The Menu

[Cita]

Ten hours in the saddle and what is August serving up?

Bull-rubbed baby cedars and sun-ripe prickly pear fruits, heated through and strung with cicada song. 

Cows in cedar shade licking salt blocks with rough lazy tongues, sullen when asked to move, seasoned by a small breeze from the blackdark cloud building in the northwest.

Dry empty nests serenaded from above by suddenly freed parents, feathers ruffled, and now the small rumble of thunder silences us all.

Ants build hopeful hills, taking seeds out to act as sponges, and when I pull my saddle off, my sweat is so mixed with horse sweat that I can't tell the difference; my knees ache.

Not-quite-cold beer in hand, I stand in the breeze in soaked tank top as the windmill slowly squeaks with the storm's turn, and you say, "That thing sounds like Jimi Hendrix!"

[Cita]

Ah, alas... no hot tub at our remote camp.  No running water or electricity in the cabin either.  BUT  I did soak long and happy when we got back to headquarters!

[Jeanette Cheezum]

This is quite a portrait you've painted.  I loved the last line...sweat and humor. I hope there was a nice hot tub in the next few minutes for you.

[Cita]

Blushing.  Jared called me stylish.  Obviously he has not met me.  

This piece is simply written in self-defense.  (Which I think Bill L will understand.)  Sometimes when things are so hard, like not being able to smell (tell?) the difference between your own sweat and the humidity and the horse's sweat on the heavy saddle pad (laid wet side up to dry) and things are sometimes successful and sometimes NOT SO MUCH, then it helps to be able to turn it into something sweet and hopeful with a dollop of humor. 

[Bill Floyd]

Poetic peek into your day, which I think is rich not so much because of its particularities as it is because it's you who's describing it.      

[Teresa]

Lady, you're back.  Top form.  Sizzling.

[Stephen Torelli]

Snapshots of various lifestyles... that's what I like!

[Joey Delgado]

Beautiful. Summer captured in six sentences. :)

[Jadie Jones]

fantastic portrait. well done

[Jared Handley]

Vivid, stylish, perfectly you.

[Gita]

Mine, too. And I love the new photo.