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"Hey Joey, this one's got the keys in it." Don't help a good roo go bad. Lock your car. Take your keys.

Dogs??? Nah.... We use kangaroos.

I'm in my deer stand now hoping for a yote..

If only.

AGAIN Sheriff Willamina Keller began the ancestry research. Her granddaughters continued her work with the same zeal as Willamina herself began it, and they searched in the same manner as she: it was their unfailing custom to do their research in the back offices of the Firelands Museum, which was a minor library as well as a research facility; they searched using every last tool available to them, thanks to the widespread use of computers and the universal availability of newspaper accounts, death records and other useful tools of Swimming Upriver in Time. Another custom they followed, was to do their research, while dressed for the part. Sheriff Willamina came to Firelands, originally, to fill an unexpired term; she was re-elected multiple times, and finally retired, shortly before her death. She came into the office knowing that – in spite of her credentials as a Marine, in spite of her experience as a nurse, in spite of her excellent education – she was a woman, in a man’s world. She didn’t try to change that. Instead of wearing the standard Colorado State Sheriff’s Association uniform, she wore a tailored business suit and heels. She was not tall by any stretch of the imagination – every last deputy she had was taller than she – but she had a Presence, perhaps augmented by the very first night she arrived, when on her way to Firelands from the airport, she instructed her deputy to respond to the barfight called in over the radio, she kicked the door open, she drove a charge of buckshot through the ceiling and shocked the barfight into a sudden standstill, then she waded through staring, bloodied combatants to the root cause of the knuckle-and-skull conflagration – two women in a screaming, hair-pulling catfight – she introduced one’s face to the wall and pulled a .45 automatic from under her tailored blue suit coat, and invited her, quietly, to drop the broken bottle, before I drop you. Sheriff Willamina, as she was universally known, did not try to be one of the guys. She never appeared anywhere officially, unless she wore her trademark suit dress and heels; she treated her people like the professionals she expected them to be, and she expected more of them – she expressed more confidence in them – than they had in themselves. It worked. She did not come in as a controlling martinet. She came in as an efficient administrator who knew how to get more out of someone than they thought they could do. An administrator who also picked up uncooperative criminals and threw them across the room, an administrator who pinned a loudmouthed troublemaker by the throat against a wall at a public meeting and invited him to so much as twitch so she could punch his guts clear up into his tonsils, an administrator who changed into boots and blue jeans and led a horseback posse in search of two little boys who’d wandered off right before a snowstorm hit, and when the winds stilled and the snow stopped, she stepped out of a sheltering cleft in the rocks, raised a Sheriff’s band talkie to her lips with one hand, and fired a flare gun with the other to guide a relief column to where she and the boys and a good saddlehorse holed up overnight, with brush and snow making a snug roof overhead, with lightweight silver blankets to keep them warm, rations from her saddlebags to feed the three of them, with a trickle of clean water running through their little shelter providing the basis for hot tea with honey (let that cool, it’s hot!) and rock walls close on either side to reflect their fire’s heat back onto them. Willamina’s granddaughters were their own souls: one was her twin in appearance and in temperament, the other less so, but the granddaughters happily searched and researched their ancestry with their focused, efficient, pale eyed Gammaw. In the years since Willamina’s passing, the granddaughters continued her research, at least until Marnie was shot off into the cold darkness of interstellar space, and Angela worked alone – but in memory of her dear Gammaw, Angela, too, wore the same style of suit dress as her pale eyed ancestress, and so it was that her Daddy came into the Museum just to say hello, and found his darlin’ little girl with her forehead on the heel of her hand and a frown on her face. Angela looked up, straightened. “Trouble?” Linn asked in his deep, reassuring Daddy-voice. Angela made a face like she’d just bit into a sour pickle. “Reality,” she finally said, “sucks.” Linn nodded, eased his long tall frame into a chair. “Yep,” he agreed. “Fill me in.” “A cousin. Anderson, the name. Third cousin, two removes –” She gave her pale eyed Daddy a distressed look: for all that she was dressed like a professional woman, an administrator, in that moment she looked almost like an unhappy little girl – “Daddy, I wanted all of our ancestors to be noble and upright and honorable and clean, cheerful, thrifty and reverent.” “You found on that’s not.” “I found a cop killer.” Linn raised an eyebrow. “Anderson the name, out of Whitley County." She paused, read, fingertips tracing lightly across handwritten notes. "It was” – she re-read her notes, turned a page back on the legal pad she still favored, lifted another page – “1932. Height of the Depression.” “What happened?” “It was a… Methodist tent revival,” she said. “He was there being rowdy and heckling and the constable grabbed him and threw him out. “The next night the constable deputized … some …” She frowned, frustrated, lifted a page, shook her head. “I can’t find how many he deputized, but when Anderson came back to heckle some more, the Constable grabbed one arm and a newly deputized grabbed the other. Someone -- I think another heckler -- grabbed the deputy, Anderson pulled a gun and killed the constable, someone – maybe two someones, there are conflicting reports – gut shot Anderson twice. He lived a few days.” Angela turned her distressed, bright-blue eyes back to her Daddy, drawing from the confidence she saw in his posture, the warmth she saw in his expression. “Daddy, the constable was a cousin, too!” Linn nodded, looked down, and Angela saw his bottom jaw slide out. “We can’t pick our family, Angela,” he said finally, “and sometimes family isn’t … quite … what we want.” Linn chose his words carefully. “I know, Daddy,” Angela said, and now she even sounded like the little girl she’d been, the delightful, blue-eyed child Linn remembered so fondly, the happy little gigglebox that lit up her Daddy’s soul like a hundred watt bulb, now grown, or nearly so, grown enough to look womanly, but with all the true beauty of the young – Linn blinked, broke the spell: fathers sometimes think that way, and at times, he definitely did. “Angela,” Linn said, his voice still reassuring, gentle, “have you found where the constable is buried?” “I think so, Daddy.” Linn held up a forestalling hand as Angela began to riffle quickly through her papers; his darlin’ daughter froze, looked very directly at her Daddy, fingers buried in the several sheets she was turning. “If you find it,” Linn said gently, “note it down separately for me. I’d like to make that a visitation one of these days.” Father and daughter both stood: Angela swung around the desk, quickly, her skirt swinging as she turned, skipped up to her Daddy: she seized this hard-muscled, lean-waisted icon of strength and security, she pressed the side of her face into his chest, she squeezed him tight, tight, the way a happy little girl will, and Linn’s arms were strong and reassuring and gentle around his little girl, this delightful child he used to swing high in the air so she could scatter happy giggles all over the floor. Angela looked up, chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. “Daddy?” “Hm?” “Daddy, if I’m growing up too fast …” She swallowed. “Daddy, if you want, I can wear pigtails and pinafores instead of …” Linn took his daughter under the arms, hoisted her up, rubbed his nose against hers, lightly, carefully, leaned his head forward until their foreheads just touched, until her eyes merged into one Arizona-blue orb. “I see you,” he whispered, and Angela giggled, for this was something he’d done with her since her earliest memories of the man. He lowered her a little, kissed her forehead, then carefully lowered her a very little more, until her heels just touched the polished tile floor. “Darlin’,” he almost whispered, “you dress however you choose. You’ve been a little girl in pigtails and pinafores, and I cherish those memories and we have the pictures, but you’re not a little girl anymore.” “I don’t want to distress you, Daddy.” “By growing up too fast?” Linn chuckled, sat, pulled Angela onto his lap: she wiggled a little, making sure her bony backside wouldn’t dig into the man’s thighs. “Darlin’, every little girl grows up too fast. It’s a fact of life, and Daddies all have to learn it. If Daddies had their way, they’d put their little girl on a high shelf and put a glass bell jar over ‘em like they were a precious doll or something.” Angela took her Daddy’s hand between both of his, looked deep into his pale, just-barely-light-blue eyes. “Daddies might want that, darlin’, but people in hell want ice water, and that doesn’t work out either.” Angela twisted, hugged her Daddy again, and Linn sat with this maturing young woman, his near-to-grown-up little girl, in his arms and on his lap, each one holding the other, and for a long, happy moment, he was happy to be just a Daddy, and Angela was happy to let maturing womanhood fall away so she could be his little girl again.

The Australian version of Cujo?

They would go shopping together, and occasionally go out to lunch. The 3 of us would go square dancing together. My ex and I also danced the rounds between tips. When I needed a break the two of them would dance the tip with my ex as the left hand (man's) part. My ex and her husband would on a somewhat regular basis would treat us to dinner out.

It is! It was on the railing but a woodpecker knocked it in. They come in rather hot sometimes. I put feeders on our blinds. Keeps you busy when the deer are not there. I highly recommend safety glasses!

I’m still stuck on the idea your wife and ex-wife alone in a car. I can’t wrap my head around that scenario in my world as a fatality would have occurred.

Funny Dogs

Stool Sample

Ummm, yeah…you live in a galaxy far, far away from mine. Seriously, I’m happy for you.

Nay, Good Sir, Gentle Pard! The Sacred Number being three, and three being the Sacred Number, the number of the count shall always be three when pertaining to things sacred, and three shall always, when referring to things sacred, be the number of the count, unless thou countest to the next Sacred Number, that being the number of Forty, The which should not be confused with our beloved Forty which being translated is also Furlong, which would for the Holy Hand Grenade be both silly and dangerous. Neither shall the count tarry at two, nor continue to four, unless thou then proceedest to the Sacred Number of Forty.

I sold mine a couple of years ago. It was an original first year S1 White Lightning. It was also the only black one I have ever seen or heard of. Those first year bikes didn’t have the speed governed down like the later ones and would far outperform the later models. I did several minor modifications to it and had some serious tuning done to it, (carb and ignition) which brought it up to a really respectable level. It also produced some great gas mileage. If I didn’t push it and stayed off the throttle, it would get well over 50 mpg. I once filled it all the way to the muzzle and got 325 miles without running it dry. I sold it when the nerve damage in my foot and leg got to where it was difficult to shift gears comfortably.

As for the first, not sure how I missed you at Thanksgiving dinner or how you snuck a camera into the house but very accurate! In the second are you trying to say that is NOT the cast of of the original GOT? Next you will be claiming the number of the Holy Hand Grenade is not three, nay you will put forth that it is four! Blasphemy sez I !!! Regards Gateway Kid

Why are you confused? Everyone knows that sheep herders walk and use a dog to move the sheep. His dog just appears to be larger than most, but still there's no reason to be sitting on him.

DROVING SHEEP - 1954 Deniliquin Stock Route

Christmas has about become a non-event at our house with parents gone and sons off and away. We haven't bothered putting up a tree in years. When the boys were small, the tradition was, we'd go out and find a cedar tree on the farm. Boys picked it out. I would shoot it down. They would drag it in. Several times the tree got too much and we'd pick out a smaller one.