I Can Still Smell the Fresh Hay. . .

I don't recall any men dressed quite this well during my horse years. Jodhpurs, riding boots, helmet, and a polo top, or even hunting pinks for hunts, but not suits or sports jackets as in this illustration. That type of attire just ain't the thing for riding lessons, grooming, and feeding. Or mucking out the stalls.

It's funny the aromas and sounds that stay with you even after decades. For instance, when I think about it, although I have not hung around horse barns in almost 40 years, I can still hear the horses and ponies nickering and smell the fresh bales of hay.

My sister and I used to argue about which one of us could climb into the loft above to wrestle a few new bales over to the hole in the floor and back down the ladder to fill the mangers when we fed our own horses, or helped with the ponies and sheep up the road. Typically, our maternal grandfather or mother would suggest that we could both do it.

"And stop arguing!"

As I say. I can still smell that sweet hay scent and hear their voices.

-- Heinz-Ulrich

Here's something a little more in keeping with this particular post. While I certainly saw my share of hunting pinks, riding boots, and bowler hats at various horse shows and hunts we attended in my youth, I don't remember windowpane suits, cravats, polo coats, or nips of brandy behind the scenes. Unless people were just being careful in the presence of children. You know, windowpane suits might give the wrong ideas to impressionable young minds. Dangerous.

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Up North Style. . .

Bad Dad makes a friend. YMP and Bad Dad on the shores of Lake Michigan. Or was that Crystal Lake? The Grand Duchess takes a selfie in her kayak. How NOT to impress the girls sunning themselves along the river. YMP and Bad Dad kayaking on the Platte River headed toward Loon Lake. J ust back from a week in Northern Michigan in a charming and spacious house on the banks of the Betsie River outside of Thompsonville. A largely pleasant seven days despite some challenging episodes with the Young Master, who has picked up some very questionable habits and language from his friends in the 8th Grade during the school year just ended. But otherwise, we enjoyed ourselves and contemplated remaining for a few days longer since the house was available. In the end, we decided to return home as planned originally since neither my wife, nor I wanted to spend the remaining days chained to our computers in Zoom meetings from our vacation destination. I actually managed to leave the laptop and ip

Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall. I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation. Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold. Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario. But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich

A Lazy Saturday at the End of June. . .

A sleepy first half of the weekend here at Totleigh. Warmer and quite humid ahead of an approaching cool front here in Mid-Michigan. Perfect for yet another pair of chino shorts an a seersucker shirt -- tucked in of course -- with the usual leather deck shoes and ribbon belt. Otherwise, not much accomplished beyond a page or so of writing and monkeying around with audio settings for an upcoming podcast episode. However, I was not completely useless yesterday! I made a huge fruit salad for dinner, which the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed a short while later at the table on the back porch. The Young Master, as is his wont on Saturday evenings, took his dinner on a tray in the TV room upstairs where he whiled away a couple of hours on Flight Simulator, flying some sort of commercial airliner to some destination across the Atlantic or Pacific. I would have loved that sort of technology at about nine or 10 way back during the late 1970s, aka The Stone Age. As it is, my sister and

Classic Style

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