After Ernesto

Ernesto came and went very quietly here. A short spat of rolling thunder and lightning, all somewhere else. According to the weather service we had less than an inch of rain. The leak (only one produced) in the dining room ceiling resulted in perhaps a half-inch of water in one of the buckets I'd placed, decoratively of course, on the floor. The (first) roofer (who called) starts early next week and should be done in two . . . maybe three days. He's is a bit more expensive than the other one who gave us an estimate, but given they're both using basically the same materials, this one can be here faster, be done quicker and his ten-year- guarantee on workmanship is twice that the other one offered.

There was some positive news about Asshole, the horse. The vet(s) had finally figured out the reason for the sporadic, massive discharge of totally disgusting, stinky crap from his nostrils (one in particular) and mouth: an infection in the gutteral pouch. And he'd been allowed back on feed AND instead of diarrhea, sometimes explosive because of the alfalfa, we'd found a mixture worked. We had horse apples again! Except yesterday morning it all caught up with him.

Dogs you set free when their time comes. With a horse, you put them down because a prey species, meaning they're not the eater but the eaten, the very last thing to go is their legs. Their ability to stand.

Apparently shortly before I went out to feed Asshole laid down.

He kept trying to get up but couldn't. The vet gave us options, all of which — if any of them had worked — would have only delayed what had become inevitable for a day, maybe two or a few weeks.

We chose the option that was best for him.

"The Mayor," Herself's father, called a friend to bury Asshole out back for us.

Dingbat, his stable mate for 15 years, has been calling for him ever since. I'm hoping maybe, just maybe, he and Starbuck (the Wonderdog) will eventually stop their normal pattern of one chasing the other all over the place. Maybe, just maybe, Dingbat's herd instincts will change their relationship.

And no. It's not Starbuck chasing Dingbat to exhaustion.

I was doing a load of laundry when Da Kid — who was off duty today and had flopped on the couch when he got home this morning — yelled, "Mother! The roofers are here!"

A horde of bronze-skinned, half-nekkid young men unloaded from the three trucks, and not a one of them spoke English. Instead, their first language is Redneck although one, after the thumps and yelling, is obviously quite conversant in Anglo-Saxon, too.

I thought one of them had fallen off the roof but no. He'd only shot himself in the leg with the nail gun. While the portion of the anatomy hit varies, apparently this is a standard practice in the trade. Even a requirement?

From what I can gather evidence of a nail gun wound earns a merit badge of sorts, but his wound isn't even worth minimal bragging rights. Now if he'd shot through three fingers and nailed them together (like so-and-so did) THAT might be worth talking about.

And as he's "walking it off," he stops and apologies to me for any off-color language I might have heard that he used.

They should be done (including clean up) tomorrow.