My Kentucky Adventure: Detour to Arkansas

Thursday morning i woke up bright and early so i could get back on the road and, i hoped, get through Memphis before the morning traffic got too bad.  That's exactly what happened, so i arrived at Dayeanu's lovely place at around noon!

The first thing i noticed, driving up to the house, were the bales of hay, the air of genteel decay of the fences, and then the goats and horses.  Pulling up to the big house behind her vehicle, i saw Dayeanu sitting on the porch waiting for me.

She was as warm and welcoming as i remembered, and she gave me the grand tour of the house.  The property has been in the family for more than a hundred years, although they don't have as much acreage as they used to, and they no longer have cattle.  This year, with her mother being ill, she didn't even put in a kitchen garden.

We sat and talked and sipped tea and i met and i talked to the macaw.  He wouldn't salute me, but he did wave hello.  She introduced me to the dogs, and shoed the goats off of the porch, and we went out to pet the horses.

Then we sat and talked and gabbed some more,   She asked me if i would like to ride a horse, and i told her about how Fivecat hadn't been able to take us to a horse farm, so i would love a ride if it could be arranged.  She spoke to her daughter Kay who said she had been wanting to exercise a couple of them.

This being a farm and not a place where someone else brings the horses to you and you get to ride and then someone else brings the horse back to the barn and takes care of it, i got my first lesson in how to prepare a horse for riding.  Kay introduced me to the curry comb and the brushes and how to use them, and i brushed my horse's mane and tail until he closed his eyes in ecstasy.

He and the other horse got a bit cranky, though, when they saw the saddles.  It was as if they said, "Hey, wait a minute, how come every time we get brushed, we then have to give you a ride!"  Kay saddled them, with me staying out of the way except when she asked me to do something or another.  When i was young i was taught to ride, and nothing else, which isn't a good way to learn.

Kay and i rode long enough for me to have a good time and for the horses to get a bit of exercise.  The horse i road was a gray Arabian, and he is the grand old man of the place so rides very gently.  Both horses wanted to head back to the barn at every opportunity, but Kay insisted they behave and give us a good ride, and i even got to trot a bit!

It was so much fun, and then i hosed down the horse.  We put the saddles and bridles in the shed, and by the time we came back out, both horses were rolling, undoing all the brushing and rinsing we had done.  It's okay, they were cute.

After i had a shower, we went and had a very nice dinner.  It was a great end to the day.


Today is:

Alex Kivi Day a/k/a Kivi Day -- Finland (The Day of Finnish Literature)

Algonquin Mill Festival -- Carrollton, OH, US (an 1800s pioneer festival; through Sunday)

Apple Butter Makin' Days -- Mt. Vernon, MO, US (making apple butter on the courthouse lawn, and lots of other fun; thrugh Sunday)

Arbor Day -- Poland

Bonza Bottler Day

Cephalopod Awareness Days:  Squid Day/Cuttlefish Day -- celebrating the most intelligent invertebrates in the world; today, celebrate the tentacular species that all have ten tentacles

Columbus Day Festival and Hot Air Balloon Regatta -- Columbus, KS, US (through Sunday)

Curacao Day -- Curacao

Double Tenth Day/National Day -- China; Taiwan (In remembrance of the revolution against the Imperial Manchu Dynasty.)

Festival for Juno Moneta -- Ancient Roman Calendar (Juno as goddess of money)

Fort Ligonier Days -- Ligonier, PA, US (commemoration of the Battle of Ligonier with reenactments, parade, entertainment, etc.; through Sunday)

Guayaquil Independence Day Holiday -- Ecuador

Hull Fair -- Hull, England (a fair that dates back over 700 years, now one of the countries largest traveling funfairs; through the 18th)

Independence Day / Deed of Cession Day -- Fiji(1970)

Journee Nationale de la Femme Marocaine -- Morocco (National Women's Day)

Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest -- Kitchener and Waterloo, ON, Canada (second largest Oktoberfest in the world; through the 18th)

Kruger Day -- South Africa

KWP Foundation Day -- North Korea (1945)

Maroons Day -- Suriname (celebration of indigenous peoples)

Medford Jazz Festival -- Medford, OR, US (over 100 jazz performances, many by nationally known bands, plus food and celebration; through Sunday)

Mississinewa 1812 -- Mississinewa, IN, US (the largest War of 1812 living history and reenactment event; through Sunday)

Moi Day -- Kenya

Natchitoches Historic Pilgrimage -- Natchitoches, LA, US (National Historic Landmark District homes, plantations, and the sites where the movie Steel Magnolias was filmed are featured on this fabulous tour; through Sunday)

National Angel Food Cake Day

National Cake Decorating Day -- some websites say today, some say the 17th

National Handbag Day -- started by www.PurseBlog.com

Naval Academy Day -- US

New York Comic Con -- NY, NY, US (through Sunday)

Ocean County Columbus Day Parade and Italian Festival -- Seaside Hgts., NJ, US (through Sunday)

Parke County Covered Bridge Festival -- Rockville, IN, US (with 31 historic covered bridges, this is the covered bridge capital of the world; tours, arts and crafts booths, demonstrations, and old-fashioned homemade foods, through the 19th)

Rockport Seafair -- Rockport, TX, US (fresh-from-the-bay seafood, entertainment, crab races, and more; through Sunday)

Royal National (Gaelic) Mod -- Inverness, Scotland (Gaelic Language Festival; through the 17th)

Sawara Festival -- Chiba, Japan (also called the Grand Festival of Sarawa, one of Japan's major float festivals; through Sunday)

Southern Festival of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word -- Nashville, TN, US (through Sunday)

St. Charles Scarecrow Festival -- St. Charles, IL, US (handcrafted scarecrows, music, entertainment, and more; through Sunday)

St. Francis Borgia's Day (Patron of Portugal; Rota, Marianas; against earthquakes)

St. Paulinus of York's Day (Patron of Rochester, England)

Tag der Volksabstimmung -- Austria (Referendum Day)

Tennessee Fall Homecoming -- Museum of Appalachia, Clinton, TN, US (celebrating the culture and heritage of Appalachia; through Sunday)

Victorian Theatre by Candlelight presents "Cold Blooded" -- Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site, Indianapolis, IN, US (watch as prominent Indianapolis attorney Benjamin Harrison prosecutes Nancy Clem, the first woman tried for murder in the state of Indiana; this weekend and next)

War of Independence Anniversary -- Cuba

World Day Against the Death Penalty -- International

World Egg Day -- International (from the International Egg Commission)

World Homeless Day -- no one should be homeless

World Mental Health Day -- International

World Porridge Day -- celebrating Scotland's traditional national dish


Anniversaries Today:

Edward M. Kennedy, Jr., marries Katherine Anne "Kiki" Gershman, 1993
Richard Burton marries Elizabeth Taylor, 1975 (second time)
The United States Naval Academy opened with 50 midshipmen and 7 professors, 1845


Birthdays Today:

Adrian Grenier, 1976
Bob Burnquist, 1976
Dale Earnhardt, Jr., 1974
Mario Lopez, 1973
Brett Favre, 1969
Daniel Pearl, 1963
Tanya Tucker, 1958
David Lee Roth, 1955
Nora Roberts, 1950
Jessica Harper, 1949
Charles Dance, 1946
Ben Vereen, 1946
Harold Pinter, 1930
Richard Jaeckel, 1926
Thelonious Monk, 1917
Edward D. Wood, Jr., 1924
Helen Hayes, 1900
Giuseppe Verdi, 1813
Henry Cavendish, 1731 (discovered hydrogen)


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Upstairs, Downstairs"(TV), 1971
"The Bob Newhart Show"(TV), 1962
"Milk and Honey"(Musical), 1961
"Porgy and Bess"(Folk opera), 1935
"Die Chinesische Mauer/The Great Wall of China"(Play), 1946
The Tuxedo, 1886 (introduced at The Tuxedo Club in New York)


Today in History:

The Great Hurricane of 1780 kills 20,000 to 30,000 in the Caribbean, 1780
The first non-Native American settlement is founded in Oklahoma, 1802
William Lassell discovers Neptune's moon Triton, 1846
The first "Dinner Jacket" is worn to the Autumn Ball at Tuxedo Park, NY, 1886
President Woodrow Wilson triggers the explosion of the Gamboa Dike thus ending construction on the Panama Canal, 1913
Ho Chi Minh enters Hanoi after the French pull out of the city, 1954
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to the finance minister of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, after he is refused service in a Dover, Delaware restaurant, 1957
The Windscale fire in Cumbria, U.K. is the world's first major nuclear accident, 1957
The opening ceremony at The 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, is broadcast live in the first Olympic telecast relayed by geostationary communication satellite, 1964
The Outer Space Treaty, signed on January 27 by more than sixty nations, comes into force, 1967
In Montreal, Quebec, a national crisis hits Canada when Quebec Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte becomes the second statesman kidnapped by members of the FLQ terrorist group, 1970
Sold, dismantled and moved to the United States, London Bridge reopens in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, 1971
After having closed borders for about two hundred years, Armenia and Turkey sign protocols in Zurich, Switzerland to open their borders, 2009
Pope Benedict XVI adds Arabic to the languages in which the weekly Vatican address is broadcast, 2012