Mid May

It's been an all over the place couple of weeks. The Most traumatic part being the passing of my Pogo friend Jeanette. We knew that she was ill with COPD but since she was a person who never complained we were not aware of just how serious it was. Jeanette was the glue that kept our little online group together. She reminded us of birthdays and kept us up with each other lives, she even made a web page with all our pictures. Pictures of our pets, Grand kids, what ever caught her eye. Her emails to us were a daily event full of chatter, pictures and laughs. Just an all around good friend, trying to describe how much she will be missed is almost impossible. Of course as we get older this will happen more and more, not any easier though. Please, any of you who smoke, please quit. The illnesses caused by this nasty habit are devastating, to you and to all those who love you. Take the money you spend on cigarettes, save it and go take a cruise with loved ones or buy yourself something neat. What ever it takes, please quit.

On another note, the goats have a new play yard. My neighbor helped me put up electric fence to make them a place to run, play and eat weeds. It only took about 3 hours and since it uses a string type and fiberglass poles I was able to do quite a bit of it. He helped with the insulators, and wiring which I was not comfortable doing. The girls had a nice afternoon. In the pictures you can just see the wire and pink tape, they dove right in eating the weeds. Star is putting Valentine in her place, and then taking a snooze. They are so funny.

Jim is actually going to be home for 4 days, hard to believe. He only had a day and a half this past weekend and worked every minute, got 2 cars working. Poor guy has to go back to work to rest. With Jim home we will be able to fence in at least one more area for the goats so they will have plenty of space to eat and play. I feel so much better with them having more space and being able to exercise. I found the barn kitties kittens, they are so cute. Now I have to work at getting friendly with them, I got mama so she will let me pet her. I am hoping that Jim will be able to drill the holes for the blown in insulation, with those done we will be able to buy the insulation, get the machine and ta da. I imagine the first stage will be the down stairs, not quite sure how much 10 bags covers. Ten bags are the minimum for getting the use of the machine that blows in the insulation, I am learning all these cool things,lol.

The apple trees are starting to bloom and so are the strawberry plants. More tulips have come up and so have daffodils and narcissus. More and more plants are showing signs of life which makes my day. A few of the plants I ordered showed up and many more should be on their way. Like a drawn out Christmas.

I wish the best to all, enjoy what is important. We spend so much time pursuing the glitter we miss the real gems in life. Barbara