Grammys Corgi Country

Getting ready to go on a big trip for a few weeks is really a pain! I’m sure it will be fine once I get there, but I have never liked the getting ready part… trying to remember all of the things that might come up and make arrangements to cover them… Getting things cleaned, folded and packed… and for me, it is so hard to look at my dogs and horses and contemplate leaving my babies for any length of time. It just really tears me up.

I’ve been around animals since I was born… My parents always had dogs… In fact, that is how they met when they were 9 years old (They were born within 6 months of each other). My dad’s little white Pomeranian went to visit my mom’s little dog. They became friends, and he would go over at 4 in the morning to help her chop wood and get their stove going so she could make the tortillas for the day, and she would give him some for his family too. That was in 1929 and the early 30’s, when food was scarce for a family whose father had died of pneumonia 3 years earlier.

They always had dogs, and got my first dog for me when I was 6 months old. She was a little half-dead Chihuahua/Doxie mix. They got her fixed up and I had my Bootsie until she passed when I was 11. By that time, I also had a german shepherd and one of Bootsie’s pups, Bootie, while my mom had her dog, and my dad has his.

Over the years, my dad brought home all sorts of other animals as well. We had rats, and snakes… rabbits, raccoons, a skunk, and a raven (from the time when he was a featherless nestling until he passed at the age of 25 years old) among many others. He was able to get me a horse for me for my 11th birthday, and helped me train her and learn to ride. He taught me to go to the older people at the stables where we kept my Ladybug, and to listen to the older, experienced horsemen to learn about horses… their handling, care, and training.

Anyway, the only time I haven’t been around dogs is during the time I was in Bible College for a couple of years, and then I had a big stuffed dog that I kept in my dorm room to hug and pet. I believe that is one reason I’ve always had really good blood pressure… Researchers have proven that having a pet and just sitting there stroking it helps people to calm down, relieves stress, and lowers blood pressure. That is the main reason why more and more nursing homes are allowing animals in to visit patients… and lowered stress hormones also helps speed healing.

At least the last time I visited my son a couple of years ago, he did have a dog, so I won’t be “dogless,” and that is some consolation. (Maybe I can hide a corgi in my carryon… What do you think?)

Take some time doing something that will help you find calmness and peace today…

Today I’ve spent several hours on the web (remember I have an old, SLOOOWWWW computer) looking for some tickets so that I can fly to Florida at the end of the week. WHAT A HEADACHE!!! I’ve checked Hotwire (which I will probably go with), Orbitz, Travelocity, CheapTickets, Priceline, and several others.

Of course, I do realize that it is the last minute, and I actually found some rates that are much better than I had anticipated because of that fact. What I don’t understand is how one place has a flight that goes from a Santa Ana Airport, to a stopover in L.A. and then flies straight through to the city I need to go to in Florida for only $312, but, THE SAME PLACE says that I could get a flight from LAX (with a stopover in Denver) for over $500!!! Does this make sense to YOU??!!

If I would have to fly to LAX anyway, and go from there to Florida WITHOUT a layover for $312, then WHY would I have to pay $200 MORE to take a flight from the SAME PLACE (LAX) and still have to do a layover? Why can’t they just get me the leg from LAX to Florida that I would get with the other flight…

Is this INSANE or what!!??!! Do I sound a little frustrated? It would take me two hours to drive to LAX and almost 5 hours to drive to the Santa Ana Airport and then fly back to LAX to go to Florida. That’s 10 hours of driving for whoever takes me as opposed to 4 hours, and that is both coming and going… You can see how it adds up.

I think I’m going to end up going through another ticket vendor and pay about $380 to fly from LAX with a layover. It really does make a difference when you shop around online, though, so if you find yourself in this type of situation, do some homework and compare prices, schedules, etc., and you might find a good bargain.

Just as a last note, we’ve had several unexpected sources of money come in with people offering to buy things, etc. that we’ve wanted to sell but hadn’t worked at selling, and getting paid my first payment from this blog when I wasn’t expecting it… and the Lord is really helping to bring this trip together, so I want to thank Him for that, and say again, if you are trying to put Him and His ways first in your life, He does take care of the rest of it for you… What a good God we have!

May you follow Him and have your needs met…

Last night I got to bed around 2:30 a.m. (I’m still trying to catch up on back emails and other stuff) and everyone else had been in bed for several hours, and were snoring their heads off… It was cold enough to be another “Three Dog Night.” Hubby has a sinus problem currently, and so, apparently, do all three corgis. I laid there for a while listening to the chorus of snores and almost got to sleep when suddenly a mouse started chewing on something in a drawer.

I was NOT happy! I REALLY didn’t feel like getting up to look for it so that it would shut up, so I laid there for another 10-15 minutes listening to the crunching get louder and louder (or so it seemed!) As I’ve mentioned before, we are surrounded by open fields so we get a lot of mice coming into the house and that is another critter war I am waging all the time. Sadie helps a lot, but she can’t catch them all, and this one really seemed to be building a condo or something in that dresser.

I finally decided to make some earplugs out of some Kleenex that I keep in my headboard, and got to sleep for a couple of hours, but when I had to get up for a bit at 5:30 a.m., and then got back to bed, that rotten little chewer was still working hard. I really hated to get up again, but prayed about it (I pray about most things lately) and felt that if I had left the big metal flashlight in the headboard above my head, and I got up right then and went and looked, I would be able to put it out of my misery.

Normally, THAT flashlight is not kept there, but after the other night without electricity, I guess that I had left it there, because I found it right where I had felt it might be, and sure enough, when I got up and went to the dresser, I heard it start chewing again, pulled open the drawer and there it was … a Humongous mouse staring up into the light. I ended up waking up poor hubby, but I stunned the little sucker and gave it to Sadie to take outside and dispatch.

It was my hubby’s dresser, and I didn’t take the time to find out what the paper was that it was doing such a good job of shredding, so I guess I’d better let him know so he can check… I know it had shredded some of the boxes of his collectible cars, so he’s not going to be a happy camper. I guess I shouldn’t have used the earplugs when I first went to bed.

Well, my DIL is still not doing well, and seems to be getting worse. I may need to fly across country to help my son soon. I hope that I will be able to keep blogging from there… Would you believe “Grammy’s NOT in Corgi Country…” or should it be “Grammy in Miami…” (Not really, Florida, yes, Miami no, but it sounds cute…)

May you win all your personal wars so easily!

Disclaimer: I do not put the ads on my blogsite, and I do not endorse those that promote unbiblical ideas.

Today I turned on the television to my favorite channel to watch the 700 Club on TBN and all I got was snow. Snow is ok… in small amounts at a time… on the ground… once or twice a winter, but I don’t like blizzard conditions on my television set! I like to watch this Christian television channel to make sure I get good stuff going into my brain, and not so much of the depressing or junk things that are on so many of the other channels. My son went up onto the roof and adjusted the antenna until we could at least watch and hear that channel until the show was over.

When we finished watching the 700 Club, he checked the rest of the stations that we usually get, and they were all a mess. Some you could see a little bit, while others were completely gone, so we (my son mostly) spent most of the day, working on our VERY old, decrepit television antenna. He has “mickey moused” it many times over the 18 years that we have lived here, but with the rust and wind bending wires, etc. we were afraid that it had decided to “bite the dust” this time.

He worked on it for almost 5 hours, and a lot of that time, I had to be standing at the door with the channel changer. I would flip through the channels, while he worked on the roof, twisting and turning the conglomeration of wiring he has been creating to bring in the “over the air” channels, and to see where the best reception was for each one, while I called up the results to him.

At one point, about half way through, he thought he had it, and came in to the living room to check some wiring and connections in here to see if maybe that was why he couldn’t get it all exactly right. While he was doing that, something happened and it all messed up again. Boy was he frustrated… (he’d already had a frustrating morning working on the truck which isn’t starting right, and finding 2 more small waterleaks.) Finally, he ended up figuring out that one of the wires in the cable had broken, and he was able to take off the bad part and rehook things up so that it works alright now.

As I mentioned in my blog of a couple of days ago, I have been thinking a lot about how important it is to be reading my Bible every day because it shines the light of God’s Truth into my life so that I can stay on a safe path. Today, I started thinking about the old antenna, and how we really haven’t paid much attention to it (like keeping the guy wires taut for proper support, etc.), so the winds have bent it back and forth over the years, and the rains have cause parts of it to rust. Because of this, something broke, and it could no longer conduct the proper signals into the television.

The Bible says in Philippians 4:8 “ whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable… if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things.” If we keep our spiritual bodies strong and in good condition by putting good things into our brains, they won’t have “broken wires” in them and we will be able to “conduct” good examples that will bring good, clear messages to those around us. I’ve mentioned before, I think that modeling good things is the best way to draw others into a better, more healthy way of thinking and, hopefully, living.

May noble, pure, lovely, and admirable things surround your lives today…

Today, I had a doctor’s appointment in the late afternoon and we got home about an hour after dark… to a completely dark house… It turns out that somehow (the electric company didn’t say) the power lines were down and it would be several hours before they got them running again. No electricity, no computer… AND, since we don’t have gas out here, NO anything else either (like a way to cook, etc.)

Of course, we have backup plans, like an emergency, battery-powered light that is plugged in at all times and automatically comes on if the power goes off. It lasts about an hour, so we had time to run around and gather up the candles, flashlights and hurricane lamps that we also keep for emergencies.

I made a quick dinner of cold sandwiches and then went out and fed the horses. The flood lights for the back were off, so for a while, I had to juggle a flashlight and the hay, but at least I HAD a flashlight and hay to feed. While I was out there, my son started to come out to help, but he got his foot caught on something and took a pretty hard fall off the step from the washroom into the enclosed patio. He got bloodied up, even through his clothes, on his arm and knee, and pulled some muscles in his calf and the back of his knee, but did come out anyway and help me feed.

We came back in, hunted up the emergency First Aid kit, got him cleaned up and then settled in the recliner chair in the living room with an ice pack on his knee and some ibuprofen to, hopefully, help keep his knee from becoming to inflamed and swollen.

Even though it was only 9:30, I went in and went to bed (Hubby had done that just after we ate, so didn’t know any of this) I turned on the light switch so that when they finally got the electricity on, it would wake me up, and that happened a little after midnight, so here I am, finally getting to type this.

It is interesting, though, because I had planned, during the drive home, to write about light tonight. We had driven past a church, on the way home, that had a message board outside that said, “Dusty Bibles lead to dirty lives.” I had been thinking about that and what Psalms 119: 104 & 105 says: “I gain understanding from your Words, therefore I hate every wrong path. Your Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” Little did I know that I was going to get a real example of that about 45 minutes later when I got home.

It seemed to bring home to me that if God’s Word is “Light” and we don’t use it to light our life’s pathway, then we will end up falling and getting dirty and/or hurt, but if we do use it, we will have a lighted way before us and be able to go around most of the pitfalls that we come upon. One thing that I noticed though, is that a candle or lamp doesn’t light very far in front of you… just enough for a few safe steps at a time. I think I even remember a book about something like that by Stormie O’Martian called, “Just Enough Light for the Step I’m On.”

I read a blog about this very thing yesterday (See A Corgi in Southern California in my blogroll)… Do you think maybe God is trying to be sure He gets my attention on this subject? I already read my Bible daily, and have for many years, because my Mom had been an excellent example of someone who does that. One of my fondest memories is of laying in bed, listening to her read her Bible to my Dad one night. (He read, and was a brilliant man… they were just sharing this together).

Anyway, maybe I was just supposed to share these important insights with others or something, but I will definitely keep thinking about this, because God got my attention!!!

Note: You never know when an emergeny will crop up, so be prepared with flashlights (and batteries if needed… some of ours are windup), candles, First Aid Kit (kept up, not USED up already), etc.

Keep the light on in your life, so that you will walk in safe paths, and have a great day!

Well, Praise God… so far the news is pretty good for my Daughter-In-Law. She is doing much better than expected for what was going on. She is still in the Critical Care Unit, but things are starting to look up. She and their family will continue to be in the rest of the family’s prayers.

I spent quite a while on the phone keeping family members updated, because, though we live so far apart, when a problem comes up, we all pray together… Thank God for phones and email, because we’ve all been “Reaching out to touch each other…” as the old phone commercial said. This way, my oldest son can get the news and updates out without having to do it all himself when he has so much other stuff to take care of for his girls and his wife.

I don’t know about the rest of you out there, but I’ve let a lot of chores go over the holidays, and now it’s catch up time. At least now that the water is on again, I don’t have to take all the extra time to haul buckets of it to places it was needed… Take a minute and think about not having running water for a several days. It makes it very hard to do a lot of “simple”, everyday things like cleaning your hands, your body, and your dishes, not to mention flushing. You have to haul in water to do all that, and then heat the water you haul because you can’t use the water heater. It really is time consuming, if not very difficult. I am totally thankful for running water… especially HOT running water!!!

Feeding the horses and watering them also takes some time, because a couple of them are over 20 and when it is very cold, like it has been, I try to make sure they get a hot mash of wheat bran, sweet feed, carrots and alfalfa pellets everyday or two.

I give it to them with their late evening feed so it helps them to warm up a little more from the inside out, gives them the extra carbs they need to produce energy for heat, and helps keep them hydrated. Sometimes horses don’t want to drink very cold water, so the gallon or so of warm water they suck up with their mash helps with that, too.

They get about a quart of each ingredient mixed together, and then I add hot water and let it set for about ½ hour to soak the water into the grain and bran, and to cool down enough so that it is fairly warm to the touch, but not to hot when I put it into their feeders. They LOVE it!!! I just have to watch because the dogs like to sneak in a “taste test…”

Another thing that takes a lot of extra time is cutting wood for the wood stove to help keep it at least close to 60 in the house when it’s close to 30, give or take 5 degrees, outside. At least the Corgis and Sadie help with gathering up the cut pieces and bringing them in.

With all this AND getting things ready for Christmas, the chores have backed up as I mentioned before. One thing about Corgis and other dogs with heavy undercoats is that the dust bunnies breed around here like RABBITS… Wonder if that is why they are called “Dust Bunnies…” Sadie has been herding them and bringing them to me a lot lately… I wonder if she is hinting. I probably had better get out the vacuum before she starts getting hairballs again.

Well, hope that your life is getting back to normal. I’m just thankful that I have a good house, wood to cut, enough horse feed, running water, and a couple of dogs that like to earn a little extra jerky by helping me clean house.

Hubby and I took another drive today with O.C. and B.G. Dott is going to be “indisposed” for about two weeks, and can’t go in the truck or car right now. She was NOT a happy camper!

We went back out into the hills around the same area we were in last week, and since I got a new digital camera for Christmas, I took a lot of pictures.

We went a lot further up into the hills this time, with me white-knuckling the dash as I gazed out the window and straight DOWN several hundred feet into some very deep ravines. My leg was about worn out pushing on a non-existent brake pedal as we came down those steep switch-back dirt roads. One place was so steep coming down, that O.C. slid off the front of the truck seat!

It WAS very pretty up on top of the hills with the views that were available since the air was very clear. Some places were still a bit misty, but by the afternoon, most of the fog had cleared off, so it was beautiful.

On the way back down, we stopped by that little valley from last week again, and let the Corgis out so that they could run around for about 30 minutes.

I’d mentioned in a couple of my blogs that we are in oil country, so, since we drove through one of the many oilfields to get into the back hill country, I also took some pics of them.

It just so happened… Hmmm… that we “found” a few mud holes to run through, too, so Hubby was able to come home with muddy wheels. It is nice having him home so much more this past couple of weeks with so many paid holidays and just using a couple of vacation days.

Oh, and we also got another waterline break about 4 days ago, but we got it fixed today because it was so close to the surface and the blowout sort of dug it out itself. This is about the shortest time it has ever taken to do that, Praise God!!! We didn’t even have to haul in extra water for the horses because they had enough to last that long in their water barrels.

I hope your first few days of this New Year have been as nice as mine. Keep looking for the bright side…

I had gotten to bed so late, that I slept in today, and then had a wonderful breakfast of leftover turkey, dressing with a fried egg, and mashed potatoes with ham gravy. I LOVE leftovers… just pop ‘em into the microwave and fry an egg real quick!!! Hubby had taken the day off work, so we watched several episodes of Eureka… he’d gotten the first season of the TV show on DVD as a Christmas gift… and then we watched the corgis play.

My son started playing with them with his laser light. He is very careful not to get it in their eyes so they don’t get injured, but BG, Sadie and Dott just love chasing that “little red bug” around the house, skidding around the kitchen floor and ripping at full speed down the hall. They chase flies or moths the same way, leaping and jumping around. It’s funny, too, when they catch one of the real bugs because they will get a weird look on their little faces and then spit it out real quick.

Later, while I was feeding the horses, Sadie caught a mouse. She has a tendency to play with them like a cat, too, pitching them up in the air and catching them. We always praise her a lot when she gets one, because she’s turned into a great mouser, and catches them in the house, too. That is one of the problems of living in the country with fields all around… the mice come in the doggy door.

After feeding, we walked the dogs around the pastures, so that they could run and play. They ran around like crazy dogs, checking every big rabbit hole, weasel hole, and squirrel hole. We’ve had rabbits and squirrels since we moved here, but a couple of years ago, when they had a big fire on the other side of the hills from us, some weasels moved from those hills to our place… at least that’s what we think happened.

My son was really surprised when he saw the “weirdest looking squirrel” peeking out from the woodpile, and then again a few days later from a hole by the ditch. He came in telling me that he’d seen a ferret and was wondering if someone’s had gotten loose around here, though it is illegal to keep them in California. We looked online and when we came across a picture of the animal he’d seen, it turned out to be a weasel.

It was such a nice, restful, fun day. It was extra nice because Hubby rarely takes a day off work during the week, and we will still have two more days before he has to go back. BG, especially, loves having his Dad home. He is his Dad’s dog, just like his grandma, Mist, used to be, and loves it when he gets the chance to go to work with him (rare now), or spend any extra time with him.

Oh, I almost forgot, the recipe to Nana’s Candied Yams:

You need 1 lb. of brown sugar, 1 Piloncillo cone (or another lb. of dark brown sugar), 2 c. honey, 1 c. water, and 3-4 lbs. of yams (peeled and cut into large chunks– about 1.5 inches each)

In a large pot with a lid, place the brown sugar, honey, piloncillo and water. Heat on high until syrup is in a high rolling boil for several minutes. The syrup should be almost hard crack candy when scooped with a spoon and dripped into a cup of cold water if done correctly… CAREFULLY (don’t splatter) put yam chunks into syrup and cover. Keep heat on high so that the rolling boil will restart and continue for about 45 mins. DO NOT stir!!!

The boiling syrup should be boiling over the top of the yams and coating them (Just peek to check, but don’t open lid to much). DO NOT be tempted to put in more water as fluids come out of the yams and all the liquid will not boil off in time if there is to much. While still fairly hot, spoon yam chunks into a couple of large cake pans. Coat a cookie sheet lightly with butter, pour syrup in and let sit until cooled to make candy chunks for later enjoyment.

I hope that you had a restful day after the rush of preparations for Christmas, and I pray that the rest of the weekend is a blessing for you as well.

Yesterday, I told you about the Tarantula visitor that we found on the wall beside our back door, and mentioned that I’d had a close call with another poisonous spider. A few days ago, I decided to feed the horses a little earlier than normal for their evening feed, so it was still daylight when I opened the trash can that I keep the grain bag in. (It keeps out mice and squirrels.)

In the top of the bag of grain, a big old Black Widow had made a web and was sitting there, right in the middle of the opening. Thank GOD, it was still daylight because usually I go out at night and just stick my hand in with the scoop and get the grain. NOW I make sure that it is light, or I have a flashlight, before sticking my hand in there… It was a good reminder, because during the winter, they like to stay in warm, dark, dry places like that.

Other spiders that I don’t like because they are ugly and scary to me are Wolf spiders, which look like medium sized tarantulas, and attic spiders, whose bodies are about the size of a dime, but their legs are about 2 inches long and very hairy, which makes them very large spiders.

This area has a problem with the Brown Recluse Spider which is quite poisonous. Its bite can cause some major swelling, and ulcers in the area of the bite which leave major scars, as well as nausea, vomiting, and muscle pain. In severe cases, seizures, kidney problem, heart problems, and even death can occur.

We’ve had Black Widows for many years but about 2 or 3 years ago, the news came out with stories about the Brown Widow becoming more and more prevalent in this area. Some articles that I have read say that the Black Widow is more poisonous, while others claim that for the Brown Widow. Both can have serious complications to their bites, though the Black Widow is more aggressive and will protect their web, while the Brown Widow will run.

The problem with the Brown one is that they like to hide in warm, dry spots where you might put your fingers to lift a lid or something. The egg sacks of these two spiders are different as well, with the Black Widow’s sack looking like a smooth ball, while the Brown widow’s looks more like the old mines that they used in the water to blow up subs… sort of a ball with spikes.

If you’re a spider lover, I wish you good spider dreams, and if you aren’t, may the creepy crawlies stay FAR from YOUR door…

My Brother-in-Law (BIL) has been known to go just about catatonic when finding himself surrounded by spiders. One time, he volunteered to clean out the old chickenfeed store room that hadn’t been used for many years. He got in there and started to work on the stacked things that were on the floor, and got about 6 feet from the door before looking up. Apparently these BIG spiders had decided to build spider city across the ceiling. He says there must have been a couple hundred spiders up there (probably 10 to 15) but he dropped down into a fetal position and couldn’t move even to get out. My sister had to help talk him out.

Now I’m not arachnophobic like my BIL, but I definitely DON’T like spiders AT ALL. I can handle Daddy Long Legs because I was told that they are not really considered spiders… they are in the same class as mites, and supposedly they can’t bite or sting you. Besides, in this area, it would be impossible to live without encountering them every day… You could vacuum the ceilings and walls everyday and still have them in the corners by that evening.

The spiders I’m talking about are wolf spiders, attic spiders, Brown Recluses, Black OR Brown Widows, and those nasty looking, cussing Tarantulas. I think that, when they rear up and wave their front legs and mandibles at you, they look like they are cussing at you.

The reason I’m bringing all of this up is that lately I’ve come in contact (almost, Praise God) with two of these kinds of spiders.

TODAY, we found a big old tarantula crawling up the wall just outside of the enclosed patio in the back. This past month or two has been Tarantula Season around the area. In the late fall, usually October and November, it is tarantula breeding season and you will see them crawling around, looking for mates. In years past, I have seen 4 or 5 A DAY on the roads driving in to town during this season, but the past few years, I’ve only seen 1 or 2 on the roads during the whole season.

I HAVE seen hundreds of Tarantula Hawks the past several years, and the tarantula we found looks like it has a hole in its back, so it probably has been attacked by one. These big shiny, metallic looking, black wasps with red-orange wings attack and lay their eggs on the spiders. When the larvae hatch, they eat the spider alive. We’ve had to clean out our horse waterers every few days this year because so many of these wasps get in them and die.

It was below freezing last night, too, so that may have been why it crawled out and up the wall into a sunny spot. It wasn’t moving very fast at all, and my son says that he thinks it was dying. He took it out of the back yard so the corgis wouldn’t fool with it and maybe get bitten… remember I mentioned Corgi curiosity before…

He put it in a sunny place, but it looks like it died anyway. I checked it this evening, and, like I said, it looks like it has a hole in it’s back, so I put it in a bottle with a lid in case I see any larvae coming out of it. I want to make an insect and spider collection for my grandson like the one my dad made for me when I was young. It was fascinating! His crazy dad, my cowboy son, picks up tarantulas, and plays with them… Yuck !!!

This is getting pretty long, so I guess I’ll talk more about spiders tomorrow. Have a wonderful day with NO problem spiders to bother you…