There could not have been a more auspicious day to hold a horse race. The sun rose pleasantly warm over northern Kentucky in a sky bereft of clouds, and though the birds were doubtless singing, their tunes could not have been heard over the spirited chatter preceding the first running of the Kentucky Derby.
May 17, 1875, was a Monday. Most businesses in Louisville had locked their doors by noon in observance of the event. Wise merchants knew the only money […]
About the time my grandfather was lobbing hand grenades at German infantry in the War to End All Wars, a stout Thoroughbred stallion named Prince Palatine sired a colt named Rose Prince. Rose Prince begat Prince Rose, who begat Princequillo, the sire of Round Table, who begat Queen’s Knights, sire of Knight’s Mingo, sire of Mingo Mike. Mingo Mike, being a gelding, begat nothing more than pain and frustration for this cowboy and more than a few others.
Mingo Mike was […]
Imagine yourself living in a cozy log cabin tucked away somewhere in the backwoods. It’s an idyllic flight of fancy, but once it becomes lodged in your mind it cannot be extracted. It becomes a part of you, and whether it grows or it festers, it’s there to stay. And you know if you’re ever to have any peace, you’ll just have to make it come true.
There are lots of ways to build a log house or cabin, but they […]
“To understand the world, you take something that is whole and beautiful and break it into pieces. You have been taught that the world makes more sense that way, but all you are really doing is fragmenting its deeper truths and making them incomprehensible.”
– Lismadalena, Book One of the Novus Veritas series
It’s race day. You know it, and, to your dismay, your horse knows it too. Maybe because his hay bag was smaller this morning or his grain ration was cut back. Or maybe he just knows. Because you know. You are acting different in subtle ways that only a horse could discern, the way you always act on race day.
The horse has been pacing his stall since breakfast. Already you can see fine beads of sweat glistening on his coat. […]
If you are lucky enough to spend the night in Scott and Tess Van Wagner’s 1,500 square-foot, solar-powered log cabin hideaway in the Colorado Rockies near Telluride, you might wake up to the enchanting melodies of mountain bluebirds, courting just outside the upstairs guest bedroom. If you then venture out onto the stylish, cantilevered Truman Porch—named after the brassy 33rd President who commissioned a similar, though much grander, porch to be built on the south portico of the White House […]
Most of us in most places hardly ever give a moment’s thought to electricity. At least not most of the time. We don’t wonder how many pounds of coal has to be fed into the glowing maw of a distant power plant to bake a pizza in an electric oven, or how many grams of enriched uranium has to decay radioactively each year in order to keep poultry and pomegranates cold and fresh in a deluxe refrigerator. Why should we? […]
To hear Carole Brannon tell it, you’d think her life had become a fairytale. With a contagious smile that beams with pride, she begins her story 11 years ago, when she and her husband, Glenn, first set eyes on their remote 3.8 acre parcel of wooded Colorado hillside, just a hoot and holler downstream from the point where Larimer County abandons all attempts to maintain the road from October to April, and five miles upstream from the last utility pole. […]
“Because your culture directs your focus to things made of atoms, you have adopted a belief system that discourages you from searching for the deeper truths beyond the physical world.”
– Lismadalena, Book One of the Novus Veritas series
Even in the logical, scientific, sense, the question is still interesting, for it asks that we retrace cosmic […]
As anyone who has ever tried to stay atop a rank colt on a bad day can painfully verify, pound for pound, the horse is one of the strongest animals on earth. During a mile-and-a-half race, a horse will burn up enough energy to bring a 55-gallon drum of water from room temperature to a boil. Its heart will pump blood faster than a good stock well can deliver water—enough to fill an enviable jacuzzi to overflowing. The water its […]
