Two-year-old Riley hugging his baby sister Lexi

While pouring rain continued, Amber with baby Lexi came from Denver to stay with Ally and baby Kendyll as Luke returned to work. I am so grateful they could be here. Work was exceptionally crazy this week so I saw little of the girls and their babies. I should have tried harder. But the time I did spend it was so amazing to watch them with their own families-sharing love and being terrific mothers. How did they learn that? I don’t know but am so proud of all of them. They certainly had their trials like when Ally was feeding Kendyll, Amber was addressing Lexi’s four new teeth that were hurting her mouth and Jordyn decided she had to have milk-NOW. Jo dumped the full gallon of milk down the inside of the refrigerator. She howled in frustration. Baby Lexi took up the call fussing about her teeth and baby Kendyll just continued to nurse anchoring Ally to her spot on the couch. Jordyn has been the light of the Taylor family from the day she entered the world. Lauren and I, my mom and Jim and certainly Amber’s family find her an entrancing child. From this position of family focus to a new big sister is proving to be a little bit of a stretch for Jordyn. I bet she has cried more tears this week than ever before in her short life. But I know she will come to love and care for her sister and share the limelight. Amber left last night with Lexi. Of course, the plane was delayed due to the weather. When they arrived in Denver, big brother Riley and dad, Ryan, were on hand to greet them. In what was nothing but a pure and simple explanation of love, Riley ran to his baby sister, Lexi and threw his arms around her in a big hug. Lexi, not even a year old, embraced her brother as well. They stayed glued together for a few minutes, maybe reassuring themselves that their sibling was home at last and going to stay. In the end, love is feeling of knowing your family is there for you. Nothing could be more pure than these two kids holding each other tight in the big Denver airport. It does my heart good to see this love expressed by my grandchildren. In a world of so much heartbreak and sorrow, love is alive and well in the hearts of these children.

Short one today.  I am sick with a summer cold.  Yeah, where did I get that?  Ally is now due to deliver baby Kendyll on July 5th so timing for me being sick is not so good.  I can get a mask.  Ally will have a c-section so Jordyn has already told me that I will be mad at her but she is going in to see the baby first.  That’s fine.  They need to be their own family before they are an extended one. 

Hopefully, this timing will all flow and baby and baby momma will both do gloriously well!  Jordyn was 7 pounds 14 ounces so I expect this one to weigh in over 8 pounds.  We shall see soon.  I moved the phone to a spot next to my bed just in case they need me (which they probably won’t).

Lauren is off for the long weekend with friends and Granny is alone with the all the animals.  It is raining and I am sick (I know I mentioned that) but I am feeling a little sorry for myself.  Oh, well.

We moved the trailer to the arena.  I took Feather in last night and she thought I was nuts.  But once I got her food and set it down next to the trailer she decided to eat and worry about the trailer later.  After dinner, I left the arena gate open and all the horses were surrounding the trailer, sniffing and checking it out.  I may spend some quality time sitting by the trailer with Feather but bit by bit I hope she gets more at ease with it.

Amber took my mom shopping for some new summer clothes she had to have (she has more clothes than most people).  Mom introduced Amber as Amber Wosk, her niece.  LuAnn was there about a week ago so maybe that is where the niece thing came from.  Wosk is my step-sister’s name, Lynn Wosk.  But Amber’s last name does start with a W so it is close.  Today mom told me all the clothes needed to go back because they were too small.  Amber had watched her try them all on successfully.  We are not taking them back.

Oh, well another day on the farm.  Pray for Ally and Kendyll, please.

God Bless!

 It is raining. The roof is not leaking.  I am not worried about the tree falling on the house.  Things are quiet on the home front.  Jordyn was down on Monday.  She rode Mr. Kid.  We have been lifting her up and down off the saddle since she was a baby.  I have had three surgeries on my right rotator cuff.  Jordyn now weighs about 45 pounds.  I do not need to be lifting her up on a horse.  We have a three-step mounting block that I use (because my hips don’t work either) to get on the horses. 

Monday Jordyn learned to use the mounting block.  She is always reluctant to try new things.  Probably because I tend to suggest dangerous things.  When I suggested learning to use the mounting block, she countered she would when she was six.  She is four years old now.  But we went and tried.  I got patient Mr. Kid to stand right alongside the block (it is probably about three feet high) and was in position to help Jo until she figured out the dynamics of this new thing. Then we practiced about 12 times.  Finally, she was able to put her foot high into the stirrup.  I gave her a little boost and told her to climb.  She scrambled up into the little English saddle.  She can’t do it by herself yet, but will soon with a little more practice.  Before I know it she will walk her own horse out to the arena and be on-board before I even know she is out there.  I always say be careful what you teach them.

She was so proud of herself and rightly so.  It is a hard thing to master and Kid is a full-grown horse setting Jo at least five feet off the ground.  She couldn’t wait to tell her mother what she had done.  I love to see the kids learn they are capable of doing something they think they cannot.  I was so proud of her for being willing to try.

In other news, Jim has totally moved from the assisted living place to his sister’s house.  Mom is alone and seems to be getting more involved with the activities of the center.  I am having difficulties reaching her on the phone.  I miss talking to her.  Jim seems to be more confused and called Amber multiples times today to ask when she was coming to take mom shopping.  Amber was working at the hospital today and had no plans to go there.  After Jim’s fifth call to Amber’s cell, she called me to intervene.  Apparently they were waiting in the nursing home lobby for her.

I need to get to the assisted living facilities here and see what I can find out.  I am thinking maybe September would be a good time to bring momma home to me.

Amber was having the day from hell. She started out with Lexi sick.  Then got to the day care to find the day care worker in a ball, sobbing on the floor.  She took her to the ER (kidney stones, they think) then started to see and discharge her own patients.  Then Jim called 72 times.  Then Amber found out a neo-natologist she had worked for had died of cancer at 40, leaving an orphaned child who had been an orphan in Russia before being adopted by the doctor.  Wow. How do you get past that?

Ally saw the doctor again today.  Maybe two more weeks until baby Kendyll arrives. She is trying to negotiate the C-Section date to an earlier time. She and Jordyn are out in the rain trying to buy the Justin Bieber CD.

So, rain-this time it is a gentle one for me.   But Amber is riding out her own storm.  Hopefully, things quiet down for her soon.

I have been gone for three days.  Lauren was left in charge of the farm.  And what a time she had in my absence. 

Starting off she had the roof problem to deal with, a couple of basketball size holes in the roof from the limb that fell during the storm last weekend.  Then she had the total care and feeding of the horses, dogs and cats.  Plus we are going to a horse show this weekend so the horses have to worked and polished.

First, Lauren does not like meeting new people.  She likes to leave all the adult interaction to me.  But this week, she had two roofing contractors come to house to give bids on the roof damage.  I understand that it can be uncomfortable to be 19 years old, a female, and alone in a house in the country with men you do not coming into your home.  I get that.  But Lauren hates it.  She had to do it because I wasn’t there.  She was fine.  One guy wanted to talk all about her horses and her riding.  She thought it was a little creepy but I think he was just enjoying talking to a pretty girl on a summer day. 

After the roofing contractors came and went, the insurance adjustor had to come and view both the outside of the house (which was pretty safe) and the inside (to see the water damage) which was not.  She was glad to close and lock the door when they all were gone. 

Lauren’s snake!

On Monday, to liven things up for her, she found Chloe (our favorite cat) playing with a snake.  Not just a snake, but a big snake and we think it is a copperhead.  Feel free to educate me if I am wrong.  She tried to take the shovel to it and kill it but had to contend with getting the cat away.  Oh, and there was the whole Lauren is scared to DEATH of SNAKES!  So, I am not surprised she didn’t get it killed.  She was far too worried that she would cut off its tail and it would swing around and bite her.  The next day she texted me to say that she had gotten a shot gun from her boyfriend, Blake, and was going to shoot the snake.  That scared me more than her getting attacked by the roofer guys or bit by the snake.  Lauren with a gun was not my favorite visual as I sat in training in Oklahoma. 

The next thing I know, Lauren texts me to tell me Blake is having her fire a semi-automatic weapon.  This did not bring great joy and assurance to me.  I was worried about the shot-gun.  I have little regard for the recreational use of a semi-automatic weapon.  I know there are those that will disagree. 

Finally, yesterday Dr. Criner, our vet, came.  She was going to follow up with Leo (which by the way, I had sent her a text saying “F/U Leo” and she called me to ask why I was mad at her-the F/U was follow up not some other acronym) and his chiropractic needs. Also she had to do dental work on Leo and Feather.  For Dr. Criner, and Lauren, by extension as her helper, dental work on horses involves the old-fashioned method of filing down the rough edges of the horse’s teeth.  Dr. Criner insists on client involvement, whereby once she has the horse suitably drugged and their mouth propped open, she has the owner feel the edges of the horse’s teeth.  Feather’s bottom teeth were so sharp that they were causing swelling of her upper mouth.  Leo’s were horrible-sharp and overgrown plus he had TMJ and needed his jaw chiropracticed (not kidding here). 

After Dr. Criner did her process of filing the teeth and rinsing, Lauren was asked to put her hand back in the horse’s mouth to feel the newly filed teeth.  If your vet does not offer this option you are missing out-I mean really, how do you know they are doing what should be done?  This process also involves Lauren holding up the horse’s head (easily 80 pounds) while the dental work is done.  Because of the anesthetic the head just bobbles away.  Of course, the heat index was over 100 degrees, so all and all this was pretty great.  Dr. Criner did the hard physical work of filing while Lauren was the head-holding dental assistant.  The last patient of day was my old horse Kid.  He has had a lot of drainage from his eyes.  He needed an irrigation of the sinus and eye.  I think we completely lost Lauren when the syringe went in Kid’s eye.

I am proud of my daughter.  What a crazy three days.  I bet she won’t want me to leave again any time soon.  Sometimes it is good for your children to appreciate you.  Likewise, it is good for them to learn-inspite of anything that comes up- that they can handle things on their own.

Other update-I have not been able to reach my mom much this week.  There is a problem with the phone.  But I did learn Jim was in trouble for driving his new SUV on the sidewalk.  The greatest news was that my cousin Lu Ann got to Denver to see my mom this week.  I think it was therapeutic for both of them.  Lu Ann is one of the warmest, dearest people on earth and she truly brightened my mother’s life.  It was a little ironic that I was in Oklahoma while Lu Ann was visiting my mom.  She no longer lives in Oklahoma but I think it will always be home for her.

Storm over the barn.

After a year of drought and little rain this year, I am skeptical about storms.  Often, it is much to do about nothing.  Last night was one of those nights where there was a 40% chance of rain, but I doubted it would actually materialize.  We have started putting the horses in their stalls mid-afternoon to give them some shade and get them out of the sun.  Then after they eat dinner, we have been putting them back out in the pasture for the night.

There are coyotes and storms could come up that we don’t anticipate but overall it should work.  I was debating if they should go out last night.  Forty percent chance of rain-means 60% that it doesn’t.  I went to check out the skies about 7:00 pm and saw the storm approaching fast.  I got some great pictures.  I left the horses in their stalls.

What a storm we had.  We had wind gusts to 60 miles per hour.  We have a huge tree in the back yard that partially died in last year’s drought.  It has some leaves and good branches but it has many that are obviously dead.

Once the rain started pounding the back door and winds shifted into high gear, I got scared.  I was scared that the tree would fall on my little house.  It is as long as my house.  I idly thought about photographing all my belongings so that it would make the insurance claim easier when the house was demolished.  I know that is a good idea but I have never gotten around to it.

The storm was focused over the house for at least thirty minutes.  I sat in the dark with the dogs who were huddled around me.  I got up to look out the windows toward the barn and thought a telephone pole was on the ground.  It looked like a telephone pole.  Except there was no telephone anywhere near this location.  I went out the back door in see if the tree was standing.  It was and not really moving much in the wind.  The branches weren’t so stable.  A branch maybe 20 feet long by a foot wide (at the widest point) had flown from the tree.  It had landed on the other side of the fence (which was good).  And until this morning, I thought we had been pretty lucky.  Lauren went out at first light (I was long gone) and found the branch (think giant tree limb)  laying on the power lines.  Not the power lines belonging to the utility company (of course) but the lines that run electrical to the lights in our arena. 

I thought we could just pull the branch off the line.  I asked my utility worker son-in-law first.  He said as long as the power was off to the line it was okay.  Then Lauren realized it was way too heavy for her to pull off by herself. 

Luke has a day off since he worked the last 24 hours in a row.  He headed to my house (no doubt there were things he would rather do on his day off then wrestle with my power lines-but he agreed anyway). When he got there Blake had already revved up the chain saw and was cutting up the tree. Luke says I need to get that tree cut down but it is so big in such a small space (surrounded by the house on one side and fence on the other three sides) I don’t know how they will drop it when they cut it. 

Later today as the rain returned the roof started leaking into the house.  In the middle of the storm, Lauren crawled on a ladder and up to the roof.  The limb had driven two large holes through the shingles.   Lauren hauled a hammer and nails up to roof (remember it is pouring rain) and nailed some plastic in place.  She definately has her daddy’s genes.  Then we got the great idea to put a tarp over it.  That took a few attempts for me to get the tarp up to her on the roof.  I remembered her dad used to put boards on the tarp to hold it in place.  We didn’t have any boards but we had freshly cut pieces of wood.  I started lobbing them up to Lauren on the roof (did I mention it is pouring rain, Jordyn is here, the dogs were out) and wood was erratically falling on the roof and then to ground as my throws failed to land near her. Then I hit her in the head with a piece of wood.  We decided to quit with that.

I was happy Life Flight was not involved in this adventure.  I have low expectations.  Lauren is still complaining about a headache.  Maybe she should have worn her riding helmet.  Just sayin…

Each day presents new changes and we accept and move on.  Jon Katz said in his blog yesterday “A farmer once told me that a farm is not a stable and quiet place interrupted by occasional dramas and challenges, but one continuous drama and challenge interrupted by occasional stability and quiet.”  So true.  So true.

I cry easily

riding in the car

on my never ending commute to work

the music brings memories

makes me remember days and people gone by

they still seem so close to me

in the song’s lyrics

in my head of dreams

there is a soft, sensitive side of me

that I hide least I be hurt

today driving in

I missed the old days

I missed my sister

How could you have gone and left me here

to deal with mom all alone?

You were the one that was responsible

You took care of things

But I must say

your dying has made me

a better person

Couldn’t I have just taken

a self-improvement course?

Some of the pack!

How did I come to own six dogs?  I would never have done that in my right mind-and they are all young except Lula.  These dogs will be with me for ten or more years.  I will be 65 with six dogs.  Crazy.  I don’t know how many cats there are at my house.  I think there are maybe eight that I can touch.  I don’t count them as mine if I cannot touch them.  It seems like reasonable criteria. But with the highway and the natural predators, I suspect, I would only have five or so cats long term. 

What am I saying?  Five or so cats, six dogs, four horses (because I really don’t think Kid will make another ten years) that is still a barn/house full as I enter my golden years.

Although, if I am honest, I did have five dogs in my home in suburban Sugar Land.  I guess the difference was, if we went out-of-town, they could be boarded.  One time we talked the Davangs into taking three of the little ones while the Dobermans went to the kennel.  I don’t think Becky will ever forget it. She had multiple dogs of her own and it was a crazy, mixed up pack for the entire time we were gone.   I can still get her to mimic Ernie’s (a shih tzu) overbite.  Ernie was also deaf and more than a little blind, so he could “feel” the other dogs barking and would join in.

It was also different then because there were no cats or horses at home.  Just the dogs were there to ensure I must be home every morning and night. But one call to the local vet and they could easily be boarded.  We have one friend, Richard, who will adjust what he is doing and babysit the house and the animals.  But he has a fulltime job and taking over the duties at Six Meadow Farm are pretty consuming.

I guess when others make their retirement plans, they think of traveling, relaxing and doing the things they could not do when working.  I am completely clear that I will never be able to afford to retire.  I have had too many starts and stops, injuries and health issues to have built a great retirement plan.  Instead, I will be on my walker, making it across to the barn, falling over running cats at the crack of dawn so I can get off to work somewhere to pay the bills.  Sounds like a compelling reason to up my 401k allotment, say no to more animals and be thriftier.  But somehow, I know I will enter my golden years, surrounded by the love of my animals.  I guess it could be worse.