Category Archives: Animals

Time to Pony Up

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“Let’s canter to the car, Auntie!”

I’m going to lay down a seriously sizable wager that few others ever heard that particular construction from a little kid, but that’s just the way my father once famously startled his great-aunt with in suggesting how they might approach their ride home one legendary day many decades ago.digital illustrationSafe to say that Auntie was as bemused and amazed as anyone would be. No idea where he got that particular word ‘canter’, since he was a townie through and through from birth and if he’d ever heard reference to a horse’s gait it must’ve been in a story everybody else had since forgotten. Regardless of the origin of his comically odd suggestion, he was undoubtedly on to something useful. Why slouch or straggle when you can get up your gumption a little and break into a comfortable run?

It’s never a bad idea to try a new approach to life, especially in something as generally promising as intentionally re-energizing oneself and committing to a higher level of focus and commitment. Even better, if the technique chosen can add a little pizzazz and humor to the act. Why wander aimlessly when you can trot cheerfully?

Around the changes of life as time passes, whether changes of season or millennium or merely of day to night and night to day, it’s always a fairly useful thing to consider What Next–more specifically, how to make what’s next more fruitful, interesting, productive, and enjoyable. And often, such changes needn’t be as daunting as we let them be. The tiniest alteration in the way things have always been can have a remarkable and positive ripple effect if we just put a little heart into it. Why amble when you can gallop?

As the end of 2013 approaches I will as always have spent a fair amount of time looking at what has been in the past year and considering what I might like to add or improve as I move into the beginning of 2014. While I might like to spend time communing with a nice horse or two in the year ahead, because after all they are beautiful and intelligent and full of personality, I might be better served by contemplating how I can pick up my own pace and move forward in a comfortably equine manner. It’s a good time to saddle up and do things that challenge and amuse and please me, most of all those that can help me improve myself at the same time. I can talk about it all I want but until I pony up and make the effort, I’ll only dream of what good can come of it all. Why walk when I can canter?

Just a Different Stripe, or a Horse of a Different Color Altogether?

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Does it really matter whether our differences make us varied members of the same family or citizens of separate countries entirely? At the bottom of it all, we remain genetically bound to each other as disparate parts of the same species. What we choose to do with and in response to that simple truth is what really defines us as individuals and as parts of the human family, not how different we are from one another.

Working for respect, kindness and peace toward and among all the people whose paths cross mine in life seem to me like perfectly viable ways to respond. That’s the choice I’m going with, and I hope that it will be seen as defining my true colors always.

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Our differences may be subtle or they may be tremendous, but they’re still contained in remarkably similar packages.

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It’s a gift and a privilege to see the beauty in those of a different stripe than ourselves.

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What, are you really so concerned about the cut of my hair or the color of my hide?

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I should always try to get a leg up on what challenges my expectations, whether it’s my nearest neighbor or someone from worlds away.

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After all, some of my best friends are zorses….

Salt & Pepper and a Dash of Sunshine

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You know that I love animals, however dilettantish my adoration may be. I have never owned (or been owned by) pets, I know nothing of animal biology, and I’m not even all that outdoorsy, so incidental or casual contact isn’t an obviously automatic occurrence. Yet they provide, when they do appear in my life, a sprinkling of the most welcome kind of seasoning, the salt and pepper if you will, of my days.digital illustration from photosBut you also know how attention works: when something is in mind, it can seem to be everywhere. The minute I think of animals, I tend to keep my eyes open for them wherever I go, because just seeing them makes me happy, lightens my mood, warms my heart. ‘Therapy animals’ are actually all animals, for me, whether trained or not, in immediate proximity or not, because just thinking of them cheers me and actually seeing them is a delight. That makes it worth my while to really, actively look for animals whenever and wherever I can. The wonder of them, the distinctive characteristics each has, their habits and hijinks, and their inherent beauty, all fill me with pleasure. That’s a lot of sunshine.photo

Mad Cat, Bad Cat

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graphite drawing + digital mattingMurderous Mack

I prowl the alley on dark nights, looking for trouble spots and fights

And hissing, spitting, yowling, loud, my claws and fangs splitting the crowd,

So don’t be fooled if I look fine: wildfire is in my feline line–

My zoot suit is as cool as ice; my blood, though? Hot, not cool; not nice–

I’m fast, I’m fine, the cat that has searchlights for eyes, wild stripes for jazz,

A heart of iron, soul of steel, and toughness that’s dead deep, for real–

I’m fuzzy, but I warn you that I ain’t no prissy pussycat;

I’m lean and mean; I’m slick and sleek. But sweet? I’ll kick you to next week!

Get me riled up, it won’t be pretty–Bad Cat, yeah, but never Kitty–

All the same, at home a tub of cream is nice; a belly rub;

I’m tiger tough, to say the least, but hey! I ain’t no senseless beast–

Don’t cross me, ’cause I’m fierce, although I’m not an animal, you know!digital illustration

Her Misbehavior, as Seen in a Slightly Foxed Mirror

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Oops! I outfoxed myself. I was so distracted by the odd weather we’ve been having here lately and all of the ways it’s unexpectedly altered our calendar and our plans (though my birthday came today right on schedule, wink-wink) that I completely forgot last night to put up the day’s post. So I did it today. A two-fer. Just to remind all of you how much I love you. Thank you for your patience. I may be getting a little absent-minded in my old age, but I still think the world of y’all. Happy two-post day!

Vulpine

The vixen, when she deigns to leave her den,

May have designs on other vixens’ men,

For, little as I know the ways of foxes,

I know they don’t like being kept in boxes

But rather like the freedom just to roam

To any den, if it should look like home,

And any male they’d like to have as mate–

Beware the vixen’s wiles, ere it’s too late!digital illustration

 

It’s a Gift

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December has a lot going for it. There are loads of holidays jammed into this single month all around the world (not the least of which is my birthday), and depending on which of those locales is Home, the month is usually the time when peak summer or winter vacation time comes. Given all of the holidays, I tend to think there’s no excuse not to spend a bunch of December partying in one way or another. Fortunately, I’m surrounded by people, places and things that make every day feel like a party’s very possible, if not already in progress.

I mean, longhorns, people. I can drive in any direction from home, not even going very far, and have a great chance of seeing big, bold, beautiful longhorn cattle. Just seeing them makes my heart do a happy dance. Looking at longhorns brings a big grin to my face and a lightness to the day, and I’m pretty sure that on the day those cattle were invented there was some partying going on in heaven, too.

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Cue angel choirs…the cows will sing along…

Look Both Ways Before Crossing

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digital illustrationI know that it’s always wise to be observant, especially when I might be walking directly into the teeth of danger. But trouble is hardly limited to the known and the seen. How sorry I’ll be for my foolishness if I get so obsessively focused on what I fear most that I fail to notice something equally important–or perhaps more imminently so.digital illustrationWorst of all if I’m so  immobilized by my phobias and fears that I just lose my nerve, my will to forge ahead and past them, and in doing so stay fixed in the very place where I’ll forever be the most vulnerable.digital illustration

Look What I’ve Done!

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graphite drawingWhile I will readily admit to having laid an egg, and a prizewinner at that, many a time in my life, I have neither done so in physiological terms nor, as the bird in today’s illustration appears to have done, in the supernatural way that allows said egg to levitate spontaneously.

On the other hand (or wing), I have managed to score a few modest accomplishments of my own, which, while hardly supernatural, at least impressed the heck out of me. And I rarely, in these cases, fail to make the bragging announcement.

The most remarkable thing about all of this is not that I have ever accomplished anything at all (let alone worthy of note)–though this is indeed impressive enough–it’s that I may have once or twice done something moderately grand and not felt compelled to trumpet self-aggrandisement.

Or did I just cancel out that small virtue by saying so? It’s just so hard to be humble.digital illustration

Country Comforts

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It’s easy to indulge my love of the bucolic and pastoral when I live where I do in north Texas. This county is full, as it has been for generations, of farms and ranches of all sorts that intermingle freely with the towns, cities and suburbs of the area. Whenever we take a drive or go running errands, we’re just as likely to see fields full of sorghum or corn, red or black Angus cattle, or sleek tobiano horses as we are shops and schools and natural gas pumping derricks.photo montagePlenty of relics and remnants still stand that tell me it’s been this way for a very, very long time. The little bronze school bell and windmill that remain standing right next to the old Ponder schoolhouse’s clapboard walls seem perfectly ready to go back to work (with just a tiny bit of functional renovation first, of course)–or to transport me instantly backward into the nineteenth century. A small private herd of longhorns spends its days in a cozy paddock that sits directly next door to a modern brick housing development, and on the other side of it is a stretch of fields full of wildflowers and prickly pear, punctuated by the occasional gas well and electrical tower, the latter often populated by small flocks of turkey vultures.photoAll of this makes an atmosphere highly conducive to my happiness: the conveniences and riches of contemporary urban existence, conveniently interspersed with spirit-soothing farmland or ranch and historic pleasures. If I play it right, I can feel like I’m on vacation no matter which world I happen to be in at the moment.

Persistent Admirers

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digital illustrationLeave the Help at Home

Off she went to see the market, basket full of goods and greens,

And the fond companions with her came to see the market’s scenes,

Prancing, dancing, baying, barking, nipping at her head and heels;

By the time they neared the city, all beset by crowds and wheels,

She her petticoats beribboned had all stained and soiled and torn;

Hat askew and heels unbuckled, basket broken, cob and corn

Strewn, her lettuces and flowers flung amain, and so she sat

In the rutted road’s dry scours, in the dust, and that was that–

No point now to going onward to the market if she would,

Dog and pony show now ended (at the least, that part was good)–

Then the animals felt sorry for the chaos and the mess,

Made a show to make her cheery, give her back her happiness.

Nothing mended for the market, recompense for not a sou,

But she smiled at how they capered, no more anger and to-do,

And they picked up, swift and swishing, tails and coattails all a-sway,

Backward home, though she was wishing it had gone another way;

To the market back, tomorrow, she would go to sell her wares,

But avoid her current sorrow,

Locking up those pranks of theirs!