Normal will return

I am sorry I have not posted. My nephews memorial was yesterday. There were 100s of people there. Each one had stories about how either his mom or he had touched their lives.

My sister has been a single mom since he was 3. He died at age 24.

One of the men who was there was his first soccer coach from when he was around 4 yrs old! His band instructor from High School. My sisters co-workers from many years ago. Old bosses.

Nephew's room mates from college, and of course extended family.

He had touched the lives of so many. On March 27, 2002 he accepted Christ. From that point on his faith never waivered, even in the midst of illness. He never pushed his faith on you but loved to talk about it.

His youth paster did the service and almost didn't make it to the end. He had the privilage of becoming his friend after he became an adult.

Today's weather I believe will be a gift from God. It won't be over 86 degrees. Now this is Texas in the summer. This never happens...ever.

She has a very rough road ahead of her. But she knows that her son lived life every day to the very fullest and she wants to do the same because of her. She just doesn't know how at this point.

July 27th; 2:57pm. We lost my nephew today

I am sorry to say that my sister lost her only son today. After a night of severe respritory distress, he was moved back to ICU. He was kept sedated but had had a period of oxygen deprivation which caused him to have neurological damage.

All of his family and friends were called in. You would not believe how many people came and held his hand, kissed him and whispered into his ears.

The time finally came for my sister and her ex husband to make the decision and they did it well and as a team.

I was worried about the crowd that was in his room spilling out into the hall...that maybe my sister would be upset by it or that the ICU staff would be upset. But no one wanted to leave. Later the chaplin let my sister know that daily people die who are either alone or have few people with them. This crowd gave the staff hope that there are families out there who still love each other.

We all prayed together and I held my sister as they stopped his ventilator. If he was completely dependendant on it then his time would be short. It was.

He never fought or acted like he was in pain. His heart slowed and stopped as he was surrounded by the people he loved most of all.

Now his body is not crippled and he is in no more pain. As I have said so many times before, I am so proud of my sister.

She voiced regrets of things she wished she had done different in the past few days. But I told her that her regrets would be few because she was an amazing caregiver, and amazing mother and an amazing woman.

Thank you for your prayers.

WHAT HAPPENS IF WE LOSE POWER--NO FREEZER? NO REFRIG?

I thought this article was very interesting and I have never heard of it before. It is called a Zeer Pot. It is used a lot in Africa to store perishables. Meat can last up to two weeks in it.

http://www.slashfood.com/2006/09/28/how-cool-is-that-zeer-pot/

It works much like an evaporative cooler. I am going to try this as soon as I can find free pots on Craigs list. We take for granted our appliances but we may be in a situation one day when the frig dies and we just don't have the money to buy a new one.

SPIDER BOY

DIDN'T KNOW MY GRANDSON WAS SPIDEY!

ALSO TODAY WAS THE FIRST LAUNDRY LESSON FOR MY GRAND BOYS. THEY WILL BE DOING THEIR OWN LAUNDRY WHILE THEY ARE HERE.

THEY WILL ALSO BE GRINDING THEIR OWN WHEAT, MAKING BREAD OF ALL KINDS, LEARNING HOW TO BUILD A FIRE AND COOK ON IT. YOU CAN TELL THEY REALLY ENJOYED LAUNDRY DAY.

AND PS....I FOUND ANOTHER SOURCE OF RABBIT POOP. I PICKED UP ABOUT 200 POUNDS TODAY!! WOOHOOO

WHAT CAN 18 FARM FRESH EGGS AND 2 TOMATOES BUY?

GUESS WHO WALKED INTO MY YARD TODAY?

So daughter and grand boys were playing in the front yard when up walked Sarah Beth (name provided by the youngest grand boy).

Sarah looks like she has been on her own for a while. She is just skin and bones. But she smiles a lot when the boys are in the yard.

SO FAR she hasn't tried to eat any farm animals. She wants to make friends with the kitties. For some reason they don't feel the same.

Another thing that happened today....as a lot of you know I listen to thesurvivalpodcast.com and have been trying to get into a better financial position. I am not ready to make any huge investments but I believe that gold and silver are good investments. They are also something I can invest in slowly. So I will purchase silver through Tea Party Silver (really nice people).

Here is my first of many purchases.

Also God set up the best way to manage your money. The 80/10/10 method. Financial advisors use this now. I am investing in my own future. I have not been giving like I should but will give the same amount I invest.

***on a bad note....spoke to my mortgage company today. They told me they were raising my house payment $100/month! I homesteaded my land which lowered my taxes lower than last year. My insurance only went up $40/year. Ok taxes are down....insurance only went up $40....yet they are still raising my house payment $700/year!!!!! I asked to have a manager email me and do you think they actually did? Of course not. I hope none of you have B of A!!!

I believe I need to heavily work on paying off my house first.

LIGHT HARVEST

I am still getting tomatos and cantelopes. Even have some stunted yellow hubbards trying to grow, a volunteer basil and the stevia and mints are still growing. I pulled up the soy beans and they are hanging to dry.

Got a good gather of eggs today. I guess the girls are tired of waiting to see if I am going to let them out. Studmuffin doesn't care if he is out as long as his girls are with him.

FRESH TOMATOS AND SPEGHETTI

I was very surprised at how tomatos sliced right off of the vine are wonderful as a side for homemade speghetti. This was very wonderful after a hard 12.5 hour work day. My daughter is a good cook.

ARE YOU READY TO STAND YOUR GROUND WITH NOTHING BUT A CROW BAR? (warning gross pics)

I have been confronted many times by an agressive large possum on my front porch. MY PORCH! I knew that if I ever got a chance to shoot this guy with my new shot gut I would not hesitate.

Tonight a friend was over and as he left my home through the front door, right by the front door is the cat bowl and eating the food was the big possum.

Tonight was different though. Tonight he didn't stand down and run away. He simply looked at us and kept eating. WRONG move.

My problem? The only thing within reach was a crow bar. My friend got to see me go nuts. NOT ON MY PORCH. I work my butt off for this porch. Not only do I have a two hour commute to a job with long hours, but I do this so that I can have a place in the country on my own. Fear rules me a lot of the time but not tonight by gosh. Tonight I took back the porch. A crow bar is a formidable weapon in the hands of a pms'ing woman. Keep that in mind boys.

COLD FRONT IN JULY!

That is right. A cold front came through last night and a huge storm with it. All I remember was a loud crack of thunder right after a bright flash and the sound of two little boys screaming and running down the hall to their momma. They say they like storms as long as momma holds them.

Today it was only 94 and tomorrow it will only be 92! woohhooo!

So today I see the boys had been very busy building a pet shop. For a resonable fee of .50 they will take care of my pet while I am at work.

Here is the exterior of the pet shop.

Here is the insde with the only patron.

And from this sign I believe we find that only boys are allowed.

Daughter had cleaned the house and had the last of the home grown chickens marinating in pineapple marinade.

She cooked her famous butter baked potatos and in the dutch oven is green beans and corn.

We sat by the fire and drank a couple of beers and just listened to the chatter of the grandboys running their pet shop.

I harvested 4 very large cantelopes today. Each weighed about 8 pounds.

MINOR REPAIRS AND A CHANGE IN MY DAUGHTER?

Ok this is a very minor accomplishment. Yesterday someone (no one will fess up) broke the little arm to my flush handle on my toilet. It was not working right anyway but it broke off.

For $3.47 at Wally World I bought a new one and fixed it myself....AND IT WORKS! How cool is that. Ok so some of you are thinking it is silly but I think it is cool.

I have suspected that living in the country and being around her country mom has been rubbing off on my daughter. When I came home today I found something that proved it.....here it is.

She used my hunting knife to slice pizza. I told you I influence people just being me.

:)

CAMP FIRE HAMBURGERS AND SMORES

Last night we built a fire and cooked out burgers and smores. It is very hot still up until dark but it doesn't seem to bother the boys.

We had some left over fire works and shot off some of them last night. It was a good evening. The boys moods were happier than they had been when they first got here. Bed time is hard anyway but I REALLY NEED BUNKBEDS! Big brothers just have to bother little brothers. It seems to be some kind of law or something.

The cicadas are really singing loud. I have not found many shells clinging to the tree trunks but they sing so loud they almost make you deaf. In WV when I was a kid, the cicada didn't start to sing until summer was almost over. Soon it would be time to go back to school.

The sun is coming up now. I am going to be late getting to work because Boo is getting her windows tinted and her bed step installed today.

I will drink coffee and listen to Studmuffin wake the farm.

PUMPKIN HARVEST AND ANIMAL RESCUE

I have a wonderful friend who mailed chalk to me for my grandboys. The boys are with us for the next 3 weeks!! woohoooo!!!!!!!! So the first order of business? Decorate the chicken house.

Second order of business? Pumpkin harvest. We took the last two from the garden. I will check and see if there is any sign of additional growing pumpkins. If not I will pull all of the pumpkin vines.

The boys asked me if they could carve faces in the pumpkins. I told them no and that we needed to wait til Halloween. Then I weighed the 12 # pumpkin I harvested last week and it is down to 10# now. I don't think they will last til halloween. We may have to have halloween early.


And I will need to start another pumpkin patch.

Flash loves hiding in the pumpkin vines.

Flash and Baby are big helpers. They are great supervisors.

Then we discovered that a little chicken had escaped. Jayden helped rescue Bandit.

Baby, the great hunter that he is caught a mousie and was getting ready to eat it when Jayden discovered him. Animal rescuer that he is, he saved the mousie and took him way down into the field and let him go.

ACE IS THE PLACE

I posted before about the new kerosene lantern that I bought at ACE Hardware for $11. I have been very happy with that and ordered 2 more. They deliver to the local store for no shipping.

While I was there I asked about just the top part that holds the wick and believe it or not they have those in stock at the store! I bought one and took it home and sure enough it fits my large old lamps so I will swing by tomorrow and pick up another one.

I also purchased 325 feet of garden hose. I have lost all of my blueberry bushes and one of the pinion pines and now my apply trees are looking bad. Next payday I will buy a soaker hose too and will begin 1 or 2 times per week through September soaking all the trees.

SLEEP OVER!!

My sister came to my house for a night out in the country. We went to the little coutry bar where my daughter bar tends. I love this place. It is like Cheers. Sis loved it too. The owners wanted us to come to a post 4th of July party with them but she and I just wanted to build a fire and go for a walk and then sit by the fire until it burned out.

I got the walking stick and she practiced being a ninja.

Stuey loved the trip in the country as he is a city dog.

He got attacked by a kitty right away...a very tough kitty.

Then he got to meet a horse with a big nose....

and two cows....they smelled just like Aunt Tracy's shoes.

He was so tired he laid by the fire until the two women were done talking and the sun was long gone and then went in and fell asleep on the memory foam mattress.

Life in the country is not all roughin it.

^

^

GO ARMY

Today's Army and war are not really like it used to be. I am blessed to be able to talk to my son in Afghanastan almost any time I want to. All I have to do is send a text and he calls me back on his international cell phone.

Do you know it averages 150 degrees there on any given day? They don't work in the air conditioning over there. How do they survive?

On the day Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, my grandmother and grandfather sat horrified in front of the radio crying with the rest of our nation. Not just because of the start of a war, but because their son was stationed there. They lived in mourning for almost a month.....then he walked in the door.

My uncle had made his way home as he had been on leave in CA when the attack happended. Can we say Folgers moment? Then I would have taken a 2x4 to him for not finding a phone to call. But this shows you that it wasn't as easy as picking up the phone. I doubt that his mom and dad even had a phone. Not many people in those coal towns did. And rather than write a letter which would have taken just as long as he did to arrive, he hitched home for the rest of his leave.

For now, I will support my boy and the work he does for the US Army.

THE END OF THE RAINBOW

I could not post this yesterday. Bad storms in the area. I was stormed on all the way home until I got to Rockwall, TX. Then the sun broke out of the clouds and there were several dual sets of rainbows at different places across the sky against the retreating black clouds.

They were low bows ....not normal at all....they were very wide and low to the ground. I have never seen anything like them.

I was getting very close to one...I could see it's color against the tree line I was getting ready to drive past when all of a sudden it happened!!!

I drove through a rainbow! My white truck outside and inside was suddenly bright green, yellow and red! so were the 3 cars driving close to me. You could see the awe on the faces of the other drivers as we slowed to enjoy the experience. This lasted about 2 minutes but it is 2 minute of something I may never get to do again.

(too bad I didn't see the pot o gold)

PS....I asked my daughter to move her old vehicle out of the driveway so it wouldn't take up any more room. She called me at work...she had clipped the guy wire to the power pole and knocked the power out to the house.

I called FEC...they said they would send someone out.

next call from daughter..."Why would the power truck pull in the drive and turn around and leave without fixing the power?"

to FEC..."? a woman who anwered the phone...she said she would give me the repair foreman...who answered the phone angry....I asked him the question....well maybe it is because they are trying to get the power back on the other 19 people that your daughter knocked the power out to.....you gotta admit....when she does it .....she does it big! That's my girl.

HOPE , ROCKS AND COMPOST

Today I got to hear a very wonderful thing in my sisters voice. A small amount of hope. Today the doctors told her that they saw improvement in her son's xray. It has been so long since I heard that sound. It was so wonderful!

Home: I have been watching craigslist for cardboard because I found out the hard way that thick newspaper doesn't control bermuda grass at all. As you know I got tons of rocks in Oklahoma last weekend. I wanted to place layered cardboard under them to control weeds. I
will also put them around the outside of the raised beds because of how I am battling that grass too. I mentioned this to my mail room staff and they showed me a huge pile of old computer boxes that they had been putting off throwing away because of how much room they
take in the dumpster. woohoo! I flattened about 8 but ran out of lunch hour.

I went to the dentist after work and ran errands and then got home around 5:45pm Lots of time to work. I took the boxes and cut them to fit the areas in the front flower beds that I needed to keep weeds out, then put the rocks on top along the edge. I have not cleaned the area up yet and when it rains the rocks will look better as they have whitish dirt on
them.

The cardboard showing on the outside will breakdown and eventually I will trim it back. Right now it's job is to kill the perimeter grass.

Then I took the tractor and trailer back to the compost pile and filled the trailer twice with wonderful compost and dumped it in the flower beds out front. I was tired after hauling rock and shovelling compost so I decided to mow til dark.

I have a load of laundry in and am resting a while and then will go out and check the chickens and fill foods and waters. I am very excited about this cardboard. It is very
thick and I feel as if I am doing something helpful to the environment by reusing instead of throwing it away.

Tomorrow I have to trim the St Augustine which is trailing across the side walk and clean up a bit. Then I will continue to mow.

I am very excited because my sister may be spending the night with me on Saturday night. Just a little trip to the country.

POUNDS OF VEGGIES AND TONS OF ROCKS

Well I took my grandboys to my ex's house in OK on Friday morning and then went on a road trip. A friend was close to town and asked me to come visit him for the 4th weekend. I accepted the offer.

While in OK I picked up my first of many truckloads of rock from my ex's property. I am very excited about this as it will be used to line flower beds and build raised bed gardens.

What an upper body workout loading and unloading this.

Then off to my friends hotel. He is in the area on business and because if his type of business, he lives in hotels a lot and hated to spend the 4th alone.

This was the coolest weekend. I made good time getting there and we hadn't seen each other since fall so it was really good to see him. After a brief rest we were trying to decide were to go eat. We found a very cool little cuban restaurant that specialized in mojitos and homemade cuban flan! It almost made me cry! It was on a hidden little river walk. The night was hot but not too. I loved the atmosphere. Our table was outside by the riverwalk.

I slept like a baby, and got up and we went to a local place and got the most wonderful breakfast burritos I have ever had in my life. Then off we went to see another city that had wineries and a very good restaurant which we planned on going to at lunch. After that breakfast though we knew it would be dinner before we were hungry. So we decided to go west on country roads to see where they would take us.

Well eventually they took us right to that little city with the winery. We got to sample strawberry wine, chocolate cherry wine and a bubbly honey mead. We bought all of them, a cork screw and some plastic cups and thought we would try to find a place to sit by the local river.

It was crowded around the winery so we decided to go drive around. We ran into a dead end after going through a neighborhood at an open gate. He had a large suv and decided to go off roading a little. What we found really amazes me. After driving around out in the fields we came to a quiet shaded little camp site on the edge of a cool slow moving river!

Huge cypress trees graced the far bank, the sun was hot and the water was very cool. We could not resist. We went swimming. Floating in the cool water with our platic cups of honey mead was amazingly relaxing. We did see a turtle that was big enough to eat us but my friend assured me that he would not.

While in the water I made a friend.

The flowers growing along the rivers edge were beautiful.

The wildlife was beautiful.

After hours of floating it was time for dinner. We had a lot left over because of the heat.

After dinner we drove back to the hotel for a shower and rest and then it was time to find a spot and watch fireworks.

The same blessings that followed us at the river found us an amazing spot to watch the fireworks. We were on top of a parking garage right when they started going off over the city. I could not think of a better way to watch the 4th than with an amazing friend.

After the show we decided ice cream would be a nice way to end the day.

Today I drove home today and upon arrival had to unload the tons of wonderful rock that I collected in Oklahoma.

Then I harvested some squash...6.5 pounds to be exact.

Plus a 12 pound pumpkin. Lighter than I expected. I should have harvested it last week.

Now I am resting and will go to bed shortly. My thoughts and prayers are with our military men and women stationed around the world away from their families.