My New Favorite Place

I've been up the Eiffel Tower, walk the halls of The Louvre, gazed in wonder at the carvings in Notre Dame and Chartres Cathedral, and they are beautiful, breathtaking. Believe me. But I have a new favorite place. Without a doubt. It's our new stock tank. This is what the land looked like before...

That's Doug and Merlin in the bottom of the tank.

The tank was built to capture rain run-off. About two weeks after the tank was completed, we received 4" of rain.

This is what it looks like now...
This is where you will find me in the future...pondering my belly button lint...while hearing this:


It has been a year since we signed the paperwork buying this property. In that time, we have:
- Spent the night on OUR land
- Put in two gates
- Cleared 13 acres
- Purchased a tractor and trailer
- Built a stock tank
- Marked fence lines and put in posts
- Purchased auger and bit to help with the fence post holes
- Took lots of pictures. I still like taking pictures of the cows...

It's been a slow process, but it occurs to me that it is all falling into place. All of the setbacks have been frustrating, but it seems they have all happened for a reason. That's the best we can hope for.

Creepy Crawlies

Roaches...I know everyone hates them. They seem to elicit various levels of fear and reactions. Our highly OSHA compliant workplace has a new employee...it's the roach dying on the floor in the upstairs bathroom.

Here's the deal...if you have ever lived in Texas for any amount of time, you are familiar with the roaches that we share our state with. I think they have their own zip code. I think you should also know that I have damn near broken limbs trying to get away from these little buggers in the shower. There might as well not have been a shower curtain, because I can tell you right now, it did not stop MY forward progress.

Therefore, I am not a merciful killer of these creatures. I would rather let them die a slow painful death of starvation or thirst (whichever comes first for these poop mongers).

My plan of attack now involves setting the toilet plunger over them and coming back in about two weeks to discard their dried out, emaciated carcasses. Little bastards.

Pointless

There is no reason for this post other than to say...I am SO BORED!! I am about two head nods from a cat nap at my desk.

I hate saying I'm bored. My stepdad's mother always said "Never say you're bored, it just means your too lazy to find something to do."

We don't speak to eachother any more.

But she was right.

And as I sit here at my desk and think about what there is to do...I don't even care about being called lazy.

Biological Clock

Dear God,

Help me. Merlin had his first day of Doggie Day Camp today, and my feelings were hurt because he was too busy trying to hump another dog to even care about the fact that I was leaving him with strangers and a pack of four-legged beasts that could potentially tear his nuts off (if he had any).

Also, please don't tell me that my biological clock is ticking. I am surrounded by pregnant women and new mom's and I have to tell you I am a little envious. I was pretty sure that I traded in that biological clock for bigger brains years ago, but apparently the model I got was deffective. Please send me a new one.

Amen.

Thanks for the help...

While trying to find a subject to blog about, I came across a site that seemed to have potential...101 Great Posting Ideas. It seemded to have serious potential based on the title alone. I could make something out of this. As I read it though, I felt like I was being made fun of...specifically with #30 - Make a post that solves the problem. But what if the problem is I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO POST ABOUT???

I will be honest with you...sometime's it feels like there is just a ferris wheel going around in circles in my head...waiting for me to get so dizzy and nauseas that I just puke and move on to another ride.

HAVE A WONDERFUL AND SAFE MEMORIAL DAY!! Remeber those that made the ultimate sacrifice, for without them, we would not be able to enjoy it.

Confession

Would you believe me if I told you we were busy?

Believe it. Doug tells me not to blame it on the dog. But it's kind of hard when he requires every nano-second of our time to ensure he doesn't shred a pair of my underwear. Oh, that dog...I love him. We had a little scare with him this week and I was concerned for a minute that we might lose him. At that point it dawned on me how much he has embedded himself in our hearts.

I fully expect in the future to look out across out pasture to see Doug and Merlin standing next to each other taking a leak...synchronized...I just hope I have my camera...well, maybe not.

In the meantime, our cats are plotting our death. I'm convinced now that their hatred has moved them from causing a slow agonizing death to a rapid one due to being impaled by a stray cat toy as we precariously straddle the baby gate to keep Merlin from eating said cat that just intentionally jumped over the gate in order to get his attention. (I think that's the longest sentence I have ever written without commas...it is probably about as grammatically correct as "irregardless").

In farm related news, we had our stock tank/lake dug about three weeks ago. As we stood there looking at a very large hole in the ground, we were wondering how much it was going to cost if we had to have water trucked in, we saw water...in the bottom. Upon further investigation we realized that their was a spring filling the bottom, albeit a very small spring which would have taken about ten years to fill a hole 100' x 200' and 17.5' deep.

Before we could do the math, it rained. About 4". We went out the following weekend, expecting to see a little water in the bottom. To our absolute astonishment, the tank was full and overflowing. It was amazing.

Thankfully, as of last weekend, it is still full. It dropped about a foot, which is from saturation of the surrounding ground. Luckily, it is almost entirely clay, so the contractor that dug it was very happy and certain that we wouldn't have issues with it holding water. WHEW!! I have some wonderful pictures that I hope to post later.

We also had the rest of the acreage cleared that will compose the cattle paddocks. So...as slow as it is coming along, we are making progress.

Life

So I have a new motto.

I am determined to greet each day with “a puppy dog’s wreck-less abandon”!!!

There is one thing that damn dog has taught me. Laying in bed this morning, with Merlin jumping around and scratching himself, I told Doug I wish I could wake up each day that way (well, not the scratching myself part...that could be a sign of a bigger problem). With wreck-less abandon for the possibility of a new day.

There is no judgment, no upset, no pre-conceived anything.

Just a genuine happiness to be alive.

I love that dog!