12 Degree's...

It was 12 degree's when I woke up, and I was frozen solid and very stiff. My toes have disappeared again under the block of ice I'm confident has been around my feet all night. But 12 degree's with no wind is a whole different world than 30 degree's with gale force winds. The stillness is so welcoming after a night of trying to cover myself with blankets to get away from the bitter cold wind howling through this shed.

During the night several raccoon and skunk tried to join me, and their scrambling around sent my packed boxes of belongings falling everywhere. In the middle of the night, without any available light, I tried to get the boxes somewhat arranged. So I could at least get out in an emergency.

Two days ago my grand-son, not yet old enough to go to school, told me not to worry because he's going to build a tree house for me. He went into detail before asking, "Grandma, are you proud of me?" I certainly was proud of him. His plans may have been as do-able as this single wide has ever been, as putting the roof on the barn has been.

How I wish I could have the mind of a 3 yr old and wonder off into make belief where problems that have been insurmountable for years are resolved by our imagination.


By 10.30am the temperature soared to a wild and dizzy 57 degrees and it was simply gorgeous.
We have such crystal blue skies at this elevation and today the sky was awesome.
Is winter over yet? Is this now spring.. and dare I hope when all hope has gone so many times.
I want the person I was 3 years ago back again.. I want energy, health, motivation, hope, my mother, my family intact and all the dreams I dare dream.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. ~ Albert Einstein

Grab Onto Any Old Log Floating Downstream

I have been so violently ill through the night and morning that trying to shake a lousy migraine has been impossible, and I have so much to do today.

I get so frustrated being this ill. I just don't understand why my health won't improve long enough for me to get something done. It's miserable when you can't be around people because the nausea prevents you from speaking, when your head is pounding and you can't focus your eyes on anything.
When all you really want to do is curl up into a fetal position and sleep. When opening your eyes in the morning is the very last thing you want to do.

Someone won the $184 million dollars - and it wasn't my boss. My mother has always said that when you have tried every route to save yourself in a raging torrent, and desperation sets in, you will "grab any old log that floats downstream." My boss didn't win the lottery - again. That log wasn't buoyant. But a few million to one odds seems to be the same odds I am facing no matter which direction I turn.

Back to the drawing board. The same drawing board I have been sat at for four years.

An old single wide house trailer needing renovating. Metal barn roof on the ground, building material sat waiting to be used. No utility poles to get the electricity turned on at the property. No idea how it has all managed to survive this winter. Not quite enough money and no help. No idea WHERE the building fund disappeared to... but Robert & Sylvi Huckins know where it is.

The weather this morning was fabulous. 44 degree's, a little windy, but nothing like the forecast we braced ourselves for. By 11 am the cold front came bringing high winds and sleet, dropping the temperature by 12 degrees in less than an hour. Winter hit with force prayerfully for the last time this winter.

I'd like to think that I can spend a wet cold Sunday trying to do something constructive, but I know that I'm going to start to worry about the Ford350, and the trailer house, and barn and along the way the whole lot will snowball and my cup will runneth over.

As I sit in this garden shed listening to the storm the only truth I know that lacks confusion, debate or complications....is that I am simply exhausted.

A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.~ Margaret Atwood

Wind, Rain And Snow..

I would like to think that this is the very last winter storm of 2010-2011, but with winds expected to gust to 45-80 mph it looks like it may turn into one to remember. We are being told to expect 3 to 6 inches of snow and I am simply dreading another fight with frigid temperatures. Despite the weather forecast and the high winds the weather is simply gorgeous today.

I went to bed last night with a migraine, trying to sleep it off. But I was woken up around 3.30 am with the wind beating against this shed. It's rather strange being inside an enclosed garden shed when bad weather arrives, because you can't see anything and the noise is terrifying. A small branch can sound like a 30ft tree hitting the roof.

Trying to get my mind off the sadness and depression due to the deaths of so many beloved pets, and the sheer terror of perhaps losing my truck, my mind wondered back to the old single wide trailer and the barn last night.

Had I tried to renovate it before moving it onto my land I'm convinced that I would have had a better chance to have been in a home, out of the weather, before the winter. Because that would have made it impossible for New Mexico Construction Industries to stop the work while the trailer was not on a permanent site. Yet in saying that I know that the help I had was very limited, and without help I am betwixt a rock and a hard place no matter which way I turn.

A few months ago a local businessman contacted me through the Ruidoso News and he advised me not to put any more money into the trailer. I am aware that the single wide is trashed. I could not have afforded it had it not been. Last year I drove Jesse crazy wanting to "stucco" the outside of the trailer because it looks so hideous. I am more than aware that it is rough enough to make anyone cringe. I never thought I would have even considered living in such, but when you are homeless, struggling to put your family back together, you become desperate enough to try anything to rectify the situation.

People simply don't realize how blessed they are to have a home. Until they don't have one.

I have a 30-35 year old single wide that was written off as salvage that John Boyd found and assured me that it could be renovated if I could come up with the funds. It has rotten floors, rotten walls. The windows were broken out. There is no plumbing nor electric wiring in it.

One living room wall has been replaced, along with the floor, and double glazed windows were installed. A new front door was installed. But then NM Construction Industries red tagged me and shut it down. It was shut down before it was weatherproof or waterproof, and once the permit was issued to allow me to start working on it again in November I no longer had any help to do so.

New bathroom cabinets, sink, toilet, brand new stove, lumber and a back door are sat inside the single wide along with a lot of 2x4's and 2x6's. I have not dared walk into that trailer since autumn because I just can't emotionally handle to stress of seeing the trailer sustain more damage due to the weather - damage that may not be repairable.

So last night and today my mind is back to trying to figure out ways to get everything put together. My head was simply spinning trying to figure out how to do what I have failed to do for almost 4 years. It's so stressful but it is, at least, taking my mind off the impending storm. And then there is the lottery, Lord bless me so I can have my family back together and bless so many people across this land.

We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.~ Woodrow Wilson

This Too Shall Pass....

I now fear that the motor in my Ford350 Powerstroke may have blown and I'm a bit dumbfounded at what I can do about it. This is my work horse.. this is how I make a living. And it may have died the day that poor little "Lilly" died.
New motors are not cheap, especially not diesels.

Yesterday I intended to phone a diesel mechanic who could go and take a look-see at it, and give a prognosis. But circumstances beyond my control made that impractical, for the present time. Until he arrives I will continue to pray that it's any mechanical problem that can be repaired inexpensively and expediently.

I'm a bit fond of the "Grey Ghost" even though she has been a pain to deal with ever since I have owned her. It's strange how we get attached to vehicles. Even those we really should curse at.
2003 Ford350 Diesel Powerstrokes don't have the best reputations in the world and perhaps I should detest the truck.. but I am somewhat fond of it despite it's evils.

The weather is still gorgeous and I keep trying to turn my attention back to my land, the trailer house and the barn. Each time I get enough money together to start putting the roof on that barn and over the house trailer something comes along to knock me back down again.
Is there going to be no end to this?

The financial atmosphere in the United States is simply terrifying. I don't think anyone is going to be safe but some have a much better chance of surviving through the days ahead than others. I seem to have found myself at the bottom of the totem pole and it's not an envious position to be in.

And, my boss has STILL have not won the lottery, though I can't deny that each time he buys lottery tickets my mind tends to wonder onto the many people who could benefit from $184 million dollars. With that type of money we could buy a home for EVERY homeless child in New Mexico and several states around. Finishing my barn and putting in a modular WITH electricity would seem like mere pocket change, barely an amount to take into consideration.
So many families could have the weight lifted off their shoulders, and their lives improved, with 184 million dollars. Maybe tomorrow night.. the Lord willing.

I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it. ~ Maya Angelou

Heartaches Continue

I'm long past trying to figure out what is happening. The weather is simply gorgeous and I should be enthusiastically working on my home and barn.
But that isn't happening.

After my daughters Yorkie, Lucy, died I found a breeder of miniature Yorkie's and a 6 month old puppy was purchased. Which was about 3 weeks ago.

Lilly, the new puppy whom my daughter fell in love with, died yesterday of medical complications after contracting parvo and days of intensive medical care. I was devastated for my daughter and grand-children. Thoroughly devastated.

It's such a complicated mess with the breeder saying things that are not exactly true, and the deception causing complications. My daughter is correct, had the truth been forthcoming Lilly would probably be alive today.

After babysitting the very ill puppy and my grand-children yesterday I drove away only to break down in my truck. The inevitable was bound to happen and it chose in the midst of chaos to happen.

My 6 yr old grand-daughter asked me a question yesterday that I could find no answer to. "Why?"

"Why do bad things keep happening grandma? "

"I don't know sweetheart" didn't seem the epitome of wisdom, but the reality is, I don't know.

If I lived to be 100 years I wouldn't know.

I know that we are in the latter days. But I would like the rapture to happen TODAY, preferably before I turn my attention towards my home again. Before I go to bed tonight would suit me fine.

Where there is love, there is pain. ~ Spanish proverb

Upside Down, Inside Out...

The day started out with my losing my truck keys.

The day actually never ended for me because yesterday afternoon I crawled into bed with a migraine that felt like a football was being kicked around inside my head, and I remained awake all night trying to deal with nausea and blurred vision.
Sleep simply wouldn't come.
I managed to drag myself to work, still with a migraine and still unable to focus, and quickly realized that I had lost my truck keys. It's terribly hard pretending that you are not ill, even harder when the panic of not being able to find your keys sets in. And you have to drive to town.

It is so dark inside this shed I came into the shed with a flashlight and turned the place upside down. I emptied every single garbage bag and went through all the garbage. I started unpacking boxes thinking that the keys may have fallen into a box.

Violently ill I had no option but to go to bed and try to sleep for an hour.

By 2 pm I was back searching. I turned the truck inside out. Went through washing, dirty clothes and clean clothes, went through every coat and jean pocket. The migraine just started to get worse.

By 3 pm my daughter arrived to take me to Capitan where I had left the spare keys to my truck. No, I actually "lost" the spare keys to my truck some weeks ago and I never had a chance to pick them up. So we drove the 13 miles to Capitan.

I took Rio, and my purse. I was so ill and so frustrated I now turned towards Rio firmly believing that she had stolen my keys. I deducted that the horse hair tassels on the key ring would seem like a toy to her. So she was the culprit who was causing me so much drama.

30 minutes after returning from running errands, less than an hour after returning from Capitan with the "spare" keys.. I found the missing keys.
In my purse.

If dogs could talk Rio would be demanding an apology.

Forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age. ~ Hosea Ballou

Don't Worry, It Was Only A Nightmare..

I keep thinking that someone will wake me up and I'll find this nightmare was only.. a nightmare.

The weather has been simply delightful, such a blessing. With spring so close I have to start getting my property livable, but each time I attempt to get everything organized in my mind, to even think about what I can do, I become so physically ill I cannot function.

Yet the world goes on around me totally oblivious to the impending chaos in my life.

On the land that was owned by US Rey Drilling on Highway 37 a trailer house has recently been installed. I have driven by and watched 2 men build walls, put up fencing, put in a well and well house, and all within a matter of a few weeks. It's organized progression. No chaos.

Two men have done in a few weeks what I have diligently tried to do, but couldn't get done in 3 years. I notice how quickly things have proceeded even though they are clearly not working full time.

On the left hand side of the road a few miles north there is a frame house that started to be built exactly the same time as Robert Huckins was supposed to start building our home. The owners have been living in that house for two and a half years. It was built with organized progression. No chaos.

As I have gone through this winter I realized that I'm going to be as invisible when the temperature drops to minus 24 as when it's sunny and warm. To the world the situation doesn't change any, even though to myself it is total devastation.
It has been a rude and uncomfortable awakening.

Over 12 months ago I was listening to a suggestion that I should file not for profit and use donated funds to build a home. Then a suggestion that I should try to con my boss came along. Somewhere along the way my need for a "home" became entwined with a land deal for a lot my boss was selling. Finally it was suggested that I be conniving and deceiving and do something that would betray many. It became disorganized, chaotic and incredibly stressful.

I was mocked for even contemplating buying a trailer. I was told that there was something "wrong with my self esteem to even consider such," and asked if "that is what I thought I was worth." I can't explain to anyone how ill it made me, or how many nights I sat in tears on the phone with Suzie Stockton.

I told Suzie Stockton that no home was worth doing anything illegal or immoral to obtain. I refused to be pushed or manipulated to do things that I would sorely regret, that would hurt others. When I said such Suzie told me that I was "braver than her."

But today I am almost eating those words, sincerely wondering if I was wrong, because honesty and honorably has gained me nothing but defeat.

Having purchased a trailer, and building supplied, I feel like I have been pulled by the hair through a hedge for everything I try to get it renovated leads me to more disappointment.

While speaking to Jan I honestly said, "I dare not have any hope. My whole existence has turned into a hopeless cause. I question why a loving God would ever allow this to happen, or why something as simplistic as renovating a trailer has been an unobtainable goal. I miss my mum, I miss my life. I live in desperation. And I know that I no longer have the physical or emotional energy to go on. Yet I don't know what alternative I have."

I realize that to everyone else spring isn't even here yet, with the weather temperature dropping at a rapid rate I understand that winter is not finished with us yet. But having started 3 springs intending to get this land livable no-one knows more than myself how quickly spring can go to summer, and into winter with nothing accomplished but further heartache and heartbreak.

Now trying to stop myself from becoming debilitated I'm terrified of trying to find new means to get this home put together. But I must. I have no options. Trying to get help, and evade more chaos seems to be the problem. I don't know which direction to go to locate "hope" anymore.

Never give out while there is hope; but hope not beyond reason, for that shows more desire than judgment. ~ William Penn

Never A Road Without A Turn...

This has not been an easy 48 hours. On Thursday night I started with a migraine that disabled me again. It kept me awake all Thursday night, and by Friday morning I was frantic. My eyesight had gone, the nausea refused to abate, and the world was going topsy turvy.

Around 10 am Friday morning something happened that has never happened before in my life. It felt as though my legs had been filled with lead buckshot to my knee's. Just walking was one of the most difficult things I have ever done, I had so little feeling that it was like trying to move solid wood and my legs above the knee started to tremble uncontrollably with each step.

I had no control over my body at all, and I started to become terribly scared.

My boss decided that this particular day was going to be the day that we did a thousand chores, and trying to explain to an 80+ yr old that you can't see nor function was going to be harder than actually trying to do the chores themselves.

I drove to Ruidoso twice with severely impaired vision, unable to "feel" the brake or accelerator, shaking so much I feared not being able to get his truck back without being involved in an accident. By 2 pm I couldn't function further so I crawled into bed and went right to sleep thoroughly debilitated.

When I woke up at 7.30 pm last night the very first thing I did was wiggle my toes, worried that the "lead in my lower legs" still prevailed. But they were perfectly normal. I thought about the "nerve blocks" we give horses and wondered if I had suffered a temporary block. Perhaps I will never know what happened to cause such a bizarre thing.
Whatever it was, I pray it never happens again, because losing the use of your legs is a mortifying experience.

Today was a day of bitter-sweet chaos. My daughters new Yorkie was diagnosed with a serious hereditary illness, and her husbands boxer pups have parvo. So we were running between vets and pharmacies not knowing if, with all the best care in the world, they will survive. Watching my daughter cry with a breaking heart was unbearable. Jan's first TB foal of the season, and the most valuable, died unexpectedly this morning.

So I sat with Jan, knowing that her heart was breaking, just as my daughters was, and my heart was breaking for them because you can't take that pain from them - yet you want to.
Jan and I sat talking about life, justice, fairness. We covered everything from animals, to the economy, to my home. We looked at all the people we know who are positively evil, yet seemingly they go through life unscathed suffering no adversity.

I just couldn't bring myself to stop at my property, or even think about my home, the barn and the desperate need to get this project finished and get a roof over my head, for fear that I would get upset again and another migraine would torment me for the rest of the day.

My grand-mother used to say that "there wasn't a road without a turn." That things would start to go right, eventually. But after 3 years this winter has physically and emotionally depleted me and I seriously wonder if I will ever have a home to live in, if I will die homeless or if this is going to end up killing me.

It's very hard watching good people hurting, and wickedness go unpunished. It's hard going through it yourself.
I know that God has His reasons. But they more often than not confuse me.

My life closed twice before its close; It yet remains to see, If Immortality unveil A third event to me, So huge, so hopeless to conceive, As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell. ~ Emily Dickinson

It's A Mad, Mad World..

After 23 hours in bed with a violent migraine I woke up this morning feeling awful squeezy, but nothing even close to the illness I had yesterday. Still I'm having a difficult time concentrating & focusing my eyes or moving faster than a sloth on librium.

My boss didn't win the lottery last night, and neither did I. I need a home desperately so I grasped the lottery ticket until tears ran down my face praying that I could win enough to replace the stolen money. But I didn't win ~ again.

The monthly payments from Robert Huckins arrived today. I have no idea how much he still owes me but it's in the $79,000 range.
So I am wondering around trying to come up with a way to get this property worked on, and try to get a home and barn put together with the building material I have bought - while the weather is suitable. Which just may lead to another migraine attack as severe as the one I am trying to recover from.

I am pretty lost at how to kick start this project again, but I do know that it has to get going very quickly so I can be in a warm comfortable home before next winter... but how?

True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

I Am Woman Hear Me Roar

Falling to sleep early yesterday evening didn't stop the migraine from hanging around all night waiting for me to wake up at 3.45am this morning. I woke up in so much pain I wanted to beat my head up against a wall, but I don't even think I have the energy to do that much physical activity.

There is always this strong desire to "do" things, to have unlimited energy, enthusiasm, motivation. And nothing can be more motivating in trying to get a home put together than being left homeless. But the constant migraines leave you so incapacitated that it's added frustration in a situation that is already an exercise in frustration.

Despite being a gorgeous 65 degree's I couldn't shake this migraine, and it grew steadily worse until I could do no other than stop work around 10.30 am this morning and crawl back to this shed to try and sleep it off.
My cup runneth over.



Yesterday I bumped into Don Spencer, whom I obtained the metal roof from 2 years ago. He has more used metal I wanted to buy to go over the single wide trailer, but when I arranged to go and pick it up and buy it last autumn with John Boyd, John never arrived. Without a trailer or help it was impossible for me to pick it up.

Yesterday Don said that with spring just around the corner perhaps I could get something done this year. Lord, I beg for that to happen.

While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, The fate of empires and the fall of kings; While quacks of State must each produce his plan, And even children lisp the Rights of Man; Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, The Rights of Woman merit some attention. ~ Robert Burns

For The Want Of A Nail

With lows of 35 degree's and highs in the upper 60's, gorgeous sunny weather, this is turning into a tropical vacation. What a blessing after those -20's temperatures. I'm somewhat shocked that I managed to survive record breaking below freezing lows while sat in a garden shed . This is a nightmare without end.

Physically and emotionally depleted, so ill, slowly approaching my 60's, I simply can't go through another winter homeless. I can't survive this again and I know that is a reality.

Last night I struggled trying to make a mental list of what I need to get done on my land to have a "home" before I am yet again faced with sitting outside in the bitter cold looking at the warm comfortable homes around me. I have not had the courage to go near that property since we dropped off the supplies a few weeks ago, and then I didn't go near the trailer or barn. Emotionally I can't take the heartbreak.

I have antique furniture sat in open horse trailers, and I dare not even look at the damage the snow and rain has done. I have a house trailer that wasn't weatherproofed with thousands of dollars in building supplies - and I don't know how it could all survive this winter without irreparable damage.

The electricity has been a problem I don't seem to be able to resolve. I paid Otero County the $3,000 to have the electricity taken to my land, but I can't find poles that I can afford to buy. If I can locate two poles within my price range I can get electricity to the property.
Of course, we are back to needing permits - again.

A licensed contractor can build without permits, but not a woman left homeless by a licensed contractor. I just love the State of New Mexico.

With the metal roof sat on the ground, and the pipe needed to put the metal roof up, it shouldn't be hard to get a roof onto that barn. But I have been trying to do something as simplistic as get a metal roof on that barn for 3 years now - so clearly it's not as simplistic as I want to believe. It's not simplistic because there is just ME.
As soon as the State of New Mexico red tagged the trailer the volunteer help disappeared.

What to do about the trailer I have no idea. Some tell me it can be renovated, others say it can't. It certainly can't be renovated without help. The State of New Mexico won't let the electrical or plumbing be done by anyone but licensed contractors.

I have a trailer, a barn, a well and a septic. How to put it all together is my biggest problem.

My boss offered me a large metal building for $400. As Jan and I were carrying Copper to the truck we looked at the building and Jan said, "That building would be a lifesaver for you on your property.. but where are you going to find the help to move it? With help we could have had you in a warm home 2 years ago."

She is correct and I'm simply overwhelmed with it all. But I have to hit the ground running and try with diligence to have a home this year. It's been too long a road, too hard a road and I can't go on further homeless.

So as the weather starts to give indications that spring is so close, my mind goes to my land, my home and trying to do the impossible.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Pre-Spring Fever

It may be a little early to be thinking "Spring Fever" .. but I am hoping that the serious winter weather is now in the rear view mirror. A few days of glorious weather is forecast and my mind returns to the land, the trailer, the barn, and the building material I have sat there waiting to be used. Trying to get anything done that would make this property livable before mid-summer.

At the Lazy J today is was simply fabulous. Jan looked towards the mountain ridge and commented on how beautiful the day was. After this winter it was like a breath of fresh air. The heavy in foal mares rubbed up against me trying to get attention, just as happy as we humans to see sunshine and warmth.

Yesterday I tried to return to writing on the book but I ended up going to bed early in the evening with a terrible migraine, a migraine that I woke up with and doesn't seem to want to leave even though the pain has subsided considerably. There has to be a reason for these constant migraines, and an answer to rid myself of them.

My cousin found this blog, and for a brief period my heart was in my mouth horrified that my mother would be told and I would be faced with the absolute unthinkable, but that didn't happen. Instead the response was shock, but a sincere promise to keep it all from my mother.
This is beyond anything any human being should have to face alone, but this type of misery doesn't need the company of an 80+ year old with a nervous disposition, who doesn't have the means to resolve it, and who can only be harmed by the knowledge.

OMG Denise, I have read the blog...what an absolutely terrible thing to happen, you must be devastated and so so tired of having to fight. How can people like him live with themselves, why would anyone want to profit from other peoples misery. He's lucky he only had bullet holes in his truck, it's a wonder someone hasn't shot him !!. You should have taken all your stuff and moved in with them until he paid up. I can't understand (like you) how he's been allowed to get away with it. I don't think that would be the case here to be honest and you certainly wouldn't have been without a roof over your head. People here complain that there are a lot of rules and regulations but it certainly keeps the bad boys more in line.

I wouldn't dream of upsetting your Mum with this.

My cousin suggested that I move in with Robert & Sylvi Huckins until they either repay me the money, or fess up as to where they have hidden it. That is actually not a bad idea. Why didn't I think of it?

If the judicial system believes that it would be inhumane to take the home of a felony career criminal, but doesn't think that leaving the victims of the same criminals without a home is inhumane, they surely couldn't object to these thieves "sharing" their home?

Today is my youngest daughter's birthday, and though I can't reach her by phone I do wish her a wonderful birthday and a bright future ahead!

I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts, Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did Nature link, The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think,What Man has made of Man. ~William Wordsworth

When Bizarre Becomes Normal

I have a 12 inch tv with a DVD player.For days I have been trying to find the remote control. I can't find it anywhere. Last night I fought a shocking migraine and while trying to stop it from going from bad to worse I tried to focus on... the remote control. A desperate attempt to practice mind over matter.

In the midst of throbbing eyes, nausea and blurred vision I tried to think of where that remote control could have gone to. In the end I had no alternative but to draw an awful conclusion. Copper was laid on it when she died, and it went out of the shed between Copper and the blanket.

It sounds bizarre, but when you are sat in a small shed in someone's back yard with no room to move, all of your belongings piled ceiling high, deathly ill.. well, bizarre becomes normal.
Still, I just cannot believe that I didn't think of this before Copper was buried. I was just kicking myself with frustration.

Earlier in the late afternoon I parked my truck, still loaded down with bales of alfalfa, behind this shed and stood in awe as the elk cows and one bull wondered up to my truck to feed on the green high quality hay.
Had I not been so ill I would have tried to creep outside and take close up photographs of the magnificent animals. For the past 3 winters it hasn't taken much to get the herd of elk to come to the shed to steal the hay from the horses, but this is the very first time they have wondered close to the street, closer to residences, ignoring barking dogs and the coming and going of neighbors.

With a high of 62 degrees by 1pm this has turned into the most glorious day. So refreshing, so clean and clear. The snow is melting at a rapid speed and if we can be guided by any semblance of "normal" I'd say that we can see spring on the horizon..
I, for one, will welcome her with enthusiasm.

Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush. ~ Doug Larson

The Last Pharaoh

Today was just like early spring, sunny, warm and welcoming. Perhaps spring is on the horizon. I certainly hope it's close enough to prevent anymore freezing temperatures.

It would be real amiss not to mention the civil unrest in Egypt that has stunned the world. A few people raised in an environment where they were subjected to a tyrannical government joined forces. More people joined them - risking their very lives in the process. The few became many, and the many became the majority.

So many people gave their lives, not only the 300 in the revolt, but those who were imprisoned, tortured and murdered by the hundreds of thousands. No matter what was done to a people, nothing could stop the inevitable. Human beings deserve dignity, freedom, justice, civil rights and human rights, and if it's not given they will find a way to acquire it.

It's just the way it is, the way it has always been, and I for one wish the people of Egypt long lives, prosperity, democracy in it's most honest & honorable form, justice, civil & human rights, and I wish it in abundance for they have suffered far too long.

For the last two weeks I have, like innumerable others, careened from the television news to internet updates and back, longing for the moment that came last night, when the tyrant finally yielded to a brave and spirited people. History has been made; celebrations are in order. But it is not too early to ask: what next?

The so-called Higher Military Council inspires no confidence. Does another military strongman lurk in the regime's entrails? I wonder if western leaders, shamed into moral bluster after being caught in flagrante with Mubarak, will, when we relax our vigils, tip the balance towards "stability" and against real change.

I grow a bit apprehensive too, recalling the words of an extraordinarily perceptive observer of Egypt's struggles in the past: "The edifice of despotic government totters to its fall. Strive so far as you can to destroy the foundations of this despotism, not to pluck up and cast out its individual agents."

This was the deathbed exhortation-cum-warning of the itinerant Muslim Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-97) who pursued a long career in political activism and trenchant journalism. Travelling through Afghanistan, Iran, Egypt and Turkey in the last half of the 19th century, al-Afghani saw at first hand how unshakeable the "foundations of despotism" in Muslim countries had become.

That they were reinforced in the next century, even though many of the "individual agents" of despotism were plucked up and cast out, would not have surprised him.

He spent eight years in Egypt at a crucial time (1871-79), when the country, though nominally sovereign, was stumbling into a long and abject relationship with western powers. Invaded by Napoleon in 1798, Egypt had become the first non-western country to try to catch up with western economic and military power. Building a modern army and bureaucracy required capital, and Egypt's rulers began large-scale plantations of a cash crop highly valued in Europe: cotton.

This led, in the short term, to great private fortunes. But, having bound its formerly self-sufficient economy to a single crop and the vagaries of the international capitalist system, Egypt was badly in debt to European bankers by the late 1870s. Unable to generate sufficient capital on its own, Egypt became heavily dependent on huge high-interest loans from European banks.

For British and French bankers, the state's treasury was, as the economic historian David S Landes wrote, "simply a grab-bag". Egypt's nascent manufacturing industry stood no chance in an international economic regime whose rules were rigged in favour of free-trading Britain. At the same time, early modernisation in Egypt had also unleashed new classes with social and political aspirations that could not be fulfilled by a despotic regime beholden to foreigners.

In the late 1870s and early 80s, Egyptian resentment finally erupted in what were the first nationalist upsurges against colonial rule anywhere in Asia and Africa. Predictably, the British invaded and occupied Egypt in 1882 in order to protect their interests, most important of which was the sea route to India through the Suez canal.

In Ottoman Turkey, al-Afghani observed a similar advance of western economic and strategic interests backed by gunboats. In his native Persia, he participated in mass protests against the then shah's sale of national land and resources to European businessmen.

Al-Afghani came to realise that the threat posed to the traditionally agrarian countries of the east by Europe's modern and industrialised nation-states was much more insidious than territorial expansion. Imposing, for instance, the urgencies of internal modernisation and the conditionalities of "free trade" on Asian societies, European businessmen and diplomats got native elites to do their bidding. In turn, local rulers were only too happy to use western techniques to modernise their armies, set up efficient police and spy networks and reinforce their own autocratic power.

This was why, al-Afghani explained presciently in the 1890s, Muslims moved from despising despots coddled and propped up by the west to despising the west itself. Al-Afghani saw, too, the proliferation of the now-ubiquitous binaries (western liberalism versus religious fanaticism, stability versus Islamism), which ideologically justified to Europeans at home their complicity with brutal tyranny abroad. In 1891 he attacked the British press for presenting Iranian protesters against the Shah as Islamic fanatics when, in fact, they articulated a profound longing for reform.

Al-Afghani wouldn't have been surprised to see that even national sovereignty and electoral democracy were no defence against such materially and intellectually resourceful western power. The secular nationalist Wafd party won Egypt's first elections in 1924; and they kept up their winning streak over the next decade. But, acting in concert with the Egyptian monarch, the British made it impossible for the Wafd party to exercise any real sovereignty. (This was when, feeding on widespread frustration with conventional democratic politics, Egyptian Islamists first came to the fore – the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928.)

As the Indian anti-imperialist leader Jawaharlal Nehru, who followed the slow strangling of Egyptian democracy from a British prison, caustically commented in 1935, "democracy for an Eastern country seems to mean only one thing: to carry out the behests of the imperialist ruling power".

This dismal truth was to be more widely felt among Arabs as the United States replaced Britain and France as the paramount power in the Middle East; and securing Israel and the supply of oil joined the expanding list of western strategic interests in the region.

The rest of this story would have been as familiar to al-Afghani as it is to us. Gamal Abdel Nasser presided over a relatively brief and ecstatic interlude of Egyptian freedom. But his socialistic reforms did not rescue Egypt from the perennially losing side in the international economy; and Nasser's successors, all military strongmen, worked on reinforcing the foundations of their despotism: they struck military alliances with western governments, opened the national economy to foreign investors, creating a small but powerful local elite committed to the status quo, while a fully modernised police state bullied the steadily pauperised majority into passivity.

The edifice of this despotism was always bound to totter in the age of instant communications. Cursing the Muslim despots of his time, al-Afghani lamented on his deathbed: "Would that I had sown all the seed of my ideas in the receptive ground of the people's thoughts." Al-Jazeera and the internet have now helped accomplish what al-Afghani only dreamed of doing: rousing and emboldening the politicised masses, shattering the cosy consensus of transnational elites.

The protests grow bigger every day, swelled by new social classes, beneficiaries as well as victims of the ancient regime. Even the stalwart propagandists on state TV have found their inner voices. Assisted by YouTube, the demonstrators praying unflinchingly on Kasr al-Nil as they are assaulted by water cannons have swiftly accumulated even more moral-spiritual power than the resolute satyagrahis of Mahatma Gandhi did in their own media-deprived time. Amazingly, in less than two weeks, the protesters in Midan Tahrir have stripped the local despot and his foreign enablers of their moral authority and intellectual certainties.

The essential revolution in the mind has already been accomplished. A radical transformation of political and economic structures would be an even more extraordinary event. But achieving it won't be easy, as Tunisia's example already reveals; and Egypt's own history warns us that the foundations of despotism are deep and wide. It is now clear that our virtual vigils will have to continue long after the western media's very recent fascination with Egypt trails off, and assorted neocons and "liberal" hawks emerge from the woodwork to relaunch their bogey of "Islamism". We may also have to steel ourselves, as victory appears in sight, for some more bitter setbacks in the long Egyptian battle for self-determination.

Civilization is the process in which one gradually increases the number of people included in the term 'we' or 'us' and at the same time decreases those labeled 'you' or 'them' until that category has no one left in it. ~ Howard Winters

Migraine Fairy

After being up all night with the migraine from hell I tried to medicate myself just to be able to get an hours sleep early this morning, waking up after 9.45 am. I still can't shake this and I am so deathly ill.

I just don't know why I am having these earth shaking migraines, why I am so ill. The tumors on my spine, neck are causing me so much discomfort but I have the same skeletal system when I don't have a migraine as when I do so I'm having a hard time linking the Bassel-Hagens to the migraines. I have gone from experiencing 2 or 3 migraines per YEAR before 2008 to not being able to get rid of a migraine for over a 24 hour period. I've gone from being physically active before 2008 to being close to invalid.
Is it stress? The frigid cold my body is experiencing? I know that I am too old to go through what I have gone through he past 3 years. That has become so clearly evident.

For the past three years I have started to realize what people go through when their mind is active, but their bodies slowly deteriorate leaving them incapacitated. My legs hurt when I just walk.. putting one foot in front of the other has become so painful. The arthritis in my neck, spine, hips, ankles, wrists and fingers has dramatically increased in a 3 year period.
But I could try to function, and pretend that all is alright, if I could just get these migraines under control.

Lord, if you won't open the door for me to have a home I beg You to take these migraines from me.

Migraine or not I managed to get to the Lazy J, and Jan offered to come and help me load Copper, whose body has been sat outside this shed door for eight days now.

I can't remember a time when I was so grateful, so overwhelmed with thankfulness, as I was when Jan said, "You can't let a beloved pet sit outside your door, it's just NOT healthy emotionally for you. I'll come help you load her."

Copper was literally frozen solid, and frozen solid to the ground. It wasn't easy trying to get the blanket she was wrapped in to pull free from the snow, but with two people it wasn't impossible.

Two small built, middle aged women with a combined age of 127 years, carrying a large frozen dog is the stuff even movie producers couldn't make up. Copper looked so peaceful. I absolutely adored this dog and I miss her something awful.

But the absolute terror of fearing that warm temperatures would come and she would start to decompose right before my eyes was more than I could stand. Even having to walk by her a dozen times a day was rattling my nerves. I am blessed, so sincerely blessed, that Jan helped me load her.

Jan would like an Irish Wolfhound, so finding one is my quest. My way of saying thank you when the words are never quite enough.


What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? ~ - George Eliot

Lost & Found Department

Very rarely do I give myself the time to do something that is upon my heart, and I do it. Normally I get side swiped by duties and responsibilities, trying to resolve problems .. like being frozen and homeless.
As the weather soared to 40 degree's I took the day off work, and worked on the book.

Losing things is a way of life for me. It's almost an art. Living in a cramped shed that is very dark isn't helping the matters any. I put something down, and seconds later it has gone. I need to design a sweater where one can stick pens, glasses, cell phone, keys, flash lights and the remote control to.

Failing that, why not put GPS tracking devices into ALL the devices?

Today is that one day of the month that Robert Huckins has to pay me the minimal amount to keep himself out of jail, but there is no telling when it will actually arrive. He has to pay "before" the tenth of each month. It has become nothing but an insult to me.


If this man isn't going to reveal where he hide all of the money, and return enough for me to have a home, PLEASE, PUT THIS MAN IN JAIL!

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. ~ Tom Clancy

Let's Play Ball...

5 degree's but no more snow has fallen overnight, so we are blessed. Today started out as a frigid cold day and didn't get above 20 degrees. This is really been a strange winter.. almost wicked. I faced winter in this shed with absolute dread, but not in my wildest dreams could I have ever imagined how severe it would get.
Yet I am so worried about my youngest daughter and her family for they are in such dire financial straits and the weather in their area seems to be a whole lot worse than here in Ruidoso.

The minor baseball league is coming to Ruidoso and it's very exciting to see anything come to this region that is healthy, wholesome and can generate revenue., especially seeing as mine is a baseball crazy family.

I think I am going to take the day off work tomorrow and try to wrap myself around the book I have been trying to write forever. The cold & stress just seems to block thoughts, but tomorrow I'm going to try and block all else and work on this blasted book.

Ideas may drift into other minds, but they do not drift my way. I have to go and fetch them. I know no work manual or mental to equal the appalling heart-breaking anguish of fetching an idea from nowhere. ~A. A. Milne

Heavenly Father & The ACLU

Last night at 1 am I woke up, not a slow sleepy awakening, but a wide awake reaction to severe pain. Reeling with a violent migraine and feeling ghastly I tried to sit up to write this blog, but unable to see the keyboard or even sit up, I crawled back into bed simply furious with God, and the ACLU. Furious because I can't keep this from mum forever yet mortified at what the reaction will be when she finds out, terrified that she may now find out.

Denise,

Am re-trying in case this has got lost in space!

Your mum is pressing me, she will worry if I she thinks I can't get hold of you - please can you reply asap?

Love Jackie x

So my thoughts, in desperation, turned to God, and the ACLU in that order. To put it in simple terms.. where ARE you both?

I know that You created the heavens and the earth, so why couldn't you protect my mothers money? Robert Huckins couldn't con You, for You know what is going to happen. So why couldn't You protect my family?

Because right now it's starting to look like my ONLY source has decided not to bother with this problem. What has become insurmountable to me wouldn't take You any effort to resolve. Yet you leave me here struggling and I'm starting to feel like a mouse stuck in a mouse trap, begging You to spare my mother this nightmare - pleading for a resolve before she found out. I'm supposed to be YOUR child for goodness sakes.
I didn't need an army of help, or competent law enforcers, judges, lawyers. I only needed YOU. How can a loving God be this cruel?

And the ACLU, civil rights and human rights for law abiding people are decreasing while you spend your time worrying about criminals. You need to take a walk on the wild side of "victims rights" for THAT is where all the action is. Or lack of.
What is really sad is that the majority of those on the right wing TRULY believe that the United States is enlightened when it comes to freedoms, justice, human rights, civil right. Yet it's actually one of the worst human and civil rights violators in the western world.

I am getting really tired of praying without acknowledgment. I'm tired of been cold and so ill, with my health declining this fast. I am tired of worrying about everyone else, diligently trying to protect my mother. I'm tired of helping everyone, yet my own pain and stress being ignored. I'm just plain tired. And it's about time I said so directly to those who could have resolved this injustice.


The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley

**** Morally Bankrupt ****

Jackie e-mailed me yesterday to tell me that my mother is wanting my cousin to contact me. A cousin I have had no contact with in over 30 years. Jackie is so worried that my mother will have to be told that there isn't a "home," and her money was stolen, for fear that her health will decline considerably.

The reason I am writing is because your mum has just phoned me & asked me to ring someone who I have never heard of. She wanted me to give her your email address as she wants to start a contact with you. Doreen says she is your cousin. The thing is, alarm bells were ringing as your mum has never mentioned this person & I did not know if you would be happy for her to contact you. Doreen doesn't understand about getting people's permission before you pass email addresses on so I think she is feeling a bit bewildered at me.

So - can I ring this person & give her your email address?

My mother is a worrier who had a nervous breakdown 30+ years ago, has such poor health and it takes so little to send her into sleepless nights and into a serious emotional state. A problem that may be of insignificance to others will be blown to insurmountable proportion by my mother.

I know that my mother is getting very worried wondering what the home is like that she purchased, wondering why I have not invited her back to Ruidoso, wondering why I am hiding away, wondering why the deafening sound of silence...

Still, Jackie's warning that my mother cannot emotionally handle being told weighs heavily upon my heart and I am suffering enough health problems because of this.. I dare not risk my mother suffering a heart attack just as Dorothy did.

The Albuquerque Journal records/bankruptcies announcements, Monday September 27th, 2010 can be found at the below url.

ABQJOURNAL RECORDS/BANKRUPTCIES: Bankruptcies http://www.abqjournal.com/records/bankruptcies/272378bankruptcies09-27-10.htm#ixzz1DE1e8OZj

Huckins, Robert M. Jr., Ruidoso Downs, N.M.; mechanic; debts, $295,472; property, $139,513.

Almost $100,000 of that $295,472 belonged to Dorothy McKeever. That was HER building fund for HER retirement home. Monies she has saved up after a lifetime of civil service and honorable living. Monies she couldn't live without, and couldn't recover. She died of a massive heart attack shortly after Robert Huckins filed bankruptcy. If I tell my mother, she will be the next one.

This is an absolute nightmare of a situation because I can't even tell Jackie that there has been "any" progress.

Returning to Dorothy McKeever how COULD a US bankruptcy judge even consider allowing a little old lady to be wiped out? Are these judges morally bankrupt?

I woke up to 9 degree temperatures which is still fairly warm after the past week. The snowstorm that was scheduled to come today has been postponed until Thursday and the weather became warm enough for me to start fretting and worrying about Copper, who is STILL outside the shed door.

Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today. ~ Mohandas K. Gandhi

Superwhat Sunday?

I woke up at 4.30 am very ill. A mild migraine, sick to my stomach, my joints, from my spine through my hips and shoulders felt like they belonged to a 90 yr old. I hurt as bad as if the synovial fluid had been drained from my joints and replaced with grits.

At 5 am it was 29 degree's, higher than we have had mid-day for the past week. But another storm is bearing down on us and there is no telling what it will bring, though more snow is forecast today. I put on a down jacket trying to keep warm, but my feet, despite my scattering dirty clothes all over the concrete floor of this shed, seem not to want to "thaw out."

I spent yesterday shoveling snow for my boss, putting down salt to prevent ice build up making it unsafe for him, and trying to knock down a massive icicle that was threatening to bring down the roof of the pool room.
With Copper outside the door of this shed even praying for a thaw is beyond me, but, well...

What I want to do is put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and walk out of my own home into summer sunlight to see Oscar and Copper playing. I want my dear stallion Kontiki stood in his paddock nickering for me. I want to see his one and only son, a stallion that took me 24 years to produce, stood in his paddock waiting his turn to continue the *Bask line of sport horses. I want to return to my home and make breakfast in my own kitchen with my mother and grand-children present.

Since when did "normal" become the unobtainable "American Dream" even when you have paid for it?

At 11 pm last night the name of the woman in Wal-Mart came on like a deranged light bulb, a remnant of what used to be a memory before I went through the past 3 years. I was speaking to Jan from San Patricio, John Boyd's friend. Nothing I said would have made an ounce of sense to her, but I had no idea who she was. I'm confident that she walked away thinking I'd lost my ever loving mind. She wouldn't have been far wrong.

Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today's jobs with yesterday's tools. ~ Marshall McLuhan

45 Degrees & Stress

Today should be a vast improvement because the 30 degree's yesterday felt like Hawaii after the -25 degrees. But then came.. the wind.

Copper's body is still outside the door of the shed, wrapped in a blanket. After asking for help putting her into the truck bed I was told that I should wait to bury her when the weather gets warmer, but that idea seems morbidly ludicrous.
Last night my mind raced trying to come up with any method I could load her into the bed of the truck, but 78 lbs of live weight feels like 158 lbs of dead weight and there is simply no physical way I could carry her or lift her.

This, like the weather, like the house trailer, like the missing building fund that no-one seems to be able to find just adds unbelievable stress and frustration. My heart feels like I am running a 3 minute mile with my feet standing still. Perhaps the fact that my feet are blocks of ice may make it impossible for them to keep up with my heart.
Stress really can make you blank out. Yesterday my oldest daughter and I went to Wal-Mart. A lady approached me and said, "Hi Denise." Her face looked so familiar that I should have been able to place the face with a name immediately. But I couldn't. I couldn't even think of where I knew this woman. I drew an absolute blank.
After stumbling around for 3 minutes trying to ask questions to try and place her it became obvious that she was growing as perplexed as I was, and she quickly walked away. 24 hours later I still have no idea where I know her from, who she is, or what her name is.

Sometimes you feel like a total fool. But when your mind is racing in so many directions remembering your own name may be difficult. Wondering how to move Copper. If it feels illogical to do anything with her while the ground is frozen, it does not feel logical to leave her body outside the door. In fact seeing her each time I walk outside is truly disturbing me and making this 100 times harder. Wondering if the house trailer has survived this deluge of snow and high winds, or if I have just thrown good money after bad by buying it and the supplies to renovate it. Wondering of I will ever find anyone willing to help me renovate it. Wondering if I will survive another night of frigid cold temperatures in this shed, or why when the temperatures go higher the wind chill increases, putting everyone between the devil and the deep blue sea.

And tomorrow we are forecast to have... more snow.......when we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche

10 Green Bottles

I sometimes wonder if this nightmare will ever end, or if I am going to go from heartbreak to heartache without interruption until Jesus takes me home.

Copper has a habit of sleeping where I want to sleep. It's a game with her. She will curl up on my side of the bed, and when I tell her to move her soulful eyes will play with me as she moves... oh, so slow. But the very second I crawl under the blanket she and Rio will quickly wrap themselves around me, and fall asleep.

I'm a touch person with my dogs. I touch them every few minutes. I play with their ears, play with their heads. I am a "hands-on" person with animals. During this frigid weather I kept covering them with blankets. It's been very tough physically on us, but yesterday Copper seemed healthy, happy. Like all 2 yr old ( young ) dogs she ran and played in the snow , she looked through my bosses glass patio window leaping around with joy that she could see me. She came inside the shed and remained close to me. Her ears were warm, she wasn't shivering. Not an inkling of warning as to what was going to happen.
Yet when she stopped playing with Rio she curled up in her favorite spot on my bed, with her head inches from my knee, and simply died in her sleep due to a massive aneurysm.

This is becoming a horrible game with everything around me falling like a malicious 10 green bottles game. While I have sat in this shed desperately trying to get into a home I have lost Kontiki, a friend of 25 or more years, Isaiah, his young son, Oscar, my loyal sidekick, Franie and now Copper.

I had no idea that Copper had died. I told her to move over so I could get into bed, and when she didn't respond I lifted her still warm head and looked into lifeless eyes. Nothing I could do would resuscitate her. Trying to move her 70 lb live weight body through a shed packed with boxes in minus -10 degree temperatures, in the dark, reduced me to tears and established how alone I truly am.

I know that life is tough. No-one has to explain that to me. But in the name of humanity and heaven above why can't I have a home and normalcy like the human beings around me?
Ten green bottles, Hanging on the wall, Ten green bottles, Hanging on the wall, And if one green bottle should accidentally fall. There'll be nine green bottles hanging on the wall.

-24 Below Zero

Now with rolling black outs.

I woke up with ice on my nose, no electricity - my only source of keeping this shed functional. Solid ice covered the concrete floor. In sheer panic I ran to my bosses house, through over a foot of snow, to make sure he was alright ... and walked into 90 degree heat when I opened his house door. It hit me with the same force that one feels when opening a hot oven.

You can't go from -24 below into 90 degrees without feeling violently ill, so as soon as the electricity returned I made his coffee and left not being able to withstand such high temperatures.

By noon we had a heatwave. 10 degree's.

The concrete floor in the shed seems to be "holding in" the bitter cold and my feet have been frozen for so long I'm wondering if all my toes are present and accounted for. This is really a bad situation, and that may be a major understatement.

The Governor declared a state of emergency for the entire state so it's become clearly obvious that in this go round plenty of people are in as bad, or worse, condition as I am in. My heart simply bleeds for those folks without heat or water, for I may not have adequate heat but I do have a couple of dogs and cats keeping me warm, and I DO have water.. for which I am blessed.

SANTA FE, N.M. -- Gov. Susana Martinez declared a state of emergency on Thursday afternoon for a statewide gas shortage.Increased demand brought on by subzero temperatures caused decreased gas pressure around the state.Martinez said she increased the amount of hours that propane drivers can work to shore up the state’s supply of propane.The governor urged all residents to reduce energy consumption statewide by turning off all non-essential electrical appliances.“The use of electricity and the use of gas are not isolated. One impacts the other,” Martinez said. "Do not use appliances that are not necessary in the next 24 hours."Martinez said residents should not call 911. Instead, call non-emergency police and fire departments for assistance.

Tomorrow is supposed to start seeing this dangerously frigid weather leave. It may not leave as fast as it arrived, but I'm confident that by Saturday we will see temperatures that are not life threatening. It's doubtful that I can even start my truck until tomorrow at the earliest and I am praying that it will start when the temperature reaches 30 degree's, and I can get to the Lazy J.


At 10 pm Copper, my 2 yr old Majestic Tree Hound, went to sleep on my bed, and just died- highly likely an aneurysm. I am just heartbroken and stunned.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave. Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay