HOW THE NIGHT MOVES

I love my horses so much that sometimes I do rather foolish things just to spoil them.

Last night, I got home after sunset - in face, quite a while after sunset - so it was dark - real, real dark.

For those of you who have never lived outside of a populated area, it is rather surprising at first when you get away from city lights, streetlamps, traffic and even houses indoor lights.

We even have 'light pollution' laws in our county, restricting streetlights, flood lights (well, except for the border - they can use pretty bright lights there) and even the type of lights that we can use - they must be shaded for limited exposure.

So again - it's dark.

But as I got out of the truck, both horses were emanating their deepest, darkest mind control thoughts straight at me -- "YOU ARE A VERY VERY BAD OWNER WHO HAS FORCED FORCED FORCED HER POOR STARVING UNDERFED HORSES STARE AT THE GREEN GREEN GREEN GRASS OUTSIDE THEIR FENCE ALL DAY LONG AND COMES HOME TOO LATE TO TAKE HER HORSES OUT TO GRAZE AND YOU ARE GONNA PAY PAY PAY."

Yes, I am a weak person, and am extremely susceptible to equine mind control.

So I took both animals, each weighing over 1,000 lbs. apiece, with four feet each (that's eight total for you mathmatically-challenged out there) which are EACH approxmiately five feet across and can easily crush each and every metatarsus bone in your tiny little weak human feet - I took these beasts out IN THE COMPLETE AND TOTAL DARKNESS to graze.

Only one thing saved me... well, sort of.

It turns out that my younger horse (who is responsible for the majority of the mind controlling beams) is a little bit "scawed of the dawk" (that's Elmer Fudd talk there - did you know there is a translation site that has redneck, Swedish chef, Cockney translations?).

So I got slammed by Najale's head (enough that my upper thigh looks just like this today) as he alternated between ripping and gulping grass into his mouth but then spooking at the sound he was creating by of every single blade being crushed between his huge teeth.

So the lesson learned from all of this is 1) wearing a tin-foil helmet does deters my horses' mind-alternating thought rays, and 2) although I am not frightened by coyotes, illegal immigrants and scary things that go bump in the night close to the Mexican border, I now realize that I need to be scared of my horse eating in the dark."I woke last night to the sound of thunder

How far off I sat and wondered

Started humming a song from 1962

Ain't it funny how the night moves

When you just don't seem to have as much to lose..."

And I'm including this last thing just because it made me laugh.

CREEPY THINGS IN THE DARK

Power outages can be the standard where I live in southern Arizona, and now seem to have followed me to Oahu.

At home, we are attached quite literally to any electrical power by a single strand of wire. High atop old utility poles by the highway which, unfortunately, have been blown, shot and knocked down - and then off the highway the wires are buried inside cheap plastic tubing that leaks. The telephone routinely goes out whenever it rains (which, for better or worse, does not happen often). Our water comes from a well with an electrical pump - so no electricity, no water.

Our wiring has persisted through eight years of gnawing by local residents. Now, this nibbling is done not by ungainly & ugly city rodents - but bright-eyed little field mice (vegans) who move inside only during the cold months to share hot chocolate, watch "Law & Order" marathons and help me with Sudoku puzzles. They have a completely legal agreement with the cat - he can pretend to scare them, and the mice won't openly flaunt their complete power over him.

But it does mean we only have one working telephone line, and lights that flicker even when the utility company has everything in the field working.

I don't mind power outages at home, even when "The Office" is on. It forces me to read by candlelight (which sounds oh so romantic, but is pretty tough on 50+ year-old eyes), walk outside by the moon and starlight, and (most often) going to bed incredibly early.

It is a wonderful excuse to be late for anything ("my alarm didn't go off!"), to add dash of the apprehensive disaster mode ("but all our power is off!") and the best reason possible to go ahead and eat all the ice cream in the freezer ("otherwise it's just gonna melt!").

But here in Hawaii it comes with at a bigger price - not just lights and phones, but sacrifices that must be made BY THE TOURISTS. Honolulu exists solely because of the military and the visitors to the islands - and if they can't count on artificial climate control, frozen foods straight from the mainland then made into colorful local dishes, ice to cool their drinks and cold air pouring of into their hotel rooms... well, who would come then?

Turns out during the last island-wide power failure in December, President-elect Obama and family were here on the island. Talk about bad publicity - can you imagine if the Secret Service didn't have enough Duracell batteries - did their little ear-wigs work - back-up generators for Air Force One?

I also discovered that both of my grandkids have MAJOR problems with the dark. I knew each one had a night light, but figure that was mainly for mommy's convenience when she comes in to check on them at night. Not so! Apparently creepy monsters and huge hairy bugs just wait for the dark so they can jump out and do their damage.

Wanna bet this coming week we'll have another power outage when it's just grandma and the kids?

So - I'll stock up on the ice cream this week!

TUNES IN THE TUMBLEWEEDS

Last night was one of those beautiful, spacious cold nights, which we enjoy regularly up here at the 5,000 foot altitude here. The quiet was broken only by gusts of winds trying to decide if they were going to deliver any serious seasonal changes or just blow my hat off for their entertainment.

I love going out long after sunset with my trusty Murray-dog and a bag of carrots, and we stand outside regardless of the weather and feed the horses over the fence.

Even though we live literally three miles from the Mexican border, Murray is a fierce protector.... or, at the very least, a strident barker when anyone or anything comes within 20 yards of our property, including rabbits, stary feral cats, dogs, people and very occasionally even a rattlesnake.

Now, even before 9/11, there have always been a large number of Border Patrol trucks, foot patrols and horseback patrols ALL around us ALL hours of the day, especially since we live between Mexico and the next major road (read that 'paved'). This has become a major 'corridor' for crossing the border without having to show a passport or be searched, and for years before the wall construction, as easy as slipping under a poorly maintained barbed wire fence in the dark.

But any illegal immigrants, drug smugglers, coyotes (human ones), etc. that may pass through our back (or front) yards are moving as fast as they possibly can to GET to some kind of transportation on or beyond the highway. They aren't hanging around to take in the sights.

So I don't worry about it too terribly much.

Being outside in the middle of pitch blackness.

Alone with my dog and horses.

Unarmed.

Except last night.

Last night, around 9:30 p.m. (2130) Murray was contentedly laying on the ground by my feet, and I had two horses contending for my attention (i.e. fighting to be the first to get a carrot) when I heard some music.

Remember that I am partially deaf, I am over 50, and I have a cavity filling that picks up Tucson and sometimes Mexican radio stations at odd times. So when I 'hear' something, my first impulse is to look at Murray, who has way-beyond-perfect hearing - he knows when my truck is turning off the aforementioned highway two miles away Honest.

My dog was looking abstractly around, probably to determine if it was music worth listening to (he has very high standards), so I began, in my one-ear-working-and-can't-tell-directions way, to slowly rotate 360 degrees to figure out where the sound was coming from.

Also (sorry for all these reminders, just trying to set the scene up properly) keep in mind that we have no lights out here. NONE.

No street lights, no businesses, parking lots, schools, and instead in place we have a WONDERFUL bunch of light pollution laws (which until I moved out here sounded like sissy 'green' laws placed to mess people up - wait, I sound like a Republican right there, don't I? - but since living out here have become a passionate supporter of these same laws - so am I now a Democrat?). It limits all porch lights, floodlights and driveway lighting to KEEP it dark so you can SEE the stars and moonlight and that entire galaxy/universe thing.

I finally am able to pick out the parking lights of two moving vehicles that also seem to be the source of the music.

Normally if I see a car without headlights on in our area after dark, I call the Border Patrol without hesitation. And it's almost always a drug or illegal pick-up or drop-off.

I was thinking twice about this one, however, since they were playing music loud enough to heard two miles away and did have their parking lights on.

Murray and I walked a little bit closer, and I finally recognized what it actually was - one car towing a flat-bed trailer, which was filled with probably ten to fifteen Christmas carolers, who were singing along (poorly) with a tape recording of some female professional-sounding voice, and one car simply following with some more singers.

A drive-by caroling.

THE CARROT WITHOUT THE STICK

I have a few daily habits. It's nice to have some reliable customs, since so much of what happens in our lives can't be controlled (illness, weather, president-elect) by us (although I did vote for Obama, and am VERY happy he won).

Every evening, around 10:30 p.m., my dog and I walk outside and back to where the horses are. Now, just so you can picture the scene accurately, I (and my dog) live in a rural area - no streetlights, no business lights, true darkness. It's great for watching the stars - but it is DARK.

I have pretty good night vision, and even when the moon isn't out, you can actually see your shadow by starlight. It's cool. But I have two advantages on this nightly trip.

1) Murray, my dog. Murray leads me out, comes back if I stop, and looks up with concern if I obviously can't see where I am going and have run straight into one of our many mesquite trees (and for those of you who are not familiar with Arizona plant life, to survive here, plants feel obligated to hurt you when you touch them, let alone run into them in the dark - and I mean draw BLOOD)

2) Najale, my horse, is black and white. And even though he is normally a very dusty, muddy and dirty white, those white sploshes still stand out enough that he is easy to spot.

Now Sally, the 'other' horse, is a bay mare - which means she's sorta reddish brown with a black mane and tail. She sorts fades into the woodwork, so to speak, at night. She's also pretty old (26 maybe?), so I will walk around the pasture and find her if she doesn't show up beside Najale in a few minutes.

Tonight? Najale is right there, ready for his evening carrots. I break each in half, and give Sally the top, smaller and generally softer part (bad teeth) and give Najale the bottom, harder part. And Sally always gets fed first. Najale is a greedy, pushy gelding who needs to wait his turn, and is normally good about it.

Tonight? (Didn't I just type that?) No Sally at the gate. I went ahead and gave Najale three carrots while I kept waiting for her to show up - finally undid the gate, and walked in to check and see if she was okay. And THEN she trots up, all hale and hearty, for her carrots.

But I made the SERIOUS mistake of concentrating on giving her her fair share of what was left - and NOT giving Najale his 'half.'

So.... he bit me.

Not hard - I mean, a horse who is seriously biting can do serious damage. I had a horse take off the top layer of my left hand - you could see the underlying bones. This was just a nip on my index finger of my right hard.

But even after keeping frozen peas (the world's best ice pack) on my finger for 35 minutes, it's pretty obvious that my fingernail is going to fall off soon, and I am going to have one sore finger for the next couple of weeks.

Don't feel sorry for me - my own fault. Just needed to tell someone the story - and brag about typing this entire thing with one heck of a sore finger.