Weekend at the Ranch......

 We left Irving shortly after noon on Saturday hauling over a ton of natural stones to the ranch.

Louis Dean man handled them from the back yard along the fence line to the truck and later unloaded them stone by stone after we got to the ranch.

He is still strong - though not like he was before his heat stroke a couple of years ago.

He's 87 and I tell him often that you cannot regain ground once you have lost it at this age.

That is why I keep a close eye on him.

We stopped at Hillsboro for lunch at El Conquistador instead of our usual Lone Star Cafe.

Fajitas for two and they were so very GOOD!!!

We took enough home to have for another meal.

We stopped at HEB in Bellmead for a few things before we arrived at the ranch gate.

I have to admit to it being a bit of a stressful trip down....

and once we were here, LD was bound and determined to unload all that rock ASAP!

Which he did - in the heat and the sun.

I'm thinking we may not visit the ranch in July and August when it will be the hottest.

So far we NOT had hundred degree days - and I am hoping we WON'T - but if we do - it will be safer for him to be at home where I can keep him out of the heat easier than I can here.

The wild flowers are beautiful and is the rose garden with four different colors of roses.

We spent Saturday evening putting things in order and sitting out on the front deck after our showers.

It was about 10:30 when we went to bed and I must have been more tired than I thought because I slept until after 11:00 Sunday morning - barely getting up in time for Fellowship Church service online!

We traveled lightly - other than all that stone and building materials - and even left our cats at home with Summer.

Sunday Louis Dean mowed and did whatever it is he does outside.

Mainly moving things around.

I made new batches of hummingbird nectar and he cleaned the feeders.

For our late lunch we had the rest of our leftovers from El Conquistador and STILL didn't eat it all!

Our dear sweet blogging friend - Susie Q - sent LD a box of western movies her Teddy Bear loved.

Since no one else in the family wanted them - she boxed them up and sent them to Louis Dean!

I have not seen quite a few of these before including this one!

It was really good and who doesn't like a film with Sam Elliot in it??

The Golden Hour - or just before it!

Our pond is in a mess and we need to get a water faucet back out there.

During the winter so many things froze and Son Dean is putting them back using 'Pex.'

We spent a few hours sitting out here - coffee in the mornings and wine in the evenings.

Sherry and Dean came in from working all day helping a neighbor - that's the way it is in the country - and we visited a little while before she and I walked down to tend to the critters.

The ducks knew it was time to eat and go in the pen!

These are the adult ones.

They go in one side of the duck coop.

Now it was time to let the 'baby' ducks out so they could swim around for a bit.

I'm guessing these could be teenagers by now.

These are the ones that Sherry hatched during the winter!

Next up?

Feeding the fish!

And the crawdads!!

They bought 100 fish and stocked this tank and the duck pond.

It was good to see the mops again!

They are sweethearts.

I just realized I did not see Rufus at all nor Tarzan!

Tarzan is a hunter and can be gone for a few weeks - but he usually comes home when we  are there.

There are an abundance of goats - and many are Billy goats which they are hoping to sell soon.

This is Tabitha and Samantha and Ginger's mama.

This guy was very affectionate!

It was fun to visit all the animals.

Never a dull moment down there!

The last thing we did was put the baby ducks back in their pen and that's when I took this pretty sunset over the duck pond.

I also toured the 'new' old house and noticed this beautiful watercolor one of Son Dean's student's mom painted for him a long time ago.

We were just about to call it a day and Dean and Sherry had gone down to their place - when something unexpectantly happened!

Louis Dean plopped down on the couch and water had accumulated in the light fixture and was so heavy it pulled the ceiling down a few inches!

I jumped in the truck and drove down honking my horn to get Dean to come back up and look at it!

I figured the AC condensation drain had stopped up - but NO!

Dean climbed up on the roof and it was all bone dry!

I came in and took a pic and you can see the insulation in there is wet but not soaking.

And no more water came down other than that surprise shower LD received!

We will address this situation when we go back next week!

The AC was cooling like a champ all weekend and I solved the problem of the five dead outlets by using extension cords until the electrician can get out there and figure what the problem is.

I did start Chapter 33 of my book and am thinking I may finally be getting the hang of writing.

I'm no longer dreading opening up the documents and am actually looking forward to getting past the next few chapters and enjoy writing the rest of the book!

We are home now.

I picked a bouquet of our roses to bring home with us.

A bad accident on I35 slowed us down to a standstill and it took twice as long to get home.

It was good to be at the ranch even for a couple of days!