Badger Blog

  That didn't take long. Less than a week in office and the current fascist regime managed to reduce the US to a kleptocracy. Another week saw him drive our economy (barely recovered from the orange shit stain's first tenure) into a rapid downward spiral. Three weeks in and he has betrayed our allies and effectively made us a vassal of Putin's Russia. And yet seventy seven million Americans still think everything he does is great and will somehow benefit them... or maybe they are just so small minded and shallow or ugly that this is exactly what they want. We will not live with this and have decided to immigrate to France. We have signed up for French lessons and begun to research the details we will need to make the move. The plan is to make a scouting trip to France in September and focus on the areas we think will work best for us and our horses. Given our desire for mostly clear skies and not too cold or damp winters we are looking primarily at southwestern France. We w...

It has been eight months since my last entry and in that time we have traveled a great deal including various horse camping/riding extended weekends, a visit to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, a trekking trip to England and the Channel Islands, and a diving/snorkeling trip to Raja Ampat Indonesia. Fun times.  We also watched in horror as a third of our country voted for a narcissistic convicted sex offender and con man who has since inflicted his fascist and authoritarian rule over the country, all the while a Republican controlled congress looks on with approval and seventy seven million Americans cheer him on. And still another third just looks on passively while the rest of us try to resist and insist our elected officials uphold the constitution, which they swore to do before taking office. Alarming times. Had the shit not hit the fan I would be posting now about our move back to Oregon this year, but that course of action seems doubtful with the current state of ou...

It has been a little more than year since we moved to Sacramento and purchased a new house in the midtown/downtown area, and just under a year since we moved into our house (and my last blog update). Sacramento was a compromise location for both of us with mostly sunny skies, mild winters, an active horse culture and related resources, a regional airport for easy long distance travel, trains connecting the city to others, an urban city center where we could afford to buy a house and live, and basic amenities within walking distance of our home. But we knew it had problems as well, such as increased state bureaucracy and fees, blazing hot summers, a vast encircling hellscape of suburban squalor, long drives to get to the horses (and trails), and anemic public transit. So how are we doing? By and large we are content. Last year's summer heat was extreme and we are steeling ourselves for blistering heat over the next few months, but the mild winter was nice, although to be honest I ap...

Early June found us in Sacramento with our horses boarding at Gibson Ranch, a temporary living space at an Apartment in the suburb of Arden Arcade, and a house in downtown. Our belongings from Oregon were delivered the day after the purchase of the house had closed, but we had much of it stored in the garage with the furnishings placed in the house with their protective wrappings still in place. The house needed the interior walls (and some ceilings) repainted and so we lived in the apartment while we painted the house. How long could the interior painting possibly take, right? We fitted out the apartment with just enough to live, which included an inflatable mattress, minimal kitchen supplies, Internet, a television and some camp chairs. For us it was living in its most basic form, but we did not intend to spend much time at the apartment. Each morning Elayne would drop me off at the house and then drive over to care for the horses a half an hour away. I would work on the house throug...

We got up ridiculously early on May 17 to haul the horses down to their boarding stables at Gibson Ranch. The drive was long and mercifully uneventful, with one stop at the halfway point just north of Weed California to get the horses out for a walk and offer them food and water (fear not rest stop patrol: they were on leads and confined to the pet area). Needless to say the horses were very insecure  once they arrived. Everything smelled different, peacocks were flying about them and screaming, other horses were calling out. But oh, look at this, you have your own grassy pasture! That certainly helped but they spent the first forty eight hours tied at the hip and where one horse went the other was right there by their side. We unloaded the horse gear and supplies from the trailer and truck and then drove to our hotel for the night, stopping at a suburban Indian restaurant for dinner along the way. They next morning we were back at Gibson Ranch to reassure Taylor and Topaz and feed...