The Rest of The Story…

To borrow a phrase from the wonderful Paul Harvey,  Spud the mud puppy saga continued…

When we left, Spud, our hero (or villain, depending on how you look at it) was being hauled off to the shower.

He had a real good time playing in the mud and now came the time to pay the piper.

The alien dog has met his come-uppence… Momma has the water turned on and she is moving in with the shampoo.  He is helpless to act.  It is a bath or being shut up for the night instead of cuddling in the nice warm, soft bed.

Not the welcome home that the “alien” mud puppy expected… Just when he got to smelling really good to himself, Mom is gonna wash that good smelling ‘mud con cow poop’ smell off him.  She just didn’t appreciate all the trouble he had gone to to get the filth and smell just right. 

 It’s enough to flat wear a Jack Russell out. 

The question remains… Why does Spud, the pup that gets out and swims around in the ponds biting at the bubbles so not likes getting a bath?

Adventures Of A Spud Puppy…

Saturday evening the phone rang and it was Bailey, Cuz’s youngest granddaughter… “Granny, Spud looks like an alien! He’s been up here at the dairy barn and mom and I’ve been giving Candy Cane her bath and he’s been playing in the water and got all muddy!”

Sure enough when they got through with the heifer and came down to the house here came the ‘alien’ dog… And since I haven’t learned how to PhotoShop out the reflective flashback in animals eyes, well, it just adds to the whole alien look about the pup.  Bailey told us he looked a lot worse up at the barn but they managed to get some of the filth off him. Off we headed to the walk-in shower…

Please… Don’t leave me in here with HER!!!

Windows Live Writer is being stupid today.  It keeps quitting so this story will be continued…

Yep. I Got Muddy, Too…

There are times in my life that I will admit to being not quite bright, as my friend from Kentucky would say… Not often, but there are those infrequent times.  They usually transpire when I’m tired and worn down and the brain is kicking in a bit slow…

We decided that the safest thing to do was to leave the U-Haul on the gravel drive, hitch the little trailer on my pickup, drive it around to the big barn, load it and then drive it back to the drive and load it off the trailer into the U-Haul.

First we had to figure the route around the back of the trailer. And we did… with Jonathan and me both getting stuck once apiece.  However, Jonathan being a country boy was a bit smarter than me…

Duh… did ‘ja know that it’s right smart to shut your car door and not try to help push because your tires are spinning and throwing mud… all over my car door, my leg, my little trailer and the stuff on it.

The back end of  my pick-up and stuff that was in it.

The stuff on the trailer…

Another photo of the stuff.   Jonathan was the one that may have saved my life… If I’d had to do all this by myself I probably would have stroked out.

On top of working like a dog helping Walter and me with loading all the stuff, he was tending to his little sister, Haley.  He was very patient with her, letting her hand him little stuff that she could and when she would get in a place where she might get hurt or be in the way he would sit her on the back of the big truck to one side or the other or sit her on the tailgate of my pick up. 

And that boy can back up a trailer ‘way better than me.  Notice how nonchalant baby sister is… when I’d drive around she would sit inside the truck until I shut the engine off.

When I got home after the last trip to storage I asked Carol to take a picture for you all… actually two.

I took off my boots in the garage to try to minimize what I might bring into the house…

And this was just to show you that I walked in under my own power, on my own two sock feet and as soon as she took these pictures I went back out to the garage and stripped down and went straight to bed.

I didn’t even care about taking a bath first because I was so tired I’d have probably gone to sleep and drowned.  And my furbabies didn’t care if I might have been a little stinky,  they were just glad mom was home and all was right in their world.

If you want a bit more of a laugh, put your cursor on the picture of me in the truck with mud on me and the door…

I leave this nasty tale now.  I’ve got a lot of laundry to do…

If Nothing Else…

I’m really good at employing unusual methods to accomplish the task at hand…

But first I want to thank Robynn from over at Robynn’s Ravings for letting you all know that I’ve been socked in with big thunderstorms that came through. I’ll be sure and return the favor some day… 

This was on the front porch lookin’ out toward the gate yesterday morning during a break in the downpours.

I swam out waded out to the gate to take pictures just for you all.  The dogs looked at me like, “You are nuts!”.

This rain was what we around here call “a chunk floater”.  This chunk is about 14 inches long and 1 1/2 inches in diameter.

This was looking out the bathroom window over part of the backyard to the propane tank.

And north towards the little barn and the goat shed.

And looking south down our country road.When Bro and I got back yesterday evening about 6 p.m. I remembered to check the rain gauge. 

We had almost 4 inches at that time.  The rumbling, grumbling thunder started up again about 7 p.m. and started pouring down again.  Until after 11 p.m.

When I got up this morning it wasn’t raining, but grey and heavy clouds.  I hustled around and loaded up my pickup again and I hossed the washer and dryer that we had in one of the little barns onto the trailer and Bro and I headed to town and got that load off.  When we got back to the plantation I remembered to check the rain gauge.

Let’s look at it from another angle…

Yep, that gauge is lipping full.  Almost 51/2 inches in the last 24 hours. So now you know why I couldn’t even catch one second, much less one minute of internet time.

The falling on the knee again?  About 10:30 p.m. Carol said did you hear the weatherman saying we could get to 35 F. tonite?  Nope, didn’t hear it…  Well, says she, you’d better get the plants in off the porch… So I told Bro if you will stand at the door I’ll hand them in to you and we both won’t have to get wet.  So I would step out on the deck, grab a plant or two, pour the excess water off them and stepped in and handed them to Bro, turned and went back out and grabbed more and repeated the process. Some of our plants are large and heavy and I  was tiring out and trying to hurry because I was getting wet. I stepped out, barefoot, and hit wet deck just right, did a whoopti – into a single legged split… bunged my big toe, knocked of my rhinestone off my toe nail  and then landed on THE knee… but I didn’t hit nearly as hard as last time and my toe is sorer than my knee… Thank goodness. So you don’t need to worry about any bones.

And the reference to my Ethiopian Ingenuity… Found this photo while looking for THERE photos --- Yep, that’s a bungee strap.  I was running errands and got tired of hikin’ my drawers up and all I had in my pick up was a bungee cord.  It worked.

Need I say more?

I’ll get back to Bartlesville (THERE) on the next post.

Thirteen Out Of Fourteen Days...

That's how many days we have had enough rain to measure in central Oklahoma. The weather man announced this little fact on the weather report this evening. I could have told him this fact... without all the expensive equipment they use to measure and track weather.

Step out my front door. If you see something like this it means it has rained. Whether it is a toad strangler (a whole bunch), a chunk floater (a modicum amount) or just a trace of rain, most of us can tell when it rains simply by looking out the front door.


We, as I've told you all, had a toad strangler on at least three days this past week. On Wednesday, my Bro Walter, drove me to Ft. Worth to get my new glasses. Five miles after we go on I-35, the tire on the driver's side rear blew out or blew up. Whichever you want to call it. This is what I saw when Bro got the car to the side of the road. Yes, it was a Firestone tire. With a 60,000 mile guarantee. With less than 20,000 miles on it. This will be addressed at the dealer next week.

But that isn't the point of this story.


This is...

If you live in the red dirt swamp and you've been gone all day the pups run out through the swamp to greet you and this happens.

Yes, those were black jeans and a coral golf shirt. Were is the operative word...

I love my babies and I, too, get excited when I see them and I sort of expect this welcome.









And another photo.

My darling and wonderful fur babies.


However....













When I went into my bedroom and was putting up some laundry that I had dried after the trip and while my back was turned...

I heard snorking.

Snorking is what I call it when the dogs roll and fuss around on the floor, out in the yard or on my bed... that I hadn't spread up... that the white sheets are on...







Click on the photos and you can really get a look at what an exuberant schnauzer snorking session looks like when accentuated with red wet fur. I just said, "Shit, Suess!". I knew it had to be SueSue.

She is infamous for snorking all over the bed. I normally spread up my bed, especially when it's been raining, because the dogs do get their feet wet and they do get on my bed.




The dark blue blanket has a couple of rips in it and I use it specifically because of the girls. But in my hurry to head south I hadn't made up the bed.

And, yes, that is my SueSue, looking all innocent.














"I don't know what your talking about mom."

Yep, check out the red fur.






"She knows exactly what you are talking about, mom."

Yep, that's my sweet Chloe. I don't know how she does it, but she can go out in this swamp and hardly even get her tootsies wet. And she will rat out the baby anytime it suits her fancy.

And according to the weatherman we are supposed to get more rain tonight and tomorrow, Mother's Day.

And you can bet I'll have on my working jeans and the bed will be made so I'll be prepared for any more gifts my girls give to me, for Mother's Day or any other time.

When I Said We Were Getting Rain...

I wasn't kidding. This photo shows what I have awakened to at least three mornings in the last week. Our ground in the garden is soooo wet that I haven't been able to get out and weed. And actually, I miss doing it. Getting my hands in the dirt is so soothing to me when I'm stressed or blue or just tired of feeling lousy and tired.

When I went out to the garden today I was able to do a little bit of weeding, but mostly I sank up to my ankles and decided that I was pushing it. We have had sunshine today for most of the afternoon and I should be able to go out tomorrow and play in the dirt without it being all mud.
That being said and my excuses being put out there... here are some photos of my garden, as it is now, grass, weeds and all, what there is of it that I could photos of without getting stuck in the mud.

To the left... cabbage and grass.








Here we have onions and grass...












Potatoes and grass...












Onions, garlic and grass... oh, and two hoses that I haven't had to use in two weeks, except to wash the mud off my feet and/or sandals from when I tried to get out in the garden to pull up weeds and grass.








Tomatoes (in the four cages), onions and one damn weed. I went in today, very carefully, to check out the ground and as I was walking to go back out I decided that I had to pull that one damn weed. I took one step, very carefully, it was okay. I took another... and sank up above my ankle. I said a few choice words and went in and got that weed anyhow. I figured since I was going to have to hose myself off that weed was coming out.




These weeds get to live until tomorrow.

Hope all of you that needed rain have gotten it and I hope that all of us that have gotten it get one more day of sunshine so we can clean out some of the weeds.

It's supposed to rain here again Saturday night and Sunday.

But on a good note... Dar, I haven't seen your 'gator around here... yet.