Sunday Stills ~ Pets

Happy Anniversary, Sunday Stills! Each week, Ed at Sunday Stills issues us a new photo challenge. This week’s challenge was “pets”. If you follow my blog, you know I have quite a menagerie, but keeping with the horse related theme, I’ll start with introducing you to my herd. Since it is dark when I go to work right now and dark when I get home, I had to pull the pictures from the archives. I did try to find some I haven’t used before.

Ginger was the first horse we bought in 2000. She was a three-year-old, green broke filly. In hindsight, she was not the best horse for a “first” horse, but if we only knew then what we know now. Today she is 12 years old and still full of fire.

Baby Dutch was a weanling running with the same herd as Ginger. For some reason, John asked the cowboy to price her, as well. I guess he thought she was a good buy as she came home with us that day, too. We were told she was “part” draft. Guess we didn’t realize how much. Baby surprised us years later when she gave birth to a pretty palomino filly, GinnyBelle. An unplanned breeding and a surprise foal, Baby had been in a pasture for a very short time with a not-yet-two-year-old stud colt half her size. If there’s a will, there’s a way.

Blue was my first horse. He was and still is my buddy and my pal. He gave me my confidence back and taught both my kids to ride.

Born on a breezy spring day, Windy is Ginger’s only baby. I sold her as a yearling and bought her back as a young three-year-old. For the last five seasons, I’m not sure if she has taught me more or me, her. It hasn’t been an easy journey, but has been a great ride!

Butterscotch aka “Butter” is my son’s horse. A stocky little quarter horse, she stands right at 14.2 hh. She has the sweetest little trot and is a favorite ride of mine, as well.

And the Non-Equines...

In keeping with the essence of Sunday Stills, I did manage to line up the cats and dogs today for their picture. Now THAT was a challenge considering the cats don’t like each other. The dogs being whores to treats, did line up appropriately. I got two shots of the dogs before Fat Maddie, the Springer, had to lie down and Bo, the St. Bernard, began to scratch every spot that itched! Ritz, my White Shepherd, being the good soldier he is, continued to hold his pose waiting patiently for whatever tidbit he thought we were offering.

Here are the outtakes:

Big Itch! And Maddie laid down. Look at Ritz. Still sitting!

Bo!! Don't go there. (Ritz is still sitting!)

Another big itch! (Good boy, Ritz!)

The Riddle House Hotel

Although it is off-topic for this blog, I wanted to share with you what is going on in John’s life today. You may recall in a previous blog, I mentioned my husband is a “steeplejack”. His specialty is, simply put; repairing/restoring steeples & roofs on churches. It was a profession his dad learned from an old German craftsman. He then taught John and all five of his brothers the trade. Today, John and one other brother continue the tradition. It’s not all he does. He is really a “jack of all trades” or as he says, a "fix 'em up dude". He can do about anything in the construction business. And his most recent job has been quite interesting.

In downtown Wahoo, Nebraska, the former Riddle House Hotel stands on the corner of what is the main street. Over a century old, it is the known birthplace of famed movie producer, Darryl Zanuck, co-founder of Twentieth Century Fox, who's movies include Les Misérables, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green was My Valley, and All About Eve, to name a few. Its possible Zanuck’s father built and ran the hotel as some of the information I have read said Darryl was the son of a “hotelier”.** In the picture above, you can see the hotel on the left hand side behind the lamppost. It was quite elegant in its day.

The hotel closed years ago. It was divided up into other businesses; a bar and some apartments. It changed hands many time but has been vacant and neglected for years and years. When the owner of the bar passed away, it was found that roof problems on the hotel had compromised the structure of both the hotel and the bar. Both were condemned and bids were sent out requesting the hotel be demolished without taking the bar with it. From what I heard, no company was real keen on bidding it. John and his brother was awarded the project.

John found this old picture in the basement of the hotel. It is a circus parade turning down what is known as the main street in Wahoo. The hotel is behind the carriage. I took a picture of the picture, so it isn’t real clear, but there are lions in the cages being pulled by horses. And look at the people sitting above the cages. It is also interesting to see the spectators dressed in suits and the horses tied along the street. The picture above is taken from the same angle as the picture right below. Haven't times changed! Where cars now line the streets, there used to be horses tied to the hitching posts.



John and his brother and their respective crews began work on the building in August. It was dangerous – the first day a wall caved in and threw many of his crew from a scaffold. They trudged on. As they shored up the bar, John said there was a way to save the hotel. He wanted to save it so bad. But there are only funds available to demolish the place, not restore it. And today, the first wall went down.

I was shooting video from across the street. Watch the top left hand corner of the building start to bend out and then goes back in. John and one of his crew were pushing the wall out from the inside. My stomach was turning to mush.

The end of an era.

**Since I wrote this blog earlier today, I've done some more googling about the hotel itself. I found that Zanuck's father was a farm boy from Iowa who worked at the hotel. The hotel was owned by Darryl's maternal grandfather, Henry Torpin.