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Paying tribute to their horse companions, 650 Officers and Enlisted Men of the Auxiliary Remount Depot No. 326, Camp Cody, Deming New Mexico .  Camp Cody was a WWI army camp from 1916-1918.

source: I’m a Horseaddict FB

More than 250,000 little boys served in the Civil War. Some became drummer boys, like these members of the 93rd Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry.

The youngest person to enlist in the Union Army was eight-years-old. Edward Black of Indiana. He enlisted in the 21st Indiana Volunteer Infantry as a drummer boy on July 24, 1861. He survived the war but died before he reached the age of 20.

Edward Black’s drum was carefully preserved by his mother and was eventually donated to The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.

Thérèse “Tissa” David (1921 – August 21, 2012) was a Hungarian-born American animator whose career spanned more than sixty years.

She was one of the pioneering women in animation, a field which had been dominated by male animators.

 Millimeter magazine described her as “one of the few women to have reached the top in the traditionally male-dominated animated cartoon field” and “one of the world’s best and busiest” animators in a story published in 1975.

In 1953, she directed Bonjour Paris, becoming the second first female animator to direct an animated feature film.  David later became one of the first women to create and animate a major character in a film when she designed Raggedy Ann for the 1977 movie, Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure.

David, already an animation pioneer, became one of the first women to animate a major film character with the release of Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure in 1977. She noted that “I project a lot of myself into Raggedy Ann.”

 In 1977, David told the New York Times that she designed Raggedy Ann as “a plain Jane with a heart of candy – and she’s all female.”  She elaborated on the production during the same interview saying, “If the work is good, then perhaps I will prove a point … To create a female character in an animated film, you must think like a woman and ‘feel’ like a woman. In other words, you must be a woman.”

Dog Scootering is an activity where one or more dogs pull a human riding an unmotorized kick scooter. It is similar to mushing, which is done in the winter, but generally with fewer dogs and with a scooter instead of a dogsled. The dogs wear the same harnesses that sled dogs wear, and are hooked to the scooter with a gangline. The gangline usually incorporates abungee cord to smooth out the shocks of speeding up and takeoff. 

The scooter is generally unmotorized, and has mountain-bike-style tires ranging from 16″ to 26″. These are not razor-type mini scooters, which would be dangerous in this sport. The scooters incorporate mountain-bike-style brakes and have a large footboard to stand on and kick off from. 

This activity is open to many dogs, from Huskies to Great Danes, and Schnauzers to American Pit Bull Terriers. Any dog over 30 lbs can pull a scooter, but smaller dogs in teams can also be used. The smaller the dog, the more you will have to help out on hills and rough spots. Whereas the larger the dog, the less stamina it will have.

All dogs, regardless of size, must be slowly worked into fitness, along with their owners. Don’t expect to run the Iditarod in your first month! There is often an adjustment period for the dog’s paws, and they may bleed initially if on a longer run, until they toughen up to pavement. The owner of the dog is recommended to carry dog booties along for cuts and abrasions, as well as a bottle of New Skin which seals over the cut and prevents infection.

 December 2011 I decided to change some of my eating habits.  Not diet, but a new approach. My clothes had become uncomfortable in the waist and it was either lose some weight or buy bigger clothes.  Since I have always been on the slender side, the added weight was just not me, even though I think I actually looked better – helped fill out some of the wrinkles.  Nevertheless, I decided to tackle the problem.

Vegetables were always the last thought to my meal, never the first .  That changed.  I began eating salads and lots of steamed vegetables; stopped adding  dollops of margarine ;  started drinking more water;  controlled my portions; continued taking classes in TaiChi; and got back into walking almost every day for 20 minutes.

It worked for me and in about six months I had lost 15 lbs.  I kept to the new way of eating until the last few months and I will admit that I am back to eating chips, cookies, candy and bread, all of which I do not need !  I have to get control over that impulse buying and not go shopping when I am hungry and have so little resistance to salty and sugary goodies.

I had to back off of the raw veggie salads and stick to the steamed, raw didn’t agree with the old tum-tum after a while; I still take TaiChi and when my back isn’t ‘acting up’ I walk 15 minutes or so.  BUT, I am still not comfortable in a brand new pair of Levis I had put away years ago thinking I would wear them when I lost weight ‘some day’.  Well, I lost the weight and they still don’t feel comfortable.

As we age, it isn’t just the weight, it is where it settles that causes the problem.  Oh well!  At least I feel better having lost the 15 pounds.  I’m hoping not to find them, but I think I know where they can be found . . . in the snack section at the Supermarket!