MADE IN USA!

This past week has been great and I apologize for not posting anything since last Wednesday, because I've been so traumatized after having my two close encounters with an "Iguana" and a "Unicorn Grasshopper or Alien." And thankfully, I am now fully recovered from those two hair-raising events, because of your helpful comments and because we've been pretty busy out here and over at our new place—just down the road.

Last Thursday Tony and I went to Habitat for Humanity, in Ingram, with Sam & Stacie and we got a great bargain on three, double-paned windows, for our cabin in the woods.

Friday afternoon we ate lunch with our good friend, Eileen and later in the evening, Tony and I went up to the Medina Highpoint Resort's Koyote Grill to eat their delicious All-You-Can-Eat Catfish Buffet. And to meet up with our good friends: Bethany, Carol and Fourth, so we could all sit, out on Koyote's patio, to listen to David Wayne & Doc's great music.

Saturday was our rescue ranch open house and we had several people come out to take tours of our rescue ranch and to visit. And I spent the most part of our evening writing.

Sunday was really exciting for me, because after doing over a years worth of research on the best composting toilets, I finally purchased the 2017 top-rated— Nature's Head composting toilet MADE IN USA, with just One-Click, with my Amazon Prime. And I was so thrilled about it I hardly slept a wink that night.

Monday morning, because I was so tired or because Roy has loose lips—Big Al(ice) tried to commit suicide, in our kitchen. Right after I had given Roy his pain pill he accidentally dropped it and it fell on the floor. And in a split second, before I could pick it up—Big Al swallowed it.

I was completely horrified that Big Al ate the pill and I wanted to half-holler, "Tony!" but I couldn't because he was working, over at our new place.

Knowing that time was of the essence, I picked up "Alice in wonderland" or soon to be "Alice in la-la-land" in my arms and then I race-skipped outside and we took off to go find Tony, in JJ Cale (our new/used 2012 GMC pickup).

Even though I felt like I was the famous race car driver, Carroll Shelby, I was only driving 35 mph and in just a few minutes when I saw Tony working, "I lowered the window, and half-hollered, "Tony! Alice is a drug addict! And she just overdosed, trying to commit suicide, using Roy's pain pills!"

I was obviously still in shock, because I was still wearing my pajamas, my heart was pounding and I wasn't even wearing my white cap, which of course, proves that I was in shock. Anyway, Tony grabbed our suicidal, little, drug-addicted dog and they took off for Hoegemeyers and I took off to come back home.

As soon as I race-skipped, back inside The Cabin, I called Kathy, at Hoegemeyer Animal Clinic, to alert her that Tony was on his way there with our wayward, drug-addict Chihuahua. Then I took a shower and dressed and tried to calm down. Bottom   Line: Big Al(ice) was fine after all. She is not a drug-addict thank goodness. And the only reason why she did it was to get more attention from us. But we've grounded her for six weeks.

Yesterday afternoon, our good friend Anna Oakley, from Terlingua, came to visit us and to spend the night, with her sweet dog Tubo. We showed her our new place and she loved it and then we came home. But before I cooked us dinner we went over to visit with Kinky, at the Lodge.

We didn't get to stay very long, because Kinky was taking a short break, from recording his new, upcoming CD, that our friend Brian Molnar is producing.

Anyway, we loved seeing Anna and we had a wonderful visit with her, before she and Tubo left this morning. And here's a cute picture that Anna took last night, of Little Debbie, sitting on top of our kitchen table. An example why Big Al(ice) wants and needs to get more attention from us.

And to finish tonight's post, on a good note, our Nature's Head composting toilet arrived this afternoon and Tony and I are on Cloud 9 about it, because we absolutely love it almost as much as we love our Big Al. (Sorry, for Alice's sake I felt like I had say that, so she'll feel more important.)

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

P.S. We really are busy working on our new place. I am also doing a lot of writing, so please be patient with me and my "daily" blog. I will try to write more often than once a week—I promise.

Another Longmire Connection!

Today has been great and also the last few days. This past Wednesday, our dear friends Jim Keaveny and his sweet wife, Anna Oakley, and Tobu, their super smart dog, came to visit us and spend the night, in my pretty, pink, writing cabin. And even though we had thunderstorms, for most of their visit, we had a wonderful time with them.

Today we met our great friends/volunteers, at Fuddruckers, in Kerrville, to celebrate Ellen's and Lisa's birthdays. As we ate our lunch, Ellen and Lisa passed around their hilarious birthday cards and because the cards kept us laughing, it took us a long time to finish eating our food.

June brought a beautiful, Creative Cakes By Sharon, birthday cake. And the delicious cake was divided by a thick row of chocolate frosting. One side, written in pink frosting, were the words, "Happy Birthday Ellen!" and the other half of the cake was written in lavender frosting, were the words, "Happy Birthday Lisa!" And needless to say, Tony and I had a blast with our friends and it will be a birthday party to be remembered, unless of course I forget, which seems to be happening fairly often these days.

After the fun birthday party, I asked Lisa, Eileen and Kris & Jim to follow me, in the parking lot, to Buttermilk, because I had something I wanted to give to them. And Jim says, "Nancy, we've got something we want to give to y'all, too."

"Oh my goodness, Jim!" I said. "Does it have something to do with Longmire?"

Jim tilted his head sideways, and said. "Well, yes. Why?"

"Oh dear," I said. "Because last Friday Eileen gave me the coolest tray with our cast and crew's picture on it and I absolutely love it, but I had to tell her that I had sort of  come up with the same idea, because I had already ordered 10 posters of that picture to give away to the cast and crew of Longmire—Texas Style, except the picture that I used didn't show the Grey Goose Saloon sign, in it like Eileen's did. Did you make prints, too?"

"No, not exactly," Jim replied. It's something else." When we got to Buttermilk I quickly handed Eileen, Lisa and Kris & Jim a poster and they seemed to love it and that made me feel good. Then after we adios-ed Lisa and Eileen and they walked away, Jim said, "Kris and I got this for y'all. And it's only been out for two days. Hot off of the press, so to speak." Here's a picture of Eileen's one of a kind tray and the poster that Tony I gave to our friends.

Oh, and that's my Rolling Thunder Ranch brand, that I designed and then burned into the wood, on the upper left hand corner of our coffee table. The beautiful coffee table that Tony made for me over twenty years ago. And here is the 1st edition book, that that Kris & Jim gave to us. That Tony said I could get to read first!

Late this afternoon we had another Longmire Connection. Randy & Burma came out to meet Katee Sackhoff, because they were pretty sure that they wanted to adopt her and add her to their family.

While they were petting Katee, Burma told me that when she saw Katee's picture and read her story, that Judith Pannebaker, had kindly published, in last weeks Bandera County Courier newspaper, she knew that they had to adopt her. And they loved Katee Sackhoff's name and are not going to change it, because they too, are big time fans of Longmire and the beautiful actress that plays Vic. 

Tony and I really liked Burma and Randy from the git-go, but not as much as Katee already loved them and they already loved Katee. And here is a picture I took of Katee with her new, awesome family.

This evening I received an e-mail from Kinky's friend, who is touring with him, in Europe. It read:

"Hey Nancy, we have a message from the great man for you: Thanks for checking on the lodge for me. Will see you guys on the 25th, late. Then I'm back for good. I'm never leaving again. Love, Kinky"

So, I immediately shot this back to Kinky, via his friend:

"I'm never leaving again." Famous last words ; )  or is this a threat?....

Please tell Kinky that it is no big deal. Bob left today and The Friedmans are doing just fine. It has been raining at least every other day for several weeks. The creeks are over-flowing and the grass, weeds and thistle make it look like a jungle out here. So don't be shocked if you can't see The Lodge when you drive in, because it's there. It is just being hidden by the tall thistle, weeds and grass. And the rescue ranch looks like a jungle, too. I send my best to y'all. Take care and keep on laughing..."

As I finish writing this tonight, I want you to know that as I am typing this, Henry Standing Bear (another Longmire connection) is snoring loudly, underneath our bed and that I am fixin' to start reading Craig Johnson's The Highwayman! Longmire Rules Big Time!

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing! 

Medina To Terlingua! or Austin To Boston! or Medina To Kerrville!

Today has been great. It's been a quiet day and I spent much of the morning catching up with rescue ranch paperwork, returning phone calls and e-mails, etc.

As y'all already know, our good musician friends Jim Keaveny and his super sweet wife, Anna Oakley and their dog Tubo, recently visited us and they spent the night in my pink writing cabin, before driving from Medina To Terlingua, where they live.

Kinky, Tony and I had a wonderful time visiting with them and before we adios-ed each other they gave Tony and me some frozen boudin, that they had purchased in Louisiana. Anyway, today I cooked the boudin for our lunch and it was absolutely the most delicious boudin that we've ever eaten.

So after I sent Anna and Jim a thank you e-mail for giving us the best boudin in the world, I decided to take a break and watch the movie Austin To Boston, while our clothes were tumbling around, inside our dryer, Airy Queen.

I had so much fun watching this high-spirited musical road movie with Little Debbie and Big Al(ice) sleeping, on my lap, Roy and Belle sleeping side by side, beside Roy's and my chair and Henry Standing Bear and Beau sleeping on the front porch.

I highly recommend Austin To Boston to anyone who loves music! The movie is about five VW camper vans, 4 bands, 3,000 miles in two weeks. The musicians are all incredibly talented. The musicians are: Ben Howard, The Staves, Nathaniel Rateliff and Bear's Den and it was produced by Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons and Ty Johnson. And it was narrated by Gill Landry .

After watching this fabulous movie about what it's like to be traveling musicians I immediately added their channels to my Pandora music list. Then I folded our clothes.

You can watch Austin To Boston on Netflix and if you click on Austin To Boston you can watch the movie trailer and get a sample of their incredibly great music. And that's about it for today, because Tony and I are fixin' to drive from Medina to Kerrville.

Y'all have a great day/evening!

We Had Visitors From Afar! or A Really Big Crush!

Yesterday and today have been so much fun for Tony and me, because yesterday we had visitors from afar and they weren't Aliens, even though I would love to have Aliens, like Bob, come visit me.

Our first visitors yesterday arrived around 3:30. They were Philip & Cheryl, these super nice professors of literature, who drove all of the way from Kansas. And the main reason they came to see us was to drop off Harry's, (Philip's father) huge collection of first edition, signed Kinky books, posters and Kinky memorabilia etc., that Harry has generously donated to our rescue ranch, so we can sell them or auction them off to benefit Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch. 

When Philip & Cheryl arrived it was misting outside, so Tony and Philip quickly transported Harry's boxes and framed posters to a safe place for us to store Harry's collection. Then we invited our new friends to come inside The Cabin for a really fun visit, because Harry had told me about how much his son and daughter-in-law love Terlingua and enjoy going to the Big Bend National Park.

So, as we sipped our teas or coffees, we became fast friends, because we had so much in common. Seriously, if one of us wasn't talking about Harry & Wanda, music, books or Big Bend then we were all laughing. 

Unfortunately, they could only stay and visit for about an hour, because they needed to get back to their friend's house, in Austin, before dark-thirty, because they are spending their Spring Break attending Austin's famous, annual SXSW Music Festival. 

Tony and I were having so much fun with them we hated to see them leave, but we hugged and adios-ed each other and bid them farewell.

An hour and a half later, Sarah Burton arrived and we hit it off instantly with her, too. Sarah Burton is an awesome singer/songwriter and musician who plays both the guitar and the piano, but not at the same time. She is from Canada and she has duel Canada/USA citizenship. And she has recently purchased some property, in Terlingua, while she was out there playing some gigs, in Terlingua. 

Anyway, earlier this week, our dear friend, Chet O'Keefe, had sent me an e-mail about how she had become good friends with him and Jim Keaveny & his wife Anna Oakley, Haislip, Jamie, Mark, Shannon and the rest of our mutual friends. Then Chet told me that Sarah was going to San Antone and then up to Austin to play at SXSW, so he asked me how I felt about her making a stopover here and spending the night, before driving into the Alamo City to pick up her sister. 

Chet also raved about what a great person and how nice she was and about how awesome her music was, so I immediately wrote him back and said, "...We would love to meet Sarah Burton and she is more than welcomed to spend the night here, in my pretty, pink, writing cabin..."

Last night, Tony and I had so much fun getting to know Sarah Burton. We quickly found out that we had much in common besides loving Terlingua and our mutual friends that live out there. And at one point, after showing her my guitar, I asked Sarah, while she was holding it, if she felt like playing a few of her songs for us. And she did! 

Omg, Sarah Burton is one extremely talented singer/songwriter/musician and her beautiful voice, lyrics and skilled guitar playing totally mesmerized us including: Henry Standing Bear, Little Debbie and Big Al(ice). In fact, Henry made us laugh after she sang her first song, because Henry would not quit staring at Sarah, so I joked, "I think Henry has a really big crush on you."

Sarah left this morning after drinking coffee and eating breakfast with us and once again, we were sad to see her leave. But before she left she gave us two of her CD's, so we are now hooked on her great music, too. Sarah Burton is on Facebook and Twitter, so please check her out and her music. Here are two of her CD's that she signed to Tony, me & Henry, inside the jacket.

We met our dear friends/volunteers today, at the Thai O'Cha Restaurant, to celebrate Jim aka The Mineral Man's birthday and once again, Tony and I had a total blast. When we arrived Kris, Jim's super sweet wife, was Face Time-ing Jim, because she had to go out of town unexpectedly to go help her mother who was recovering from a bout of pneumonia. Anyway, Jim moved his iPhone slowly around our big table so we could all say howdy to Kris and her mom.

Of course, it goes without saying, that our lunch was totally delicious, as always and it was too much fun, because we laughed, joked and teased each other non-stop. And before we were served our delicious lunch, Eileen said, "Nancy and Tony, y'all's Henry Standing Bear is becoming very famous on the Internet." Then she passed her iPhone around for all of us to see what she had posted on Longmire's Official Posse's fan club site.

Eileen did this, because yesterday, after Tony had posted a cute picture of Henry Standing Bear on Tony's Facebook page, Eileen tagged it and then she posted the photo of Henry and Tony's selfie, on Longmire's Posse site and a whole lot of Longmire's loyal fans had—Liked it or had made cute comments about our Henry, that we named in honor of Lou Diamond Phillips' character.

After we finished eating lunch, our good friend Ju and staff came out singing the Happy Birthday song to Jim and carrying a candle-lit, beautiful German Chocolate cake, that Kris had pre-ordered from Creative Cakes By Sharon, that she had asked Eileen to pick up and bring to Jim's birthday party for her. And the least that I can say about this cake, because tonight's post is getting way too long is, "It was the best German Chocolate cake that any of us have ever eaten." And that's about it for tonight.

Y'all have a great evening!

Jim Keaveny & Anna Oakley Were Here!

Today has been great and so was yesterday. Our good friends Jim Keaveny and his sweet wife, Anna Oakley, from Terlingua, came to visit us yesterday and to spend the night.

In September 2011, when we went out to Terlingua, for a few days with our dear friends Sandy & Jon Wolfmueller, Jim was playing a gig, at the Starlight Theater, the evening that we were eating there and all of us instantly fell in love with Jim Keaveny's awesome music. And we've been big fans of his ever since then.

Anyway, when Chet O'Keefe started performing and playing his music, in Terlingua, he soon met and became fast friends with Jim & Anna. And now Chet often sits in and plays lead guitar in the Jim Keaveny Band.

Anna, besides being a fantastic fiddle player, in her husband's band, she is also a very talented graphic designer and she specializes in designing event posters, CD packaging, T-shirts, etc. and you can check her art out at: Mercury Graphics.

(This past January when Tony and I went out to Terlingua, Chet hooked up with us one morning and he took us over to Anna's and Jim's super cool, off-grid home and we had a really fun visit with them. And that's when we gave them an open invitation to please come see us whenever they could. So on their 30 day trip, back from Costa Rica, they took us up on it.)

We had a blast visiting with Anna and Jim and so did Kinky. Yesterday, as soon as they had arrived, all of us went over to Kinky's and went on a fun hike with him and The Friedmans and Tubo, their rescued, sweet mutt that was actually born in a cave, near Lajitas. Then after our hike we went and hung out, at the Lodge, for several hours visiting with Kinky.

This morning, before Anna, Jim and Tubo took off to go back home to Terlingua, we all went back over to the Lodge for one more visit with Kinky and here are a few pictures that Tony took of them.

In this picture Jim had just handed Kinky some of his CD's, because last night Kinky gave them his new CD.

If you want to know more about Jim Keaveny's music, there is already a Jim Keaveny Channel on Pandora and lots of Jim's music is also on YouTube and if you click: jimkeaveny.com you can learn more about this awesome singer, songwriter and his music.

And before I finish writing this, I once again want to wish our dear friend, Jim "The Mineral Man" the best birthday ever.

Y'all have a great evening!