2-1-2021: Happy
Birthday Month and Muck Buckets
February
1st – the beginning of birthday month! What better way
to celebrate than buying yourself a muck bucket. Heck, why not go all
out and treat yourself to a muck bucket on wheels!
Poop
of all sorts consumes a great deal of a snowbird's life – with
horses taking the trophy for the most quantity. The official poop
pile here on The Prickly Paw Ranch is a short wheel-barrow haul from
the main penning area. With the addition of Drifter to my herd and
Dan and Teri's 3 horses – We are penning on the opposite side of
the arena from Mount Manure. In the beginning – we tossed the poop
over the fence into the end of the arena. That's where all of it ends
up eventually. Dave spreads it in the arena and works it in with the
groomer. It wasn't long before four horses produced more poop than
could be worked in. Poop holds the moisture well and that end of the
arena was getting a tad bit spongy. Enter – the muck bucket on
wheels.
I
settled on a collapsible muck bucked that would easily store in my
trailer. Practically everywhere you go with horses, moving poop from
point A to point B is a given. I purchased the collapsible frame and
separate red muck tub from NRS. The nice kid from the feed room
carried the box it came in out to the truck for me. I thought: “How
nice...it folds up small enough to fit in this sturdy little box.”
It didn't occur to me the thing was in a gazillion pieces and
required assembly.
I
also didn't realize it required a degree in astrophysics to put the
damn thing together. The instructions were no help. They seemed to be
in broken English. A few pictures with arrows pointing here and there
didn't help no matter which way I flipped or rotated the tri-fold
manual. It made more sense upside down. I swapped back and forth
between English, German and Japanese hoping to piece together the
missing parts.
The
tiny wrenches provided seemed more fitting for a mid-evil torture
chamber. I left more skin on “part A and part B” than I have
remaining on knuckles “C, D and E.” After shucking the sadistic
devices for my own tools and tossing the manual in the burn pile, I
finally got the thing screwed together. It only took three bloody
knuckles and a half dozen F-bombs to get 'er done.
2-6-2021: The Great Birthday Scam
Cindy
might be pulling off the scam of a lifetime. She claims to be
celebrating her 60th birthday. I'm not buying it. She
could easily pass as 40-45. I'm pretty sure she's packing around a
fake ID for senior incentive shoots and the cheap menu at Denny's.
Regardless, a milestone birthday, even a fake one, must be
celebrated.
The
original plan was to have dinner and drinks at Kirkland's bar and
steakhouse. A mom and pop establishment that was once a stage stop
and hotel. The place is reported to have great food – awesome hosts
and a few ghosts.
Unfortunately,
The Kirkland Bar and Steakhouse was closed. I suppose even ghosts
need a holiday now and then. Perhaps that explains the disappearance
of Casper the last 30 years or so. He's been vacationing in
Transylvania with the rest of the washed out spirits.
An
alternate plan was in order. While Cindy worked on plan B, Dave
schemed on his own plan C – unbeknownst to Cindy. Our part in
Dave's plan C was no matter what Cindy's plan B comprised of...we
were to pretend as if we could not participate in said plan B. Dave
wasn't all that clear what plan C would entail – other than to have
Cindy back at home by 4:30 PM....no questions asked.
Jamie
Z. came up with a plan D that would incorporated Cindy's plan B and
Dave's plan C. Jamie, Mark, Teri and I would take Cindy on a trail
ride above Jamie and Mark's house in Congress. Then we would ride on
over to Nichols West for drinks and something to eat. Now, we were
fairly confident that Dave's plan C would involve dinner. It's not
that I'm a bad liar – I'm just not comfortable lying to somebody I
like! We would have to come up with excuses why we didn't want to eat
at Nichols and why we needed to get home by 4:30.
Teri
came up with the excuse of needing to get to an ATM before the clean
shooter jackpot the next morning. That one was at least based in
truth. At 85lbs soaking wet, Jamie appears to never eat anyway.
Totally believable. The best I could come up with was: “Yeah...I
need to run on over there (pointing randomly) somewhere this evening
and pick up some stuff...” I don't think I was fooling anyone –
least of all Cindy.
With
instructions from Dave to have Cindy home by 4:30 PM no matter
what...and to meet up at The Palomino in Wickenburg by 6:00 PM (and
not tell Cindy) – Cindy, Teri and myself loaded our horses in
Teri's stock trailer and headed for Congress.
After
some finagling with an uncooperative automatic gate and an AWOL cat
(long story) four of us girls and Mark headed out the gate onto State
land for a quick 4 mile trail ride. I think all were more interested
in riding on over to Nichols West for margaritas.
The
ride over from Jamie and Marks to Nichols crossed the main highway
and a RR track. Other than the ride into Old Tombstone over
Thanksgiving – it was the closest thing to being in a parade as
Jack or I care to achieve. The absence of anything horse drawn made
it an uneventful ride. Thank you God – perhaps I wasn't going to be
punished for telling lies to a friend...and on her birthday even!
Pretty sure that qualifies for a pass straight to hell – do not pass go.
We
tied the horses to hitching posts in front of Nichols. Why every
restaurant, bar and ice-cream parlor doesn't have a hitching post is
beyond my comprehension. Probably has something to do with city
ordinance and copious amounts of poop. Even so – I think it is a
smashing idea and plan to frequent as many establishments providing
such equine accommodations as possible.
To
hell with Dave's plan C. We were hungry. We ordered several
appetizer's, or Hors
d'oeuvres
if your feeling hoity toity and can spell it without Google. I
couldn't. Whore-durbs is the best I can come up with without it.
They
didn't serve Prickly Pear Margarita's but the regular and the
Cadillac margarita's were more than adequate – and effective. Holy
Cow were they effective. By the time we staggered out the door, I'd
forgotten where I parked my buckskin. It's a good thing that horse
nickers when he sees me or I might have ridden off on a Honda...or
worse...an Arabian!!
Horses
seem to take care of fools, children and old lady's who've had a few
too many and God bless them for it. We managed to claw our way back
into the saddles and head for the Zueger ranch. Cindy shot a video of
us singing or talking or giggling or maybe all three. It's hard to
tell from the video. She may have been wiser to turn on her phone's
GPS. As she was shooting the video – she missed the turn going back
to Zueger's and might have ended up in Parma Idaho had we not called
her back.
The
automatic gate was slightly more cooperative with Mark running the
remote. We had time to load the horses and get back to Aguila and
Dave's plan C with a little time to spare. I abandoned my birthday
lie and hitched a ride on Dan and Teri's ruse to go in search for an
ATM. In what likely appeared to be the rudest birthday ploy ever –
we drove away from Crandall's without saying a word to Cindy.
