Thirsty Dog To Water

Quite a few years ago and while living in Tennessee I went to a yard sale and picked up this painting.

It was painted by the son of the lady who was running the sale,  and I paid a quarter for it.

I felt like I had won the lottery!

It stayed carefully packed in a box and was left down underneath the house in Juneau after LC carted it all the up to Alaska for me.  Really cool to see it again after so long.............

The too crowded living room.

We are in the market for both a corner cupboard to stow all the electronic crap related to the TV, and a stand for the horse saddle LC picked up at a pawn shop not long after we arrived in Cody.

If we can't find what we are looking for cheaply enough or suitable enough I will talk LC into making them for me, but first on the agenda of "to make" are wooden valances for the windows so that there are places to display photographs........

As too busy as the living room is, it is actually semi-organized chaos that somehow seems to work.

But truthfully none of that matters at all when we look out of the windows.

This was the scene outside the windows in front of the large table this morning.

It was cloudy and drizzling rain today so much of the view was obscured by low-lying clouds.

On sunny days there is a clear view of the horse pastures in the foreground, hills in the middle distance and snow covered mountains in the far distance.

For both LC and me the scene is cathartic - peaceful, calming, reassuring.

And that makes semi-organized chaos somehow.........OK..........

A scene painted on the lid of a wooden pickle barrel...........

Old wooden thread spools.

The smallest one on the right was the first one of these that I had ever seen before.

I was at a yard sale many years ago, did not know for certain what it was when I picked it up off a table and (thinking that it might be an old fashioned dumb-bell) expected it to be heavy.

Of course it wasn't heavy and of course it wasn't an old dumb-bell.

A new collection was born...........

A good portion of a pewter collection that I have been working on for many years.

Picked up at multiple yard sales, estate sales and second hand stores..........

I should just stop saying that things were picked up at yard sales.

Everything was picked up at yard sales including this framed and under-glass print............

Except for this weather vane.

I found this half buried in the dirt underneath the car port of the house I have down in Tennessee.........

This large and unframed oil painting was also bought in Tennessee at a yard sale.

The painting is in multiple shades of green and I saw that it had $20 marked on the back.

I asked the lady how much she would take for it and she asked me if $2 was too much.

I don't know anything about the painting aside from the fact that it was cheap, I love it, and maybe one day I will actually get around to buying a frame for it.............

Before LC and I went to the horse auction yesterday I knew that there was something else that I needed to do.

All morning Jamie had been following me from room to room and looking at me with that combination of pleading and excitement that she has when she really really really wants to go for a walk.

We weren't going to be able to take her to the horse auction.

And did not want to leave her in the truck while we were gone because it was so warm.

My simple and wordless act of reaching in the general direction of her leash immediately sent my dog into a hysterical barking frenzy.

She makes me smile.  She makes me laugh.  And last night while I was out of the room she stuck her face down into the glass of Kahlua and milk I had left unattended on a side table.  When I came back I found her happily balancing two paws on the arm of the couch lapping up my drink...........

An irrigation ditch just down the road from the house that has only recently been filled with water.

Throughout the entire region people are beginning in earnest to irrigate their farms........

I pass by these horses very often on the way to the BLM land access trails close to home.

They are sweet and gentle and always very curious............

It was very warm.

Maybe the warmest day we have had since arriving in Cody almost two months ago.

When I left the house I had only planned on walking with Jamie to the end of the road and back - maybe a half mile in total.

But when we arrived at the entrance I typically use to enter BLM land Jamie turned onto the short trail and I did not pull her back.

We had entered at the second trail and I figured we could turn left onto BLM land and follow the fence line of a ranch until hooking back up with the first trail.

Which would quickly take us back to the road and then home.

I usually try to avoid that short trail because of the dogs that live at the house adjacent to it.

They are small little yappy and hyper fur balls like the kind you see in toy stores at Christmas time that do back flips when you wind them up.

Annoying little beasts that I generally try to avoid but that was the plan yesterday morning anyway..........

A cacti surrounded ants nest.  There are very many seen all over BLM land...........

So much for plans.

Then the plan changed to walking up one trail, walking along the fence line and circling back to the road via a second trail.

And once I reached the second trail I decided that Jamie and I were both having too much fun doing what we were doing so we would stay out a little longer.

At the corner fence line we turned right and headed up a very large and wide open increasingly grass-filled trail, heading further away from the house............

I did not have to ever worry about water for Jamie when we walked up in Juneau.

There was never any shortage and it was always easily accessible.

We had only been walking for about 20 minutes at this point, it was very warm and I did not bring any water with us.

I resolved to definitely stop at the dirt road I could see up ahead and head back.

Wandering about on BLM land was fine and fun but my dog did not have any source of water so the flexible and fluid plans to return to the house needed to stop.  I gave us one hour............

A horse ranch at the end of the wide open trail...........

And one view of the dirt road just beyond the BLM land.

I have never been down this road before but will (of course) explore it soon..........

James and I turned at the road and headed back the way we had just come.

I had seen a trail fork off to the right as we were approaching the road that looked like it went back in the direction we needed to go.

I motioned Jamie in that direction and we began to head towards home..........

The trail was a nice quiet trail and the entire walk turned out to be a nice and quiet adventure.

On the way back to the house and while still on trail with my sweet girl I unexpectedly found myself turning introspective.

Both of my sons are moving in directions that I am uncertain about.  I worry about them and the decisions they are making and hope that I am wrong and that my worry is for nothing.

Hoping that they do in fact have it under control.

But as the mother of adult sons all I can do is listen and be there for them for whatever they need if ever they need it.

It is a frustrating and infuriating and helpless feeling to be sidelined.

But it is what it is.

And then my thoughts turned to me.  

I was a committed adventure racer for many years and now I am not. 

I was a management professional for many years and now I am not.

So what.......now........am I exactly?

Perhaps it is a good sign that the question is finally being asked.

But that does not change the fact that I am not sure of the answer.

Further introspection for another day.  

Because I had a thirsty dog to water and a horse auction to go to..............