Stark Naked! or True Words Of Wisdom!

Yesterday and today have been great. Saturday, Tony and I spent several hours working on the bathroom, over at the property. The bathroom was fine to begin with, but because we are turning all of the the walls, inside The Cabin, to try to look more like a log cabin we stained some more 1'x4's and then put them up on the walls.

Originally the bathroom was cute enough and it looked like this, but knowing that Tony would have a really hard time pulling/lifting/dragging me out of the beautiful claw foot tub we chose to remove the tub and replace it with a 32" walk-in shower kit. So that way we can only slip and fall and bang our heads when we're stark naked and dripping wet. Which trust me would not be a pretty picture.

And yesterday when we left to come back home this is what we had accomplished in the bathroom.

We still have a little more work to do, in the bathroom, to complete its makeover, but I am already loving it, even though I know that, in the future, we will have to be sharing this one bathroom.

This morning was fun. After talking to Kinky on the phone, We went over to visit with him, in the Lodge and to also pick up the old, cedar bed that Tony and I had made for him, over 15 years ago, about three months after moving our rescue ranch to his beautiful Echo Hill Ranch, in Medina.

Don't get me wrong. Kinky loved this cedar bed that we had made for him, but after he had rearranged his bedroom he decided to return it to us due to a space issue and also because I wanted it. 

The reason that I wanted his/our bed back is because I decided that we could use it, over at the property, as an extra bed, in a soon-to-be built smaller, cozy cabin, in the forest. And hopefully we will be able to rent that cabin out, on the weekends, to tourists, as a dog-friendly Airbnb, in the Hill Country.

After we loaded up Kinky's bed, in the back of JJ Cale, we had a very fun visit with him, in his kitchen. 

While we were drinking some delicious coffee I told Kink my new joke, mind you not the dirty one, because he like Tony has already heard that one too many times.

Anyway, when it was time for us to go, Kinky walked us back to the truck. And while we were standing there adios-ing each other, he told us something that his sweet sister Marcie had just recently told him. A friend had told it to her and it has been stuck in my head ever since—because I love it so much.

Kinky spoke softly, after taking a puff of his cigar, "This older gentleman told Marcie, "What I've learned about life is: It's not about the pot of gold—it's about the rainbow."" 

Then Kinky, Tony and I all agreed that those were true words of wisdom. And that is exactly why I wanted to share this with you. 

On our way back to the rescue ranch, I was doing all of the talking (of course) and then I had one of those light bulb moments, and said, "Tony, I am going to make a sign that reads: "Kinky Friedman slept here (for over 15 years)! And I am going to ask Kinky to put his autograph on the headboard...." And that is about it for tonight.

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

Heartland!

Today has been great. This morning after our great friends/dog-walking volunteers walked our dogs for us they came over to check out the progress we've made with our cabin.

I was already working, over at the property, when Tony showed up with Andy & Judy, Sarah and Jim.  In fact, I had just chopped up some 2'x4's and was in the midst of building a small coffee cup shelf to put up on the kitchen wall, that will showcase my beautiful collection of Mara mugs—that I love so much.

Anyway, when they all arrived I already had started a beautiful, blazing fire, in our incredibly great wood-burning stove and I had just sprayed on my first coat of polyurethane to protect the rag rug that I painted last night, for my dog statue.

Tony and I gave everyone a tour of The Cabin and everyone seemed to think it was pretty cool and then we had a fun visit with our good friends.

After we adios-ed our friends Tony and I stained about 20 - 8 foot 2'x4's, so tomorrow afternoon we can hopefully finish turning our bathroom into a faux-looking-log-cabin bathroom.

Anyway last night, on my blog, I promised that I would take a picture of my dog statue resting on his new metal, rag rug. And here are the before the rug and on the rug pictures.

And that is about it for tonight, because I plan to work, on Carol's Top Bun Christmas present, because I just finished having Hazel suck up another ton of dog hair. Then I plan to relax and watch a few more episodes of Heartland, on Netflix and then go to bed.

P.S. Next to Longmire, Heartland is now my new favorite series to binge watch. Netflix has nine Heartland seasons and each season has 18 episodes, each episode being 40 minutes long. And it is Canada's favorite show. 

Also, I copied the curtains for our cabin, in the Heartland ranch house log cabin. Except mine are green—not blue.

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

The Rug!

I am sorry for not writing much this past week, but I am not sorry for all of the things we've accomplished, over at the property. And, because I am tired I am going to let the pictures tell most of the story tonight.

This is the kitchen and we built the shelves using the wood that used to be underneath the cabin's floor.

This is the front of our cabin, before we decided to spruce it up and eventually, we will turn the entire outside of the cabin using this stained wood. And soon we will replace the front door with our new, red, metal door that was built-in blinds.

We were so happy with the front of the house we decided to build a deck using some of our old lumber.

Then we decided that we wanted a covered front porch, instead of just a deck.

And while Aaron was busy, outside, putting the metal roof, on the front porch, using the old Outer Space roofing, Kris & Jim came out to give us their house/cabin warming gift. And here are Jim and Tony putting together the bench that they gave to us. And it is the most comfortable bench that we have ever had. "Thank you, Kris & Jim!"

An hour later, here is the finished, covered front porch, with Kris & Jim's bench being the center piece, on the porch.

Early this afternoon, my sweet sister Cindy came to visit us and she was anxious to see what all we've done to our cabin and she loved everything. Her favorite part was the shelving made out of these old, 1950's 2'x4's that were used as the pier and beam supports, underneath the cabin.

To celebrate my sister coming to see us and because it was chilly outside, we decided that today would be the first "Lighting of the Wood Burning Stove" for the very first time. Tony took the role of fire-man and in no time flat our new wood burning stove, that I bought over a year ago, was heating up the cabin nicely.

This is a picture of the wall you see when you first enter the cabin and I am still decorating it. And please note that I made the bookcase using some of our old, recycled lumber. At the bottom, left corner, of this picture is the head of my dog statue that we (Tony) put, in front of the wood burning stove.

And there he is, laying in front of the wood burning stove, on the cold tile. And right after Tony put him there I realized that my dog statue, that I treasure, deserved to have a rug to be resting on, instead of the cold, hard tile.

So early this evening, after Cindy left to go back to Austin, we came back home and I got busy making a rag rug for my dog statue, to rest on, in front of our super-cool wood burning stove. And this is what I made.

My rug is approximately 30"x18" and I used many different colors: yellows, turquoise, reds, blues, greens, etc. and I am thrilled how it finally turned out. And I cannot wait to take it over to the cabin, tomorrow afternoon, and get Tony to place it underneath my heavy dog statue.

I promise to take a picture of it so you can see how it looks and please do not worry about my rug catching on fire, because I used the back of an old, metal sign to paint my rug on. And that is about it for tonight.

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

The Finger!

This has been a really weird week for me. Some of it not so good, some it really bad and some of it really good.

On Monday we had three of our rescue dogs returned to us for different reasons, so that was not so good. These dogs were happy to come back "home" and they seem to be doing just fine.

For the most part of the week Tony and I have been spending all of our spare time working, over at the property and in our opinion we've accomplished a lot considering our age.

Anyway, yesterday morning I was in a great mood, but not long after that I went into a full-blown tail-spin, because this creep, driving a dark, maroon Tundra pickup tied his beautiful, male, Chocolate Lab to our rescue ranch's gate, using a thin, short piece of rope. Leaving his sweet, but confused, happy dog with only a very small bowl of water to drink—until we found him.

Tony was the one who actually found this dog tied to our gate, because I was already working, over at the property.

So Tony fed the dog and put him into a pen and after Tony had done his morning chores outside he came, over to the property, to tell me about this poor dog being tied to our gate. Tony was madder than a wet hen about it and I just got really depressed, so I just focused all of my attention on working really hard, so I wouldn't have to think about this poor dog being dumped.

Anyway, last night I had intended on writing a post for my blog, but because I was feeling so down about this dog being abandoned I did a little bit of reading and then just went to bed.

This morning after I got up Tony told me that he had some good news, "Last night I told Karon (yes, that is how she spells her name with an "o"), on Facebook, about the Chocolate Lab and she is coming out early this morning to check him out, because she has been wanting to get another Lab...."

Bottom   Line: Karon instantly fell in love with this Chocolate Lab and tonight this lucky, Labrador is getting to know his new family. Here is a picture that I took this morning of this super sweet dog, before Karon came out and adopted him and took him home. And I must confess that I was some what in a hurry this morning, to get over to the property and "the finger" that you see in the photo below belongs to me.

The rest of our day has been great, because several of our friends came, over to the property, to visit with us. First came our dear friends Alison & Blake, from Austin, who were actually, over at the rescue ranch, when Karon came out and adopted the lucky Lab. 

And after the adoption they followed Tony, over to the property and while we were visiting, inside The Cabin, with them sweet Carol showed up, so we all sat around and had a fun visit with all of them. 

And later on, as we were outside adios-ing Blake & Alison— Tom & Marie showed up, because they are Winter-Texans, from Minnesota and they could not wait to see us and the property.

So as I finish writing this tonight—Life Is Good, once again, at the rescue ranch.

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

Dogs Playing In The Snow!

Today has been great. Our good friend Les sent me this hilarious NTD.TV video of dogs playing in the snow and I totally loved watching it. In fact, I watched it three times before showing it to Tony and he loved it, too.

So I bookmarked it and if you want to put a big smile on your face immediately I highly recommend that you watch this super enjoyable video. Click here.

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

Four Food Trucks! or CHI'LANTRO Restaurants Rule Austin!

First off, I am sorry for not writing last night about the four food trucks and my excuse is that I worked late, over at The Cabin and was just too tired when I got back home.

It is 7:00 in the evening and Tony and I just returned home, after spending several hours working over, at the property. We hung up the curtains I made, stained over 40 more 1'x4's, hung pictures up, then took them down and then re-hung the pictures until they were perfect.

Continued from Monday night...Four Food Trucks!

When Tony, Hope & Jae arrived, at the property, the first thing we did was give Hope & Jae a tour of our beautiful property and they instantly fell in love with our beautiful, 1977 Land Yacht (Airstream) too. And by the time we had shown them the "enchanted forest," area, then the super-cool, two-story, red barn, the three Madrone trees, which Chet told me are considered by Native Americans to be sacred spirit trees—we invited them to come into The Cabin.

When they first walked inside, The Cabin, their jaws dropped, to the floor and I thought it was because they were really impressed with our cabin makeover, but I was wrong.

Hope was smiling, but she had her hands covering her mouth and the look on Jae's face was like he had just seen a ghost or something. So I said, "What? What is it?" And then they broke out laughing and pointed to my barefoot, half-man mannequin, that was leaning up against the wall, near the front door. Then Tony and I started laughing, too.

Then we all got a cold beer and while we showed them, The Cabin, I explained about buying the mannequin, at the garage sale and why it was wearing a pair of my old, 501 Levis. And they thought it was hilarious instead of weird.

Well, I talked too much as usual, as we sat around catching up with Hope's latest news and our news, in the big room, and when I finally realized I was doing most of the talking, I paused, and then asked, "So Jae, what do you do, in Austin?"

"He owns five restaurants," Hope sweetly bragged on her super-nice boyfriend. "And he also has four food trucks. Jae's CHI'LANTRO restaurants/food trucks. It is Korean BBQ inspired and it fuses Korean & Mexican flavors and.... "

"Omg!" I said. "I love food trucks so much! And I've always wanted to have one. Especially after watching that great Jon Favreau movie, Chef. It is one of my all-time favorite movies...."

Then once again I realized I was talking non-stop, so I asked them to please tell us more about Jae's restaurants, because I definitely wanted to blog about it. And by the time they were finished telling us about Jae's restaurants all I could think of was us making a fast trip, up to Austin and going with Cindy, Ronnie & Nita, to go eat at one of Jae's five CHI'LANTRO restaurants or four food trucks.

Tone and I had a wonderful time visiting with Hope & Jae and before dark-thirty they adios-ed us, because they wanted to get back to the Trail's End Guest House, in Kerrville, where they were spending the night. "Because we love the Trail's End Guest House and that is where we always stay when we come to the Kerrville area," Hope said.

"We love the Trail's End Guest House, too," I said. "Many years ago, our good friends David & Desiree, who own the popular place, adopted one of our wild hogs from us. We named that sweet, wild hog David Beckham, because he chased soccer balls, but Desiree and David ended up re-naming him, Wilbur and they told us that Beckham/Wilbur was very popular with their guests. Unfortunately, Beckham died a few years ago...."

Tony and I came home after Hope & Jae left and the first thing I did after giving Roy a pill for his arthritis was Google CHI'LANTRO restaurants & food trucks and I was even more impressed after reading that they are the highest rated event caterers, in Austin. Anyway, I hope y'all will check out our friend's popular Austin restaurants & food trucks and get back to me, because we can't wait to eat Jae's food. And here is the business card that Jae gave to me before they left. And please note that I put his business card, in my back pocket, so it sort of got crinkled up a little bit.

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

Half A Man! or Four Food Trucks!

Last Saturday Tony and I and our dear friends, June and Ellen had a garage sale, at June's house, from 8:00 - 2:00. It was a lot of fun spending most of the day with these two sisters, and our good friends: Kevin, Curtis, Susan and Baxter.

Tone and I got there a little after 7:30 and while Tony was helping me unpack our stuff/junk and set it up on one of the folding tables that June provided, I spotted something that Ellen had for sale and I knew that I just had to have it. So before our garage sale even started I was already $20.00 in the red, but I didn't care, because I was so happy about my purchase.

Tony thought I was crazy when I told him what I had bought and Ellen was laughing when she took this picture of me removing my precious purchase from the garage sale items.

Yes, that is me carefully removing my new/used half-male mannequin, wearing patriotic underwear and wearing a pair of Kevin's (borrowed) dark, brown shoes, in hopes of boosting sales. And before Tony left, to come back to the rescue ranch to do his morning chores, he asked me what I was going to do with my half-man. So I told him, "I am going to dress him in my jeans and put a pair of my old, pink boots on him and turn him into a lamp!" Tony didn't laugh, but everyone else did.

Around 11:00, our garage sale customers had dwindled, so Ellen and June thought it would be a good idea to do something fun to boost our sales, while we waited for another shopping frenzy. And before you knew it or before Tony returned—we had my half a man-mannequin laying on a trundle bed, hidden under a quilt with his feet hanging out, at the end. And we put a pair of men and women shoes, on the rug, next to the bed. And June topped it off with a baseball cap and she put their lamp and fringed lampshade, beside the bed. And we loved it and we laughed ourselves silly.

When the next shopping spree finally happened, the customers were staring at our restful display and they were laughing, whispering to each other, etc. about it and before long the bed and the mattress sold!

When our multi-friends garage sale ended, Tony helped me load up our stuff/junk that hadn't sold and I ended up making a grand total of $14.00, after buying a lot of their stuff. 

Then after counting my profit Tony happily loaded up his new/used (Ellen's) Nada Chair, (June's) Cabella's outdoor recliner, a really cool, gas camp stove, a set of blue and white, Pottery Barn curtains. And lastly Tone carried my half  a man mannequin and tossed him, into JJ Cale's backseat. Then we adios-ed everyone and came home.

As soon as we got back home Tony carried my half a man mannequin, into The Cabin, and I went into our bedroom to grab an old pair of my Levis and an even older pair of my dusty, Justin Gypsy pink boots. 

Then the phone rang and the father of one of the great girls, a member in the East Kerr 4-H Club, called and asked if he could drive out and adopt Walter from us, because his sweet daughter and him had fallen in love with him, last Saturday. Of course, my answer was "Yes!" 

Thirty minutes later, Walter was officially adopted and he took off, in a big fancy pickup, to go to his new home, in Kerrville. (So please keep your fingers crossed that Walter will mind his manners and his adoption sticks.)

After we adios-ed Walter and the nice man it was dress-rehearsal time and here are a few pictures that I took of Tony trying to help me put my jeans on him and then trying to shove my boots on his gigantic feet.

And the whole time that we were trying to turn my man-mannequin into a cowgirl, Tony kept saying, "Don't you dare take my picture or tell anyone that I was involved with this...." Of course I promised him, but as you can see—I was lying, again.

We had a real problem trying to get my pink boots on him and while we were doing that our phone rang again and it was our good friend Hope calling. She and her boyfriend were running around the Texas Hill Country and she wanted to know if she and Jae could come by for a visit. ..."Great!" Hope said. "We should be there in about forty-minutes. I can't wait for Jae to meet y'all!"

Knowing that time was of the essence, so to speak, I asked Tony to please slit my boots with his knife, in hopes we could put his/her pink boots on. He did that, but we still had no luck, because his feet were just way too big to fit into my pretty, pink boots. So we temporarily gave up.

"Tony, if you'll put my man-mannequin in JJ, I'll take off and go straighten up The Cabin. Then you can bring them over and...."

As soon as I got to our property, I unlocked The Cabin door, opened the windows and then I pulled him, out of the backseat and clumsily carried him, inside The Cabin and I leaned him up, by the front door. Then I quickly put away all of our tools and the scaffolding, into the bedroom and then I swept the sawdust-covered floors.

Ten minutes later, I grabbed my camera and took these pictures of our cleaned-up, soon-to-be cabin, before Tony, Hope and Jae arrived.

Twenty minutes later Tony, Hope & Jae arrived, but I'll have to write about their fun visit tomorrow night, because I am fixin' to go sew another set of curtains, for the window, in the big room, that looks out, at the red barn.

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

To Be Continued....(Sorry, Mari)