I Wouldn't Call This Navigable

Imagine you live in Oregon. You have a stream running through your property, ah a nice stream, a small stream, perhaps, it dries up in the summer. No matter, if that stream was navigable in 1859 you do not own that stream, no dredging, building ponds, or altering in any way.

Hold on, I have reason for telling you this.

Navigable means by whatever mode of transportation they used in 1859, floating logs downstream—a common practice then, a canoe? It’s navigable. Perhaps it was used only seasonally. No matter. Perhaps now it is now a mud flat. No matter. You own only up to the high-water-mark.

I wonder if this was ever navigable.

In Oregon navigable water is owned and controlled by the state—same as it was for the original 13 states.

I learned this fascinating fact on my first day toward becoming a Real Estate Agent.

Yes, that’s the next order of things. Both daughter and I decided to go into this business together. Now whoever hires us will get two agents for the price of one. And we will work our butts off. 

Well, I have 150 hours of study ahead minus 39 minutes, 23 seconds, guess I better study.

I have to mention this, on my blog, The 90 day millionaire challenge, May 10, 2014, I suggested we follow Daughter Dear’s suggestion and write down one business plan a day for 30 days.

Here is what we both agreed upon—become a Real Estate Agent.

We have signed-up, committed ourselves.  Now I need to jam all that terminology into my head, and, then—horrors —a final exam.

P.S. If you have any interest in becoming a Real Estate Agent go to http://www.the90daymillionairechallenge.blogspot.com and click on the upper right corner. It will give you information, no signing up needed.

More to my liking

Definitely a navigable river. A sight I often saw as a child growing up alongside the Columbia River in Oregon

The Stuff Dreams are Made of

In 1938 it wasn’t Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hitler or Mussolini that commanded the headlines. It was a little crooked legged horse named Seabiscuit.

Read Laura Hillenbrand’s skillful, exquisite  book  Seabicuit  for a an account of an underdog that inspired a nation.

A little horse with crooked legs who liked to sleep more than anything was used to train other race horses to win, by letting them. That is until a former cavalry horse trainer, and a crippled one-eyed jockey taught him that he was the winner.

In a match race against the proposed fastest horse in American and Triple Crown winner, War Admiral, Seabiscuit left him in the dust and gave the country something to think about except world conditions.

I’m back watching horse races after a few year hiatus, and rooting for the little guy.

I don’t know which inspired me the most, California Chrome or his 77 year old trainer. I first read that Art Sherman was 85, that inspired me, but checking, I guess he is only the kid of 77. I was figuring I had a few more years to come into my own—just lost 7 years. In 1955 he was an exercise jockey for the Kentucky Derby. This time he was a winner of it.

Okay, here is what inspired me:

California Chrome’s owners bought his mother, Love the Chase, for $8,000. Some told them that was too much for a horse that had won only one race. They bred her for $2,500, and she produced California Chrome. So for $10,500 they got a race horse that won millions.

The trainer Art Sherman said that it takes 11 days for a horse to recover from a race with the magnitude of the Kentucky Derby which he won.

Two weeks later he won the second leg in the race to the Triple Crown, The Preakness, and that was including his 11 day recovery and traveling over 2,000 miles from the west coast to Maryland on the East Coast.

I heard that the morning of the race he had a cough. I said, “Well, as with the stories of the great race horses, they had an injury or something that further handicapped them.” He won anyway.

I bet on him, won $80.00 and took my family to celebrate at the restaurant PF Changs.

To life,
Joyce

P.S. Feel like shouting? Go to the little wolf picture below, click, and give us a shout. The Sacred Wolf Pack is a place for creatives to meet and mingle. Ta Da.

Lessons from Californai Chrome

This is California Chrome, winner of the 2014 #Kentucky Derby.

I missed the Derby as I had no television reception that day, but I am planning for the Preakness coming up this Saturday May 17. 

The Preakness is the second leg in three races for a Thoroughbred horse to become a #Triple Crown Winner. That means winning the Kentucky Derby, The Preakness and the Belmont. (The Belmont is the most grueling being a 1.5 mile track, and having run two races previously the contender is quite spent. Remember, he is only three-years-old, not fully mature. In horse terms he is still a baby.)

Only 11 horses in 35 years have won all three races to become the greatest race horses of our time.

Three were in the 70's, I wonder what was happening at that time. Secretariat in 1973, Affirmed in 1978, and Seattle Slew in 1977.

My point here is to direct you attention to the body language of a winner. In most every picture I have seen of California Chrome, his ears are pricked, alert, and pointing forward. His eyes are bright and focused on the the road ahead. (The Prize.) In this photo he has blinders on, which means he will not be distracted  by other horses coming up beside him.

Think of these qualities, we can emulate them on our road to success.




Monday May 12, 2014

Iris and Bubbles and Weenies, Oh My

We're going that-a-way across the Upland Prairie, across the iris field and into the woods--aka forests of Oregon. 

An Upland Prairie will be claimed by the forest--or blackberries, if not kept open as my son-in-law has done by keeping it mowed.

A Trunk Sprout. This Madrone tree was caught in the forest fire last year, and look, it is making a baby.

When son-in-law builds a weenie-roasting fire, he goes all out. 

Too hot to handle. 

Roasting a weenie from beneath a space blanket.

Blowing Snake Bubbles

This is so cool. Cut the bottom off a water bottle, cover with a sock, duck tape it securely, dip sock in a solution of 2 parts water 1 part #Dial Dishwashing Soap, blow into drinking spout of bottle. Viola' bubbles, strong enduring bubbles. Be sure to blow, not inhale.

Catching the fire updraft.

Bubbles flying high

And bubbles on the ground.

Doggie gets a weenie too.

This was my most relaxing mother's day ever. I hope your's was glorious.
Joyce

Iris and Bubbles and Weenies, Oh My

We're going that-a-way across the Upland Prairie, across the iris field and into the woods--aka forests of Oregon. 

An Upland Prairie will be claimed by the forest--or blackberries, if not kept open as my son-in-law has done by keeping it mowed.

A Trunk Sprout. This Madrone tree was caught in the forest fire last year, and look, it is making a baby.

When son-in-law builds a weenie-roasting fire, he goes all out. 

Too hot to handle. 

Roasting a weenie from beneath a space blanket.

Blowing Snake Bubbles

This is so cool. Cut the bottom off a water bottle, cover with a sock, duck tape it securely, dip sock in a solution of 2 parts water 1 part #Dial Dishwashing Soap, blow into drinking spout of bottle. Viola' bubbles, strong enduring bubbles. Be sure to blow, not inhale.

Catching the fire updraft.

Bubbles flying high

And bubbles on the ground.

Doggie gets a weenie too.

This was my most relaxing mother's day ever. I hope your's was glorious.
Joyce

The Great and Small of it All

Yes, I know I placed a picture of eggs on my blog earlier on, but they were not my chicken’s eggs, these are.

When I broke those two orange yolks into a bowl and added one #organic store-bought egg and saw the contrast, I had to take a picture. 

Gertrude and Victoria are not free-range hens as I would like, but their house is open to the ground, and I added a tiny dog kennel yard so they can get sunshine. The lower story opens to the ground, and I keep moving the house so they have grass. They get vegetable scraps, and their grain is non-GMO. My first-born daughter said that all kitchens ought to have chickens attached. You know what she meant.

After I turned the hens out into our little back yard, I watched them run, flapping their wings in exuberance, and thought of the big forest where we used to live. There I would free my two horses from their paddock and they would frolic in happiness, as the chickens were doing. My mare, Velvet, would jump off the retaining wall in a Lipizzaner leap, that is kicking out her heels while airborne. They had learned since babies to stay around the house, but they needed watched, or company, to make sure. Same with the hens.

As I changed the chicken’s bedding, I placed an egg on the grass, and Gertrude came up to it, and gently rolled it beneath her chest.  There I was stealing her egg and she was taking it back.

Animals freed take such joy in it—well, Peaches our poodle, doesn’t care, except for a walk that she does love, she’s happy sleeping on the bed.

This is my little world down here. I freaked myself out the other day when I contemplated the immensity of space, and now I am hearing of universes, not just one universe, but many.  It boggles my mind.

One day long ago, I took the elevator up the #Empire State Building, and had the same trepidation.  I had been in that elevator before with my family, but this time I was alone.  Normally I am not afraid of elevators since learning with my children that elevators have another parallel shaft beside them filled with a counter-balance.  (Is this like parallel universes?)

That day in the Empire State Building I lost rationality, and saw myself in a box hanging in a deep shaft that extended down 100 stories, a bottomless pit so it seemed.

Don’t do that.

And there in my yard, I thought of the immensity of space.  I felt the camera of my mind bringing its focus down to my yard, and to my chickens. The film went deeper still to see the bugs, and deeper to the molecules and atoms, and into the atom where the electron orbits the nucleus, as we orbit the sun. And there inside that atom exist sub-atomic particles that scientists are finding so many of, someone joked saying they should give a noble prize to someone who didn’t find one. Now they are finding the many universes of space…

I’m glad to be grounded here in the midst of it all. Of course I am left wondering if beyond the grave there is an expansion as well.  But then, that contemplation is for another day. The sun is shining—so glad for the sun. I guess the other planets have one as well, oh,oh, Joyce, don’t go there…yet.

Vladimer Kush


P.S. Check out my hub page if interested 

http://jewelld.hubpages.com/hub/Hawaii-Paradise-Found-on-the-Big-Island