SHE'S A BEAUTY!

Flashback: 1985

The good ole' days.

Back when: Reagan was President,

a dollar was worth twice as much as it is today,

American Motors Corporation produced Jeep,

and it actually rained.

This 1985 Jeep Grand Wagoneer has found her second home. (It's a "she" - you can tell in person.) Big John and I have been on the look-out for one of these beauties. We've looked far and wide. We've taken a road trip and almost made a HUGE mistake, but that's a long and funny story for another post. But last Saturday, we ended up in the right place at the right time.

 Big John and I were headed to Houston to shop estate sales. It's a hard job, but somebody's got to do it! At 5 am, Big John had a change of heart and suggested we head south to San Antonio. I was agreeable, so he started looking at listings and saw this Wagoneer (coincidence #1.) The "Wagon" as we call her, was bought for a very petite red-headed lady by her adoring husband in 1985. The lady passed away and her Grand Wagoneer was for sale. Our fate was sealed and we set the GPS for that location. Luckily, the Wagon was still for sale when we arrived. The estate sale girls were taking bids. As Big John started her up to check everything out, a mechanic walked up who used to work on AMC vehicles (coincidence #2.) He and Big John crawled around underneath her and took note of all the important facts -a lesson learned from the Fort Worth Wagoneer. We took her for a spin and fell in love, so we put in our best bid and headed off to other sales in the city. At 2:30 pm, Big John's phone rang - we'd won the bidding! She was ours! And we were only 5 minutes away (coincidence #3.) It seems it was all meant to be in the first place!

I wrote a check and we pulled out of the drive, with promises to love and care for her just as Mrs. Carline did. Big John agreed to drive until we got out of San Antonio, and it's a good thing. We almost made it to Seguin when one of the tires began to give out. We had a little side adventure trying to find a replacement good enough to get us home - at 5 pm on a Saturday evening. But we managed. Our first purchase has been a full set - spare included - of new tires. I picked her up yesterday and toodled around town, looking for paint job estimates. I will admit I was showing her off a bit! There were lots of looks coming my way. Just wait 'till she gets painted!

There are a couple of other odds and ends that need repair. The radio doesn't work and the windows need tinting. And she's getting some cool license plates. But other than that, the Wagon is perfect! She's just what I was looking for - a blast from the past!



BAD OMEN

This is the sight outside our front door today:



There are two buzzards sitting on the fence at the water trough.

I wonder who they're waiting for ...

A MOTHER'S LOVE

You probably already know I love my cows. I love the way the look. I love the way they sound. I love the way they smell. (NO, I don't mean the manure smell. I mean the sweet cow smell.) I just love everything about them.

Elsie and her boy are in the pen this week. Els is rehabbing a bad leg and her boy is just mooching. He's big enough to be weaned, but he puts up such a fuss twice a day (milk time) that I gave in and penned him up too. The bad news is that both of them are headed to town next week. Elsie's injury isn't something she'll get over, and the drought and good calf prices have demanded we ship calves a little earlier than ususal.

But they don't know that now! In the meantime, Elsie is enjoying her stay at Moo Motel - shade, hay, cubes, water - all within a short walking distance and without any competition. And her boy is loving a free milk meal whenever he wants.

Oh, and he's loving this, too:

(look at that milk foam in the corner of his mouth - pathetic!)

A mother's love is a great thing - no matter what species you are!

LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS! OH MY!

Here's what you'd see if you walked into our family room today:

What's that? You mean not everyone has an elk and a buffalo in the middle of their family room? Huh. I didn't realize that.



"What you lookin' at, Willis?" MOO.

CARDINAL BUFFET

I'm trying very hard to find beauty in the midst of this drought. And I'm trying to post in a positive tone, so as not to let on how desperate we feel for the need for rain - in case you're wondering why you haven't heard from me in a while. It's been hard to find the beauty and positivity! Rain, please. Pretty, pretty please.

We've been watching these cardinals feast for a couple of weeks now. It's a hoot, and a pleasant distraction from the struggles of finding hay, checking water, and so on. So I thought I'd share!

Big John's valiant efforts to save sunflower seeds for next year made it this far:

He harvested the largest, most promising seed heads and hung them on the fence. I think the next step was that someone (me?) was supposed to get paper sacks and bag the flower heads. Oops. And so the sunflowers have hung on the fence for quite a while now...

And then came the cardinals!

And they called all their friends!

And they have feasted gratefully on the forgotten sunflower heads!

It means we won't have any seeds saved for spring planting, but the cardinals are very happy! It's worth it!

UNCLE!

There wasn't much left.

Some spindly, thirsty corn;

some scritchy, scratchy okra;

(yes, I made up "scritchy")

and hot-as-firecrackers peppers.

Lots and lots and lots of peppers.

We finally cried "uncle" and pulled it all. All except my precious herbs. They'll be on the drying rack before too long.

The garden now looks like the rest of our land:

a dry

desert-like

barren wasteland.

WE NEED RAIN. 

PROS AND CONS OF SEWING

My new-found love of sewing



has sparked a new-found need for new shoes.

(And NO, shoe #2 and shoe #3 are NOT the same shoe - color counts.)

YIKES! I need to scout out hiding places before Big John gets home.

These are definitely not teacher shoes!!!!