Really, I'm here

We really are still here. Work, kids, life, stockshows and the like make it hard to post on one blog, let alone two.
If you're interested in what we've been up to, check the family blog, here.

This Afternoon

Surprisingly, we have kept our electricity all day. The sleet has turned to light snow. In the pictures, most of the accumulation is sleet.

Sleet built up on the awning above our back door. The wind would then blow it, and it would fall down between the awning and the house. When it was time to go feed, we had to go out the front door and dig out to be able to open the back door.

We just got word that school is cancelled again tomorrow.

This Morning

These pictures were taken this morning when Robby and I went out to feed. It was a little before nine and a fairly thick coating of ice covered everything. It has been sleeting ever since. The sleet is supposed to change over to snow any time. I'm hoping for sooner rather than later.

Ice makes for lots of interesting photographs. I'm just not much for taking pictures when sleet is stinging my cheeks. Hopefully I'll be able to post more pictures after we feed this afternoon. (That will mean we still have electricity.)

I'm off to get the kids started on a puzzle.

I'm Just Sayin'...

Our hotel burned Sunday. It was an old building, it had not been used as a hotel in years. When I was a kid, an antique store was there briefly. The building was old and in disrepair. That being said, it was our building, a part of our town's history. Once upon a time, people spent the night there. Perhaps they enjoyed a meal in the cafe, bought groceries from the store there or even got a haircut and a shave.

This article appeared in the Amarillo paper today. Boys ranging in age from 9-12 are facing arson charges. I am saddened by that. I am also outraged by the fact that kids thought it was okay to do this and by the comments at the end of the article. Some people believe that the boys shouldn't be punished because they are young and because the building was an "eyesore." I wonder if they'd think that if it had happened in their town, or to their house, or to their property. I wonder if they'd think that if 3 fire departments had to come to their town and spend 7 hours and use no telling how much water to put it out.

The owner of the building is probably not going to take responsibility for the cleanup. More than likely it will fall to our city to foot the bill. We are not a rich community, the cost will certainly hurt our town.

I like to think that we may live in one of the few places that still has a sense of right and wrong. How safe will our town be if kids are allowed to set fire to random buildings? Are we in danger of losing our small-town greatness??

I'm not saying that the people responsible should be sent up the river, I'm just trying to say that it is time we started making people accountable for their actions.

I'll step down from my soap box now...


My sister has great thoughts here. A friend of mine from Happy had this to say. I'm so proud of both Kelly and my sister for capturing what makes our community great.

You can see pictures of the fire here. (Aren't cell phones amazing? I'm told that pics were on Facebook as the fire was in progress...modern technology at its finest.)

(Sorry for the lack of spaces between paragraphs...Blogger is not cooperating!)

Picture of the Day

This is what happens when you leave clothes on the line overnight in January.

Comments

Hello all,

We are in the midst of county stockshow week...life is definitely busy here. Add fiddle lessons, basketball practice and asthma flair-ups to the list and it is on the verge of crazy. And, I forgot to mention that we have to go to school, too.

I just wanted to post a brief note about comments. I've had to add the word verification because of issues with spam. Also, comments on older posts are being moderated. I would love for you to comment on anything on the blog, but I'm not loving the spam so much. I'm sorry posts are so spread out; life is just like that some times.

Thanks for reading!

Laura

Happy International Livestock Show

Our local stockshow, the Happy International Livestock Show, was yesterday. It is a time for the youth of our community to practice before our county shows. This year was the 61st annual show.

Our local show is great for several reasons. The kids compete against each other, but they also help each other out and are proud of their friends when they do well. Showmanship may be a more coveted award than Grand Champion.

The people that make sure the show goes well are another thing that makes it great. Yesterday, I looked around and saw people helping that had no kids involved. They were either Happy graduates coming back to pitch in or parents whose children are no longer showing. One man hasn't had any kids showing since I last showed. It's pretty cool that people in our community care enough about our kids to make sure they have memorable opportunities.

During awards, Sadie sits with friends of our that help with the show every year. Neither one of them has anyone showing anymore, but they still are faithful helpers.

Another cool thing about the show is we take time to let the kids that aren't old enough to show have a turn. We have "Pee Wee Showmanship" with the lambs and pigs. Everyone gets a ribbon.

My dad was a great supporter of the show. It's now named Happy International because he used to joke about calling it that when we were kids. The Hustler award is named after him. I think he'd be proud to see that not much has changed since his kids were showing. It's still all about the kids and hopefully will continue to be.

To see more pictures of the show, go to our family website, here.

Our Day

We woke up this morning to a winter wonderland. Ice crystals coated trees, fences, wires, etc. I took these pictures from our front porch.

Happy

Here are the last of my "Happy" shots until I have time to get to town and take some more. We have several historical markers around town, which I think will be fun to share. My sister has posted some of her pictures from our stroll around town on her blog. I liked reading what she remembers from our childhood.

This is the Brooks Memorial Chapel. It used to be the Presbyterian church. It's the church where my brother, sister and I were christened. We were the last babies christened there. When the church membership decided to close because of numbers and age, they sold the building to a funeral home in Canyon. Brooks did an outstanding job refurbishing/remodeling the building. It is neat that a piece of our history is still a usable asset to the community.

This is the top of one of the elevators. You can faintly see the words "Harman-Toles." It's now owned by Attebury Grain. My dad worked here until Attebury bought it, then he started farming.

Here the cousins are on our shoot. You may have noticed that our Main Street is brick. I think that makes it cool.

More shots of Happy

This is the south side of Main Street. The brick building houses Happy State Bank. It was founded here in 1908 (I think). It has grown into a very competitive regional bank with branches all over the Panhandle. My Aunt Judy has worked here for as long as I can remember. My kids always look forward to the sucker and balloon they get when we stop by. On our photo shoot last week, Judy invited us in to the back to watch coins being rolled.

Beside it is the Grand Theater. A local lady, Carolyn Bloodworth has refurbished the outside and is in the process of doing some work on the inside. She had her annual craft fair there. She's also working on a pictorial history of Happy. The Masons used the building after the theater closed. I've been to many a Rainbow meeting there. The Bloodworths purchased it when the Masons and Eastern Star quit meeting. We're lucky that someone is interested in keeping a building up. unfortunately, most of the buildings on Main Street have fallen into disrepair.

This is a very poor shot of our fire station. It sits on the North side of Main Street. We have an outstanding volunteer fire department with great equipment.

I'm not sure who owns the part of the building on the corner. I do remember it being a drug store and then a restaurant in my lifetime. The white building to the west of the fire station is the old Lions' Den. The Lions no longer meet, but I believe the Cub Scouts use the building for their meetings. A chiropractor from Lubbock (with Happy roots) comes either weekly or monthly and sets up shop there as well.

This building, the "Happy Center" is where the senior citizens meet. A group of ladies quilts weekly. I believe they have monthly luncheons and either weekly or monthly game nights.

You can see our "new" water tower in the background. To the west of the Happy Center is Jackson's Tax Service. She does taxes and keeps books for people. One more store to the west (not shown) is where my grandparents used to have Tirey Hardware. I'll try to get to town and take some better pictures if it ever warms up.

Around Town

I bought myself a new camera for Christmas. I have no idea how to use it yet, so I'm just leaving it on Auto. Yesterday, my sister and I took our kids for a photo shoot around Happy. For the next several posts, I'm going to share some shots of my town with you. It was a very overcast day yesterday, so the sky was terribly gray.

First off, proof that there really is a place called Happy, Texas. This is our post office:

Our old water tower:

A shot of the elevators along the railroad tracks. The elevators you see are concrete and were built by POWs during WWII. I'm not sure about all of the details, I'll try to go read the historical marker and get back to you on that.

There are more behind me and some to the west of the tracks. Unfortunately only one is open all the time now and one is open seasonally.

Happy sprang up along the railroad when it went through. It was important to the cattle industry and eventually to the grain industry. My grandmother told us about how they used to drive the cattle to town and put them in the pens (that would have been south of the current post office) by the tracks and then load them up to ship north. She told about how her uncle road the train with the cattle in 1918 and caught the flu and eventually died because of complications. (All of this happened before she was born.)

When we have a good wheat year we cut our grain and bring it to town to the elevator. Sometimes we even harvest maize in the fall. The grain is eventually shipped out on railroad cars.

A Day at Home

T.S. woke up in the middle of the night with a stomach bug. I've been fighting a cold and Robby is terribly busy at school, so we made the decision to have me stay home with T.S. today. This was my first "day at home" since school started.

I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. I got caught up on laundry, finished some craft orders and made marshmallows. T.S. was better by lunch time. I even got some presents wrapped. It was an interesting afternoon watching the progress of the cows that were out most of the day and of the electric coop as they replaced a pole in the pasture to our south. We even had some uninvited visitors to our north. By the time I figured out we had company, they realized I was home and left. It appeared to be two men with some sort of bird--I'm guessing either a hawk or a falcon. They were up near our tree line and would hold out an arm periodically and a bird would return to it. It kind of made me wonder what all goes on out here when we're not home.

I enjoy my job. It has been nice to be among adults and be a part of civilization, but I was reminded today how nice it is to just be at home.

Ready or not, it's winter!

Well, we've survived a VERY cold week. I'm not sure how many days we were below freezing or right above. I'm hoping this week wasn't a taste of what the rest of the winter will be like. It's funny how fast you can block out the memory of making sure all of the animals have unfrozen water. I'm hoping for a warm up next week.

Thankfulness

In the tradition of the season, I'm going to take the opportunity to list a few things for which I am thankful.

• My family and our health
• We live in such a great community--not many kids get to participate in a Thanksgiving feast at school and actually give thanks before they eat.
• The zoo--T.S. found one place the chickens have been laying, so he got to throw the old eggs at the tree. Somehow he ended up with egg on his socks and shoes.

I could list more, but I'll stop there for now.

I hope your Thanksgiving is filled with all you want and that you remember to keep an attitude of Thanksgiving throughout the year. (Especially when you start your Christmas shopping and have to deal with the million other souls who are shopping, too)

I really am still here...

Despite the fact that I haven't posted in a long time, I am still here. This month has been a blur of school activities, lessons after school and preparation for a craft show. Happy hosted it's first annual Cowboy Christmas Roundup. I chose to be a vendor at the show. I spent two weeks prior to it making bottle cap pendants, jewelry frames and decorating clip boards. Originally I had planned to include a few more items in my inventory, but time was not on my side--maybe next year.

The craft show was a huge success for me. I'm very grateful for all of the people who purchased from me since I was able to pay for most of Christmas (and purchase a few things for myself)with my proceeds. I still have several orders to fill, and there is quite a bit of interest in my bottle cap pendants. I haven't been able to photograph them well, but when I do I will post them.

We are all busy, the kids are good, the show animals are thriving. We are definitely looking forward to the Thanksgiving break. I keep thinking I'll get a better handle on balancing work, family and blogging, but it hasn't happened, yet. I've nearly got the work, family thing figured out--blogging will eventually come.

A Farm Tale...

I was in charge of feeding Sadie's show lambs today. As I was about to leave the pen, I noticed one of our bottle calves (now 1 1/2 years old and way passed time to be sold) had come up into the pens to see if I had a treat for him. Not wanting to be licked and head-butted (He has a huge head and horns and likes to "nudge" you from behind.), I chose to climb over the fences to get out.

Fast forward to 20 minutes ago...
Robby jumped up, got a gun out and ask if someone was supposed to be here. I responded, "no," grabbed the phone and followed him out. Stripes and Tiger were right by our bedroom window. The "brilliant" puppy we got this summer hadn't barked at all.

I had forgotten to close the big gate to the pens when I chose to climb out.

I'm sure the two of us were a site trying to persuade the calves back in. Thankfully, they respond well to feed being shaken in a bucket. Hopefully the black heifer that is in the pasture with them is still in the pasture--hard to find a black calf at night.

Just another day/night on the farm...

Why I Love Trick-Or-Treating in Happy...

Last night I was again reminded of how blessed we are to live in our little community. Here are a few reasons why:

• You don't have to get out at every house with your kids for two reasons. 1. Everyone knows them. 2. You'd never finish trick-or-treating because you'd visit too much.
• My kids received candy from some of the same people that used to hand it out to me.
• If you do get out with your kids, you can almost bet you'll walk away with a piece of candy, too.
• When someone opens the door, you hear, "Come on in here."
• The first year T.S. went trick-or-treating, a friend of ours opened both hands and gave T.S. a choice--candy or a golf ball. T.S. chose the golf ball. He's gotten a golf ball from him every year since.
• I came away from one house with new crocheted pot holders.
• Sadie was sad that we, "couldn't stop by Roberta's this year." How often does a 9 year old remember that a 90+ year old passed away since last Halloween? You could never leave Roberta's house without a sack of candy and a hug/kiss. She always wore bright lipstick, too.

Christmas Shopping

As much as I hate to admit it, it is that time of year--time to get out the Christmas list and get busy shopping. This year, a new event is happening that should solve some of your gift dilemmas. You can go to the Cowboy Christmas Roundup right here in Happy. Think about how cool it will be to shop locally. You'll save gas and support local businesses and crafters.

There's a link on my sidebar for more information.

Hope to see you on November 14-15!

Craft Project

Since the house is a wreck, laundry is overtaking us and I have two meetings tonight, I thought today would be a perfect day to tackle a project I'd had in my mind for a while. I painted a wooden frame, stapled some screen on the back, screwed in some mug hooks, attached a ribbon and I now have a new jewelry holder. My fishhook earrings fit perfectly in the screen. My necklaces are organized and it doubles as "art." I'm not wild about the hot-pink ribbon, but it is what I had on hand. That can easily be changed.

I already have several orders for Christmas. I've found different sizes of the frames. I plan on embellishing some of them and using a variety of paint colors on others. I left mine plain. Not bad for an hour's work.

Chicken Update

The white Leghorn is Teagen's rooster. The small brown one is T.S.'s hen, Bob. She's been sneaking into the garage to lay her eggs. The black Polish rooster in the background seems to take great delight in terrorizing T.S.