Nightmare on Elm Street.

Actually, it’s Foxglove Trace but that doesn’t have that nice ring to it. I sent in the check today for my property taxes. This is another of those things that the government invented to raise money. The sad part is that there is no end to it. I didn’t mind initially. I had kids in school so why not but I haven’t had any attending for 18 years  so it ought to be about time I got to quit paying.

The sad truth is that even though we pay off our mortgages, we don’t own our homes. Skip a year or two of paying property taxes and the government will take your home away from you.

I think I’d be better off renting.

One for the record books.

Here is one of what I thought was my nice squash plants.

Apparently, she was not so nice. A day or so after taking the above picture, I went back to the garden to find this odd looking squash hanging around my tomato plants.

It looks as if miss squash plant has been sleeping with Jason’s basketball and was somehow fertilized by that cad. She gave birth to that monstrosity  and the strain was apparently too much. 

I came out to the garden later in the day and found her wrung out and dead to the world.  I snapped this picture just before her cremation.

Well, she’s one up on me.

When I was my granddaughter’s age, all I could think about was riding a horse, preferably a wild black stallion with flashing hooves and a white mane.  I never came across one in Loogootee, the closest thing being my mom’s broom handle so nothing ever happened. Finally, when I was freshly married, Susie and I  went to McCormick’s Creek (or maybe Shakamak) state park and rented horses. We rode in a group with several other people. It took some doing before I fianlly got on my horse and when I was comfortably seated, the kid running the operation told me that my mare was with foal and I should be careful with her. No rough stuff. I was the last rider out of the barn but owing to my natural skills as a horseman, quickly caught up with the single file group.

We crossed an open field about a quarter mile or so and then The path went into the woods. We had no more than gotten in there when my horse wheeled around and took off for the barn. I didn’t know what to do. I tried pulling on the reins and was about to give her a quick kick in the side when I remembered the kid’s warning. There was nothing to do but hang on for dear life. Which I did.

I arrived back at the barn when the horse came to a skidding stop. The kid came out grinning and said “What happened? Too much horse?”  ”Nahh’, I said. “She’s too tame. Ain’t you got something a little wilder in there??

“Sure.” he said and disappeared into the barn. I took off for the car before he could get back with some other snarling, wild eyed beast. 

It looks like Riley Marie will never have to suffer that ignominy. She’s already riding.

Of course, its just an old  tame horse. Now, if she’d had that crazed she devil I had, she wouldn’t be smiling……