I love my zoo

Chancey on left, Tooee on right

Chancey & Tooee on the couch

Oct 11th with Tooee (Tippy II) and Chancey Fancy Pants (2nd chance with Tippy)

That girl's got it made.

saying goodbye to Rainy Grace who became Gracie Mae. So fitting.


I love my zoo and my bird room. A lot of work but they give me lots of joy and love back.

Chancey & Kiki sleeping under my desk

3 pups under my desk. We have had people ask if Tooee was the mother of Chancey and Rainy Grace. She's only 3 months old. She's a baby too.

Last day with Rainy Grace before giving her to Pam and Mike. She has the most perfect personality. She plays and needs you.

Oct 11th and I still have color in my garden. Doesn't show as good on film.

Chancey & Gracie's mother

Chancey with breeder. At this time we weren't planning on taking him. They were calling him Winston. So glad the little stinker is ours.

Me & the new babies Oct 11th, 2009

For Pam

Day 2: Both with Larry

I am backing off from giving them milk and rice cereal. We are going to water and canned dog food. I feed them Little Bites hard dog food a piece at a time. It's so big for them. Vet on Monday.

A lady from church has a friend who rescues pups every week. She said there is a product that kills fleas in 30 minutes. Because fleas kill puppies by sucking their blood and making them anemic. Big DUH. What a loss of 3 great pups from this litter due to fleas and filth. A bath could have saved them all. I am so thankful that these 2 are doing so good.

Chancey & Tooee asleep on my lap last night.

Rainy Grace beating up Big Chancey

Chancey winning this time

Chancey in a basket

Rainy on her back playing

Day 3, playing in their pen

Day 4 6 weeks old today. New flea baths after church. No fleas found! Feeding them cooked beef liver to pump up their iron levels because we know they have anemia due to the fleas. Soap and water could have saved 3 puppy's lives.

Chancey gets his bath.

Fighting and playing

Rainy Grace untied my shoe.

Siblings fighting

Rainy Grace

Outside with my impatiens

Gaining more energy by the day

Day 7 They were so happy when we got home from Walmart. Going crazy in the pen and I took them out by the flowers.

Rescuing Chihuahuas

Update: Praise God, my friend Pam, from Martinsville, is taking the female. She will have the best home ever. Even better than mine. I can't part with the male since he looks so much like my Tippy. So I hope my zoo is complete, no more, no less.

We were hoping to get a relative of Tippy's in a litter. A little girl called Chancey, for 2nd chance with Tippy. The litter had 5 and we visited once a week. What a mess. The pups were so flea bitten that 2 had died. I've never seen anything so bad. So at 5 wks and 2 days, we brought the rest of the litter home. One died before I could get a can of carnation milk open and get it to the pup. I found a tulip bulb and we named her Tulip and buried the bulb with her. We worked really hard on the other 2. Female Chancey and male Mr. Lucky. We bathed and bathed them in flea shampoo and put flea stuff on them. They are too young but we had nothing to lose. They were healthy pups but the conditions they were in were appalling. They are tiny but starting to play and bark. I think they will make it just fine now. We are still working on fleas. No one should raise dogs in conditions that these were in. I didn't intend to have 2 more pups but they needed to be saved.
For you who haven't seen my in a while, I look really old. I have the gastric bypass 'crinkly skin' thing going on on my face. Oh well, I am so much healthier, take almost no medication, and have had a wonderful summer working in my flower beds. Hey, I painted my house this summer too by myself. I hadn't intended to do that but I looked one day, and oh my, our cedar was dried out and faded. I stained my decks, and pond docks, too. So, life is good. I look like a person who was a puffed up grape and turned into a raisin, ha.
Larry and the pups right after we got them.

Holding my 2 white rats.
Me and my 3 babies, Chancey, Mr. Lucky, and baby Tooee. They are 7 wks apart.

Rainy Grace for Pam

Rainy Grace looking around the first evening

Labor Day at the Badlands

Welcome to the Badlands. To use a 60's term, it was a Happening. Full of Jeeps, ATV's and we even saw a Mud Buggy. It was like being at Glamis at home on a holiday but not nearly the people you see at Glamis.

Lots of ridersJames JeepJames terrifying Tonya

Darrell

Jeremy & Jaeden

My Tippy

My baby Tippy

When we first got Tippy.

I was so glad to find this picture. The look on Larry's face describes how we both felt about Tippy.

My beautiful, spunky girl. One year old.

She went everywhere with me, as do all my dogs. We gardened a lot this summer.

Gardening with me.

Tippy and Cricket, our quaker parrot, last Christmas.

Nicole made turkey cookies with candy corn for the tail and Tippy got one and thought she had a real prize.

Just a tribute to my Tippy. I didn't have too many pictures of her. I thought I'd have more years with her.

Camping with Tippy, best movies I have of her

Mija and Tippy

Meet Tippy II

Meet Tippy II. I am planning on calling her Too-ee, like Beaver did one of his friends. But you can call her Tippy or Tipper, too. We got her in Linton and she is already healing some of our pain. This has been the hardest thing. I have cried since I woke up this morning, and I'm not a crier. Her color and her spunkiness remind me of Tippy but when I look at her face with its markings, there is no mistaking that she is Tooee, her own dog. I pray she helps ease our pain of losing Tippy.

We just brought her home. She is with Larry, Mija, our poodle, and Roxanne, our German Shepherd, at the end.

A Tribute to My Tippy

Tipp's resting place

My Beautiful Tippany

Tippy's Flowers. My friend, Pam, sent these for Tippy. She has been through this too with the loss of her beloved Elvis last year. My friend, Bea, has been through this with the similar loss of her Samson. Connie had to put down her Katie about a month ago. And Rachel understands as she lost her beloved Boston Terrier like we lost Tippy. I am thankful for those who understand how a pet can grab your heart and you grieve for them so deeply.

My Bloved Tippy

Tippy was tragically killed last night. She was a one year old Chihuahua and had become our closest companion. All my dogs are good companions but there was something special about Tippy. She made us laugh. She was feistly. She always wanted to touch us, at least with one paw. She would ride in the car with us and sit behind our necks or lie that way on the couch behind us and touch us with one paw. She loved to burrow in the bed and be under the pillows. We loved her so much and we are devastated. She is buried under our willow trees at the pond. How I wish I could turn back the clock....

Tippy & Kiki the Kitten

Tippy and Mr Kitty

Updated 8/12 VBS in Bloomfield, Greene Co, Indiana

Mt Zion Wesleyan Church in Bloomfield, under the water tower. Allen's Chapel and Mt. Calvary also had this VBS with us.

Pat & Larry on van pick up duty.


Mt Zion Wesleyan, Allen's Chapel and Mt Calvary churches went together this week, the first week of August to have Vacation Bible School. They are all sweet, small churches and we had a wonderful old fashioned VBS. Here are a few pics and videos.

Evan Fuller rings the bell. His Grandma, Loralyn McHenry is on the end of the clip.

Janice Hardesty opening up on Monday. Phoebe Fuller and Wanda Parker at the piano.

Janice Hardesty opening on Monday.
Jan Abrams leading the Cluck Cluck game.The younger kids having snacks. Helper Sandy Wilson, Phoebe Fuller, Beth Newkirk and the McHenrys.
Working ladies, Jessie Wiles, Jennifer Faultless (due for a new baby), Katrina Michael, Denise Andrews with her back to us, Kristie Pickard, and Sandy.
Aaron
Beth Newkirk, our Crafty Lady
Dalton ringing the bell
Cameron & Gage
Emily
Evelyn
Brandon
Whiffle ball
Girl Group
Gracie & Regan
Jacinda from Colorado
Janice at Crafts
Jessy Wiles
Jeremy
Kids

Matt

Phoebe leading singing

Rachel & kids

Rhyan
Mt Zion Sanctuary

Say Your Name

Kaelee and Dad

Emily

Emily

Jacinda and Taya

More whiffle ball

Why didn't I do this before? I wish YOU were here with me today.

I did something wonderful today, quite by accident actually. And I need to stop and do it more often.

We stayed the night at Jer's after our ByrdDay celebration. Nicole let me take some baby plant starts and seeds from her garden. So I was out planting them. It was a pretty nice July day but I was getting a little hot. I had driven to the backside of our pond on our Hog (like a John Deere Gator).

I sat down on the grass under an elm tree we had planted. After 10 years, it has gotten big enough for a little bit of shade. I was just messing with the seed and throwing the seeds out.

Suddenly, my eyes really opened to what I was looking at, where I was, and what the Lord had blessed me with. You can look at something like this in your life every day, but yet never SEE it.

Growing up as a Desert Rat in the Imperial Valley, CA, this would have been a dream, a piece of heaven, and yet there it was in front of me. Although I am retired, I just am always working trying to keep up with my babies (my pets) and the house and the yard. Work, work, work, clean, clean, clean, poop patrol, poop patrol.

But you never take time to smell the roses, as it is said.

We built our pond 11 summers ago and have 9 lb (average) catfish, bass, hybrid blue gills bigger than your whole hand, and Indiana crappies. We had fed our fish from the dock before I drove to the other side. The catfish and bass were eating and splashing the water. Dragonflies were darting everywhere.

I was sitting in the middle of my flowers and a large amount of 'Queen Anne's Lace'. It's a weed in Indiana but it's a beautiful flower to me. My Mom had told me about Queen Anne's Lace and it always reminds me of her. I could see Dane's Rocket, a pink wildflower here and a precious little plant called 'Butter & Eggs' that is blooming in one of the pictures.

A cool breeze was blowing as I was beginning to cool off. Then my big dogs were swimming in the pond and had come up to sit by me. What a great moment the Lord had made me stop and SEE.

I took pictures to share with you. I hope you take a minute to look around at what you have around you today. I was surprised and so blessed by what I experienced. You will be, too.
Trix through the 'lace'

Our pond. Bloomfield, IN

Roxanne our GSD, and Liana. Liana is a lab/golden mix (an official LGX) bred by CCI and born in Santa Rosa, CA.

Queen Anne's Lace

The dogs and the 'Hog'

Pink coneflowers on the left, Dusty Miller is the white stuff, The small yellow flower is Butter & Eggs, and Dane's Rocket on the right.

Trixie by the dock.

My Liana

Byrd Day Celebration

Larry

Larry, me, our oldest James & Tonya, youngest Jeremy & Nicole

Us at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. We did a decent job of surprising Larry. He said one time that he's like his boys to take him there for his 60th. Luckily, he forgot and we all met at Indy. The food was the best I've ever tasted and the service was elegant. It was something we won't forget. Thanks kids! Wed he will be 60 and I will be 58. We were 21 and 19 when we met in San Diego!!! All due to Dicky!