"So NOT Southern!"

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I am so NOT Southern!

There are wonderful things here in the South, and lots of my favorite foods are 'Southern'. Things like, hog jowl bacon, grits and corn bread..Pinto beans, collards and fried pork rinds just to name a few...But I have found something I will not even try !
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This is my now gelding 'Red', on the left. He was a stallion until Tuesday.

The vet came out and 'gelded' him....



My neighbor, a real country boy, came and helped out, since Red is a bit of a handful. Even though he weighs only 125 lbs he can be really fiesty. Since my horse accident 2 years ago, I have a difficult time with my left wrist that was broken. I don't have the stregnth I used to have. My back also can be trouble since it, also, was broken . All in all, I needed a strong person to help hold Red while the vet got the drugs into the main juglar vein in his neck. This was the 2nd attempt by the vet, and Red remembered his scent when he came into the barn...I was glad Jay came over to help.

I was holding a lead , but I was trying not to watch as the vet sliced him open and removed the testicles, clamped the vein, etc. I don't like blood at all. The two 'country' boys were chatting away as the country vet worked, and when he got the testicles out, he said to Jay,

"Want em?"

Jay said, "Naw."

I said, "Whhaaatttt????"

The vet said, "Lot's of people eat 'em."

...I will never be that hungry!!

He asked if I wanted to give them to my dogs??

Again, "Whhaaaattt?"

One neighbor said her vet tossed them to her dogs, and they gobbled them up!

UGH!

Later my other neighbor remarked that I should have thrown them on the barn roof, for good luck!

Good luck for whom?

Not the horse, that's for sure!

I don't need any critters climbing the barn to get 'em', nor do I want buzzards up there!

I may say 'dang' and 'yonder' from time to time, but I guess I'll never really be a Southerner!




Wednesday I was a guest at 'Pen Women', a group of writers and artists that gather at a little 'coffee house' type place called "The Daily Grind" in Roanoke. My friend, fellow writer and neighbor who lives 'yonder' , Becky, had invited me and the group treated me to a lovely lunch. Our mutual friend 'Amy', pictured here with me, spoke to the group about her book ,"Crossroads at Brandy Station". Its a wonderful book she is trying to have published. It is written for the'middle grades' of kids, and I really hope it gets published. Its about the Civil war, and two young kids and how it affects their lives.


Amy, I am pulling for you girl, and your novel about the awful war between the North and the South...but honey,
"I will never be a Southerner" !!

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