Summertime

INDEPENDENCE DAY
Today begins the long weekend to celebrate the 4th of July. Earlier today when we went into Bismarck things were already starting to look like a holiday. The FFA had a booth set up in the Valero parking lot selling fireworks. The Dollar General had a sale stacked out front with cokes and chips and kites and swim gear. Joe's shaved ice trailer had a long line of folks waiting to get a snow cone and the Valero Crackerbox store was doing a booming business. Every gas pump and nearly every parking space had a car in it.

It looked like lonesome town at the 'Bag a Bargain' store though. Shannon told us yesterday that today would be her last day at that location. She opened a little store in Glenwood and is closing down the Bismarck location. Her grand opening at the new store begins tomorrow...July the 1st. We'll miss seeing her on the few occassions when we'd stop by to grab some flavored coffee or a can of almonds and exchange gossip. Good luck in your new venture, Shannon and your family!

TODAY IS THURSDAY, JUNE 30

Today, June 30 is Jacob Maggard's birthday. He turned 34 today. I've known my nephew since the day he was born. He was named after my father's father, my grandfather Jacob Joseph Maggard. When he was young we called him JJ. All these years foreverafter, I remember his birthday as if he were one of my own children. Jake will always be special to me. The picture above was taken Christmas before last when The Jake Maggard Family stopped by to visit us in Arkansas on the winter vacation trip they took to Missouri to visit his grandmother. Jake has a wonderful wife, Carrie, and two kids, Lauren and Brennan. I hope they enjoyed their visit here and that they'll come back again when they have a chance. We certainly enjoyed having them! Happy Birthday, Jake!

More Summertime Fun!

Mike and I just came in from the swimming pool. It isn't big, but the cool water is a grand way for us to cool off from the summer heat. I find it relaxing and the exercise feels good to me when I get in and paddle around or just use the skimmer to clean out the leaves that blow in. I am procrastinating the cooking of our supper while I write, as if there is some hurry to get it done now!  I have not written here for several weeks.

Our granddaughters came to visit us this summer. On June 4th we drove half way to where they live in La Porte, Texas and their Mom met us so that we could bring the girls back to Arkansas for a visit. Two weeks.  The first few days were easy. Chloe eats Ramen Noodles and would eat them every meal if given that option, so ramen noodles it was. We bought a case of the ramen before she arrived and we taught her how to fix her own bowl of soup boiling the water in the microwave!  For Trinity it was macaroni and cheese from a box. Easy enough. Before she arrived we bought a case of Kraft Cheesy Macaroni. I always fix it for her because she is too young to cook, but it's an easy dish to make, and Trinity is always there looking on, wanting to help, no matter what you are doing. I usually find Trinity right under my feet...

On the first day, the girls were busy checking everything out, deciding which side of the room to sleep on, which drawers to call dibs on and looking to see if the makeup was still in the drawer and if there were clothes in the closet that could be used for dress up. They checked to see if there were shovels and buckets so they could dig in the sand next to the church's parking lot. And they fought over what they'd watch on tv. That last one was easy. Mike settled it by saying that each day one girl would be in charge and if the other wanted to watch tv she'd have to watch what the girl in charge wanted to watch. It was easy the first day...but it wasn't long before the two girls figured out ways to irritate one another over what was on the tv screen, changing the channel to something neither wanted to watch just to irritate the one who was not in charge of the remote that day.

A Walk in the Woods

When we moved into this house, Susan, the lady who owned the place before us had left a pair of black rubber gardening boots. I always would use them when it was rainy and wet or when I wanted to walk thru the woods and liked to think that no rattlesnake would strike me through them. One day several month ago while walking through Walmart in Malvern I saw the rubber boots had been marked down. When I looked, there were two pair left, a red pair of ladies boots in my size and a black pair of men's boots in Mike's size. That had to be a sign from Karma!!! And needless to mention from that minute on I had three pairs of boots.

The second day here the granddaughters wanted to go for a walk in the woods! Simple enough...I found a pair of thick sox for each one of us and the smallest boots went to the smallest girl and I got to wear Mike's boots. Nobody's boots really fit but we were safe from the snakes. Lucky for me, we didn't see any snakes of any kind and it was pleasant in the woods, cool and inviting. The cat came with us and Kayley entertained us all running up a tree and out onto a wobbly branch and never falling. We walked all the way down to the creek...I say the creek, but it has been so dry that the creek could barely be called anything but a ditch. I got a wagon and would have filled it with rocks to fill the holes in our driveway, but we didn't bring a wagon and the rocks were too huge for us to carry. We saw poison ivy and there were hawthorne trees with thorns about two inches long. We had to step through vines that hung from the trees and over the dead fallen carcases of trees that looked like they had been down for a long time. We saw nests but could not decide if they belonged to birds or to squirrels. There was one huge nest down by the creek, in the crook of a tree that was huge. It'd be hard to guess what kind of big bird made that place it's home. When it was time to start back, Kayley the cat led the way and showed us some paths we had not seen when we were going. We were back home unscathed in no time. After that, Chloe and Trinity fought every day over who should wear the red boots even though there was no reason to wear them, but the two pairs of black boots were never worn again.

TIME FLIES WHEN YOU ARE HAVING FUN

There seem to be lots of things for little girls to do in Arkansas in the summer. Chloe spent much time watching television or playing a game on her cell phone. She has learned how to read music and she found some sheet music in the piano bench and picked out several songs on the piano, nearly memorizing one, she played it so often. She used my computer a lot and for awhile, until she figured out that Mike's system was easier for her to use, whenever I'd get up from my computer desk she would immediately sit down. I know Chloe takes advantage of me when she has a chance, consistently treating my things as if she has a license to them, digging in every drawer and using things she knows I would not say yes to if she asked first, but apparently she knows exactly what she can get away with and that I love her. She consistently blamed Trinity or denied knowing anything about it when I'd ask, "Who did that?" and regularly told on me to Mike. She never admitted to anything that was not true even though the truth was obvious and she never let up on me that I should make myself responsible to provide what she wanted. And she gets away with it, too!

Both girls have a favorite restaurant...the Chinese Buffet. So we ate at one of those in Atlanta on our way back home from picking them up. Never enough for the two of them, again we at at the Chinese Buffet in Hot Springs. I think the girls like being able to choose what and how much they want on their plate, and they both seem to like the ice cream for dessert. Chloe ate two helpings of ice cream. Trinity didn't though because she ate lots of fruit and pudding for dessert before she ate her ice cream. Neither one can pass up sprinkles on their ice cream though.

We went shopping at the Mall afterwards. Even though it was not much fun to watch while they looked at everything there, I walked with Chloe and Trinity while Mike lagged behind nursing his bad leg. I mentioned that there must be lots of great malls in Houston where she lives, but both girls told me the tiny mall in Hot Springs was the best mall in the whole world. Chloe wanted shoes...high heels, spikes. I told her there was just no way. When she went off to tell Mike how thoughtless I am, he mentioned to her that she could maybe have some platforms, high heels, but easier to walk on than spikes and helped her to find the shoes she wanted that would pass her mother's inspection. She ended up with 2 pairs of shoes, one she could wear often, and one she will wear only rarely, but nice shoes, both pairs. She didn't want anyone to help her! She's not a baby, you know! She did put up with Mike looking on--he was the one with the credit card.

I stayed with Trinity. Earlier that day we'd gone to a resale shop in Bismarck and she picked out a dress she  loved. It was her size, and so was a pair of yellow crocs so she got them both. When Chloe got new shoes, Trinity wanted shoes too, but worried that she might spend too much money. I helped her a little to find a well made shoe that looked good too. I told her that if she found a pair that fit but was a little too big she could grow into it and save money by wearing it a long time. I told her to buy some shoes she could wear to school.  I had sturdy leather sports shoes in mind. Shows what I know! In the end, she found 2 pairs of fancy flats, one white pair and one black pair that were adorable on her feet. When we got home she put the white ones (actually I made her put the white ones back and buy the same shoe but in a bone color) away to keep them from getting messed up, but she could not resist wearing the black ones when we were going to go out somewhere even though she had other shoes. And she always kicked whatever shoes she had on her feet off while she walked down the hallway and left them there until I either picked them up or collared her and made her pick them up out of the pathway.

Chloe didn't get far away from eating Ramen noodles regularly, but she did like it when we had hot dogs and hamburgers and french fries and waffles and she worried a lot about her 'diet' and the fact that she weighed the same thing every day when she'd check herself on the scales in the bedroom. Apparently it's a time in her life when she feels 'cool' worrying over her weight. (Maybe next year I'll show her my sphagmometer and she can take her blood pressure every day and worry over that!)

Trinity was absolutely amazed at homemade waffles. She could not believe how simple it was to get those little boxes pressed in the waffle from the waffle iron! Apparently that was something that she'd stopped to think about and had not been able to figure out. She has a varied appetite and loves to think that things we cook are special for her. She went grocery shopping with Mike and 'talked him into' buying some cottage cheese and some mixed fruit--her favorite. Unless you count chili which is 'her favorite' or maybe her 'favorite' is chocolate milk'. I've heard her say it is and I've heard her call blueberry pancakes her favorite too. While Trinity and Mike were in the grocery store, I took Chloe shopping at Stagg and Cato where she tried on several shirts and actually bought one. So when we got home that evening Chloe tried on her new clothes and Trinity ate cottage cheese with her 'Pops'.

Trinity isn't as quiet as Chloe. She wants to go and do all day long. She wanted to take a bath or a shower every day but Chloe wanted to 'skip it' as often as was possible. Trinity wanted to go into the trees every day, but for Chloe, once was enough. Trinity wanted to go outside and pick flowers and put them in a vase. Trinity wanted a net to go catch butterflies in the daytime and fireflies at night. Trinity wanted to help Mike mow on the riding tractor. She wanted to help with the cooking. She wanted to feed the dogs and run and play with them. She wanted to go to church on Wednesday night. She wanted to go along no matter if we were going to go pay the telephone bill or go someplace special...not because she wanted anything. She just wanted to go and do.

Every evening Trinity wanted to take a walk outside before it got too dark. She wanted to check every night to see if the fireflies were out. When she was in the shower a mirror to see what kinds of 'hairdos' she could make with the shampoo in her hair. She wanted to dress up. She wanted to change her clothes several times a day. She wanted to help with the laundry. I got a game of Scrabble for Mother's Day and taught her how to play and after that she asked me over and over if she could play that game. Trinity found a book that I'd tried to read to her last year and wanted me to listen to her read it aloud to me. It's my favorite book (really!)so I listened to her read until she got tired of reading and decided she wanted to color instead. I could go on and on. Sometimes Trinity got whatever she wanted and sometimes all she got was distracted.

One of the things that Trinity wanted to do was pop firecrackers. The last time she was here was on the 4th of July. (Fireworks are not legal where she lives in Houston.) We had a few leftover bottle rockets and sparklers. In the evening after she was sure there were no fireflies and it had started to get dark, she'd ask me to light a bottle rocket. When I did, one of our neighbors somewhere would start popping firecrackers from somewhere on the other side of the woods. How funny that was! And it piqued Trinity's interest to see if whoever it was would do it again the next night. I have to admit it surprised me, but sure enough, the next night was the same...one of our neighbors started popping firecrackers on the other side of the woods! One night Chloe came out to see what was going on, and she liked watching the bottle rockets, too. She watched while I lit some other things too, a little roman candle, a 'bug' that sent sparks all around in a circle, a little pyramid that was full of all kinds of colors, and she was greatly disappointed that there were no sparklers left for her to hold.

On Thursday after the girls had been here visiting for about 5 days our old Dog Gypsy Died. It was a sad day for all of us. Gypsy is almost the same age as Chloe and has always been 'hers'. Trinity loves Gypsy too and always paused to pet her and hug her neck and talk to her. Gypsy always loved both girls. It was sad, her passing, but in the evening we had a little funeral for her to make it easier. We painted her name on a cement tile shaped like Texas and brought it with us down to where the dog was buried. When we had laid the stone each of us said a little prayer for the old mama dog that she would be waiting for us when we get to heaven. Gypsy left behind a litter of two puppies who are now about 3 years old, so it was not so hard to bear as it would be if we'd lost our only dog.

The 2nd week the girls were here Sonny and Mike put the swimming pool up and filled it. It isn't a big pool, maybe 3 feet deep and big enough around that you can take a couple of swimming strokes before you hit the other side, but it is a way to cool off. Trinity loves it and wants to go swim two or three times a day. This year Chloe loved it, too. I did laundry a couple of times a day and still the girls would have to dig up something else they could swim in because the thing they had worn last time was still wet or was down in the dryer. Both girls would stay in the water until they started to shrivel up...calling it cold when they first got in and hating to get out when it came time.

One day Mike2 had to go to the doctor in Amity. On the way back home we had to pass the little Exxon convenience store on Highway 84. That store sells soft serve ice cream and everyone loves their butter pecan. It was expensive but when we stopped there I bought four of them, one for each Mike and one for each girl. The Mikes both ate theirs the same evening, but I noticed that the girls ate some and saved some for the next day. And Chloe saved hers for longer, only eating what she wanted and saving the rest in the freezer, she made it last quite a long time.

Sunday, June 18th was Father's Day. On the 17th we took the little granddaughters half way back home and met their mother (and her mother Debby) who picked them up to bring them both back home again. We met at a Denny's restaurant, so we enjoyed a final meal together before we parted ways. I know the girls missed their two little brothers and that the boys were happy to seem them back home again. It is taking me forever to get around to cleaning up and straightening out and putting away and remaking the bed and all the things I should do after our 'company' leaves, but it's summer. There's no rush. As soon as I get all those things done I'll very likely be missing them and wishing they'd come back to visit us again.

Today is Eva's birthday...

My daughter, born in 1967 celebrates a birthday today. It feels odd to me to have a child so old that her children, my grandchildren have both given me great grandchildren, but that's the way it is. I still want to celebrate the day, though, and help Eva to have a Happy Birthday!

I remember some of her birthdays. I remember her first birthday. We were living in Norway, and all the little Norwegian girls came over in their national costumes when I invited them for cake and ice cream. They didn't understand all my English, but the did seem to understand that it was Eva's birthday and that they would be singing and dancing and eating cake. I think in Norway a first birthday is very special. I do know it was wonderful to take pictures and remember that day.

On her 2nd birthday Eva lived in England and since it was spring there we went to an animal park where she saw lots of mommies with their new babies. Her favorite was the goose mother, but I think that was because it made her laugh when the goose daddy ran at her spitting and hissing and her mom picked her up and swung her out of range! She petted a baby lamb and helped to feed a baby piggy with a bottle and we had a picnic at the park. After a whole day of running and playing and a three hour ride home, Eva slept all the way home and started jabbering full sentences telling everyone about the animals she had seen.

Eva celebrated her 3rd birthday with her Grandma Irene, going shopping and coming home with a bushel of new clothes and shoes. Always very picky about her wardrobe even when she was just a baby, Eva loved being able to pick out exactly what she wanted that day. She piled up a lot of loot and back home celebrated with the usual singing and blowing out of candles. She made her wish for a special dressup dress that she had seen but didn't ask her Grandma to buy for her that day and asked for sox and panties and shoes to match! More clothes!??!

Other birthdays passed in a blur. I remember one where her cousin Jana was there and we went to see a movie at the theater and another when she went over to Jo Faulk's house and ate homemade ice cream and one where we had a crawfish boil with the Graczyk family. Eva was old enough to peel her own crawfish, third grade, I think, probably eight. One birthday was a swimming party. Eva took to the water like a fish when she was just a toddler. I remember seeing a sign at the pool party she had that said a child her age should be accompanied by an adult. I rather think that if anything had gone wrong, Eva would be more likely to rescue me, the adult than I would have been to have rescued her!

When Eva was about 11 she wanted to go to the skating rink and to invite some of her friends. I think that was the day she got her very own roller skates. She has been a great skater ever since. I'll have to ask her if she ever gets a chance to skate now that she is an adult. I don't think she has any roller blades and she's always lived in a rural area, so I don't think skates or roller blades are very practical but I never really asked to find out for sure.

When she was about 12 Eva wanted to take ballet lessons in New Iberia with the girl who lived next door. It was expensive, but her parents were flush enough to afford the dance lessons and the ballet clothing. Eva decided that she'd had enough of that in only a few months though. A lot of practice goes with being in a dance class, and there's a lot of new things to learn. Eva was a newbie and the other girls had been in dance for years.

Eva always wanted a pony. Once on her birthday we took her to a place that offered horseback rides, but she wasn't satisfied because all the horse did was to walk slowly around and around in a circle. When she was in the 7th grade she decided that it was better to have a friend who had a horse than to have a horse of her own...and all she had to do then was tell her friend with the horse that she'd take care of the feeding and brushing and exercising for a day voluntarily. It was just about then that Eva decided that she didn't want surprises for birthdays any more and that she'd rather tell me what she wanted me to buy for her. And it was just about then that Eva wanted money instead of a present so that she could spend it herself. When she was a senior in high school we bought her a car and I think she might rather have had money then, too because the car was the only drivable one we could afford and I remember she needed to add a quart of oil every time she filled it up with gas.

Sometimes as an adult I have been able to be with Eva on her birthday and help to celebrate the occasion, but it hasn't been very often. After awhile a parent starts sending presents or cash to the grandkids and starts giving no more than a telephone call to say happy birthday. Speaking of that...I think I will call Eva and tell her "happy birthday!" today.

Gypsy died today

June 7, 2011

Our dog for over 12 years, Gypsy, died today. She was a city dog for the first nine years of her life, with a fenced back yard as her home until we retired to Arkansas in 2007. Half Timberwolf, half German Shepherd, it was as if she found her 2nd springtime when she came to the mountains and saw winter snow for the first time. Her first year in Arkansas, Gypsy went into season, mated with 2 black labs and leaves behind her litter of two females, Red and Blue. It was a dog's life for Gypsy, but I think, to her, it was a good life, well lived.

Joshua brought Gypsy to our house the first time we saw her. He and Brandi had been living in Lafayette. One night a runaway car had bashed into his parked car, totaling it out with damage. The police could do nothing about finding the person who'd done the damage, and to make things even worse, when Joshua called work to say he would be late because his car was not driveable they fired him on the phone. Then the people he'd paid for one of their half timberwolf half Shepherd puppies called to tell him the dog was ready and he could come and get her. So our house in La Porte became home to a Josh, his pregnant wife Brandi and their six week old puppy.

Time passed and when Chloe was born, the dog learned to love the baby and the baby learned to love the dog. One of Chloe's first words was Gypsy.

The dog got big fast, and each of us spent some time training her to sit and wait and not to jump on anyone or push. She learned to sit in the chair for tall people to pet her and to lie down on the ground for the baby to pet her. She seemed to love us all and pats seemed to her to be better than a dish of food. She had good times when we'd feed her several times a day, one of us thinking the other one of us had not fed her yet, and she had bad times when she'd have to beg for someone to fill her water dish because it was so hot in Houston. She loved the attention when we were in the back yard in the spa or cooking on the grill or just sitting and talking outside.

Time passed and Joshua moved out, leaving the puppy who had by now grown into a dog with Mike2 to become his pet. More time passed and Sonny (Mike2) moved out and could not have a pet where he moved so Mike and I kept Gypsy and took care of her. There were times when Gypsy would bask in the love of her old masters, Joshua and his little girls always went to visit Gypsy when they visited us. And Sonny moved back into the house and started feeding Gypsy again...but mostly she was our dog, living in our back yard, seldom leaving unless Sonny would take her on a leash to walk the neighborhood or unless she was able to open the gate and escape. She knew where her food dish was, though, and she always came back home. Our biggest fear was that someone would be afraid of her and hurt her, but she was shy when she got out and when anything startled her, she'd make a beeline back to her gate.

Gypsy was a sweet lady. She would stand still to be brushed, She always sat waiting until someone told her it was time to eat from her food dish. She loved to play ball and a big old soccer ball was her favorite. She loved water and being wet. She was a terrible digger in our back yard, looking always for a cooler spot deeper in the ground. There was a trail around the bottom of our fence where she walked every day, killing all the grass. And once, she became friends with a dog that moved in next door and it was almost as much as we and the next door neighbors were able to do to keep the holes under the fence from ever getting big enough for either of the dogs to crawl into the other dog's yard. That was life for Gypsy for nine years.

Then we moved to Arkansas. We had planned to move Gypsy with our last load going to Arkansas, but the insurance lady said we could not leave the house abandoned in Arkansas so if we wanted to keep the insurance, we needed to move in there. Sonny moved in and Mike and I brought Gypsy to stay with him.

On the day it was time for her to go, we'd gotten a huge u-haul truck and to fill with our household goods. Ranzy had come over to help. Steven had loaned us a dog cage and Mike and Ranzy were discussing whether Gypsy would fit inside, she was so much bigger than Steven's dog. They called her over and put her on a leash and led her to the cage and she went right in. They immediately carried the cage out and loaded it into the back part of the Isusu that I was going to drive. Gypsy didn't argue. I decided I was going to leave that very instant whether my car was fully loaded or not. I wanted to get on the road for the 7 hour drive to Arkansas to get the dog to her new home as soon as possible. Gypsy was an angel. I got hungry and thirsty and wanted a bathroom break, but Gypsy just stood and looked the whole time, never crying or making a sound, putting up with my driving and throwing her about in the crate. I stopped once in Atlanta and Gypsy waited patiently for me to do my business and get back on the road. When I got to the house in Arkansas, though, and she saw Sonny come out, she was ready to get OUT of that cage and she was really glad to see him. She knew she was his girl!

At first, in Arkansas, Gypsy was tethered. She was pretty bad about tangling up her cable, though and we were bad about wanting her to have plenty of rope to tangle. We wanted her to be able to move over our big back yard. Finally we put up a fence wire around the back of the house so she'd have a fenced yard. It was not a very stable fence, but Gypsy never tried to get out. We might have stayed with that fence forever, but Gypsy went into season and howled and cried and lured a couple of black labs to come inside the fence. One lab was young and sprightly and he leaped the fence in a single bound, no problem. The other old lab was broad shouldered and had some white hair around his face and he didn't jump the fence. That wily dog would go all around the bottom of the fence pushing on the wire until he'd find a place that had enough slack him to squeeze himself underneath. Needless to say Mike and I chased the dogs off when we'd see them. That young dog would jump and run and disappear as soon as we'd open the door. That old dog, though, nothing made him move. I yelled and told him to go home and threatened him with the broom and nothing seemed to matter to him. All I could do was bring Gypsy inside until I'd see him leave (and see the spot where he knew he could get under the fence). I'd fix the places where that old dog got in, but he was back the next night, until after a few days Gypsy went out of season and the labs quit coming to 'visit' her. A little while later we had a chain link fence installed around the back yard, and I never saw those black labs again (although I think they live not too far from us.)

That was in the fall of our first year here (2007) and winter followed. It was a beautiful winter. When we heard it was going to snow Mike called his brother Danny and told him that if he wanted to get here before the roads iced over he should make the trip that very day. The first night of Danny and Pam's visit, Gypsy cried and moaned and howled and tried to dig in under the back porch. Danny's wife Pam said that she sounded like she was in labor. Mike said it was too cold for her and that she was scared by the snow she'd never seen before, so he made a place for her to come inside to the sun porch. The next morning I was up early, but not as early as Danny. When he saw me awake, he said, "I hear more than one voice in that sun room."

When I went to look, surprise! Gypsy had a squeaky little puppy nursing. Just one. How cute it was all tiny and sweet, all black. Gypsy was proud of it, too and didn't seem to be worried about all of us coming to look and touch. She seemed to be wanting to show it off. That night, again inside, this time with her puppy, Gypsy was once more whining, but I thought that perhaps her labor had been hard on her and that she was not comfortable being a new mother. That wasn't it. She was in labor again. The next morning was just like the one before. Danny, up early, when he saw me awake told me that he thought it sounded like there were two puppies. And, sure enough Gypsy DID have two puppies. A whole day apart, both of them looked like black labs almost twins, it was hard to tell the difference or to know which one was born on Saturday night and which one on Sunday. At first that was their names, Saturday and Sunday. Later on, though, Mike got them two tiny little collars, one red, and one blue...and then we could tell them apart and it's almost needless to say that we named them, one Red and the other one Blue.

Gypsy was the best puppy mom ever. She took wonderful care of those babies. She was a hoot, though. We put her outside with her babies and set up a nice new clean plastic garden toolbox, big enough for her to get completely inside and out of the rain and shelter from the wind...but Gypsy, having always been an outside dog and being part wolf was not happy with that situation. She'd drag those puppies out of that box and put them onto the dirt. Once it rained, and Mike had to go outside and get the puppies out of a low spot Gypsy had dug before they drowned when the hole filled up with water. Finally Mike solved that problem by filling the bottom of the toolbox with dirt...then she was happy to keep herself and her babies inside and out of the weather. And the puppies grew fast. At first I could hold them both, one in each hand, but it was just a matter of months and I could not pick both of them up at once, they were too heavy. Gypsy seemed happy when we started teaching them to sit and not to jump on us or to come up on the porch unless we invited them. They have been terrible, like their mother, though, chewing everything and digging holes. And they pestered Gypsy so that after awhile Mike and I began to notice that "Mom" was a very strict mother, snapping and growling and threatening them when they would gang up and pester her. The pups wanted to play, but Gypsy was getting old and she made them play with each other while she watched.

That was the beginning of us seeing that Gypsy was old. Last winter we let her up on the porch because she walked so slow and the cold and snow seemed to bother her more than they had the year before. And her teeth seemed to bother her so we started giving her canned dog food. We kept on feeding her puppies the dry food and they were really jealous of Gypsy and tricky as ever, they'd do their best to get her food away from her so they could share it. Red would run to the fence barking as if someone were here...and if Gypsy would be tricked into going, too then Blue would grab Gypsy's dish. Gypsy usually ignored Red and Blue when they were pestering her, but toward her end, she seemed to be losing her patience.

When I would go out to see the dogs, Red and Blue would come up to meet me, but Gypsy didn't make the effort. Stayed mostly by the back door to the lower level as if hoping that Sonny would come out that door to talk to 'his girl'. She was in the shade there and I suppose the cement there was cool. Today she wasn't there. She was under the porch at the door on the end of the house, the one that leads out of the laundry room. And when I called to her she didn't even look up and I knew she was gone to wherever old dogs go. I'll miss Gypsy. She was sweet and gentle and pretty and always tried to mind and earn pats trying to be whatever you wanted her to be.

She's left behind two offspring, both of whom seem to exhibit some of her characteristics. I wonder if a dozen years from now I'll be lamenting Red's or Blue's death and saying that dog was just the best!??!

I told Mike and Mike told his granddaughters and his son that Gypsy was gone. They buried her down toward the front of the property near where the big tree uprooted last month during the bad weather. This evening Chloe, her sister, and the girls' grandma and grandpa went down to the site and placed a cement stone shaped like the state of Texas with the word Gypsy painted on it. Each of us asked that she now rest in peace, blessed her and spoke of what a good dog she had always been.

That dog Gypsy was just the best!