Ol' Smokey!

Today has been totally fantastic! This morning at 11:32, when I pushed the print button for 48 Hours to print my novella, Carol was standing behind me and she was as excited as I was. "I'm so excited about this," I said to Carol. "Now all I have to do is wait for my books."

"I'm so happy for you, Nancy," Carol said. "I am so glad that I was here to witness you pushing the button, because I can't wait to see your book. I have a present for you to celebrate getting it published. Come on out to the car with me, so I can give it to you."

When Carol lifted her Tahoe's hatchback I instantly teared up while wearing a big grin on my face. "Oh my god, Carol. I absolutely love it. I've wanted one of these ever since I saw yours years ago. You are so sweet." Then Tony drove up in Kermit to take it out of her SUV, because Carol had already showed it to him, when she drove in.

"Where do you want it, Nance?" Tone asked.

"Inside The Okay Corral, next to the bird feeder." Then Carol and I followed Tony into the corral. After Carol put its base down, Tony set it on top of it. "Carol, thanks to you," I said. "I now have everything that I have ever wanted..."

"I'm so glad that you like it," Carol said, as she and Tony lit its first fire. "Now when your friends are here or the volunteers, we can all sit by it and enjoy it. I love mine too and I use it all of the time on my deck."

After sitting around it and watching the fire for a while, we came inside to drink a cup of coffee and to toast our friendship and the novella. Thirty minutes later Carol had to go home and after she left, I went outside and took this picture of Ol' Smokey, my new chiminea. "Thank you, Carol. I love it so much."

Y'all have a great evening!

The Stain!

Today has been great. This morning at 9:00, as planned, our dear friend Vern came out to donate 400 pounds of Pedigree dog food, a collapsible dog pen for puppies and a couple of dog crates and then we had a blast visiting with him.

While we drank coffee inside The Cabin, we talked about Tony's photography, music, Steve Martin, etc. and when I told him about what character I had made up for him to be in my novella he laughed out loud and said, "I love it." Which made me smile, because I am glad that he likes his character, even though in my novella he is one quirky, interesting old Hippie with a long gray ponytail.

Around 10:00, we went over to the Lodge to visit with Kinky and Marcie and I laughed so much in Kinky's kitchen, it actually made my back start to ache. After a fun hour and a half of visiting with Kink and his sister Vern told us that he hated to leave, but had to, because he had to get to Houston to fly to New York tonight.

After Vern had adios-ed us Tony and I took off for Kerrville to run a few errands and our first stop was at a Mexican restaurant to eat lunch. When the nice waitress took our order we told her what we wanted to eat and then I asked her, "Can we have a small bowl of cheese dip, too?" Which turned out to be a big mistake.

While Tone and I waited to eat lunch we munched on the delicious tortilla chips and hot cheese dip and when the waitress brought us our plates, mine had two, steaming hot cheese enchiladas, covered in red enchilada sauce, with refried beans and rice on the side.

I decided to let my hot plate cool down a little bit, so I reached over my plate and dipped another tortilla chip into the cheese dip and after eating it I noticed this red stuff on the table next to my plate. "What's this, Tony? Where did this come from?" I asked, as I stared at the mess on the table. Then I reached over my plate again, to eat one more tortilla chip dipped in cheese dip and Tony started laughing. "What?"

After T. had quit laughing he pointed his finger at my over sized sweatshirt sleeve and said, "Look at your sleeve." Then he started laughing again, as I held up my arm and saw that my sleeve was covered in red enchilada sauce.

"Oh my god!" I said, as I stared at my drenched sleeve. "What am I going to do, Tony?" He said nothing, because he was shaking with laughter and shaking his head sideways. Then I thought, what would Ronnie do? (Sorry, Eileen.)

"Nance, you need to take your sweatshirt off, because it looks so dirty."

"I can't, because my navy blue turtleneck will show my giant muffin top." Then I grabbed the end of my turtleneck cuff with my right hand and then started pushing the cuff of my favorite sweatshirt up my arm, in hopes it would hide the ugly stain. When I held up my arm for Tone to inspect, he burst out laughing, because no matter how high I pushed up the sweatshirt cuff—the stain still showed. Then I pushed up the left cuff of my sweatshirt to match my right arm as Tony continued to laugh at me.

"Nance, you can't hide it." Then after paying for our messy lunch we went to the craft store and then to H-E-B to pick up some groceries and came home.

After putting up our groceries I sat down and wrote the words for the back cover of my novella, because tomorrow morning I am pushing the button to finally print my novella, which will be available to buy on December 5th.

As I finish writing this tonight, my stained, favorite over sized sweatshirt has been soaking in the washing machine for over an hour in cold water and here is a picture I took of it before tossing it in the wash tub.

Y'all have a great evening!

Bar Code!

Today has been great and so was our Thanksgiving holiday weekend. And the best news that I have is Mercury in retrograde officially ends today—thank goodness. The other good news is I am just a few hours away from pushing the button to get my novella published!

This morning I got up real early, so I could tweak my novella some more. And thanks to Tony for doing our morning chores outside, by himself, so I could keep working on it, I was able to wrap it up. The only thing left for me to do is get the ISBN numbers and bar code tomorrow and then finish designing the cover, which Tony is thrilled about, because I am using two of his photos for the front and the back.

Late this afternoon while I was over at the Lodge visiting with Kinky, he told me that he was told that Willie and his new book has now jumped to number fourteen on the New York Times Best Selling List and when he handed me a copy of it, I couldn't quit staring at the beautifully designed book jacket.

And that is about it, because my eyes are tired from staring at my computer screen for most of the day.

Y'all have a great evening!

What Would Eileen Do!

Today has been totally great, but first I must tell you about what happened last night.

Rick arrived around 5:30 last night and while we were eating dinner someone knocked on the trailer, so Tony went outside to see who was here. A few minutes later Tony walked back inside to tell us, "Sally Field's owners are here to get her, because last Saturday when some nearby hunters were shooting their rifles, she ran off." Then Tony and Rick outside to take them to her pen and when she saw them, she could not wait to get out of her pen and jump inside their pickup and go home. And we are so thrilled about her owners finding her.

This morning we got up early and drank coffee and ate breakfast and then Rick and Tony started bringing in the feed buckets, the groceries for the dog's Thanksgiving dinner and the drill we use to mix up the food. Here are a couple of pictures of some of the food, before the volunteers arrived.

When Lisa, Carol, Jim & Kris, Ellen, Karon, A.J. and Brandon arrived we started fixing the dog's dinner and it was fun watching everyone putting the food into the buckets and take turns mixing up the food.

When Eileen showed up she gave Tony a present, from her and Lisa and Tony and all of us loved it, because it was a big Texas Master Naturalist sign for him to hang outside. Then Tony and I gave Eileen a present for being Tony's fabulous TMN mentor. When she saw the magnets that we had made for her she burst out laughing. Here's a picture of the refrigerator magnets we gave to her.

When the dog's dinner was ready to serve we went outside and fed our rescued dogs, who could not wait to gobble up the food. Here's a picture of Lisa filling up a dog bowl.

After all of the dogs had been fed, Tony took this group picture of us, before everyone took off to go home to enjoy Thanksgiving day.

Then Tony hung up his Texas Master Naturalist sign and I took this picture of him, proudly standing next to it.

Today has been wonderful and I want to thank all of our super volunteers for coming out and making ours and our dogs Thanksgiving day the best ever.

Y'all have a great evening!

We Love Jack Sunday & Sandy at KFGO!

Today has been great and it started early. By 6:00 this morning, after I drank a cup of coffee I had washed my second load of clothes and dried one load, vacuumed and mopped The Cabin, cleaned the bathrooms before Tony adios-ed me and went to The Old Timer, in Medina.

Around 9:30, our dear friend Lisa came out with her friend Betty to show her our rescue ranch and I liked Betty instantly, so I unwrapped and signed her a copy of my first book, The Road To Utopia: How Kinky, Tony & I Saved More Dogs Than Noah.

Precisely at 12:10 the phone rang as was planned to do an eight-ten minute interview about our Thanksgiving dinners that we cook for our dogs, with Jack Sunday and his co-host Sandy, at KFGO AM The Mighty 790 in Fargo, North Dakota and it was a lot of fun. At the end of our conversation Jack told me that he would podcast it, so if you want to listen to the interview click here. "Thank you, Jack and Sandy for helping our rescue ranch!"

After I had cooked Tony and me grilled cheese sandwiches with homemade bean soup for lunch, he went outside to the barn to take the twenty pounds of ground turkey out of the freezer, so we could defrost it in The Cabin, so it would be thawed and ready for tomorrow morning, when our great volunteers show up at 8:30 to help us finish preparing and serve our super, rescued dogs, that are waiting for their future forever homes, a delicious Thanksgiving dinner, complete with warmed, whole wheat dinner rolls. Here's a picture of twenty pounds of ground turkey thawing on our drainboard and stove top.

Around 4:00, a UPS delivery truck arrived to give us Karen and Terry Cauthen's Thanksgiving ham that they sent to us for our Thanksgiving dinner. "Thank you, Karen and Terry!"

Our dear friend Rick Reichenbach aka The Friendly Lighthouse Keeper, in Port Aransas, should be arriving here around 6:30 tonight, because we invited him to come up for a few days to have Thanksgiving dinner with us tomorrow, so I probably won't be doing much blogging during the holiday weekend. And that is about it for today, because I am fixin' to vacuum The Cabin one more time, before Rick gets here, because in the morning we will be too busy for me to do it then.

Y'all have a great evening! And Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Jack Sunday!

I was totally blown away after watching the Ken Burns' The Dust Bowl, a two hour, two part documentary on PBS the last two nights. Yesterday and today have been great.

Yesterday morning, right after Tony and I had finished our morning chores Christina arrived with precious cargo—Betty White, the fabulous dog that she adopted from us a few years ago and she also brought Rosco, an adorable, older dog that she is fostering, but might adopt.

Tony and I really enjoyed visiting with Christina and Betty White, who looked fantastic and happy and after we showed Christina all of our dogs, she is going to come back in December to adopt and pick Jethro Tull up and we are thrilled for him, because she loves dogs and knows how to spoil them!

Yesterday afternoon, we took Sally Field to Hoegemeyer Animal Clinic to get her checked out and given shots and by the time we got back home Susan had called and left a message on Carlton, "Sally Field is ready to be picked up. She didn't need to get spayed and Dr. Janssen told us that she is about ten-years-old and she is a really sweet old girl."

This morning while Tony and I were outside doing our chores, Jack Sunday called and left a message for me on Carlton. He is a very popular radio personality on KFGO, in Fargo, North Dakota—The Mighty 790 AM and he is a good friend of Kinky's.

After I had listened to Jack's message, wanting to know if I would do a radio interview with him tomorrow, to talk about our traditional Thanksgiving dinner for our dogs, which we have been doing for over fourteen years, I called him back to tell him that I would love to do it. So, if you would like to listen to the interview at 12:10 PM, Central time, go to this address KFGO and the second tab at the top of the page, click listen live, because he loves dogs and he wants to spread the word about our rescue ranch to his listeners in Fargo.

When I got off of the phone with Jack I called Kinky, in Las Vegas, to tell him about doing an interview with Jack Sunday and Kinky was thrilled about it. Then he and I talked about The Friedmans. Before we adios-ed each other he asked me if I had seen Willie on The Today Show this morning, talking about his and Willie''s new book, Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings From The Road. "No, Kinky, I didn't, but I will check it out and tell you about it."

Later today we went to the little H-E-B store for last minute grocery shopping and to pick up Sally Field, because our dear friend Rick Reichenbach is coming up from Port Aransas to spend the Thanksgiving holidays with us and we are really looking forward to seeing him. And that is about it for tonight, because I want to work on my novella.

Y'all have a great evening!

Happy Birthday to Patty Kearns and Max Swafford!

The last two nights I have been watching PBS's  fabulous Ken Burns new documentary, The Dust Bowl. I want to wish my two friends Patty Kearns and Max Swafford the best birthday ever! I love y'all and hope you have the best birthdays ever!