A VISIT TO THE BARN

Mamee loves to drink from the water hose.
This is Mamee, Madasan's new show heifer. She is in training and doing quite well.


Oakie gets a bath.

This is Oakie's trick...If Madasan scratches he lifts his leg. It is so funny to see this giant of an animal act like the family pet. He performs better for Madasan than anyone else.

He really gets that leg up while she scratches.
Oakie is a giant of a bull. He loves Madasan and will follow her anywhere. When he gets his halter off the others have to rope him to catch him but Madasan just walks up and puts the halter back on him.

Madasan has her pick of the puppies.

This is Kat with her five babies.

Kat feeding her babies and getting a little loving from Suzanne.

As you can see all manner of things are happening at the barn. Madasan has started working with her animals in preparation for the show season. Oakie won Grand Champion Bull at the AR State Fair last year and will be able to show this season. He is a giant Maine Anjou bull and is not two years old yet.

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Madasan has started working with her little heifer, Memee. Memee has the disposition of her favorite Maine Anjou heifer, Sally. Sally was always so obedient and won Madasan several awards but is now out in the pasture with a new baby.

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Not many girls would enjoy working each afternoon getting their animals ready but Madasan and Sheyanne have always loved getting their animals ready to show. Sheyanne is already complaining because she will no longer be able to show but she plans on being there for Madasan.

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With sports and riding her horses Madasan is one busy seventh grader.

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MADASAN BILLEE AND MACY BEA

My daughter gets so creative at times. She decided that since Madasan Billee was named after her two grandfathers and Macy Bea was named after her mother-in-law she would have pictures of the two made for a Mother’s Day gift. As you can see from the last picture she used the young and older picture of her in-laws and added a picture of their name sake.

I couldn’t just put one picture on the blog because she had at least twenty great shots. I did pick out my favorite of the cousins. One is a blond with blue eyes and the other has those adorable brown eyes and brown hair.

*photos by Cindy at Remember When in Lockesburg.

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GNO-GHOST OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST

Julia to the rescue...
Iris drops in distress after being freightened for umphteenth time by Julia.

This is the back seat crew with Maxine sitting on pillows so all of us could ride in one rig.

Eight of us loaded into Julia’s rig and headed out to Texarkana for a Girl’s Night Out (Julia shortened for ease of typing-GNO). We left our fair city shortly after 4:15 p.m. and arrive at the theatre to see our favorite man in Ghost of Girlfriends Past.

It is a tradition for Julia to scare Iris on each of these trips. Iris is always late because she must have a LARGE popcorn and coke before entering the movie. Julia waits behind one of the partitions and jumps out scaring her. While in the movie I suggested that Iris pretend to faint or have a heart attack or something drastic to scare Julia. This was planned for the next GNO.

On the way out of the movie Iris and I were the last to exit and low and behold out jump Julia and scares Iris again. (She gets a real kick out of doing this.) Iris drops to the floor with a moan and Julia just stands and laughs. I got my trusty little camera out and suggested that Julia might need to check on her condition. Still laughing she checked but she just knew that this was one of Iris’s pranks. Everyone gathered around and didn’t know for sure if this was a for real thing or not. Iris finally got up for fear the theater people would arrive with a stretcher and cart her off to the hospital.

We finally left the theater, before we were asked to leave and went over to McAlister’s for supper.
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MUSE FAMILY GO TO THE FFA BANQUET

Sisters in a BIG discussion. My beautiful granddaughters.

The Muse Family

The local FFA had their banquet on Thursday night. Parents and students that participate in the 2009 show season and other events are recognized for their accomplishments. Sheyanne just had to come home to see her little sis be recognized for all of her winnings during the show season.

SHEY'S NEW APARTMENT

This is Sheyanne's new apartment. She did the painting. She worked hard on her zebra stripes but finally got it finished. This room has fourteen windows in it so I'm thinking it might be pretty cool in the winter and hot in the summer.

MY DOG TUFF

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Tuff has already been introduced on my blog but someone suggested that I bring him back on. I took a few pictures of him while he was busy guarding my front yard.

Picture 1: Tuff is snoozing in my flower basket. Occasionally he even takes his bed out and places it in the basket. After taking his bed out so often I finally nailed it down so he would leave it alone.

Picture 2: Tuff is a very alert watch dog. He seems to know that Sam and his wife are having babies. They had five little border collies. Tuff is very jealous.

Picture 3: Tuff is talking to me. He loves to do that at times.

Picture 4: He is now dismissing me and said the photo shoot is over.

I said I would never have a dog that had to be on a chain or in a pen but Tuff has changed all of that. The reason I have him is because he liked to fight with the other dogs in his family. When he runs free he likes to go down to the neighbor’s house and fight with their dogs. He has several battle scars but is such a sweet dog. He likes to come in the house but prefers outside except when it thunders.
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MADASAN'S NEW HEIFER

All of you know that most of the things I post on my blog have to do with my two granddaughters. I go to church, an occasional movie, have car problems, read a good book and play Bunko. Those subjects are not so interesting so I give you things that my girl’s are participating in. As you know showing cattle is a big thing in their lives. We are still grieving over the fact that Sheyanne can no longer show in the local shows because of her age but we are sure our Madasan will be there for a few more years.

Madasan has her new heifer that she plans to show this year along with her bull, Oakie. This picture is on the second day of a long drawn out process of having her ready for the first show. I am including Madasan’s comment about this new heifer:

“The heifer I purchased is a Maine Anjou. She is doing very well. I put a halter on her the second day I had her. Two days later I started again. The first time she fought it a little, I left her tied for fifteen minutes and after that I untied her and believe it or not she let me rub her head and neck. Everything went better than I ever expected. She is by far the easiest I have ever broken. Overall, everything is coming along great!”

This new heifer doesn’t have a name yet but we often hear her call her Roy Joe and an occasional Charline…

SHEY AND ASHTON PASSED A & P...

Sheyanne and Ashton are in the Nursing Program and Anatomy has been one of their fun classes. They finally took their finals and passed-to their surprise. One of their challenging jobs, in this class, was to find 100 muscles in a dead cat.

Everyone knows that a cat has 32 muscles in each ear but because they are so tiny this became a real challenge. They even resorted to stealing the dead cat and taking it home in their back pack to do some of their searching.

On test day they did their best and with the patience of their instructor they managed a grade high enough to satisfy the nursing program requirements. Now they are looking forward to A & P II. I think that includes a big rat.

OUT MY BACK DOOR

The pond is covered with green algae.
Scarlett and Flossie with Oakie in the pen.

All eyes are upon you...

I was out in my yard throwing a stick for my dog, Tuff. I looked up and found that we had an audience. Brett had some heifers up and it seems that all eyes were upon us. It was such a strange feeling to have so many eyes watching I went into the house for the camera. When I returned I found them ready to be photographed.

I enjoyed the quiet that was provided by our country woods—the low hum of insects, the faint chatter of squirrels in the trees, the melodic chorus of birds and an occasional moo from the cows. Life is beautiful---down on the farm

GIRL'S NIGHT OUT TO SEE OBSESSED

Sue, Marci, Michelle, Iris, Jo Ann, Rachel, Carol, Katie, Julia, Maxine, Nancy

enjoying supper at Outback.

Monday night was another “Girl’s Night Out” for eleven of my friends. Nine of us packed into Maxine’s SUV and traveled to Texarkana. We picked up two on the way and made our grand entrance at Outback. We enjoyed a great meal and then went to see the exciting movie, Obsessed.

Message for the night: Laughter is a tranquilizer with no side effects.

BIRTHDAY SURPRISE FROM BIG MAMA

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Me and my girls.

Big Mama's great-grandchildren

Big Mama's grandchildren

Big Mama's three daughters-Tammy, Pat and Diane

Big Mama's sister Helen on her right.

Saturday, April 25 was an exciting day for our Big Mama. We surprised her with a birthday party celebrating her 92nd birthday. All of her surviving children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren were in attendance with many other family and friends.

CAR PROBLEMS

This is how I felt at the end of the day.

The picture pretty well tells you how the past two days have gone for me. I have spent tooooo many hours having my car worked on. Yesterday they repaired the airbag problem and today they repaired a leak that was causing some electrical problems. I got a new windshield a few months back and it was leaking on the right side.

FAMOUS QUOTE FOR THE DAY

"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."
Abraham Lincoln

TORNADO HITS OUR LITTLE TOWN

A house in Cener Point that was destroyed in tornado.
Many of our pine trees were destroyed.

Dierks water treatment plant originally had two stories.

Thursday, April 9 was a terrible time in our little community. We were watching television and heard that a tornado had hit DeQueen and was headed toward us. I called my girls because they were at a birthday party and might not know about the tornado warning. They did and were headed home. They arrived, bringing with them many that were at the party. I got my radio, water, lights and phone and headed to the storm shelter with about a dozen other people.

My sweet little Madasan made sure that I got into that shelter safe and sound. She helped me all the way. We all crowded into the shelter and waited. Some that gathered did not get in the shelter at first but finally when things got pretty rough in they came. The main thing we had was wind. I think the tornado passed over our place and we got very little damage. Just a few limbs and twigs in the yard was the extent of our damage.

We were so lucky because there were so many others that were not so lucky. DeQueen was hit pretty hard. The Mena community was hit hard with three killed. The following is a quote from the Nashville radio station website:

The weather service officials say that the tornado that demolished the Dierks water treatment plant last Thursday was rated an EF3 with wind speeds of approximately 140 miles per hour. Survey teams from Shreveport were in southwest AR Saturday touring the damaged areas. They determined the tornado began in McCurtain County, OK and then moved along a thirty mile path that ended at Highway 278, about three miles north of Dierks. A report from the weather service said the storm was up to a half mile wide and was at its strongest point in Howard County when it snapped and uprooted trees at Dierks Lake along with causing heavy damage to the Corps of Engineers building and the Dierks water treatment plant. Seven injuries were reported when the tornado tracked along Highway 71 north in DeQueen. Classes in the Dierks Public School District were closed until Wednesday as city officials continued to work on improving the water pressure in town.

*taken from the Southwest AR Radio website

NEW SONG ON PLAYLIST

I have a friend that told me that my Josh Groban song was really getting on her nerves. I love that song and all this time thought everyone did but no…..not everyone. Soooooo if you are a regular blog stalker you will find that I have changed songs. I hope it is more soothing to the ear that poor old Josh’s You Raise Me Up. Enjoy, Julia!!!

FUN WITH A NEW ANIMAL

This is Madasan showing out with one of her animals. This one is playing hard to lead and she doesn't like it. She is the quiet one but has her moments. By show time her animals know that she is the boss.
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SHEY IS SINGLE....AGAIN

Well the good looking boyfriend is a thing of the past and Shey is single again. She is home for spring break and enjoying her freedom. She went out with friends on Saturday night and hasn’t looked back, YET!!

She returns to school on Monday and has him for a lab partner in Anatomy so we will see how things work out.

MADASAN AND SCARLETT TAKE A RUN...

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MADASAN AND SCARLETT

Madasan and her family went to Pine Bluff for a barrel race today. Her time was 18.7. As she becomes more confident with herself and her horse I'm sure her time will be increasing.

MADASAN AND SCARLETT TAKE A RUN...

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MADASAN AND SCARLETT

Madasan went to Pine Bluff for a barrel race today. Suzanne, Sheyanne, and Deena

made the trip with Madasan and Scarlett. She had an 18.7 which was pretty good but she is still learning and doesn't let Scarlett go until she circles the third barrel. Her time will get better as she becomes more confident with her riding ability.