Monday, August 25, 2008

WE HAVE EGGS!!





The chickens have layed eggs! Sutherlyn found them on Friday. The following are a few pictures of her with the first one - we had two but bless her little heart, she dropped one of them so only one made it for the pictures.......

Tropical storm Fay and our preparations.....




As we got ready for Tropical Storm Fay, so did Sutherlyn.

Mal & I got the camper pulled up to the house, Mal filled all of the holding tanks and hooked up the generator in anticipation of a possible loss of power during the storm. With the camper & the generator we could function somewhat normally for a while. We then stocked the shelves with a few things, water and some snacks. We filled numerous buckets of water up for the horses just in case we did loose power (we wouldn't have been able to run the pump for water with no power so I was worried about the horses running out of water to drink). We took care of everything that we could & we were ready.

This is what Sutherlyn did....she built herself a "hurricane shelter" in her room. Pretty good job I think for a 7 year-old.

We didn't suffer really at all from the storm (just lots and lots of rain) and are surely glad that it is GONE!

Til next time.....








Well, i am doing things a little backwards....but here goes. I have skipped a few days and am now back-tracking.





Last Monday, 8/18, was Sutherlyn's very first day of school at "her new school". She was very excited and so was I. I am anticipating a great year for her....and us.




This is Sutherlyn at her own desk the first day......

We attended orientation on Friday, 8/15 and were delighted to meet her teacher (s). She has the two Mrs. Austins. I have heard great things about them. The eldest Mrs. Austin has been teaching for 29 years. Her very first year of teaching 2nd grade was the year that Mal moved from the Elementary School to the Jr High School and he remembered her. She has been there that long! The younger Mrs Austin is the eldest's daughter-in-law (are you following me? They are related...) and seems like a very sweet, kind lady. Sutherlyn liked them both and immediately started to tell them all about herself and her "old school". Imagine that, Sutherlyn had no trouble talking to them right off the bat.....





Here are some pics of her on her very first day. Of course, Baby had to be in the pictures. She rode to school with us too. When Sutherlyn got out she decided that Baby could wait in the car for me to return but Sutherlyn made me promise I would take her inside the house upon returning home!

School Started and so did FAY!

What a wonderful week (at the beginning anyway).....school started and we had a great few days of it. Then, tropical storm Fay came and stayed awhile.

Sutherlyn had school and then she didn't have school....Mal was working a normal week and then he wasn't,he was never here,working non-stop! It was a crazy week, a week full of wind, rain, wet horses, wet dogs and rabbits, as well as wet parents and child and one small downed tree. All in all we came through great! No power outages and no major problems to speak of. I can't say the same for a lot of other people and we continue to pray for them, that their lives will get back to normal soon.

As for us, we are drying out and thankful that "wet & windy" is all we had to deal with!

Til next time......

Monday, August 18, 2008

What a week!

Well, the day after my last post the proverbial bottom fell out around here......Cisco and Duke colicked (i think i spelled that right). For those of you who don't know what that is...IT IS BAD, VERY BAD for horses! Long story short, our Wednesday, 8/13, started out pretty normal then at around 8:30 am it all began to go down......literally! The horses went down and we couldn't get them up. I yelled to Mal to call my friend, Cindy, the lady who Sutherlyn is learning to ride with (from) and she rushed over with a friend of hers, Sherri. They both started right away helping me save our horses. We did all that we could all through the day on Wednesday......eventually hauling both of the horses to Interlachen where we could get a Vet to see us and then ultimately to Gainesville to the University of Florida Large animal hospital. Our day ended at around 10:45 that night! It was a non-stop day full of panic, fear, tears and ultimately joy.


There were a lot of things that happened that day. I won't go into every minute detail but the one thing that I want to be sure to convey is this........I am sure now, i was before but even more so now, when things look the very darkest there is always hope. When you feel as though you have no where else to turn, turn to God (we should do it first, but we stubborn humans don't! We're going to "handle it ourselves!") When our family thought that we were just "waiting for Cisco to die", God had other plans. (Cisco had begun to go into shock) We asked Sutherlyn to tell him good-bye and go into the house but she didn't. She hugged his neck and then went out into the back of the field, by herself and got down on her little knees and clasped her hands tightly in prayer looking up to her Heavenly Father and asked him to save her horse......I know this sounds really deep and that to some they are "just horses". But I am here to tell you, God performed a miracle that day that only He could have done. I say that because I know it He can do those things when He decides to. Also, neither Vet who saw Cisco could tell me at the end of the day why he was still alive....he'd done some things and gone through some stuff that under any other circumstance is a telltale sign of the end for a horse but he is here, he is out in the field right now, eating grass! When I had a terrible decision to make that Wednesday night I turned to God and asked for His guidance.....I had wonderful support from my family & my friends who stayed with me through the whole thing, and when it all came down to it I made a decision based on what I felt the Lord wanted me to do, once I had, I had a peace about it. I was still afraid but I wasn't panicked anymore and I knew that no matter what happened, God would still be there, with me and He would still be God. There is nothing like that peace. I know that it was only by the power of prayer that has happened.





Cisco is just a horse (but we love him) and had God decided that his life was over then it would have been, but He decided for some reason to show His power that day and let him stay here with us. I believe it is my duty to share this story with all who will listen. I have yet to understand why, I am seeking His guidance in showing me what I am to do with this but I do know this for certain, that "horse" is still here with us because a little girl who loves him very much prayed and God decided to answer that prayer......I have no doubt about that.......til next time!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

introductions

This is Aspen (our maltese)


















This is Duke (K.B.Duke to be exact) he is one of the newest members of our animal family, he is a Rocky Mountain Horse. We hope to have him trained in no time and he will be one that Sutherlyn rides.








































In an effort to get started I have rushed into some of this.....It has come to my attention that maybe I should introduce a few people (animals to be exact) for those of you who don't personally know them all.

This is Duke again and in the background is our other horse, Berry's Cisco Kid (we call him Cisco). He is also a Rocky Mountain Horse and is chocolate in color with a white (blonde) mane and tail. They are both pretty horses. We love them.









You saw Tag, our other dog, earlier in my blog and we also have another dog, Cosmo (he is a Jack Russel Terrier too), 10 chickens and 2 rabbits!

an effort to catch up & things to ponder




My Papa with us, the grandchildren (but one was missing). Heather, we missed you.







We celebrated my Papa's 80th Birthday on July 26th! I can't believe it. He is 80!












He doesn't look it and surely doesn't act 80 to me. This is picture of him with his cousins....they came from two different states to celebrate with us! (New York and Alabama)












We had a great time. There were a number of people he'd not seen in a long time who came to celebrate and that was fun. There were a lot of other people none of us had seen in awhile. Some of the people there were people that Papa had no idea were coming, he'd not seen them since his days at Eastern Airlines and he was happy to spend some time with all of them. We had nearly 65 total I think.



We all got to see Aunt Nan and Uncle Jimmy from Perry (my Grandma's brother and sister-in-law). I'd forgotten how much I miss them. They brought a CD of the Mincy family that I watched later. We also watched a picture CD of my Papa and his life. These two things reminded me of a lot of things but mostly of how fast life goes by. How I really should stop and take time to be with the ones who matter most and how all of my "good intentions" don't mean a thing unless I act upon them. How life is not a dress rehersal...I only get one chance and it does go by quickly. How what seemed as though it should have been "just yesterday" I was a small child spending summer afternoons at the beach with my tall, dark and beautiful Aunt Jeanine (she still is); I was the little girl who was afraid to go out the chicken coop at Grandma and Papa's alone because of the "big scary thing" (a racoon) that was terrorizing the baby ducks and chicks & ME!; How when my Mom and I left Grandma & Papa's I would stand on the seat of the car in the middle waving and crying all the way down the driveway because we were leaving and my Grandma would stand there the whole time waving and telling me how much she loved me; how we were just shopping for school clothes for me and now, this week, I am getting ready to shop for them for my little Sutherlyn who is going into the 2nd grade; How the tall, handsome young man in the pink stripe shirt, my cousin Brent, was a "baby on the way" who we were having a "baby shower"for & the other nice looking one in the green, Blake (my other cousin), was a very small baby boy who on Christmas Eve nearly 23 years ago, we were visiting in the NICU at the hospital wondering and praying for things to turn out for the best.


Those are a few memories from what "seems like yesterday" yet I look at each person here, all of them, me included and my Mom and my Aunt and my Papa and I see, there in full color, that time has gone by, even if in my mind it seems "like just yesterday". We are all moving on, growing older and time is slipping away.... I know that I am not the first to realize this and certainly not the first to ponder it. I just want to be sure that I don't miss a thing. I don't want to look back on my life and wish for the most part that I'd done things differently. I know we all have those moments, there really is no getting away from them, We are human and we are imperfect. But I do want to be sure that I have done my very best to cover all the bases, the dot all of the i's and cross all the t's. To spend time doing the things that matter, with the people who matter for what matters. I hope that my family knows that no matter how quickly I come to see you and leave to get home, and how fast I seem to hurry you off the phone on occasion that I do love and cherish you. And so Papa, I hope that as you turned 80, you feel as though you have had a life well lived...a life of few regrets, a life full of love, happiness, fulfillment, joy and family. I know I feel that I have been a part of that with you. A part of what has been and is a wonderful family. I love you very, very much! All of you!




Happy Birthday Papa....I love you.





















Tag is back!


Well it turns out that my little houdini dog is also a "casanova" dog....we thought he was gay!


He has been down the road fornicating with the neighbor's little dachshound! (i guess i spelled that correctly dash-hound as Mal calls them). Evidently he is NOT gay!


Anyway, the lady said he is always over there in their yard, or nearby. The other lady, Mrs Gray (who lives closer to us & knows us, but next door to the house where Mal found Tag), said that the other neighbor (are you following me??!) said to her a few days ago that if he comes in the yard again she will shoot him! Can you imagine?! My sweet precious little romeo, SHOT?!


Anyway, I am glad he is home, I am sorry that he is becoming a problem in the neighborhood and I am surely glad he is not gay.


Please pray that we can figure out how to keep him in his own yard before one or more of the neighbors off him!


Til next time.......


Tag is missing!



Last night i let the dogs out...Tag and Aspen. Aspen of course stayed right here at home (he knows where his best interests lie) but Tag, my "houdini" dog, my "missing in action" dog, my "can't seem to be happy with the 1/2 acre that was fenced in for him or the 10.3 acres that he has to room on" dog....that dog is missing! He left yesterday for about three hours and when Mal walked down the road he found him with another dog about three houses down. Well, last night I let them out one last time for potty, etc before turning in for the night and low and behold he's gone - thus Tag is missing! He's been gone since about 8:30 last night.






I've called him, I've driven down the road (several times) looking for him. He is no where to be found.


Please pray that he will come home soon. Sutherlyn (and I) are still holding out hope that he is nearby and is just ignoring my summons home!



We have had him for 10 years (he just celebrated his 10th birthday in July) and we will be terribly, terribly sad if he is truly gone forever! i am not ready for that yet!








sutherlyn and the animals







I am putting in some pictures today that were actually taken back in May (i told you, i don't take them or print them, or whatever with them as often as I should).




These are some that a friend of ours from church took and I think she did a wonderful job.




Enjoy.....