In Memory of Poopie kitty and Oberon

On my old AOHell website, I had a section for pet stories because our pets are a large portion of our lives. I found these pet stories were still online for some reason, even though I no longer have that account.


We lost our eldest kitty just a few months after we moved into our new house. I think Oberon was simply waiting until she knew we were settled before she moved on. She was about 18 years old.


Yesterday evening we lost our Poopie kitty who was about 17. Thus, this morning I decided to move some of our old pet stories here to the blog.

Party at Poopie's Pad!

All the critters here get treats from Pupperoni to Tender Vittles, but as wild as Elmo gets for his junk food, the cats make him look positively sedate when we offer them Catnip. The best is the fresh herb you can buy at almost any local nursery. We have tried twice to keep these catnip plants alive. The first time we tried keeping one in a pot in various window sills but it failed to survive after numerous "accidents", when it was knocked onto the floor. Perhaps in a closet under a grow light would have worked better. The second time we decided to hide it in our herb garden amid other odiferous herbs such as spearmint, garlic chives and rosemary.

As we were puttering in the front flower/herb bed, the cats came by to offer advice but took no real note of what we were planting, we thought. We already had a good crop of spearmint going and we planted several bunches of garlic chives, a couple of basil plants and a few marigolds for color. Centered in the mint and new herbs we planted one small Catnip plant, watered the area down well and went inside to congratulate ourselves on being able to hide the nip. We kept watch on the garden all that day, but no cats bothered to investigate further and we fell asleep that night secure that at last we'd found a safe place to cultivate kitty treats.

The next morning I woke up, made a pot of coffee, opened the blinds and sat down with a cup to enjoy the morning. As I gazed out at the garden, my sleep fogged mind began to register something terribly amiss. I thought we'd planted more than that yesterday... I went outside for closer inspection. There, where our lovely herb garden had been the evening before was a large patch of damp earth, packed so smooth I could have laid down a cement patio addition. Our lovely herbs and marigolds were stamped into the earth and the entire area was covered with a thick layer of various colors and lengths of cat hair, some of which matched our cats, but much of which did not. In some areas there were puddles of, well there's no truly polite way to say this, DROOL.

Obviously at some point in the dark of night our cats had sniffed out the nip and then proceeded to invite all their friends from the neighborhood over for aparty at Poopie's pad. Since the drool was still apparent, I'm guessing the party didn't end until dawn when the last of the neighborhood felines staggered home and our little "angels" came inside, curled up and passed out in dark corners. Not a cat was to be seen in our neighborhood for the remainder of the day. Must have been SOME party!

Meet Minerva

Due to an apparent catastrophic illness on the part of my little electric quad, aka the "Shrieking Eel", I decided I needed to move up a couple of rungs on the ladder of farm-mobiles. Meet my new, gently used 2006 Honda Recon 250. I have dubbed her Minerva, as she wears a green cloak and is somewhat shorter than Albus the white F-150.

Minerva has already proven to be a MUCH more comfortable ride than the Shrieking Eel, she doesn't have difficulty maneuvering the sand, gravel and eroded terrain in the dry wash, and she doesn't make any more noise than the supposedly "quiet" electric quad. Minerva's gentle contralto rumble is much more pleasing than the Eels uber-soprano shriek.

As you can see in the photos, my crutches are already bungeed to the handy dandy crutch carrying rack. I had to sit on my crutches when riding the Eel. Not very comfy.

News from the thriving metropolis of Wittmann, AZ

I sputtered to a start this morning and coasted slowly to the coffee pot, let the little dogs out, let the little dogs in, and headed to my computer to read the news while enjoying the first cuppa caffeine of the day. This is my morning routine. It's the only time when my needs come before those of the perpetually hungry critters. If I don't have my relaxed time with the cup of coffee and get my brain cranked up by reading Google News I stand a good chance of totally hosing up the horse feeding.

Today I hosed up the horse feeding. Blaze got what baby Godric gets, Blondie only got hay, Desi darned near didn't get anything and finally got breffast as a hurried after thought. Why? Because I got to my desk, double-clicked my Internet icon and got the dreaded "Internet Explorer cannot display the web page" message.

I rebooted computer. I unplugged everything and let it all sit for 20 minutes then plugged everything back in. After 30 minutes of trying to figure out what was wrong on my end, which entails a great deal of crawling around in the cat hair under office furniture, William called. What the heck is William calling me about? He hardly ever calls me. He emails me.

"Are you awake?" He asked.

"Oh god yes, I'm awake. I'm just unplugging everything in the office trying to figure out why I don't have Google News to go with my coffee."

"Umm well, that's what I was calling about." He paused.

I waited for the other shoe to drop. Many things were running through my brain at that moment, ie. unpaid bill, cat sabotage, dog sabotage, size 14 shoe thrown at cat that somehow destroyed the DSL box, cat murder by electrocution that took out our Internet service, and, at best, some fool with a tractor plowed up the phone lines. I at least knew that the horses weren't involved in whatever disaster had befallen our connectivity. Their barn is an acre away from the phone lines. The most they can do is sabotage their own water and fencing.

"Okay. What happened?" I asked, with my eyes squinched shut as if not seeing would make hearing easier.

"Someone must have taken the corner too fast onto Lone Mountain, spun out and literally crashed and burned into the telephone pole. I mean the whole pole is blackened and the wires have been melted into a ball of black spaghetti. Must have been a big fire, all the brush on the corner is burned and the car is burned down to a nickle."

"WHOA dang!!! Well alrighty then I'll cease the search for chewed wires here."

"Yeah, I think this time we can safely assume the problem is on their end. You really should jump in the truck and go see. It is a most impressive wreck."

My morning was momentarily saved. This was much better than Google News for getting the brain in gear. I fed the horses, hurriedly and ineptly, grabbed the digital camera, and headed up the road. Not much excitement happens in Wittmann, AZ. When it does, it attracts spectators. Some savvy entrepreneur, with more guts than ethics, could make serious money charging admission to highway stops, fender benders and brush fires out here.

By golly the wreckage was indeed as bad as William described on the phone. In the words of a friend who watched his first bull riding event last weekend "I hope he's okay. I hope he's okay. I hope he's okay." Even as I was sending positive thoughts to the driver, I was staring at the 4 closed doors, caved in roof, obliterated front end, evaporated interior and a 20 foot, black ring of charred brush surrounding the car, the telephone pole and our wiring. I thought "If someone walked away from this wreck he needs to stand like Ho Ti and let people line up to rub his belly for good luck, because no mere mortal could have survived."

I don't know if the tape on the telephone pole is to hold the pole together, which would not surprise me, or if it's there to mark which pole needs to be replaced, which also would not surprise me. For one thing, QWorst is known for shoddy fixes and, for another, the people that perpetrate those shoddy fixes may well not be able to distinguish a giant stick of smoldering charcoal from any other telephone pole.


Just in case anyone has forgotten, or there's anyone alive I didn't whine to, it took the phone company FOUR MONTHS to run a phone line 5 acres down the road from the nearest house, to our house when we first moved in. I'm sitting here, gloomily checking for Internet every hour or so, knowing that phone company history has a tendency to repeat itself. It's any one's guess how long it will take them to replace the pole and the melted line.
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OOOh update! As of 9:00 this morning there were no vehicles on the corner other than the burned out car. By 11:30am, when John and I went by to take pictures, there were about 15 other vehicles, mostly QWorst along with one Sheriff's Office car, and an APS truck. They'd managed to get a new pole up already. The stick of charcoal was still there, as was the charred car. Who knows? Maybe they'll get every one's phone and Internet restored today? We can hope.
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Update 2: Well, some of us lucky folks have phone and Internet tonight. My friends the next street over are still incommunicado. A ridiculous number of official vehicles are still camped out on the corner. It would not surprise me a bit to learn in the morning that several other wrecks have prolonged the repairs. Because of all the large camper-like QWorst trucks parked all over the intersection, it's impossible to see oncoming cars until you're t-boned.


Ayup. A busy day in Wittmann.

Why We Love To Watch Bull Riding

Our fascination with bull riding has grown to the point that it's almost the only thing I'm willing to sit down and watch for 2 hours and is certainly the only thing on TV I'm willing to sit through a ton of commercials to see. We may well be the only couple in the U.S. that has never seen a single episode of "Survivor", "Dancing With The Stars", "American Idol" or more than 2 minutes of any given NASCAR event. We are not the only couple in the U.S., however, that can hear the names of 45 PBR cowboys and be able to say "Hey, that's a new guy." Not even I completely understand why we've come to love the bulls, the riders and the eight second clash between them, but there was a progression during which we moved from amazement that anyone could be so foolish, to admiration.

At first, we called them The Darwin Award Tryouts. It's not pretty, but there you have it. Fellas, if it's any consolation, I'm sorry about that initial impression. We can understand the roots of many of the rodeo sports. Calf roping, saddle and bareback bronc riding, team roping and penning, cutting, etc., would have all been typical cattle and horse ranch work. Bull riding, on the other hand, seems like a sport that got it's start with the phrase "Hold my beer and watch this!". Whether it was by drunken bet or some cowboy that got his bluff called after claiming he could ride anything on four legs, seems to be unknown. The only information I can come up with on Google is how rodeo itself got started during a friendly competition between neighboring ranches to see who performed ranch tasks best. This does not explain how bull riding came to be since there'd have been no ranch use in breaking a bull to ride.

One of our earliest impressions of bull riding was the iron muscled riding arm of Adriano Moraes. We started watching bull riding off and on in 2004. Adriano was one of the first cowboys we began to recognize. We'd see that arm and know what rider was attached to it. In close up shots of a cowboy getting set up on a bull, we'd see the hands, arms, or boots of the cowboys standing by the chute. "There's Adriano!" we'd cry out as a massive arm reached over the bars to grab a cowboy by his vest to keep him from being injured by an overly eager bull. Because of that ever ready arm we began to see bull riding as something more than just something you'd do on a dare.

At 38 years old, Adriano Moraes is one of the oldest riders in the PBR. The young Brazilian cowboys who are making big splashes in the world of the Professional Bull Riders, are likely where they are today because they were inspired by Adriano. On the Built Ford Tough Series PBR circuit, he has become the father figure to many. He's been riding professionally since he was 22 and he has both seen and experienced what can happen in a chute, on or under a bull. Adriano is retiring from bull riding this year. There are going to be a lot of young cowboys in the chutes who will miss that strong, quick and loyal arm.

The following photograph taken at this year's Glendale PBR event, captures what we have grown to admire about these men who choose to ride dynamite. Young Pim Rosa of Brazil has just been rescued from the chute in the arms of Adriano Moraes. Directly behind Adriano, his face partially obscured, stands Guilherme Marchi who is the number one bull rider in the country and is stepping into the boot prints of Moraes. The concern, caring and strength on the faces of these young men is why we have grown to admire them. The fatherly strength this photograph captures on the face of Adriano Moraes is why so many young bull riders will miss his presence next year.

Photograph used by generous permission of

The Arizona Republic Newspaper

and Photographer David Kadlubowski

I write because my soul would shrivel if I didn't. Putting bits of myself on a page may seem scary to me at times but I only risk emotional injury. I may never understand why these young men put their lives on the line for their professional sport but I no longer think of them as foolhardy guys with more machismo than brains. These are good men, iron men, forged to maturity through facing their own mortality each time they buckle on a pair of chaps.

Live from Baton Rouge

I'm here at the home of my best friend Daph and my new friend Allison, aka Nice Lady. It is here that I have come to heal through laughter therapy at the end of each day since Wednesday this week.

It's been a tough week. Even tougher than I expected in some ways. I found things out this week. Things that the living never tell. Things that only the belongings of the dead can reveal. If you've ever had to clean out after a death, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. There are things that lie concealed in everyone's past. Some of which are best left concealed.

There are also things found in the belongings of the dead which serve no other purpose than to give us something to do that takes our minds off the grief. Did my mother know that by saving every grocery, drug, and bill receipt from 1962-1983, every Christmas present tag, every letter from every kid off at college, and every shot record and report card from each of us that by sifting through these useless records for at least 8 hours a day for a solid week I'd have a break from the grief of being completely without parents for the first time in 52 years?

What the hell are all these keys for? Are they my mother's keys as well as keys my mother inherited from her mother and was afraid to throw away for fear that whatever they unlocked will show up? I am now the keeper of the keys. I couldn't throw them away either Mom, so I'm going to make a wind chime out of them. Until whatever they unlock shows up, they'll tinkle in the breeze.

I have to say that at 25 years after my mother's death, I didn't expect to find so many of her things in Dad's house. Her entire vanity area was as if she'd only stepped out for a moment. Even her makeup case was still there. The vanity must have been a sort of memorial since my father had placed her final notes to him there, her final scribbled wishes in case anything happened because of the surgery, which it did, and the kind note from her surgeon who seemed genuinely stricken by her passing and wished to let us know that she was unconscious and unaware as she passed away so there was no fear or pain in her final hours.

Then, to stir up the emotions a little more, I found out that my father felt guilty because my mother was terrified of the coming surgery and had asked him to do something simple to comfort her. She'd asked him to crawl into the hospital bed with her and just hold her. My father was so uncomfortable about being seen in bed with his wife, in public, that he would not do that one simple thing. Yet, years later he prominently displayed on his night stand the photo he took of his girlfriend clad only in a flimzy teddy, attempting a pin-up style pose. Perhaps in heaven or wherever, there are large, cast iron frying pans and perhaps the only pain is when dead wives clout their dead husbands with them. We can hope.

Then there is my eldest brother who looks so grief stricken and sorrowful at times that I'd just like to hug him tightly until he cries. I'm sure he has some rather conflicted emotions as well, although probably different than mine. I'd give just about anything to save him the pain he's in.

Thus, with my brain clouded with grief for the father that wasn't, grief for the mother that was, anger at the injustices, guilt over the anger, and worry for my brother, I have stumbled gratefully through the door on Vicksburg St. and into the healing company of women who care and laugh and lighten my heart and spirit.

I am lucky to have three of the most wonderful women in the world as my friends and they are all right here in Baton Rouge. Becky, my absolutely crazed friend that is known for picking up sea shells, shark teeth and missiles on the beaches of Pensacola, Allison my new friend and truly Nice Lady, and Daph my soul friend who lifts my heart even if I simply hear her laughing on the other side of the house. These are the kinds of women that make having women friends such a special experience. I thank all three of them for helping me through this week.

Norman Caldwell Scaife

Gone Fishin'

July 13, 2008

'Nuff Said

One picture worth at least 500 words

2nd picture, a close up, worth the next 500.

Farmer's Note:

Okay. I guess pictures aren't enough and a bit of explanation is necessary for Zonkster pals and others.

We do know the importance of our prey animals. All the gods know how I wish I had more king snakes, more bull snakes, more coachwhips, more coyotes, more hawks and falcons. I have to draw the line at snakes that will kill my animals, my family, my friends and me. In a much much earlier post I go into some detail about the effects of having put 1/4 inch wire mesh around the entire horse facility in order to discourage the rattlesnakes. The coachwhips can zip over that stuff like it wasn't there and they're welcome in my barn and pastures. We keep our mouse population under control with traps. My barn dog keeps the squirrels and rabbits out of the barn and pastures quite handily. None of the snakes kill the adult rabbits and only prey on the very small young ones. The snakes can eat the squirrels and I wish more non-lethal snakes were here to do so. It's never with "glee" that we dispatch a rattler so we work more to discourage their presence. When we're forced to, however, we do without hesitation and that's just how it's gotta be.