Time for Bullets

• So good to be home. Got back from Arkansas on Friday night. We both enjoyed working on this Disaster Response--loved Arkansas and the great people there.
• Our weather is sure all over the place....97 one day (in Llano) and then 29 last night.....and that wind is something else.
• We had a brush fire come within a block of our house. They stopped it just before it got to the outbuilding of the house down the street.
• We have a new baby calf--about a week old--so very cute and frisky.
• Went to the ranch yesterday to get the Bobcat as Don is determined to finish his pond here. He worked on it all day today. Has bunch of friends coming on Saturday to help him put the liner in. We have big visions of fishing with grandkids in it.
• It is starting to feel like spring: my Jasmine is in bloom, the birds are singing, just that feelin' is in the air. I expect to see a few Bluebonnets poking their heads out soon. And I can already taste the strawberries from Sweetberry Farm down the road. I love spring.
• We are thankful to have escaped all the flu and bugs going around.
• That's all my news for now. Just enjoying the time at home.

Is anyone out there?

Hey, I am getting real lonely here in blogworld. We are away from home and I miss hearing from everyone and I blogged a bunch and every time I get to log on I am so excitied to see if there are comments and what do I see but......0 comments. I need comments! I need to know someone cares about me out there. I am sad and let down.

And Tania, Christy, Gina, Kara---are you ever going to blog again? I miss you.

ok--I said it, now I will take down the pity party decorations.

Our service center closed down and everyone has left but Don and I who have to stay and do casework out of our motel. There really is not much to do so it is like a day off. It is cold and rainy outside so good day to rest up in motel room. Hastings is across the street so I did have some fun browsing there this morning. We might have snow tomorrow.

Glimpses of the Past

My "H"

Ok--remember a few posts back when I complained about my H on my keyboard sticking and being very cantankerous. Well, after we got to Arkansas, I pulled out my laptop and the H worked pretty as you please--just like it was supposed to. Guess the gremlin just needed a little plane ride.........

Greetings from Arkansas

Don and I have been in Arkansas for a week with Red Cross helping victims of the wicked tornadoes that swept across the state on Feb. 5. We are working in Gassville and Mountain View and staying in Mountain Home. We have done lots of driving doing outreach--where we go house to house checking on people so we have seen lots and lots of awful destruction. Part of interviewing victims and doing casework is listening to their stories of what happened. The people here are just so nice, warm, friendly, resilient, gracious, giving, unselfish,--just plain good people. The communities are awesome. They take care of each other. They are there for each other. Churches all work together to serve their community and open their arms and help. We have to practically beg people to take our help. Never have we worked a disaster where more people have insurance. And these are not wealthy, well-to-do areas. The average income is around $25, 000. But they have ingegrity. They lead decent and orderly lives. I would venture to say the vast majority of them have a strong faith in God and live out that faith. It is such a pleasure to work here and get to meet and talk with this community.
Tornadoes are just so fickle. So very unpredictable. Unless you witness firsthand their destruction it is almost unbelievable. How can they destroy a brick home yet leave a vase of flowers on the table? They mow down three houses in a row, skip one, and mow down three more. They are just so weirdly awesome and so wickedly deadly. I am awed by the stories I hear so in the next post I will share some with you.
We are enjoying our co-workers on this job and just being here to help out what we can. Alisa and the animals are having fun at home. Happy Valentines Day!

oh, and this--the highschool gym where we have our service center is also a donation drop off that the teachers are doing to help the community. It is like being in the middle of a huge garage sale and not able to look or touch----it's driving me nuts!

Tornado Stories

I have an awesome story of survival to tell you about. There was a family who lived on Main St. in Gassville, Arkansas, one of the hardest hit areas of the state, who came to Red Cross for assistance. Gassville’s sirens never went off to warn people. This was their description of the moments before the tornado struck. The mother had been home sick in bed all day. Older son, who normally would have been on computer in his room, had gone to the school to get the younger son from basketball practice. Dad and daughter were in the living room with six year old they were watching for a friend. At about 5 pm Dad saw the friend pull in the driveway and went to tell his wife her friend was there. She got up out of bed, went to kitchen and made a pitcher of tea noticing her friend was still in car talking on the phone. Dad happened to glance out the window and saw the patio furniture levitating and the darkness of the sky. He grabbed the six year old and dove under the big oak dining table in the kitchen, covering her with his body as he yelled for the others to take cover. The mother said one moment she was reaching in the cabinet to get a glass to pour herself a glass of tea and the next moment she was on the floor with rain pouring down. The only wall left standing was the one with the cabinet she was reaching into. All the other walls and the roof were gone. The oak table saved the lives of the father and friend’s child as it kept the wall and roof from falling on them. The daughter described screaming as the wall “chased” her. The friend road out the storm in her car out front--it was battered badly and a large metal object speared the seat next to her but she was ok. The two sons were ok but had they been at home and in their bedrooms, and had the mom still been in her bed they would not have survived. All family members were unharmed except for scrapes and bruises.

And the pitcher of tea stood on the counter undisturbed.


Rob had just gotten home from work when he heard the sirens so he sheltered in the pantry of his older, rock home. His home was nothing but a big pile of rubble in just a few moments but somehow he was able to crawl out from under it unharmed. He looked around him and heard a car horn closeby that kept honking ever so often. He discovered it was jammed into the rubble of his house and contained his neighbor who was honking for help. He had to remove debris and pull the man through the truck window. Don visited the neighbor in the hospital and he said he was in Walmart when he noticed the weather getting bad so he left quickly for home. The tornado struck before he could get from the truck into his house and his house and Rob’s ,across the road, both exploded and jammed his truck between them. He is recovering quickly.


Another family came in---a single mom with two boys. They lived in a mobile home on her brother’s land. When they heard the tornado warnings they evacuated to a neighbor’s home a few blocks away. The nine year old was worried about leaving his pet guinea pig in the house. They returned to find their home totally destroyed but as they walked into what used to be their home they heard a familiar squealing and found the guinea pig still on the bottom of his cage though his cage roof had blown away. He was shook up, but fine, and his boy was elated.

The only death we dealt with was a sad story. A woman lived in a mobile home and when she heard the warnings she evacuated to her boyfriend’s brick home. Her mobile home was untouched but she died when her boyfriend’s home was demolished. He is still in the hospital.

An elderly lady told me a sweet story. She had lost her husband a year ago and had given her son his dad’s recliner and some of his tools. The tornado destroyed most of her son’s home but the recliner was undisturbed and the tools remained on the workbench where he had placed them.

Oh, No!

It seems our dog saga has not yet ended. Today, Don got an email from the guy who took the yellow lab, Megan (the neighborhood menace). Sherman, our neighbor whose lady friend owned the dog, went to this guy and paid him $500 to get the dog back because his lady friend was so unhappy. The guy was not at all happy as he had put lots of time and money into keeping the dog. I so hope Sherman will not let her loose and will be responsible this time. This dog has cost him $2200.00 because of her bad behavior. Just when we thought we could relax and our pets would be safe......

Leaving for Arkansas

We just got the call to leave for Arkansas. Instead of driving the ERV we will be doing Damage Assessment. We're flying to Little Rock then driving to Russellville. This will be a different kind of assignment for us but we are looking forward to it. Doing damage assessment on tornadoes is not too hard as ,sadly, their generally is not much left to assess. It is weird how these tornadoes come so badly so early in the season. This time last year we were in Daytona Beach for tornadoes that hit there. Tornadoes are the worst disasters--so fickle in who they pick on--and so incredibly viscious.

Please pray for us to have comforting words and compassionate listening ears for those we meet and for God to be in charge of our assignments. It is so hard to know what to say to comfort those whose lives have just been so devastated. We just want God to use us.

So we are off. Will keep you posted

my Jenny Rose

We're off again (I think)

We bought a truck yesterday--2003 Ford-350 4x4 FX diesel crew cab. We love it--very roomy back seat, 4 doors, white. Don is beyond excited.

We are on call for Red Cross for the tornadoes that wrecked havoc across the nation this week--expect to leave today driving the ERV.

Went to the ranch yesterday to take hay and check on things. All was well. Animals were fine--lots of baby goats and lambs--so very cute. They all followed us in two lines as we walked the ranch. It was so good to be out there--as we were leaving we both commented at same time how we hate to leave the ranch.

We have enjoyed being home and getting stuff done around here and just resting up. Feels good.
I love February--those gorgeous days that bring hints of spring. I have been planting pansies and Johnny Jump-ups like crazy. Their sweet little faces are just so pretty and welcoming on my front porch and just lift my spirits.

I miss Mason and Grant something awful--have really enjoyed all the pics Jenny has posted.

My “h” on keyboard is acting up--so in my future writing if you see the word te--that means the. Sure are lots of h’s in words--slows down my typing something awful. Tank goodness spell ceck catches some of them.

My Computer Gremlin

Hi--I have a tale to tell. I have known for sometime that I have a gremlin in my computer who just likes to mess with me and drive me nuts. In times past he has: made my list of favorites just disappear; made my entire Quicken program disappear; taken the sound away and made my CD unable to copy CDs ---all these things would occur at different times, for no apparent reason then in a week or so they would suddenly reappear and work properly with no doing on my part. I had eyewitnesses to these problems!! They were real.
Well, a week ago I had used my computer on Sunday then the next morning tried to get online only to have my computer tell me that my modem--my internal modem--had gone missing. It just was not there--nor was the COM3 port it was supposed to be attached to. I tried all the diagnostics and stuff I could to discover the problem--so did Don and Micah spent over an hour on the phone with us trying to get to the bottom of the problem. Nothing would help.
So that is why I have been AWOL from the blogworld. It was making me so mad. I had to just leave the computer alone for days cuz I wanted to shoot it. So today, I decided enough was enough and called the repair shop in town and arranged to bring it in to the "Laptop hospital". So I get there and proceed to tell the technician my problems and he boots it up and, lo and behold, the sound chimes in, the modem is all there and she is working beautifully. It is like when you take a car to the repair shop for the weird noise it is making and it purrs perfectly for the mechanic........ I think the little gremlin got scared he was gonna be found and departed on the way to the doctor.
Then, I got to thinking about the other times when problems corrected themselves suddenly and they all involved me moving the laptop---going to the ranch; coming home from New York; coming home from San Angelo, etc. We have stayed put for over a month now and I think my computer missed the travel--was bored being on the same ole desk day after day--needed some excitement and new places and once I put her in the car and took her for a ride she straightened right up. So, thankfully, I am up and running again and can get online. I am so glad even if my son, Micah, is now absolutely sure his mom is crazy. I can't wait to catch up on blogs and all kinds of stuff. I never realized how much I use the internet until it is gone.
Don and I are busy searching for a new (used, but new to us) pickup truck. He has spent hours pouring over the internet looking for good deals and learning about the different options. We have looked at a few and really like a 2003 Ford-350 diesel crew cab we found in Austin. It is just such a nice truck, one owner, and so roomy yet so powerful which we need on the ranch and to pull the Bobcat. Will let you know how it goes.