Sunday, September 28, 2008

The fawns are growing up!





The spots are fading and the little male is getting nubs on his head where his antlers will be soon.
Finally I got a whole family shot.






Thursday, September 25, 2008

Tallgrass Prairie







Nothing going on so I just wanted to share photos from last winter at the Tall Grass Prairie Preserve near Pawhuska, Oklahoma. The preserve was the original Barnard Ranch and was home and work place to Ben Johnson, cowboy actor and his father, who most of you know. Ben is a local favorite and he and his family are buried in the Pawhuska cemetery. The original bison were donated by a local ranching family from Bartlesville and the herd has grown considerably. I love going out there to visit and encourage you to do the same. My poor Denali still had mud coming out from under the molding from this trip when you wash it!

Friday, September 19, 2008

Parting with the stuff.........


We moved my Mom across the street from us, everyone thought my husband was nuts to have the mother in law so close! We love it and it is so much nicer and we wish it would have happened years ago! Because of that we have been getting ready to have a living-estate sale of my mom & dad's stuff in preparation to sell our family home. The house is where our parents raised us kids and they moved to it when I was only 2 years old. Cleaning out the attic of a house with 55 years of living it is quite the task and full of memories at every turn! It is where I have buried treasure somewhere in the yard, I buried it when I was about 6 years old. I think a room addition might be over it now. Our dogs Frisky and Spooky are buried there in the backyard. Frisky was my best friend until she died when I was 15 years old, I was traumatized and I could not remember her not being a part of our family. I think we got her when I was 2 years old. Spooky was my dog I brought into our family when I was about 20 years old. Spooky was an ugly-cute Catahoula Leopard-Aussie mix dog that was given to me, and Dad was very angry when he found her there. Spooky turned out to be my dad's buddy and when I left home I could not have the dog....My dad said to me "don't you even think of taking that dog with you". I remember when Spooky died unexpectedly when she was about 10 years my dad cried...I had never saw that before, dad's don't cry! My heart broke for him and who would have thought he would love that crazy lovable mutt so much with the wild eyes! My dad ultimately took his last breathe himself in that house, he died of lung cancer 22 years ago. Everything makes you think of the times past and all the love that was felt there. As with everything in life things change, it is letting go of the tangible things we seem to want to hang onto, with the false belief it will keep the memories alive in us. I know that is not true, that is in our heart, but it does not make it any easier part with "stuff".

HAPPY BIRTHDAY September Babies!

Jennifer, Karly, Taylr, Beth, Robin, Debbie & Orva Lee, we celebrate the life and the spirits of these wonderful women. We are privileged to know and have in our lives. Birthdays seem to get closer and closer as the years go along. As Jack Nicholson said in the movie the (Bucket List ) "time goes as quickly as smoke through a keyhole". Enjoy their photos below as we wish them a happy birthday!

Happy Birthday September Babies!

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Here Kitty, Kitty! Yikes!!!

Bill emailed this to us today!
This little kitty cat was up on the wall of the courtyard of a neighbor of some of our friends, Bill & Vicky, just north of Albuquerque, N.M. Now I do believe he would make lunch of dogs, house cats, and kids....and maybe even adults if he got real hungry. He is really beautiful, but that would unnerve me to go walking after dinner like Bill and Vicky do with the dogs. He appears to be very young but still.......... Oh, but I do love the southwest! See those expensive stucco walls around the yard used to be taller for a reason in the old days! :)

Hurricane Ike Part 3

Sarah said they have electricity & water now and that they had friends staying with them who are still without electricity and some restaurants are open in their area so they can go out if needed. My brother and his wife do not have electric yet at their house, but they are closer into Houston than Sarah. I guess they are okay but I am sure they are not having a picnic! My sister-in-laws sister came up from the Edna area and brought them ice chests of ice and a generator, but I guess my brother did not hook up the generator. I know if you don't know what you are doing it can back feed into the power lines and kill the guys working on the power lines.... I do not know if that was his reason or not, but they could go up to the kids if they get tired of ruffing it. I guess Wes wants to go to work! :) Well I would too if they have electricity and air conditioning!

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Hurricane Ike Part 2

I have heard from my family members and they are doing okay. I haven't talked to my brother, Wesley, since the eye was over their house, but Sarah said they were fine from the second round. They lost privacy fencing and had something in the swimming pool the last I heard. Sarah said she and Jay had lost some shingles off their house up by Plantersville, but that was all. Now the hard part for them will being without electricity for some time in the heat. Jay and Sarah have a 5th wheel trailer with a generator so they can stay somewhat cool at night if they have gasoline to run it. Mark and Belinda Matthiesen made it without many problems also at Montgomery. I am very thankful they all were as lucky as they were.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Hurricane Ike

Today I am just stewing about my family and friends in the path of Hurricane Ike. Houston is such a low area and flooding is unpredictable a lot of times if the rain is really heavy. They all stayed at home and are about 70 miles inland. They tell me they will be fine and not to worry and I will try to do that but it is hard for me not to! Keep your fingers crossed for them all.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

More Fawn Photos today

It just does not get much better than this little cutie! Today the fawns were giving us some great photos. I am going to be so sad when they grow up and those cute little spots are gone. They have been just hanging out at our house today. My new zoom lens is getting a workout lately and I am so grateful that we decided to go ahead and make the purchase. The photo I want is to get is the twins posing together for me....I wish I could do them like I used to do Karly and Taylr when they were little, and say to them "hello would you stand together for me please!" :)






Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Trees Fell


Mom wanted trees down in her
yard...so they are way down in
numbers! It does look much better
and you can see the front of the
house now! We had 28 taken out
of her yard! The thing is there are
still 12 left!

Monday, September 1, 2008

WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE

I received an email today and I was so moved & it reminded what the women before us went through to give us the right to vote. I wanted to post it on my blog to remind all of us why voting is such a privilege, and I am ashamed that I never knew that they were treated so horribly when they were protesting and what they suffered. Mostly I am ashamed of the men who treated them this way. I found the link below from the National Archives very interesting and it was very enlightening. This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.
Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

and by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

(Lucy Burns)
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.
Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.
(Alice Paul)

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf
So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because- -why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought
kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just
younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'

HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.
We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.

History is being made.