Happy Mother's Day!

Let's face the truth:  none of us would be here without our mother.  So, just to be a female romantic, here are photos of my mother, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, etc.....

 Mom:  Millie Johnson Nocks (above and below)

Maternal Grandmother:  Aleda Peterson Johnson

Maternal Great-grandmother:  Minnie Tarr Peterson

Maternal Great-grandmother:  Hannah Olesdatter Johansson

Maternal Great-great-grandmother: Mary Catherine Connor Tarr

*****

Paternal Grandmother:  Grace P. Lancaster Nocks

Paternal Great-grandmother:  Julia Sophia Mobley Lancaster

Paternal Great-great-grandmother: Martha Elizabeth Busey Nocks

Paternal Great-great-great-grandmother (center, seated, in black)

Climena Cleveland Nocks

Paternal Great-great-great-great-grandmother (seated, second from left):

Lucy Hall Nocks

Sunday Thoughts

Today is Mother's Day in the United States of America.  It's a day that we have set aside so that we can celebrate all the wonderful things that our Mothers do for us - both known and unknown.   Our Mothers give us so many things - not just our birth mothers, but Aunts, Grandmothers, Great-grandmothers, and sisters, too - love, understanding, encouragement, the sense of right and wrong, public etiquette, a sense of wonder, a love of books, enjoyment of the small graces of life.  Having grown up in a fisherman's family, and having to grow her own vegetables, pigs, and chickens for eating, my Mom loved flower gardening.  The family ate seafood twenty-eight days of the month, along with home-grown veggies and any fruit they could purchase.  They ate chicken once a month, or twice, if one of the hens died, and had beef the other day.  My Mom's Mother died from cancer when Mom was 14; she had two younger siblings to care for, as well as her father and (for about a year) her father's widowed brother.  She learned how to "make do" with next to nothing.  She did her best to teach me how to do that, seeing that I was a dreamer, and, I think, knowing that I'd drift from job to job, getting bored easily, and preferring to be with animals rather than people.  She did a good job of that, I think.   Aunt Ruth taught me to party and to enjoy life, and my sister Kathy taught me to look at things from all angles - to recognize that each decision I made might adversely affect someone else.  I thank all of them on this day.

Greg Blasi catching Yodel

And this is a "hats off" and a bow to the outriders at all of the race tracks around the world.  Above you see a photo taken at Churchill Downs - Greg Blasi is the name of the outrider, who is leaning from his horse to grab the stirrup of Yodel, to slow her down and eventually take he reins and return her to the starting gate.  You can see Greg's hard hat flying of his head as he reaches for, and grasps, the racing saddle stirrup on the four-year-old filly.  Yodel had broken through the starting gate, and lost her jockey immediately.  Then she took off, as if in a race.  Greg was able to "run her down" and grab the stirrup, gradually slowly the filly, and took the reins and led her back to the starting gate.  Yodel was scratched from the race, but seemed well after her free run.  Outriders are un-sung heroes of the race track.

Happy Mother's Day to All Mothers Around the World!

So....  It's snowing.  It's been snowing since about 4:30 this morning.  It's mixed with rain, so there's not a huge accumulation, but it's pretty messy out.   The squirrels look bedraggled as they peer into the windows.  They've eaten one and a half pounds of walnuts, pecans and peanuts already today, and I'll give them the other half  (another 1.5 pounds) tomorrow morning - but no more now.
   I know that Mother's Day is a custom of the United States, but I think it's something that should be celebrated around the world.  This is a day to celebrate the joy and love of (a) having a Mother, and (b) being a Mother.  My Mom has been gone for 13 years, but I love her and miss her on a daily basis.  On Mother's Day, I always reserve at least 60 minutes to sit down and remember some of the good times that made my Mother my Mom.  And, of course, I wouldn't be here, having this life, if not for Mom...  And, at the end of her life, when her memories were taken by Alzheimer's Disease, she believed very much that my cat, Bibbin Tucker, was her childhood cat, Sally.  If I called Bibbin, she came...  but if Mom called Sally, she ran to Mom.  I am so appreciative of having both a marvelous Mom and such a giving cat.
 
    It looks as if there will be ten horses running in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico on Saturday - the connections of nine colts and one filly have stated they plan to run in the one and 3/16ths mile second leg of the Triple Crown.  Only three colts from the Kentucky Derby will try for victory in the Preakness: California Chrome, in hope of becoming a Triple Crown champion, and General a Rod, who finished eleventh, and Ride On Curlin, who finished seventh.  The filly Ria Antonia, who finished sixth in the Kentucky Oaks, the day before the Derby, has been declared.   The colts Bayern, Pablo Del Monte, and Ring Weekend, who had been pointed at the Derby, will run in the Preakness.  And three speedsters have also been named:  Social Inclusion, Dynamic Impact and Kid Cruz.  It will be interesting to see the tactics for the race, and to see if there will be the possibility of a Triple Crown champion, once the race is finished.
   In other thoroughbred racing news:    Announcer Tom Durkin will be retiring from the NYRA ....  Trevor Denman is taking a few weeks off from announcing to see to the forty-or-so calves on his farm in Minnesota, but will be back to to announce the Santa Anita Gold Cup on 28 June.....   And the owners of Zenyatta have announced that they will allow her a year "just to be a horse" and won't breed her this season, after she has produced three gorgeous foals in the past three years for them....

Sixty-Nine Cats Left for Free Adoption

Happy Mother's Day!  My kits let me sleep in until after 8 this morning - Lovey did bathe both of my hands and washed my face twice, while she waited - but it was wonderful to be able to just sleep until I felt like getting up.  It's still a grey and cloudy day out, and we're expecting thunderstorms this afternoon, according to the weather folks. It's not quite 50 degrees outside, and the kits are having a blast running in and out.  On my way home from Kathy's yesterday, I came across someone getting ready to cut down and put a huge box into the recycling bin.  I managed to get it home - for Nedi and Lovey to play in.  Lovey just likes to jump in and out of boxes, use them hidey-holes, and use them for hidden attacks.  Nedi likes to chew the boxes down to his preferred size - what ever that may be - he starts chewing (he doesn't eat the cardboard, he just rips it with his teeth, and spits the torn pieces out) at the box flaps and will sometimes gnaw away until there is only a partial panel left.  This box is 3 1/2 by 2 1/2 by 6 feet....  it should take him quite some time to rip it apart...
  There are 69 cats and kittens left for adoption at the Boulder Valley Humane Society, as of 9:30 this morning.  Again, cats 6 months or older are free to a nice home, while kittens are adoptable at half of their usual cost.  This includes a vet check, all vaccinations, spay or neuter and a microchip for identification purposes.  This "special" ends today at the regular closing time.  Please help these needy kits (if you can)!
   And, if you are at all interested in your heritage, family tree, whatever you wish to call it - I highly recommend watching Finding Your Roots, a PBS show hosted by Henry Lewis Gates, Jr. - it shows here in Colorado at 7 p.m. (MDT).  Tonight, the show will look into the backgrounds of three second-generation immigrants: Sanjay Gupta, Margaret Cho, and Martha Stewart.  These shows are always interesting - and Dr. Gates is an excellent host!