HoundBlog

The last day of June 2006 — where has the year gone! I’m amazed at how fast time goes by any more. When I was a kid, it seemed the summer lasted FOREVER! And you can’t say it’s because we’re busier now than we were as kids — I was a pretty busy kid! Just ask Mom — I don’t think I ever whined to her that I was bored.

I rode my bike — nothing like nephew Colin’s fancy rig, either — one speed Schwinn with 18 or 20″ wheels. To me, though, that bike was everything. It was my horse, my car, my wings. It was really hard to part with that bike, but what is it they say about putting away childish things?

I’ve never been much of a television watcher — even as a kid. Oh yes, we had our shows that we watched — Star Trek, Twilight Zone, Ed Sullivan, but nothing like kids today watch tv. Reading — that was my escape from reality! First it was Arthur Payson Terhune, then Issac Asimov and Robert Heinelin. I think I passed along those authors to Eddie as he was growing up. Now it’s Dale Brown and Nora Lofts and John Sanford (along with a host of others!). All escapist literature for the most part. The rest of my reading is on the order of “The SQL Cookbook” or “SQL Server Administrator’s Guide”. I have a VB.Net book and a Java Scripting book, but haven’t cracked the covers on them yet – too important to cram down the SQL right now. 

Don’t go to many movies, either. When we do, it’s usually a comedy or action/adventure film. Way too often anymore, it’s G rated animated movies  🙂 – guess we’re entering our second childhood

Aurora is here for her summer week at Kamp Kemar. Ken went to pick her up today when he got off work. He said she greeted him at the door with tail wagging and ran straight out to the truck to jump in the front seat. He told her she at least needed to say goodbye to her Mommy and her kid. She leapt out, ran to Angela, jumped on her, whirled and ran back to jump in Ken’s truck. Guess she was ready for her vacation! She’s made herself right at home.

It sure is wonderful to see my dogs happy and contented. While Aurora was tickled to come visit us, she’ll be equally thrilled when her Mom and Kid come back to get her at the end of the week. I’m so lucky to have owners like Angela, Janet, Erin and Janine and Karen who let me see my dogs from time to time. That means the world to me!

Tomorrow we start the big house-painting project. We have openly admitted to ourselves that this project may very well take the rest of the summer and into the fall to complete. Ken will have to do most of it since my knees will not let me go up and down ladders! Anyone who would like to wield a paintbrush for any amount of time (10 minutes, an hour, a day!) is welcome to join the party! We’ll provide liquid refreshment in whatever form you take and plenty of snacks 😛  Not to mention you get to associate with some of the nicest dogs around!

Need to hit the sack — have to be well rested to begin the big painting project!

Love to all,

Margaret

Nothing really new to talk about. All my predictions of transporting over to Great Plains are coming true, but I have no joy in that. Guess it means job security for me (silver lining), but at what a price!

Think I have a home for Maggie. She’ll be going to Wisconsin if everything works out OK with the home visit (still have to find someone to do that). She’ll have to learn horses and deal with a cat, but there’s another Whippet in the household, so she won’t be lonely. Someone is home all the time, too — another plus. I’ll miss her beautiful face, though.

Now if I could just find homes for the two boys.

Groomed Snoball tonight. She’s really cute when she’s groomed! Wish I could find her a home, too.  Almost have her over the submissive peeing she did when she first came here. She’s a card!

That’s all there is to tell today.

Love to all,

Margaret

Finally got the gallery software working properly and have uploaded some of the photos taken of Bebe at her recital. 

http://www.kemar-k9s.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=random&cat=10001&pos=-1

She sure is cute!

I hope to get some photos of Randy uploaded there as well.

Sebastian is at the vet’s tonight. Poor guy has a bad tooth and has to have it removed tomorrow. I’ll pick him up tomorrow afternoon.

Short one today — have to go fix Ken’s dinner.

Love to all,

Margaret

Went to Bebe’s recital Saturday — she was in 5 different numbers! She handled the costume changes really well — one was back-to-back numbers, so she had to change really fast and did it great! She was so cute!

We were not allowed to take pictures during the recital which was kind of a bummer, but I do understand that the flashes would have disrupted the dancers. I did get some pictures of her in her final costume after the recital was over as she came down to where we were sitting to get all her goodies. I’ll post those in a later entry with a link to the album they’re in.

She was in one number in the evening program which I understand she did really well in, but I’m sure she was exhausted by the end of the day.

All the children did well this year. The little ones (3-4-5 year olds) are always so cute! We especially enjoyed them.

Patrick was in Charleston for the summer, but is going back up north for school. He still is giving all of them (north and south) a really hard time behavior-wise. I wish there was something we could do for them all to make this time in his life go better for them.

Eddie is entering his 2nd week of orientation before going overseas. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

The saga of the kidnapped child continues. Social Services finally unbent and allowed her to get her dog, so Zach is leaving today for Pennsylvania and his girl. I’m so relieved that they finally agreed to let her have him. It really bothered me a lot to think she left here with nothing more than the clothes on her back. They may have stolen her from her mother, but Rebekah did not lack for anything materially. The FBI have been here nearly every day since they arrested Norma ( I can’t remember what her real name is) as they keep finding stuff that reveals more and more crimes committed by these two. John’s sister arrived on Charlotte’s doorstep last week demanding entry to the house so they could get the possessions that were left. They were not nice people and Charlotte changed all the locks on all the houses after they left — I don’t blame her!

On a funny note — one of the Abbeville Sherrif’s guys came (after Char called them when those people wanted entry to get the stuff out of the house) wearing a t-shirt that proclaimed him to be Abbeville County CSI 😛

It’s probably only funny if you know how tiny our county is and what little crime actually goes on here.

We’ve had some humdinger thunderstorms lately. We need the rain desperately, but could do without the pyrotechnics. Poor Bridget who is half-deaf seems to really be affected by the storms. She crawled in bed with us the other night and spent the entire night in bed with us – that’s something she NEVER does.

Got to run! Take care!

Love to all,

Margaret

Had to be at work at 6:00 am this morning. Trying to get all the information into Great Plains so they can start using it.

It’s not going too well.

After a frustrating day, I came home to my peaceful corner. The birds singing and the hummers flitting around their feeders soon washed all the frustrations of the day away.

Took a couple of photos of some of the day lilies that are blooming right now. I’m still waiting on my fancy ones to bloom, but they don’t like my soil and I’ve got to figure out what to do about that before they die completely.

Here are my hardy boys 🙂

This is what is euphemistically referred to as a “ditch lily” by the daylily enthusiasts. I don’t care — it’s very pretty!

I really don’t remember where I got this one from. It’s paler than my common lily and has a bit of a ruffle to the petals.

No, these are not lilies — they’re what I’ve always referred to as pinks — it’s a ground cover-type plant that has lavender edged flowers.

Don’t know about y’all, but we’re pretty dry here. The blackberries are tiny on the bushes — not much for jelly this year. My figs started out well, but have been set back these last few weeks of dry weather.

At least the grass isn’t up to my hiney.

Silver linings 🙂

Love to all,

Margaret

Well, the Jacobs family arrived yesterday a bit later than originally planned, but in fine spirits. Randy is at his most charming. When they arrived, it was Crested puppies time out to play, and they swarmed over Randy like killer bees, so we had to put them up as that was just too overwhelming for him and despite my trimming thier nails back right before they arrived, they were still too sharp for Randy’s delicate skin.

Whippets seem to be just right for Randy, though. He started off releasing Nyssa from her crate (which she was VERY grateful for!!), then played in her crate most of the rest of the night.

Tigger would play bow and bark and Randy would crawl across the floor making his interpretation of doggie noises. Then he found the bumpy ball that’s Tigger’s and threw it for awhile. Tigger is no retriever, but would chase the ball and pounce on it much to Randy’s delight. When Tigger heard Randy’s laugh, he would abandon the ball and go straight back to Randy to kiss him.

Bruno was intriqued by the new dog who knew how to open that crate door! Randy spent hours opening and closing the crate door and peeking out at us from inside the crate.

It’s been a fun visiit. Yvonne cooked some great chili for dinner last night and we’re going out for breakfast this morning before they leave to drop Eddie at Fort Jackson for his briefing before leaving for Baharain.

Got to get in the shower and get dressed.

Love to all,

Margaret

Morning has broken
Like that first morning
Cardinals are singing
Mourning doves coo
I see from my window
Hummingbirds seeking
Nectar and dew

Thrush sings a love song
Praising the daylight
Finches echo the sunlight
With feathers of gold
Praise for the morning
Praise for God’s creatures
Of feather and fur

Love fills my soul
For all God’s creations
Beauty surrounds me
With color and light
Despite living in a world
Filled with conflict and strife
Peace fills my heart

Have to do the marathon clean as Eddie, Yvonne and Randy will be here this afternoon.

Completed the last page (for now) on the website. I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

Got Riley a new cage — not that he’s thrilled about it. This one has door catches that he can’t manipulate, so he can’t let himself out at will. Not that he ever did anything really bad — stripped all the leaves off the (already dying) ficus. Unlike Taji who destroyed everything in his path, Riley pretty much left things alone. He just terrorized the other birds by climbing on their cages and since the ‘tiels are sitting on a clutch of eggs, I really had to curtail that behavior. Billy and Whitney are being such good parents!

This is Tigger (new Whippet puppy) and Payne (one of the new Crested puppies) playing. They do pretty well together all things considered.

Well, got to get started or I’ll never get finished

Love to all,

Margaret

Our little road (if you can call it that) was on National News last night — we had local news reporters along with a CNN reporter blocking our road trying to get a story. It’s still a top story  at http://www.wyff4.com today.

It seems that they were not the people we knew at all — they were using different names (except Rebecca was really the little girl’s name). Norma is in jail on $50,000 bond which she has no hope of raising. John has already been extradited back to Arizona where the kidnapping occurred.

Ken and I were oblivious to it as we were in the middle of our reunion after his trip. Charlotte was forewarned by her friends on the Abbeville County Sheriff’s department , so stayed behind closed doors.

To answer Eddie’s statement, no, these are the people at the other end of the driveway from where you are talking about. They were renting one of Charlotte’s houses. While they have 2 dogs and several cats, none of the dogs were on chains. They were in the process of moving and the animals are at the “new” place in North Carolina. We’re hoping that Rebecca’s mother will let her keep them with her as they were her animals.

I’ve just seen 3 more unmarked police-type cars go down and back up the driveway. I know Charlotte was going to be in Anderson this afternoon taking care of some business and then she was going by the jail to see Norma to find out what to do with the rest of their things that were left in the house. There is also their car and a trailer they were using to move with that need to be taken care of.

Poor Charlotte — she’s trying to re-rent that house, but has so much going on right now, it’s like a two-penny novel. I’m glad that I’m just an onlooker.

That’s all for now.

Love to all

Margaret

Well, we had a bit of excitement last night.

It seems that our neighbor of 4 years kidnapped the little girl they said was their daughter 10 years ago. The FBI and police came last night to arrest Norma and take her daughter into SSI to return to her natural mother. Husband John was arrested earlier in Virginia where he works.

What a crazy world we live in — where people who seem relatively normal (Ok, so I thought he was an overbearing, controlling SOB, but I’ve known quite a few of those and none until now have been kidnappers!) are criminals.

How heartless to take a 2 year old away from her mother leaving her to wonder and worry for the worst.

How hard for Rebecca to be taken from the family she’s grown up with as a 12 year old (not an easy age to deal with) and given to a stranger!

I’m still trying to get my mind around all of this.

Ken comes home tonight. I’ve missed him a lot.

Well, enough for now.

Love to all,

Margaret