ASKING FOR PRAYERS!!!

It is an unusual time we are in right now. There are so many earth challenges happening in so very many places that every time I turn on the TV another catastrophe has occurred. Currently there are wildfires burning in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Florida. Thousands of acres of precious life sustaining trees have been burned thusfar and many people have either lost their homes due to the fires or have been asked to leave until further notice.

In North Dakota, nearly 11,000 people were evacuated when the river flowing through Minot crested several feet above flood level causing the entire valley to flood.

My dear friend who lives in Palm Coast, Florida has been keeping me informed about the brushfires in northeastern Florida. Over 5,000 acres have burned thusfar and as of today it is only 50% contained. (In an earlier post I spoke about the beautiful rainbows created by the plumes of water used to water the golf course. What makes it even more special is that all of the water used to water the golf course and the landscape is reclaimed water or grey water. Nice conservation effort.)

My twin is in Albuquerque, New Mexico where a recent fire in the Los Alamos area has forced friends of hers to leave their jobs and their home. The fire is within a half mile from Los Alamos Labs and at night the flames can be seen as far away as Albuquerque, 80 miles south.

These are just a few of the many earth challenges occurring in our country. There are so many more both here and abroad causing many of us to wonder what is going on, when will it end, and what will happen to all of us afterwards?

It is difficult not to go into fear and to question our faith when difficult times are upon us. However, having lived in a community of lightworkers for many years and participated in many prayers circles, I know the power of collective prayers.

As you read this, take a few moments to offer up words of the highest vibration of Love. Hold the image of our earthly Mother coming into balance, the rains falling in those areas most needed, the rivers shrinking back within their banks, the air quality fresh and clean, life renewing itself, and all of creation finding a sense of peace and harmony. Whether you hold these images or others, please move into your heart and send that energy out into your world. Join with thousands of like-minded people around the world as we vision a new heaven on earth.

As always, I am deeply honored by your presence in my life. Om Shanti Om!!!!!!

Namaste'

MACH 5 ROSIE!!!

What an incredible weekend I had with my sister, Sandy. We drove to Westchester, Maryland on Friday evening so we could be ready for the Golden Retriever Agility Trial being held the following two days.

Sandy has been competing in agility for nearly 20 years and has earned a wonderful reputation both as a competitor and as a trainer. Here she is getting Rosie ready to go into the ring for the final event of the day yesterday. Although Rosie had three awesome runs on Saturday she failed to double "Q", which means she needed two runs in one day where she had a "qualifying" run, both completing the agility run without any mistakes and also doing it within the time allotted.

So, coming into Sunday morning, the pressure was on. I had whispered to Rosie "if you get your double Q today, I'll buy you your very own hot dog, but don't tell your mommy!!"

My job, all weekend, was to hold the vision of Sandy getting her final double Q. Now keep in mind, in order to get each title, MACH 1, MACH 2, ... the dog needs 20 double Q's. Rosie had been trying since November of last year to complete this title. It also is worth mentioning, Rosie is the only German Short-haired Pointer in AKC history to earn this MACH 5 title. There are several GSP's coming up behind her which are earning their MACH titles, but Rosie is leading the way. For those of you who don't know what MACH is, it's Master Agility Champion.

Here's Sandy getting Rosie ready to start the final run of the day. She Q'd in the first event and all she needs is a clean run in this event. I stood there, holding my breath, watching Rosie and Sandy go through each obstacle until finally Rosie jumped over the final pole and the whole crown exploded in cheers and applause. Most of the people who enter these events have been competing together for years and they all know each other. Dogs of all persuasions and sizes compete, beginning with the 4" breeds on up to 26" breeds. Sandy and Rosie compete at the 20" level. So, CONGRATULATIONS SANDY AND ROSIE!!!!!

Later, I told my brother-in-law, it was a good thing Rosie got her title this weekend, or else I was going to have to stay until she did. Considering I've been here a month now, I could see the look of relief on his face, knowing I'd be leaving soon. Actually he's been very accomodating and easy to be around. Although he and Sandy have been married over 40 years, I've never spent this much time around him and we've had a really good time getting to know each other better.

This little cutie is Sami. She's a Labradoodle competing at the 24" level and just a few weeks ago completed her MACH 1 title. She is an absolutely amazing dog, friendly, outgoing, loves agility and most everyone knows who she is. I've fallen deeply in love with her and I keep threatening to take her on the road with me. The AKC just changed their rules and are letting cross-breeds compete now, so I expect Sami will be earning many titles before she's done.

If you see or speak to Sandy, be sure to congratulate her. Rosie is 11 years old now, so we're not sure how many more events she'll be competing in. Not to worry, though, Sandy and Tom have quite a few more dogs they can work in the ring.

Hasta luego, mi amigos y amigas!!!!!

LITTLE PEEPS!!!

Yesterday, Tom and I moved these little peeps to a new home in a much larger cardboard box. My brother-in-law raises pheasants, quail and pigeons for sale to various people for hunting and for eating purposes. One of my tasks has been to periodically help maintain the birds by feeding and watering. At the same time I look for any new eggs and bring them into the house for later inclusion in the incubator Tom has in the garage. This batch has both pheasants and quails, about 70 babies in all. Most of what you see here are the quail, but the larger black and white bird you see here is a pheasant. Tom says it will be all black when it gets more fully matured.

The day before we moved the birds to their new home, I had quite the adventure. It seems one of the pheasants figured how to get out of the box and was sitting up on top. I kept hearing a peep-peep-peep noise and looked up to see it running across the top of the box. I jumped up and ran over and caught the little guy and put him back into his home containder. Moments later I saw, out of the corner of my eye, something running across the carpet and looked at it only to realize it was another pheasant, probably the same one. Again I jumped up (don't tell me I'm not getting any exercise) and chased the little devil behind the couch where I promptly lost him. I searched everywhere and never saw him again. Now, keep in mind Sandy and Tom raise German short-hair pointers who do what --- retrieve birds. In the same living room where this little guy is running around lives a rather large dog, in his kennel, called Lightning. A few moments later Tom comes in and I tell him what has happened, so we both start the hunt again for the bird and do not find him. The little peeper is not making a single sound and we neither one can find any trace of the little rascal. Tom then goes out to take care of the puppies and I get the flashlight out again to look one more time behind the large aquarium in the living room and lo and behold, there he is just sitting there, not moving or making a sound. As I lay down on the floor to reach under the tank, the bird dashes out and runs straight into, yep, you guessed it, right into Lightning's cage. He is so surprised by this he jumps up and does a 180 in his cage and goes after the bird and I'm in the process of screaming, LIGHTNING, DOWN!!! I can't figure how to get the door open and the bird is running back and forth. I hear Tom come in the back door so I yell at him about what's happened and he gets the kennel door open and Lightning out. I'm holding the dog, Tom is trying to capture the bird who is running in and out of the kennel and finally, finally we get the bird, none the worse for wear, and put him back into the box. The little guy has no idea how very close he came to being an appetizer that day!!!

Bet you now wish you were here!!! I'm marking things off my "bucket list" right and left!!! The rest of you are going to have to travel pretty far to catch up with me.

So, all is well that ends well and I would say this day ended well!

DELMARVA CHICKEN FESTIVAL

Today I talked my brother-in-law, Tom, into going with me to see the world's largest frying pan. It's really quite something, with four sections that can hold up to 200 pieces in each quarter. When we got to the festival, this skillet was filled with oil but no chicken. We waited a few minutes and talked with the guys doing the cooking, then they started to throw the 1/4 chicken pieces into one-quarter of the pan.

This pan was built originally in the 1950's and they've been cooking chicken in it ever since. Tom and I each bought a piece to bring home, and it was delicious. Of course, the chickens are raised right here in Delaware.

We spent about 2 hours walking around, stopping at a few vendors, drank some rootbeer and lemonade, Tom asked about solar paneling for his home, and then decided we'd had enough of fun in the sun and headed home. For those of you who know Tom, we had to first make a pit-stop at the local Wa-Wa store for coffee. I have to say I've gotten a little spoiled myself, they have a really flavorful hazelnut coffee with hazelnut creamer, so I also had to get my fix as well.

So, that's my exciting day- try to beat this!!!!

WORK, WORK,WORK!!!

This has been an interesting week. Sandy approached me last week and asked if I'd be interested in doing some data entry for Nanticoke Hospital's IT Department. I told her I'd be glad to do some work so yesterday and today I was up at 6 a.m., haven't done that since I retired last August.

We arrived at her office and immediately I was put to work transferring files from one area of the computer to another. For nearly seven hours, I sat in front of a computer and managed to get through seven pages of spread sheets, put into an Excell program. I not only had to make sure all of what was on the spread sheet got entered, but also had to make sure the temporary files that weren't on the spread sheet got transferred as well. To give you an idea, there were 80 entries for the Emergency Department alone. Here's Sandy just moments away from us leaving for the day today, at 12:30 pm. I was sitting directly in front of her cubicle, easy for us to talk back and forth, although there wasn't alot of that going on, we both had alot to get done in a short period of time.

Jody, Sandy's boss who asked if I wanted to do this work (all voluntary) left to go on vacation today and she was so happy to have all this data entry work completed before she left. I felt like I'd done my good deed in helping to make her vacation more enjoyable.

This is one of two walls on either side of Sandy's cubicle. She told me the story of telling one of the ladies she worked with that she was going to put beads up across her "doorway", so these beads were the woman's daughters and when she left to go to college, the woman brought them to Sandy. They are quite colorfull. The pictures are naturally of Rosie, Sandy's all-time favorite dog, the one who has earned her MACH I, II, III and IV (Master Agility Champion). This weekend Sandy has taken her to Virginia and with any good fortune with finish with her final "double Q", meaning she runs two separate agility courses and gets a qualifying run in each. If she does that she'll have earned her MACH V title. So far there are no German Shorthaired Pointers to earn that title, Rosie will be the first.

Tom and I are baby sitting the dogs and the puppies. It's so funny to watch them eat, all five of them circle their bowl as if they are in a turnstyle and circle, and circle and circle until all the food is gone. Five little puppy heads bent over into the bowl with every tail standing straight up in the air. They really are adorable. But then, have you ever seen an ugly puppy, kitten or baby. I haven't!!!

Keep your fingers crossed and if you're really lucky, I'll have a picture of the world's largest frying pan from the Chicken Festival this weekend, yes, right here in Georgetown.

For all the men in my life, family of origen, family of choice and my male friends, I say happy Father's Day to you. It is a day we honor those men who have touched our lives in some way. I have been fortunate to have many male friends and family members who have given me much love. With Sandy gone this weekend and Tom's two sons unable to come over for the day, I plan to make his favorite breakfast of french toast with bacon. Then I'm going to try to talk him into going to the movies with me. I hope your day is filled with the pleasure of honoring or being honored. My love to all of you!!!!!

TO THE BEACH!!

Here's the motley looking crew, Larry and Jenny in the front, and Sandy and Tom in the back at Rehoboth Beach. This beach is on the Atlantic Ocean and is about 45 minutes from Georgetown, Delaware. Rehoboth has a beautiful boardwalk, and is a real tourist attraction during the summer. There are plenty of shopping venues as well as any number of restaurants and fast food areas.

Sandy and I went for a walk down the boardwalk. To her left is the ocean and beach and you can see the businesses on the right. As you drive towards the boardwalk you pass several blocks of boutiques, specialty shops, a shop called Buddhas and Beads where I bought a wonderful statue of a monk in prayer position. I really love going to Rehoboth and just walking or sitting in one of the benches watching the people stroll. Sandy says in the late fall and winter many of the shops close and there are very few people on the boardwalk.

As we sat watching people we noticed the moon, mostly full. I took this picture of a building holds equipment and the moon in the background. It was a beautiful sunset, the sky turned several shades of pink, and the weather was about 70 degrees, much cooler than we've had for several weeks. This was our last night for all of us to be together, Jenny and Larry left the next day to return to Ohio.

Today, Wednesday, I went to see the movie Water for Elephants with Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson. I was pleasantly surprised to see Hal Holbrook at the beginning of the film as the older Robert Pattinson. After reading the book, I was glad to see the film followed the story line of the book. If you want to see a good movie, I recommend this film.

There are a couple of scenes involving violence to an elephant, but there is also some retribution by the elephant. It's also a good story, well worth the read.

It appears I'll be in Delaware until about the 25th or 26th of June and then my plans are to head to Ohio to spend the 4th of July with Jenny and Larry. They are planning on putting the pontoon boat into the water for the holiday to watch the fireworks. Sounds like fun to me!!! See you all in the funny papers!!!

ALL ABOARD!!!!

Jenny and Larry made it to Delaware and in pretty good time. So, yesterday, Jenny, Sandy and I decided to take the Lewes, Delaware to Cape May, New Jersey ferry. We had tried several years ago to make this trip and when we got to the ferry we found out we had missed the last boat.

This time we got to the terminal in plenty of time and here's Sandy and Jenny (on right) on board the Cape Henlopen boat. We had a beautiful day, even though weather forecasters were calling for storms.

Here's one of the boats, there were two available for the ferrying of passengers and vehicles.



















This is a map with Lewes on the far left, the ferry boat in the middle and Cape May on the far right. The trip takes about 90 minutes and they have a bar, restaurant (of sorts), games and gift shop. Once we got off the boat in Cape May, Jenny was really tired from walking, so we stopped to let her catch her breath. When we got ready to catch the bus into Cape May, we discovered we had missed it and the next boat wasn't coming for another 90 minutes. So we decided to eat in the terminal, and had a pretty decent meal for a very reasonable price. Then we caught the next bus and made it, finally, to Cape May. Jenny decided to stay at the welcome center, since she didn't feel as if she could walk very far, so Sandy and I took off for the center of the shopping area. It's a very quaint Victorian type shopping area, very reminiscent of St. Augustine, Florida. The entire mall area is much like the downtown Memphis mall, all bricked in with no vehicles allowed on the mall. Shops of all types and Sandy and I visited several. Then we found the local ice cream parlor and bought ourselves one with one for Jenny. Even though Sandy and I walked quickly back to the welcome center, Jenny's ice cream became more of a shake by the time we got back.










Here's another picture of Jenny sitting in the rocking chair in Sandy and Tom's living room. She just got a new phone, so she's very intent in getting it to work.













And, finally, here's my brother-in-law. We all had a good laugh over this picture of him.






I also took my camper in this morning to have it worked on. So far, it's about 3:30 in the afternoon, and I've heard nothing from them. Hope they can at least get to it today to let me know what they will need to do to fix it.


Hope all are well, enjoying their Monday, either at work or at play!!! Coley, glad you finally made it back to the States!!! Hugs and Kisses to all!!!!

MORE NEWS FROM DELAWARE

As of today, I am still at my sister's house in Georgetown, Delaware. We are preparing for the arrival of our oldest sister, Jenny and her husband, Larry, this weekend. I've been busy cleaning, from top to bottom, Sandy and Tom's home. You can imagine with all the dogs house much cleaning needs to be done.

Although it's really a long, drawn out process, I am really happy to be here to help get this done. What with Tom's poor health, right now, and Sandy's schedule of work, dog shows and dog trainings, she is completely wiped out when she finally gets to a point where she can sit down for a few minutes.

For those of you who don't know, Sandy went to St. Louis a few weeks to take the test to be a judge at agility trials. She learned from one of the testers that very few pass this test the first time, but Sandy did and now is qualified to judge the trials. I believe she'll be getting into this area and not competing as much.

The above picture is our friend, Joy, who also competes in agility and teaches as well. I met her several years ago when she came to Sandy's to participate in the firewalk along with all my sisters. She also competed in the latest agility trial this past weekend. We had hoped Sandy and Rosie, her 13 year old German shorthaired pointer, would make her final double Q, but she did not. Once she earns this final double Q, Rosie will have her MACH V title, which is Master Agility Champion. One of Sandy's students, Don, and his labradoodle earned their first MACH I over the weekend. The dog is so beautiful and has the best temperament around people and dogs. Sorry I didn't get a picture of them.

This Joy's dog, Triton, she competes with. I just love this picture with Triton staring out the window watching the cat and the puppies trying to figure out what he is. Sandy and Tom have a male named Lightning who is in a kennel just to the right of this picture. When the puppies come in they each ease over to look at him and he begins to bark at them which sends them off scurrying back to safety.

I finally found an RV place to look at my camper and I have an appointment on Monday morning next. Please keep me in your prayers for this work to be done efficiently, quickly and with little strain on my pocketbook. I'm looking forward to being back in my little home on wheels.

Coley, have a safe trip and give Calleen a hug from me. I hope you get to see everyone you hope to and have a ball at the same time!!! Freckles, welcome back home!!! I know you're glad to be back and I'm sure Mike is thrilled as well.

Time to get to work to finish my cleaning. Sending hugs to all my family and friends!!!!

My Bucket List Opportunity!!!!!!!!

I've been in Delaware for several days and part of what I've been doing is enjoying a new litter of German Shorthair puppies, seven in all. They are 8 weeks old now and absolutely the cutest puppies ever. However, has anyone ever seen an ugly puppy?????

Here's my sister, Sandy, checking out their baby teeth to see if everyone is doing OK in that department. Having my big toe chewed on by several of these "monsters", I can attest to the fact their teeth are just fine.

This is one of my favorite shots, the puppies are running around the tree through Sandy's irises. As you can see, the irises are flattened but the puppies are having a great time. They love to play tug-of-war, they will chew on anything unless you watch them carefully, and they are so cute trying to get up and down the stairs leading into the house. Many a puppy has done a belly flop trying to jump down off the step, and just like kids have no fears, these little ones are apt to jump from the porch down into the flower beds, three steps high.

This is my personal favorite of all the pups. A cute female with the only solid white tail. All the others have a brown spot at the tail area. Except for some spots in her white coat, she has a solid brown head and white body. She's got a really cute personality also. Sandy thought she was going to be shy, but I believe she's finding herself and starting to step up her game. Beverly, this is the pup I told you about. I think Joe would love this one to have as his companion. What do you think???

Now, imagine if you will, seven adult dogs, all the same breed. They each have their own kennel, both a covered area and a "run" area. Sandy decided on Sunday she wanted to power wash each of the seven kennels. So of course I offered to help. The kennels had not been power washed for quite a few months, so many of them had a green mold growing up the walls. Sandy did the first one, I did the next and we alternated back and forth. If you've never had dog crap and green mold bulleted up into your face, you're really missing something. I told Sandy "now I can mark this off my bucket list of things I'd like to do before I die." She said "you have a really weird bucket list!!!" She also said, "bet you've never had this much fun at any of your other sister's houses." She's got a point there. So, all my sisters have a challenge now, to make it to the top of my bucket list!!!! I'm sure someone can beat this experience, but I'm not sure how!!! Ain't life grand!!!!