Thanks For The Memories, Kink!

 Here are several of my favorite pictures of Kinky. And after these photos I added two more short videos of Kinky. 

After hiking with his dear friends: Will Wallace, Dylan Ferrero, Kinky and Ben Welch

Kinky on set with Jimmy LaFave for movie Palo Pinto Gold

Kinky outside on his porch

Kinky holding Stella a rescued dog from hurricane Katrina

Kinky signing a guitar on his pool table

Kinky posing next to my writing cabin at our rescue ranch

Sandy Wolfmueller, Tony and me having a fun lunch with Kinky @ Cracker Barrel

Kinky posing with Mama, my rescued Great Pyrenees

Tony took this picture of Kinky and Sophie, his rescued dog

Kinky taking a walking break with David Beckham, our rescued wild hog that plays soccer.

Tony, Kinky, me and U.S. Representative Lamar Smith @ our rescue ranch

Kinky posing with Little Jewford

Bob, Kinky, me and Jay Pennington outside of the Lodge

Kinky signed his cigar poster to Tony & me

9 years ago Tony took this video of Kinky & me doing a video for an upcoming tribute to our dear friend Ruth Buzzi

Kinky's kind words 

Thanks for the memories, Kink!

Breakfast At The Cabin! or Squirt Wins Again!

Today has been a lot of fun. This morning Will and Ben came over with some of Will's groceries, so Will could fix all of us his favorite breakfast.

As we sipped our coffees, Will went to work preparing our meal and at one point Ben went to the sink to help him crack up the eggs. And when their backs were facing me I joked, "Do y'all always dress alike?" Then I snapped this picture of them wearing Miles of Chocolate sweatshirts, like the ones Ben gave to Tony and me, when he gave Will's his.

After they shot back some funny remarks, which I am not going to repeat, Will showed me how to cook his breakfast. "I toast the English muffins first, then I add cheese to the bottom muffin, then I add scrambled eggs and then I top it off with thinly sliced ham, cooked in butter. It's so easy."

There was complete silence as we ate Will's delicious breakfast, but after I had cleaned my plate I said, "We've got to go to town to get groceries today and I am going to buy all of your ingredients and make this for us in the morning. This was absolutely delicious! Why don't y'all join us for breakfast tomorrow morning?"

"Thanks, Nance," Ben said, "but I can't, because I'm going back to Austin later this afternoon."

"What time do you want me over here?" Will asked.

After I had cleaned up the kitchen all of us went outside to do the chores and it was a lot of fun, because we all took turns teasing each other about this or that.

This afternoon we went to Kerrville to buy groceries and then we came home, so I could cook lunch for us and that is about it for today, because tonight I am watching the Academy Awards.

P.S. Early this evening, my dear friend Rick, "The Friendly Lighthouse Keeper" in Port Aransas called me with some exciting news. "Hi, Nancy! Check your e-mail. Squirt (Leisa's cute little dog) just won the race for the third year in a row! I just sent you a press release about it..."

News Release from Rick----------------

In spite of recent hip surgery, Squirt ( racing under the psudonym of "The mighty A** Squirt") took all honors at the Port Aransas Weenie dog and small dog races for the third year in a row.

After a handy win in the small dog races TMAS boldly challenged the winner of the weenie dog races for a winner takes all match. Tension was high and much was made of the possibility of the weenie resorting to underhanded and unsportsmanlike conduct. 

The first race was disqualified as a result of TMAS being attacked and run off the track by said weenie.

Second race was close and TMAS managed to cross the finish line in spite of the aforementioned weenie biting TMAS on his mighty a**. The crowd generally agreed that when running a dog race the dog getting bit on the a** is most likely ahead of the dog doing the biting."

This is a picture of Leisa and Squirt, taken last year, after Squirt won the small dog races.

Y'all have a great evening! Squirt Rules!

French Toast! or First Toast!

Today has been another great day. This morning before Tony and Ben went to do the chores outside, I fixed them and Will my famous easy to make French Toast, topped off with 100% Vermont Maple Syrup and they loved it, which made me feel good. In fact, Will loved my French Toast so much, he ended up having me cook him a total of six pieces and he cleaned his plate. Then Roy Rogers cleaned his plate, before I cleaned his plate.

During our fun breakfast we did a lot of teasing and laughing. We teased Will about eating all of our food. Then they teased me about my accent and what I did yesterday, before Ben made the five Redneck Wine Glasses. "Will, yesterday Nancy was trying to thinking up ways to fill the vases before I glued them to the Ball jars," Ben said. "She ended up finding this long, fake gold chain and dropped it into a vase, but she didn't like it, so when she tried to remove it from the vase, it got stuck and would not come out." Then Ben started laughing.

"It looked dumb inside the vase," I added.

"Anyway, she was shaking the vase and trying to get the chain out and when she finally got a hold of a piece of it, she jerked it out and says, "Aha! I'm a musician!" The men burst out laughing at me.

"Ben, I meant to say, "magician" as soon as I said, "musician," I said to three pairs of deaf ears. "The five vases will be ready for us to use at 5:30 this evening and I can't wait," I said, trying to change the subject. "Will, don't you just love Roy Rogers? He has stolen my heart."

"Yeah, he's a pretty cool dog." Will said, without enthusiasm, as he petted Roy on the top of his head. "Is he drooling on my leg?" Ben, T. and I started laughing. "Stop it, Roy. Go on boy. Get in your chair." Roy did nothing, but continued to drool on his pant leg, so we started laughing.

"He's real well-trained, Will. He came that way," I bragged, "but he only minds Tone and me. Roy, come on boy, let's go outside." Belle and Roy immediately went to the front door for me to let them go outside.

Before Ben and Tony went outside to do their morning chores and Will went back over to the Lodge to baby sit The Friedmans I said, "Lunch will be ready about noon, y'all. We're having pot roast, mashed potatoes and my new okra recipe that Carol gave to me and since Aaron is coming out to mow, I'm also fixin' meatloaf, so we will have plenty to eat."

After the men left The Cabin I grabbed the feng shui book, that Alfredo had sent to me and I began reading about personal Kau numbers, a compass formula which categorizes people into East and West groups for powerful feng shui applications on page 138 and after doing the calculation I discovered that I my Kau number is 2, which is a very good number to have.

For women, you take the last two digits of the year that you were born and add them together. I was born in 1951, so I added 5 + 1 = 6. Then I added 5 to the 6 = 11, then I added 1+1 together to get 2, my Kau number and then I used the men's calculation, which is different from women and found out that Tony's Kau number is 1.

For my good luck directions I am suppose to face Northeast for wealth, West for health, Northwest for love and Southwest for growth. So, during our fun lunch today, I told the guys about finding my Kau Number and then I told them how to find theirs. "Take the last two numbers of your birth year and add them together, then reduce it to a single number. Then subtract that number from 10 and that is your Kau number," I said. "My number is 2, Tony's number is 1 and Kinky's number is 2, like me. It also says that if you negotiate any kind of business deal, while putting yourself in your good feng shui position, you will have the edge over the business person who doesn't know them and..."

So, Ben and Will did their calculations to find out that Will's Kau number is 6 and Ben's Kau number is 6 too, then Will tells me that he doesn't believe in feng shui and then he explains why to my deaf ears, as Tony, Ben and Will devoured their lunch.

While I was cleaning up the lunch dishes, we started talking about the Redneck Wine Glasses that Ben made for us. "At 5:30, we need to try them out," Tony suggested.

"We should use champagne," Will said, "if y'all have any?"

"We don't have any champagne," I replied.

"Oh, yes we do, Nance," Tony chimed in. "We have a bottle in the wine cellar (our bedroom closet, because we don't have any space for it in the kitchen.) "I'll go get it." Seconds later, T. enters the kitchen with a dusty bottle of champagne that someone gave to us. After T. dusted it off the bottle, he placed it inside the refrigerator, so it would be chilled when we made our first toast, at 5:30.

When everyone went back outside to work, Roy, Mama, Belle, Toto and Abbie followed me to the bedroom and we took a short twenty minute nap with me in the middle, facing Southwest for feng shui growth. Then my dear friends Ann, visiting from New Mexico, and Carol, the other half of our Cowgirl Sisterhood, from down the road, came over to see us and we had a wonderful time visiting with them and Ben and Will.

At 5:30, we filled the Redneck Wine Glasses, that Ben had made for us, with some of Carol's fine wine or the cheap, chilled champagne or my fine boxed wine and then we made a toast, "Bottoms up!" Then the real party started.

Unfortunately, as we happily sipped our choice of spirits, as brave June, Ellen and Eileen were driving up to Big D, to cheer on their number one fan, Luna-Tick Tick Boom, at the Assassination City Roller Derby—Ben's Redneck Wine Glass broke apart, because he hadn't glued it together right. "How sad," I jokingly exclaimed, as we laughed about Ben's redneck predicament. "I guess you'll just have to drink the champagne from the jelly jar, Ben." And Ben made the best of it and he didn't seem to mind sipping the cheap champagne from the Ball jelly jar.

Tonight has been so much fun. It was great seeing Ann and I am so glad that she and Carol got to finally meet each other. After Ann left around 6:30 to go back to her brother's ranch. Tony and I had a great visit with Carol. We laughed so much my back started aching immediately. And when Carol left to go back to her beautiful ranch, around 7:30—I immediately grabbed Mari's pretty, pink-dyed sheepskin, from my office and as I finish typing this—my back is starting to feel much better. Thank you, Mari.

Y'all have a great evening! Luna-Tick Tick Boom Rules! I hope her team wins.

The Redneck Wine Glass!

Today has been a total blast, thanks to my dear friends aka "The Greatest Volunteers in Texas" and Ben Welch.

Since February 10th, Eileen's birthday and Carol's birthday on Valentine's Day, all of us have been trying to have an outdoor cookout, in The Okay Corral, to celebrate their birthdays, but due to bad weather, etc. we haven't been able to celebrate Eileen's and Carol's birthday until today.

I was inside The Cabin drinking coffee and catching up with Ben's latest news when Jim, Ellen, Lisa, Eileen and Dottie showed up, so Ben and I went outside to greet them and so I could give Eileen her belated birthday present from Tone and me—a Redneck Wine Glass. But as soon as we gave her our gift, which she loved, she gave me a pink sweatshirt, some beautiful pink tulips and a copy of the Valentine's Day The Kerrville Daily Times, which was printed on pink paper, because a dear friend of Kinky's and mine had written something sweet about us, for the special Valentine's Day section and I loved reading it. Here is a picture that Lisa took of me reading the paper, with the Tulips behind me on the steps.

After thanking Eileen for the lovely, pink flowers, the pretty pink sweatshirt and the baby pink colored newspaper it was my turn to give all of them a personal present—"What Would Ronnie Do?" refrigerator magnets, which made all of them laugh, while they promised me that they would put them on their fridges. Then I invited everyone up to The Cabin to see our latest remodeling and that is when the birthdays party commenced.

When we came inside the trailer Lisa gave me two bottles of fine wine, from Cosco, for the birthday party, even though she, Ellen and Dottie were twisting off the caps of their cold beers, while Eileen topped-off her Redneck Wine Glass with some Bud Light.

While Jim walked our dogs and Tony and Ben tended to the outdoor grill and began cooking the food that everyone had brought, we had a really fun visit inside The Cabin and when I showed Ellen my new feng shui book and the beautiful card, that Alfredo had made for me, she started reading it and started making comments on some of the more simple feng shui rules. "It says here that sleeping with your feet pointing towards the door is known as the death position."

"Omg!" I said. "Our bed is pointing towards the door! Y'all come look at the beautiful, cedar bed that Tony made for us when we got married. I think we're in the death position! " Everyone ran to our bedroom to check it out. "Ellen, this is scary."

"Let me read on, Nancy," Ellen said, calmly. "Y'all's bed is so beautiful..." When we returned to the kitchen/big room, Eileen and Dottie excused themselves and went outside to greet June and Carol, while Ellen speed-read about the placement of our deadly bed placement. 

Two minutes later, after Ellen had read out loud to me and figured out that our bed placement was just fine—thank goodness—we went outside to join the party. While Ben and Tone cooked up the hamburgers Eileen took me aside. "Nancy, you have got to do this for me. It will be so hilarious. Before you print the next 100 "What Would Ronnie Do?" magnets, I think you should rat your hair up into a big beehive or else wear a flip, wear some dark red lipstick and have Tony shoot you talking on your pink Princess Phone and..." I laughed so hard, my back instantly started hurting.

"I will do it, but I don't know about ratting my hair." Here is a great picture of Birthday Girl Eileen that Lisa took and shared with me.

Lunch, inside the writing cabin, with everyone, was filled with non-stop laughter and teasing and Lisa's homemade Cosco chocolate cake was to die for. And there is so much more to write about this super fun birthdays party today, but I need to wind this up, so I can go to bed soon, but I want to thank June, Ellen, Eileen, Lisa, Jim, Carol, Dottie, from New York, Ben and Tony for making my day great, even though my back is still aching.

When the super fun party ended, after I had cleaned up a few dishes, because we had used paper plates, etc., Ben, T. and me started talking about how to make The Redneck Wine Glass that we had given to Eileen. 

A few minutes later, Tony looks up from his computer and says, "I just found out how to make them on YouTube." And after we had watched the short, informative video, we told Ben that we had some errands to run in Kerrville and that we would bring back the special glue needed, some small Ball canning jars with lids and some cheap candle holders, from a dollar store.

At 5:00, when we returned to the rescue ranch we put Ben to work in the kitchen, making Redneck Wine Glasses for us, him and our friends, because he was better at gluing the jar to the candle holder.

After Ben had created five Redneck Wine Glasses for us, I was disappointed to discover that the recommended drying time for the special glue to bond with the candle holders was 24 hours, but we laughed it off, as I carefully placed them on a shelf to dry, after removing the new Vermont Jug of 100% Maple Syrup, because tomorrow morning we are having Ben and Will, who is now baby sitting The Friedmans, over for a French toast breakfast. Please note the fifth Redneck Wine Glass is not visible, because it is directly behind one of the glasses.

And as I finish writing this evening, I want to share the beautiful Tulips that Eileen gave to me today. "I love them, Eileen! Thank you, so much."

Y'all have a great evening!

Tony's Birthday Really Rocked! or Rock Of Ages!

Today has been a fun day. This morning our dear friend Rick, "The Friendly Lighthouse Keeper," Reichenbach called right after I had walked four miles with Leslie, because he wanted to wish T. a Happy Birthday, but Tone had not yet returned from the Old Timer, so he and I had a fun visit instead.

We talked about how excited Tony and I were about our upcoming road trip, in September, to Terlingua with Sandy and Jon and then we talked about loving Big Bend and our friends out there and the serious drought, that he too was experiencing down in Port Aransas. And before adios-ing each other he said, "Well, tell Mr. T. I hope that he has a great birthday today," then he paused for a moment and then he started laughing, which made me start to laugh, and then he continued, "No. Tell Tony that I hope he has another one! Bye."

When T. showed up he laughed at what Rick had said for me to tell him. "Fourth bought me a cup of coffee this morning for my birthday and...."

After breakfast Tony and I went outside to do our morning chores and right after we had finished them our friend Joe and his beautiful daughter Katherine came out and we had a fun visit with them before they walked Harley and Annie Oakley for us.

After lunch the dogs started barking outside so Tony went outside to see who was here and a few minutes later Ben, Will and Tone walked inside the trailer. After howdies Tony left the room to go check something out on his computer and that's when Will showed me a big rock. "I'm giving this to Tony for his birthday," Will laughingly whispered, as we all started laughing. "Do you have a Sharpie pen that I could borrow?"

After I handed him a Sharpie I took this picture of him inscribing the rock (his present) to Tony, as Ben and I continued to laugh about it.

When T. entered the big room Will said, trying to sound serious and trying hard not to laugh, "Tony, I have a birthday present to give to you. I have spent days looking for the perfect gift and I finally found it a little while ago." Then he handed his "written on stone" gift to T. so he could admire it. After he thanked Will everyone started laughing as I took this picture of Tony showing off his rock present.

Then Will asked me if I had any sealer spray that he could use to protect what he had written and thirty seconds later Will sprayed his gift outside on the front porch, "To preserve it for centuries to come."

When I read Will's words I burst out laughing. 

"Happy Birthday Tony 

This is one of

the only things

around younger

than

You

Love Will"

When we came back inside we joked about where T. should display or put "His Rock" gift and I suggested Outer Space, since it was the only doable suggestion amongst us. As we ate some of T.'s delicious "Heavenly Chocolate" birthday pie, a "Tootie Pie" sent to us from our friend Peggy Godfrey, the dogs started barking outside again, so T. went out the door, with Belle by his side, to see who was here.

Ten minutes later Tony came back inside the trailer, "That was a nice woman, Deborah's friend from Boston, who wanted to meet Blackie and Alfie, the dogs that Deborah adopted from us last week. After I told her that we had taken them to Hoegemeyers to get them groomed, before Eileen, Ellen and Lisa drive them up to Austin Monday morning and deliver them to a man, who Deborah hired, who is going to drive them non-stop up to Boston, in his SUV, where he will meet Deborah and deliver them to her and Susan...I showed her their empty pen and she took pictures of it. She seemed like a real nice lady." 

Then thirty minutes later, after I had teased Ben about a story he had told us about his trip out to Big Ben, when he was in his twenties, he and Will jumped into Ben's truck and they drove away laughing.

Around 3:30 the phone rang and it was Kinky, Ruth Buzzi and her husband Kent Perkins, calling from Kent's and Ruthie's farm in Ft. Worth and they wanted to talk to Tone. When I handed the phone to Tony, he started grinning from ear-to-ear, because after they had wished him a wonderful birthday—then the three of them sang the Happy Birthday song to him and T. was beside himself! After he had thanked them and said goodbye to them and had turned off the phone he said, "I can't believe they just called me and sang the Happy Birthday song to me. How cool is that, Nance?! Oh, they also said to tell you hello. They are such nice people."

I thought it was so cool that I immediately posted it on my Facebook page and then I posted it on Tony's Facebook page too, because I love Ruthie & Kent and Kinky as family.

Early this evening I put Tony's "Rock of Ages" on display, out in Outer Space, on top of the coffee table that I made a few years ago and it looks good resting there and it will be fun to watch people's reactions to it. I want to thank all of his friends and family for making T.'s birthday such a special one for him today. And just a little while ago Tony told me, "This has been my best birthday ever! Nance, I love the leather camera holster that you got me. I cannot wait for it to arrive and..."

And that is about it for tonight except that I want to say, "Happy Birthday T.! I love you so much and you're not older than that rock—no matter what anyone says!"

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

Happy Birthday Will Wallace!

Today is Will Wallace's birthday and Tony and I want to be the first to wish him a happy birthday, so here goes. "Happy Birthday to You. Happy Birthday to You. Happy Birthday Dear Will. Happy Birthday to You! And many more....."

Minus One! or Sorry, Ben! or Musical Chairs!

Today has been too much fun. This morning I overslept and if it hadn't been for Mama and Abbie's constant barking outside, to alert me that some thing or some one was outside, I jumped out of bed and quickly dressed, so I could go see what was going on.

When I stepped out on the front porch Belle nearly knocked me down, because she was so glad to see me and I was glad to see her, but more glad to see Ben's truck parked down by the barn. After trading a few kisses with T.'s Belle-rina I jumped into Kermit and took off to go find Ben, so I could invite him to eat breakfast with Tone and me.

Breakfast was fun with Ben, because as we caught up with each other's latest news, Belle kept us laughing non-stop, as she went from one person to another begging as if she were starving—just like Tony so often does to me. So I guess that you could say, "She's just a chip off of the old block" with Tone being the block.

Around 10:30 I went outside, because the Fab 4, minus one, were here and I wanted to say hi to them. Ellen was the first Fab I saw and she and I had a wonderful visit, at the barn, talking about how happy we were for Gus getting a job and how we were keeping our fingers crossed for Annie.

A little while later, after returning our dogs to their pens, after they had been walked, Fab 2 and Fab 3 joined us (Eileen and Lisa) which instantly turned it into a fun hen party. As we talked about Gus and our hopes for Annie O. Tony and Ben drove up in Trigger to say, "Goodbye" to us because they had to go to Kerrville.

After Tone and Ben drove away The Fabs told me that Ben had told them that he had brought some Miles of Chocolate and had put it in the freezer, so I went and looked inside the freezer and sure enough—there was a big brick of the best chocolate in the world. "Y'all, I want to give you the chocolate, because we still have over a half of a brick in our freezer. Needless to say—they were thrilled.

Before it was time for the Fab 4, minus one, to leave I invited them to come up to the trailer, so they could evenly divide the divine chocolate amongst them. So, Ellen and Lisa jumped into Ellen's car and Eileen and I jumped into Kermit and we took off for the trailer. As Ellen sliced up the brick she held up a baggie with a small bite-sized piece of chocolate in it and said, "This one is for June, since she didn't come today," and we burst out laughing at the tiny portion.

As Eileen, Lisa and Ellen picked out which piece they wanted I said, "Have y'all read this book, The Drop Ins by Tom D. Wells?" They hadn't. "It is a fun read and Tom is a great writer. He is a professor over at Schreiner University. I want to loan this to y'all, so you can pass it around. I promise that y'all will love it." Then they took it and their baggies full of Miles of Chocolate and left.

For lunch I made Cousin Nancy's Mystery Spaghetti and Will, Ben and Tone loved it as much as I did and one of the mystery ingredients I use is "Adam's Reserve: Cajun Seasoning" and the other one is my secret.

When I started cleaning up the kitchen, after our lunch, Will spotted my guitar, on the coffee table and asked, "Nance, is that your guitar that your brother Ronnie made for you? That I have heard so much about."

"Yes, it is Will and I love that guitar so much. It has the best sound."

"Can I play it?

"Sure, but I didn't know that you played guitar."

While Will was opening up my guitar case Ben says, "Can I play your mandolin?"

"Sure Ben, but I didn't know that you knew how to play a mandolin. It's in my office. Let's go get it." Ben started laughing.

"Nancy, I have been begging you for years to let me borrow your mandolin and you never have. Don't you remember?"

"No, you haven't, Ben. Tony, has Ben ever asked me to loan him my mandolin?"

T. started laughing. "I'm staying out of this one. Sorry, Ben."

"Y'all sit on these bar stools," I said, as I dragged a stool away from the breakfast bar. "Ben, you're going to need to tune my mandolin. It's been a while since I've played it." Then Will sat down on a bar stool and started playing my guitar and he told me that he could not believe how great the action and sound was on my guitar and that Ronnie had made it. I told him that I could not believe what a great guitar player he was, so I took this picture, at 12:57, of him playing it while Ben tuned my mandolin. Then their concert began as their beautiful music filled our trailer.

We picked and grinned for over an hour and I had so much fun picking with them. Ben was fantastic on the mandolin as he accompanied Will and then me and then it was time for us to all get back to work.

By 4:30 this afternoon, Tony, Ben and I had dipped most of our dogs for ticks and had treated their pens and we were tired. And that is about it for today.

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

Trash Talk!

Today has been great. This morning Brian Kanof, our good friend and the legendary photographer for the Kerrville Folk Festival, came out to see us, before he had to take off, to put on a photography workshop at the Kerrville Folk Festival, later today. And as always it was a fun visit filled with laughter.

A little before noon Tony and I went over to the Lodge to invite Ben and Will to come over and eat lunch with us, because we were grilling fajitas. After they said yes, we took off in Kermit to go home so we could start cooking.

But before we went to the trailer Tony made a detour to where we keep our crates and building supplies because he needed to put the pooper-scoopers where they belonged and that was when we discovered that someone or someones had tagged our trash bin! And the minute we saw the graffiti we started laughing because we knew exactly who had done it—Ben and Will, while we were gone yesterday for a few hours, because when we thanked Ben for all of the work he had done and he said something like, "You're welcome and I am sure you'll discover a few more things that I did after I'm gone." And here is a just one tiny sample of his or theirs artwork.

After lunch I decided to play a joke on our guests while I was washing the dishes. "Y'all don't get alarmed when the Sheriff shows up. He's coming out because someone tagged our trash bin and it is awful what they wrote," I said, without looking up as I rinsed off a plate.

"You're kidding?" Ben asked, trying to act innocent, as Will tried not to laugh. "What was so awful?"

"Besides the lousy penmanship and the ugly colors they put "Respect The Bull Dog and Tony Rules The Ranch."

"So. What's so bad about that?" Ben asked, as Will and Tony began laughing. "Tony does rule the ranch."

"No he doesn't—I rule the ranch," and then I burst our laughing. After we laughed and trash talked jokingly about being tagged Will and Tone began talking about photography, etc. Twenty minutes later they thanked us for lunch and then they went back over to the Lodge.

Late this afternoon Tony and I took his dog down to the swimming hole, so Belle could work on her backstroke—just kidding. Belle did swim though and had fun. When we came home B.S.-S. ran into the trailer and went straight to our bedroom and took a nap on our bed.

While Belle-Belle slept peaceably on our bed, dreaming of one day becoming the greatest dog swimmer in the universe, I decided to work on a short one minute video clip that I took of her yesterday, meeting Ben's dog Valerie and then swimming with her, while Penny stayed close to Ben in the water. I've named this clip "Belle And Her Friends—The Girls From Austin" and I hope that it makes you smile.

Y'all have a great evening!

The Girls From Austin!

Today has been so much fun, which in my book, makes it a great day. Early this morning things got off to a shaky start because when I went outside to play with Belle Starr-Simons—there was a damaged or dead Tarantula on the front porch.

Knowing, of course, that this might be a possible sign or an omen for something yet to come, or else it was just a damaged or dead furry Tarantula, Belle and I gave the scary-looking spider a lot of space as we raced down the ramp to the front yard.

Twenty minutes later after Ms. B.'s "Wear-Her-Out—So She-Will-Sleep" marathon, we walked back up the ramp and the Tarantula was gone and was no where to be found, which of course gave me the creeps because I didn't know where it was until ten minutes later, after I had cleaned up the kitchen.

"Tony!" I hollered outside, as I once again stared at this frightening creature on the front porch, in the exact spot where it had earlier been before. "It's back, Tony! Please come and remove it for me!" And two minutes later, T., using our new gigantic BBQ spatula—carried the not-dead-yet damaged Tarantula off and set it free outside our front yard to either live or to die, because it was his choice to make and not ours.

After I thanked Tone for helping me I said, "I have some really sad news to tell you. I just found out that Dr. Kevorkian died earlier this morning in a hospital and..." Even though Tone didn't seem to be real upset with my news, he took off real fast as soon as he saw Ben driving up.

Between nine-thirty and ten o'clock our great volunteers arrived. Jim was the first to show up and then minutes later Ellen and Eileen arrived to walk our dogs for us! And after I had returned several phone calls and had answered some e-mails, I went outside and went on a fun walk with them and Moe Bandy and Enzo. And now it is time for me to do a shout out to our super volunteers. "Thank You, Jim, Eileen and Ellen For Your Dedication To Our Dogs! We Love You But Our Dogs Love Y'all Even More!"

Early this evening Tone, his dog Belle and I jumped into Kermit and we went down to the swimming hole to meet up with Will Wallace and Ben and his two sweet dogs: Valerie and Penny, so Belle could meet them, off leash for her very first time, and would hopefully swim and play with them and it was a total blast!

Ben's beautiful, well-trained Pit Bulls, that he had adopted from us over the years, were as sweet and gentle as they could be to Belle Starr-Simons and I was totally amazed how well they tolerated Tony's silly acting, playful puppy. And we laughed and joked nonstop, to our delight, as we watched "The Girls From Austin" swim and play with Baby Belle.

Y'all have a great evening!

Happy Birthday To Mark Stevens!

Today is our good friend Mark Stevens Birthday. Yesterday was Denise, his sweet wife's birthday and we want to wish Mark a Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to You! Happy Birthday to You! Happy Birthday Dear Mark! Happy Birthday to You! We love you, Denise and Tater Catfish Stevens!

This morning I got up really early and walked ten miles again before Tony came home from the Old Timer. After breakfast I push mowed our front yard, backyard and the yard between Tony's garden and our trailer then I did some paperwork and returned phone calls and e-mails.

Late this afternoon Kinky called. He invited us to come over. I went over to the Lodge alone because Tone was behind on his plowing or harvesting. While I was helping Kinky fill his Hummingbird feeders Will showed up and Kinky challenged him to play a game of pool.

Will won the first game, so the Hummingbird Man challenged the Cock, again. The Hummingbird Man won the second game so they played one more game to determine the Champion of Echo Hill. As of tonight Will now holds the Championship title because Kinky accidentally sank the eight ball.

That's about it for tonight because I plan to go to bed fairly soon. Happy Birthday Mark!

Y'all have a great evening!

Miles Of Chocolate!

This morning after the thunderstorm, Tony ate his oatmeal and I drank my breakfast smoothie then he went outside to help Ben with the daily chores while I took care of some ranch paperwork and then returned several phone calls. Then I took a break sort of.

Yesterday when Ben was over here, he gave us two more giant bricks of Miles of Chocolate to enjoy! So this morning for 'my break' I decided to cut the delicious chocolate bricks up and vacuum seal them into smaller servings for us and it took me less that thirty minutes to do! Then I decided to walk the walk with Leslie Sansone even though my back was still aching, because I have a lot of miles to catch up on.

After I unwrapped the packaging on the new replacement DVD I shoved it into the DVD player and started walking with Leslie and her crew, in hopes that the walking would help my back feel better. I took it real easy and didn't push myself and I ended up walking eight miles and my back felt much better when I was done.

Late this afternoon Ben, Will and Sam came over to see if Tony wanted to go fishing with them down on the creek. After Tony told them that he would love to I said, "Can I go, too?" The men laughed and teased Tony about him having to be the one to babysit me on their fishing expedition, then we left the trailer and went down to the barn to get the fishing equipment.

While Tony handed out his rods and reels for the guys to use, I looked around for my lavender colored rod and pink reel. As Tone told them about which plastic worms worked best I found my rod and reel. "Tony, will you fix mine up?" They laughed and teased T. and me as he put a big hook and a pretty hot pink plastic worm on it. "Y'all, in this fishing tournament we..."

"It's now turned into a fishing tournament?" Ben teased.

"Yes! It will be fun, Ben! First fish, Second fish, Third fish, Biggest fish and Smallest fish," I said as Ben got into his truck and Sam and Will jumped into the back of it. Tony and I followed them in Kermit to the fishing hole then the tournament began.

At first we all fished pretty close together talking and laughing, then the guys got serious and took off to find a better place to fish or because I was talking too much. Here is a picture that I took of Ben, Tony and Sam fishing off of the dam while Will went further down the creek and I stayed in my same place.

In less than two minutes Tone caught the First Fish and then the Second fish which of course he threw back into the water as soon as I took this picture!

Then we jumped into the vehicles and drove further down the creek and within five minutes I caught the third fish! "OMG!" I half-hollered with excitement. "I've got a big one! Help me! It's gigantic! Tony! Help me!"Tony was pretty faraway and I think he pretended not to hear me so Will came running to my rescue. "Be careful, Will! It's really big!" Will threw his rod and reel down on the ground and then he grabbed my line and reached out to pull the fighing fish out of the water. "Hurry, Will! I think my rod is fixin' to break!"

Seconds later, Will had unhooked my giant fish and he was holding it in his hands, so I dropped my rod and reel and quickly took this picture of it before Will put it back into the water. As we watched it swim away I asked Will what kind of fish it was. "A Bass, Nance," Will said as he picked up his rod and reel. 

"I bet it weighed over five pounds! I bet I win the Biggest fish!" I said as Will shook his head no.

"Sorry, Nance. It might have weighed a pound." Will said with a laugh as he walked off further down the creek beyond Tony so he wouldn't have to rescue me again.

As I continued to side-cast all alone by myself near the bridge and continuously caught nothing, Ben hollered from faraway, "I got one!" So I quickly reeled in my pink worm, leaned my pretty rod and reel against a tree and took off to take a picture of Ben's prize catch before he released it back into the creek. Ben had caught a pretty big Perch which might put him in first place for the Smallest Big Fish award.

 Fifteen minutes later we decided the fish weren't biting that great around there anymore, so we went back over by the dam where we had started the fishing tournament. Will and Sam walked across the dam and started fishing from the dock, while Tony went off to fish below the dam. Ben and I decided to put our fishing gear up and we sat on some big rocks underneath some tall shaded Oak trees and we visited back and forth with Will and Sam across the creek. To say the least, there was a lot of laughing and teasing going on back and forth across that creek. And I was having a blast.

"I got one!" Will hollered as Sam, Ben and I excitedly watched him wrestling at the dock with his big catch of the day! Here is a picture of Will and the Biggest Fish before he released it back into the creek.

Ten minutes later just as all of us were fixing to quit fishing Sam hollered from the dam, "Hey y'all, I've got one!" We all watched as Sam worked to reel it in his big fish which ended up breaking the tip off of Tony's rod. This is a picture that I took of Sam's fish before he returned it back to the creek.

"Tony, I am really sorry for breaking off the tip of your rod," Sam said. "I feel really bad about it, man."

"Don't worry about it, Sam. It's no big deal, really. That rod was my great grandfathers handed down to my grandfather, handed down to my Dad and then to me. I was going to give it to my nephew in a couple of years. Seriously, don't worry about it, Sam," I said jokingly and everyone burst out laughing and then they took turns teasing Sam about it. When the fishing tournament officially ended Kermit took Tone and me back home and the guys went back to the Lodge.

This afternoon has been so much fun for me. I really enjoyed taking the afternoon off. I've needed some time off and to laugh out loud and I want to thank the men for filling that prescription for me. Thank you, Tony, Ben, Will and Sam. I love y'all so much. 

P.S. The mystery of who sent that delicious 'Yahoo Cake' from Sherman, Texas, to us has finally been solved! Even though the Texas-shaped cake has already been entirely and happily devoured, Tony told me this morning that Nancy and David Lemon had sent it to us! And Nancy told Tone on Facebook that she personally removed all of the fat and calories from it. Thank you, Nancy and David! We loved eating it and I am so glad that it was y'all and fat-free. I knew it was from y'all. Nancy and David Lemon Rock! And so do Nicki and Tom!

Y'all have a great evening!

The Bun Warmer!

Yesterday morning I did not go out of town as planned because my back was worse. I must have twisted or done something to it during the night. My lower right arm was still pretty swollen, too so when I came hobbling into the kitchen Tony took one look at me, screamed and ran out of the trailer! Not really. What he actually said was "Nance, you look like crap." Not really again. Basically he told me that he didn't think I should go out of town so I took his advice, cancelled my appointment, took one baby Aspirin and two Aleve and then I made some coffee.

When I was cancelling my appointment, my friend told me that we probably had a spider nest and she suggested that I get some foggers and bomb the trailer. After I hung up the phone I told T. what Sam had told me and that I didn't want to do it, but we had to because I was sick and tired of the spider bites. As he was going out the front door I asked him to please pick up some foggers from the hardware store before coming home and he did just that.

After breakfast with Tone he went outside to work and I went and laid down on the bed because I was really hurting. Thirty minutes later after I had tried counting how many times the ceiling fan made a full circle I remembered that we had some heat wraps for T.'s back so I went and found them.

After reading the directions carefully I pulled the one-size-fits-all, gauze-like cloth belt out of the box and then opened two packages of "heat" and inserted them into the slots on the belt then I tried to put in on. That was fun.

Every time that I tried to attache the end of the belt to the the velcro end it would scrunch up. Two minutes later it was finally secure around my lower back and I was feeling the heat. An hour later my back began feeling better thank goodness. Then I did a really stupid thing at two twenty-five.

"Tony let's go ahead and set off the bug bombs. It says it takes two hours to euthanize the spiders and then we come inside and open up all of the windows and let the trailer air out for thirty minutes. Then we get to come inside close the windows and turn on the central air. Tony wasn't real keen with my idea, but he did it anyway.

After T. turned off the electricity to the trailer which the directions told him to do because our trailer might explode, he set off the foggers and came outside and looked at the thermometer on the porch. "Nance, we're going to burn up inside your cabin. It says the temperature is ninety-six degrees. We should have done this tomorrow morning."

"Oh, Tony," I said. "Quit projecting," as we carried our books, laptops and my Bose / iPod into my sweltering writing cabin. The first thing we did was turn on the two window air conditioners and then the two ceiling fans. Then Tony says, "Your indoor thermometer says it's one hundred and two degrees inside here. I knew this was going to happen. I'm already sweating..." Then Feliciano starts singing "Light My Fire" and we both started laughing.

After T. sat down on the couch right in front of the air conditioner he opened up his book and started reading. I went into the other room and carefully sat down in a chair and propped up my boots on the blue ottoman. Even though I wasn't real comfortable because of my back, I picked up my book Drop-Ins and started reading as sweat dripped down my forehead and the ceiling fans up above swirled hot air around the cabin.

Thirty minutes later Tony says, "Nance, are you okay in there? The cabin is finally starting to cool off. It's down to a hundred degrees in here. I am going to get some water. Do you want some?" Even though I was soaking wet I said yes. The minute Tone left the cabin to go get us some water I grabbed a roll of paper towels from my desk drawer and wiped the sweat off of my face. I could not believe how hot I was.

After we gulped down our cold waters we went back to reading. I was near the end of Tom D. Wells incredibly great book Drop-Ins and I couldn't put it down. About every twenty minutes or so Tony would interrupt my reading with a time-left and weather report. "We've got fifty minutes to go and it is now down to ninety-eight degrees, Nance. Did you hear me?" I ignored him and continued to read.

When two hours had finally passed Tony told me that he was going inside the trailer to open up the windows and turn on the air conditioner and then he was going to check on the dogs. I was down to seven pages to go before finishing the book and I couldn't wait to find out what happened with Farrow and Nick and Beulah, the dead body that had dropped-in and the greedy land developer from Kerrville—I mean Happton.

When Tony walked inside the cabin to tell me we could finally return to the trailer I was sweating like a pig and laughing my head off! As we grabbed our laptops, the Bose and our books I said, "Tony, I love this book! I can't wait for you to read it. I swear you're going to love it. Seriously, it was a great read..."

As we walked inside the cool trailer Tony told me that he would read it as soon as he finished reading his book. Then he started laughing and says, "Nancy, why is your butt soaking wet? Did you wet your pants?"

"No, Tony. I didn't wet my pants. Good grief!" After I carefully sat my laptop down on the breakfast bar I reached around and felt my butt and it was wet and really hot and then I started laughing. "That one-size-fits-all heat wrap that I've been wearing today has somehow slipped down to my rear end and it is hotter than the cabin was." While T. laughed I went into the bathroom and removed the unwanted bun-warmer.

This morning Ben showed up early to help Tony with his chores and to mow the tall grass which I haven't been able to mow because of my back problem! After they finished feeding the dogs and picking up dog poop they came inside the trailer for a break and as always we had a fun visit. Then Ben went back to work and Tony and I went to Kerrville to run a few errands.

Our first stop was at Walmart because I needed to replace the Leslie Sansone Walk at Home—"Walk Slim: 4 Fast Miles" because I have literally worn out the old DVD. As I was looking for it I discovered that she has a new one out called "Walk: Weightloss Bootcamp" so I bought both of them and I can't wait to start as soon as my back gets better. And yes, I do have a lot of catching up to do with my walking.

This afternoon a package arrived for us in the mail and we don't know who sent it to us. It was sent from the Yahoo Baking Company in Sherman, Texas and it was a Texas shaped cake called the Yahoo Cake. And it was absolutely delicious! 

The packaging was really cool and there was a cute little pamphlet that explained the Yahoo Legend and it was really fun to read. On the front of the shipping box were these words: "For all the great work y'all do and for showing us such a great time."

Last week Tony and I probably had five or six different sets of visitors out here and we can't wait to find out who sent us the delicious cake. Tomorrow I plan to call the bakery and hopefully they can solve the mystery.

Late this afternoon I went back to bed and laid down to rest my back and I ended up falling to sleep. When I woke up Tony was gone and Ben's truck was too, so I got in Buttermilk and went over to the Lodge. When I walked inside the kitchen Ben burped a funny howdy to me from the living room. "Hi, Sam, Ben and Will," I said as I walked in. Will and Tony were in the middle of a pool game and from where I stood it looked like they had the same amount of balls left on the pool table—even steven. "Hi, Nancy! Tony beat me," Sam Abdnour said with a laugh before he gave me a big bear hug. 

Sam, Ben and I visited with each other and we teased The Medina Bulldog and The Cock as their game neared the end. Final score: The Cock -1, The Medina Bulldog -0. We hung around a little longer then Tony and I came home.

This evening Sam and Will came over for a fun visit and they thought that the mysterious Yahoo Cake was one of the best cakes that they had ever eaten. Sam told me that he loves living in Northern California and that he has to leave tomorrow so he can go visit his parents in Austin before heading back to  California. Tony and I had a blast visiting with him and Will and there was much laughter too. They just left about twenty minutes ago and I am looking forward to seeing them again tomorrow.

Now I am caught up with my news and I am pretty sure I know who sent us that delicious cake and hopefully tomorrow the mystery will be solved. I'll let you know.

Y'all have a great evening!

Pretty (Funny) In Pink!

Thursday night at nine o'clock after Tony promised to wake me up at five in the morning, I went to bed, but I didn't sleep well because I tossed and turned all night because I was so stressed out about going to Austin Friday morning.

Tone kept his promise to me and woke me up at five o'clock. When I came into the kitchen to feed the dogs and cat, T. handed me a cup of fresh coffee that he had made and said, "I've already fed everybody."

After thanking him for waking me up early and fixin' the coffee and for feeding the dogs I went and took a shower. When I started to dress in the clothes that I had chosen to wear for my trip up to Austin I hesitated, because I really didn't want to go to Austin because of the terrifying traffic or be gone for over twelve hours away from Tony and the rescue ranch.

When I told T. that I had decided to cancel my trip he told me that he understood, but I could tell that he was a little disappointed, because Kinky had told us that it was a great opportunity for me to sell a lot of  books.

At six-thirty, after having drank two cups of strong coffee I felt exhausted yet relieved about not going to Austin, so I picked up the phone and punched in Kinky's number because he had requested a six-thirty wake-up call. After two unsuccessful attempts to wake Kink, Tony and I jumped into Buttermilk and went over to the Lodge in the dark.

When we arrived all of the lights were out inside the Lodge, but Ben's truck was parked in the parking lot. "Ben's here!" I said as if T. hadn't already noticed his pickup. When we walked inside the dark kitchen I half-hollered, "Kinky! Kinky you need to wake up!" There was silence and Brownie and Chumley didn't come running into the kitchen to greet us. "Kinky!" Tony hollered in his soft voice.

Thirty seconds later Kinky walked into the kitchen half asleep and flipped on the light. "Thank y'all for waking me up," Kinky said as he starting making some coffee.

"Kink, I'm not going to Austin." Kinky plugged in his perculator and then he turned around and looked at me and smiled.

"You're not?" He asked. "That's fine. It is no big deal, Nance. I can sell your books for you..." We visited with Kinky for about five minutes then Buttermilk took us home.

After breakfast Tony went to the Old Timer and I walked six miles with Leslie even though I really didn't want to because I was so tired. Then I called Ronnie to tell him about not coming to Austin as planned. Ronnie laughed when he heard my news and said, "I knew that you would back out," he teased, "you're a No-Show-Nance!" We laughed about it and then we visited for a few more minutes.

A little while later when Tony and Ben were outside doing the morning chores I went outside and push mowed our front yard. Then I jumped on the riding lawn mower and drove down to the front gate and mowed the grass out front of our rescue ranch while Jim, our great dog-walking volunteer walked our dogs.

After lunch while Tony and Ben mowed and weed-eated I went outside to help them.  I push mowed and used the weed eater until three o'clock because it was hot outside and the ranch looked great.

I guess I did all of that yard work because I felt guilty for not going to Austin. Last night I went to bed really early because I was so tired and that is why I did not post a blog.

This morning after walking eight miles Kinky called to tell me that he was on his way back to the ranch and that he had sold a ton of my books for me! I was thrilled!

After lunch with Ben and Tony, Ben took my pink, feathered light-flashing-hat off of the wall in the big room and put it on to make us laugh. While we were laughing T. grabbed my camera and shot Ben twice.

Then Kinky called to tell us that he was back at the ranch and he invited us to come over. "Nance," Ben said, "wear the pink hat." Ben then took it off and I put it on and then Kermit took us over to the Lodge. We laughed all of the way over there.

When we arrived Ben went to check on his dogs, Penny and Valerie aka "The girls from Austin" as Tony and I went into the Lodge. Kinky was busy doing some paperwork when we entered his office. He talked to us for a good three minutes before he ever turned around. When he finally got up from his desk and turned around he burst out laughing when he saw me wearing my pink cowgirl hat, that Eileen Gotke had given to me a week ago Saturday, with its bright lights flashing different colors. When Kinky finally quit laughing at me and the hat Will and Ben walked inside the Lodge and I got the same reaction from Will that I had gotten from Kinky.

Then Tony challenged Will to a game of pool which was not smart because T. was the reigning Pool Champion of Echo Hill. Will beat the Medina Bulldog twice, so Tony, Ben and I returned to the rescue ranch. After I hung my pink hat back up on the wall in the big room we went into Outer Space and had a fun visit and somewhere in our conversation Ben suggested that I wear the pink hat with my pink overalls and pink boots.

Y'all have a great evening!

Matt-the-Hatter!

Yesterday was a really great day even though it never stopped raining and ended with some thunderstorms. While Tony and Ben sloshed around outside I walked six miles even though I was really tired because I hadn't slept much the night before.

The reason that I did not sleep well was because I worried about doing a reality show out here. I really liked Karuna and I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but something inside me said, "Don't do it" and I always listen to my heartstrings.

After I walked, I went over to the Lodge to talk to Kinky about the TV show and I told him my thoughts and concerns. Thirty minutes later Kinky told me he was fine with any decision I made about it so I came home and called a few Board members and talked to them about the reality show. Then I talked to my sister Cindy and Ben about it and the "don't do it" votes outnumbered the "do it" votes.

I felt bad about telling Karuna the news for at least ten minutes and then I forgot all about it because Ian showed up to adopt Scooby Doo! Since it was raining cats and dogs outside we invited Ian to come inside the trailer to fill out the adoption papers on the little dog that stole his heart a few weeks back. Ian was so excited about finally adopting Scoober he could not wait to go outside in the rain to get his new best friend and take him home. "Last night my girlfriend went to the pet store and bought him dog food, feed dishes, a collar, leash and a ton of toys to play with!" Ian said before he and Tony went to get Scooby Doo.

When Tone came back inside the trailer I was making lunch for Ben, Tone and me and he was soaked from head to toe, but he was wearing a big smile on his face. "Scooby was so excited to see Ian. I know Scooby knew that he was getting his forever home, Nance. He's a lucky dog and I'm so glad that it was Ian who adopted him. He is such a nice young man."

After lunch with the guys I returned several e-mails and phone calls, then I got depressed about having to call Karuna and tell her that we had to decline her TV show offer. I hate it when I have to say no to people as nice as Karuna, but I knew I had to so I put it off for an hour and took an "arts and crafts break" to cheer me up.

Last week when Tony and I went over to visit our friends Barbara and Tom Carpenter at their beautiful ranch I fell in love with the way Barbara had decorated their cozy home because it was "Country" style and full of love, history and character. When I spotted her painted, pastel pink Scrabble letters and trays scattered throughout their ranch house with words like: relax, welcome etc. I told her that I wanted to copy her idea, she told me to do it and I did sort of.

While I was painting (white washing) the lettered and numbered tiles baby pink I decided to do my words in "Pig Latin" because as a child Ronnie and I used to talk Pig Latin in front of our parents and we thought that we were so smart, thinking that they could not understand us—it was our secret language. Mom and Dad never let on that we might not be the sharpest tools in the tool shed because they were too nice.

For those of you who are too young to know what Pig Latin is I will tell you. In Ronnie's and my secret foreign language we removed the first letter of a word and put it at the end of the word and added "ay" to it. For example: Ronnie became Onnie-Ray. Here is a picture of a few of my trays of words.

After I cleaned up my mess in the kitchen I called Karuna to tell her the bad news. She was so sweet even though I could tell that she was really disappointed and I felt terrible for twenty minutes after we hung up. Then I forgot about it because we had another fantastic adoption! R-1 found his new forever home! And it was raining so hard Tony, Ben and I got soaked as we stood outside in the rain visiting with Tony's friend Bo.

After the adoption papers were signed inside the barn R-1 happily jumped into the front seat of Bo's fancy truck and layed down as we visited in the pouring rain. After ten minutes of talking I said, "I can't help it. I've got to check on R-1 and make sure that he is okay." Then we all walked up to the window and looked inside the pickup—R-1 was sound asleep and seemed to be hugging the cloth seat because he loves to ride in trucks and cars! "I want this dog to go everywhere that I go." Bo said.

When it was time for Bo to leave with his new precious cargo R-1 was happily riding shotgun on the passenger side of the front seat which made Ben, Tony and me laugh.  Then the three of us jumped into Trigger and returned to the trailer and talked about how happy we were for Scooby Doo and R-1. And we could not believe that they had been adopted in the pouring rain. Then the thunder storms came and it rained all night.

This morning when I got up at six-fifteen (which would have been five-fifteen in the old time) I let the dogs outside and the roaring creek below our bluff was so loud I figured that we must have flooded sometime during the night. Then Tony walked into the big room and told me that he wasn't going to try to go to the Old Timer this morning because the creeks and river were reportedly out of banks. I heard on the news that they had to evacuate all of the campers in Bandera. I don't know if we are land-locked or not."

After I made some coffee and fed the dogs the sun came up over the mountain and we could see our rain guage. We got over five inches of rain since yesterday. After we drank a cup of coffee T. and I jumped into Buttermilk to go check out the low water crossings.

The creeks were full and out of their banks but we were not land-locked yet so went over to the Lodge because I wanted to tell Kinky about the creeks rising. Kinky was up and dressed when we walked into the Lodge and he was a little surprised to see us at seven-fifteen in the morning. We had a long discussion about the weather because Kinky and Frank had to leave by eight o'clock for a librarian convention in San Antonio that he was going to speak at. "They said that we have a ninety percent chance of rain today and if I were you I'd get out of here before the creeks rise some more," I said. 

Ten minutes later Tone and I were back at the trailer. I decided to invite Kinky, Frank, Ben and Will over for breakfast so I called the Lodge and got Kink's machine which probably meant that they had taken off for San Antone. "Kinky! Ben if you are there please pick..."

"Hello, Nancy," Ben said. "Kinky and Frank just left..."

"Would you and Will like to come over for breakfast? I'm fixin' scrambled eggs, beans and sausage."

Ten minutes later Ben showed up and he ate breakfast with us while Will caught up on some over do sleep. After breakfast the guys put on their rain gear and galoshes and then went outside to work in the rain and that's when I decided to walk six miles with Leslie.

Around eleven-fifteen Tony walked inside the trailer and told me that Lisa was still really depressed and she wanted to talk to me about it. "Tell her to come on up," I said. Tony went back outside to tell Lisa to come inside. When Lisa walked inside the trailer Tony walked outside. I could tell that she had been crying so I hugged her and invited Lisa to sit down so we could talk. 

Three minutes into our private conversation the front door opened and in walked Tony and a good-looking cowboy wearing a straw cowboy hat—it was Matt! "Matt! I love your cowboy hat! You look so handsome! Doesn't he, Lisa?" 

"Yes, he does," Lisa said trying to smile. "You look good, Matt." Matt blushed.

"Has it helped you get any new girlfriends?" I teased. 

"Yeah," Matt said with a laugh. "Yesterday some girl hollered out her car window at me and screamed, "Forget the horse. Ride a cowboy!" but she was a cowgirl and fatter than a cow..."

"Don't give up, Matt-the-Hatter," I said. "When you meet some cute girl tip the front of your cowboy hat at her and she will melt and then say things like..." Ten minutes later after Lisa, Tony and I had coached and given Matt tips on how to be and act like a cowboy we were all laughing—including Lisa! Yeah! Here is a picture I took of Matt with his new improved image. Doesn't he look adorable!

 

When it was time for Lisa and Matt to leave Matt did the funniest thing. After he and Lisa left the trailer he picked her up on the front porch and threw her over his shoulder and then carried her down the steps with her laughing and screaming, "Put me down, Matt! I am going to get you for this. Matt! I'm serious now..." 

So Tony, Ben and me went out on the porch to watch. "Matt!" I hollered as he carried her off towards her car. "I've got a roping rope if you need one!" Then we started laughing and came back inside the trailer. 

After turning on my iPod I made lunch for Ben, Tony, Will and me. After lunch I cleaned up the kitchen I asked Tony to get our expensive-hardly-ever-used vacuum sealer out of our closet because I couldn't reach it because I was going to cut up the giant Miles of Chocolate brick that Ben had given to us yesterday, so I could store it in smaller serving packages.

When I was ready to start vacuum sealing I had a hard time trying to cut up the huge brick of chocolate because I am not good with knives so Ben took over. We started an assembly line. As Ben sliced off a chunk of chocolate I would cut off a seven or eight inch sheet of the plastic sealing bag. Then Ben would seal one edge of the plastic bag and then insert the other edge into the vacuum sealer and then vacuum seal it as Tony and Will watched and teased us. Here is a picture of a vacuum sealed slice of the best chocolate in the world. Thank you, Ben!

Kinky just called. When the phone rang I looked up at the Caller ID on the wall and recognized Kinky's cell number so I picked up the phone and said, "Howdy!" instead of "Rescue Ranch," like I always do. It threw Kinky and he laughed. "Howdy!"I said again and he laughed harder and then he echoed back my words. He called to tell me that he and Frank are headed back to the ranch and he wanted to get a "how high's the water" creek-check and then he told me that he had fun at the librarian convention. 

P.S. I want to do a big shout out to my friend and author, Cindy Lou Ruffino, who will be signing her second book Dead X's In Texas tomorrow from ten until three o'clock at the Georgetown Convention Center! Cindy, I hope that you have fun tomorrow and your book sells like hot cakes! You Rock!

Y'all have a great evening!