Happy Birthday Helen and Logan

Yesterday was Helen's birthday. Hope you received my card in the mail.
Today is Logan's Birthday - he is 3 today. Happy Birthday:)

Logan at Christmas. This kid smiles almost all the time.
Helen at Christmas dinner.

Texas Is Really, Really Hot

I'm at Connie's hanging out for a few days. Her cat, Boy is letting me hold him and he even gives me "kisses & hugs." He is a 17 year old black cat and just as sweet as can be. A few barn cats live under Connie's house. "Grandma" is healing nicely, well better than ever expected after being gone for 7 days and draging her broken body back to Connie's house from who knows where. She can now stand and she doesn't hiss at me when I come out the door.

Yesterday it was 106 degrees at 5pm according to the bank thermometer. Everytime I stepped out of the truck, I felt like I was in an oven...and there was a breeze.

We have hit two thrift store so far. I haven't bought much, but I've hauled stuff in for Connie, both times.

Cleveland isn't big, but is it building up. It has the feel of Eugene, OR without the college... colorful houses.

Connie's small house sits among upscale houses on a "farm to market" road or Fm for short. The school of Tarkington is a block up and a block left from her house. Very nice campus that holds all three schools.

We played the Mega Millions and no one won. I won $2 on a scratchers' ticket.
Last night we bought TX. lottery tickets, but haven't checked them.

Today, is the "boat" in Louisiana, so gotta get movin'.

Why Racoons Now?

I was thinking the other day, why are we having racoons move in now? We haven't had them for years and years, so close and so destructive. Two reasons:
1. The river is up. We are seeing more racoons and shunks than in previous years. They have to go somewhere - right?
2. Max is gone. Max is a beagle whose owner in neightborhood who will remain nameless let him run and go hungry. So Nancy, my neighbor and friend, started feeding him and putting pest control stuff on him and I did, too. Max's owner had to move, so we thought he would just leave Max and then Nancy and I would split the responsibilities of taking care of Max. Max liked Ed and Nancy better - they fed him really good stuff and he loved to take naps with Ed. Max looked to me when he was covered with burrs and ticks for me to get them off of him and give him a bath or when he couldn't breather because his collar was too tight, so I cut it off him.
Max is like most dogs that live outside and doesn't like baths.
Max ran rabbits between our house and Ed & Nancy's place, so racoons were not inclined to move in, with that noisy dog.
I miss Max.

RockyIII& IV

Sunday morning we got up to this little guy who was very surly and mad that he got caught.

Monday morning I left for TX on a very important furniture haul and friend visit, but before I left I snapped this pic. of Rocky IV.

Both racoons went to new homes hopefully far enough away that they will not find there way back.
The trap wasn't set last night, so no Rocky V. Ed, our friend told us he thought there was 5 of them.

Rocky Racoon II Caught

I set the trap the night before and didn't notice one of the little bars was out of its hole, so the racoon walked right, took the can and walked out. So last night Jim fixed it and I re-baited the trap with strawberry jelly and cat food. This morning I met another little furry friend that needed to go live somewhere else.

It rained last night so when I opened the service of the garage I saw Rocky II curled up on a small bar, keeping dry. The cage was under the overhang on the house, but the concrete was still wet.

Our friend, Ed was coming to get Rocky II, but I was afraid he would get too hot if Ed did not get there soon, so I pulled the cage out and moved the trash can so the cage was completely in the shade. I hope Rocky II loves his new home, somewhere far, far away from here. The trap is set tonight, too incase there are more. I'll keep you posted.

Rocky Racoon Lives Somwhere Else Now - I Hope

For a couple of weeks now we been noticing we have a wild vistor each night. All the bird seed is gone, there is animal waste (poop) in the pool each morning, the hummingbird feeder is empty and earlier this week torn up. We are pretty sure we had a racoon visitor to our home each and every night. Here is the bird feeder he/she chewed on for not having any food in it.

It took two tries, but last night we caught little Rocky Racoon in a borrowed "live trap." The first night, he flipped the cage, crawled in it, ate the food, then crawled out. He was released far enough away from here where he shouldn't be back - I hope. I set the trap again tonight incase there are some of his siblings around. They usually do not live alone!

But before he was trapped in the "live cage" he did this to our bar-b-q grill.
It is messy every morning and cleaning it up daily gets old fast. Bye Rocky. Have a good life somewhere else.

Happy Birthday Mom-Love Those Upside Down Tomato Plants

Today is my Mom's brithday. Since I'm out of school and it is close to Father's Day I usually take Mom and Bob to lunch. We went Chili's for lunch today. The food was good or we were just hungry that I didn't take any pictures. However, when we got back to their place, I saw their upside down tomato plants, so I snapped a couple of pictures. They grow in just a small amount of soil and hang from a 2x4. Bugs are less likely to get them, watering is easy and no bending to pick tomatoes!


Bob told me I had to quit buying things for my house. He said everytime I do Mom has to have the same thing. I didn't get it at first, then Bob reminded me Mom is getting a new range. It has a double oven and warming area, one part is convection.
My new range cannot do anything near what that range/oven is going to be able to do.

Aunt Mary Kuenzel's 84th Birthday - Happy Birthday

This is Aunt Mary. She is Jim's mother's sister. I gave her a piece of an aloe plant that Dorthy gave me after Jim & I got married. She appreciated getting a piece of a plant that was her sister's at one time. She also told me she didn't have an aloe plant. Everyone had a good time. Everyone was so excited - mostly it was all first cousin's there and they could not talk enough to each other. Tony and Renee' were very good hosts.

The man on the left is Ray Narup, Jim's brother in law.

The man on left Tony Kuenzel - the owner and son of Mary. On the right is Bernie, Jim's brother.

This is Jim and Carol.

These are party pictures on the back patio. There is a pool in the back ground.


The party was at Jim's cousin Tony Kuenzel's house. This was our first time there.
This is one of the side patios.

This is one of grapevine fields. Tony makes his own wine - Jim brought a bottle home.

This is the front porch.

This is the house from a distance.

Keys to Survival

Tonight was Relay for Life. My Cousin, Sheila had breast cancer. Her sisters put together a team called "Keys to Survival." (Their maiden names is Key.)This is the third year for it.
This years theme was the 1980s. Here's our booth.


I made cookies and they were selling pretty well. Then my cousin's granddaughter decided to help and she toted the basket of cookies around for a long time saying "cookies for sale one dollar." Finally, she became tired of her chant and made a sign. All but 3 the cookies sold by the time I left. Jocelyn is holding the sign she made.

This is Brenda and Karla, my cousins who run the team. They do a really great job every year. Thanks ladies! They are not unhappy, the sun is in their eyes.

And this is my cousin Sheila, who is a cancer survior, hence our theme Rocky, Don't stop fighting until a cure is found.