Linki is taking piano lessons, something she has wanted to do for a long time. Since we have the piano and their house isn’t big enough for the piano she rides the bus here, practices and then after a snack she goes home.
After I took this photo and saw all the toys you would think the kids live here.
They don’t, but Terry and I are really lucky that they live just across the field from us.
Linda
This little Santa Claus is many, many years old. It has been in the family since the early 1920’s, at least.
It is one of our most favorite things, when I bring out the Christmas decorations. Although, I do have others, like a tiny french horn that really plays and a glass clown.
What is your favorite Christmas decoration?
Linda
For some reason these Herons/Crane (I don’t know for sure which) have taken over our farm…I’m not complaining. But I would like to have both types land here. It seems where the Herons/Cranes are the Geese don’t land, so somehow in the world of birds the word has gone out…No Geese Allowed. We sometimes have hundreds and hundreds of these lovely birds.
Linda
Nothing new here…still cold; and I do mean C.O.L.D.
Mom has put a heat lamp in the chicken house (red, because if you don’t put red in the chickens will peck on each other…Chickens are NOT very smart! Mom says that isn’t true, she says she thinks chickens are like people and treat each other just like groups of people treat each other.) She also hooked up the electric water heater for the chicken water tank. Dad has the cow water from freezing. The only thing that freezes now is our water dish, but Mom keeps a really close eye on it.
It’s so cold now that we sleep in the house….YIPEEE!!! Hoo Ray!!
I like sleeping in the house, so does Boomer.
Mom has to keep a really close eye on us there, because we get lazy and don’t want to go outside and ‘do our duty’. We’ve both been ‘trained’ but who likes to have bodily fluids freeze as it leaves your body?
Boomer said I exaggerated but when you’re advanced in age, that’s what it feels like. Frozen….well you know what I mean.
It’s really nice having Mom home. This is the first time in my whole life that I’ve lived here that Mom has been home all day long. (She goes to town sometimes, but that isn’t very long. Before she would leave before day break and get back after dark…she was gone a long, long time.)
The day warms up pretty slow. Last night the cold air was around 8* and just before the sun came up it was 6*, but the day will warm up. It got up to 40* yesterday afternoon.
Something we all do now that Mom is home ALL THE TIME is go for a walk. We walk all over the farm, she says it’s good for me…keeps my bones working. We go slow, Mom and I, Boomer runs all over the place clear up there and clear over there, back to where Mom and are. Sometimes Mom walks a little too fast for me, but she is always waits for me to catch-up.
There are lots of things to see and smell so it takes me awhile.
The coyotes are back! Mom got a little weird out because we were walking through the equipment storage area when two coyotes ran right by us. She said she guess it is so cold they are hunting in the day time.
Boomer and I have met Freddy Fox…he is new to the farm. So we have lots of critters visiting us…raccoons, skunks, coyotes, and foxes…so Mom bought a solar critter light to protect the chicken house and pen.
But one of the very best part of winter, besides getting to be in the house all most all the time…sleeping in the mud room, hanging by the fireplace…
Is…
HUNTING MICE!
It’s ever so much fun!
Fuzzy
We went to Las Vegas, Nevada to see Terry’s niece married this weekend. She and her (now) husband were in a Wedding/Marathon on Sunday evening. There were 44,000 people in the marathon, with 150 couples being married.
What happened is after running two miles those who were going to be married stopped at a certain spot, a preacher did a three minute ceremony, they then ran on.
It was pretty crowded for me to be able to get a good photo of the couple, but I tried. Her parents were lots closer and I’m sure they got good photos.
All the brides were dressed in some form of bridal wear and the grooms wore the top half of a tux. Beverly wore an all white running outfit. She was cute as cute could be.
As soon as the couple said ‘I do’ the Mirage set off thier volcano adding even more drama to the event.
Afterwards, and before they could start running again, Pete and Beverly were interviewed on TV for being one of the couples at this most unusual wedding experience.
Congratulations, Beverly and Pete! Thank you for inviting us!
Terry and Linda
Dear Santa Claus,
I am eight years old this year…I will be nine next month. I want to thank you for my wonderful walking doll, I named her Angela, she is a beautiful as an angel. I have taken very good care of her and I sleep with her every night.
If you have time would you bring me a furry foot rug for my room? My Momma has painted it a really nice color. When we were at J. C. Penney’s I saw a really nice rug shaped like a foot. If you can bring me that rug I would put it beside my bed so my feet will feel it the first thing every morning.
By the way there are lots of kids that say you are not real. But I think you are. My grandma says you are magic and as long as we believe in magic, magic is real.
Have a nice night traveling. I hope you don’t have bad weather.
Linda
It’s really cold here…or at least I think it’s really cold here. Fuzzy says it’s just right, but he has lots more fur than I do. He has two coats….TWO!!! I have one and sometimes I think it’s really thin.
Mom put a coat on me once, but I found it rather binding. It was red. Last January Hank and I were playing and Hank just ripped it off of me. Then Hank and I took it and ran up and down the yard pulling and shaking it…woweeeee, boy that was fun!
We were getting really into it when the backdoor slammed and out came MOM with a very angry face and a LOUD voice to match.
STOP! She YELLED!
(And I do mean yelled)
Hank and I stopped right then…Hank had a piece of red material hanging out of his mouth and was in mid-prance, as for me I had some of the stuffing (is that what you call it?) caught in my collar and flapping on the top of my head. There were bits and pieces of the coat laying every which way and even up — all over the yard, down the road and well….in our mouths.
SOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I got another coat. It was green. I really didn’t like it…rather binding as they say. When Mom would put it on me I would sit around and pant. Finally Mom said, okay, if you get cold you can go into your dog house. I give up.
But that doesn’t have anything to do with what happened last night. I just wanted to tell you why I don’t have a coat.
We always get to come in and out of the house as long as Mom is home. Dad doesn’t let us in the house. He will let us into the tractor shed, the shop, the barn and any other place, but… Nope, nope, Dogs don’t belong in the house, he says.
But whenever we are in he always pets us and lets us lay at his feet, so I think he sends mixed messages.
Anyway…the last two nights have been cold, dark and cold, but the sky has been just loaded with stars! Crisp clear and loaded with sparkly winking stars. Beautiful!
It was cold, but not so cold I wanted to stay in the dog house. Fuzzy was sitting outside on the back step, so I lay next to my dog house and we talked.
We sit around lots in the daytime and wait for Lucky the Squirrel. He said his name is that because we can’t catch him.
Lucky also has a couple of friends, but we haven’t met them so far. We’ve seen them but we’ve only met Lucky.
What happens is when we see Lucky run very fast across the road from the tractor shed to the light pole by the shop we run really fast barking the whole time.
It’s great fun!
Even Lucky says it’s fun for him also.
We never catch Lucky…I don’t know what we would do if we did….Fuzzy and I have talked about it and we really don’t want to catch Lucky. We just like running and barking and TRYING to catch him.
🙂
Lucky’s friends stay out by the ditches and over in the wood pile. (They sure are making a mess of the wood pile.)
As we were talking I noticed that the sky sure was beautiful. It was so beautiful I thought I would lift my nose and sing a sweet song to the sky, when suddenly Fuzzy took off barking down the drive way toward the barn and the grain bins and the hay stack.
He sure can be fast when he wants too.
I caught up to him right at the grain bins when he stopped short. This caused me to just about bonk into him, but I didn’t— I missed him, but still…
“What’s up, Fuzzy? Is Lucky out running around? Did I miss him? What’s happening?”
“Look!” Fuzzy said….
So I looked…
WOW! That was the biggest sort of cat I have ever seen in my life!!!
I guess it is a cat….only it didn’t look like a real cat it had a busy tail and a mask around its eyes.
“Whhhhattt is it, Fuzzy?”
“Why its Robbie the Raccoon; let me introduce you two.”
“Robbie this is Boomer, Boomer this is Robbie.”
Robbie stuck out his little paw and tried to shake hands with me. Then he did a sort of chitter sound.
After all that he smiled a big smile and asked if we wanted to go on an adventure.
An adventure, both of my ears perked up and my tail end started wagging as fast it as would go.
Just then Dad came out of the house to go check on something in his shop and Robbie ran off.
I watched him go. I was really sad.
“He’ll be back”, Fuzzy consoled me. “He’ll be back, you just wait and see.”
We trotted on back to the shop and whined at the door until Dad let us in.
I can hardly wait until Robbie the Raccoon comes back. An adventure sounds, well, just neat!
Boomer
Linda
The kids made it home! My critter sitting is done until they go back to visit the Grandparents in Nebraska or Kelly’s brother in Kansas. That won’t be for awhile now as trips like that have to fit into school breaks.
Our indoor cat was very interested in Hermie the guinea pig, Snowball the bunny wasn’t nearly as interesting. Probably because the rabbit couldn’t see the cat and the cat couldn’t see the rabbit.
The trap lines are busy….mice can destroy feed grains, cars and trucks, and anything else thier sharpe little teeth can get into, they also build nests in the hay, which is not good. Not good at all.
Terry is working on the corn combine….blowing out the filters, plus other job of maintentance.
So not much happening here, but the same old stuff.
Oh…and the letter to Santa was my letter, that Momma saved. I found it in her cedar chest after her death. I thought it would be something fun to share.
Linda
Dear Santa Claus,
My mother is helping me write this as I am 5 years old and can’t spell very good yet. I saw you at the Delta Thanksgiving Parade, but I was too scared to talk to you. I stood in line a long time, but when it was almost my turn I started to cry so Momma said I could get out of line and write you instead.
I would really like a Walking Doll, Santa, if you have one in your work house. I promise not to put it in the bath tub with me like I did my Sally baby doll. I now know that water will not be good for my dolls.
My brother is just now three and he wants a yellow teddy bear with brown pants that we saw at Hesteds. He cried a long time after he saw it and Momma said we didn’t have enough money for it, but he could ask Santa for it if he wanted too.
I don’t know what he is going to ask for, but Momma said she would write the letter for him also. He wasn’t afraid, but he had to get out of line with me as I just couldn’t stand in the line anymore.
Momma said we will leave you some cookies and milk by the Christmas tree. Oh, yes, and we don’t have a fire place. We do have a warm morning heater, but that would be too hot to come down and the chimney is really small. Daddy said we could leave the front door open and you can just come on in.
Thank you, Santa! And tell Mrs. Claus Hello from me and my brother.
Linda
November 28, 1954
