Coon Dogs and Mud Bogs

Fall has come to Tennessee.

We've had a fairly mild, albeit dry fall this year. It wasn't until this last week that we have had colder nights. Be that as it may, the Weather Channel has us looking at a high of 70 for Friday and Saturday.

I just love this picture. I snapped it on one of my misty morning walks during break.

Horse storiesThis picture is of Twessie, Lil' Vance and Mary's granddaughter. Mary, who gave us Twessie, had stopped by to see how Twes was doing and had her granddaughter with her. So her granddaughter had her very first horse ride on her Granny's old horse.

Just another picture of Twessie in our back yard, looking shiny. We brought the horses over for a couple weeks in order to spray the pasture they were on for weeds. We kept them a little longer than we had originally planned, but we just enjoyed seeing them so frequently.

My horse looking pretty. She's just gorgeous..but I'm biased.


Both "the girls" hanging out in our backyard. Yes, we did actually keep them in our back yard some, even though Raven is brutal on my shrubbery. She operates on the theory if its green, brown, leafy or smells good, then it's edible. If you look in the background of the picture you'll see our new neighbor Charlie's house. He has a 2 acre pasture that needed mowing and the girls volunteered to do it for free. They are just nice that way. It worked out pretty well, because Charlie had his pasture mowed and the horses were right next door for awhile. Eventually they did eat it all down and we had to take them back to their 10 acre home.
Vance and I got up really early, while it was still dark, one Sunday and walked them back all the way down the RR tracks. It was about a 2 mile walk, and some of it was through pasture or yards on the side of the tracks. We were counting on the fact that the train never runs that early, and it didn't.

Here is a picture of Lil' Vance that just cracks me up. The huge grin on his face is because he had a cart full of horse manure. He was extremely proud of himself for picking it all up. But I think he was most excited about the possibility of starting a fertilizer business. We didn't make him go pick it up, he just really, really wanted to. I'm not going to argue with that.

Shane aka: Police Explore

Shane in his police explorer's uniform, working the train robbery in Watertown.

Here he is in front of Watertown police station. The police station extends just about the length of that bench in the picture and includes the door to Shane's right. It is itty bitty. Watertown is currently building a much needed and much larger facility to house the Police Station, Fire Department and ambulance. The building site upset the Saddle Club as it takes up most of their parking for horse trailers. The new facility is located behind our community building and on the same land as the community park, baseball fields, and Saddle Club arena. Watertown High School and Elementary share the sports fields with the city.

Sailboat Re-Painted

Finally I snapped a picture of the sailboat re-painted. We stripped off the cabin to get rid of the light blue, and repainted the hull a dark blue and then top coated everything a nice shiny white. I think we are going to order blue pin striping for the sides. Originally we taped the sides off to paint the stripes and then decided it would be so much easier to get them straight if we just ordered them.

The MUD BOG

Alright now for our big, cultural, adventure for the break. We were invited to our neighbor's brother George's mud bog. This was its official opening night. I just couldn't resist making sure Vance and I took our picture together in front of the mud bog, umm track? I think you'd call it.

When we arrived I contemplated tearing the sleeves off of Vance's T-shirt in order to blend in better with the natives. We were way over dressed for the occasion.


There she is in all her glory. They worked really hard for the 2 weeks prior to opening night, because the other mud bog in Smithville had to close due to noise complaints. George had always wanted to run his own mud bog so he jumped at the chance and started digging it. They actually had done a pretty good job, with seating, concessions, and an announcer's booth.

From Right to Left on the top row is Shane, Adam and Eli, Adam's cousin. Below them are Allie, Adam's other cousin not related to Eli, Tammy, Lil' Vance and Lorelle in the pink shirt.

The first of many trucks for the night. Mostly the only people that actually got stuck, had something break on their trucks, like the axle or the drive shaft. You know minor stuff. Fortunately George had planned ahead for just such an event and an extremely long chain was attached to the rear of each vehicle before they started. This could then be hooked to his large John Deere tractor to pull out said vehicle if such a need arose. The chain was returned to the starting line via a 4 wheeler.

I really feel this picture says it all.
There were kids driving, some as young as 11. Apparently this woman felt that a little mud in her Jeep would match her pink shirt and capris better.

George ran his truck through just for the heck of it. He told the announcer not to make him wait too long in case he ran out of oil. I'm not sure if this was really a joke. The thick cloud of smoke that followed him lingered for about 10 minutes after he'd cleared the... umm track. If you look carefully through the mud you'll see the words HANEY IS BACK printed on his truck door. Everyone calls him Mr. Haney, from Green Acres.
He actually has a beautiful farm. We drove past I don't know how many hundreds of acres of trees, and other plants that he grows for his nursery. I've purchased quite a few trees from him and come spring it looks like I'll be buying a few more from him to replace the ones Raven snacked on.

After the race he came by to give his sister a hug. Lorelle got just as big a kick out of watching her brother race as she did watching Lil' Vance react to the trucks. The announcer would call the name of the next racer "on deck" and then the name of the following racer "in the hole". Lil' Vance finally asked us where the deck was at. I thought it was a good question. Overall it was fun, if you don't mind getting mud on your shoes I'd recommend it for an evening of good... ahem, clean fun.

Coon Dogs

As I promised in my title we did indeed have a coon dog and mud bog adventures on our fall break. Meet Jethro Bodeen. Bo for short. Bo showed up at about 2am night after the yard sale. I know because our dogs went crazy barking and I got up to check what the problem was. I could just see in the yard light a dog wandering around on the road. When I called to it, thinking it was the neighbor's dog, it took off running. I went back to bed and didn't think a whole lot more about it. The next morning when I went out to feed dogs, Hound dog was sleeping close to Jack, our neighbor's dog. I spent most of Sunday morning trying to coax him closer, but with no luck. He was just too scared. I fed him and finally left him alone, as he would only eat when I was at a distance.

That evening I had a plan. We always walk all of our dogs, usually off leash, down the tracks and in the Murphy's field. This time we put everyone, but Duchess on a leash and started walking. Hound dog followed along. He followed so well in fact that he walked right through the gate and into our fenced back yard. We technically had him caught, but were still a long way from catching him.

At first we thought he might have been a wandering hunting dog, but it quickly became apparent that his previous owner had lost him on purpose. He was extremely skittish, and would cower and shake violently when you approached him and touched him. He was so skinny, but he was also so fearful that anything could drive him away from his food bowl, cats and chickens included.

These pictures are after we had him one week, so believe it or not he'd already put on a pound or two.

We've had Bo slightly over a month now and I'd love to say how well he's doing. He has improved in some ways. He now gets really excited about meal times. He'll dance all around and bark and run circles. He still runs back when I put his food in the bowl, but not nearly as far. He'll also let me stand closer (10-15 feet) while he eats. If I walk towards him and say down. He'll lay down, but he still cowers and is scared to be touched or handled. However, he'll lift his head and almost look at me when I talk to him now. Whereas before he was like a dead weight, he'd just freeze and wouldn't move. Bo also, loves walk time. He'll run with the other dogs and stays pretty close to us. Every now and then while we walk he'll come up really close on my heels and put his muzzle in my hand, but only if I'm not looking. Actually yesterday he stepped on my heels a couple times, and I was tickled that he would dare to come that close. Ever so slowly he's getting braver. Hound dog still won't take any treats out of my hand, except for slices of cheese. He's a sucker for those. It looks like Hound dog has found a home. He thinks so anyway. At least at this home he gets to eat regularly and nobody beats him.

And this was my report on my Fall break. I didn't have nearly enough time to do all the many things I wanted and needed to do. I can't wait for Christmas break...maybe I'll get caught up then. Yeah right.

Fall Break

I'm so excited. We are officially on fall break for the next TWO WEEKS! I don't know if I'll ever get caught up at this point with everything that has been sliding since I've started working, but I'm going to give it my best shot. That includes posting some new pictures.
Here's to some R&R.

Dog Show

Dog Show 8/19/08

Ok I know I'm way behind on keeping up with our blog. I haven't forgotten but we've just had so much going on.

At the end of August we had the boys 4-H Dog Show. This year was the first year they held it at the same time as the Wilson County Fair. They also, had it in their brand new arena, at the same time as the Wilson County Open Dog Show was going on. It was very crowded and very busy. There were almost as many dogs as there were people sitting in the bleachers. It was a lot of fun and considering everything very well organized.

Here's just a shot of us the boys and I (and dogs) sitting around waiting for everything to begin. The guy on the end is Shane's friend Kris. He tagged along for the festivities and was a really good sport even though the show ran pretty late.

Here's just a little bit of an idea of the number of people there. This is just the 4-H crowd. If Vance had turned around and taken a picture of the bleachers the other direction it would have shown many more varieties of dog breeds, and a lot more people. Some of the people for the Open Show were just down right rude. Towards the end of the evening we'd taken our dogs for a walk and a potty break and they moved into our spot on the bleachers. They just pushed our stuff over and sat down, kind of annoying and a whole lot snooty. Fortunately we'd brought chairs and we just moved out further into the arena and made our own spot.

Shane and Hambone competed in the agility class. He and Hambone had a good time and placed 3rd in their class.

In the middle of the agility class the handler has to have their dog sit or lie down for a timed period, usually 3-5 seconds.

Vance competed with Maggie in the Costume class. It's his favorite and he and Maggie always look so cute together. This year we decided to go for a Day at the Beach theme. We dressed Maggie in a bikini top and bottoms and gave her a sun hat and scarf. Lil' Vance did a surfer dude costume.

I really stuffed the bikini top to make sure Maggie was busty enough to win!

It was down to just Lil' Vance and Maggie and another boy and his dog (they used the same costume last year) when Maggie decided to heck with it. She took off her hat and there was just something so cute about it that everyone watching laughed and the judges were decided. Lil' Vance and Maggie won first place again!

Shane surprised us all by placing 2nd in the obedience class. Actually the effort was all on Hambone's part as Shane only practiced with him a week before the show. The judge was really tough and there were close to 30 kids in the class. Way to go Hammy!

Bill, Tammy and Adam joined us at the end. They'd been competing in the Go-Cart races. Adam won second place! What's even more impressive is the fact that he was competing against experienced professional racers. Awesome racing Adam!!


As for the rest of our news... Quick updates.
Vance and Shane both had birthdays in August. Shane turned 17 this year! Wow! He got an electric guitar and a amp. I'll have to get some pictures up.

I'm still working for the elementary school. There was quite a bit of hub-bub about lay offs and budget cuts. But I think all of that's over for now. Most days when I get home I almost still like kids. The tough part I'm really wrestling w/ is I passed my postal exam and could apply to carry mail part time. The pay is better, but it wouldn't have the schedule that I enjoy w/ the job I'm at. I'm still trying to come to a decision and don't know if I'll make one soon.

Sorry this is so rushed I'll try to post a bit more this weekend.

PS We also painted our sailboat, and I'll try to get some pictures of it looking snazzier posted soon too.

Fuss and Feathers

It seems like all we've done lately is run run run.
Run where you ask?
You know I'm not really sure. Whenever we get to where we were running to we hustle through it, and then turn right around and run home so we can get set for the next event.

Then its grab a quick bite to eat and off to bed so we can hurry up and do it all again the next day.

What's that you said?
Just slow down. Well that's easier said than done.
But you know I think you're right. We should slow down and just stop and relax for a minute. We need to take the time to enjoy the little things like the warm sun on our back and the soft wet feel of grass on our bare feet.

Today marks the day. From hence forth we resolve to take more time out of our busy lives to just kick back and relax. To really try to unwind and enjoy those simple everyday moments.

We'll just kick up our heels and live a little, and take some time to just splash and play and enjoy the day.

I'm glad we had this talk. I think it helped to put things back in perspective. Oh, hang on a sec. OK, look I've got to run something just came up. Yes, I'm sorry we didn't have more time together too. But this is rather important.
OK bye!
I'll talk to you later.

Everyday news

Just a quick update on day to day life. The boys have their first day back at school on Aug. 1st. It's just for orientation so I don't expect it to last more than an hour or two. They officially start back the 11th of Aug. I've said it before, I'll say it again summer is way too short. They have almost achieved year round school by simply paring down summer vacation to barely two months and giving frequent week to two week breaks during the school year. Personally I miss the good ol' days when summer vacation was from June to September. Even then summer still felt too short.
I suppose I shouldn't beat up the school system too much as it looks like they will be my employer shortly. As soon as the necessary paperwork is finished up I should be officially an employee. The job sounds like fun as I'll be an EA. Took me a little bit to figure out what in the world an EA is or does, but I'm fairly certain it stands for Educational Assistant and means I'll be a jack of all trades as I will be the EA for 4th through 8th grade. I'm looking forward to it so we'll see how it goes.
Other than that not a lot. We finally had some rain which means we now have a heat index of around 100 degrees in the afternoon and also means my garden has gone nuts. I literally had a wheelbarrow full of corn and tomatoes yesterday. Lil' Vance is mostly to blame because he wanted to sell tomato plants at the spring yard sale. We planted almost 200 seeds and none of them were ready for the yard sale. So I gave away some, threw out some that insisted on taking root despite my attempts to discourage them and finally planted 30 plants in the garden. I don't quite know if I was thinking rationally when I did that. I've got tomatoes everywhere and am sure to run out of people to give them away too before the growing season is over. Can we say Christmas present anyone?

Sailing Adventures

After much ado we finally purchased another sail boat. We wanted a slightly larger one (the Hobie is a 20 footer), but more importantly a family friendly one. We found a 22ft Southcoast that is capable of sailing up to 6 people and supposedly sleeps up to 5 (if 3 of them are midgets). Okay, I could actually see it sleeping 4 comfortably, I can't imagine where the 5th person is supposed to sleep, but the inside of the boat has been modified somewhat from its original conditions.
We had looked at many sailboats and almost bought one other, but we finally found the right one for us and are glad that we waited. Vance went with his buddy Bill to pick the boat up in Chattanooga a couple Saturdays ago. I had been waiting to put up pictures of the boat until we actually had it on the water with the sails raised. Alas, the powers conspired against us.
First Vance took the Wednesday off before the 4th so we could all sail. It stormed all day! We knew we didn't want to take it out on the 4th of July for our first time because of the crowds and the drunks so we waited until this last weekend.
Friday night after work Vance and I took off for Edgar Evans State Park, the boys were in IL at a family reunion. We'd checked the forecast and Saturday had a small chance of rain at only 20% with most of the storms not moving in until Sunday. We camped over night and first thing Saturday morning got up bright and early to put her in the water.
Bill, Tammy and Adam met us at the boat launch and we were ready to go. We stepped the mast, had the jib in place with not a cloud to be seen and we were ready. All we had to do was launch her and finish raising the sails and we are off. Then over the hill tops we hear it, thunder. Not a little thunder a LOT of thunder, big dark clouds coming over the tops of the hills. And for those of you that might be wondering why we didn't see the storm brewing keep in mind this is middle TN with lots of hills. To get to Edgar Evans State Park you climb steadily upwards and wind your way around into the park. The lake is large and sits entirely in the bottoms of these hills. So where we were attempting to launch from was somewhat like a large bowl with high hills all around. Needless to say with much disappointment we took down the aluminum mast (not the best task during a lighting storm) and tried to wait out the storm. It stormed ALL day. One storm would move out and another would come in. We called it quits after about an hour of this. It was more than a little bit of a bummer, and once again I am cursing the National Weather Society. The rain predicted for Sunday came a day early. So I decided to heck with it I'd post the pictures of the first day we had it. Hopefully more will be forthcoming that actually have us sailing it!
Shane and Vance checking it out! Vance had just pulled it in the driveway and we were all oohing and aahing over it.

Later I went to work cleaning it. The former owner had shut up the cabin with some water still in the hulls. Can we say mildew?? The good part was Mean Green knocked it down pretty quick and it was kind of fun to see it shine again.

Lil' Vance wanting his picture taken with the boat.
Oh, and notice we don't have a name for it yet, very bad luck in sailing terms, might actually explain recent events. So if anyone has any suggestions I'd be interested in hearing them.

Police Explorers

Shane just got back from a tough but really great week at Police Explorers camp. They ran 5 miles a day and did as a group 1000's of push ups. Shane was one of only three kids to do 220 sit ups at one time. Here is a link to an article on their camp.

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008806250396

This link has a neat story and a video you can watch of Shane and the other Explorers at camp. We're very proud of you Shane! Way to go.

Graduation Day March
There were 3 teams and each team had to carry these timbers wherever they went.
Lined up in formation.
I didn't get a lot of pictures of the graduation ceremony because they had Lil' Vance and me on stage so that he could give his brother his award. I tried snapping this photo of Shane receiving the Tough Man award. It was a little tough because they were only about 2 feet away from me on the stage. Here Officer Pete is handing Shane a Buffer Pusser "Big Stick". This had been signed by Buffer's daughter Dwana when she came to speak at their camp earlier in the week.

After graduation they lined up again in formation one last time.

Shane with Officer Pete looking proud. Just this last Monday Shane and I were out mowing our neighbor's yard when I looked up to see a Sheriff's patrol car pulling in. Officer Pete had been driving by when he saw Shane so he turned around to come say Hi. It gave our neighbor Lorelle quite a thrill to have the a Sheriff's car in her yard until I explained that this was Shane's Police Explorer's Camp instructor. Officer Pete is a super nice guy, and he has a huge heart for these kids.

Shane with Officer Greg, half way through the ceremony Officer Greg became very emotional and had to leave the stage. It was neat to see that all of the people involved in this program really enjoy working with the young people.

Shane hanging out with the big shots. That's a National Guard recruiter he's talking to along with Officer's from the Sheriff's department and Mount Juliet's police officers. Wilson County's Chief of Police handed out the awards and personally shook both Lil' Vance and Shane's hands.

When all was said and done Shane loved it. He thrived on 5 mile a day runs and so many push ups he lost count. When he got home he crashed and slept until 11 the next morning. He would have probably slept later, but the phone rang and woke him up. He says he can't wait to do it again next year.

Summer Camps

Tribute to Cheap Cheap Cheap Cheap was a "wild" turkey that I incubated after the dogs disturbed the nest. After I realized he was the only one that was going to hatch I searched frantically for 'brothers and sisters' for him so he wouldn't be lonely. Finally after 3 days I found someone selling Bantam Cochin chicks and Bantam call ducks, all the turkeys were already too old. After I brought the new birds home I discovered 2 things. First Cheap Cheap was terrified of his new "friends" and second he had imprinted to my hand. I spent over a week literally carrying a baby turkey with me wherever I went. If I set him down in the kitchen while I was cooking he would peck at my rug and then try to burrow under my foot. Cheap Cheap would make a soft "phfeet phfeet" sound to make sure I was nearby and as long as he could hear or see me he was fine. If I got out of his sight even briefly he'd panic and call "Cheap Cheap!" I'd cheap back at him and he'd come on the run. Sadly the day after I took the picture of him sleeping on my keyboard, he got out of his box and Duchess (our formerly mild mannered 13 year old dog) killed him. It may sound silly but I think she was jealous because she'd been watching me carry him around and had tried to get between Cheap Cheap and me whenever she could. Anyway silly or not I really miss him. He was pretty special.

Cheap Cheap and Hobbes (aka Bobbert) becoming better acquainted. Despite how dire it may look let me assure you this is one cat that has not only never tasted mouse or bird, but will literally not eat anything but dried cat food. I've tried unsuccessfully to get Hobbes to kill small spiders and he just can't bring himself to make the kill.

Cheap Cheap briefly flirted with the idea of Hobbes being a surrogate mother. Hobbes was actually more than a little scared of him and I had to snap the picture quick has my 15 lb cat fled from a 5 ounce turkey.

Shane waking up to Cheap Cheap.


On to Happier Themes

The boys have both had a busy couple of weeks. Lil' Vance went to Empower Me Day Camp for a week. This camp is designed specifically for special needs kids. The theme was Talent Week and Lil' Vance chose to show off his muscles as part of the talent show.

I got a huge kick out of this part. They had made a large aluminum foil dumbbell and carried it out like it weighed a ton. Then Lil' Vance bent the bar in two. Only he got carried away and proceed to wad it up as small as he could.

This girl (I don't know her name) sang a song as part of her talent. I cried through the whole thing. She sang a song that although I've heard before I don't know who sings it. It was all about how when she gets to heaven she's going to dance before the Lord, and see His face. So sweet, but it still makes me tear up just thinking about it. These kids get trapped in physical bodies that just don't cooperate and for some of them they have the hope of one day running and playing like they have always wanted to. I could just tell she had a really sweet and happy personality.

Josh, from Lil' Vance's class, was also at camp. He loves Happy Days so he came out and danced to the Happy Days theme song with a camp counselor.

Lil' Vance came back out to help Gabby (his girl friend) with her skit the dating game show.
Delaney, Gabby's sister, was the announcer for the game show.
In the end Gabby couldn't pick between the guys so they both received flowers from Gabs.

As a grand finale everyone came out and dance, even Superman (in the blue) who'd rescued Lois Lane from Lex Luther, earlier in the show.

I mentioned earlier that both the boys have had a busy couple of weeks. Shane just got back from a week of being a teen leader at 4-H camp. He had a blast! And can't wait to go back next year. All the 4-H leaders told me they'd love to have him come back to help anytime. He turns right around and goes to Police Explorers boot camp all next week. He hurt his back coming off either the diving board or the 2 story water slide at camp (I didn't quite get the story straight). I'm hoping he doesn't end up doing too many push ups during the next week. No pictures b/c I wasn't there to take them, but I imagine he took a few on his cell phone so I'll see if I can get any posted of Shane's adventures.

As for me and Vance tomorrow we are going to Cincinnati Ohio to look at a 22' sailboat. We've been looking for some time now for another sailboat. Our Hobie is too fast a sailboat for lake sailing and also doesn't really accommodate 4 people. It's meant to be raced by a crew of 2. We think we've found a boat we'll all be able to enjoy. It is a single hull w/ a cuddy cabin that can sleep up to 5 people. The one in Ohio seems like what we've been looking for, although it's always hard to tell from just looking at pictures.