As Luck Would Have It! or Another Surprise!

Last night, around 5:00, Tony and I went over, to the Lodge, to visit with our dear friend Maribeth. Kinky is out of town and he had asked Maribeth to babysit The Friedmans for him.

We stayed about an hour over there and we had a really fun visit with her. Maribeth was one of the first friends that I met when I moved to Utopia over twenty years ago. So, as you can imagine, we had lots of catching up to do.


After we adios-ed Maribeth, we took off and little did we know that we had a very big, not so good, surprise waiting for us, at the rescue ranch.

In the hour that we had been away from the rescue ranch, a gigantic, dead cedar tree, inside Miranda's pen, had uprooted and fallen down. And it was resting on the fence that it had nearly crushed. I blurted out, "Oh my goodness!" And sorry, I can't tell you what Tony said.

Then trying to find something nice to say, after what he had said, I said, "This is a blessing in disguise. If Kay and Richard had not come out yesterday to pick up Miranda Lambert, she could have been badly hurt. But fortunately, as luck would have it, she was gone. How lucky is that?" And as we drove past the downed, drowned tree, I said, "Tomorrow morning I am going to come out here and take a picture of that poor, dead tree."

And this morning, before we went over to visit Maribeth again, I took these pictures.

When we took off for the Lodge, we had another surprise awaiting us. We discovered that we had flooded sometime during the night and had been land-locked, but fortunately the water was receding rapidly, so we were able to cross the bridge safely. 

So today has been great after all. Early this afternoon, after I cooked lunch and we ate, Tony called our friend Aaron to ask him if he could come out tomorrow to help him cut up and remove the fallen tree and repair the fence. And Aaron said, "Yes." And that's about it for today.

P.S. I am still searching for a tiny, aluminum tin for Little Debbie to wear. So wish me luck!

Y'all have a great evening! 

Miranda Lambert Was Here! or Screen Writers Meeting! or Please Help Little Debbie!

Thanksgiving Day was wonderful, even though the weather was taking turns drizzling or raining. Tony and I got up real early, so we could start cooking the mixed vegetables and get things ready to prepare our rescued dogs their annual (People food) Thanksgiving dinner.

We put 3 large, 80 oz. sacks, of frozen mixed vegetable, that filled up 2 large, aluminum, baking pans. Then we put them inside the oven.

Then we drank some Donut Shop Coffee. While Tony showered Hazel and I sucked up all of the recently shed dog hair. Then it was my turn to take a shower.

Around 8:00, our good friend Aaron showed up, to help us prepare our dog's delicious turkey dinner. And because of the wet weather, we guessed that our friends might not show up, so around 8:30, the three of us started pouring all of the stuffing, garlic, cheese, eggs, cooked vegetables and ground turkey, into three, five gallon buckets, while the hot dinner rolls browned, inside the oven. Here is just some of the food that went into the buckets.

To our surprise, at 9:30, as earlier planned, our dear friends: Ellen, Kay and her husband Richard, arrived. And by 9:40, we went outside to serve our dogs their home/trailer-cooked Thanksgiving feast.

While Aaron and Tony fed our delicious, warmed dinner to our dogs, Ellen, Kay, Richard and I handed out hot dinner rolls and dog treats. Even though I couldn't take any pictures outside of our dogs enjoying their meal, because it was either drizzling or raining I can tell you that they loved it and they ate all of their vegetables and they licked their bowls clean!

After our friends left, to go home, I cleaned up our kitchen and then I started cooking our Thanksgiving dinner. 

Around 11:45, Aaron, Tony and I sat down, at the kitchen table and ate Karen & Terry's delicious Honey Baked, spiral cut ham, mashed potatoes, green beans and cranberry sauce. I intentionally didn't serve dinner rolls or pies for dessert this year, because they are way too fattening and we didn't need to eat anymore extra calories. So, we had a great Thanksgiving Day and I hope that y'all did too.

This morning, it was still drizzling or raining outside, when Kay & Richard came out to pick up Miranda Lambert. They are planning to adopt her, in early December, but because of their tight schedules, they wanted to take her home and try her out, with their sweet Wolf Hound, until next Wednesday, when they will return her for only a few days. So needless to say, "Miranda Lambert was here."

Around 11:00, Tony and I jumped into Trigger and took off for Kerrville, because I had an important "screen writers lunch meeting" to attend with Lisa and Eileen, at the El Sol de Mexico Restaurant.

When we arrived at El Sol de Mexico, our favorite Mexican food restaurant, Eileen and Lisa were already sitting at a table for four. And before we could join them, Beto, our favorite waiter greeted us and then he took off to get us some iced teas.

As soon as we sat down with our dear friends, Eileen, Lisa and I immediately started discussing the Longmire video that we are going to make with our friends and volunteers, in hopes that the entire Longmire cast and crew will invite us to be, on location with them, when filming an episode of their upcoming Season 5. 

We came up with a funny plot and the great news is Little Debbie, our new ranch mascot, is going to star in it, too!

I can't divulge the actors or the plot, because of secrecy, but I can tell you that Little Debbie will be wearing an Alien-helmet. In case you have not read my two Cowgirl Sisterhood fictional, cliffhanger novellas, Lynda makes Carol and me Alien-helmets to wear, that she guarantees will help us attract Aliens.

In my fiction novellas, Lynda makes these shiny Alien-helmets for friends. Basically, they are aluminum, pot-pie pans, with two holes punched into them, so she can tie pretty ribbons to it, so we can tie them upside down, on our heads. They look like these and please note that mine has the pretty pink ribbons and the other one is for our guests to use.

Anyway, for Little Debbie to be in our funny, Longmire spoof, that hopefully will go viral and hopefully get all of us invited to be on the Longmire set during filming, Little Debbie has to be wearing an Alien-helmet, like mine, that is the size for a Chihuahua to wear.

So I am asking all of y'all to please help me find Little Debbie a tiny, aluminum, pot pie tin, that I can punch holes in and tie pink ribbons on. I plan to Google it tonight, but any help in locating one would be greatly appreciated, because time is of the essence. Please help Little Debbie. And that is about it for tonight.

Y'all have a great evening!

Rock Steady! or Double Whammy! or Drive Carefully!

This past week has been pretty uneventful, so I didn't really have much to write about, but today has been great.

This morning our dear friends/volunteers came out to walk our dogs and our dogs totally loved it. Kay, our newest friend/volunteer came out too, because she and I had planned, earlier this week, for her to get to know Miranda better, because she was interested in possibly adopting her.

Miranda Lambert is our beautiful, sweet, 2 1/2 year old Great Pyrenees mix. Miranda is an awesome dog. When our dear friend Fay, up in Toronto, adopted Miranda's brother, Blake Shelton, last year from us, Miranda's behavior began changing and she started becoming more and more shy with strangers and would bark at them.

Miranda had never been like that when she was with her brother, so we figured that Blake had been her rock steady. She would always follow his lead. If he was friendly, she was friendly. If he barked, she would back him up, etc.

Anyway, after Blake moved up to Canada and became known as Ranger, Miranda decided to pick out Tony, Jim M., a few others and me to  be her rock steady, because she trusted all of us.

When Kay arrived, she and I immediately went to Miranda's pen, so I could put a leash on Miranda so we could take her for a long walk, down to the creek. When I went into her pen, Miranda was all happy to see me and she easily let me leash her up, but she was acting a little unsure of Kay, who was outside of the pen watching all of this.

Within less than two minutes, I handed Miranda's leash over to Kay and we continued walking and talking. Miranda still seemed a little uneasy about Kay, so when we arrived down at the creek I suggested that Kay and I sit down on a giant rock together and let Miranda get used to her.

A couple of minutes later, Miranda let Kay start petting her. Kay and I petted Miranda for several minutes and talked to her and then I stood up and told Kay that I was going to go sit on a rock about twenty feet away from them, so Miranda wouldn't lean on me for support.

And it worked! In less than a minute Miranda totally relaxed with Kay and she started enjoying Kay's attention and affection. After about twenty minutes, Kay stood up and walked Miranda to the creek and Miranda went in as far as the leash would allow. Her wet tail was wagging non-stop the entire time and it was obvious to both of us that Miranda now liked and trusted Kay, too. They were buddies. Bottom line: Kay is very excited about adopting sweet Miranda, in the very near future. So please keep your fingers crossed for Miranda.

Lunch with our friends/volunteers was a blast. We ate at the Medina Highpoint's Koyote Grill and believe it or not—Tony and I didn't order the exact same thing.

While we were eating lunch, June asked #$#@^*, "How was your doctor's appointment this morning?"

#$#@^* started laughing and so did I, because #$#@^* had told me about her doctor's appointment while we were standing in line, waiting to give Kelly our orders. Every time that #$#@^* started to tell June, she and I would burst out laughing. So finally, #$#@^* says, "Nancy, you tell June."

"Okay. #$#@^* had made a list of things to ask her doctor after he examined her hips (In the past two years #$#@^* had both of her hips replaced.).

Then #$#@^* interrupted me. "Okay, I can tell it. After his examination I asked him to please check behind my scar, because there seemed to be some kind of swelling back there. I joked to him that it might be a fat pone." Then #$#@^* and I both started laughing, again.

"Please stop laughing and tell us," June begged.

"Okay," #$#@^* said. "He said, "Yes, it is a fat pone." Jim, Tony and June joined #$#@^* and me in laughter. "Wait there's more to tell," #$#@^* said. "I asked him to please check my other hip and it was a fat pone, too! But he said that it was much smaller!"

"A double whammy!" I interjected. June liked my comment and she nearly fell out of her chair, because she was laughing so hard. "Or you could call them bumpers for your hips," I teased. "With a bumper sticker, across her behind that reads, "Caution Wide Load..."

After we had all calmed down and quit teasing #$#@^*, Suzanne confessed about recently getting a warning ticket for speeding and then we started talking about who likes to drive fast and who likes to drive slow. And it was by a unanimous vote that Lisa, hands down, wins the award for driving way too fast, with Ellen, June and me tying for being the slowest drivers. And that's about it for today. Drive carefully.

Y'all have a great evening!

About A Year Ago!

It is 10:09 and I must go to bed now, even though I can't wait to hear from Fay. I'll definitely write more tomorrow afternoon.

Earlier this evening, I found this cute picture, that I took of Blake, when he and Miranda first arrived at the rescue ranch, about a year ago. He was only 6 months old then, when a very kind-hearted woman rescued him and and his sweet sister Miranda Lambert, from death row, from a pound, in Lancaster, Texas. The woman who brought them to us told me that Blake and his sister were literally just hours away from both being euthanized.

I am totally amazed about how much Blake Shelton has filled out since then and I want to share his puppy picture. Good night.

Y'all have a great evening!

Eh! Here's Some Erie News!

Eh! Here's some Erie news! This afternoon at 2:15, I received this e-mail from Fay and it made my day greater than great! Fay wrote:

Hi Nance,
Got a text a little while ago from Julie that everything couldn't be going better! Since Blake Shelton is used to being "on the road", they have made excellent time and will probably arrive in Erie, PA the same time we do. TONIGHT! I found dog friendly accommodations, so Blake is going to have his first night in a hotel room tonight! Will give him a chance to rest and stretch his legs before we head back to Canada tomorrow. 

There's also a chance we will be doing our part to reinforce the wonderful cross border relations between the US and Canada: Julie may have a pup that we will be bringing to her from Toronto on our way to pick up Blake! Stay tuned....

Fay

To say the least, Tony and I are more than thrilled with the great news about Blake Shelton meeting up with Fay & Ian tonight, instead of tomorrow morning! I'll write more when I get another update from Fay, because right now I need to go grab a Kleenex to wipe away my tears of joy, before I go outside and tell Miranda Lambert the fabulous news about her brother Blake.

Through or Threw!

Today has been a really great day. This morning Miranda Lambert was Harley's Pet Of The Week on his popular, morning radio show. "Harley, Miranda is a lovely Border Collie. She's well trained, not hyper and she is really smart and she is a senior citizen, probably about ten-years-old. A friend of ours rescued her in a neighborhood about two weeks ago..." After a fun time talking to Harley, I went outside to clean the dog pens.

While I was outside cleaning the dog pens, Carlton took two very important phone calls and it made me smile when I listened to the two urgent messages, left by a mom and then by her daughter. Their messages were basically the same—Miranda Lambert was their dog! So I picked up the phone and called the mom first, to reassure her that Miranda was doing great, that we would not adopt their dog out and that they could come out and pick her up after the daughter got off from work today.

Apparently, their friends had listened to Harley and me talking about Miranda, so they called the mom and the daughter to tell them about our Miranda, so the mom and the daughter went online to see if it was their dog, because their dog had gotten out of their yard, two weeks ago, during the stormy weather.

After we ate lunch today, even though it was pretty hot, Ben went outside to do some more mowing, so Tone and I went outside to put Advantix II on all of the dogs and ten minutes later, while T. was putting the Advantix II on Martha Stewart—I made a terribly big mistake trying to use Tony's box cutter knife to open up the sealed packages.

Because I have never used a box cutter knife in my life, I didn't know how sharp they were, so when I pressed down hard to open up the package, the knife cut through the side of my right index finger, through the package and then cut through the vinyl of Kermit's newly reupholstered bench seat and it happened so fast, I didn't even know that my finger was cut and gushing blood.

"Oh no!" I said to Tony. "Tony, I just cut the seat with your knife. I didn't know it was that sharp and when I pressed down, like I do with my dull knives, it went right through the package and made a gash in the seat."

"Great," Tony answered, sounding a little bit sarcastic. Then we exchanged a few words about me cutting the seat accidentally and that kind of hurt my feelings. Then when I looked down and saw my bloodstained hand I got even with him.

I held up my finger and said, "Well, I hope that you are happy now, because I also nearly cut off my finger with your stupid knife." When T. saw my finger and all of the blood, he ran out of the pen and apologized to me, as he examined my finger. And then he apologized to me again, "Please don't ever pick up or use this kind of knife again, Nance. I should have warned you about it..." Then we hugged each other and then we finished putting the Advantix II on the rest of our dogs.

When we were done we went to the barn and laughed about my cutting-edge-accident with Ben for a few minutes and then I jumped into Kermit and came up to The Cabin, so I could clean my wounded finger and put a Band-Aid on it. Then I drove back up to the barn, with my scissors and a roll of Duct tape, so I could put a patch over the two inch gash that I'd made in Kermit's seat cover.

A few minutes later, around 4:00, the dogs started barking to let us know that the daughter had arrived, to pick up Miranda, so I grabbed my camera and Miranda's adoption form and then Tony and I jumped into Kermit to go meet her.

After we had met Lauren and her friend, they followed us to Lulu's and Miranda's pen and while T. tried to put a leash on one very excited, happy dog, Lauren told me that Miranda's real name was Maddie and that Maddie wasn't ten-years-old—she was actually twelve-years-old. Before they left to take Maddie back home, they thanked us over and over again for rescuing Maddie and then I took this picture of their happy, family reunion.

When I told Kinky all about Miranda/Maddie's story, he was delighted with my good news and he was glad that our Miranda had been reunited with her loving family—all thanks to my dear friend, Harley Belew and those friends of theirs, that listened to him on his popular, morning radio show this morning.

And that is about it for tonight, except for one more thing. This afternoon when I checked my blog and reread what I had written last night, I found a huge spelling error. Because I was so tired, and also because my spelling has literally gone to pot, in the past few years and it just isn't what it used to be, I used the word "through" when I should have used the word "threw" and I am sure that many of you caught my mistake, too and probably thought to yourself, "OMG! And she's stupid, too!" Anyway, I hope that it made you laugh. And please note that it has been corrected.

Y'all had a great evening!

P.S. I purposefully used the word "had" instead of "have" above—in hopes to make you laugh, once again, because laughing is so good for your health.

Remember!

Today has been great. This afternoon, after we ate Tuna fish sandwiches for lunch, we took off for Kerrville to run a few errands.

Our first stop was at Wolfmueller's Books, so we could give Sandy and Jon a little gift that I had especially made for them, a few days ago.

It really wasn't much of a present though, because all I did was use an old, empty salsa jar, spray painted the lid and then added some sand and seashells, that Tony and I had collected off of the Port Aransas privately owned island, where Rick is, "The Friendly Lighthouse Keeper."

Then I wrapped a pink ribbon around the neck of the jar, added Rick's business card, with Leisa's name handwritten on it, Jon & Sandy's business card, Tony's business card and my business card, as a keepsake for them, so they could remember our super fun trip down there.

When we walked inside their bookstore, Sandy and Jon greeted us and then they pretended to be real excited with my goofy-gift for them. After they had admired my latest craft project, they invited us to sit down, at the table with them, for a visit.

As we sat there laughing about each other's latest news I noticed that the jar filled with sand and basically broken seashells was fogging up inside, so I laughed, unscrewed the lid and said, "I guess the sand is still wet. Y'all might want to keep the lid off for a while. I've kept the sand in a Baggie all this time and I didn't know how to dry it up. I thought about using a hair dryer..."

After an hilarious, fun time with Sandy and Jon, we adios-ed them and then we went to Hoegemeyer Animal Clinic, to pick up Miranda Lambert, to take her back to the rescue ranch. And talk about one great Border Collie, Miranda rode beautifully, sitting on the back seat, instead of inside a crate. She is about ten-years-old and she is really smart.

When we got back to the ranch we took Miranda to meet Lulu, because Lulu is going to be roommates with her and fortunately, they liked each other, so we took Miranda into the pen, so they could have a sniff-a-thon.

As they sniffed and sniffed, we tried to take a good picture of Miranda, but she was so busy checking out her new digs—it took us nearly an hour before Tone finally got a good picture of her.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day for me, but it will also be super fun, because my brother Ronnie and my sister Cindy and their spouses are coming down to visit us, for the entire weekend! So, I might not be blogging a lot, because I will be enjoying their company, playing music with them and going kayaking with them and I can't wait to see them.

Who knows? Maybe I will collect some small river rocks and sand, from the river, while they're not looking and then make them "Remember" presents too. I already have an old mayonnaise jar and a Mt. Olive pickle jar that I could use, but now that I think about it—forget using the sand—because I don't want them to have to keep the painted lids off of them, like Sandy and Jon are doing right now.

Y'all have a great evening and weekend!

Miranda Lambert!

Today has been great and it hasn't quit raining since it started around 8:00 last night. So far we have received two inches of rain, making it a grand total of three and a half inches since Saturday night.

Late this afternoon I talked to Susan, at Hoegemeyer Animal Clinic, to tell her that we had another stray dog coming in, that a nice woman had rescued, "She told me that the frightened, female dog was trying to cross the street on Sidney Baker St., in front of the Taco Casa," I said. "And we're naming this dog Miranda Lambert, because we really like her music."

"That works for me. I like Miranda Lambert too," Susan said. "Guinevere and Chad & Jeremy had their surgeries today and they are all doing fine, so they can go home tomorrow."

"Great."

"Nancy, Guinevere is absolutely precious and Chad & Jeremy are hound mixes and they are exceptionally fine dogs too. Y'all are going to love them."

"Great. We'll pick them up tomorrow, because we can't wait to meet Chad & Jeremy and Miranda. It's amazing that since Sunday we have rescued four stray dogs, but we have only gotten to meet one of them..."

And that's about it for tonight, which is a good thing, because the sky outside is starting to rumble again, so I need to go unplug everything again, but I am not complaining about doing it, because I love the rain.

Y'all have a great evening!