Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion
What are U doing today?
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What are U doing today? (Ongoing thread)

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3-rings (cog wheels in front on the axle of the pedals.) 9 cogs (aka cassette) in back on rear axle = 9x3 = 27 gears. There are formulas for how the gear combinations equal how much work you have to put on the pedals. My road bike has been 'hybridized' (aka 'bastardized' per the bike snobs). When I first got bike I thought I couldn't get up those GF-LG hills with my weak old-man legs, even with 27 gears. Solution was different cassette and mountain bike derailleur. This added more weight but just about allows you to climb a vertical wall! Wish I'd persevered with the stock setup now, live and learn. I have a mighty yen for an even pricier new bike but that is crazy, as present one works and who knows how much longer my old carcass can ride?

Thanks, Linda. Like Jim, I've always wondered about that. Ed loves shrimp scampi but is usually disappointed because every time he orders it, it never comes up to the very first shrimp scampi he had at a restaurant on Lake George. Unfortunately, the restaurant is no longer there and either is the Korean chef who made the dish. There has to be just the right amount of garlic to make the shrimp scampi perfect. Garlic is a tricky thing.


You cook too? LOL

Mom always felt that I should be independent & that means I sew, cook, vacuum & such. I got bored one winter & had some yarn around, so I made knitting needles out of slate roof catchers & knitted the boys scarfs. I made a cross stitch that year, too. Also made the frame for it out of scraps of birch from window sills I'd put in a log cabin I helped rebuild. I sewed the curtains in my bedroom & used to do all the buttons & patches for the kids. I know how to iron, too. As for cooking... We had to toss the salsa I made this year.
It's all just fiddling. I'm not terribly good at all of it, but can manage the basics. I make a mean broccoli & chicken casserole, too.
;-)

We had the pleasure of seeing Topaz nibbling at the thistle seed on the porch. We chased him off before he destroyed the feeder. The wild bird feeder didn't fare as well. It's squished. Hard to pick out the culprit - whoever got there first. Cutter had fun playing with the trash cans while Speedy was licking peanut butter out of that feeder. Blue was just munching on the grass.
We have chains or the gate, depending on if the dogs are out in the fields or not. I know it seems harsh, but we often confine them to just the house with the 1/2 acre back yard since they can get out of the field fence if they want. Generally, we just put up one chain to keep the horses out for short periods. One chain is not enough to keep them out over night, apparently. Like having a bunch of big goats running around.

Amazing! I admire your energy and ambition. Sometimes Ed sews his own buttons, but that's only out of necessity. :)

Sounds like the horses had a good time! LOL
It doesn't sound harsh to limit the dogs to a half-acre. Our dog has much less space in the yard. He's usually indoors. We never let him loose outside of the yard.
Jim wrote: "I don't cook often, any more. My wife doesn't like spicy food & I do. I always used to cook Thanksgiving dinner before Marg became a bus driver. Mom & Marg would be busy with the Thanksgiving Da..."
Jim you are absolutely marvelous.... gosh, what i wouldn't have done to have a husband who could do all that! My dad was very similar to you... did all of his own darning, cooked when mother wasn't up to it, sewed and so on. No men like that anymore..... you are certainly a rarety...
Jim you are absolutely marvelous.... gosh, what i wouldn't have done to have a husband who could do all that! My dad was very similar to you... did all of his own darning, cooked when mother wasn't up to it, sewed and so on. No men like that anymore..... you are certainly a rarety...


I am impressed with what you have done in your "spare" time; sewing/cooking/knitting etc. I guess you are what we call a Renaissance Man. nina

LOL, Jim. Our pets should count their blessings! :)

My step father was a great example of a manly man who was too ignorant to make more than a PB&J when Mom wasn't around. He couldn't sew a button on his shirt. I never had a lot of respect for willful ignorance & have grown less tolerant of it over the years. For instance, folks who use a computer daily for their job & proudly tell me they don't know a thing about it, drive me nuts.
A writer who was very influential on me wrote the following:
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
— Robert A. Heinlein
Words to live by, IMO.

Heinlein must have been a highly motivated fellow! Some people, for one reason or another, aren't motivated in all those directions. I'm for doing what one likes, within reason, of course.
Quotes:
"You've got to love what you're doing. If you love it, you can overcome any handicap or the soreness or all the aches & pains, and continue to play for a long, long time." -Gordie Howe
"If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, then you will have betrayed yourself." -Rollo May
"Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed." -Sydney Smith
"Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual; you have an obligation to be one. You cannot make any useful contribution in life unless you do this." -Eleanor Roosevelt

We rode around our fields some, but the other two (Blue & Speedy) were being pests. We even tried cutting through the woods, but Speedy, a pony, followed right along, while Blue ran around & met us on the other side. Sheesh!

We rode around our fields so..."
Jim, how do the horses like riding in a vehicle?
I wonder why Blue didn't follow.

Horses don't normally like going in woods. They're spooky. They'll go in the edges on their own or cut through them for a good reason (food or flight) but they don't normally wander around in them like they do the fields. They can't see or hear as well in them.
Horses have two different fields of vision, as I recall. One is peripheral, no overlapping fields & based mostly on movement. If something moves too fast & they see them like that, their flight reflex is more likely to kick in. The other is binocular, but it's not quite like we see. They don't have great depth perception, but they're more likely to be curious rather than flee. That's why you always try to approach a horse from the front & if you walk around them, keep a hand on them. The touch let's them know you're still you.
Speedy was feeling fresh & wanted to go along for the ride. He normally followed me on Cutter & Marg followed behind him on Topaz. Speedy had fun stomping at the dogs, too.


Interesting stuff, Jim! I didn't know that horses don't have good depth perception. Why does Speedy stomp at the dogs? It that a form of play or doesn't he like the dogs? How do the dogs react to the stomping?
Being near Saratoga Race Track, we often see horse trailers on the Northway. There are horse farms all around. From the Northway around Saratoga, we see beautiful fields surrounded by white fences. Anyway, I wonder how hot it gets inside the trailers. Poor horses.
Below is a link to pics I took while at the Saratoga Race Track in 2003 with my Red Hat group. It shows the paddock where the horses wait before the races and also a couple of horses heading out to the track with jockeys on their backs. It's interesting to see how small the saddles are. ====>
http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album...
Also notice the kiosks with TV screens amid people picnicking while watching the races on TV. The people arrive with coolers full of food and drink. It was all new to me, as I had never been there before and haven't been there since.

Good luck, Linda!

The dogs think it's great fun & Molly, our Australian Shepard mutt, really thinks it's a ball. She likes to dive bomb him. She comes racing in & sees how close she can get or even nip him. He tries to bite or kick her. Once in a while, one will score.
Usually trailers are pretty well ventilated &/or have a fan on. No one wants to let their horse get too hot.

Sounds almost like a game between the dogs and the horse. Must be fun to watch.
About the horse trailers, I would also imagine that they'd try to transport horses in the cooler part of the day.

Earl, I guess I have a lot to learn about bikes. I've never heard of 27 gears. Sometimes we see bicyclers pedaling up long steep hills over Tongue Mountain on Route 9N. I suppose they have the fancy gear set-up you describe. Well, it's too late for me too. :)

Joy, I don't know your physical capabilities, but they are probably more bike-worthy than you think. I can now bike better than I can walk, forget about jogging. If you get curious stop in Rick's Bike Shop on Quaker and take a few rides. Bring your credit card! I'm leery about riding Rt 9 myself, I don't trust cars. Rt 9 from LG Village to Warrensburg was once a 3-lane deathtrap. They made a 2 lane out of that and the paved shoulders are now super-wide and ideal for bikes. (If you don't encounter motorized mopeds on those shoulders, they'll surprise you!) Warrensburg McDonalds is a 30 mile round trip for me and makes me think I rode a marathon. (the young guys do 100, just for fun).

Between library deliveries I usually revert back to rereading Lonesome Dove. Your Speedy description makes me think of Capn Call's Hell Bitch. I know just enough about horses to know that one end kicks and the other bites. My back couldn't tolerate any horse riding, so guess I'll never learn more.

Earl, I'm sure I could ride my bike just as I've always done, but I'm still afraid of the possiblity of losing my balance and falling and breaking a hip. At my age, my bones aren't as strong as they once were. I hate taking chances at this point.

Earl, in what story is "Capn Call's Hell Bitch"?
I just enjoyed reading a description of Mykkael's mean horse in _ To Ride Hell's Chasm _.

Earl, in what story is "Capn Call's Hell Bitch"?
I just enjoyed reading a description of..."
Lonsome Dove - Captain Woodrow Call's mare is a magnificent specimen but mean and tricky as a snake. The boys named her Hell Bitch after she bit a hunk out of the Captains arm when he got careless. One of the few books I award 5 stars.

He was a wonderful Games pony for years & many kids used him. He's right on the line between a small & medium pony, so was used as both. With a set of shoes on, he was a medium pony (12-2 & above) so the older kids could ride him. Without shoes, he'd slide under as a small pony.
Pony Club was started in England as a way to teach kids how to manage horses. It's kind of like Boy Scouts, but with equines. There are a lot of activities, but one that we all enjoyed the most was Games.
Games take place in a field about 100 yards long, with up to 6 lanes, usually. One for each team of 4 ponies & riders. Each game is some type of relay & most are based on typical kid games, but they're done on horse back. It's the most fun you've ever seen.
Imagine a relay race of egg & spoon! Yeah, little kids sitting on their ponies, going as fast as they can from one end of the ring to the other to pass off the egg to the next person, carrying it in a spoon. Half of them trotting, some going at a gallop.
5 Flag is a game where you took a flag (30" long 1/2" around dowel with a flag) & put it into a 2" hole in the top of a traffic cone set 1/3 the way along the lane. Then you pull a flag out of a traffic cone set 2/3 of the way along & pass it off to the next rider. I once watched my daughter, I guess she was about 14, do it on Speedy at a flat out gallop. He was so good because he's low to the ground, but still, the ability to hit that 2" hole at that speed. If you knock the cone over or miss the hole, you have to come back around, get off & fix the equipment.
I may be a little off on the specifics, but you get the general idea. Other stuff the kids did was show jumping, dressage, hunting & polo. Every rally had a horse management & a written test, even a fun one like Games. There are levels to it by ability.
My oldest & youngest were into horses & made it to one of the highest levels, but we just couldn't afford the horses to get them any higher & they both quit when they were 18 or 19. My middle boy only qualified just enough to go hunting, play polo & do the Games Rally.
The highest levels of Pony Club actually require spending time with a vet & reading their texts, but you also have to have a horse that can do very high level dressage work. That's pricey, even for horses. We could never afford a $25,000 horse.


Earl, thanks for answering my question. I have never read _ Lonesome Dove _ (by Larry McMurtry ), which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1986).
However, back in January, I enjoyed watching "Lonesome Dove" (1989), the DVD, which I borrowed from our library in GF. In fact, I started a topic about it. Below is a link to that topic: ====>
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9...
One of the posters said: "This is one of the few movies I have ever seen that matched up to the book."
Below is a link to the Netflix description of the same "Lonesome Dove" (1989) (2-Disc Series): ====>
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Lonesome...
I know there were other "Lonesome Dove" TV series made after the one described above, but I never followed them. I'm glad I watched the DVD. At least it gave me an idea of what the book was about... and I learned that "Lonesome Dove" is the name of the town in the story! :)

Whew, Jim! That's a whole new world! Only once did I witness horse-back riding lessons in a large indoor arena when I went to see a friend's horse. As I said, it was like stepping into a whole new world.

How awful, Nina. Maybe the horse had an attack of claustrophobia! I know what that's like!

Our horses all load & unload well. Marg is an absolute fiend about it, worse than even my mother. Absolutely no fooling around is allowed. Too dangerous.
I helped her get a horse on a trailer once who had been a turn out for 15 years & 'bossed' around his owners. It's amazing, she's so mild mannered all the time. Like Clark Kent turning into a very angry Incredible Hulk or something.


Jim, your kids are lucky to have had those great experiences.

What a fun way to learn about horses! I lived on a 4 acre "farm" till I was 11. I drove team for the neighbor when he hayed (just keep horses straight on the windrowed hay) I never hitched them up or otherwise got to know them. Nobody had riding horses in that upstate NY dairy farm country, but we kids sure wanted to play cowboys and injuns, per Hollywood.
Regarding trailering, a friend of mine tells of trailering his big fractious, dumb parade horse. On one trip, all of a sudden he decided he was NOT getting back on that trailer. Some wrangler did a trick (can't remember story) that FORCED him to get on. Later my friend found a cracked and unsafe board in the bottom of that trailer. Horse wasn't so dumb after all.

Regarding trailering, a friend of mine tells of trailering his big fractious, dumb parade horse. On one trip, all of a sudden he decided he was NOT getting back on that trailer. Some wrangler did a trick (can't remember story) that FORCED him to get on. Later my friend found a cracked and unsafe board in the bottom of that trailer. Horse wasn't so dumb after all."
Earl, sounds like you're a "native" of this area. So many people come here to retire that the population is a mixture of natives and transplants. We started vacationing in this area in 1967. We retired here in 1991.
Interesting story about the horse and the trailer.

I was an entrenched New Yorker in the Utica area until 1976 when they closed my factory (Univac). I followed the company around - MN, CO, VA, NH till they chucked me out in '89 after a merger. Nowadays even the Post Office lays off. So I'm only sorta-kinda a Glens Falls 'native'.

I think tractors were a wonderful invention!
Horses can be awfully smart about bad footing. It's literally life & death to them. Want to see weird, put a black mat on solid ground & then try to get a horse to walk on it. Do the same with any other color & it's not a problem, but they think it's a hole, I guess.

Talk about a book that just completely takes you over and into its world.
The TV mini-series, which I saw first, was also first-rate and is a rarity in that it does the novel total justice.
I hope to get around to the prequel and sequel, "Comanche Moon" and, (I think "Streets of Laredo").
I recently finished I.F. Stones's book "The Hidden History of the Korean War" and am now 80% through Sinclair Lewis's "Main Street"---yeah, as a reader I tend to be all over the place. LOL!!

Earl, well, you couldn't have ended up in a better place than Glens Falls! :) At least you saw the country!

Want to see weird, put a black mat on solid ground & then try to get a horse to walk on it. ..."
Jim - Your mom was something. I think you're a chip off the old block.
That's interesting about horses and a black mat!

I recently finished I.F. Stones's book "The Hidden History of the Korean War" and am now 80% through Sinclair Lewis's "Main Street"---yeah, as a reader I tend to be all over the place. LOL!!"
Arnie, variety is the spice of life. :)
Below are GR links to a couple of the books you mentioned.
Comanche Moon A Novel
Streets Of Laredo
One thing I love about Goodreads is how it keeps me reading. Hanging around on Goodreads with all of these readers reminds me of how much I have to catch up on.

Going s-l-o-w-l-y thru night school on GI Bill, I took a psychology course. One of the few (only) thing I remember is a study they did of human babies. A glass plate was put over a pit in the floor. All the babies crawled around on the floor, but carefully avoided the glassed-over pit. I forget what we were supposed to learn from that. but I still remember that story.
I surely couldn't have straddled (stood on?) a team of horses rumps! I rode high on the hay wagon holding the reins while my neighbor and his brother pitched the hay with forks as the loader wound it up onto the wagon. I was deemed too puny for that job. Though some of the kids I went to our one-room school with were pitching hay at age 10, back-breaking work in broiling sun. Yeah, and we walked to that school, thru the snow, uphill both ways... yada yada.

It's all what you get used to, but also how they're hitched. Our kids would stand up on their pony's back as fast as a skateboard. I don't recall any broken bones from that or even stitches.


Other good western writers areZane Grey & Donald Hamilton, although it can be hard to find books by the latter. He was best known for his Matt Helm series - an American James Bond, but a lot better.
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Mmmmm me too.... yummy... I like mashing the Gem and butternut together. Its almost the only veg I eat hot... I so enjoy cold veg... done the italian style - splashing of olive oil,little garlic, lemon, salt and pepper.