I Love Y'all!

If the New Year 2011 is as great as our New Year's Eve day was—I say, "Bring it on! I can't wait!"

Early Friday morning, right before sunup, Tony took Rick with him to the Old Timer to drink coffee with his friends, while Leisa slept with Squirt in my writing cabin, and I slept with Mama and Toto. 

I got out of bed around seven o'clock, put the dogs outside, made some coffee, fed the dogs and then I started cooking my semi-famous, "Cousin Nancy's Huevos Rancheros," while visiting with Leisa.

There really isn't anything special about how I cook my huevos rancheros, except I add one secret ingredient, which I cannot divulge at this time, because I am thinking seriously about doing a cookbook with y'all, in the very near future—to benefit our rescue ranch.

When our "Medina-coffee-drinkin' men" returned home, I served breakfast and they all loved it and cleaned their plates while begging me for my recipe, but my lips were sealed and I never revealed my secret ingredient. 

Following breakfast, Tony and Rick went outside, so Tone could feed the dogs and Rick could clean their pens. Leisa and her precious dog Squirt returned to my cabin, so she could get some work done on the Internet and that's when I decided to walk off a couple of the seven miles left to go with Leslie Sansone, to complete my 2010 New Year's resolution of walking 1,825 miles with her.

Three miles later I stopped walking even though I still had four miles to walk, when the dogs outside started barking to let me know that something was going on. 

Twenty minutes later after I had cleaned up, I was outside having a hen party with our friends and super volunteers: Sharon Griswold, the incredible dog trainer of "Rover Misbehaving," June Hartley and her friend, Lisa, Ellen Jackson, and Eileen Gotke, while Jim McMahon was out walking a couple of our lucky dogs, while Paul Emerson visited with Tony, Leisa and Rick, after they had unloaded his pickup full-of-free-dog-food for our dogs. Needless to say there was non-stop laughter. Here is a picture that I took of "the girls" and Paul before they left to go home and spend New Year's Eve with their families. 

Left to right: Sharon, Ellen, June, Lisa and Eileen

I love these people as much or more, as our dogs do—they're the best—the cream of the crop and I want to say, "Thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart, for making our rescue ranch great! We couldn't have done it without y'all."

After they went home, we ate lunch and then Ben Welch arrived, while I was cleaning up the kitchen, and we had a fun visit with him! Then after he left to go back over to the Lodge to visit with Kinky, Marcie and Frank, Patty Kearns, our dear Floridian friend, showed up with a gift for me—the new Elton John / Leon Russell CD—"The Union!" And it is fantastic!

After a brief visit here we jumped into Buttermilk and took off for the Lodge to go visit with Kinky, Marcie, Frank and Ben. Here are a few pictures over there. I took this one.

Left to right: Rick, T. and Ben 

Ben took this one. Left to right: Leisa, Patty, Marcie and me.

An hour later, after Patty had gone back to Kerrville, to be with her Dad and Peggy, Rick started fixin' us dinner that he and Leisa had bought, and that is when I decided to try to walk-off the remaining four miles and things got pretty funny and hairy. 

As I walked off the miles with Leslie, wearing my jeans and Justin Gypsy pink boots, with the volume turned down, so we could visit—Rick had us laughing non-stop! In the final minutes left, before I was done walking, he decided to walk with me, but Squirt disagreed.

Every time that Rick tried to walk behind me—she'd growl and then attack his feet—without biting—as we roared with laughter! This is a picture that T. took of Rick and me when I completed the seventh mile. As you can tell—I was thrilled with myself that I had actually walked 1,825 miles with Sansone in 2010!

On that New Year's Eve—Leisa and Rick went to bed at eight o'clock—Tony at eight-thirty and I hit the sack before nine-thirty.

New Year's Day was great, because Mercury was no longer in retrograde! While the four of us ate breakfast together, we laughed non-stop as we watched "Vernon, Florida," a great documentary. An hour or so later, Leisa and Rick took off for San Antonio to visit relatives before heading back down to Port Aransas and I spent the rest of the day and today making this nine minute video, using the pictures from my 2010 blog and I hope that you enjoy it and will check it out. And Mari, please don't get your feelings hurt that there are no pictures of the RockBox, even though we loved it—I had no pictures. And I want to thank everyone for supporting our rescue ranch over the past year and the only reason that you may not be in the video is because I had no pictures. Happy New Year to all! I love y'all and I did it—I actually walked 1,825 miles with Les!

Y'all have a great evening and the best New Year ever! And thank you, for making mine so great!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, Y'all! Mercury Is Out Of Retrograde!

Too Much Fun!

Tonight's blog is going to be very short even though I have so much to tell, because I've decided to take a mini-vacation from the rescue ranch and my blog, starting tonight through Sunday, so I can rest and relax with our great friends and also try to get a little writing done on my next book.

Last night Tony and I went to Patty's and Peggy's fabulous dinner party, at Peggy's and Carlos' beautiful home in Kerrville, and we had a total blast! The food was absolutely delicious and we really enjoyed meeting P&P's lovely family and their interesting guests.

For dinner, Patty surprised everyone, by earlier, having flown in fifteen pounds of fresh Stone Crabs from Florida and they were mouthwatering to say the least! Since Tone and I had never eaten Stone Crabs before—we over ate, but so did everyone else too—thank goodness!

Unfortunately, we were the first to have to leave P&P's to much fun, festive party, because we had to get back to the rescue ranch. And I want to thank Patty and Peggy for the best dinner we've eaten and the best party we've attended in 2010! We had a total blast and we love y'all!

Because we got home late I didn't blog last night, because we went straight to bed.

This morning I got up real early and did my morning chores, "The Harley Show," walked ten more miles and then cleaned the trailer, while our great friends Rick and Leisa were driving up from Port Aransas to help us bring in the New Year tomorrow night. And it has been non-stop fun since they arrived around two-thirty! And Ben is coming out to the ranch tomorrow and we can't wait to see him!

Y'all have a great New Year's Eve!

P.S. The ranch is officially closed now until January 3rd—unless, of course you want to come out to adopt one of our super dogs. If so, please call ahead to make an appointment, before coming out. Happy New Year to All! I know 2011 is going to be a great year, because Mercury in retrograde ends tomorrow—at midnight! Yeah!

They Grabbed Me!

Today has been so much fun even though Mercury in retrograde wreaked a little havoc right before sunset.  This morning I got up real early so I could do my morning chores, walk with Leslie and get the trailer cleaned up, because my good friend, Joni Daniel, the Publisher of "Texas Animal Imprints" magazine, the one that I write a bi-monthly column for, was coming out to visit us around one-ish and I couldn't wait to see her!

Around eleven-thirty, while I was cooking our lunch the phone rang—it was Jon Wolfmueller. After we said our howdys to each other he started laughing and said, "Have you gotten your mail today?"

"No. Why?"

"We just got our mail and I wanted to tell you that we got the new Club Ed's 2011 Spring catalog of classes and you're in it!"

"What? Are you serious?" I asked, with excitement.

"Yes. When I picked up the catalog to look at it, I opened it up on page 55 and there was a picture of you and a short article about "Cousin Nancy Loves Club Ed" and I nearly fell out of my chair. It's a good picture of you and a great write-up by Phil Houseal—you're famous, Nancy..." Jon and I talked a few minutes more about how excited I was being featured in Club Ed's catalog and what a nice man Phil Houseal was, and before we hung up I thanked Jon for letting me know.

Then I went back to cooking and then the phone started ringing off of the wall—with friends and well wishers telling me that I was in the 2011 Club Ed catalog! To say the least, I was more than thrilled. Thank you, Phil—you made my day today and I am so honored that you included me in the catalog!

After lunch I walked two more miles with Leslie, to complete my total of eight miles walked today and then I cleaned up. An hour or so later Joni showed up in her cute, baby-blue colored VW Bug convertible, with her sister Julie!

As we drank coffee and nibbled on Ellen Jackson's delicious holiday cookies, inside the trailer, we caught up with each other's news and then we started talking about the magazine and the upcoming "Texas Animal Imprints" January/ February issue. And by the time that conversation ended—it looks like T. will have one of his beautiful pictures appear on the cover of "Texas Animal Imprints" magazine! I don't know who was more excited about it, but I think Tony was. I am so proud and happy for him. "Tony!" I said. "You're a professional photographer and can now brag that your pictures have appeared in magazine articles and on magazine covers, calendars and books, too. I love it!" T. blushed and said nothing, but I could tell that he was more than happy about it.

We had the best visit with Joni and Julie, even though it was too short, but there was so much laughing I had to take an Aspirin. After we went outside and visited with all of our rescued dogs—they told us that they had to leave and we hated to see them go.

After Julie and Joni left the rescue ranch, Tone printed out and showed me two pictures to get my opinion on them and I absolutely loved them—they grabbed me! And, when we went over to the Lodge to give Joni's gift to Kinky, we took the pictures with us for Kinky and Marcie to see and they thought they were beautiful, too! And here they are. The second one is of Little Jewford and Shalom on the ranch and I think these pictures look like paintings.

Y'all have a great evening!

C.O.D.!

Today was a good day even though not much happened. This morning after I walked twelve miles, I caught up with my e-mail. My good friend Denise Stevens sent me a video to watch and I loved it, because it was funny and made me laugh out loud. It was done by the BBC and it is animal voice overs and I hope that you will check it out.

Kinky called around ten-thirty. "Hey, Nance. What's going on?"

"Not a lot so far, but it's still early," I said. "I just finished walking twelve miles! Can you believe that?" Then there was a moment of the sound of silence on his end.

"What! Twelve miles. That's crazy, Nance," Kinky said, followed by a laugh. "You definitely are  O.C.D." I started laughing.

"What's C.O.D?" I cluelessly asked. "Cash on delivery?"

"It's not C.O.D., Nance. I said, O.C.D and it means obsessive—compulsive disorder and you need to get a hearing aid." We both started laughing.

"What?" I joked. "No, Kinky. I don't think I have O.C.D.," I said.

"Yes, you do," Kinky teased. "You walked twelve miles today—inside your trailer. And that's called O.C.D. and it is totally crazy." Not wanting to get into a debate with Kinky, because I knew he could win any debate with me or anyone else—hands down, so I laughed and then I tried to defend myself.

"Kink, the reason that I walked twelve miles today is because I have fallen way behind on my 2010 New Year's resolution schedule to walk 1,825 miles before the end of this year and..."

"I'm sorry, Nance. You have O.C.D. period."

As he chuckled I said, "Kinky, I do not have O.C.D. The reason that I walked twelve miles today was to catch up with my walking schedule and now I only have thirty-five more miles to walk in the next four days. And, I promise you that I will walk the remaining thirty-five miles to reach my goal before January first rolls around..." When we said goodbye to each other—we were both laughing about it.

Around twelve-thirty I heated up some homemade, frozen leftover gumbo soup and made a salad for lunch and T. told me that the soup tasted better—the second time around.  At one-fifteen, Tony and I took Maude to Hoegemeyer Animal Clinic, in Kerrville, to get her checked out, because last night she gave us a really big scare, when she suddenly fainted from excitement when Tone walked inside the trailer, like I used to do over fifteen years ago, because she loves him so much. Fortunately, she quickly recovered in less than thirty seconds and was back to being her old self again.

After we dropped off Maudie for tests, Buttermilk took us to Wolfmueller's Books, to see our good friends, Sandy and Jon Wolfmueller. Mary Jo cheerfully greeted us from behind the front counter, when we walked inside Kerrville's favorite bookstore and as always it was bustling with customers and tourists. "Sandy's not here right now," Mary Jo said, as she checked out a happy customer's books."But Jon is. He's back in the office." So, T. and me took off to the back of the bookstore to find Jon.

As always, we had a fun visit with Jon, but because he was so busy helping his customers find their books—we adios-ed him and left Wolfmueller's Books and came home.

Right before six o'clock tonight, we found out that our sweet, little Maudie, who has stolen our hearts, but doesn't even know that I exist, because she is so madly in love with T. and is Tony's dog, has heart worms. After talking about her to Dr. Jay Rydberg, he verified that Maude is definitely old, at least twelve years old or older, so he suggested that we treat her with the "slow kill method for heart worms," which will still be hard on our Maudie, but much milder than the standard treatment for heart worms. So tonight, please say a little prayer for our beautiful, little, lovable old lady, because she has stolen our hearts and we love her.

Y'all have a great evening!

Our 2010 Mixer Party!

Tony and I had the best Christmas day ever—thanks to our great friends: Ellen Jackson, Eileen Gotke, June Hartley & her cute mother-in-law Eileen, Kinky & his sweet sister Marcie and Lisa Free!

A little after ten yesterday morning the dogs outside started barking, to let us know that some of our "Best Volunteers in Texas" had arrived to help us prepare and serve our dog's their annual Christmas dinner, which by the way—they also paid for.

When Eileen and June got out of the car, wearing their red and white Santa caps—Tone and I chuckled, because they had put us in the Christmas spirit, and then we went out to greet everyone. A few minutes later they came inside the trailer to volunteer their services and that's when our fun, 2010 Mixer Party commenced—filled with nonstop laughter. Here is a picture of June and Eileen, with T. in the background getting the electric drill ready and the next picture June took of us in the festive mood.

After T. self-appointed himself as today's chef for our dogs he began sweetly, barking out orders to us like, "Y'all divide up the eggs in the five buckets. Okay, now add the cheese. That's good. Now, add the olive oil. Now let me mix it up." We women stood back and watched in amazement as Tony proudly mixed up the food. And please note: Eileen—who lent him a hand.

Then T. tells me, "It's your turn now, to mix it up with the drill"—and I was scared to death, when I turned on that big drill and June luckily caught that "Kodak Moment" of me looking like a total idiot! I guess that you could say it was another one of those "Jaw Droppin'" experiences for me.

Then we took turns adding the stuffing into the buckets and then the ground turkey, which to me was messy. Then "Chef T." announces that it was Eileen's turn to mix-it-up and Eileen took her job serious. She put her head down and went to mixin'. And she did a good job too, as we watched, joked and giggled.

As the hot dinner rolls baked in the oven for the dogs, Chef T. filled the buckets with the hot mixed vegetables, and then he says, "Okay, June it is your turn." And she moseyed over and Cowboyed Up and did a great job, too, as Tony and our Hank—The Cow Dog stood back and supervised. 

When our dog's dinner was mixed, June turned off the drill and then I pulled the hot dinner rolls from the oven, put them in a bucket and covered them with a dish towel to keep them warm and then we left the trailer to go serve our rescued dogs their feast—fit for a king. Here is another picture that June took, of Lucy and Rocky sweetly enjoying and sharing their holiday dinner and then Eileen took this picture of June "Dishing it out."

Feeding our dogs was a blast for me and thanks to our wonderful volunteers, that we can never thank enough for all that they do—I laughed so much yesterday, that my back began aching, because of their nonstop, witty wisecracks and hilarious humor. Here are a few more pictures that June took of us and this is where I need to thank June's husband Kevin, for taking the time to send them to Ellen and then Ellen taking the time to forward them on to me. Thank y'all so much! I love the pictures!

After June had shot Eileen and me with our empty food buckets, she shot Tony sitting in Mr. Rogers' and Miss Dee's pen, probably contemplating his Bucket List, as he waited for those two to finish eating their delicious holiday dinner. 

After we had fed all of our dogs, Ellen, Eileen, June and her sweet mom-in-law bid us farewell and went home to spend Christmas with their family. And I want to thank Ellen for all of the cookies she baked for us. They are delicious and Kinky and Marcie especially loved the ones on the pretty platter!

Speaking of Kinky and his sister—they came over around one o'clock and they ate our lasagna holiday dinner with us and it was a lot of fun, with more nonstop laughing—and my back was aching so much, I had to take two baby Aspirin for it. And before they headed back over to the Lodge, they told me they loved my dinner, as did Tone.

 I was so happy I didn't think my day could get any better, but I was wrong as usual, because Lisa showed up with a sweet potato pecan pie and some beautiful pink flowers for me. And Tony and I had a really fun visit with her as we caught up with each others news. She told us that she is happy and still madly in love with "Mark From Mississippi" and that life was good, which made T. and me happy to hear. 

Today has been great, too. This morning, before I helped Tony with his chores outside, we went over to the Lodge and had a fun visit with Marce and Kink. And when I gave him his letter that was enclosed in Tony's and my holiday card from Karin Pohlmann, my new friend from Germany, to read—it made his day—in fact he read it out loud to us in the kitchen and then he asked me all about Karin and her husband Jurgen. 

Late this afternoon, Buttermilk took me back over to the Lodge once again, so I could have a fun visit with Sage & Dylan Ferrero, Marcie and Kinky. 

It is now nearly twenty-seven minutes past nine o'clock and I need to hit the hay. I want to thank all of our wonderful friends who have made this holiday season so great for T. & me and our dogs. I love all of you!

Y'all have a great evening!

Best Christmas Ever!!!!!

Today has been the best Christmas ever—thanks to our great friends/volunteers—June Hartley, Ellen Jackson, Eileen Gotke, June's cute mother-in-law Eileen and Lisa Free and our Ghandi-like figugre—Kinky Friedman and his awesome sister Marcie Friedman, Tone and the sweetest and the greatest rescued dogs in Texas!  I thank them and love them! And here is a picture that I took of June and Eileen, two of our rescue elves, before we cooked our dogs their annual Christmas dinner—compliments of Eileen, Ellen and June's generosity!

Tomorrow I will tell y'all all about the blast I had today and I hope that your Christmas was as great as mine.

Y'all have a great evening!