I am here, it is hot and humid but apparently not as hot and humid as central PA! Go figure. Walked around for about 4 hours today.

Today I showed a cow named Dutchess, the same cow I had shown last year.



We came in second.

I got to the fair about 7am and helped hold tails, clean ears and scoop poop.

Jared putting the finishing touches on a few heifers.





Grooming tools.


Cow Stylist


Marsha and Alex.


Waiting to parade the heifers in the show ring.

Saturday Marjean and I picked blueberries.



Then we went to a farm open house.


Happy Cows


Then we had lunch at the farm.




One very large bovine.


Last September I was in Vancouver for a meeting. While there I also met up with Kranki. she gave me a few things she had made. Finally I got around to getting cord and adding a few beads to one of the items...


I made some pottery today, these will be raku fired and turned into ornaments.


Today I removed a mammary tumor from Babe, Marjean and Don's inherited beagle.




The wedding photos are finally finished. Sidenote...orange carpet casts an awful color on people. Ugh. Thankfully there is a skin tone function in Elements!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/twisteduterus/sets/72157605891605309/

Karin and I did a 20 mile bike ride today.





We left Karins house at about 9am, rode two miles and then hiked our bikes up to the ridge of Paddy Mountain. The road was too rocky, rut filled and steep for us to ride up.


Once we got to the ridge the road was great.


Then we found wild low bush blueberries-huckleberries. We could not resist stopping to pick a few to sample. We also could not resist picking a few to take along, Karin put some in her empty waterbottle, I put some on a bag with some grapes I brought for snack. While we were picking I kept expecting a bear to appear....









Cheers!


Descending Paddy Mountain.


The best riding shoes ever....


Stream along Cherry Run, descending Paddy Mountain.


After we finished our descent, we stopped by Penns Creek for a snack.


Paddy Mountain from a distance.


This was a great ride- thanks Karin.

Gracie is 85% better tonight. Thankfully.


Happy

More to follow next week....

Phone conversation between a friend and me last night-

Me: Hello
F: Guess what I bought?

Me: What? (First thought was a horse or a fancy TV)
F: My burial plot.

Me: What? Why?
F: Well just in case I die in a plane crash.

Me: What? You are crazy?
F: Well then it is taken care of and no one else has to take care of it.

Me: I don't need one of those, I am going to be cremated and my ashes and the dogs are going to be tossed somewhere.
F: You cannot do that anymore.

Me: Well someone will have to or throw us in some corn silage and feed us to the cows.
F: Well I think I am going to go buy my headstone next weekend.

Me: Sheesh
F: Ahhhhhhhh, someone just ran a red light and almost hit me.

Me: Bwahahahhahahaha
F: Why are you laughing?

Me: Dude you are talking about burial plots and headstones and someone almost hits you....
F: Oh yeah.

Last week I was called out to see a new client who had a horse who had a chunk taken out of its' shoulder. Apparently a large tree limb fell on the barn and caused the injury. This call came in mid-morning on Thursday. When the call was given to me I wondered how old the wound was as we had has a good thunderstorm on Tuesday night.

The office gave me directions and as I was processing the directions I was pretty sure I knew where I needed to go and it was not pretty. The place was one where one did not know if it was under construction or destruction. The walked the horse to me and there was this huge chunk out of the horses neck, her mane was stuck to the wound and the wound looked old. I asked the guy how old the wound was and as I suspected, it happened Tuesday night.

The guy and his friend were helping me with the horse. The friend was fairly clueless about how to handle horses and kept answering his cell phone while trying to hold the horse after it was sedated. The wound could not be fixed and would have to heal by secondary intention.



As I was cleaning the wound a woman drives up, gets out of the car and says, "I see you have a vet here and I have a question. My dog got into porcupine quills and I was wondering if you could help me out. I called around and Lewisburg vets could get me in." My reply, "We only do large animals and as you can see, I am in the middle of something but I would be happy to talk to you after I am finished." WFT? Just because you see a vet somewhere, it is alright to stop and ask questions?

I finished doing what I could for the horse, explained how to care for the wound and how to administer the antibiotics. The helper guy told me he had to go get a check from their boss and he would be right back. He drove off and I chatted with the owner of the horse. Ten, 20, 30 minutes go by and the guy is still not back. The horse owner calls his friends cell phone, no answer. Finally someone went to look for him. When the guy got back I told him that I should technically charge him an additional $100 for my time. He said "There was some excitement at his bosses, one of their horses was having a little one". Obviously this guy hung around up there watching that instead of coming back with a check.

I could not leave that place fast enough. What a bunch of time wasters.

Last night I learned how to skull, rowing with two oars. Previously I learned how to row with just one-sweep rowing. It was just awesome.

Last weekends Blues festival was super. The last act had to be cancelled due to an electrical storm. That was a huge bummer. You can see all 200 plus pictures here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/twisteduterus/sets/72157605532154309/

Friday night a few people came over to make mountain pies.



Here you can see one pie cooking in the improper position. The pie maker should be paced in the coals.


Some made pizza pies, others including myself made turkey, brie and cranberry chutney pies.



Greg resisting the hyenas stares.


Saturday a friend and I found this at TJMaxx...double spoon holder or testicles? You be the judge.



After that mission, I met Karin for our first mountain bike ride of the season.





And after that I took all the hyenas to Marjean and Dons for a play in the big yard.

Today BoBo went back to Mom and Dads today. Today I also made these...





Tomorrow night is the last Learn to Row session, we graduate.

BoBo, originally uploaded by twisteduterus.

i have been dog BoBO (Bosco is his real name). He is Sis's dog. Mom and Dad are mostly watching him but I got him when they went away. He is a funny little dog. he is a PBGV, adopted/rescued.

When Mom and Dad have him, he gets all their attention, brushings, and is always clean and he even goes to the "woofer Wash" for baths.

While he is at my house, he is slumming it. He lays in the mulch, gets leaves and stuff all over him and gets no baths or brushings.

He seems pretty happy. He goes back to Mom and Dad on Sunday.

Rowing: River 0, Me 3. No accidental baptisms yet. I enjoy the act of rowing, however I am still worried about ending up in the river. This is the first time I have been on water since 1995, the year of the bad rafting experience. When I was a vet student I spent some time at a vet clinic in Wisconsin. One of the vets and I decided to go on a rafting trip for the day. The long and short of it was that we too 4 of the 5 rapids outside of the boat that only had 2 usable handles and out life jackets were those marginally useful orange ones. We were do bruised up and sore the next day. For the next year I could not look at rapids in real life or on TV without getting goosebumps.



Thursday morning McDonalds was giving out free chicken biscuits. I conducted a scientific study with the control being Bojangles chicken biscuit. To minimize variability I had the McDonalds chicken biscuit with mustard and a sweet tea, just like I always have the Bojangels chicken biscuit.. While McDonalds was good, Bojangles remains the best maker of chicken biscuits.



Saturday I went to a Blues Festival at the Spyglass Ridge Winery. The music and company was just fantastic. Here are a few of the best shots...

I am headed to an outdoor blues festival, hopefully the weather will remain dry. Will post pictures and a hyena Friday one was well later in the evening.

cowsonpasture, originally uploaded by twisteduterus.

Bruce sent me some cow pics via internet. These are the glorious cows who reside in SWitzerland.

Do you see why I want to go back?

***remember if you want to read the unabridged edition of the blog, make a live journal account (which is free) and add me as a friend and I will add you back

Yesterday was crazy busy. I wanted to mow my lawn however on my way home it started to rain. Dang.

Had my last appointment with the oral surgeon and the implant looks good and I can resume eating regular food. I promptly picked up a salad at the store...yummy.

I have rowing again tonight and do far the weather looks to be decent.

Today McDonalds is launching their southern style chicken biscuit. I am going to try it with a sweet tea and see if it can even come close to the Holy Grail of Chicken biscuits...the Boj.

Here is a picture of a photo challenge "euphemisms"

Since dog hair is always easy to come by, I chose "Hair of the Dog"



The photogamer word of the day is Medicine, that should be and easy one!

Tonight we officially were on the water. I was mostly petrified of ending up in the water and getting whacked with an oar. The boats are very skinny and to me very unstable. The rowers use their oars to steady the boat, kind of like training wheels as was described by the instructors.

We moved our boat 2 miles. We were not all rowing at the same time but at a few points, 6 of us were going at the same time. I still feel all uncoordinated and hopefully in the next 2 weeks that will get better. Doing more than one thing at a time with my body is hard for me. I quit band when we had to start marching as I could not get my rights and lefts sorted out while playing, the band director yelled at me a few times as well and that did not help either. I was a pretty good clarinet player too.

We row again Thursday night.

Here is the area of the river we are on.





It was a beautiful night though I did not fully appreciate it due to my petrification.

Tonight I had my first rowing class. We watched a safety video, learned about parts of the boat, how to get a boat to the water and back and we actually got into the boat. It is narrow. It is very sensitive to oar movements. I am more than slightly petrified about starting to row on the water. I am not usually very graceful or coordinated.

Friday night I stopped by Marjean and Don's place to see Marjeans new suit she bought for a wedding next month.

When I got there Don was standing outside the front door with this dog on a leash. Marjean was petting the dog.

I asked them where they found it. Don said Mostly Mutts ( a no kill shelter). Don said to Marjean "Happy Mothers Day". She had no idea he had gone to pick up this dog or any dog for that matter. She is a 10 or so year old beagle who has been at the shelter since before November.

Don picked her because "who would adopt a 10 year old beagle". These are good people.

She is called Betsy. I am baby sitting her on Sunday when they go away for the day.

It was such luck that I stopped by at that particular time, I saw her meet her new family and explore her new yard for the first time.

I have a special spot for old dogs.

This is Betsy today, after a bath.

Karin and her kids picked me up at about 8am Saturday and after a quick stop at Sheetz we were on our way to NYC for the 5 Boros bike ride. Other than a bit of fog, the trip was uneventful and we were in our hotel by about noontime.

After a quick snack we hit the pavement. First stop was Gotham Bikes.




I purchased the second most awesome pair of socks on the planet...the humping bunny socks. Kelsi and Karin each have a pair that I have been coveting for the past few years. A pic will follow in a few days, when the socks are out of the washer. We also marveled at all the security items one could purchase for ones bike.





We explored around the SoHo area for awhile. I spent most of my time snapping pictures of bikes chained to things. Eventually we hoofed it over to Chinatown for a noodle bowl. This noodle bowl was equally yummy as the previous one.







On our way to Chinatown we went through a bit of Little Italy and were sucked in by the large round of cheese. Cheese, glorious cheese.







Off to Times Square next. We took the subway and did not get lost!



After we got back to the hotel, Karin and I walked around more while Kelsi and Zach ran up and down the hotel stair wells. They discovered the door to the roof was wide open. Kelsi investigated while Zach was look out. Once they told Karin and me, we promptly went up to see for ourselves.



Saturday morning was cool but NOT raining. NOT RAINING. We all had cow bells attached to our bikes. We sounded pretty neat going down the road. We opted to start at the secondary start a bit in front of the official start. Kelsi and Karin made flags for our helmets...Kelsi drew the chain wheel butts. Before we arrived at Central Park, the kids left us behind. Throughout the ride we continually heard "more cowbell". One person sang "ring my bell" as he passed us. The cow bells made it easy to keep track of ones riding partner without having to look back.









Karin and I stopped at the halfway point for a snack and a pee. I was ready for a snack as I did not eat near enough complex carbs for breakfast. Given the soft diet requirements I had yogurt and applesauce...not enough.







The finish, Staten Island. This is where Zach got a flat tire. We saw many riders, mostly roadies, changing tires along the way. We were thankful most of our tires remained in tact and we remained up right on our bikes. We saw a few accidents along the way and rumor has it has it that some riders were delayed for an hour due an accident requiring an ambulance.



We lucked out and hardly had to wait for the boat back to Battery Park.





We were back at the hotel by 1pm. After grabbing a snack, we hit the pavement again. I went off on my own to B and H Photo for some nerd time. Met the others in Chinatown for fried rice at the same place as the night before. Then we walked though Little Italy where we had gelato. Karin and I decided we must eat in Little Italy next time we are in NYC.



Stopped at the hotel for a bit and spent the remainder of the evening walking through Battery Park.







Today we rode the bike path to 48th street and then into the city.





It was a great weekend- no rain, we all remained upright on our bikes, we ate well and returned home safely. I will do this again next year and I am hoping Gail and Alice will join Karin and me as well.

I am headed to NYC for the weekend with Karin and her kids. We are riding in the NYC 5 Boros bike ride tomorrow. the forecast looks a bit better today than it did yesterday. There is still the possibility of rain.

The art opening was nice last night. Mom, Dad and Marjean came along. My photo did not get any additional recognition however of 160 photos submitted, only 55 were chosen to hang in the show sO i am honored I had one displayed.

I had better go feed the herd and get ready for the trip.



And for a laugh...