So She Has a Lop Ear Rabbit Now...

Raelee got a lop eared rabbit a few weeks ago. After all, she will be living in the country and she has to start her farm now! Her lop's name is Hanna. Raelee and Steph had previously arranged for it to go to a 4-H show, so in the midst of the cleaning/painting of the new house,

We took her to the 4-H show.

4-H means you stand around a lot... and we did...

Thinking about all the cleaning we needed to do...

Thinking about all the painting we needed to do...

But instead, we stood around for several hours...

And held the rabbit, talked to the other contestants, and waited.

Here is Todd hanging out with Hanna:

He doesn't like rabbits, does he?

Hanna is such a good girl! She hung out with us for hours and didn't fuss at all:

Do you think the kid likes Hanna?

Finally, time for the judging!  Here is the judge pulling Hanna out of the cage:

He gave her a really good check over:

It was a nail biting experience for Raelee!  All granny could think of was, EWEEE!! How many rabbit stuffs... yeah, never mind:

 All that standing around and Hanna won 3rd place in her very first show!


Now, tell me, was standing around for hours worth it? Look at this child's face!

You bet!  Now back to cleaning and painting...


And don't let your granddaughter get your camera! You will have 30 pictures like this one!

But you know what?

Those pictures make me smile and lets me know she is here and still up to her antics

So it is ok... I love the random pics on my camera!

Welcome HOME Steph, Todd and Raelee!!

It is FINAL! The kids signed their papers and bought their home 2.5 miles from us! We are all super excited!

I stayed with Raelee while her mom and dad went and did the paperwork. We had to fill in her time, so we made a sign and shopped for welcome flowers:

Their door is even pretty!

And... drum roll please... the HOUSE!  Steve and I wanted a rock house, but we will just had to admire Steph and Todd's:

I cannot decide what my favorite part is - the drive up to the house: 

Or the parking area of the house:

Raelee loves the bamboo - and I think her mom will too - she will use it in the garden:

The weeping mulberry trees by the back door are super cool:

And the wide open spaces of the property are fun to look at:

The previous owners were landscapers. There are flowers popping up everywhere! We will love being surprised as things start to sprout:

And the previous owners told the 'new owners' that there are pecan, apple, crab apple, blueberry and blackberry trees/plants all over that property - and many, many other things!


I love the living room:

I didn't take pics out the windows yet, but the view is breathtaking... we will get right on cleaning those windows... lol...

Nope, I have no earthly idea what my favorite part is, but I love the place!

 I just know they will love the house and property, too, once we get them moved in and settled.

Now to get the place cleaned and a bit of paint (this weekend), the floors changed (next week),and the family all moved in (next weekend)!  It is going to be a busy week!

One of the things they have to accomplish is to get an ADDRESS! The people who have lived here for years always had a post office so a numbered address was never assigned to the place. Todd had to go apply to the post office last month to get a number. The postal service said they have to confirm it, then approve it and now Todd and Steph wait... In the meantime, Steph has tried to get Direct TV (cannot do this, this is not a valid address), and several other things and since she doesn't have a postal issued address it cannot be done.  There is more than one way to get to Boston, right? Wish her luck!

I will keep you posted!

Dam Hay

Yes, I spelled dam correctly. However, after we moved, unrolled and laid out 3 rolls of hay on the dam, I felt like calling it the other word. We all had hay where hay wasn't supposed to be by the time we finished.

Here is the story:

We have had trouble with erosion on the dam. I was driving down the road 2 days ago and was trying to figure out how to get wildflower seeds to grow on our dam. I had tossed seeds out there last year, but the rains came and washed the seeds into the pond and made them catfish feed. Well, since they were seeds, maybe they made birdfish feed. 

Anyhoo, they didn't grow and I wasted a ton of money. So I am driving down the highway with nothing better to do than try to figure out something to do to waste my time.

*idea!* I can take the bailed hay we have set aside and put it out on the dam!

Now, people... this dam is not small. By lake standards it is not big. By pond standards it is TALL and steep. I tell Steve that I am going to take hay and put on the dam and explain to him that the rain is coming in a bit over a day, so tomorrow I am going to spread that hay out so the rain will lay it down and then I can toss seed into it. The seed will stay because the hay is there and the rain will germinate the seed and I will have a flower dam and all those flowers' roots will stop the erosion. I am sure he thought yeah, right.

So I take my trusty little 4-wheeler, and I attach my trusty little trailer and grab my trusty pitch fork and go to the pasture.

And soon after that I remembered just how dense hay bales are. They are denser than the rain forest in Singapore. 

But I took my pitchfork and decided the hay bale would not going to get the best of me. I started tossing hay onto my trailer to haul up the dam and toss down the dam. It took a long to break that bale.

My sweet little grand daughter thought her granny needed help. Thank goodness for grand daughters.  After one trailer full of hay it did get the best of me - and our grand daughter - whom I am sure was looking at those other 3 bails of hay and thinking she would be there until she graduated trying to help her granny get it up on the dam.

In comes a handsome man with a tractor, with forks on it, who stabs a bale of hay and effortlessly hauls it up the dam and proceeds to toss it around the dam for us.

Along beside him comes my trusty little daughter who had mercy on her mom and grabbed another fork and started shucking hay down the side of the dam with me.

Even the dogs had mercy on me and helped!

But they finally bailed out all too soon:
 

Raelee was sure thankful for the man on the tractor - she was free to make a lot of trips back and forth to the barn to fetch things we needed! She was just a tad too happy to do so actually.

And in somewhat less than a day, my mission was complete - though it did become the entire family's mission. We had drug hay up on the side of the dam and tossed it down the other side.

And Steph even got a picture of me working!  (Thanks Steph for taking ALL these pictures!)

 

And now I can dream of the flowers that will be on the side of the dam in a few months.

Thanks to my family, my mission was accomplished. Truly - thanks family for pitching in. Literally.

But my smart assed son-in-law said something to the effect he will laugh his butt off when the torential rains come and wash that hay right into our pond.

Then instead of a flower dam I will have a shallow pond. And he laughs...

Now I will toss and turn trying to figure out how I will get all the hay out of the pond.

Me and my bright ideas... 

The Rose Beyond the Wall

A lot has happened in 3 months. 

I have said lot of prayers, we had done a lot of waiting, suffered a lot of heartache, had our share of ups and downs and so many lives have been lost. We have been touched in one way or another by so many deaths. People we know, family of people we know, people of our community that we didn't know and people that were near and dear to us.

I have been 'taking' all of this change in and trying to wrap my mind around so many things... but I am coming around. I am beginning to feel my life and writing come back, and I will be posting again in some sense of regularity finally.

Today, I want to share a poem that goes through my mind every time we lose someone we love or hear of someone losing a loved one. 

I write poetry, but I didn't write this. 

However, it touches my heart like no other. 

Notice at the bottom that I changed the color 

of the part that reminds me

that life goes on even though we can no longer see it.

Read that part twice.  

The Rose Beyond the Wall

Near a shady wall a rose once grew,
Budded and blossomed in God's free light,
Watered and fed by the morning dew,
Shedding it's sweetness day and night.

As it grew and blossomed fair and tall,
Slowly rising to loftier height,
It came to a crevice in the wall
Through which there shone a beam of light.

Onward it crept with added strength
With never a thought of fear or pride,
It followed the light through the crevice's length
And unfolded itself on the other side.

The light, the dew, the broadening view
Were found the same as they were before,
And it lost itself in beauties new,
Breathing it's fragrance more and more.

Shall claim of death cause us to grieve
And make our courage faint and fall?
Nay! Let us faith and hope receive--
The rose still grows beyond the wall, 

Scattering fragrance far and wide
Just as it did in days of yore,
Just as it did on the other side,
Just as it will forevermore.

~ A. L. Frink ~

If you are here, chances are it is because I love you.

And even if you don't know me
 You have probably lost someone you love.

Stay strong and always remember 

our roses bloom beyond that wall.

I hope this was a hug for you.