New Art Work

Cow on pine, purple water color

Remember when I posted about the pictures I was drawing on wood remnants?

I asked if any of you readers had ideas for methods I could use on wood, and someone.. I'm  ashamed to admit I don't remember who, suggested I
try wood burning and paint..

It works really well!

Wanted to share some of the pieces I've completed.

bison facing the storm, poplar, pencil

I have many more and I've learned how to make replicas so I can make the same (pretty much)
image with different colors to make a set.

Any way.... take a look.
I opened an etsy store, but haven't loaded much yet..
Novellasfarm... surprise.

Guess my favorite subject? 

cow on pine, sage green water color

Cow jumping over the moon, pine water color

Cow on poplar, yellow water color

St Frances of Assisi, pine, acrylic paint

Back to Home School

"Can I go to the gym after prison?"

Did I mention that my son  decided to go to public school this year?

He anguished about it all last semester and then this summer. Finally he decided, no doubt about it he wanted to give it a try.

Like I told him, he won't know until he tried it....

Now you should know our school district is really highly ranked. I mean people actually move out here for the schools.

So I figured, it'll be great.

Great classes, all kinds of wonderful opportunities that, as a home schooler just aren't available.

One condition I set was he had to give it at least 6 weeks. So when he started complaining about the teachers in the first few weeks I told him to give it a while, you know it takes a while to get in the swing of things.

I did ask about home work and why there wasn't any, I mean my daughter was reading the "Scarlett Letter",
writing papers and working on math and my son didn't seem to have any homework at all, so I checked his grades... and he was doing fine. OK.....

Then one night he finally pulled out his Chemistry homework, and asked me to help him. I said "OK, let's look at the text book and I'll explain it to you" ..
He told me " we don't have text books" Yep, that's right.. no text books,  no reference material except a hand out of 2 pages which was absolutely no help.

 I have a Science Degree from A&M and I still would have needed text book to look at to be sure about what we doing.. but to expect a high school kid to understand it with out reading it through on their own, just seemed, well... not smart.

Long story short he in home schooling again. He came out of his Chemistry class this week ( a home schooling class) got in the car and sighed, "man, I have a lot of homework"...

So ultimately, while there were good things about the public school, and everyone was very, very kind... he made his decision based on the education.....
Gives you something to wonder about.... doesn't it?

Coco's Passing

Cute Coco

 I hope this is the last sad post for a while...

Last Sunday started as a  busy, good day. Juliette and I did things around the house and we agreed to not go the YMCA (which we usually do) and to take a walk with the dogs when it was cooler.

At around 6:30, I had finished making dinner and we decided to go for our walk.

I mentioned we got a new dog, so we were short a leash... and this was my mistake.
I said, "Coco will be ok with out a leash". You see many, many times we've gone for walks and let Coco be unleashed because she stays with us...


 But last Sunday as we went around the corner and onto the main road of our neighborhood, a big silver truck appeared out of no where. It was going so fast, we jumped out of the road and like a flash the truck was gone and Coco was laying in the  middle of the street.

Juliette was hysterical, I told her to calm down and to go get some
one from home, to bring a vehicle so we could get her home....

But that poor little dog was looking at me, and she had blood pouring out of her mouth...

I held Jasmine in one arm and knelt down with Coco and petted her and talked to her telling her what a good dog she was and how much we loved her....
I also was flagging cars to drive around her because I didn't want to move her or let anther car hit her.

One truck with couple drove by and just stared, but another car, a
man got out to help me..His name was Woody and he was so kind.
He stayed there and closed Coco's eyes and waited til my husband and Juliette got back.

Then I thanked him and took Juliette home.

My  son buried her next to Blackie and I just can't explain how sad we all felt. I was just so sudden, so violent.

The next day Juliette made a sign that we put up at the entrance of our neighborhood....
It said... " To the driver of the Big Silver Truck speeding on Sunday around 7pm, You hit and killed my dog.
SLOW DOWN, there are animals and children"

I've left her little bed out for a while just in case her spirit was still around.. I know that must sound silly but I did the same with Blackie...

The worst part about it all is that the guy didn't even stop, how can any one not stop when they hit an animal?
How dare he think she wasn't important, she was a pet, a living creature...
 I understand on the highway where it's dangerous, but this is a neighborhood... and I know he saw her,
for heavens sake I stop for lizards, beetles and frogs in the road....

It's the end of an era, Blackie and Coco were our dogs when my kids were little, and we lived in Austin...
and now that time is gone, and so are they.

House Breaking Baby

 Ok, so about  a week ago we acquired a new dog.

I really had no intention of getting a new dog..... I mean Blackie just left us pretty recently and the remaining dogs have been adjusting to their new situation , and really they're both sort of old as far as dogs go.. so I figured , no new dogs for a while at least.

Here's what happened.

I have a dear friend who's a bit of an animal lover to say the least.
She's kind of got this gravitational pull for animals, they just seem to be attracted to her... she just can't say no to an animal that needs a home..

Ok so she came over and she had this puppy with her... and she said her girls wanted Juliette to have the puppy, but if I didn't want him she would take him home..

I was just about to worm my way out of letting him stay, when Juliette came out and asked to hold him and starts to fall in love with him.. .. guess what happened next?

Well I figured I could still say Jerry wouldn't let us have another small dog, and then here comes Jerry.. and he of course sees his little girl holding the puppy, long story short...  he says yes.


So.. we have a new dog, a puppy.
His name is Nemo, he wriggles like a fish when we pick him up.
I have to admit he's really cute, and I am getting to really like him...

But.. I just really need all my dogs to be house broken and so far

we haven't had much luck. I read about Chihuahuas and found out they are extremely hard to house break.. but it can be done.

I read about these things called doggie bands, that you put on male dogs to act as sort of diapers... they don't like to pee in them and they protect your floors and such. I haven't felt like making a special trip into Austin to find these tiny bands, so I decided to try a make shift type thing.

I just got a washcloth, folded it and safety pinned it in place... and guess what? So far so good!!

I think this information could be useful for others so I'll keep you posted on how this puppy does with this method of training.

Stay tuned.

Coffee with a Canine?

Remember this summer when I posted we had to put Blackie down?

Well after I posted that sad news I was contacted by a blogger with a site called "Coffee with a Canine". He offered his condolences and invited me to participate in an interview on his
blog.

He posted it recently and I thought I'ld let ya'll know about it and
turn you on to this quirky little site.http://coffeecanine.blogspot.com

Kind of a fun idea and a brillant way to get others to write your blog for you!

A Quick Trip

Yesterday my husband, daughter and myself took a quick little trip to the beach.

I don't know about anyone else, but for me, I get so busy I finally just made a reservation in order to force me to do it! Other wise I keep coming up with excuses and just stay in my little comfort zone, which I may have mentioned I 'm working on stepping out of...

Ok so after I finished my chores on Thursday we set off, and since Jerry has gigs this weekend we were only staying one night. I splurged on a hotel room with a balcony overlooking the ocean so we could get maximum enjoyment out of our short time.

 We arrived on Thursday afternoon, had a lovely time swimming, and taking a walk on the beach. A nice little picnic dinner and then to bed so we could have a full day before heading home the next afternoon.

Around 4:30 in the morning I awoke to a noise of a huge engine revving upover and over... I ( along with Jerry )got up and looked from the balcony to see what was up.

There was a truck stuck in the sand and a guy in a huge diesel truck trying to pull the vehicle out with a rope. Just pulling over and over in the same spot until actually the stuck vehicle was slowly burying itself in the sand.

I turned to Jerry and said, "we used to get stuck in the sand all the time when I was a kid"
You see with 8 kids the beach was our vacation every year. Yup, we camped for 2 weeks. I think it was 2 weeks.  My dad worked so hard to make it happen  for us and it was absolutely priceless.

One year we brought raccoons with us, because, yes , we had raccoons for pets. They ran free on the beach terrifying other campers. They really are very dangerous animals but that didn't stop us from bringing them or keeping them. At least till they were old enough to set free. ( we raised them when their mother was shot on my grandmothers property).

I started telling Jerry about how it was, the sand everywhere. My brother ( the neat one) driving himself to distraction trying to keep order. My sister walking to the showers constantly to relieve herself of the sand.
And my dad, just seemed really happy there, on the beach.

In my mind it was wonderful, the freedom, the water, the sand, sleeping on the beach listening to the surf, going to the pier, going way too far out in the water but never being afraid...no schedule, no rushing, No T.V. no plans... just  the beach.


Anyway, instead of getting angry with the people, ( they had set up a campsite) for making so much noise
and waking us up I found myself laughing thinking about it, and knowing they'll remember the adventure
for the rest of their lives.

Land Hunt

I think I may have mentioned a time or two before
about my hope to find more property.

My dream property has:
at least 15 acres
ag exempt
has a house that is finished and nice
has water ...and I probably don't need to mention this but... NO HOA!!!!

So when I heard from a woman who contacted me
looking for colostrum for her sick son we got to talking...

I told her about my situation.. and she mentioned
a friend of hers who had a dairy that she wanted to sell.

I called the woman and she let me come out to look around.

You know how something can sound really great on the phone or in an ad? Well this place sounded really, really perfect ... so off I went.

Yes, it has a dairy building which is built to code, but was never registered as legal... and things are a little.. well ... unmaintained.

There was equipment that looked as though it hadn't been used in years, and the milk handling room almost made me want to cry, there was so much work needed just to bring it to proper sanitation standards.



On the up side there are 22 ag exempt acres with an additional 100 acres that neighbors actually want her to graze on for them to keep their ag exemptions.

There's 2 houses and they're in pretty good shape...

I guess the thing mainly for us ( besides the money)
is the sheer load of work involved in this enterprise.

I feel certain that a micro, humane dairy would do really well in Blanco ( which is where this place is located) I mean it's right between San Antonio and Austin and I think there's a great interest in artisinal
foods...

Of course the real elephant in the room is the law suit we're involved in with our HOA.

I can't even express how I feel about the people on the board of this organization, when Al Blair our neighbor and the board president comes out to his place ... I literally feel a low grade
disgust towards both him and his wife...
You see we can't really do anything while this suit is ongoing. And of course their lawyer is being really difficult, probably to milk the HOA funds, I imagine when the account is dry he'll move on and then of course their lawyer from their insurance company will take over... it's so wrong.. all this is basically because of kids milking cows over here and me actually being compensated... unbelievable.

I guess after the law suit is settled one way or the other we'll be moving on, I just can't live next to some one who obviously hates us.... I mean I guess we could but I don't want to, I want to like my neighbor!

I guess if any one is interested in starting a dairy, give me a shout...
I know a place available for a steal..