True Story

This is a true story that happened in our neighborhood years ago.


Gwendolyn Grant was the kind of person you want on your side. You did not want her against you on any matter. Gwen was a sixty-plus year old, chain smoking, alcohol appreciator who took guff off no one.

Clover Neighborhood had only one way in and that entrance was also the only way out. Gwen's driveway was the second one right there at the entrance on Crimson Drive. Remember that. That is important.

One day, while the owners were away on vacation, two men drove a pickup truck up their driveway around to the back of their house and proceeded to help themselves to select articles of belongings of their choice. Now, that house was well back in the neighborhood where there were no houses behind it. However, the next door neighbor saw them loading household goods out of the house into their truck, and he spoke to them about it. Upon which, the two men jumped in the truck and took off.

Not to be outdone, the quick thinking neighbor called Gwen, told her what had happened and what they were driving. He then followed them in his own vehicle.

Gwen used to drive an old van. Picture this: large, tall, long, gray van with no windows on the sides, just solid tall gray walls left and right - which at that time was parked in her driveway. When she heard the burglars' truck was on the way, she simply backed the van down her driveway placing it dead across the street where there was no way around it (without going into the deep ditch that parallels her driveway), and it was too large to ram broadside - at least not on purpose.

Not only that, when the pickup truck driver and friend saw their escape route was blocked, the next thing they saw was Gwen with her big 45 pistol aimed at the driver's head. There she held them until the police arrived. The burglars never had a chance, and never argued about it. When the neighbor arrived they were shouting profanities. Gwen, who could out cuss a sailor any day, coolly enjoyed the situation. They knew they were caught like the proverbial cat with a canary in its mouth.

This is a true story, only the names have been changed to protect the not so innocent.

An Important Interjection!

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

I know you were expecting the next installment of the mystery happening in The Garden At Crocker Croft, as written in Barbee's Blog. The writer has not forgotten you, it is just that a big exciting happening occurred!

You may remember that Barbee' is a member of Blotanical.com. There has been a big annual contest going on over there. We were supposed to enter our blogs in the categories in which we wanted to be remembered. I didn't even do that (because, I know how stiff is the competition), but someone else nominated Barbee's Blog, which I consider a great compliment. Then it was on the short list, an even greater (and getting to be exciting) compliment.

When I received some notes of congratulations, it sent me running over there to see what was happening. The votes had been tallied at Blotanical, and (surprises never cease), Barbee's Blog was voted number one of the Kentucky members. Now, if you knew the competition, you would be as surprised as I am.

A multitude of excited thank-yous to all Blotanical members who voted for me. This is quite an honor that I do not take lightly. Thank you.

Now, I promise (I think.), the next post will reveal the mystery in the garden. I'm working on it. Need more photos. Things do interfere. While bending over gathering okra (dwarf plants), I had a spell of vertigo, lost my balance, fell out of one flower bed, reeled out of control across a section of lawn, then fell into another flowerbed flat on my front side, flattening a bunch of New England asters, kissed the ground with no intention of doing so, scraped the bridge of my nose, and sprained a knee. Now, I'm walking like Chester in the old (very old) TV series Gun Smoke. Well, that really dates me!

No, this is not the one where I fell.
It's just a pretty picture.

Horses

Not everyone is interested in horses, but of those who are, most know about the legendary Kentucky horses.

I was reminded of a post I wrote for my website when I picked up our local newspaper one day this week. Front page featured an article about opening day at Keeneland's January sales, including a four column photograph of the beautiful mare Azeri, who was 2002's Horse of the Year.

Apparently the economic recession has reached even into the pockets of the rich and famous in horse-world circles. This week the high and final bid for Azeri was $4.4 million, but that did not reach the seller's reserve... therefore, no sale. Last year her first foal, Vallenzeri, failed to sell at a bid of $7.7 million.

If these prices intrigue you, or if you just enjoy reading about the horse industry, you may be interested in reading the post I referred to. The post was written for a group of approximately thirty friends who were coming here to attend a day at charming Keeneland thoroughbred race tract during beautiful October. They had never been to a horse race before. The post served to prepare them by giving background information.

If you are interested here is the link: Horses.

Oh, It Couldn't Be!

Do you know, that because you are reading this blog it means you are a genius! That's right, a GENIUS!

It says so right here:



You may have seen these page elements scattered around different blogs. All you have to do is click on the last line, then enter your blog's URL in the pop-up form. In seconds you get the reply with code to copy and paste into your own blog somewhere.

Besides my blog, I also have a web site made up of several blog templates that I have stitched together with links to create one whole made up of several parts. Just for the fun of it, I fed all URLs into this gadget to see what reading level it would rank them. All total I have fourteen (14) templates. Two are practice templates (one the old Classic Version of Blogger.com, the other is the New Version). I did not let them play, they are a hodgepodge of this and that. This blog was already ranked, so that left eleven URLs that I fed through the hungry looking widget. Here are the results.

The main section of my web site was ranked:


Tam at Land of the Lost Surprise was unsure how to feel when her's was rated with a High School reading level. I told her to be pleased, because my web site's reading level was rated Elementary School level! But, I have to remember that it is dedicated to the child in each of us, so I suppose that really came through.

The Butterfly section and Critter Crossings were both rated:



Two sections: Smoke In the Night and Garden Tour were rated:



UTOPIA (mystery plants) was rated:



A Clowder of Cats, Floramore, and the Journaling section, as well as, two extra supplementary ones were all rated:


Believe me, I am no genius, so why does it rate my blog as such?

The only thing I can think of is the vocabulary. While my own vocabulary is certainly average, remember, there are all those Latin scientific plant names strewn throughout the posts. I guess when the crawler hit those, it bounced the rate up a few notches.

I think it is time to quit playing now, and head for bed.
See you in the pages!