Best Things

I am listenting through the window to my daughters playing outside. Childrens (especially mine) laughter always gives me pause, and puts a smile on my face.

Humboldt People

I was at the gym the other day and I noticed someone wearing clothes that said “Humboldt” on them. This is always a big deal for me, being a Humboldt graduate, as it’s not everyday you run into someone from your alma mater. Being highly introverted, and wanting to step out and get to know people more, the “Humboldt” logo is any easy icebreaker for me. I rarely pass on the opportunity to introduce myself to a possible fellow Lumberjack.

However, I ran into a problem on this particular day though. The Humboldt person in question was female, and the Humboldt logo was written across the backside of her shorts. As I moved over to ask, “Did you go to Humboldt?”, I began to wonder about the potential hidden messages here. Now, you have to understand that my motives were purely innocent…it was the large lettering that caught my eye, and not her feminine charms. But I had obviously, actually looked at her backside, and if I approached her about the potential Humboldt connection, she would know that I looked at her backside. How should I handle it?

Should I ignore the whole butt part:

“Did you go to Humboldt?”

Do I acknowledge and cover:

“I wasn’t checking you out, but I noticed your shorts say Humboldt, did you go to school there”?

Or do I joke around about it:

“I was reading your butt, and it says you went to Humboldt…”

Does any one have thoughts on the proper etiquette in this situation? In this instance, after I thought about it for a couple minutes, it was time for my next set of leg presses, so I resumed my workout, got distracted, and forgot about it. (Mirrors are everywhere in the gym, and they can be distracting for me). How should I have handled the situation?

Fences

...So I jumped on the fence and yelled at the house, Hey! what gives you the right
To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature in...

(From Signs, by Five Man Electrical Band)

I actually like Tesla’s version of Signs better, but that’s another story. I want to talk about fences. There are countless stories, sermons, and poems extolling the positive and negative imagery and reality of the fence. I've been pondering the subject of fences since we began building a new fence. The picture above is the fence that we built this past weekend (re: previous post on “concrete”). This particular fence wasn’t built to keep anybody out or for any other reason other than to protect our horses. You see, horses are pretty dumb animals that can fatally wound themselves in the most obscure of ways.

Two-inch gap at the bottom of the fence? Horse can get its foot stuck and die.

Drop a nail? Horse can step on it and die.

Killing or maiming a horse is that easy! Don’t believe me? Just ask my friend Susie…she has seen it all!

So do I have any deep or philosophical thoughts about fences? You bet I do…DON’T EVER BUILD THEM! Hire someone else to do it! We (Mark, me, and my neighbor) started early Saturday morning, and quit mid-Sunday, and still weren’t done. We sank 34 giant posts into ground that was hard as rock, cut and mounted 340 ft of boards, and we didn’t even get to start running the wire. (I get to spend half of my Friday doing that… oh, joy). It was 132 degrees on Saturday, and we worked so hard that Mark nearly died from heatstroke. OK it was actually only 90 degrees, and Mark got a really bad headache, but it sure felt a lot worse. I drank more than a gallon of fluids throughout the day, and still lost 5 pounds (that’s true, not an exaggeration). Just today(Wed) my hands began to feel normal, and not cramped and sore. I also officially became a redneck…not because I started saying ya’ll and dating my cousin, but because the back of my neck was literally bright red from the severe sunburn. Yes, cowboy hats are not just a fashion statement; they actually serve a functional purpose (too bad I learned that AFTER building the fence).

Was it totally a bad experience? No. There were a lot of positives:

• I learned a lot about my neighbor; he is a fairly fascinating guy and has some interesting stories.
• I learned about the cowboy hat thing.
• I learned how to build a fence…there is a lot more to it than I realized.
• I discovered that I don’t like building fences; hate it as a matter of fact.
• I also have a tremendous sense of accomplishment, as this was a fairly large task.
• I spent almost two full days working with Mark, and he didn't try to kill me...even seems to still like me a little bit. As I think about it, that is a pretty big deal, becuase the last time we worked on something together I walked away with a gaping would over my right eye.
• I’m gonna have a beautiful fence when we are done on Friday.

And although I have complained a lot, it will all be worth it to see the horses running through the pasture when we cut them loose on Saturday.