Happy Birthday Lisa Free!

Tony and I want to be the first to wish our dear friend Lisa Free a Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday to You. Happy Birthday To You. Happy Birthday to Dear Lisa. Happy Birthday to You. And many more!
We love you and we miss you. Have a wonderful day!

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 Tony!

I want to be the very first to wish the love of my life a Happy 57th Birthday! Happy Birthday to You. Happy Birthday to You. Happy Birthday Dear Tony. Happy Birthday to You! And Many More!

You've Come A Long Way, Baby!

I Love You,

Nancy

P.S. I have a surprise for you. : )

Harley's At The REV FM, 94.3!

Today has been fun. This morning I called Harley at 7:45 at the REV FM 94.3 radio station, to do my Utopia segment and Harley had me laughing from the minute we started talking and Maggie May was Harley's Pet of the Week.

Maggie is approximately six to seven years old and she is a very sweet, shy dog. She smiles when she greets you and Maggie would be a wonderful companion for someone who doesn't get out much, even though she loves to go on long walks.

This morning T. and I went outside early to do our chores. When I was cleaning Blackie's and Alfie's pen I told them about them being adopted and moving to New York state and how lucky they were and then I started crying because I am so happy for them and have loved them for a very long time. I'm not sure if they understood me, but Blackie licked my hand before I left their pen.

Right after T. and I had finished feeding the dogs and cleaning their pens Ben drove up and we were so happy to see him. When Ben and I took off to go empty the poop buckets I told him about the last few days being a little off for me and I didn't know why. "It's because Mercury went into retrograde yesterday, Nance and also because of the high heat and the drought." Hearing his bad news about Mercury made me feel better and it explained a lot of the stuff that's been going on.

Late this afternoon after Ben had put new brake pads on Trigger we came inside to get out of the heat. After the three of us drank  big glasses of cold Ozarka water we grabbed our musical instruments, so we could practice together and I had so much fun jamming with the guys and believe it or not—we actually sounded pretty good.

Tony and Ben have different styles of playing the mandolin and it really comes out sounding great. After we had practiced playing, My Rifle, My Pony And Me, over and over again, we took turns choosing different songs to play and we picked and grinned for over an hour and a half until our fingers were killing us. Then Ben packed up and left to go spend the night at the Lodge with his two dogs, affectionately known as, The Girls From Austin.

As soon as Ben was gone I got out my 2011 Farmer's Almanac and discovered that as of yesterday, Mercury is in retrograde, just like Ben had said, and Mercury stays in retrograde until the 26th of this month. So, I've decided to not tell Kinky where Mercury is until he returns to the ranch this coming Sunday, because as they say, "No news is good news."

And since my fingers are still killing me as I type this tonight I guess that is about it for today. Tonight I am going to read some more of Elmer Kelton's award winning book, The Time It Never Rained and then go to bed early, because tomorrow is going to be a busy day and I am going to make it a fun day for me too— no matter where Merc is.

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

A Melt Down!

Today has been fun. This morning when T. and I stepped out on the front porch to go do our morning chores I spotted a giant wild hog, near our pump house, where Tony feeds the deer every morning before we go to work. So I grabbed my camera and shot him.

This afternoon after lunch Tony and I took off for Kerrville to go see Sandy and Jon to talk about our upcoming road trip, stop by Home Depot to get some lumber to build a storage box for the hallway and to grab some groceries at H-E-B. and we had a couple of surprises.

When we went into Wolfmueller's Books Mary Jo greeted us, from behind the counter, and then told us that Sandy and Jon were gone for the day, so we wished her a nice day and then adios-ed her. On our way back to Trigger, because I was disappointed that we didn't get to see Jon and Sandy I wanted some comfort food, so I told Tone that I wanted a chocolate malt and that I wanted to treat him to a milkshake so we took off for an undisclosed location and that was a big mistake.

When we went inside the empty-filled establishment we were greeted by a friendly woman, at least five years older than me and then I ordered the chocolate malt and T. ordered a strawberry milkshake and then we sat down at a table and waited and waited and waited as we watched the woman trying to make our order seem difficult.

After fifteen minutes had passed I got the giggles watching Tony watch her finally working on his strawberry shake, while he softly grumbled things like, "We are never coming back here again. I can't believe this..." 

Five minutes later the pleasant woman served us our cold beverages with these giant, long straws that were twice as long and round as a regular straw. After she had left our table and gone back into the kitchen, I burst out laughing about having to rest my malt down on my thigh just to drink my small malt, because of the length of the Texas-sized straw. Seriously, it was probably eighteen inches long.

After Tony had sucked and sucked on his super, long straw, to no avail, he said, "This thing is so thick it won't even come up the @#^* straw, Nance." And when he started stirring the thick strawberry ice cream, in hopes that it would melt soon, so he could finally drink it—I burst out laughing and couldn't quit, because my chocolate malt was all melted and had turned into cold chocolate milk.

Twenty minutes later after T.'s milkshake had a melt down—he sucked it up and then we went to Home Depot and H-E-B and then came home.

Late this afternoon I went outside and unloaded the twenty 1"X 4"s from Trigger and carried them up to the front porch, so I could chop them for the storage box that we needed to build to finish our "Tony's Photography Hallway" project.

After I had measured and chopped all of the boards to their proper length, I carried them inside the trailer and half-hollered down the hallway, "Tony! The boards all chopped and I am ready for you to screw them for me." 

In less than thirty minutes we had us a wooden box with a lid that lifted! Here is a picture of T. getting ready to put the hinges on it.

And here is a picture of Tony's Photography Hallway project completed. 

Yall have a great evening and please keep praying for rain for us!

P.S. Mari and Susie, I loved y'all's comments on last night's post. Thanks for making me smile and laugh.

Road Trip(s)!

This morning I had the hardest time concentrating on finishing up my paperwork because I couldn't quit thinking about the exciting road trips coming up that will involve our dear friends, our great volunteers and a couple of very lucky dogs.

I thought, as of this morning, the first road trip would be when I go to Target and Whole Foods in San Antone with Sandy and Patty in a few weeks, which I am really looking forward to even though I am scared of the heavy volume of traffic there, but my girlfriends have promised me that we will have a blast and that they will drive carefully.

But this morning even though I know that I am going to have fun spending the day with Patty and Sandy—I could not quit thinking about our surprise September road trip, that just sprang up three days ago, because Tony and I are so excited about it.

Our dear friends Sandy and Jon called me three days ago and invited T. and me to go with them, as their guests, out to Terlingua in Big Bend for a three-day two-night, fun filled adventure! And I said, "Yes! We'd love to!" three seconds after they had invited us—without even asking Tone about it.

"Y'all are going to love the sunrises and the sunsets out there and there are so many things for us to do and the place where we will be staying is so awesome. They have wifi, so you can blog and....Jon wants to talk to you now."

"Hello, Nancy. We've got it figured out, too. You and Sandy are going to ride in the backseat and Tony is going to ride shotgun. And guess what? When we leave Junction the speed limit jumps up to 80 mph!" Then we started laughing. "And I'm going to drive 80."

After we had quit laughing I said, "Do you pass cars, Jon?"

"Yes, I pass cars."

"Well then, I am going to sit behind you so I can't see the speedometer and if you pass a car—it will be Sandy who will be looking into the eyes of a stranger—just a foot away from her face. Okay?" Jon burst out laughing and then he told Sandy what I had just said and then she burst out laughing too.

Because I was so excited about going out to Big Bend with them, we talked about our September road trip for over twenty minutes before I got off of the phone with them and then I told Tony all about our road trip. "I can't wait to go. Jon and Sandy are so much fun and just think about all of the photo opportunities I will have!...." Then he went down the, almost finished, hallway and got on his computer to check out Big Bend and the place where we will be staying and to say the least, "It is totally awesome!" And since then all Tony and I can think about is how much fun we are going to have with Sandy and Jon out there.

Then yesterday an unexpected road trip was planned, which is still in the making, after I received an e-mail from Deborah, up in New York state, who I have been talking back and forth to on the Internet, for the last couple of weeks, about adopting Blackie and his sweet roommate Alfie—two great dogs that we love, but who have spent way too much time at the rescue ranch.

Today, after lunch Deborah and I started e-mailing each other back and forth about us needing to transport Blackie and Alfie to Austin on the 8th, so they can hitch a ride up to Boston in a SUV, where she will pick them up and bring them to their new forever home on their beautiful farm in New York state.

Knowing that T. and I could not drive these two great dogs to Austin I sent Eileen, our super great volunteer and the sound engineer and talented drummer for our band, L-BeNT & Husky Bound, an e-mail about getting Blackie and Alfie up to Austin. Minutes later she shot me back an e-mail, "I would love to do it!..." So now I must do a shout-out to Eileen Gotke—"Our Rescue Ranch Loves You and So Do We! Thank You So Very Much!"

Late this afternoon I filled out Blackie's and Alfie's adoption papers and then faxed them to Deborah for her to sign and fax back to me and that is about it for today. Tonight I plan to get some much needed writing done on my book.

Y'all have a great evening!

It Looks Pretty Cool!

Today has been a quiet day. I spent most of the day doing "1st of the month paperwork" and I nearly have it all done—thank goodness.

The only exciting thing that has happened today is Ben's and my Snark 2 arrived in the mail and it really is a cool, easy to use tuner. After I showed it to T. we tuned up and then we jammed for about an hour.

Early this evening I helped Tony hang up his pictures in our newly renovated hallway and it looks pretty cool. Once we have it totally completed I will post a picture. And y'all, that is about it for today.

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