Warning - graphic pictures!!! Don't look if your squimish.

CAN YOU SAY OUCH?!!!

Jim's surgery was a week ago now. It was rough at first but he is tough and doing much better now. He wears bandages until next week then they will put him into a cast for a month. One of the toughest things for him is remembering he isn't allowed to do a lot of things he just normally does.  

Here are pictures of his battle wounds .... you know what they say about nurses and doctors 

being patients! ... he just had to take the bandages off and re-dress it.  We pray the surgery was a success and he will be all the better for it once the healing is compete.

We have CARMEL now :)

Meet Carmel - she is almost identical to Bambi without the blaze!!! Notice her long, long tail - it drags the ground.
Papa Jim is standing with them - Bambi on the left and Carmel on the right!!! Kind of like with Buck and Belle - one is lighter sorrel than the other.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JACK!!!

Today Jack is FOUR years old.  Wow!!!  That is so hard to believe.  For those of you who did not know - we hand raised Jack - his mother died when he was born.  Bottle feedings ever two hours - baths like his mother was cleaning him!  We carried him with us when we went out - one of my favorite memories of him as a baby was when we went out to eat with Gina and family ... their first time to see Jack ... we had him in a carrier much like a duffle bag and she had her hand stuck in there - well, most of the time and the waitress would look at her as she passed and Brooklyn would smile her little bashful smile.  Nothing was ever said. 

Then as he got older he was a little more brave and this picture of him poking his head out the pet door actually won two contests!

Then he grew up!  He has a sweet disposition and is quiet for the most part but he is our house protector and will bark only when you enter until he realizes who you are.  

I guess because of his missed his mother he has one big habit that sometimes proves annoying -- he sucks - when he was little it was stuffed toys but since Jill and Jenny always took them away from him and destroyed them we stopped buying them and then he turned to doing what he does all the time now ... he sucks on the ball!!!  Yes, Amy, he still does it - sorry.

Praising God for our R-A-I-N!!!

and singing "Raindrops keep falling on my head" as we were definitely thanking God as the rain came down ..."THANK YOU, GOD".  We needed it so bad.  We have now decided that we need rain barrels so that when it does rain, we can collect it and use it for the trees, grass and plants ... go GREEN.

The channels that Papa Jim made worked great and there were no leaks in the barn!!!! YEA

... and it poured - what a happy sight.  Definitely worth leaving the horses stalled up today.

we showed having 1 and a half inches of rain although our neighbor's website said that we got a total of 2.98 - I don't think we got that much but ours probably isn't correct either as it is near the house and I believe is shielded from a true reading - but at least we know it was at least 1 1/2.