"A Bear & The Bees" by Hayden Hickner Rocks Big Time!

Yesterday, after Tony and I did our chores outside Kermit took us to the pump house, next door to "Rambam's International House of Pigs" pen, so T. could turn off our water pump, that pumps our water from the creek below the pump house. When he came out and shut the door he was shaking his head sideways—not good news. "Nance, were getting close to being without water, because the creek is so low the pump hardly filled the water tank. I need to go call Robert (our nice neighbor beyond us.) and get him to come over here to see what he thinks." Then he jumped into Kermit and we drove up to the trailer in silence.

After Tone left a message on Robert and Sherry's answering machine I called Kinky to tell him about our water situation and he tried to make me feel better by telling me, "Nance, don't worry about it. Every thing is going to be fine. In the fifties when it was as bad as this—the springs never dried up and..." So, I spent the morning returning several phone calls and e-mails.

Around 1:00 the phone rang and it was Robert. He and Tony talked, for three or four minutes, about the creek and every one's severe water shortage out here—then Tony adios-ed him and turned off the phone. "Robert is coming over now and I need to go meet him down at the creek."

"I want to go too, so I can see how bad it is," I said, grabbing my camera off of the kitchen table. When we jumped into Kermit we could hear Robert, on the backhoe, coming down the road, so we took off to meet him.

When we got down to the bridge T. stopped Kermit and put him into four-wheel drive, then he turned the steering wheel hard to the right and we got off-road and drove down into the nearly dry creek bed and it was weird to see the creek bed nearly dried up with just a few spring-fed puddles left. Here's a picture I took inside of Kermit, parked in the middle of the rocky creek bed looking towards the bridge.

When we reached Robert he had already begun digging a bigger and deeper hole for us and all that we could do was sit and watch.

Twenty minutes later, Robert turned off the backhoe and said, "This should help some. I made it twice as deep and wide, so it can fill more. And if and when it ever does rain again, y'all can use it as a swimming hole."

"Thank you so much, Robert!" I gratefully half-hollered from Kermit. Then Tony thanked him and then we talked about the serious drought that we were in and then we all went back home to get out of the one hundred and one degree weather. 

And now for some good news. Tropical Storm Don is brewing in the Gulf waters and our weather man is now predicting rain for us on Friday, Saturday and Sunday! I am thrilled, but, I sure hope it doesn't hurt our coast and the people and the animals living down there.

Today has been great even though we are now water rationing. Tony and I did our outdoor chores early, so we could go to Kerrville and pick up the little Yorkie, that we rescued, so we could bring it back to the ranch and adopt it out to Rosie.

When we arrived at the clinic we visited with a vet about the little dog. We found out that his name was Zeke, he was born on October 4, 2009, which I like, because that makes him a lucky Libra like me and he was in excellent health. After we paid the vet for neutering and a rabies shot, we went outside the clinic and I took this picture of Zeke with Tony. Then we came back to the ranch to find Rosie, who could not wait to meet her new forever friend.

When we arrived back we went straight over to the Lodge and showed Zeke to Kinky, which he said was precious, and then we went and found Rosie. And needless to say, "It was love at first sight for the both of them." Then we came home.

Late this afternoon Tony and I had a painting project. We painted the hallway, so we can turn it into a trailer photography gallery for Tony's beautiful pictures. It took us two hours to accomplish and I must admit that the hallway looks a lot better since repainting it. But, we are still not done. Hopefully, within the next few days, we will have either painted or sanded down the hall floor and have built a bookcase to put our tools on, then Tone's Gallery will be open for our friends to view and enjoy. When we finish our project and hang T.'s pictures on the walls— I will take pictures and show it off to y'all.

Tomorrow is going to be a fun day. Tomorrow morning Tony and I are getting up really early and going outside, at sunup, to do our morning chores, because our good friend Sandy Wolfmueller is coming out at 8:30 to ride with us to the Medina Community Library, for Hayden Hickner's very first book signing, at 9:30, for his beautifully written and illustrated children's book A Bear & The Bees and we are all so excited for him and I am betting that the whole town shows up, so we're going to try to get there a little bit early and grab a seat, before it becomes standing room only.

Well, that is about it for tonight, except for telling you about a mystery, musician man (friend of ours from Texas) that is coming out tomorrow afternoon to jam with us.

Y'all have a great evening and please keep praying for rain for us!