AROUND THE RANCH...I JUST WANT TO SHOW YOU A FEW THINGS....

Before I start the short ranch tour, I really want to share with you an exciting new blog that a friend of mine has opened. It's called Pam Warden Art and my friend, Pam, is such a talented artist I would love for you to take a minute and check out her blog! She already has a give-a-way set up - just comment on her post to sign up. And while you're there, check out her precious art! This is the first commercial I've ever done on my blog so go on, go check it out - you'll see that I have great discernment!

The second thing I'm going to tell you before we go on the wee ranch tour is this:
I went to Santa Fe this weekend with my sorority sisters. Everything is stucco.
Everything is brown.
I thought I would lose my mind.
For some reason that just drove me crazy.
I did buy some amazing beads for the grunge necklaces I'm going to be making and that was fun but other than that, give me San Antonio any day. LOL

Okay, so we start the wee ranch tour and of course, all of the pictures are out of order. I still don't get it - how to load them in order - so just pretend that you're at the ranch and not seeing it for the first time....in pictures. First picture...................

hmmmm, I pushed a button and lost the picture of Clay playing B-ball. If you think I'm going to look for it or reload it, you're wrong. Very, very wrong. Use your imagination:)

Clay spends most of his time on our basketball court. I'm not kidding - he lives it - always has. And he's good. Really good. I'm so glad we put the 1/2 court in several years ago - a great investment as most of the kids end up at the Thomason's because of the court, the pasture and the swimming pool.
I've always loved knowing where my boys are!
You know, I feel badly, I really should know this precious baby's name but I don't.
This sweet baby has been hand fed since she was a wee babe and now she thinks that Frank the Tank is her mother.
Isn't that cute? We have some smaller barns, but this is the big barn.
It's really cool because it's been here since the late 1800's and it's just, well, cool.
Love to go into it. And when the kids were small, they loved to go up into the hay loft.
Frank the Tank and his brother, John, used to have to milk the cows when they were kids. To hear John tell it, it was more like corporal punishment.
Oh, my door wall along one of the pipe fences that runs along the pasture behind my old studio - you remember. The pink barn, two rains that flooded it in the spring of '07. Not a good thing for a paper artist! Anyway, I'm now cozy and all set up at the house in the breezeway. It's my own room - it's just a bit smaller! Anyway, this door wall stays put. I like it.
What you're seeing here (above) is the pool house to the far left and the ranch house as you drive up the lane. You don't really get any definition of the front of the house but that's for the best. The yard man is me and I'm not able to do yard work right now.
That's why my theme for our yard this year is "browns" - everything is in browns. (Get it???)
The barns as you drive up the lane. The pink one is the one in front.
Just kills the guys:)
The gate to the right of the entrance to the ranch. Do you love my pink bicycles?
The fence to the left of the entrance - more pink bicycles (you can't see one:).
Love it.

Oh, yeah, this is great.
Frank the Tank really wanted to build (do you build gardens??) a garden this year. So he took my now plagued chicken exercise yard and made it into his garden. One morning he came into the bedroom carrying one of his prize squash (no) and showed it to me and asked me, "Jan, did you know that squash is a fruit?"

"Why, no Frank, I didn't. You wanna tell me where you learned that??"

"I Googled it."

"You Googled it???" Crack me up! After I stopped giggling I asked him to please not google his okra. He's so funny!
Pretty cardinal in the tree next to the feeder.
An old metal gate leaning up against the house. It has *light blue* dryer lint in the 'brown' leaves for the birds to use to build their nests.
Old gate into the pasture behind our house.
Frank the Tank's tractor that I CAN DRIVE. Oh, yeah. I can drive this baby.

These next three pictures are of some of our hummers. The feeder hangs outside my bedroom window and I can watch these precious babies all day long if I want to! They're so sweet and it's looking like it's time to buy a second feeder! Isn't that great???

Thank you for joining me on this rather long post - but I wanted to give you a taste of what the ranch was like though we just touched on it! It's supposed to be just enough of a tease so that you, my friends (no stalkers)will decide that you just must visit the ranch so we can have some FUN!! woohoo!

xoxo,