Alot

has been going on!
Busy bones.
Good grief, I've been busy.
Mom and Dad are doing ok.
Mom thinks she's eating too much and Dad
says he is not hungry at all.
He doesn't forget to have me get him some
fried pies tho...
he is hungry for those, and Oreo's.
He broke another tooth the other day while we were eating lunch.
He giggled, showed it to all of us at the table and then put it on his plate
 and kept eating.
He is something else.
He started singing the original song he wrote again.
The first time I ever heard this song,
 we (he, mom and I )
were in KFC in Lovington.
He was finished with his chicken dinner,
so as he waited for mom and I to finish,
he burst into song.
He tapped his fingers on the table in a steady beat.
"come home my boy, come home
come home my boy, come home
come home my boy, come home
come home my boy come home."
Mom and I looked at each other as
everyone else in KFC looked at us.
It was a pretty catchy little tune.
I asked him if he had finished it,
and he said no.
He had dropped his cassette tape recorder
and thought he broke it , but I got it to work today.
I want him to be sure and record all the words to this song.
I want to hear the rest of it!
It is pretty good.
Pretty good times.


This is a picture of an oil well in west Texas.
 I went to work with my brother. He is a Pumper. He keeps everything running and producing.

"Smells like money to me"

(common local quote)

We saw 2 snakes!

Diamond Back Rattlesnake

This is a rattlesnake, but not sure what kind.

Neither snake "rattled"

It's strange they didn't.

Roadrunner

New Mexico State Bird

This one is a Texan however.

I had a roadrunner once, that would chase my chihuahua!

They are very fast and  very mean/hungry.(the roadrunner!)

"Run Chico Run"

Blooming Cactus

The wind Never stops!

My thoughts and prayers go out to those left devastated by the natural disasters that seem to be wild all over the earth. Earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, drought. It makes my wind seem trivial.

Love thy neighbor bones and share your toys!

Sandy Sunset

:-)

ma

More Scorpion Karma

Pay backs are hell in this desert.

I knew better than torment that damn creature.

I had ANOTHER live scorpion in the sink today.

I even stuck my hand in and was just lucky enough to not get bit.

ooohhhhooohhhooh

I can't stand them....

The one in the window was only about 3 feet from my bed.

I am having the creeps

bad.

Today at the barn, I looked down and there were a BUNCH of big black ants.  I am highly allergic to them.  I can't stand to poison anything,  but I may have to kill this ant bed.  They were everywhere.

I wonder if my chickens would eat them...??

There was a baby bird in the chicken pen today.

I expected the girls to kill it promply, since they were so mean to Jane,

but they seem to let it be and even shared water and food and I didn't see any aggression at all.
It was another windy day,
another great sunset.

Shaggy

Sunset moon above

There are some thunderstorms in the area.

none near me so far....

damn it.

Mom

really hates to have her picture taken.

She gets it from her mom,

my grandmother

Mi Mi.

Almost every picture I find of Joe Lee Hill Dunham
(my grandma)

it has her face scratched out.

It makes me so damn mad.

She got REAL MAD at us kids one year for taking her picture

and then we all got to laughing at how silly she was acting and she got even

madder at us.

Mom was in on the laughing too. She got in trouble from Mi Mi.

It was priceless.

Anyway,

I got Mom to look into the screen on my camera that flips out the side, so I took our picture today.

Once she realized I snapped a photo

she quit looking.

I love her Hollywood glasses.

W

 sent us both flower arrangements.

He is my perfect son.

He is very good to me

and his grandparents.

Being  W's mom

is the best thing I've ever done in my life.

I am so proud of him and T & C.

I can't wait to be a grandmother-when ever that happens.

Thanks W for making me a happy mom and being such a good son.

Mom was so happy about her flowers.

 I am too. I love flowers.

 She will never throw them out, she will dry every single flower and make a potpori bowl of dried flower petals.

She remarked today how they (the cleaning crew) threw the last ones away when she was drying them.

We went down to the activity room for "live music."

Fun bones.

 I really wanted to listen, but as soon as I walked in they put a fiddle in one hand and  a bow in the other and made me play.

We played for a couple of hours. 

I was lucky enough to get to play a Martin 6-string guitar

 which was just awesome.

Its like driving a Jaguar.

The fiddle was ok,

but the bow sucked so bad

 I swear I was in Texas for a while............

I ate supper with M & D. 

Thats always an adventure.

The food is good and the dining room is "busy".

They have a pretty good system and it works out pretty well. 

It was getting dark, so I started making my way to the truck to go home.

Mom "wheels" out to the truck with me, but then I have to take her back inside.

It is kinda funny.

 I can't drive off and leave her in her wheel chair on the sidewalk.

That would be like leaving a two year old alone by the street.

It ends up taking quite a while to actually complete the "leaving" process.

Mom has always done that-

prolong the good-bye process.

She would stand at the front door of the house and go-

"Well......"

I would be getting in my car and say

"huh?"

She would reply "Well......."

"huh?'

"Well......"

"huh?"

I would walk back to the house and she would say

"Well........be careful"

"Love you"

"ok,  I will, love you too"

I guess some habits are just to hard to break.

ma

Scorpion Karma comes home

The scorpion in the jar on the snack bar 

finally died.

Thank goodness.

It lived for about 11 weeks with no food or water,

and with alot of stress from me.

:-)

It seemed to suddenly shrivel up.

I really hate scorpions.

I get the creeps when I see them.

I have found 2 today.

Both alive 

but now dead.

 Yes, I crushed them.

crap, I can get nauseous thinking about it.......

I found a dead one in my window the other nite.

It really creeped me out because

I had the window open about 5 inches, and the dogs 

kept barking

and barking

and barking,  

so I leaned over my desk and put my face up to the screen of the window and

screamed-

"SHUT-UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

at the dogs.

I looked down and and maybe 2 inches from my face is a scorpion

in the window sill.

I jumped and screamed and got all creepy crawly.

The damn thing was dead,

but that gave me little comfort.

Oh, how I hate them.

Oh, yes,

I forgot about the live one in the sink the other day

when I went to wash the dishes.

It is curled up.

I hope you can find it.

I was letting the hot water get good and hot for him.

I would love to convey the creepy bone.

  I don't think there is much I can do about the scorpions but kill them when I find them.

Oh

how I wish they would go away.

But I know they won't.

Bummer bone.

We have had some clouds

but no rain.

We have no real chance for rain.

EVER

Bigger bummer bone.

ma

Shade

We have

 shade

under our trees

now.

Cool bone.

It is

 way to cool

 to see the

 spring

transform this damn desert.

Back yard wild flowers

The Monarch Square Garden is growing.

Onions

Tomato

The tomato plants have been beaten down by all the wind and nibbled on.

The birds and (I think) field mice are eating very well.

They love my choice of vegetables.

The blueberry and blackberry bushes have grown back after the first

 "feast"

which left them with nothing but a root.  I have kept them covered with a net type screen anchored on the edges. Nothing but light can get thru.

I have put chicken wire and cages over everything else, but everything is still being eaten by something.........

I'm fixin' to get those little so and so's.

Don't eat my garden, 

I want to eat it.

Get your own bone.

I'm American,

I don't forget, or give up.

I will get you.

:-)

ma

Windy with Fire

The wind has been relentless.

Thats dirt in the sky, you have to look at the white of the truck, to the brown of the sky, and the blue of the sky at the top of the pic. Its kinda hard to see, but believe me, you could see it, smell it, taste it, and breathe it.

 yuck  yuck yuck

Verdell even wanted in the house.
It was so windy,
 he didn't care about the horse.
                         (Verdell has developed an obsession for the horses in the back yard which borders the stalls)

The wind slowed and stopped blowing this afternoon
finally
and it made me stop and listen to the
silence.
No wind.
WoW.
Its quiet.
It didn't last long.
It starts again.
There have been fires all over the place.

I had to drive about an extra hour to get home because of highway closings due to fires.

Burnt pasture

The dirt and ash in the sky have made for some great sun pictures.

Clouds and smoke at sunset.

It has been 9 months since it has rained.

Lord, lord, lord !

Come on!

Please?

ma