Jane and John – we travel and we ranch!

We usually leave our little ranch for the summer about mid-May to escape the Texas summer heat, but we had some medical issues arise which caused us to delay our departure (we’re doing fine now.)  This was a considerable bonanza for our spring crop of thirsty hummingbirds as they got enjoy their daily gallon of sugar water for an extra month.  Instead of using our usual 50 pounds of sugar, the spring total went to about 90 or 100 pounds!

Time to get ready!  We moved on the coach Wednesday, June 17 and in spite of having most things we need already permanently stationed on the coach, many trips to the house were still necessary to load up for travel.  This trip was going to be different.  Our beloved friend and companion, Bosun the cat, was not going to make this trip.  Bosun was on the last trip we made to the Bahamas in our sailboat and accompanied us on every trip in the motorhome.  Sorry you couldn’t make it old friend.  We did have a new companion, Sassy the Corgi.  We had no idea how well Sassy would take to traveling (or no idea how we would take to having a doggie along), but we easily fell into the routine of doggie care and enjoy our new furry “kid.”

We are ready and leave our little ranch Saturday, June 20 and head to New York State to meet up with our travel friends Bob and Judy whom we haven’t seen in two years.  We traveled for four days straight and had enough (we usually travel 300-400 miles a day), so we stopped for a couple of days, and then finally met up with our buds in Cortland, NY.  We have read about the disintegration of bridges and our Interstate Highway system in general since the economy declined, but based on about 1500 miles of Interstate travel, we really don’t think it is better or worse than we have experienced over the last few years of travel. But we digress.  This was among the worse campgrounds we have experienced.  30 years old, poor electric (as in low voltage due to inadequate wiring), non-level sites, poor maintenance, bad roads (ruts, potholes), and tree

Jane and good friend Judy start out on another leg of the FLT

limbs all over the place.  You might ask, “why Cortland and this crummy campground?”  It was because our RV friends Bob & Judy were there so that Judy can hike the Finger Lakes Trail which goes all over the place in that area.  We were there for a couple of days and Jane and Judy enjoyed the fellowship and hiking.  Bob and John were the support crew (dropped the gals off and picked them up usually a couple of hours later.)  We all had a good time visiting and catching up on two years of news.  We then moved to a campground about 30 miles to the west near Ithaca, NY.  More hiking, more visiting, and we played a few games of Mexican Train (a domino game.)  We had rain, rain, and more rain – we kept praying that we could have diverted the moisture to Texas since we are very dry at the ranch.  (Now that we own animals, we worry about the availability of grass for grazing and it is turning brown at a fast rate.)

The peaceful and lightly-populated Ithaca campground turned into a noisy and busy place almost overnight over the July 4th holiday weekend with kids running around and dozens of families enjoying a respite from their daily routine.  It was really special when we were awakened at 1:30 am with people talking loudly in spite of quiet hours – rarely have we encountered such rude behavior in over 40,000 miles of Rving.

Our home on wheels is generally a joy and we think a wonderful alternative to hotels/motels, but we have a few added responsibilities and even some headaches – it seems there is always something that is broken or needs attention on the coach.  Our dash air conditioning (runs off the engine) quit about a week ago which isn’t a big deal because a) it’s cool up here (we’re currently in Vermont), and b) we can run the generator and our main house air conditioning. Also our in-motion satellite TV dome (we can watch DirecTV while running down the road) didn’t work quite right.  We usually don’t watch TV while in-motion, but our recorder is always on-duty looking for our TV programs to record.  John just diagnosed (with the help of the factory) the problem, so we have a part on order which hopefully relieve us of this current headache.

We have been watching the weather at our little ranch (thanks to our weather station that’s on-line) and noticed the high temperature recently was 100.0 F at 6:00 PM; every time we notice the triple-digit temperatures we are thankful and feel blessed that we can be somewhere else.  It is wonderfully cool here in Vermont (60s during the day) as we write this and we even need to run the heat pump in the morning to take the chill out of the coach!

Our travel plans currently include visiting old sailing friends in Vermont, sightseeing in Maine, volunteering at a couple of state parks in Virginia, seeing some dear friends in the Oriental, North Carolina area, John’s nephews and their families in New York and Ohio and perhaps a visit to the Winnebago factory in Iowa for some service.  We have already put about 1,500 miles on the coach and will probably cover another 5,000 miles before we return home sometime in October.

Thanks for riding along with us and we’ll post another installment in two or three weeks.

John has wanted a dog for a few years but always hesitated due to our Bosun (the senior cat), who we figured would not want to deal with being harassed by Trekkie (the other cat) and a doggie.  If you have been keeping up with our infrequent blogs, you will know that our dear old friend and buddy, Bosun, recently passed away from old age.  It was really difficult dealing with the loss of him, but it opened up the possible opportunity to welcome in a new family member.  John started discussing the idea of a doggie with Jane and while Jane wasn’t exactly against the idea of a dog, she wasn’t exactly positive about it either.  As far as John was concerned, this was a hearty endorsement for him to start dog-shopping.

First order of business was to choose a breed, then the source of the dog (breeder, rescue, Humane Society, etc.) and then what age (puppy or adult)?  The choice of breed is extremely important due to temperament, care requirements, tendency to shed the coat, size of the animal, etc.  John was looking closely at Collies (like ‘Lassie’) and Shelties (small Collie) since they are intelligent, a medium size dog (Sheltie is much smaller) and the grooming/care requirements didn’t seem to be onerous.  He emailed a few breeders in the state of Texas and looked on the Internet at shelters and rescue listings.  Our sister-in-law (Bettye) happened to know

Click on the picture for Sassy’s album

we were thinking about adopting a dog and contacted the breeder of their two Corgis and passed along the situation of us looking for a dog.  Jaime the breeder happened to have a Pembroke Welsh Corgi (Sassy) that was retired from the show ring and needed a good great home with no other dogs since Sassy was jealous of attention paid to other dogs.  We all thought this was a good idea, so we drove over to the Austin area and met Sassy for the first time.  It was love at first sight, Sassy seemed to like us, we liked her, and more importantly, the breeder thought we would make good parents.  Sassy needed to have a cracked tooth pulled, so we had to wait about ten days before we could pick her up which gave us time to prepare us and the house.  After having her for several days, we are all settled in with each other and we think she is a sweet and loving dog and is very well trained.  She responds to commands and sleeps in her crate at night.  Sassy and Trekkie and getting along real well (okay – they’re not sleeping together, but they haven’t gotten into a fight either) and about the only issue we have is that Sassy has an insatiable appetite and will eat anything and everything (John feels like that sometimes, as well!)

So, what’s the deal with antelopes you say?  Jane and John are now officially critter-owning ranchers after recently buying their neighbor’s entire herd of blackbuck antelope (about 31-35 animals.)  Our neighbors have been struggling with the economy being what it is, and they offered to sell the herd to us (their house and property are up for sale), and while we didn’t particularly didn’t want to own a herd of anything, we were interested in helping them out.  There is also the possibility we can make some money from the herd by selling animals every year (the does have babies twice a year.)  Blackbuck is a very low maintenance herd animal and we should only need to do supplemental feeding (corn and hay) in the coldest part of the winter.  These antelope are extremely popular in this part of the Texas Hill Country and were first introduced to this country right here in Kerr county in 1932 as an exotic species for hunting.  They are a beautiful animal and are lots of fun to watch.  By the way, there is no closed hunting season on exotic animals (axis deer, fallow deer, blackbuck, etc), so that is the primary reason they are popular.  (You are also likely to encounter ranchers in the area with bison, zebra, ostrich, and camels.)

And now about John’s nose job.  No, it’s not cosmetic surgery.  John had a spot on the side of his nostril that would crust up and bleed and then disappear for a while and then come back over a period of months.  A visit to the dermatologist determined it was a basal cell carcinoma which needed to be excised.  This Tuesday John went to a dermatologist in San Antonio that specializes in only removing the minimum amount of tissue necessary (called Mohs surgery); they excise some tissue, examine it under a microscope, then excise more as required.  John needed two iterations of excision and then a skin graft was necessary to cover up the hole (skin was transferred from forward of the ear area to the nose.)  Jane was discussing a nose ring or Swarovski crystal as candidates for the hole, but John was contented with conventional skin.  A friend of ours was curious if John was going to be able to hear out of his nose now.  John can’t get any respect.

We were planning on leaving for the summer last Monday, but that is now on hold until late June since John needs tendon surgery on his right hand – that happens June 4th.  John is considering this stuff his 100,000 mile refurbishment.

May God richly bless you and yours.  Bye bye from Jane and John!

Wednesday, April 29. 2009

Bosun and John taken two or three years ago. Click on the picture for an album of Bosun

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” [Genesis 1:26]  “A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.” [Proverbs 12:10]

Bosun, our friend and companion for 16 years, succumbed to the ravages of time yesterday, April 28, 2009.  He was a loving friend who gave a lot of love and received a lot of love in return.  More often than not he would spend the night firmly wedged in between us while we all slept together.  Mornings consisted of a ritual where he would bestanding on the bed after we arose and we would bend down and he would rub his nose on our nose.  He enjoyed taking a nap in John’s lap occasionally (which John also enjoyed!)  It is extremely difficult (and painful at the moment) to put highlights of our 16 years of fond memories in this communication, so we will end it here.

Life is a fleeting and precious commodity and as we lose friends and loved ones, this becomes even more poignant; treasure and enjoy those you love while you can.