Too Gone Too Long

Randy Travis sings a song, "Too Gone, Too Long."  That is how I feel concerning this blog, since I have not written in forever. My life is not very exciting these day. This past week has been mostly house cleaning and cooking. Twenty-one people sat down for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a good group and lots of fun was had. The weather was beautiful for playing outside, riding the four-wheeler, taking walks, fishing in the pond, and sitting on the patio. Glad to see them come - glad to see them go!

In the meantime, Toby had the outside fences taken down around our property.  The fences were old and falling apart. After pulling post and rolling up barbed wire, I feel old and falling apart. Now the county guys are here with their big machinery to level the fence line. We had to pen the horses up in an electric fence - to keep them from getting out on the road. Several times the electric fence has failed to keep them in - thanks to the miniature horse, Frances, who can go right under the fence and causes the others to follow. He is not our horse. In fact, we only own two horses, but there are five in the pasture. I'm not sure why we are taking care of other people's horses, but we are. When the horses escape the electric fence, it is the job of the ranch-hand (me) to pen them back in and fix the fence. I could go into detail about fixing the electric fence since the solar charger will NOT turn off.  But unless you understand the workings of the electric fence and you know me, the story is not nearly so funny. Take my word for it, though, me and electric fences do not work well together, which can be funny, especially to Toby, who swore that if you used the orange rubber gloves, you would not get shocked.

As for art, I've been working on some Christmas cards. Maybe I'll even get them sent out by Christmas. Make sure I have your address if you want one. Maybe I'll even get the Christmas decorations out before Christmas. Don't hold it against me, but I admit that I listened to Christmas music before Thanksgiving. Truthfully, I could listen to Christmas music all year long. Weird!

Mom came for Thanksgiving and stayed two nights. She did really well. Having other people to talk to her and keep her entertained was good. She did not have her hearing-aids making conversation difficult,. But then, what else is new? Family, who had not been around her lately, reported back to me that Grandma was very negative. Geese Louise! She she did not throw a fit or get upset with me or anyone else - I thought she was great! Something funny: She told me over and over that she was going to take one of my aspen paintings home with her. She justified it with, "After all, I gave you the magazine that you painted it from." Which she did not do, but it was okay. She even remembered to take the painting when she left - pretty darn good for her. And it was nice that she liked my art. I have missed that - her liking anything about me.

Like I said, my life is not really exciting these days. Now and then I get this really excited feeling in my heart. What could that mean?