep them coming!!" that and the saying that Fred used to say and Mike still says about "any day you get up is a good day!". Fred Davis, who passed away last year at 88, also used to talk about suffering from A.G.E. and said I needed to do all I could to stay away from the 'Golden Years'. Well, since the alternative is less appealing, I'll try for those Golden Years and hope for the best. Ok, this one will be short. I'm going to post another with some photos included in a few moments- C-YA! Tad

We got back home last night about 5 PM from the six night trip to Eureka and back. 1,914 total miles, about 850 each way and then the driving around in that area. Unloaded the truck but the rest of the stuff will have to wait until the weekend to start. It turned out to not be the disaster I'd been dreading. Yes, there was so much stuff!!! . A lot of broken, torn-up or 'lived in' (mice) stuff had to be thrown out, but after two and a half days we had successfully cleaned out the larger of the two units and had the smaller unit 'comfortably' full. On the way home through Oregon we were able to weigh the trailer at a closed highway station, about 5,500 pounds of memories, that for the most part will be sold. Yes there were some things found that got me choked up remembering mom working on them. And I kept some things that meant a lot to me for that reason. It was really sad to me though, mom had gone from the large house to the small apartment living, yet could not be...