A Hairy Situation!

Yesterday was a great day. Saturday morning, while Brandon and Tony did the chores outside, I was busily cleaning our trailer. Because Mama, our Great Pyrenees, is shedding her thick winter coat it looked like we didn't own a vacuum cleaner or knew how to use one.

Dog hair was everywhere to be found and it was mixed with Mama's, Toto's, Abbie's, Roy's, Belle's and Beau's hair. As Hazel was sucking it up from the floor and the furniture, I laughed out loud. I thought it would be funny to dump the hair-filled canister into a Priority Mailer and ship it to Fay, as a joke, because in my first novella she supposedly collects, washes, spins and weaves dog hair place mats.

The reason that I was frantically spiffing up The Cabin was because the famous, Kerrville Red Hat Ladies were coming out at 1:00, so we could give them a grand tour of our rescue ranch. I was more than excited to meet these gals and I wanted our trailer to look like we didn't live here.

When the men finished doing the outside work, I had finished doing the inside work, thanks to Hazel. When they came inside The Cabin, Tony told me, "Nance, I need to run to the hardware store in Medina and I will be right back."

When Tony took off, I got the ingredients out that Brandon needed to cook us his recipe that he calls, Brandon's Chinese Spaghetti. After he had put the meat in the skillet and seasoned it, with the spaghetti boiling in a pan right next to it he asked, "Can we play some music and use your amp?"

In no time flat, he had my mandolin plugged in for him to play and my pink cable plugged into my guitar and amp. Then we pulled two of the bar stools out into the middle of the big room, so we could face each other and then we started pickin' and grinnin'. We played all kinds of songs from Blues, Bluegrass, Country and Rock & Roll and Brandon made us sound great, because he is a very talented musician.

When Tone returned home the music stopped, because my fingers were killing me and because lunch was ready. As we ate Cousin Nancy's Chinese  Spaghetti, which was absolutely delicious, Brandon and I could not quit talking about how excited we were about my banjo coming on Tuesday. After he had told me how much he loved playing banjos I looked at Tony and he winked back at me. Then I said, "Tony and I talked earlier and we want to buy you a banjo like mine, for your graduation gift since your banjo is in Arizona. Would you like that or prefer money?"

"Oh my goodness, I would love to have a banjo like yours..." His words and excitement made Tony's and my day great.

After lunch while I quickly cleaned up the kitchen, Brandon played my guitar and mandolin some more. Then it was show time! We put up the instruments, put all of the dogs outside, in the backyard, except for Mama and then we went outside to greet the Kerrville Red Hat Ladies, which turned out to be some of the coolest women in Kerrville.

After I had welcomed and introduced myself, Brandon and Tony to the eleven smiling women wearing red hats we started the grand tour. First we showed them The Okay Corral, Tony's No Whiner Diner and my pink writing cabin. To say the least, "They loved it all, especially The Bunkhouse.

Then another car showed up and it wasn't part of their group, so Tony and Brandon took off to greet the visitors and give them a tour. "Let's go up to The Cabin, which is our thirty-year-old trailer, because I want to show it to y'all and give each of you a copy of my new novella."

Mama greeted each and everyone of them at the gate. They loved our view from the front porch, our cabin and Outer Space. As I signed copies of my book, Mama stole their hearts even though she was shedding. By the time we left The Cabin, to show these charming women our dogs outside, Mama's long white hair had found new homes on all of their outfits.

We spent about thirty minutes outside as I introduced them to everyone of our magnificent rescued dogs, which of course stole their hearts, too. And before they drove away I thanked the Kerrville Red Hat Ladies for coming out and their donation of our rescue ranch. When they took turns hugging me and thanking me for giving them a fun tour I did not want them to leave, so I said, "We would love for y'all to come out and walk our dogs on Fridays..."

Fifteen minutes later, Tony and Brandon walked inside The Cabin and Tony said, "Those two nice women work for a vet in Kerrville and next month when they move into a house, they want to adopt Holly, if we still have her..."

"That's fantastic news, but Tony remember that her new name, that Ellen came up with at lunch on Friday, is Tallulah Bankhead."

Ten minutes later, as planned, the Girl Scouts from Dripping Springs! So Brandon, Tony and I went back outside to greet the lovely girls and some of their parents. After howdies and hugs, one of the cute girls said, "We brought our rakes and we're ready to work!" And work they did.

First, Brandon helped them unloaded several bags of dog food and dog treats, then the girls handed our treats and raked leaves and removed rocks from Martha Stewart's pen, Tuesday Weld's pen and Landry and Buffy's pen.

When that was all said and done, we went around to the pens and they handed out toys to our happy dogs. Before they left to head back to Dripping Springs, I bought three boxes of Girl Scout Cookies for Tony, Brandon and me.

After hugs and thanking them for all that they do for our rescue ranch they drove away and Brandon said, "Those girls really worked hard for over an hour. And I can't believe how many great people that I've met since I started working for y'all. Everyone is so nice and..." That's about it for now, because today has been quiet and restful.

Y'all have a great evening!