"A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read." - Mark Twain

First, some shorts.

Yesterday the classical music station played Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusic (A Little Night Music) arranged for accordion.
Not everything that can be done should be done.

Q: What's perfect pitch?
A: Throwing an accordion into a dumpster and hitting an accordion.

The weather here has been wonderful this week. Mornings are just chilly enough that when I go out to do chores I wear a hoodie but by noon it's warm enough for shorts. Soon the Alder leaves will begin to turn.

I love watching a military honor guard in settings like Sen. McCain's services. Their slow precision brings such dignity to the occasion.
Meghan McCain nailed it!
The reaction of Cindy McCain, wife of the Senator, to Renee Fleming singing "O Danny Boy" was the definition of pathos.

I was at David and Marta's place at 7:15 and we were headed north in David's special truck by 7:30. A half hour later we stopped in Millersburg at a cool diner for breakfast (great BACON) and 30 minutes after leaving there we arrived at a place outside of Lebanon. The single lady who lives there boards horses for others, including some that are pretty high end competition animals.

When we pulled up the first thing I noticed was two horses laying on the ground with towels over their eyes. Then I saw what turned out to be the vet standing nearby waiting for David. They know each other well and listening to their conversation was fascinating.

The vet had put the two horses down about 20 minutes before we arrived. One had a lot of cancerous growths and the other was old and nearly crippled with arthritis. He used potassium chloride (I learned a lot about this relatively new method of euthanasia), injecting it into the vein instead of the spinal injection that many vets are using.

I stood aside and eavesdropped, asked a couple of questions that had to do with something the vet said ("Is that drug unusable because it stays in the muscle of an animal going to rendering?" A: Yes; "Why the towels over their eyes?" A: the anesthesia they're given first makes their eyes very sensitive to light) and learned a ton.

It took David about 5 minutes to use the crane on his truck to pick up the horses by their feet and load them into the big container on the back of his rig and we headed home.

Over the four hours we were together we talked about everything from African culture (their daughter Emily recently married a guy from Kenya and they all went there for the wedding), to what makes a good sermon (David and Marta are spiritual family), to the homeless situation, to forest management....

It was the kind of experience I thoroughly enjoy - mentally stimulating, full of things new to me, and easy natural conversation. A great morning. David knows a ton of stuff about a very wide variety of things.

I spent a few hours this afternoon working on the trailer. My make-it-up-on-the-fly plan is coming together and I think this is going to work. So far I like the results. I ran out of construction adhesive and screws and will be on sheet of plywood short so I'll probably go back into town tomorrow afternoon to get those things so I can finish the build. Then it's paint and details like lighting and maybe fabricating a bumper for the back of it.

I have a bunch of stuff in my head tonight but but you didn't come here for a 10 page essay so I'll save it for a subsequent post.