More Texas Adventures With Linda!

This has been such a great week with Linda and every single day has been chock full of fun and friendship! Linda and I have so much more in common than we first thought.

We even have the same phones right down to our ringtones.

So many similarities in our lives.....we are truly kindred spirits!

Thursday morning we were heading down to the ranch and by the time we hit Hillsboro I thought we might want to get a bite to eat.

Since I am thinking TEXAS what could be better than Whataburger??

She loved it!!!

We got to Waco and Linda had a couple of places she wanted to go -

James Avery and a scrapbooking place.

I found an English style bookstore next door and I'll definitely be going back there!

I could have easily spent an entire afternoon here! 

There are cozy reading corners and beautiful music playing and lots of artistic displays including some for sale.

I purchased this book for Linda as I had been telling her about it.

I see there's another one out now - 

and another.....

I will be looking for these!

We made it to the ranch after stopping at Aldi and HEB.

Linda had her backpack and I had a few things besides my purse....

but we unloaded in just two trips to the car.

And we did arrive by CAR as opposed to the TRUCK!

Louis Dean is always telling me how the hard limestone roads would eat up my car - UNTIL I said Linda and I would need to go in the truck!!!

He started spinning a different tale so fast and had me agreeing to go in the car!

I'd rather do that anyway!

We settled in - turning on the fans in the front room and putting the few perishables in the fridge and opening Diet Cokes to sit for a minute.

Dean and Sherry came down to greet us and we all visited for a spell.

They had prepared dinner for us so when they went back to their house to put it together, Linda and I freshened up.

Smoked ribs and potato salad - both so delicious!!!

Melt in your mouth goodness!!!

After dinner we went out to meet all the critters!

Seven new Pygmy goats that Dean and Sherry rescued from a new RV park in Mart.

It's a new park and the owners bought the goats to keep the grass mowed.

They not only ate the grass - they jumped on the cars and RVs and did a lot of damage.

All seven are males and have been 'cut' or they wouldn't have 'rescued' them.

They won't grow any bigger and six are small and one is a little bigger.

The 'mops' do not like him!

We will see how that goes.

Linda is game for anything and loved every minute at the ranch!

Sherry has some pretty new chickens and Linda held one of them!

She is such a trouper and reminds me of our Sherry!

Game for anything!

Afraid of nothing!

We went back to the camper/cabin and took showers before Shery came down for a visit where Linda showed us some of her travel adventures before we three girls went outside and Sherry shot off a good half hour of fireworks!

What a glorious finish to a wonderful day!

Thursday is like Friday to Sherry since she has a 4-day work week working from home.

I set my alarm for 6:30 that morning and hit the snooze button THREE times.

We both slept so well that night!

The coffee was prepared from the night before and it was delicious!

Linda and I sipped a few cups and then suited up to do a hive inspection at 8:00 Friday morning.

That's a good time since it is now HOT in Texas and that's the coolest part of the day and most of the bees are out foraging.

Suited up and ready to go......

I love how adventuresome Linda is!!

Not just anyone is up for putting on a bee suit and opening up some bee hives. 

My son Jesse has gifted me with many useful bee tools.

Today I used three of them - the bee hook to lift the frames up and a special tool to scrape the propolis and the smoke starters - which look like used cigar butts and they burn/smoke for over 20 minutes.

We are loving these!

Smokers are maybe THE most important thing to take to the apiary! 

The hives looked GOOD!

We believe we will have a good harvest this summer.

We only spent 30-45 minutes in the apiary and then we were back at the camper/cabin!

I intended to cook a good breakfast  - but Sherry hosted us to a toast, bacon, and egg meal and it was so GOOD!

We had honey on our toast and Sherry sent Linda hone with a jar of fresh honey and honeycomb from Texas spring 2023.

Dean and Sherry made Linda's visit to the ranch one she will remember!

We went back to the camper/cabin and I planted a few plants around the pond that I'd bought at HEB and watered all the flowers, rose bushes, watermelons, cucumbers, tomatoes and pumpkins before we packed up and headed home.

We stopped at Hillsboro at the Lone Star Cafe for lunch.

Linda had never had chicken fried steak - but she has now and she LOVED it!!

We got home before 5:00 and Louis Dean was so glad to see us.

He was waiting for us in his music room with glasses of ice and fresh tea ready to pour so we could sip away while he played some music for us! We were looking forward to taking a nap and resting for awhile as we were tired.....but he was so excited to see us!

We sat and listened to him play and sing and we were glad we did,

THEN we took a break when we DID rest and then  listened to another round before we went to bed.

It was a little sad knowing this was our last night together.

Our last morning to gather in the den and sip coffee and visit.....

The thing about this photo is Louis Dean stumbling into the den half awake but fully dressed and he had just said, "I NEED some coffee!"

And he took that first drink!

Oh, my goodness!

He didn't spit it out as he had already swallowed it!

But it was awful!!!!

He went back to his music room to see what he'd done.....

He had some leftover coffee and added more grounds and water to the pot.......

only he reuses bottles - and had put vinegar in his water bottle instead of water.

He uses vinegar to clean his coffee pot....but that didn't work out so well..... 

One last photo of us today as we bid farewell to our dear Linda Chapman.

She has been such a blessing to us and we are grateful for the time we had with her,

I am hoping this was the first of many visits as there are so many  things I want to show her and so many people I want her to meet!