The Cesky Terrier is a dog short in height but long in length. Our puppy is now five months old. She had gained three pounds since we brought her home. She is perhaps a couple of inches longer, but no taller. She can’t descend or ascend stairs yet. She is extremely fast and can keep up with our 4 year old male Cesky and can wrestle with him like a pro.
Our dogs love to be together, as close to one another as possible. They like to sleep cuddled up closely. Older dog can jump up on the sofa with ease. He likes to nap there. Young pup is just a couple of inches too short to jump up on her own. She hurls herself off the sofa with great abandon, though. I don’t mind the dogs on the furniture.
Mitzi comes to us multiple times a day imploring us to lift her up to be on the sofa with Kyrill. We say Up Up to teach her the command for jumping up for when she finally gets long enough to jump up on her own. She tries her hardest to jump up now, but to no avail. I don’t want to clutter up the living room with graduated step stools so she can ascend on her own right now. I predict predict in May she will Up Up on her own.
What is something you had to strive to accomplish that seemed impossible at first? How do you feel about pets on the furniture?
I sent a couple emails last week that I probably shouldn’t have. My brain was filled with too many other things and I was having trouble forming a coherent thought and missing details, which I have trouble with on a good day. One email I just said right up front “this is all a jumble and I’m sorry about that. See if it makes sense.” The other email I had to send a clarification follow up.
It’s a crazy time.
Like, when isn’t it.
Been busy at both the college and home. It helps when spring isn’t so early. Course then I fuss it’s late. We open the college show next Thursday, so I’m in the final week of painting and tweaking things. Working on lighting and fixing all the little things I forgot I told the director I’d have. I’ve had Padawan coming in to help me. He needs something to do anyway and I can give him life advice while we’re at it. And then I go home and work in the shop for a while. I sure am glad I added the outside lights. I’ve used them a few times this week.
Read an article today about increasing fertilizer prices. (due to the Iran … “Conflict”.) USDA Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says farmers have pre-purchased 80% of their spring nutrient needs. The article I was reading did an informal survey and they got a 65% response to having pre-purchased. Thirty three percent have most of it purchased, and it’s just what’s needed for the final spring decisions. Only 2% said they haven’t purchased anything. All prices are up of course. I pre-purchased everything in December, and I’m sure the co-op has a lot of it on hand already. But jeepers. I’ll bet there’s gonna be fuel surcharges if nothing else. I mean how can you plan for these kinda jumps??
I’ve seen the sewage treatment plant trucks out applying / injecting waste …”sludge”? on fields. Did you ever think about that? You flush the toilet, it’s gone, right? But gone where? At our house, to the septic tank. And then the liquids go to the drain field and every few years we dig up the cover and have the solids pumped out of the tank. (I wrote about that last fall when we had a taller cover installed on the tank. See : https://trailbaboon.com/2025/08/16/what-mystery-is-this/ )
I’m not sure how the city plant works, I’ve never asked. I know our township doesn’t allow for applying sludge. Well, technically it’s “allowed”, but you have to get a license and pay $10 / acre to apply it. So the farmers in our township don’t do it. Some of the township supervisors created that rule quite a few years ago because they didn’t know what risks might be associated with spreading the sludge.
I took some time Monday afternoon and moved machinery around and took the stuff I put inside for winter, back outside. Like the scrap iron tote. I hooked the soil finisher to the big tractor. I got the flat trailer hooked to the truck and loaded up some scrap iron so I could get that hauled in because I needed the trailer to pick up seed and it had scrap on it from last winter. I worked in the shop until 10:00 PM. Got three of the new LED headlights on the 6410. There are three plastic clips on the old lights, that aren’t supposed to be removable. I managed. Cut my finger, again, with the grinder.
A couple weeks ago I grazed the 8” bench grinder wheel with a knuckle. The next week I hit the wire wheel of the bench grinder with a different finger. Just took the skin off. And this time was my left index finger with the 4” hand grinder. They don’t hurt at the time it happens, it hurts for the next week.
Scars, right? Yeah, some scar stories are better than others…
A burn on my thumb, a fresh cut on the finger, and the healed one you can’t hardly see anymore. Oh, there’s some red paint too.
Wednesday I hauled that scrap in and went to pick up seed oats. The guys at the seed house weren’t so sure about the guys who were out there planting oats before the blizzard. That made me feel a little better. Got 50 bags of oat seed. Worked at the college until 7PM, then home and got the seed wagon in the shop and got Kelly’s C tractor running. Unload the oats using the loader and pallet forks. Another late night and glad to have those outside lights.
Last Saturday was a gala at the Rep theater announcing next seasons shows. I got to give a little welcome speech. That’s fun. I appreciate that I’m comfortable talking in front of people.
Showing how I’m running lights through the phone remote.
The chicks are a week old now. We’ve lost some, it always happens.
And this second chicken that’s moved into the garage and is nesting in this basket…
I have ordered Oat fertilizer to be applied, that should happen either late Friday or Saturday. If we get enough rain to soak it in that’s fine, and if it doesn’t rain and I can get out with the digger, that works too.
The wind on Wednesday. Jeepers. This is why I’m glad we live in a valley. A few tree’s blew over in the fields. Always something. I’ll add it to my to-do list.
It’s angry goose season at the College again. Caution tape and cones have been put up and emails have been sent out warning us of the danger. The first day as I passed the pair in the parking lot, the male goose just opened his mouth at me. Didn’t even hiss, but he was warning me off in no uncertain terms.
Last Friday Kelly and daughter and I drove to Alexandria. I went to pick up the Track Wacker for use this spring. We took Highway 14, stopped in Mankato for a bathroom break and filled the truck with diesel fuel. $132 later we headed for New Ulm where we stopped to see Hermann the German. I’m pretty sure I was there with my parents when I was a kid. Really didn’t remember anything about it, and on Friday it was 30° and windy and we didn’t linger very long. He’s closed for renovation anyway.
Two lane roads the rest of the way to Alexandria and a very nice drive. We got adjoining rooms at the hotel so daughter could have one room and Kelly and I could have the other. It was a pretty slick way to do it, and I would sure try it again in the future. I got up early the next morning, had a mediocre breakfast at the hotel with French toast sticks so tough I couldn’t chew through the crust on the bottom, but the sausage patties were good and I headed half an hour northwest to Millerville to pick up the Track Wacker. I knew it would fit in the back of the pickup. Then for good measure, I bought a fire ring as well.
I got back to the hotel just as the other two finished breakfast and we packed up and were back on the road. Drove to see Theater L’Homme Dieu where I spent a few days with a show back in 2010. Again, quiet two lane roads home, probably didn’t have any traffic for 20 or 30 miles. Saw some really long trains. I couldn’t get over how long some of them were. Being a sucker for a historic roadside marker I had looked up a few before leaving. A few miles outside of Grove City we stopped at the Acton State Monument. The battle of Acton, the Acton incident, and the Ness Cemetery. They mark the beginning of the U.S. – Dakota War of 1862. You know, it’s one thing to read about it in the books, it’s another to stand there and realize it happen RIGHT HERE.
And then to the Ness Cemetery and see the monument: one of Minnesota’s oldest monuments (Dedicated September 13, 1878) marking the burial of those first victims. It was a very deeply moving experience for us.
Twelve hours of driving and about 600 miles. We got home about six in the evening. A couple neighbors had come over to feed the dogs and collect eggs. They call the dogs their “dog grandchildren” and gave Bailey extra food “because we love her“. Sure is nice to have neighbors like that.
Sunday I unloaded the truck, took the rear blade off the tractor, hauled the snowblower out, I even got the lawnmower out and mowed down some grass and weeds before I put the snowblower in its summer parking spot. Daughter and I picked up driveway markers, (but I haven’t taken the snow fence down yet, I don’t wanna jump the gun too fast), and I got the four wheeler running and drove that around a while. Drove down in the pasture to check things out after winter.
I also picked up branches along the road and Kelly picked up branches in the yard. I think the spring mud is pretty much done. The fields are really drying out, or at least they were before it rained all day Thursday. It could be an early spring here doing fieldwork. If I was a little more prepared I might’ve been able to get out and do a little fieldwork in March. I remember one year doing some on March 31. That doesn’t happen very often.
I spent a few hours in the Shop one night putting a couple new LED lights on the back of the 8200 tractor. Took me an hour to do the first one and five minutes to do the second. Standing on a work platform and reaching over the outside dual tire was another instant of wishing I was 6 inches taller or my arms were 6 inches longer. But I managed. The 6410 tractor that I use for the majority of the work, I’ve replaced a bunch of lights with LED and I have four more to replace and two more to add on the back. It only has two rear work lights at the moment and really could use two additional. It was on my to-do list but apparently will be a summertime project.
Baby chicks arrived on Wednesday morning. I had gotten their pen ready so once they were delivered and we did the usual pictures and videos of them in the box, I could take them right down and dip their beaks in the water and get them all settled in. I ordered 50 this year for $260. Last year I ordered 40 and it was $170. Twenty of the Easter egg blue and green layers, 10 of the Silver Laced Wyandotte,, 10 Lavender Orpington, those gray ones like Mabel from a few weeks ago, and 10 of Hatchery choice. Could be anything.
So far so good on them.
My summer Padawan came to the college a couple of days and helped me paint the set. He tries to educate me on what’s hip these days. When I took him back home he showed me all the different kinds of cologne he has and told me in the winter you wear something warm and spicy and for example he wouldn’t wear this certain cologne at this time of year. I stared at him quizzically. Why not? And he stared back at me. Like, because everybody knows that. Well, you have to learn that somewhere I said. I mean did he read that in GQ magazine? (He doesn’t read magazines.) Well, just everybody knows that he said. I laughed. Well, I don’t.
HAVE YOU EVER ATTACKED A GOOSE?
WHAT IS THE PROPER NUMBER OF CONES TO PLACE AROUND SOME GEESE?
The chances are pretty good that while you are reading this, YA and I are in my car, headed to my mom’s service and to get her condo cleaned up. I am in charge of the service and also the cleaning up/organizing/donating. My middle sister has taken over most of the paperwork and financial stuff.
Initially we had planned to take the dog with us. With her anxiety/lashing out, there weren’t any boarding places that would take her. YA had purchased a new collapsible kennel for the trip and we were acclimatizing Guinevere to it. The neighbors were going to watch the house and come over a couple of times a day to feed the kitty and take down the garbage – all that good neighbor stuff.
After a couple of days of ruminating on it, both YA and I have decided we want to take the cat with us. She’s a little discombobulated by the dog not being here so leaving her in an empty house seems cruel. In addition, after both my mom and the dog going so very quickly, we’re just not emotionally ready to not have the cat with us.
So… purchased a new cat carrier as her old one is pretty small (only used for the 2-block trip to the vet every year). Found a harness that fits her in the “pet drawer” (we have everything from every pet ever in that drawer). All the travel-with-cats websites say make sure she’s micro-chipped. Check. When I was at Petsmart getting a top-off of cat food, I decided to get her a new kitty bed. She has two on the radiator in my bedroom but one is so horribly scruffy and dirty – it would be too awful to take that with us. Yes, I know I could probably toss it in the washer but I think the shed kitty fur is the only thing holding it together.
The list now includes new carrier, new bed, littler box w/ litter, little litter bags, harness, kitty dish & kitty food, kitty treats. Hopefully we haven’t forgotten anything!
*A working title that was as good as anything else.
This week’s farming update from BEN
Spring is coming. The female cardinal is fighting with her reflection in our car mirrors. She did that last year too. (Remember when having that right side mirror was a big deal? They were not standard.)
The maple trees are getting buds on them. Crocuses are coming up. The chives are coming up. And the snow fence is falling over, so it must be time to be done with that. Fingers crossed. I saw a turkey vulture Friday morning and Kelly heard a killdeer.
Last weekend Kelly traveled to San Antonio for a work thing. Spent 12 hours in airports on Saturday. Had two layovers, three flights, and every flight was late for one reason or another. Left RST at noon, got to SAN at midnight. And then couldn’t get to the gate because there was some sort of medical emergency inside.
At least her luggage showed up! She had time to walk around Sunday afternoon. Saw the Alamo and did the river walk downtown.
Did her work thing, had supper with a co-worker, went back to the airport at 3AM, no trouble getting through TSA at that point, and was back in Rochester with no issues at 11AM Monday. She slept the rest of the day.
Man, air travel… I’m gonna ask you about that at the end so give it some thought.
Really haven’t done much on the farm this week. I’ve seen several posts from the Oat Mafia group on FB of guys out planting oats. One guy did it before the blizzard. Another guy remarked when he got to the field at 2:00AM it was 31degrees and a little wet. By 3:30AM and 27 degrees it was perfect. I read that and I think to myself, honestly, I am just playing at this farming thing… Yeah, they got 1400 acres total, and 300 acres oats, while I got 25 acres of oats, So, it doesn’t compare, but still… it’s hard not to compete. My equipment doesn’t do what their equipment does. I have to do tillage before I can plant. They’re doing no-till. I looked up some no-till drills. A brand new one, six feet wide, lists for $17,000. My current drill is 15’ wide. Ok, here’s a used no-till 15’ drill, 1996 model. $35,900. Whistle. That’s a lot of oats to make that pay. Plus having the field ready to plant last fall in order to plant this spring.
Last week I mentioned jumping through hoops at the local Farm Service Agency. Somehow, after 10 years, they decided the Hain Trust and me were not the same people. I had to get a lawyer to draw up some paperwork to show I am indeed part of the Hain Trust. And that made FSA happy and this week I got a nice deposit from them. Evidently, it’s tied into that Big … Bill the orange president created. Yeah, more bail out money since he screwed up all the markets. And this is how we’re saving money, right?
And the check from the corn I sold so I had a really nice bank balance.
Then I paid the first half of rent on two fields, $2000. And paid the diesel fuel and gasoline bill. $2300. And Farm insurance $1200 quarterly. And the monthly electric bill, and, and, and… easy come easy go! But hey, at least I could make those payments.
Working on a show at the college. We open in about 3 weeks and I am busy building stuff. I clean up as I’m working because I hate walking through sawdust and tracking it all over the rest of the shop. And that’s why I vacuumed up the remote for the dust collector on the table saw. And because I have a bag in the shop vac, I had to sift it to the top and fish it back out the hole. I knew it was in there because I turned it on while fishing it out, haha. I’m gonna add a board to it so I don’t do that again. This was the second or third time I’ve done that.
I took a walk along our creek last Sunday. Me and the dogs.
Bailey…
Silver Creek
I heard some sandhill cranes calling. A flock/siege/construction/swoop of 12 or 14 of them made a loop and head off south. I hope a few spend more time in our area. I thought of our Steve.
I had a lot of township business this week. Lots of phone calls and fact-finding. Relinquished my chair of the town board and don’t have to chair that board again for 4 years. And Thursday night was the annual meeting of the People’s Electric Cooperative. Supper was provided and it was… food. I wore sleeves and a jacket.
As chair of the nominating committee I presented the election results and read the oath to the winners. And that’s over for another year. Shedding projects left and right!
Our CeskyTerriers were initially bred to work together in a pack hunting vermin. They are much different than other terriers who tend to be independent operators. We had Welsh Terriers who would dart out the front door and be off exploring at any opportunity. Our Ceskys stay home because they are pack dogs, and we are members of their pack. Stay with your pack!
It has been fascinating watching Kyrill, our 4 year old Cesky adapt to having a Cesky puppy in the pack. Over the past three weeks he has become increasingly solicitous and protective of Mitzi. He allows her to chew on and tug at his beard. She allows him to roll her over and drag her around. They snuggle up together and snooze on the sofa. They are starting to share their chews and toys.
I am an only child. I have no idea what it would be like to have either younger or older siblings around all the time. I see interesting parallels between how Kyrill and Husband, also an oldest brother, take care of the puppy. Husband seems to worry about how she is doing far more than I do, although we are both attentive to her. It is fun to be a member of a pack.
Who is in your pack? How do you think birth order affected how you deal with people and family?
Guinevere, queen of her yard, her house, her peeps passed away on Sunday. Know as Gwen, Gwenner, Gwen Gwen, Gwenner Butt, Puppy Girl and Nana’s baby, she was anxious and afraid of almost everything: the robot vacuum, pillows, falling leaves, other dogs, cats, men, women, smoke alarms, the bathroom — yet not thunder or fireworks. A fussy eater, she would often decline a morsel of something every other dog on the planet would gobble up and she liked to have her kibble enhanced – cat food, Greek yogurt, maple syrup were just a few (but no wet dog food). She preferred her blankets smoothed out and she always curled up facing the closest door.
A fierce and feared defender of the yard, she would hunt squirrels, rabbits and mice with abandon. Even a possum once. Guinevere never ate a sock, never counter-surfed, never pushed open a partly shut door. She was quite smart, although sometimes she hid that light under a barrel – never did master the concept of bringing the ball back to you. She knew a good number of tricks; treats were appreciated and always taken politely and so so gently – an inborn trait – nothing we ever taught her. The aroma of cheese could attract her to the kitchen from any room in the house. She wasn’t crazy about dressing up, but would do so patiently, usually holding stock still while the obligatory photos were taken.
She passed calmly and quietly in YA’s arms. She was loved and will be missed.
Yesterday about 9:46AM… the vernal equinox. The sun crossed over the equator. i stood outside and watched it.
No. Not really.
Not indicative of any actual person. This was an AI generated cartoon image.
(I started this at work (( Don’t tell!)) and the college uses ‘Co-pilot’ as their AI tool. It won’t use political figures to create an AI image. But it would make a cartoon! Great. Have at it! )
The equinox happened at 9:46 AM for us here in the central time zone. From my daily Weather channel email, I learned an “upright stick in the ground (called a “gnomon,” from the Greek word meaning “to know”) on the equinox, the shadow from an upright stick will mark a straight line East to West.” I marked a shadow and compared it to the compass app on my phone. Hmmm. Is science wrong? I got a shadow about 60° off of North. Hmmm.
You hear about the astroid in Ohio? Also from my daily Weather email:
We now know more about the asteroid that fell from space and shook northeast Ohio on Tuesday morning with a loud boom that grabbed the attention of many residents of Cleveland and beyond.
According to NASA, the asteroid was 6 feet in size, and weighed roughly 7 tons. As it fell, it was seen by eyewitnesses from at least 10 states, plus the District of Columbia and the Canadian province of Ontario, and when it broke apart, it unleashed energy equivalent to 250 tons of TNT.
And all we had was a lousy blizzard. Last weekend during the blizzard, I made steaks. Got them out of the freezer earlier in the week. Since grilling was out of the question, I said to Kelly I’d fry them. She’s not a fan of frying foods due to the smoke and grease splatters. I said we grew up with our moms frying meat: I can still picture mom smacking them with a knife to tenderize them. (It wasn’t the best cut of meat in the first place being that it was usually some old milk cow that was butchered and it was mostly made into hamburger), so I grew up not liking steak because I had to smother it with ketchup and it was tough as shoe leather.)
I got the potatoes going, frozen sweet corn going, and poured some olive oil in the hot pan. Oops. The house, like, immediately filled with smoke. All the new smoke alarms, conveniently wired together, start going off upstairs and downstairs. Daughter downstairs was upset, Luna the dog was upset and cowering in a corner. I was trying to get the pan in the sink and rinsed off and cool it off. I opened some doors and windows. Kelly opened windows and was fanning the smoke detectors.
About then I looked at her and said ‘What was it you were saying about smoking up the house?’ And we got the giggles.
I do remember reading something about using a high temp oil. But heck, I don’t have any frame of reference to that; maybe it should have said “Don’t use olive oil, Ben.” Anyway, now I know and they were good and I’ve got left overs for the week.
Daughter still got her walk in during the blizzard. It was a struggle just to get to the shop. And then I had to go out and clear the snow to get the door shut again.
Yep, there was a lot of snow. My family was texting on Monday about cleaning up and digging out. My brother, the keeper of the family history and all the old photos, provided this photo of Dad:
This was taken in the 1970’s. He’s on the upper half of our driveway. I had never seen this photo before and I’m more interested in who trekked out there to take the photo.
I knew of this one:
Man, those guys back then were so much tougher than me.
Here was me dealing with the snowstorm:
Yeah, it was a lot of snow. What that means is it took me an extra hour in the tractor with Bailey and my coat unzipped and the radio on. Oh, woe is me.
The Red Wing Blackbirds are back.
The dogs are enjoying the sunshine.
The chickens are out and about. And it’s muddy all over. Again.
Pretty much got my farm bookwork done for 2025 and need to get that to the accountant.
I got re-elected in the township elections last week and will serve another 3 year term. That will get me 30 years on the board. It’s a good group and I still enjoy doing the work.
One night I couldn’t sleep. My brain was very busy. And the next night I slept hard and had a long-involved dream about being in a tractor with several implements hooked behind me. Some kind of tillage tool, then a wagon, and then a tank of something behind that. I was in a big four-wheel drive tractor. John Deere of course. Headed to a field, driving in Rochester and decided not to go down Broadway, even though I’d seen another tractor there recently. (in the dream). And then took a short cut through someone’s garage. About halfway through realized I was just a little too tall for everything to clear. Backed up (and backing up several things is nearly impossible, but in the dream I did it). Got back out, started to pull away and wasn’t hooked up to the first implement anymore. Got that hooked back up, started to move and the next thing was unhooked. Got that hooked back up. And then the third thing was unhooked and I couldn’t’ understand it; I know it had been hooked up before. It went on from there. Perhaps it was my brain thinking about all the stuff I need to be working on in preparation for the spring play, for planting, for general spring work, or who knows.
Thursday night I spent a few hours in the shop disassembling a massage unit that was getting wonky. It was really interesting and there was some creative and ingenious engineering. Plus I saved all the copper.
It was another Friday the 13th. Any issues for anyone?
And did everyone hang onto their hats Friday? Man, it was windy.
We had a few branches down, nothing serious. One tree down on a township road at 7:30 AM, and I was lucky one of the other supervisors took care of that.
I finally ordered 400 gallons of diesel fuel and 100 gallons of farm gas. The longer I waited, the more it was stressing me out. Prices on diesel fuel are up a about dollar from a year ago. Four hundred dollars isn’t going to make or break us.
Wednesday, we met our attorney to sign a paper regarding the Farm Trust, and I took that to the Farm Service Agency to see if that makes them happy. Sometimes you have to play the game and jump through the hoops. (And that afternoon I had a talk with summer padawan about bureaucracy and hoops, and you can either deal with it or fight everything all the way. That’s part of life. At some point there will be a person in charge of hoops, and they either take care of your hoop paperwork, or your hoop paperwork will never get approved. You get to decide what would be easier in your life. A couple pieces of chocolate and a smile sometimes helps. )
Had a “discussion” with John Deere about the big parts sale. The pitch of my voice went up, and I used a couple bad words. I got all riled up for the hour it took to straighten things out. Ag parts are supposed to be tax exempt, and I didn’t get the discount I expected WHICH WAS THE WHOLE REASON I ORDERED THE PARTS! It was one of those things where the local dealership works different than the online parts order place. I told the guy I wasn’t mad at him; I was mad at the situation. And the local guy was as frustrated as I was. I said they better make sure all the sales people understand because it was not presented to me that way when I called two days ahead to see how to make this work.
The Solution was to return everything (electronically) and redo it through the local dealer. And I filed a tax exemption form to John Deere Parts.com. That was how I spent Thursday morning. By Friday morning it was all straightened out and I saved $250. Almost made up for the diesel fuel! I told the parts manager I appreciated his work and we laughed about some stuff.
I sold the corn I had in storage at the elevator. Price wasn’t really moving. Probably lost money compared to selling it last fall, and I had to pay storage now anyway. As I wrote last week, I am spending money hand over fist, so can always use the money.
The anal weather station sold at the auction for $24. The Culti-packer / roller item I was watching sold for $17,000. Jeepers.
I did get the drag I wanted. Paid more than I wanted. It looked like just me and one other guy bidding on it. I fully expected someone else to come in at the last minute like they do…but they didn’t. Isn’t it something how an item may not have much value until two people want it. Suddenly it’s valuable.
But. It’s mine now. Went with my buddy Paul, and all the dogs, and picked it up Friday morning and pulled it home. Bailey stuck her nose in Paul’s ear for a while, and we learned Luna likes ice cubes.
I’m not exactly sure yet how it unfolds or stands up. There’s a crank and a cable…I’ll figure it out at some point. In the field it will look like this, except not so shiny, or clean, or new, or big, and not such a fancy tractor.
Courtesy McFarlaneag.com
Kelly and I were watching the news the other night. Lamenting ordering diesel fuel and the price, lamenting how prices are going up on crop inputs like Urea, lamenting the cost of the drag, lamenting selling the corn I have in storage. And she said to me, “Are we having fun yet?”. Then we got the giggles.
I said that would be good in the blog and as I added that note to my phone list, I saw another note from a while ago:
“Doris Day, annunciation, nice work if you can get it.” Hmmmm. Was Doris Day annunciated? Kelly thought maybe I met “enunciation” and that rang a bell.
I remember hearing her sing ‘Nice Work if you can Get it’ on the radio and how well she enunciates her ‘T’s. An internet search says:
Key aspects of her vocal style include:
Precision and Clarity: She was known for her ability to deliver lyrics with exceptional clarity, often compared to jazz singers in her phrasing.
Breathy Quality: Some listeners identified a distinct, “breathy” quality in her voice, which was a hallmark of her singing and speaking.
Emotional Control: Day was noted for her ability to convey deep emotion in ballads without sacrificing vocal control.
Technical Skill: Her technique included an impressive ability to manage breath control and blend her belt register with her head voice. *AI Overview, Reddit*
Listen to her sing this. Crisp and clear!
And then I go to Mel Torme because he’s just so cool!
I love that twinkle in his eyes when he’s having fun singing.
From there I think to myself, “What is up with you and these singers??” As a kid, I wouldn’t have touched music like that or those performers with a 10’ pole. And now I love it.
The CDS (Cat Distribution System) is working its way in our family this month.
A couple of weeks ago our daughter in Washington State told us about this cat that suddenly appeared on the second floor deck of her apartment. She is on the top floor of her building. The cat had descended from the roof. It hung around on her deck for a while and then climbed back on the roof. Daughter put out a cushion for it to sleep on. She didn’t see it again, though.
The cat made another appearance outside the front door of her apartment a couple of days ago. The apartments are all accessable from the outside stairs. He was crying and wanting inside the apartment next door, but no one answered when Daughter knocked. She let the facility management know, and then put out water for him, which he drank. He let her a little nearer to him him and seemed to want love and pets. Her next goal is to get him into a carrier and have him checked by a vet for a microchip. He is a longer haired tortoiseshell.
Daughter already has two cats, but the way she talks about her visitor makes me think she will keep him if she can. Husband, Son, Daughter in law, and I were all on the texts about this cat, all of us hoping she could catch and keep him or else find his people. Almost all of our cats have been rescues from town or from Daughter’s best friend’s ranch in the ND Badlands. Son found our cat, Luna, under a deck in Brookings as an abandoned kitten nine years ago. Our first cat in ND just showed up at our front door one Halloween, and we took her in. Son considered getting a purebred Maine Coon as his next cat until he realized they cost a couple of thousand dollars. Cat rescue is best. Even better is when a cat chooses you!
What animals have you rescued? Favorite cat songs and art? How do you feel about cats as pets?
Trail Baboon 